by Anne Perry
“Damn you, sir! It is not your business. Inquire as you like!”
Pitt would get nowhere by pressing the point, and he knew it. He would find the figures in the notebook in the column under?350, in line with the beetle, and total all those next to caterpillars. He would then try Major Rodney with that sum and observe his reaction.
The major snorted, satisfied with his victory. “Now, if that is all, Inspector?”
Pitt debated whether to insist on seeing the Misses Rodney now and decided there was little to learn from them. He could more profitably go and question the other person who had bought a Jones portrait, Lady St. Jermyn. He accepted the major’s dismissal and, a quarter of an hour later was standing rather uncomfortably in front of Lord St. Jermyn.
“Lady St. Jermyn is not at home,” he said coolly. “Neither of us can help you any further with the affair. It would be best left, and I counsel you to do so from now on.”
“One cannot leave murder, my lord,” Pitt said tartly. “Even did I wish to.”
St. Jermyn’s eyebrows rose slightly, not surprise so much as contempt. “What has made you suddenly believe that Augustus was murdered? I suspect a prurient desire to inquire into the lives of your betters.”
Pitt ached to be equally rude; he could feel it like a beat in his head. “I assure you, sir, my interest in other people’s personal lives is purely professional.” He made his own voice as precise and as beautiful as St. Jermyn’s, coolly caressing the words. “I have no liking either for tragedy or for squalor. I prefer private griefs to remain private, where public duty permits. And as far as I know, Lord Augustus died naturally-but Godolphin Jones was unmistakably strangled.”
St. Jermyn stood absolute still; his face paled and his eyes widened very slightly. Pitt saw his hands clasp each other hard. There was a moment’s silence before he spoke.
“Murdered?” he said carefully.
“Yes, sir.” He wanted to let St. Jermyn say all he would, not lead him and make his answers easy by suggesting them. The silence was inviting.
St. Jermyn’s eyes stayed on Pitt’s face, watching him, almost as if he were trying to anticipate.
“When did you discover his body?” he asked.
“Yesterday evening,” Pitt answered simply.
Again St. Jermyn waited, but Pitt did not help him. “Where?” he said at last.
“Buried, sir.”
“Buried?” St. Jermyn’s voice rose. “That’s preposterous! What do you mean ‘buried’? In someone’s garden?”
“No, sir, properly buried, in a coffin in a grave in a churchyard.”
“I don’t know what you mean!” St. Jermyn was growing angry. “Who would bury a strangled man? No doctor would sign a certificate if the man was strangled, and no clergyman would bury him without one. You are talking nonsense.” He was ready to dismiss it.
“I am relating the facts, sir,” Pitt said levelly. “I have no explanation for them, either. Except that it was not his own grave; it was that of one Albert Wilson, deceased of a stroke and buried there in the regular way.”
“Well, what happened to this-Wilson?” St. Jermyn demanded.
“That was the corpse that fell off the cab outside the theatre,” Pitt replied, still watching St. Jermyn’s face. He could see nothing in it but dark and utter confusion. Again for several moments he said nothing. Pitt waited.
St. Jermyn stared at him, eyes clouded and unreadable. Pitt tried to strip away the mask of authority and assurance and see the man beneath-he failed entirely.
“I presume you have no idea,” St. Jermyn said at last, “who killed him?”
“Godolphin Jones? No, sir, not yet.”
“Or why?”
For the first time Pitt overstepped the truth. “That’s different. We do have a possible idea as to why.”
St. Jermyn’s face was still very pale, nostrils flared gently as he breathed in and out. “Oh? And what may that be?”
“It would be irresponsible of me to speak before I have proof.” Pitt evaded it with a slight smile. “I might wrong someone, and suspicion once voiced is seldom forgotten, no matter how false it proves to be later.”
St. Jermyn hesitated as if about to ask something further, then thought better of it. “Yes-yes, of course,” he agreed. “What are you going to do now?”
“Question the people who knew him best, both professionally and socially,” Pitt replied, taking the opening offered. “I believe you were one of his patrons?”
St. Jermyn gave an answering smile, no more than a slight relaxation of the face. “What a curious word, Inspector. Hardly a patron. I commissioned one picture, of my wife.”
“And were you satisfied with it?”
“It is acceptable. My wife liked it well enough, which was what mattered. Why do you ask?
“No particular reason. May I see it?”
“If you wish, although I doubt you will learn anything from it. It is very ordinary.” He turned and walked out of the door into the hallway, leaving Pitt to follow. The picture was in an inconspicuous place on the stair wall, and, looking at the quality of it compared with the other family portraits, Pitt was not surprised. His eye scanned the face briefly, then went to the left-hand corner. The insect was there, this time a spider.
“Well?” St. Jermyn inquired with a touch of irony in his voice.
“Thank you, sir.” Pitt came down the stairs again to stand level with him. “Do you mind telling me, sir, how much you paid for it?”
“Probably more than it’s worth,” St. Jermyn said casually. “But my wife likes it. Personally, I don’t think it does her justice, do you? But then you wouldn’t know; you haven’t met her.”
“How much, sir?” Pitt repeated.
“About four hundred and fifty pounds, as far as I can remember. Do you want the precise figure? It would take me some time to find it. Hardly a major transaction!”
The vast financial difference between them was not lost on Pitt.
“Thank you, that will be near enough.” He dismissed it without comment.
St. Jermyn smiled fully for the first time. “Does that further your investigations, Inspector?”
“It may do, when compared with other information.” Pitt walked on to the front door. “Thank you for your time, sir.”
When he got home, cold and tired, Pitt was welcomed by the fragrance of steaming soup and dry laundry hanging from the ceiling. Jemima was already asleep, and the house was silent. He took his wet boots off and sat down, letting the calm wash over him, almost as capable of being felt with body as was the heat. For several minutes Charlotte said no more than a welcome, an acknowledgment of his presence.
When at last he was ready to talk, he put down the soup bowl she had given him and looked across at her.
“I’m making noises as if I knew what I was doing, but honestly, I can’t see sense in any of it,” he said with a gesture of helplessness.
“Whom have you questioned?” she asked, wiping her hands carefully and picking up an oven cloth before opening the door and reaching in for a pie. She pulled it out and put it quickly on the table. The crust was crisp and pale gold, a little darker in one corner, in fact, perilously close to burnt.
He looked at it with the beginning of a smile.
She saw him. “I’ll eat that corner!” she said instantly.
He laughed. “Why does it do that? Scorch one corner!”
She gave him a withering look. “If I knew that, I would prevent it!” She turned out the vegetables smartly and watched the steam rise with appreciation. “Whom have you seen about this artist?”
“Everyone in the Park who has portraits by him-why?”
“I just wondered.” She lifted the carving knife and held it in the air, suspended over the pie while she thought. “We had an artist paint a picture of Mama once, and another for Sarah. They were both full of compliments, told Sarah she was beautiful, made all sorts of outrageously flattering remarks; said she had a quality of delicac
y about her like a Bourbon rose. She floated round insufferably with her head in the air, looking sideways at herself in all the mirrors for weeks.”
“She was good-looking,” he replied. “Although a Bourbon rose is a little extravagant. But what is the point you are making?”
“Well, Godolphin Jones made his money by painting pictures of people, which in a way is the ultimate vanity, isn’t it, having your face immortalized? Maybe he flattered them all like that? And if he did, I would imagine a fair few of them responded, wouldn’t you?
Suddenly he perceived. “You mean an affaire, or several affaires? A jealous woman who imagined she was something unique in his life and discovered she was merely one of many, and that the sweet images were just part of his professional equipment? Or a jealous husband?”
“It’s possible.” She lowered her knife at last and cut into the pie. Thick gravy bubbled through, and Pitt totally forgot about the scorched piece.
“I’m hungry,” he said hopefully.
She smiled up at him with satisfaction. “Good. Ask Aunt Vespasia. If it was anyone in the Park, I’ll bet she knows, and if she doesn’t, she will find out for you.”
“I will,” he promised. “Now, please get on with that and forget about Godolphin Jones.”
But the first person he saw the following day was Somerset Carlisle. By now, of course, everyone in the Park knew of the discovery of the body, and he no longer had any element of surprise.
“I didn’t know him very well,” Carlisle said mildly. “Not much in common, as I dare say you know? And I certainly had no desire to have my portrait done.”
“If you had,” Pitt said slowly, watching Carlisle’s face, “would you have gone to Godolphin Jones?”
Carlisle’s expression dropped a little in surprise. “Why on earth does it matter? I’m a bit late now, anyway.”
“Would you?”
Carlisle hesitated, considering. “No,” he said at length. “No, I wouldn’t.”
Pitt had expected that. Charlotte had said Carlisle had spoken slightingly of Jones as an artist. He would have contradicted himself had he praised him now.
Pitt pursued it. “Overrated, would you say?”
Carlisle looked levelly at him; his eyes were dark gray and very clear. “As a painter, yes, Inspector, I would say so. As an admirer and companion, possibly not. He was quite a wit, very even-tempered, and had learned the not inconsiderable art of suffering fools graciously. It is difficult to command more than you are worth for long.”
“Isn’t art something of a fashion?” Pitt inquired.
Carlisle smiled, still meeting his eyes without a flicker.
“Certainly. But fashions are frequently manufactured. Price feeds upon itself, you know. Sell one thing expensively, and you can sell the next even more so.”
Pitt took the point, but it did not answer the question as to why anyone should strangle Godolphin Jones.
“You mentioned other forms of worth,” he said carefully. “Did you mean purely as a companion, or perhaps more-as a lover in an affaire-or even several?”
Carlisle’s face remained impassive, amused. “It might be worth your while to investigate the possibility. Discreetly, of course, or you will rouse a lot of ill feeling that will rebound upon yourself.”
“Naturally,” Pitt agreed. “Thank you, sir.”
Discretion began with Aunt Vespasia.
“I was expecting you yesterday,” she said with slight surprise in her voice. “Where can you start? Is there anything you know about this wretched man? So far as I have heard, he had nothing to do with Augustus, and Alicia was one of the few beauties, or imagined beauties, around the Park that he did not paint. For goodness’ sake, man, sit down; you give me a crick in my neck looking at you!”
Pitt obeyed. He still did not care to take the liberty of making himself comfortable before he was invited. “Was he a good artist?” he asked. He would value her opinion.
“No,” she said baldly, “Why?”
“Charlotte said as much.”
She looked at him a little sideways, her eyes narrowed. “Indeed. And what do you draw from that? You are trying to say something-what is it?”
“Why do you think he was able to charge so much, and get it?” he asked frankly.
“Ah.” She leaned back a little, and a very small smile curved her mouth. “Portrait artists who paint society women have to be courtiers as well, in fact, possibly even courtiers first. The best of them can afford to paint as they please, but the others must paint to suit whoever holds the purse strings. If they have the skill, they flatter with the brush; if not, they must do it with the tongue. Some even do both.”
“And Godolphin Jones?”
Her eyes flickered with amusement. “You have seen his work yourself-and you must know it was with his tongue.”
“Do you suppose it went further than flattery?” He was not sure if she would be affronted by his assuming such a possibility and asking it so bluntly. But, on the other hand, there was no point in being evasive with her, and he was too weary of the case and confused to be subtle.
She was silent for so long he began to be anxious she was offended. Then at last she spoke, choosing her words.
“You are asking me if I know of anyone having an affaire with Godolphin Jones. I suppose if I do not tell you, you will have to pursue it yourself? I had rather tell you; I imagine that will be the least painful. Yes, Gwendoline Cantlay had an affaire. It was nothing serious, a relief from boredom of a pleasant but growingly uninterested husband; certainly not a grand passion. And she was extremely discreet about it.”
“Do you know if Sir Desmond knew of it?”
She considered for a moment before replying.
“I should think he guessed but was tactful enough to look the other way,” she said at length. “I find it very hard indeed to believe he would have killed the wretched little man over it. One does not react in such a way, unless one is completely unhinged.”
Pitt had no understanding; he simply had to accept that she knew. He could not conceive of what his own behavior might have been had he discovered Charlotte in such a squalid involvement. It would shatter everything he cared about, desecrate and overturn all that was precious within him and held him islanded against daily wretchedness he saw. It was not beyond his imagination that he would strangle the man: the more so if it were merely part of his professional repertoire, and she were one of any number.
Vespasia was looking at him, perhaps reading something of what was going through his mind.
“You must not judge Desmond Cantlay by yourself,” she said quietly. “But investigate the possibility, if you must. I suppose as late as this you cannot say when he was killed?”
“No; approximately three to four weeks ago, but that is hardly any use for establishing anyone’s whereabouts to prove him innocent or guilty. I should imagine he was killed shortly after the last time his servants saw him, which was three weeks ago last Tuesday. But even that is not proven. We don’t even know where he was killed yet.”
“You seem to know remarkably little,” she said grimly. “Don’t go seeking your information by spreading suspicions. Maybe Desmond didn’t know it. And doubtless, since it is a tool of his trade, Jones used it quite regularly.”
Pitt frowned. “Probably. But would he dare with Lady St. Jermyn?” He pictured that dark head with its severe silver streak. There was a remarkable dignity about her. It would have been a brash artist indeed who had tried to soften her with over-flattery.
Vespasia’s eyes widened very slightly, but her expression was beyond his reading.
“No,” he said simply. “Nor with the Misses Rodney, I suspect!”
The idea of an affaire with the Misses Rodney was ridiculous, but few people are impervious to flattery, and perhaps Jones had been skilled enough when he wished.
“I’ll have to find his other subjects,” he agreed. “I have a list from the butler.” He wanted to ask her more; in fact, he h
ad a vague impression that she knew something that deliberately she was not telling him. A shield for Gwendoline Cantlay or for someone else? Surely not Alicia again? Or worse than that, Verity? There was no point in asking. It would only offend her.
He stood up. “Thank you, Lady Cumming-Gould. I appreciate your help.”
She looked at him dubiously. “Don’t be sarcastic with me, Thomas. I have been of uncommonly little help, and you know it. I have no idea who killed Godolphin Jones, but whoever it was, I have some sympathy with him. But I am really only marginally interested in the whole affair. It is a pity he could not have remained decently buried in the butler’s grave. The parliamentary bill is a great deal more important than the death of one opinionated and indifferent little artist. Do you have any conception of what it could mean in the lives of thousands of children in this wretched city?”
“Yes, ma’am, I have,” he said, equally soberly. “I have been in the workhouses and the sweatshops. I have arrested starving five-year-olds already schooled in thieving, and knowing of nothing else.”
“I apologize, Thomas.” She was unused to retreat, but this time she meant it.
He knew it. He smiled at her, brilliantly, honestly, and for an instant they were equals. Then it vanished. She rang the bell, and the butler showed Pitt to the door.
But there was something nagging at his mind, and, rather than take out the butler’s list, he hailed a cab and traveled for more than two miles before alighting, paying the driver, and climbing a dingy staircase up to a small room that had a great south-facing window and an even greater skylight. A scruffy little man with enormous eyes looked up at him.
“Hello, Froggy,” Pitt said cheerfully. “Can you spare me a few minutes?”
The man looked at him skeptically. “I ain’t got nothing as I oughtn’t to. You got no right to look!”
“I’m not looking, Froggy. I want your advice.”
“And I ain’t ratting on no one!”
“Your artistic advice,” Pitt elaborated. “On the worth of a perfectly legitimate picture. Or, to be more precise, an artist.”
