The Painter's Easel (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 20)

by Frank Howell Evans

  As you drive out of London into Surrey, the gaps between buildings increase. There will be a group of shops, followed by a fenced field or paddock and then a pub and then perhaps a vegetable garden or a flower garden and then one large private house and then another field and another pub.

  Anyone driving away from London on this road would see a big house and on a beautiful summer day, in the afternoon, he would have seen the front door open and master detective Jules Poiret come out smoking a cigar in company with a tall friend of his called Captain Haven, who was smoking a cigarette.

  The house was built in the shape of a T, but a T with a very long cross piece and a very short tail piece. The long cross piece ran along and faced the street, with the front door in the middle. It was two stories high and contained nearly all the important rooms. The short tail piece, which ran out at the back opposite the front door, was one story high and consisted only of two long rooms, one leading into the other, with no hallway. The first of these two rooms was a painter’s studio in which the celebrated Lord Corazon painted his wild and exotic paintings. The studio led into a glass conservatory full of tropical flowers of unique and almost unimaginable beauty.

  Lord Corazon, the painter, had himself most carefully arranged this effect. He was a man, who drank and smoked opium and who indulged his lust for color somewhat to the neglect of form, even of good form. He had sold a painting to Poiret, a keen collector of art and had been paid already his quite princely commission. He, however, had not delivered it at the agreed upon date, that afternoon. Poiret had asked his friend Haven to drive him to the artist’s estate and he had promised to work without pause to finish the painting. Lord Corazon was a genius, but in temperament he was weak and his health had suffered heavily from experiments with opium. His wife, a beautiful, hard-working and over-worked local woman objected to the opium, but much more to a house guest, a poet, who had been staying with them for months on end.

  It was out of this artistic household that detective Poiret and his friend stepped onto the doorstep and to judge from their faces, they stepped out of it with relief. As the two paused on the doorstep, before taking a walk in the garden, the front garden gate was thrown open and a young man with a fedora hat on the back of his head ran up the steps. He was a thin youth with a gorgeous yellow and blue necktie all awry, as if he had slept in it.

  “I say,” he said breathlessly, “I want to see old Lord Corazon. I must see him. Is he here?”

  “Monsieur Corazon, he is in the house,” said detective Poiret, putting out his cigar, “but Poiret, he does not know if you can see him. The neighbor, he is with him at the present.”

  The young man, who seemed to be drunk, stumbled into the hall. At the same time the painter’s neighbor came out of Lord Corazon’s studio, shutting the door and beginning to put on his gloves.

  “See Lord Corazon?” said the neighbor coolly. “No, I’m afraid you can’t. In fact, I’ve just handed him his sleeping medicine.”

  “Now, look here, old chap,” said the youth, trying affectionately to grasp the neighbor by the lapels of his coat. “Look here. I’m desperate, I tell you. I need money.”

  “It’s no good, Mr. Turner,” said the neighbor, pushing him away. “You can’t alter the effects of a drug,” and putting on his hat, he stepped out into the sunlight with the other two. He was a good-tempered little man with a small moustache and inexpressibly ordinary.

  The young man in the fedora, who stood outside the door, as dazed as if he had been thrown out bodily, silently watched the other three walk away together through the garden.

  “That was a sound, unholy lie I told just now,” said the neighbor, laughing. “Actually, poor Lord Corazon doesn’t take his sleeping medicine for nearly half an hour. But I’m not going to have him bothered with that little beast, who only wants to borrow money that he won’t pay back. He’s a scamp, though he’s Mrs. Corazon’s brother and she’s a fine woman.”

  “Yes,” said detective Poiret, “she is the good woman.”

  “So I propose to hang about the garden till that creature has gone away,” went on the neighbor, “and then I’ll go in to Lord Corazon with the medicine. Turner can’t get in, because I locked the door.”

  “In that case, Monsieur Wright,” said Poiret, “we might walk to the back of the garden to the conservatory. There is not the entrance there, but it is worth seeing, even from the outside.”

  “Ah, I see you wish to keep an eye on him,” laughed the neighbor. “He owes you a painting. But what are you doing?”

  Poiret had stopped for a moment and picked up out of the long grass, where it had almost been wholly hidden, a crooked knife, inlaid exquisitely in colored stones.

  “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” asked Poiret, looking at it with a frown.

  “Oh, Lord Corazon’s, I suppose,” said Wright carelessly. “He has all sorts of knickknacks about the place. Or perhaps it belongs to that mild poet of his whom he keeps on a string.”

  “What poet?” asked Poiret, still staring at the dagger in his hand.

  “Oh, some writer from Dublin,” said the neighbor lightly. “A fraud, of course.”

  “You don’t believe in the poetry?” asked Poiret, without looking up.

  “Oh, crickey! Poetry,” said the neighbor.

  “It is very beautiful,” said the detective in a low, dreaming voice. “The colors, they are beautiful, but the shape, it is wrong.”

  “What for?” asked Captain Haven, staring.

  “For everything, mon ami. To cut or to murder, it is lovely to behold, but useless for its function.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Captain Haven, laughing.

  “Well, as you don’t seem to like it,” said the jolly Wright, taking the knife, “it had better be taken back to its owner. Haven’t we come to the end of this confounded conservatory yet? This house is the wrong shape.”

  “But, Monsieur, why?” asked Poiret, shaking his head. “The shape of the house, it is charming, but it is not wrong.”

  As they spoke they came round the curve of glass that ended the conservatory, an uninterrupted curve, for there was neither door nor window by which to enter at that end. The glass, however, was clear and the sun still bright, though beginning to set. They could see not only the flowers inside, but the frail figure of the painter lying languidly on the sofa, having, apparently, fallen half asleep. He was a pale, slight man, with loose, red-brown hair and a fringe of beard.

  Immediately outside the round end of the glass building was standing a tall man. He was looking through the glass at the sleeper.

  “Who is that?” cried Poiret, stepping back.

  “Oh, it’s only that poet,” growled Wright, “but I don’t know what the deuce he’s doing here.”

  “It looks like he’s watching the painter sleep,” said Captain Haven, biting his lip.

  “It looks a deal more like burglary,” said the neighbor.

  “Well, we will speak to it, at any rate,” said Captain Haven, who was always for action. One long stride took him to the place where the poet stood.

  “Good evening, sir. Do you want anything?”

  Quite slowly, like a great ship turning, the poet’s face turned and looked at last over its shoulder.

  “Thank you,” said the poet. “I want nothing.” Then, nodding his head, he repeated, “I want nothing.” Then he shook his head and with a startling stare, said again, “I want nothing,” and went rustling away into the rapidly darkening garden.

  “The poet, he is modest,” muttered Poiret. “Everyone, he wants something.”

  “What on earth was he doing?�
� asked Captain Haven, frowning and lowering his voice.

  The sunlight had turned red and the garden trees and bushes grew blacker and blacker against it. They turned round the end of the conservatory and walked in silence down the other side to get round to the front door. As they walked in silence they seemed to stir something, as one startles a bird, in the corner between the painter’s studio and the main building. They saw the poet slide out of the shadow and slip round towards the front door. To their surprise, however, he had not been alone. Mrs. Corazon, with her heavy golden hair and square pale face, advanced toward them out of the twilight. She looked a little startled, but was entirely courteous.

  “Good evening, Mr. Wright,” was all she said.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Corazon,” said the little neighbor heartily. “I’m just going to give your husband his sleeping medicine.”

  “Yes,” she said in a clear voice. “I think it’s time.” She smiled at them and rushed into the house.

  “The woman, she is over-driven,” said Poiret. “She looks like the kind of woman, she does her duty for twenty years and then does something dramatic.”

  The neighbor looked at him for the first time with an eye of interest. “Did you ever study psychology?” he asked.

  “The detective, he has to know something of the mind as well as the body,” answered the detective.

  “Well,” said the neighbor, “I think I’ll go and give Lord Corazon his seeping draught.”

  They had turned the corner of the house and were approaching the front doorway. As they came near the door they saw the poet for the third time. He came so straight towards the front door that it seemed quite incredible that he had not just come out of the painter’s studio opposite to it. Yet they knew that the neighbor had locked that door to give his good friend some rest.

  Poiret and Haven, however, kept this weird contradiction to themselves and Mr. Wright was not a man to waste his thoughts on the impossible. He permitted the poet to make his exit and then stepped into the hall. There he found a figure which he had already forgotten. Mr. Turner was still hanging about, humming and staring at the paintings hanging on the wall. The neighbor’s face flashed disgust for a moment.

  He rapidly unlocked the door and locked it again behind him, just in time to stop the progress of the young man in the fedora. The young man threw himself impatiently on a hall chair. Captain Haven looked at a colorful painting on the wall. Poiret, who seemed in a sort of daze, eyed the door. In about four minutes the door was opened again. Turner was quicker this time. He sprang forward, leaned against the door to hold it open and cried, “I say, Lord Corazon, I need some…”

  From the other end of the painter’s studio came the clear voice of Lord Corazon, in something of weary laughter, he said, “Oh, I know what you need. Take it and leave me in peace. I’m putting the last strokes on this painting.”

  Out of the door came flying a small packet of banknotes and Turner, stooping down, picked it up with singular dexterity.

  “So that’s settled,” said the neighbor, angrily and, locking the door violently, he led the way out into the garden.

  “The poor lord can get a little peace now,” he added to Poiret.

  “Oui,” answered the detective.

  He looked gravely around the garden and saw Turner standing and counting his money and beyond, in the purple twilight, the figure of the poet sitting on a bench with his face turned towards the setting sun. Then he said abruptly, “Monsieur, where is Madame Corazon?”

  “She’s gone up to her room,” said the neighbor. “That is her shadow on the blind.”

  The little detective looked up and saw a dark outline at the window. He walked a yard or two and sat down on a garden seat.

  Captain Haven sat down beside him. The neighbor was one of those energetic men, who live on their legs. He walked away, smoking, into the twilight and the two friends were left together.

  “I say, Poiret,” said Captain Haven, “do you think the painting will be done, before we leave?”

  Poiret was silent and motionless for half a minute, then he said, “Mon ami, there is something in the air.”

  He sank into silence and watched the distant outline of the poet, who still sat rigid. At first sight he seemed motionless, but as Poiret watched him he saw that the man swayed ever so slightly with a rhythmic movement, just as the dark tree-tops swayed ever so slightly in the wind. He was writing.

  The landscape was growing rapidly cloudy and dark, as if for rain. Still they could see Turner leaning against a tree with a bored expression on his face. Lord Corazon’s wife was still at her window. The neighbor was pacing up and down the garden. They could see his cigar. And the poet sat and wrote.

  “When the poet, he spoke to us,” went on Poiret in a conversational undertone, “Poiret, he understood what he meant.”

  “He said the same thing three times, old boy,” replied Haven, stretching himself lazily.

  “The tone of the voice, mon ami, it gives the same words the different meaning.”

  Two drops of rain fell and Captain Haven started and looked up, as if they had hurt him. At the same time the neighbor, who had disappeared around the house began running towards them, screaming something as he ran. As he came near he grabbed Turner by the collar.

  “Help!” he cried. “What have you done to him?”

  The detective sprung up and with a voice of steel, said, “Please not to fight. We have enough men here to restrain anyone we wish to restrain. Please to tell to us, what is the matter, Monsieur Wright?”

  “Things are not right with Lord Corazon,” said the neighbor, quite white. “I could just see him through the glass and I don’t like the way he’s lying on the sofa.”

  “Let us go in to him,” said Poiret shortly.

  “I will wait here and watch Turner and the poet,” said Captain Haven determinedly. “You go in and see, will you, old boy?”

  The neighbor and the detective rushed to the painter’s studio door, unlocked it and fell into the room. They almost fell over the large mahogany easel just in front of the door opening. It was dark inside. On the easel was a white canvas with some words in paint on it. The neighbor took the canvas in his hands for a moment and handed it to Poiret with the words, “Good God, look at that!” He then ran toward the glass room beyond, where the flowers were still in bloom.

  Detective Poiret read the words three times before he put down the canvas. The words were, “I die by my own hand!”

  Then Poiret walked towards the conservatory, only to meet the neighbor coming back with a face full of horror.

  “He’s done it,” said Wright.

  They went together through the gorgeous unnatural beauty of the flowers and found Lord Corazon, painter and bon-vivant, with his head hanging downward off his sofa and his long hair sweeping the floor. Into his left side was thrust the dagger, which Poiret had found in the garden.

  Outside the rain had come at one stride and garden and glass roof were darkened with raindrops. Poiret went back to the painter’s studio. She seemed more interested in the canvas than in the corpse of the painter. He put on his glasses and held it close to his eyes. Then he looked at the painting the painter was painting for him.

  “The death, it is the wrong shape,” said Poiret.

  “What do you mean?” asked Wright, with a frowning stare.

  “The words,” answered Poiret, “what does it mean?”

  “How the deuce should I know?” growled the neighbor. “Shall we move this poor chap, do you think? He’s quite dead.”

  “Non,” answered the detective, quickly. “We must leave him as he lies and send for the police.”

  “Who is to tell his wife?” asked Mr. Wright. “I will go and tell her now, while you send for the police.”

  “Oui, Monsieur,” said Poiret. And he went out to the front door.

  Here also he found a drama, though of a more grotesque sort. It showed nothing less than his friend Captain Haven in an attitud
e to which he had long been unaccustomed. His friend was fighting with the amiable Turner, his fedora hat, sent flying to the ground. Turner had at length had enough of Captain Haven’s watchful eye and had tried to leave. The detective patted them on the shoulder.

  “Please to make it up with Monsieur Turner, mon ami,” he said. “And to call the police. Monsieur Corazon, he is dead.”

  Turner somewhat doubtfully stooped to the ground and picked up his fedora and went into the house, just as the neighbor came out.

  “Please to tell me, Haven, where is the poet?”

  They looked at the bench in the garden, where they had last seen him write. The poet was gone.

  “Confound him,” cried the neighbor, stamping furiously. “Now I know that it was that no good fantasist that did it.”

  “But, Monsieur, the canvas it says it was the self-inflicted death,” said Poiret quietly.

  The neighbor rolled his eyes. “I only know that I loathe that fellow.”

  Meanwhile Poiret asked Haven to telephone the police and then made his way back into the dead man’s studio.

  The wife was in the conservatory, as was Turner and the poet, who was holding the woman’s hand.

  Captain Haven reappeared a minute later with the neighbor. The latter stared at the woman and the poet, still holding hands and looking at the dead man.

  “It’s a disgrace,” he said.

  Poiret took no notice of his words and merely asked Haven, “You have sent for the police, mon ami?”

  “Yes,” answered Haven. “They ought to be here in ten minutes.”

  “Will you do Poiret the favor?” asked the detective quietly.

  “Sure, my man.”

  “Please to bring the canvas with the words and the finished painting to Poiret. Please to be careful as the painting for Poiret, it is not yet dry.”

  Haven walked the few steps to the painter’s studio and fetched both canvasses. Then he stood in the middle of the conservatory, holding up both canvasses. Poiret smiled at his friend, then turned to the others now sitting down on the chairs surrounding the dead man.

  “Mesdames et Messieurs,” he said, “the body of Lord Corazon, it is still warm.”