Thrones, Dominations

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  ‘I give myself the pleasure, madame, milord, of observing in person the effect of my work.’ He was followed into the room by Meredith, bearing a large flat rectangular parcel.

  ‘My dear fellow,’ said Peter, laying aside the newspaper, and rising to greet the Frenchman. ‘There was no need. We would have come to collect it.’

  ‘The observation I have promised myself, Lord Peter, is on both of you together. Had I merely sent a message that the portrait was ready to be collected, one or other of you would have come; I could not command you both to present yourselves. I am not Louis Quinze.’

  ‘A pity,’ observed his lordship. ‘You would have done rather well at it, I think.’

  Monsieur Chapparelle inclined his head.

  ‘Now, where should we set this up?’ asked Peter. ‘Where will the light be good?’

  ‘Perhaps you would put the parcel down on the table, Meredith, and bring us a high-back chair to prop it on,’ suggested Harriet.

  ‘Be so good as to turn your backs for the moment,’ said Chapparelle.

  Peter turned to Harriet, smiling. She observed that he was in a state of excitement, like a little boy expecting a treat.

  ‘Please to look now,’ said Chapparelle. With hands on her shoulders Peter turned her gently round.

  Deeply startled, Harriet saw looking back at her from the canvas a person she had never seen in the mirror. A guarded and somewhat defiant expression possessed her familiar features, the beetle brows, the candid steady gaze, and thick bushy dark hair. This much she could recognise. It was the face of someone who had suffered hurts; all that she knew. What came new to her was a different nuance: a gaze of someone with a secret confidence, with a look of eagerness and expectation, someone serious for the moment but about to laugh . . . someone vindicated and triumphant.

  She was far too striking to be beautiful; for the first time she saw the connection between her plainness and her strength of mind. Looking at Peter she saw him mesmerised; for a moment she saw on his face a ghost of the baffled desire and admiration which had afflicted him in the past.

  ‘Hmph, hmph,’ said Chapparelle, looking very pleased with himself. ‘I tell you I am a genius.’

  ‘Indeed you are,’ said Peter, recovering himself. ‘I am deeply in your debt.’

  ‘You are in my debt for five hundred guineas, milord,’ said Chapparelle.

  ‘Come, sir, you know I was not referring to money,’ said Peter. ‘I am indebted to you for what you can see; and for being able to paint it. I did not know that anyone but myself . . .’

  ‘I am delighted that I have pleased you, Milord Peter. You are not too pleased to be generous, j’espère. You allow that I take the portrait back for a month during the exhibition? If all my clients should be pleased in the fashion of Mr Harwell, I shall be ruined.’

  ‘You must excuse poor Harwell,’ said Peter. ‘He has not the original to keep him company. I shall find it very hard to part with this, even with Harriet herself to look at every day. But of course we will lend it – if you think that an analysis such as that will win you clients.’

  ‘Clients, perhaps not. People are afraid of me. Ils ont raison. But it will bring me glory. It is nearly the best thing I have ever painted. It will be the centrepiece of the show.’

  ‘It will dazzle the discerning, certainly. If you will step down to my office, we will make arrangements for your guineas.’

  ‘It has been a pleasure, Lady Peter,’ said Chapparelle, taking his leave.

  ‘Well, where shall we hang it?’ said Peter, bouncing back into the room. Harriet blushed slightly at being found still staring at herself. ‘Why don’t we move that rather silly Fragonard from the wall in the library? Then I could see you while I play the piano. I’d like that. Is it picture-hook ready?’

  He lifted the picture from the chair, and turned it round, finding the brass eyelets in the frame and the picture wire neatly in place. Then he stopped, and stood gazing. His attention was so intense that Harriet walked across the room and joined him. The picture was painted on a light brown finely woven canvas, stretched on a wooden frame and tightened with wedges driven in at all four corners. The surplus canvas was folded over, slightly puckered. Peter put his monocle in his eye, and stooped and stared closely at the upper right corner of the thing. Then he turned to Harriet and said, ‘Harriet, I think I know why Harwell won’t lend his picture. I’m afraid Chapparelle will never see it again. I’m afraid it has been burned.’

  ‘Oh, Peter, no! Surely not! That would be criminal – and why ever?’

  ‘Exactly. Why? I suppose you didn’t see it, Harriet?’

  ‘Yes, I did. It was in the studio while mine was being painted. I admired it greatly. It was better than anything else of his.’

  ‘You amaze me.’

  ‘Yes, really. It had an extra dimension compared to his other work. It was very clever; it showed her two ways.’

  ‘Harriet, sit down and tell me about it. Tell me everything you can remember.’

  ‘It wasn’t flattering; it was strange, rather. It showed her tight-faced, frightened, almost. She looked very hard and selfish.’

  ‘Cruel; but not untruthful . . .’

  ‘Too cruel to be truthful, Peter. But the thing is, he painted her the other way as well. She was holding a mask; a mask of her own face, shown very beautiful; ethereal, almost.’

  ‘A mask? What sort of a mask?’

  ‘You know the sort of thing – as in the Venetian Comedy, a full painted mask, held up in front of the face on a stick. It was wonderfully real; it showed her as the world sees her – idealised, but very true to life.’

  Peter had gone suddenly rather pale, and was looking at her oddly. ‘Of course, a painter can show anything,’ he said, ‘a unicorn, a chimera, a cloud of putti; it doesn’t mean there ever was such a thing.’

  ‘Oh, but there was,’ said Harriet. ‘He had it made for him by a clever young colleague. It was done in papier-mâché. I saw it myself. A beautiful and ingenious thing.’

  ‘My God, Harriet, that alibi!’ said Peter. ‘Don’t you see? Or wasn’t it real enough – did it really look exactly like her?’

  ‘Well, it was inhumanly beautiful,’ said Harriet slowly. ‘I think perhaps it wouldn’t have deceived anyone for long who wasn’t in love with Rosamund.’

  ‘But Claude Amery was in love with her,’ said Peter. ‘He saw Rosamund’s dead body with the mask in front of the face, held in place by the collar. Harwell must have known he was lurking around in the garden, and set it up.’

  ‘Could that possibly have worked?’

  ‘On a distraught and freezing lover by moonlight? I think it could. Harriet, I’ve got some checking to do. I’ll be back in an hour or so; but I must chase Chapparelle back to his studio for the moment,’ said Peter, ringing for Bunter. When Bunter appeared he said, ‘Bunter, would you ring Chief Inspector Parker, and ask him to call here later in the morning if he can manage it? And ask him if he would be so kind as to bring the samples from the Hampton bonfire.’

  Chapparelle’s studio was in the same state of confusion as before. The canvas on the easel showed a handsome, rather flamboyant young man in an open-necked shirt. He was posing as Byron; he was being painted as a cad. The artist’s penetrating eye was working as usual. Peter asked what had happened to the mask.

  ‘You didn’t give it to Harwell along with the painting?’

  ‘Non, milord, I did not,’ said Chapparelle. ‘He paid for a painting, and a painting is what he got. The mask I have given to Mrs Harwell herself. It is a souvenir of the time we have spent together.’

  ‘You paid Mrs Harwell one of your little farewell visits?’ asked Peter.

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘So the last time you saw the mask it was in Hyde House?’

  ‘No, milord. It was in a bungalow in Hampton. Mrs Harwell was very pleased with it. She put it in a vase to make it stand upright on the stick, so that she could feast her eyes on it.’


  ‘When were you at the bungalow in Hampton?’ asked Peter, astonished.

  ‘On the afternoon of the 27th of February,’ said Chapparelle.

  ‘And nobody saw you, coming or going!’ exclaimed Wimsey.

  ‘I was rowing myself in a little skiff down the river. These boats can be hired at Hampton Bridge, Lord Peter. Nobody thinks that the man in the boat goes somewhere, only that he is rowing for the pleasure of rowing. They are very chouette, the boats; one can visit a friend with a landing stage, one can visit a friend in a river boat . . . I spent ten minutes with Mrs Harwell. Just to give her the mask.’

  ‘You did not tell me this when we last spoke.’

  ‘You did not ask me about the afternoon, monsieur, only about the evening. About all that you asked me, I have told you.’

  The two little scraps of canvas, one of them scorched, lay on the desk in Peter’s office.

  ‘Not a tailor’s interlining, but an artist’s sized canvas,’ said Peter.

  ‘Forensic will tell for certain; but it looks like it to me,’ said Charles.

  ‘We are getting somewhere at last,’ said Peter.

  ‘Yes; but I’m not clear quite where. Harwell burned his wife’s portrait; and then, you are saying, used the mask—’

  ‘No, Charles; first he used the mask. He arrived unexpectedly to find his wife in suspicious circumstances: table set, all ready for someone. He hasn’t seen the note; he doesn’t know it is all prepared for him. And he has seen Amery hanging about. There is a scene; he kills his wife. The mask is at her side; Chapparelle has given it to her that afternoon. I think perhaps she has set it beside the bed where she can enjoy looking at it. Harwell puts the mask over her face and props her up where with any luck Amery will see her, and bolts for town. It works; Amery confirms his alibi. But now the portrait is potentially lethal; he can’t afford to have anyone reminded of the existence of the mask.’

  ‘Hold on, hold on,’ said Charles, ‘you go too fast for me. Has he burned the mask too, do you think?’

  ‘No,’ said Peter, ‘I’m fairly sure he got rid of that earlier. He would have realised at once what a danger that presented to him; I think perhaps he didn’t realise till Chapparelle wanted to borrow it that the portrait itself was dangerous too; that he couldn’t keep it to mourn privately over it, that at any minute someone might try to get a look at it.’

  ‘All right, so he got rid of the mask immediately. Before he called the police the next morning, I suppose. How? Did he burn that too? The fires were out and cold when the scene-of-the-crime team got there.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Peter. ‘How does one get rid of papier-mâché?’

  ‘One boils it,’ said Harriet. ‘I’ve seen Sylvia use and re-use the mush for her arty little maquettes. You cut or tear it up and put it in a pan of boiling water. It disintegrates into a mess like porridge.’

  Peter was staring at her like one who had just received a vision of light. ‘The blocked sink,’ he said. ‘How stupid I am! The blocked sink, great heavens! The blocked sink. The blocked sink that makes all things clear. All this time, Charles, I have been convinced that there was something fishy about Amery’s story because in his graphic description of Rosamund washing glasses he seemed all unaware that the sink would have filled up. But he’s in the clear: the sink was clear; Harwell blocked it the next morning getting rid of the mask. The fellow was telling the truth. He must be asked one simple question – did he see Rosamund move when he looked through the window? – and released without a stain on his character.’

  ‘We have to prove a story as well as propose it,’ said Charles, doubtfully.

  ‘Bunter mine!’ said Peter. ‘When you found your photography frustrated by a blocked sink, did you make efforts to clear it?’

  ‘I did, my lord, but without avail.’

  ‘So when you left it, it was still blocked?’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘And what will have happened to the sink since? Has anyone been using the bungalow?’

  ‘No,’ said Charles. ‘Not unless Harwell has lent or rented it. When he drove down and lit the tell-tale bonfire he didn’t go into the house. I’ll send someone at once to get a sample from that sink-trap. And we will indeed ask Amery your question.’

  ‘Can I do that?’ asked Peter hopefully. ‘After all, I did think of it.’

  ‘You can accompany me in an unofficial capacity,’ said Charles.

  ‘No,’ said Amery. ‘She was quite still. She was just sitting there, ignoring me.’

  ‘Are you perfectly certain, sir, that she made no movement at all the whole time you were tapping on the window and looking through, and calling to her?’ Parker’s voice was quiet, almost gentle.

  Amery frowned with the effort to remember. ‘She let her hand fall,’ he said at last. ‘Her hand was lying along the arm of the chair, and she let it fall to hang down towards the floor.’

  Wimsey shuddered slightly. He could imagine the arm slowly sliding off the smooth surface of the chintzy chair. Dead weight – newly dead; later there would have been stiffness.

  ‘But her face, sir; did you see any expression cross her face? Could you see clearly enough for that?’

  ‘Oh, I could see her clearly, all right,’ said Amery, suddenly fluent. ‘She had that frozen expression – she was good at that. She didn’t move a muscle. She used to do that to me; just when I thought she was encouraging me she would put on the ice-maiden act, going suddenly cold and remote. She could chill you to the bone with that expression. Like an angel, like a statue; it would strike me to the heart, but I couldn’t resist it.’

  ‘La belle dame sans merci hath thee in thrall?’ murmured Wimsey.

  ‘Yes,’ said Amery. ‘That’s about it, really. Nothing like poetry for hitting the nail on the head. She was even very slightly smiling as though my anguish amused her. She was freezing me out, and I had never seen her more beautiful.’

  ‘She may have blown hot and cold as you say, sir,’ said Charles. ‘But on this occasion – would it help you to know that she was not ignoring you; or at least we believe not. We believe she was already dead.’

  Amery went a very pale greenish colour. He stared at Charles for a moment, and then staggered to his feet, saying, ‘Excuse me a moment, I think I’m going to be sick,’ and hastened from the room.

  ‘Poor chap,’ said Charles, looking after him. ‘Born with one skin too few, I suppose.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s inborn,’ said Wimsey heartlessly. ‘A cultivated condition. But this is all a bit rough on him. Are you going to tell him he leaves without a stain on his character?’

  ‘I’m going to tell him he is clear of suspicion, but will be needed as a witness,’ said Charles. ‘Before I collect a constable or two in case of trouble and go to arrest Harwell.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that quite yet,’ said Wimsey.

  ‘Whyever not?’

  ‘Come and talk it over quietly in the George and Dragon across the street? Meet you there when you’ve said your piece to Amery.’

  ‘I feel sorry for the poor blighter, really,’ said Charles, sipping his pint. ‘That must have been an exceptionally exasperating woman.’

  ‘Condoning murder, Charles? Can I believe my ears?’

  ‘Well, throttling her was going rather far,’ said Charles, in the tone of one making a concession. ‘And I don’t know that we’re out of the woods, Wimsey, even if, as I suppose we will, we find paper detritus and flakes of paint in that drain. He’s going to deny it, and it’s going to sound so preposterous to the jury.’

  ‘How long do you think it took?’ asked Wimsey, musing. ‘He had to haul the body through to the bedroom, and lay it on the bed. He had to remove and destroy the mask.’

  ‘You mean we should check the times for the morning as well as the night before?’

  ‘I expect you’ll find there’s at least an hour unaccounted for before he telephoned the police. I take it they will have logged that call?’
r />   ‘Certainly,’ said Charles. ‘But the jury will easily believe he spent the time weeping and wringing his hands.’

  ‘No, they won’t,’ said Peter. ‘They won’t believe he shed a single tear for his wife, although I’m sure he did, because they will be hanging him for murdering Phoebe Sugden. I shall be the only man in England, or woman for that matter, who believes his grief for Rosamund is genuine.’

  ‘You know something I don’t, then, Wimsey. As far as I know there is no connection between the two cases except the odd coincidence of the girl’s home having been in Hampton. Don’t tell me again you don’t like coincidence; neither do I, but . . .’

  ‘I did tell you, as a matter of fact, Charles. You can’t have been attending.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘Mr Porsena’s story. He says Phoebe cum Gloria had been home to Hampton to fetch some clothes.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So perhaps she saw Harwell there, some time in the evening. When he says he was wandering round London streets, and we think he was murdering his wife. The simplest possible thing, Charles, to lose one’s life over. She saw him – they passed in the lane – or, yes, that’s it, when he drove up to turn his car outside his neighbour’s gate, it would have been nearly eleven at night, but the girl was just leaving with her clothes, or was coming back from the pub, or whatever.’

  ‘But did she know Harwell by sight? He wasn’t often in Hampton, and she wasn’t living at home.’

  ‘As a matter of fact I’m sure she knew Harwell. Harriet saw her once lunching with him at the Ritz.’

  ‘So she could smash his alibi; or rather his story.’

  ‘And pretty quickly she realised it. She was reading the Daily Yell and such stuff.’

  ‘She could have come to the police and told us.’

  ‘But there were no flies on that little madam. It was much more useful to go to Harwell and apply a little blackmail.’

  ‘If she was blackmailing him we should be able to find the money. Money leaves traces as clear as footprints, and longer lasting.’

  ‘Not money. Something far more desirable, something to dream of, burn with longing for, lose one’s name over, consume oneself with envy over.’