Honeybath's Haven

by Michael Innes

  All this didn’t really get far, and it certainly didn’t suggest what would be, with Michaelis, the best point of attack. It would possibly be wise to go straight to the matter of the lost pictures – and perhaps a little to stretch the probability that Charles Honeybath RA was going to be required to assume some legal responsibility in the administration of Edwin’s estate. He’d make this point at once, and then go straight on to announce his conviction that highly suspicious circumstances were now known to him about the handling of certain important paintings which had almost certainly been in Edwin’s possession until his death or very shortly before his death. Shock tactics, in fact. That would be the thing.

  He found Michaelis in his Gothicized and opulently appointed room. The man didn’t look well. In fact he looked like one living with something not at all comfortably to be lived with. And this, no doubt, was exactly the state of the case.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ Honeybath said. ‘I think it likely that I shall be required to deal with Lightfoot’s artistic affairs. The works remaining in his hands, or otherwise legally his, at the time of his death; and various questions of copyright and the like. I have reason, Dr Michaelis, to suppose – I fear I must say “suspect” – that you can help me. Do I make myself plain?’

  ‘Far from it.’ Michaelis licked his lips nervously. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I am talking, in the first place, about certain pictures painted by Lightfoot long ago, and now certainly of great value, which have disappeared. Or, rather, some have disappeared – I have reason to suppose from Hanwell Court – and their whereabouts are at present unknown to me. Others have similarly disappeared, but have turned up again where they have no business to be. In the possession, in fact, of Lightfoot’s brother-in-law, Ambrose Prout. And as you now appear to enjoy Prout’s more or less intimate acquaintance, I judge it likely that you know a good deal about the matter.’

  ‘Surely at the time of Lightfoot’s death his brother-in-law was his appointed, or at least customary and acknowledged, agent in the marketing and general handling of anything he produced?’

  ‘That is, in a manner, so.’ Honeybath was a shade disconcerted by this move. It had been a formidably precise statement of a very imprecise relationship. And it suggested that there might be legal snags ahead. Honeybath decided to plank more cards on the table. ‘But I have to tell you, Dr Michaelis, that only this morning Prout was constrained to show me a painting of Lightfoot’s, a flower-piece with zinnias, executed some twenty years ago, for which Prout could provide a provenance only of the plainest cock-and-bull sort. I think it probable that you have heard of a certain Mrs Gutermann-Seuss, who lives in Brighton. I have interviewed her, and inspected her establishment. It is clear to me that Prout has concocted supposed dealings with her which would be adequate to his all-too-evident purposes in the common commercial way, and in a situation where no grave suspicions of criminal conduct were involved. They will certainly not stand up to investigation by the police. And that investigation, I shall see to it that the police undertake. I have to remind you – and, I think, no more than remind you – that my friend has been murdered.’

  ‘I know nothing about it!’ In a sudden uncontrollable agitation, Michaelis had sprung to his feet, trembling all over. ‘Prout may know. Prout is capable of anything. I don’t know why your friend…’

  ‘Nonsense, sir! You are deeply implicated with Prout, and you know it. Why was Lightfoot murdered? Plainly because he had alerted himself to the thefts in which you had both involved yourselves. You and Prout stand together. Fall together, I should rather say.’

  Michaelis was silent, or silent except for a sort of snivelling. He was in the disgusting state of one totally unmanned. Honeybath gave him time. Honeybath let his gaze travel round the Medical Superintendent’s well-appointed room. The Hepplewhite chairs, the Cotmans and Morlands, the Chinese pots… And suddenly the strangest things were happening in Honeybath’s head. Totally disparate memories were tumbling into place like a scattering of a child’s building blocks miraculously ordering themselves into a coherent structure. A time-machine; a fancy he had indulged when watching Colonel Dacre crawling absurdly though a hazel thicket; this wretched Michaelis talking darkly of the resources of science. And also…

  ‘Dr Michaelis,’ Honeybath said, ‘it is known to me – and, as it happens, to anybody who glances at a newspaper printed a few hours ago – that Lightfoot gave you a nickname. Signor Cipolla. Do you recall who Signor Cipolla is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I now do. He is a stage-hypnotist in a story by Thomas Mann. Such persons can make an adult behave as the child he once was. Or as the man he was ten, fifteen, twenty years before. While hypnotized, the subject is that earlier self. Please look at your mantelshelf.’

  ‘My mantelshelf?’ Michaelis stared, dully and stupidly, not at the mantelshelf but at Honeybath.

  ‘It is in the Chinese vase standing there that Lightfoot painted his zinnias. You no doubt lent it to him when you were conducting your interesting experiments. They were astonishingly successful. You contrived – and again and again over a very considerable span of time – to throw Lightfoot into that condition in which he had once painted – and enjoyed painting, since it was painting with inspiration. Eventually you broke off the experiment as dangerous. But there the paintings were. You know nothing about such things. It would mean nothing to you that the pictures were, and yet were not, early Lightfoots. But Lightfoot himself did. It was a profoundly disturbing and undermining experience, and he took the view that you had constrained him into a unique species of forgery – something freakish and discreditable. He hid them away. But Prout found the zinnias when poking round Lightfoot’s rooms. He consulted you, and discovered the bizarre truth. You then conspired together to steal all the paintings, apparently in the fond hope that Lightfoot would remain ignorant of the fact or be quite unconcerned about it.’

  ‘There was no theft!’ Michaelis had turned round and was glaring at Honeybath like a cornered rodent. ‘The pictures were not properly to be regarded as belonging to Lightfoot at all. They were simply clinical material of my own, and likely to be of the greatest interest to science. I have been preparing a paper about them.’

  It was as at this moment, and as if divine vengeance were about to be visited on this supreme hubris on the Medical Superintendent’s part, that the storm broke over Hanwell Court.

  21

  There were in fact, two storms, although some minutes were to pass before Honeybath became confusedly aware of the second. The first, which was veritably of the heavens and their wrath, was confusing enough. It had announced itself with shattering suddenness: with a crash of thunder that seemed no farther off than the ceiling, and which had almost instantaneously followed upon a flash of lightning that suggested itself as having passed between Honeybath’s nose and that of his unnerved adversary. A moment later, when Honeybath’s eyesight had recovered from the resulting blackout, he found himself alone. Michaelis, like the bad fairy in a pantomime, had vanished amid glare and din.

  More soberly assessed, the situation simply was that he had bolted senselessly from the room. Honeybath, vaguely feeling that he must be intercepted before reaching Heathrow or one of the Channel ports, dashed out after him, shouting alarms the while. These futile ejaculations were quite drowned by the storm. The mere hiss and drumming of the rain now descending upon the broad roofs of Hanwell Court at the rate of several inches a minute would alone have rendered them inoperative. But the thunder was now hugely enjoying itself, and the lightning was laughing at the weird concatenations of its own fiery chains.

  Since the Medical Superintendent’s room, although august, was semi-subterranean, Honeybath had to run up a staircase to reach the ground floor. He gained the hall, but lost as he did any persuasion that he was on the trail of Michaelis in an effective way. The miscreant could have disappeared in any one of a dozen directions, and under the best of conditions it would then
have taken a squad of policemen to find him. But now the entire house was in considerable confusion. Inmates were scurrying about in an agitated fashion, like pampered fish in a pool into which bad children have taken to chucking stones. A general sense of mild Apocalypse or Grand Combustion had been created, and this suggestion was enhanced by a distinct smell of sulphur. This last effect, although doubtless created by natural law as a by-product of vast electrical discharge in the atmosphere, appeared to be particularly upsetting. Honeybath had a brief glimpse of the Misses Pinchon: one held a handkerchief to her nose in a despairing manner, like a damned soul ineffectively endeavouring to ward off some preliminary torment in hell; the other had sunk to her knees in prayer.

  Honeybath crossed to a window commanding a view of the terraces and a long vista of park. Well-raked gravel paths were prattling brooks; the window itself streamed as if giants were hurling buckets of water at it; the skies were alive. But alive, too, was the park – with scurrying human forms. These, in two or three small clumps, were advancing upon the house at the double. For a moment Honeybath took them to be inmates, caught by the merciless elements while taking an afternoon stroll in the grounds, and now running for shelter in the luxury accommodation which was their just entitlement. But this wasn’t so. They were all male. And their attire – it was possible to perceive even in their drenched conditions – was not to be associated with that of English gentlefolk. In a flash like that of the lightning itself, Honeybath understood. Hanwell Court was under siege. Or rather not quite that. It was about to be taken by storm.

  Momentarily the whole horizon blazed, then flickered. Against it in silhouette, Poseidon the Earthshaker seemed wildly to gesticulate, very much as if Hanwell Court (completed 1702) were the walls of Laomedon’s Troy, about to be destroyed by the enraged divinity who hadn’t been paid his bill for building them. (Troy, of course, continued to stand for some time, as Hanwell would no doubt do.)

  And now something quite surprising happened. Just outside the window, Colonel Dacre appeared on the terrace, his rifle in his hand. He brought it to his shoulder, steadied himself against the balustrade, and fired. He fired, in fact, several shots with extreme rapidity. One section of the attacking force – presumably with bullets suddenly singing past their ears – scattered and took cover. Another section wheeled and disappeared within a grove of oaks, but seconds later could be briefly glimpsed again, engaged on what looked like a sinister outflanking movement designed to take the house in the rear. And now Mr Gaunt appeared beside the colonel – not armed with a Panzerbrecher or even a bouche à feu, but dragging forward an unwieldy affair which might well be his Gatling gun.

  At this sight the martial spirit of Charles Honeybath RA was aroused, He flung up the window and jumped out on to the terrace. He was unarmed, but perhaps he could carry the ammunition. Now, however, there was a lull, since his more lethally equipped comrades had momentarily nothing left to fire at. Far up the drive a blaze of light – man-made, this time – appeared: the headlights, it seemed, of half a dozen cars, necessarily turned on because of the murk of the storm. Through dreadful seconds it appeared that the enemy was being overwhelmingly reinforced. Then the leading cars slowed and stopped, and helmeted policemen swarmed out of them. The effect was as of the relief of Ladysmith or Mafeking.

  Yet within Hanwell Court itself it was suddenly clear that all was not well. It had been taken, or at least successfully breached from the rear! There were shouts, there was uproar, from the staircase; shots rang out and bullets sang; through the open window now behind Honeybath there appeared the figure of Mr Brown, fleeing in terror from some outrageous pursuit. He vaulted the balustrade and vanished, with hard on his heels two or three of the attacking force. One of these, Honeybath fleetingly recognized as an acquaintance. It was the person with whom he had been so disagreeably constrained to converse in the bar of the Hanwell Arms.

  But now the police were everywhere. They were swamping Hanwell – just as the gang, apparently joined by other gangs, had been proposing to swamp it. There were no more shots. The assailants (disappointingly tamely, Honeybath caught himself feeling) were giving in.

  But where was Brown – so plainly the sole quarry of the operation? The answer came fairly soon, and just as the storm, with a surprising suddenness, passed away. Beneath clearing skies, Adamson (who was in charge of the police) took Honeybath to have a look at Brown. This required a walk through puddles to the end of the avenue. There, Poseidon and his sea-monster had disappeared from their pedestal. Zeus, as if fed up with his brother’s histrionics, had unloosed a thunderbolt. The Earthshaker had fallen as a pile of shattered marble. And he had fallen upon, and crushed to extinction, the one-time owner of an immaculate Panama hat.

  22

  ‘He killed your friend,’ Adamson said soberly. Rather surprisingly, he had carried Honeybath off to the Hanwell Arms. Rather more surprisingly, they were both consuming alcoholic liquor out of licensed hours, although in the decent seclusion of a private room.

  ‘Killed Edwin – why?’ Not unnaturally, Honeybath was completely bewildered.

  ‘He’d seen that caricature – the one those villains saw in the paper today.’

  ‘Nasty Ned?’

  ‘Narky Ned.’ Adamson had frowned at the inaccuracy.

  ‘Of course. It looked like ‘Nasty’ in the reproduction. But I remember. Narky Ned. It was rather excessive, wasn’t it – killing Edwin because of that?’ Honeybath knew he was being absurd. ‘Brown must have been an uncommonly sensitive man.’

  ‘Nothing of the kind. Brown was extremely stupid, among other things. He’d heard Lightfoot say something about an exhibition of his entire works.’

  ‘That was nonsense. Just one of Edwin’s odd jokes.’

  ‘Then it was an expensive one. Brown was stupid, as I say. He’d also gathered that Lightfoot was by way of sending some of those drawings for temporary view to exhibitions here and there.’

  ‘That was true. Lady Munden. And also…’

  ‘Yes, yes, Mr Honeybath. The point is that Brown couldn’t afford to let it be known that he lived here. We couldn’t let it be known, for that matter. We’d thought up Hanwell Court as the unlikeliest place in the world for him. Just right for holding him safe and sound for years.’

  ‘Narky Ned?’ One of Honeybath’s flashes, his inspirations, had come to him. ‘But how did Edwin know Brown was a nark?’

  ‘Intuition, no doubt. Something you artists manage. Of course Brown ought to have contacted us, and we’d have whisked him away somewhere else. Stupidity again. But I was stupid myself. I ought to have removed him as soon as trouble of any sort blew up at Hanwell Court. But he was an awkward man to deal with, was Brown. He said he liked it here.’

  ‘So he did.’

  ‘After killing Lightfoot, he must have planned to do a rummage and collect that caricature as soon as things quietened down. Only, some unprincipled reporter got in before him.’

  ‘You regarded Brown as an important man?’

  ‘My dear sir, he was England’s Number One Informer. Nothing he didn’t know. If you lost your watch to a pickpocket, he’d tell you the chap’s name at once. Marvellous sense, too, of modus operandi. Take a glance at a busted strongroom, and pinpoint the whole operation. A great loss to us.’

  ‘Lightfoot’s death is a great loss to me.’

  ‘Of course, Mr Honeybath. And I’m very sorry. So fortuitous, too. Of course Prout and Michaelis never had a thought of killing your friend. They were just going to do their quiet grab, and think to get away with it. If Lightfoot did give trouble, Michaelis could probably find a colleague who could be convinced your friend was totally mad and raving. Lightfoot’s actual death must have been a terrific shock to them. It put them right out on a limb.’

  ‘They are on a limb? They can be prosecuted?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Adamson sounded doubtful and not very interested.

  ‘Michaelis had the astounding impudence to tell me the pictures must
really be regarded as belonging to him anyway. As part of his clinical material.’

  ‘A clever barrister could make a good deal of that, don’t you think? However, we’ll consider trying to put them both inside. We’ll consider it most carefully.’

  ‘Mr Adamson, you do understand the entire outrageous affair as I’ve given it to you? That my friend was treated like a guinea pig? That he was put in great distress of mind by it? And that those scoundrels then had the wonderful thought that they’d make money out of it?’