‘They have that doctor up there. The one I didn’t care for, and who got thick with Ambrose.’
‘Ah, Dr Michaelis. Well, there is no suggestion that he was treating Edwin in any way. Or not since his return from abroad. By the way, Melissa, were you and Edwin writing to one another?’
‘It would be no business of yours if we were. But as a matter of fact we were not.’ Melissa was getting rapidly through her martini – probably in the interest of being treated to another. ‘What do you want to know for?’
‘Because he might have said something about his painting. I was talking earlier this evening to a man – quite a knowledgeable man – who believes himself to have seen a distinctly good recent picture. Edwin, it seems, showed it to him. But my own impression is that nothing was coming back to Edwin of anything like his old power. It’s puzzling.’
‘It’s nothing of the kind. It was just something out of Edwin’s secret store of the things from the old days. And the man you were talking to got a muddled idea that it was new. I’m convinced those pictures exist, you know. But what I don’t know is how much Ambrose knows about it.’ Melissa drained her glass and pushed it across the table towards Honeybath. He picked it up willingly enough. This act of necessary replenishment was going to give him a few moments in which to think. That there really was some mystery about Edwin’s painting was now clear to him; and it looked as if he and Melissa were again on the same wavelength in the matter. But that the situation as he dimly saw it bore any relationship to the manner of Edwin’s death seemed totally incredible. For the moment, he thought as he returned with the second martini, he’d change the subject, or at least approach it from another direction.
‘Why are you putting up at this pub, Melissa?’ he asked. ‘It doesn’t look at all promising to me. Surely they’d have thought it proper to find you a room at Hanwell Court.’
‘They probably did. I saw a man called Luxmoore. A gentleman – which is more than can be said for your Dr What’s-his-name. He wanted to hand me over to his wife. But I wasn’t going to spend a night under the same roof as her.’
‘As Mrs Luxmoore? My dear Melissa, you can’t know anything about her.’
‘Not Mrs Luxmoore, Charles. That woman. The murderess.’
‘The murderess? In heaven’s name…’
‘Lady Thingummy. You know how Edwin exhibited a funny picture of her. It wasn’t a very decent thing to do, I daresay. He didn’t deserve to be murdered for it, all the same. But Lady Thingummy…’
‘Lady Munden.’
‘Lady Munden is mad, of course. They’re all mad at Hanwell Court. You shoved Edwin into a bloody bin, Charles. Morally, you are the murderer yourself.’
‘My dear Melissa!’ It came to Honeybath with a shock of horror that there was perhaps some atom of truth in this macabre suggestion. He had undeniably landed Edwin among a funny crowd from which he had himself shied away. ‘Never mind about it morally,’ he said. ‘Just consider the matter practically. How on earth could Lady Munden, even if feeling like Lady Macbeth, have managed to murder Edwin?’
‘By setting a booby-trap, of course, in her horrible pool. Filling it with things like Deadly Nightshade, only of a watery sort. Then she took him for a quiet evening walk – probably on the strength of the most disgusting and shameful enticements – and simply tipped him in. Stuff like that can sting, can’t it, just like jellyfishes? Poor Edwin died instantly.’
‘In that case, the post-mortem would reveal…’
‘It won’t reveal anything. She’d make sure that the stuff is unknown to science. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’
At this point of extreme irrationality on Melissa’s part Honeybath was made aware of the barman as making covert beckoning signs to him. He picked up his own empty glass and went over to the man. Melissa, he thought, was quite as mad as any of the residents at Hanwell Court admitted on Michaelis’ quota system. And it was clear that he had to spend the rest of the evening with her. It was a dis-heartening thought. He put down his glass with a gesture indicating that it should be filled again.
‘Well,’ he demanded brusquely, ‘what is it?’
‘All arranged, sir.’ The barman spoke in a hoarse whisper. ‘The missus has arranged it. In the next room, the lady will be. And there’s a nice quiet communicating door.’
‘My good man…’ Outraged, Honeybath was at a loss for further words.
‘And no reason for your not having your dinner at the same table, sir. Very quiet we are just now – very quiet indeed. And nobody answers questions here if any of them private ’tecs come. Discreet, we are – and just hope you’ll remember us kindly.’
This shocking revelation of the mores and assumptions of the Hanwell Arms was almost too much for Honeybath, who was a man of unimpaired probity in matters of sexual conduct. In addition to which he couldn’t conceive himself as wanting under any circumstances whatever to get into bed with Melissa. He had a strong impulse to bolt from the place and vanish into the night. But he managed to control himself.
‘You are under a vulgar misapprehension,’ he said with grim dignity. ‘The lady and I are very old friends. And her husband, as it happens, died this morning.’
He picked up his drink and returned to Melissa. The ideas in her head were as dotty as those in the barman’s, although of a different character. He was most unlikely to get a single sensible thought out of her about the horrible business in which they were both involved. But for the rest of their encounter he would be as kind to her, as patiently tolerant, as he could possibly be.
18
The virtuous resolution just recorded turned out to involve keeping Honeybath from his bed until midnight. Melissa had a great deal on which to unburden herself – and most of it concerned the criminality of Lady Munden and the means that must be taken to unmask her. Honeybath didn’t for a moment believe that Lady Munden had carried out a cold-blooded murdering of Edwin. It might just be possible to conceive that, enraged by the memory of the insult that had been offered her on the walls of Burlington House, she could have picked up a paperweight or a candlestick and brained its perpetrator forthwith. But that she had prepared the macabre booby-trap of Melissa’s imagining was entirely beyond credence. It seemed to Honeybath that some curious guilt-mechanism was operative in Edwin’s widow. She had to have a woman in the picture upon whom she could unload, as it were, the ditching of Edwin – and this in a quite literal sense.
It would normally have given Honeybath considerable satisfaction to achieve a psychological insight of this order. But now a curious thing was happening to him. Although resolved to solve the mystery of Edwin’s death, he was really more concerned about the mystery of Edwin’s pictures. Just what had been going on? That something had been going on, he was now convinced. He even suspected that it was something which, if not cleared up, might somehow impair Edwin’s posthumous reputation. And to safeguard that was even more important than to bring Edwin’s killer to justice. He got no further with this thought until he was in bed, and it then occupied his mind for some hours before he got off to sleep. What, for a start, did he know with tolerable certainty? It seemed necessary to believe that certain hitherto unknown early Lightfoots did exist. But that there was a whole bunch of them that had never been sold or even exhibited was highly improbable. Indeed, something like certainty came in here too. Though he could have given no precise year-by-year account of Edwin’s output during his great period, he did have a clear sense of what might be called its tempo. He knew Edwin’s working habits then, and the extent of the periods during which, like any other artist, he had to let his full creative power take time off. Half a dozen fully achieved major pictures might possibly exist unknown to Honeybath himself. More than that would require the positing of a secretiveness and evasiveness on Edwin’s part which would surely be foreign even to so quirky and freakish a character as he had frequently exhibited. Even so, half a dozen such pictures, if brought together and put on show for the first time, w
ould create a sensation in the art world and undoubtedly be worth a great deal of money. So suppose some of them had been in the possession of Edwin himself, and without anyone else being aware of their existence. A thief who got hold of them could put up any story he pleased about how they had come to be his lawful property. And nobody could contradict him. Or nobody except Edwin himself.
Turning over restlessly in a bed that audibly protested against his slightest movement, Honeybath faced this grim thought. He also faced the disturbing image of Ambrose Prout and the dubious name of Mrs Gutermann-Seuss of Brighton. It must be supposed that the lady really existed, since Prout could not be so foolish as simply to make her up. But wasn’t there something suspicious, a kind of faking of verisimilar detail, in the story of this person’s first producing a forged Lightfoot and later an authentic one? Had Prout simply stolen the little batch of pictures, either piecemeal or at one fell swoop, and then selected Mrs Gutermann-Seuss to fabricate a title to them? Had he done this from a rash persuasion that poor Edwin was sufficiently gaga not to become aware of his loss – and had this proved not to be the case, with fatal consequences?
But then there was the testimony of Colonel Dacre, that unexpected connoisseur of the fine arts. He had been shown, and had greatly admired, a picture which Edwin had described to him as recent work. But this, unless Edwin had in some totally abnormal way intermittently recovered his former power, must have resulted from a rather pathetic and wholly innocent impulse of deception on Edwin’s part. The incident afforded strong evidence that unknown pictures did exist; that they had been in Edwin’s possession; and – an important point – that Edwin had been by no means forgetful and unconcerned about them.
There was the chronological aspect of all this to consider. Although he had failed to question Dacre closely on the point, it was Honeybath’s impression that the incident to which he had referred was of comparatively recent date; that it had taken place, in fact, shortly before he and Edwin had departed for Italy. Edwin had then been in a state of considerable distress – that, indeed, had been the reason for their pilgrimage; and the fact added to the curiosity of his having been prompted at least not to correct a misconception as to the dating of the picture. But what about the whole hypothesis that unknown early Lightfoots existed? It had lodged itself in Ambrose Prout’s mind a long time back: Honeybath couldn’t recall quite when. The first definite date had been that of Prout’s abortive visit to Brighton; then there had been his letter received in Rome to the effect that with Mrs Gutermann-Seuss he had struck lucky after all, and hinting that there might be, so to speak, more treasure-trove in the pipe-line in that quarter. And it had been in Rome that Melissa had announced that this expectation had been fulfilled, and that her brother now possessed three early Lightfoots all told. This, of course, might have been untrue. Honeybath had the impression that there were plenty of lies blowing around.
Among the manufacturers of these he was inclined – but on grounds that remained obstinately indefinite – to accord Michaelis an honoured place. But if the Medical Superintendent was indeed implicated in some conspiracy, it could only be, surely, because Hanwell Court was the place – or at least had been the place – where those precious canvases were located. And from this, if it were so, there would follow the fairly secure inference that the Brighton lady was either implicated in the conspiracy or had in some way been made an innocent dupe. Mrs Gutermann-Seuss ought to be investigated. Honeybath fell asleep resolving to seek her out.
It was a resolve still with him when he woke up next morning. So was the conviction that, for the present at least, he wanted to have nothing more to do with Hanwell Court. Melissa’s arrival on the scene appeared to be the controlling factor here. It was a little odd, since she was pretty well the only person around whom he continued to judge incapable of harbouring one dark design or another. But Melissa had decidedly said nothing to suggest that she welcomed his having turned up in any way, and it could be only in an awkwardly intrusive role that he continued on the scene. He rose early, scribbled a note to be handed to her, and contrived to secure a conveyance to take him to the railway station. He was in Brighton by lunchtime and provided with a room for the night – but this time in a reassuringly solid hotel understood to have been extensively frequented by the nobility of a former time. Brighton had later become, of course, something of a gangsters’ haunt – at least if one were to accept the testimony of Mr Graham Greene. But nothing of the kind was in evidence. Honeybath looked back on the Hanwell Arms without regret.
The telephone directory made manifest the fact that Mrs Gutermann-Seuss, at least, was the figment of nobody’s imagination, and a preliminary reconnaissance established her abode as an enormous mansion occupying an elevated situation on the Marine Parade. Had it not presented, as it decidedly did, a somewhat run-down appearance, the inescapable inference would have been that its proprietor was in the enjoyment of affluence. Honeybath took a turn along the front to think things over, and then returned and rang the bell. The bell failed to function, so he knocked on the door. After a pause he banged very loudly, and this not wholly civil behaviour yielded results. There was a slithering sound as of ill-fitting slippers on a tiled floor, the door opened, and there was revealed an elderly woman who appeared to be having trouble with her hair. Although it was mid-afternoon, she was dressed in what Honeybath thought of as a kimono, so that it was to be feared that he had disturbed her during a period of repose.
‘Good afternoon,’ Honeybath said politely. ‘Mrs Gutermann-Seuss?’
‘Nothing today, thank you.’ The woman said this vaguely and quite inoffensively.
‘I must apologize for disturbing you. My name is Honeybath…’
‘I never encourage beggars.’ This also came without animus, but so promptly that Honeybath’s name might have been taken instantly to reveal him as some mendicant notorious along the whole south coast of England.
‘…and I have called,’ Honeybath continued rather desperately, ‘to inquire about certain pictures.’
‘Pictures?’ The expression of Mrs Gutermann-Seuss was quite blank, as if the class of objects thus denominated were wholly unknown to her. ‘Would you care to come in?’ she asked unexpectedly, and stood back from the door. As she did so a shrill whistle made itself heard somewhere in the depths of the house: momentarily low, and then rising to a pitch as of desertion and despair. ‘The kettle,’ Mrs Gutermann-Seuss said. ‘You’ll have to wait.’ And she disappeared first into half-light and then into a near-darkness in which her entire establishment seemed to repose.
Honeybath found himself in a large hall. It was hung with pictures frame to frame and reaching to the ceiling; most of the floor-space was invisible beneath huddled furniture and piled bric-a-brac over which spiders had spun their webs for many a year. A handsome staircase, however, was comparatively unencumbered, and was hung with a rising tier of photographs, all the portraits of male persons, and all inscribed with greetings and signatures in the manner particularly favoured by the theatrical classes. These, however, were not actors, and Honeybath advanced and inspected them cautiously. Cordially, Andrew Mellon, he read. Yours, Samuel H Cress… H H Huntington, California… Frick… Adam Verver, American City… With kind regards, B Berenson… Gratefully, Joseph Duveen. Everybody who had ever bought anything (or flogged anything) in a sufficiently big way was here. There could be no doubt of the standing at least of the original Mr Gutermann-Seuss. But who was the lady who now bore his name?
She proved to be his grandson’s widow – and stranded amid all these proliferations of abandoned art (the bad buys and failed baits, one had to suppose) to her own complete bewilderment. There could never have been woman more totally without instinct for or interest in the deliverances of art than the present Mrs Gutermann-Seuss. She gave Honeybath tea (that was what the kettle had been for) and was perfectly willing to talk.
‘Do you know a man called Ambrose Prout?’ Honeybath asked baldly.
‘Mr Prout? Oh
, yes. He comes and goes.’
‘On business?’
‘He takes one thing or another. And leaves this or that.’
‘Leaves this or that?’
‘He buys pictures or not pictures but perhaps something else of one sort or another sort. In Brighton or perhaps not in Brighton but round about. And stores them with me for a time. Just tucks them away in one corner or another. On top of this or under that, perhaps.’
‘And does he buy things from you too?’
‘Oh, yes. Pictures, mostly. There are a great many, you know. Some in one room and some in another. And in the cellars.’
‘I see. May I ask if he pays you in cash, Mrs Gutermann-Seuss?’
‘Yes. He seems to like cash. I quite like it too. It’s handy in one way and another.’
‘Do you sign receipts for him?’
‘Receipts?’ It appeared to be with difficulty that Mrs Gutermann-Seuss identified the nature of these instruments in her mind. ‘Yes, receipts. Or things like that. I don’t much look at them, I suppose. There’s nothing of any importance left in this house, you see. I was told that, or something like that, years and years ago. But it’s quite comfortable. They say the roof leaks. But that’s four floors up – or is it five? I don’t go to look, so it doesn’t bother me. Will you have another cup of tea? Or a rock bun? I haven’t brought the rock buns. But I think I have some put away somewhere.’
Honeybath declined rock buns but accepted a second cup of tea, which at least gave him time to look around him. But the notion of conducting any search of the place was wholly out of the question. If Prout had tucked away another early Lightfoot or two amid this vast jungle of junk he alone could find them again. Short of an army of qualified persons, the situation was just that. In fact Prout’s discovery of Mrs Gutermann-Seuss was an astounding instance of serendipity. And his exploitation of it amounted to genius. Honeybath presently took his leave (Mrs Gutermann-Seuss having proved completely incurious about the object of his visit), and retired to the comforts of his hotel. He had at least exchanged doubt for certainty in the matters of nefarious activity on the part of poor Edwin’s brother-in-law.
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