Last Nocturne

by Marjorie Eccles

  After making a note of where Carrington might be contacted, Lamb left him. He went out the back way, having no wish to find himself once more in the middle of the ear-splitting cacophony still issuing from the gallery.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Cogan hadn’t been overjoyed with the notion that he might have to accompany Lamb when he went to his meeting with Ireton. Nothing much intimidated him; on the other hand, art galleries and the sort of affectation he associated with them had never featured much in his life and he was happy for this state of affairs to continue. He was more than relieved to be let off by resuming inquiries about the gun which had killed Eliot Martagon. He prided himself on his elephant-like memory and rarely needed to take notes, but on this occasion he took with him, to teach him the ropes, a bright young detective constable named Smithers, who had his head screwed on the right way and was eager for promotion.

  There had always been a possibility, however remote, that the gun which killed Martagon had been his own, bought perhaps on one of his visits abroad, despite his alleged antipathy towards firearms. If, as Lamb at least thought was now looking more and more probable, his death and Benton’s murder were linked in a way that suggested Martagon, too, might have been murdered, there was a better case to be made out for it having belonged to the killer, and necessarily left behind in the attempt to make the death look like suicide. Unless it had indeed been Martagon’s own weapon, drawn in self-defence before it was wrested from him and used against him. Possible, though unlikely. There had been no signs of any struggle, or indeed of forced entry. Had he, then, known his killer?

  The pistol had been a little FN Browning automatic, made in Belgium, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t buy one in England. On the contrary, you could obtain all sorts of guns anywhere, from a gunsmith to one of the grand department stores – Selfridges, Swan & Edgars, Harrods – over the counter, as casually and easily as a box of truffles or half a pound of foie gras. But according to the experts who’d examined it, it had had a fair amount of use, so it might just as easily have been bought second hand.

  Cogan emerged with Smithers from yet another gunsmiths’ premises and stood on the pavement while he decided where to go next and which tram to hop on. Like all the other gunsmiths previously visited, these last had been adamant that this particular weapon had never passed through their hands: they were proud of knowing their stock intimately, new or second hand, and swore they would have recognised or could account for any gun they’d handled over the last twenty years. It began to look as though it had indeed been bought on the Continent, in which case there was little hope of tracing its purchaser.

  It was an unseasonably warm day, the heat rising in waves from the pavements made them hard on the feet, and the sunshine glancing off the liver-coloured tiles of the new tube station across the road hurt the eyes. It was nearly lunchtime. There was a pub Cogan knew not far away. He met Smithers’ eye, jerked his head and, as soon as a gap in the jostling traffic appeared, they crossed the road.

  Cogan was on familiar ground here. The landlord was a man from Wapping who kept a traditional house and the sort of menu he considered natural to all right-thinking Londoners. Cogan nodded to him and considered the options chalked up on the menu board. Smithers, young enough to have a healthy appetite and not deterred by the heat of the day, went for the pie, mash and liquor, plus a half of bitter. Cogan settled for jellied eels and a glass of Guinness. When it came, he took a deep, thirsty, satisfying pull, belched and leant back.

  As he put the glass down and watched the foam sliding down its sides, he thought of Theo Benton and his two artist friends who had spent their last convivial evening together before his death, eating steak and kidney pudding and getting through several bottles of red wine…with ginger beer for Theo. Cheerfully expansive, no doubt, as they walked home round the corner to Adelaide Crescent, where the other two had left Benton.

  He ate his jellied eels and then said, ‘Your mother’s German, ain’t she, Smithers?’

  Smithers, mopping up the last of his gravy, red-faced and replete with the heavy food he’d finished down to the last mouthful, flushed even further. He pushed his plate to one side. This was a question he spent much of his time hoping he wouldn’t be asked. The Germans weren’t exactly riding high in the popularity stakes with the British public at this given moment, what with reports in the newspapers about their Kaiser being publicly rude and aggressive to the King, his own cousin, and the growing possibility of a war between the two countries – the certainty, said the Daily Mail, now that the Germans had more warships than the British Navy, and that they would need to be taught a lesson.

  ‘German-born. But she’s lived here most of her life,’ Smithers answered defensively. ‘She came over with her parents when she was three.’

  ‘Speaks German, does she?’

  ‘Not as a rule. But she can speak it, if that’s what you mean. Me, too. She believed – and I agree – we should be brought up to speak both English and German, me and my sister. Nothing wrong with that, is there – sir?’

  ‘Off your high horse, lad. I was only thinking it might be useful to us. They speak German in Vienna, don’t they? I didn’t know you spoke the lingo as well.’

  ‘Useful? You mean – go over there to try and trace the gun?’ The truculence disappeared and a hopeful gleam lit Smithers’ eye. ‘My sister’s married to an Austrian.’

  Cogan eyed the young constable cynically. ‘You’ve a lot to learn, my lad. The Force, financing a holiday abroad? Not on your nelly!’

  But he was thinking about a remark Lamb had made, before they went their various ways that morning. ‘The more I hear about Vienna, Cogan, the less I like it. It’s too much of a coincidence for that place to keep cropping up like a bad penny. Seems as though some sort of scandal might have blown up there, and if both Martagon and Benton were mixed up in it, it’s time we found out what was going on. If we don’t discover what it was from these letters of Mrs Martagon’s, we’ll have to contact the police there.’

  He said more kindly, ‘I was thinking more along the lines of translating a report into German and reading the reply, Smithie – should it happen to be necessary.’

  ‘Oh. Well, I daresay I could manage that,’ Smithers responded, slightly less eagerly. ‘I could if the Baa– if the chief thinks so,’ he amended, meeting the look Cogan was giving him over the top of his spectacles.

  ‘Well, we’ll see what he thinks. Just an idea I had. Finished? Come on, then. Since we’re in the vicinity, we’ll have another look at Adelaide Crescent.’

  Ireton’s office behind the Pontifex Gallery had a less comfortable and well-polished appearance in the morning than when Lamb had seen it the previous evening, as rooms tend to do in the light of day, less forgiving than the shadowy ambience of lamplight. It was revealed as a little dusty, with scratches here and there on the furniture, windows which were due for a clean, all in all slightly shabby. Less private, too, Lamb thought, than it had seemed before. Several people passed by in the alley outside, using it as a short cut to Bond Street. The sun hadn’t yet come out and the morning was chilly; to compensate, a gas fire hissed and occasionally popped in the grate.

  Mr Ireton was in the process of going through his ledgers. He, too, looked somewhat less urbane and less well pleased with himself than when he had been mingling with his potential clients, and older than he’d existed in Lamb’s imagination. His pristine collar appeared ever so slightly too big around a neck which had begun to show the first signs of middle age. Twenty years as Eliot Martagon’s assistant had frosted his dusty fawn hair with silver, given him a jaundiced opinion of clients and tarnished the bright certainty of his early years. He was unmarried, having observed early that business did not mix with domesticity. Unless a suitably rich wife were to appear, since he’d long had his eye to acquiring a gallery such as the Pontifex and making an illustrious name for himself. Unfortunately, neither had yet happened. He seemed a little on edge this morning.
Perhaps the show hadn’t netted quite the profits he had expected.

  ‘Please be seated, Chief Inspector.’ He leant across the desk and offered a cool handshake and a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He indicated a chair facing him. ‘I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since you spoke to me last night why you should want to see me and I must confess I’m a little puzzled.’

  A gold-capped fountain pen lay on the desk. He aligned it more precisely with the ledger he’d been working on. He was a neat and careful man. Lamb could see, even from upside down, that the words and figures on the open pages were precisely written, ruled off and without doubt totted up correctly. ‘I’m afraid I shan’t be able to help you, since I can only presume you wish to talk about Theo Benton’s suicide?’

  ‘Murder, Mr Ireton. Murder, I’m afraid, not suicide.’

  Lamb found fixed on himself an expression of aversion, almost as though he had made a joke in bad taste. ‘Murder, did you say? Are you sure? Excuse me, I didn’t mean to imply—but by whom, may one ask?’

  ‘That’s why I’m here, to try and find out.’

  ‘And why, I ask myself, should you expect me to know anything about it?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t expect that, but I’d like to ask you a few questions. Amongst other things, if you knew of anyone who disliked him enough to want him out of the way – professional jealousy, maybe, that sort of thing?’

  ‘Tch!’ said Mr Ireton. ‘Professional jealousy is one thing – but killing him? One would hardly think so. But of course, I really didn’t know enough about him – or his work, come to that – to be able to say.’ He picked up the gold pen and began rolling it under his well manicured fingers, watching Lamb in silence. ‘Look here, would you like some coffee? I certainly would.’ He rang a bell on the desk and within a minute one of the acolytes of the previous evening appeared and was instructed to bring coffee and hot milk.

  ‘Mr Martagon didn’t mention anything to you last night about Benton, then, after I’d talked to him?’

  ‘No, he and the young lady left shortly after you did – though I have to say he seemed a little – abrupt – and asked if we could postpone the business discussion we were supposed to be having – which I was only too willing to do, I might say. You’ve simply no idea how exhausting an opening is.’

  ‘I understand he doesn’t intend to follow in his father’s footsteps and run the gallery?’

  ‘That’s correct. I have every expectation’, he smiled secretively, ‘of buying it myself. It would be a pity to let go all Mr Martagon’s – Eliot’s – work in building up its reputation.’

  ‘It’s been nine months since he died. Have you had any more thoughts since then about why he should have decided to end his life?’

  A leap of alarm in the wary eyes. A tightening of the hands around the gold pen. Then a raised eyebrow. But Lamb had thought the question worth asking. Memories were apt to be selective; Ireton’s recollections of what had happened at the time might not now be the same ones he had decided to tell the police about then, but rather those which had stayed in his mind, long after the event, because they were the ones which should have been told.

  The coffee arrived and Ireton took his time pouring and serving it, offering Nice biscuits on a pretty, gilded plate. ‘Well, as I told you at the time, I had a feeling that Eliot had had something on his mind.’

  ‘But you weren’t able to say just what.’

  ‘That was true, then. But on reflection I’ve since wondered if he might have been worried about the future of the gallery. You see, a few months before, he’d approached me and said he was thinking of selling, and asked me if I would be interested in buying it. And indeed I would, though the price he was asking was stiff, considering how long I’d worked for him, and that business has not been quite so brisk lately.’ He looked a little petulant. ‘I didn’t know how the deuce I was going to find the money, I might say, but I was determined I would, somehow. A place like this, of one’s own! Something one’s always dreamt of. Then for some reason, he called the whole thing off. He didn’t see fit to say why. Just said he’d changed his mind.’

  ‘He didn’t tell you why he’d intended to sell in the first place?’

  ‘No, Chief Inspector, but he may have been intending to go abroad. I fancy – oh well, no point in beating about the bush now – I’m almost certain there may have been a woman involved. Letters with a Viennese postmark and all that, you know.’

  ‘Does the name Mrs Amberley mean anything to you?’

  ‘No.’

  Lamb watched him nibble on a biscuit. He looked not unlike a rabbit. Why had he lied?

  Ireton had been anxious at the time not to cast aspersions on the dead man, but it seemed evident to Lamb, despite his protestations of friendship, his alleged shock at his employer’s death, he had clearly worked up a grievance since then against Martagon over the aborted sale of the gallery. The fact that it was being sold at all hadn’t emerged at the time of Martagon’s death. Ireton had also known, or suspected, that he was involved with a woman but had kept that to himself, too. Not through altruism, to spare Martagon’s family, Lamb was certain. Then why was he revealing it now?

  ‘Look here,’ he said suddenly, ‘why all this interest in Eliot? It’s Theo Benton you came to see me about, isn’t it?’

  ‘Did you know it was in Vienna that Mr Martagon met Theo Benton?’

  ‘Yes, I believe I did know that.’

  ‘What’s your opinion of Benton’s work?’

  ‘His recent work? You’ve only to look at the number of stickers on the pictures out there.’ Ireton smiled thinly and jerked his heads towards the gallery. ‘They speak for themselves.’

  ‘As a prominent artist has recently said to me, there’s all the difference in the world between being popular and being good. He seemed to think Benton may have had a promising future with a different type of work he was doing.’

  ‘At the moment I’m more interested in selling than investing in future hopes. I know Eliot believed that one day Benton might turn out to be – well, maybe not a genius, but somebody.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose that may well have happened. But at the moment I can’t afford the luxury of speculative acquisitions. I went along to his studio and with his father’s permission brought away the ones I knew would sell. And they have.’

  Lamb decided to surprise him some more. ‘We have reason to believe that Mr Martagon’s death might not have been suicide, either, Mr Ireton.’

  This time, the effect on Ireton was startling. The pen slipped from under his fingers and rolled to the edge of the desk. As he stood up to retrieve it a tide of colour suffused his face and his scrawny neck, then receded just as abruptly, leaving his naturally pale face paler than ever. He sat down very suddenly again, as if glad the chair was already in place. ‘What? But – but – the gun.’

  ‘What about the gun?’

  The self-possessed Mr Ireton had begun to sweat. Beads of perspiration stood on his forehead. ‘Look here,’ he began, with what seemed to be his favourite expression, ‘look here, it wasn’t my fault. I know I shouldn’t have left it there but – oh, God!’

  Two people passed the window, talking and laughing loudly. Lamb waited until they’d gone. ‘We’d better have the truth, hadn’t we?’

  He watched as Ireton brought his features under control, then spread his hands in a gesture of surrender.

  He had bought the pistol, he said, on one of their joint trips abroad – in France, to be exact – after that time when the bronzes and the watercolours had been stolen. It was apparent that the indignity of that particular incident, as much as the ease with which it had been accomplished, had ruffled his smooth feathers exceedingly. The burglars had entered via the entrance into this office, surprising him, had gagged him and tied him up before taking what they had come for – including two small but valuable paintings, obviously previously earmarked – and disappeared. Neither they nor the stolen articles had ever been found. ‘They tied me
up!’ he repeated, still outraged by the assault on his dignity. ‘After that I decided it was folly to remain unprotected. I certainly didn’t intend to let myself be caught out again.’

  ‘Martagon knew about this gun?’

  ‘He may have done – must have done,’ Ireton amended hastily, ‘since he took it to shoot himself with, though I kept it right at the back my personal drawer, behind a stack of blotting paper. I didn’t want him to know about it, because he was so against guns, you know, even for self-defence. It was no use locking it up,’ he added, anticipating what was coming next from a glance at Lamb’s face. ‘I wouldn’t have had time to unlock a drawer or a cupboard and get a gun out when those thieves broke in, but if I’d had one handy, I assure you they wouldn’t have got further than that door.’

  ‘And when did you find it was missing?’

  ‘After Eliot’s suicide. And I’ll tell you something else,’ he added with a show of bravado, ‘I’ve bought another gun since that one disappeared, and I carry it about with me when I go out, too.’

  If he had expected Lamb to show surprise or disapproval he was disappointed. It wasn’t in the least unusual for gentlemen to be armed, ladies too, sometimes. The pleasant streets of London could be dangerous, and not only after dark. The affluent were an easy target.

  ‘You might have saved us from wasting a great deal of time if you’d spoken up when Mr Martagon died,’ he said severely. ‘Why did you keep silent?’

  ‘I blamed myself, I blamed myself! Try and imagine how I felt. If I hadn’t bought the gun, Eliot would never have found it, and he’d still be alive.’

  Everyone close to a suicide felt guilt – which was sometimes precisely what the dead person had intended, that those left should blame themselves for the tragedy – and some felt fear. Fear because they had lied about the circumstances which had led to the suicide, or at least evaded the truth. But not Ireton. For a moment Lamb looked into Mr Ireton’s eyes, and found them quite cold and empty. Here’s one to watch, he thought. One who had so far not entered the equation. It was often so: the one on the sidelines who came forward into the spotlight, while others merged back into the shadows. Except that so far there had been no others. Not a single suspect.