The Gentle Art of Murder

by Jeanne M. Dams

  We were dropped off just in front of the Fine Arts building. Students gave us curious glances as we battled the wind and entered, accompanied by a swirl of dead leaves. I peered into the sculpture studio as we made our way to the elevator, but didn’t see Gilly.

  Braithwaite paid not the slightest attention to us when we walked into the studio. He was standing at an easel, cigarette smouldering in a saucer nearby, applying thick paint in an eye-jarring colour I thought was called cadmium yellow. At least it jarred me, sitting on the canvas next to the brightest purple I’d ever seen. As I was there only on sufferance, I retired to an inconspicuous corner and mentally stretched my ears.

  ‘May we speak to you for a moment, Mr Braithwaite?’ asked Derek with utmost courtesy. ‘We did phone to say we were coming.’

  ‘This is not a good time. I’m extremely busy,’ Braithwaite said, without turning his attention from his painting. He added a few dots of brilliant magenta. I had to look away. The colours swam before my eyes, and I was getting a headache.

  ‘We won’t keep you for long, sir. Perhaps we could sit down. And possibly you could put out that cigarette. I believe smoking is forbidden in this building.’

  ‘That’s no business of yours, is it? And I’m very far behind in my work! This painting was due at my gallery last week, and as you can see I’ve barely started it. Can’t this wait?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir. The sooner we get started, the sooner we can leave.’

  ‘Oh, very well!’ He threw the brush down pettishly. It sprayed dots of magenta over the floor and, I noticed with regret, on to Alan’s trouser leg.

  He perched on his stool, smoking ostentatiously, and turned to face the two men. Derek pulled two chairs from the side of the room, taking his time, and he and Alan sat.

  ‘Now, sir, we’ve come across some interesting information, and we wonder if you’d like to comment on any of it. For a start, we’ve learned that several paintings you’ve recently sold were not, in fact, painted by your hand.’

  ‘You’re referring, I suppose, to the paintings by the boy Philip Benson. Of course I didn’t paint them. He’s rather good at imitating my style, and I thought he might be able to make a little money with his work. I feel sorry for him. Starving artist and all that. He’ll never be any good, you know. No originality. Now if that’s all—’

  ‘They were sold with your signature.’

  Braithwaite’s face turned an ugly colour. ‘Now that’s going too far! I allowed him to paint in my style, but forging my signature—’

  ‘The signatures are genuine.’ Derek allowed a little more steel in his voice. ‘We had them authenticated. You didn’t paint those pictures, but you signed them and sold them as your work. Now why would you do that, sir?’

  ‘Oh, all right! I signed them. I told you, I felt sorry for the boy. They’d obviously fetch a far better price with my name on them. Is that a crime?’

  ‘Probably, though I’m not up on art crimes. It is a crime, though, to keep most of the money. How much of it did you turn over to the real painter?’

  ‘I can’t say I care for your tone! Those paintings would never have made a penny for Benson if I hadn’t persuaded my gallery to sell them. I’m entitled to a brokerage fee!’

  ‘Of exactly how much, sir? Ninety per cent? Ninety-five?’

  ‘Exactly what are you implying?’ Braithwaite stood up and began pacing around the studio.

  ‘I’m implying nothing, simply stating facts. We’ve looked into those transactions. We know how much of the sale price you turned over to Benson. I was interested to know whether you’d admit it.’

  ‘I want my attorney,’ shouted Braithwaite. ‘And I want you to leave, this instant!’

  ‘Certainly. You might be interested to learn one thing that we recently discovered, however.’

  ‘Get out!’ Braithwaite picked his brush off the floor and threw it at Derek, missing him but catching Alan full in the stomach. That pair of pants, I thought ruefully, would have to be thrown out.

  ‘Now, now, sir,’ said Derek calmly. ‘I’m sure you don’t want to be summonsed for assault. And I think you’ll be quite interested in what I have to tell you. You see, we’ve discovered that your late head, Mr Chandler, had used the same ruse you recently employed, passing a student’s work off as his own. That Marlowe Award design was in fact created by one of his students, back in America years ago. Good day, sir. We’ll talk again.’

  But Braithwaite had changed his mind about wanting them to leave. He was beaming. ‘Oh, so you finally worked that out, did you? I knew long ago, years ago. He was a spurious architect, a spurious chap all round. He’d no more idea about running an art program than I would about managing the Hotspurs. I’ll do a far better job when my appointment becomes permanent. I’ve had quite a nice little income from him over the years, useful in many ways, especially as my wife doesn’t know about it. Nor do the Inland Revenue chaps, hah!’

  ‘I must caution you, sir, that you do not have to say anything …’

  Braithwaite ignored him. ‘The little toad decided to stop paying up, you see. He said he’d deny everything, and I couldn’t prove it. Well, that was simply stupid. Of course I could prove it. But he went too far. He said he’d discovered I was doing exactly what he did, defrauding a student. Rubbish! The two cases were entirely different. He’d waltzed off with a major award that should have gone to the real designer. I was merely helping a student up the ladder. But I couldn’t have him blabbing all over the shop. We got into a slanging match, and it was too much for him. He passed right out! And that was when I had my brilliant idea!’

  We sat around on an evening two days later, a trifle crowded in my parlour, but cosy with a crackling fire. Outside, the rain was pelting down, as it had done so much these past weeks. But our stalwart builder, Mr Pettifer, had found an ingenious way to weatherproof our windows, so the rain was staying where it belonged.

  Besides Alan and me and Gilly, we’d invited Jane and Amy and Dennis for dinner and drinks. Matt was still in Wales, and Sam had declined with thanks, saying he’d read all about it as soon as it was in the paper.

  ‘He went right round the twist,’ said Gilly, who had walked into the painting studio near the end of Braithwaite’s extraordinary performance. ‘He was raving about how brilliant he was, and how carefully he’d planned everything, even though he’d had to think it out on the spur of the moment.’

  ‘It seems,’ said Alan, ‘that they had an appointment to talk about the blackmail. Chandler had wanted to do it a day earlier, probably so he’d have plenty of time to get ready for his holiday, but Braithwaite wanted no one else around. He, Braithwaite, had been careful to make sure no one else knew what he was doing.’

  ‘Except for me,’ put in Gilly. ‘He wasn’t careful enough, that time in Chandler’s office.’ She shuddered. ‘I hate to think what would have happened if he’d caught me listening!’

  I hated to think of it, too. I put my hand over Gilly’s and gave it a squeeze.

  ‘Why trash the studios?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Oh, he explained that quite thoroughly,’ I said. ‘He was most upset with the police, who were being so stupid about his carefully-strewn red herrings, so he decided to call yet more attention to the other artists on staff. He waxed eloquent over the pains he had taken in the print studio, and was furious with Gilly for interfering as he was about to wreck the photo department.

  ‘Sculpture was next on the list, by the way, Dennis,’ I went on, ‘but things moved a little too fast for him. His nemesis caught up with him before he had a chance to destroy all the work that was still in clay, all the moulds, everything except the bronze. But he had tried to frighten Gilly off with those phone calls.’

  ‘It was almost funny, in a frightful sort of way,’ said Gilly. ‘He strutted round the studio like a peacock, banging on and on about how clever he was, and how he’d done only what he had to do to save his career, and how important his art was to the world. And he fin
ished by saying he’d enjoyed the little chat, but now he had to get on with his work.’

  ‘And that’s when we left,’ I said. ‘None of us wanted to see him dragged off in handcuffs. Derek phoned later to say that he fought like a tiger.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have minded seeing it,’ said Amy. She hadn’t spoken all evening. ‘I would have cheered.’

  That shut us all up for a moment. I took a last long sip of my bourbon.

  Dennis stood and raised his glass. ‘Dorothy, you may want a bit of a refill, for I have a toast to make.’

  I accepted a little more, though I’d already had quite enough.

  Dennis cleared his throat. ‘It isn’t I who ought to propose this toast, but as there’s no one else to do it, the job falls to me. I met this afternoon with the head of the Fine Art and Design Faculty. That’s the umbrella faculty for the Fine Arts department, Dorothy. The head is a design man. They almost always are. However, that’s beside the point. I had resurrected, a few weeks ago, my paperwork requesting a promotion. Chandler had stuffed it away, fortunately, rather than throwing it in the bin. I send it to the Head of Faculty, and he called me in today. So, first of all, to the once and future secretary of the Fine Arts department, Amy MacInnes. And second, a very self-aggrandizing toast to the new Head of Fine Arts at the Wolfson College of Art and Design, Dennis Singleton!’

  THIRTY

  It was a lovely spring day. Even in grimy, grey London the sky was a softer blue, the pocket gardens in the little squares were a riot of red tulips and yellow daffodils. Alan and I hurried down Bond Street from the Piccadilly Tube station.

  A small crowd spilled out of one of the art galleries. They carried champagne glasses and were chattering brightly. We wormed our way past them and went inside.

  Dennis spotted us. ‘There you are! Get yourself a glass and sit down. Gilly’s about to make a speech.’

  She stood at the front of the room, poised, beautifully groomed, her face full of joy. Around her were lovely little bronze heads of men, women and children of different nations and ethnicities. They were exquisite in detail and seemed to shine with a light of their own. Off to one side stood a serene Summer, flanked by Winter and photos of Autumn and Spring in clay. Summer was clearly marked ‘not for sale’, while ‘sold’ stickers adorned several of the other pieces.

  She began to speak. I don’t remember what she said. I sat and smiled so hard my face hurt afterward. I thought about all that had nearly kept her from this moment of triumph. I thought about Dennis, who had nurtured her talent, and about Derek and Alan, who had brought her tormentor to justice. I thought about Matt, now happily creating his miraculous woodcuts again, and Sam, teaching his students the fine points of film photography. I thought about the power of art to transform the human condition, and the terrible power a twisted artist could wield.

  I took Alan’s hand, and with my other, reached in my pocket for a tissue to catch the tears trickling down my face.