by Jean Stubbs
PART THREE: FACE TO FACE
‘Between you and the world I am a veil for a divine instant. I am love.’
Georges Rouault
CHAPTER TEN
This time, feeling a seasoned traveller, Lintott made his way to Paris alone and was mollified by the courtesy extended to visitors. He did not, however, feel it incumbent upon him as an Englishman to communicate with his few French words or (Heaven forbid!) gestures of explanation. Instead, he set down his notebook of names, addresses, times and connections; handed over his mystery of French currency and hoped they were honest; patiently waited until they moved him one stage further towards his goal. Then lifted his bowler hat and thanked them, in English.
Winter was receding into cold spring. Lighter skies, washed by rain, lightened to washed blues and greys the roofs of Montmartre. Skeleton trees subtly promised future green. And this particular quarter of the city, countrified by windmills and vineyards, appealed to Lintott in spite of himself. The hubbub and colour dazzled him. The crowds were not a mass personality, anonymous, hurrying, withdrawn — but a company of separate individuals clamouring for attention. Uplifted faces, sideways glances, a thrust of a jaunty elbow or a careless shoulder, demanded the recognition even of a passing moment.
He deplored their self-sufficiency, their egotism, their insistence on the joys of today. But then, just as he was feeling his own man again, the turn of a corner would display Paris at his feet, and his heart stopped. He clicked his tongue in reproof and shook his head.
The studio was untenanted, but Lintott found the key under the mat. (Silly sort of place to put it. Everyone knew that dodge!) He let in himself and his Gladstone bag, and a thin cat followed him and made itself at home on the window-seat. He found, and offered it, a saucer of milk. No language difficulty there. He brewed a pot of tea from the packet Bessie had given him, and savoured his solitude and temporary possession.
Empty rooms fascinated him. So much to be discovered and divined about those who lived in them. He unwrapped the last of Bessie’s sandwiches and chewed stolidly as he looked about him. Nothing new in the dust and exotic carelessness. Mr Carradine still hadn’t found a woman to clean for him, or hadn’t tried. Nothing new in the squeezed and draggled tubes of paint. The artist was still at work. Nothing new in the famished larder. Either he was still snacking or eating out. Lintott swept the crumbs from his trousers tidily into his handkerchief, took a last delicious swallow of hot tea, and stood up.
‘What’s this, then?’ he asked himself, and put on his spectacles for a closer look. The childish face beneath the garish hat, arms lifted, eyes intent. ‘Fancies herself as a fine lady!’ said Lintott, holding Valentine at arms’-length. ‘But he did ought to tidy it up a bit. Those big streaks, as if he was drawing with thick chalk. Bessie wouldn’t think much to that. And what about these?’
The sheaf of sketches formed a sequence of events which Lintott registered immediately. Another girl this time, hugging her knees, head bent, frowning. The same girl, head thrown back, laughing, caught in a few swift strokes. Head turned, brooding. Hunched in the window-seat where the thin cat purred, unaware of her watcher and recorder. A similar posture, only this time aware of him and looking provocatively away. A full-shaded portrait, sad-mouthed, defensive. Then half-a-dozen poses in what appeared to be a chemise.
Interested and shocked, Lintott studied slim taut arms, a knife-edged corset cutting against soft lawn, ghostly lace over soft breasts. He could find no shred of evidence to back up his sense of immorality. The girl was no more unclothed than she would have been in an evening gown. By no stretch of his imagination could the poses be called saucy or even indiscreet. But there was something pretty near the bone, there, if only he could put a name to it!
‘Makes me feel as if I was peeping through a bedroom window!’ said Lintott reproachfully and put the drawings away from him. ‘Much use he’d be to a wife. Turning the glad eye on somebody else, more like!’ He marched over to the canvas on the easel and peered at this, too: grey head poked forward like an enquiring turtle. He did not hear the key in the lock.
‘I shall make an art critic of you yet,’ said Carradine, smiling by the door, ‘as I appear to have made a regular traveller of you, Inspector. Welcome back to Paris!’
Lintott shook his hand shyly, caught out.
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t at home to greet you, but I had a lady to escort back, and the city is so crowded at this hour. In despair of a cab, I walked.’
Carradine was always vivid in any company. Now he exuded vitality. Lintott experienced a gust of cold spring air, brilliant hazel eyes, an energetic handshake, as though it were a delightful infection. He almost believed himself to be the cultured gipsy of Carradine’s imagination and then clapped irons on fancy.
Steady, lad! he cautioned himself. One of us has to keep his flat feet on the ground!
‘Admiring your work, sir. A very charming young lady.’
‘Oh, more than that, I assure you.’ Skimming his wide black hat across to the window-seat, where it flopped near the cat. ‘Let’s have coffee, and the talk you promised me in your letter. Then we can eat.’ His cape followed the hat, and the animal leapt down outraged. ‘How was your journey? Good! How do you like my Mrs Tilling? I thought you and she would find a rapport, somehow. Excellent.’ He loosened his collar and flowing tie and set the enamel coffee-pot on a small portable stove. ‘What news from the past, Inspector? Have a cheroot!’
‘I’ll take a pull at my pipe, sir, if it’s all the same to you,’ said Lintott, and sat comfortably with his legs apart, on the model’s dais.
‘The day I can draw you just as you are,’ said Carradine, on another line of thought, ‘I shall know I have achieved something worthwhile.’
‘And what might that be, sir?’ asked Lintott, shrewd and amiable.
‘Reality, Inspector.’
With a flick of wit he had not known he possessed, Lintott replied drily, ‘Ah! That’s out of your usual line of country, ain’t it, sir?’
Carradine extended one arm, delighted, crying, ‘Touché!’ And then, ‘Startle me with reality, Inspector.’
Lintott sucked his pipe stem, unsure how to make truth acceptable. ‘Well, sir, I’ve turned up a lot of information as we weren’t expecting. Thank’ee. A little more milk, if you please. It tastes too bitter, else. Well. Difficult to know where to start, sir.’
‘Say it all at once, then.’
Lintott took a deep breath. ‘Your stepmother, the late Mrs Carradine, was carrying on with a Frenchman for about five years, unbeknown to your late father — I’m glad to say. And thank God for that. He was an honest gentleman.’
Carradine’s face was sombre. He strolled over to the easel, cheroot between his teeth. Confirmation held more sting than he had expected.
‘The nurse, Bertha Lecock, was dismissed for no good reason as either Mrs Tilling or me could see. Your father sent her £200 to the curate in Paimpol as a sort of compensation. So we’ve got some sort of an address. I suppose he’d be acting for her much as our vicars do, sir?’
‘Yes. Berthe may well have lived in some outlying village. My father would send the money to someone who could be trusted to see she received it safely.’
‘And now we come to the nutty bit,’ said Lintott. ‘Adding two and two together, this here Frenchman of Mrs Carradine’s kidnapped your sister and took her on the train.’
Carradine sank into a chair, utterly silenced.
‘I thought that’d take the wind out of your sails, sir,’ said Lintott, obscurely satisfied by the impression he had made. ‘As far as I can gather, they were pretty keen on one another. And somehow he must have got the child away from Bertha — offered to buy her an ice-cream, or took her for a walk perhaps. Bertha was hand-in-glove with Mrs Carradine, and knew all about this here affair. So it could have been done, easy enough. She wasn’t sent away for that, any road. Mrs Carradine took against her after the accident. Now I don’t know his name. Your
stepmother just referred to him as D. And there ain’t a man in that railway carriage called D., either Christian name or surname. So he must have got away, somehow.’
‘Was he asking for ransom do you think?’ Carradine asked, the light gone from him. He was merely making responses.
‘No, sir. I think he was using the child to fetch the lady after him. I even went through a list of your father’s regular customers, in case a Frenchman with a D in his name cropped up. I checked them all out. All living, or dead, in London, and no connection. This man lived in Paris. She went to his apartment, frequently. No address, no indication of where it might be. She covered up like a professional,’ said Lintott, with some admiration. ‘But if Bertha’s alive, and I can find her, she knows.’
‘I remember the man,’ said Carradine with difficulty. ‘But this was more than twenty years ago, and the description would fit a thousand Frenchmen, and he will have changed.’
‘Been digging inside your head, sir?’ Lintott enquired humorously, but was concerned by Carradine’s immobility.
‘Oh, into my head, and my work, and my divided self. Yes, Inspector.’ He recollected courtesy. ‘You have done remarkably well. Where did you find this particular family skeleton?’
‘In the attic, sir, in that collection of diaries belonging to your stepmother. Written in French. I had to get my daughter to translate,’ he added, with pride.
‘She must be highly accomplished,’ Carradine replied automatically. ‘My father didn’t read them, did he?’
‘No sir. I made sure of that. He just said he’d asked Mrs Tilling to put everything safely away, and they were locked. Not much of a lock, but enough to stop anyone peeping.’
‘Thank God for something. To live a lie of that magnitude with a man who loves and trusts you. What a wretched business.’
‘Look here, sir, do you want me to stop?’ Lintott asked outright. ‘It ain’t a police matter, you know. You don’t have to go on.’
Carradine pondered over his clasped hands, a frown between his brows. Then he stood up, resolved.
‘No, Inspector. We may as well uncover the lot, and then perhaps I can live with it. We shall see.’ He sought for distraction. ‘Let’s put your undoubted talents to a little artistic detection, Inspector!’ He spoke more heartily than he felt. ‘Come, tell me what you think of my latest efforts. You must have thought something. You were studying them so very thoroughly.’
Lintott heaved himself patiently to his feet, stood beside his employer, scratched his head, puffed his pipe, and assumed a reverent aspect.
Carradine smiled involuntarily. ‘Say what you think, Inspector. I’m not begging for compliments.’
Lintott’s scandalised eyes rested on the sheaf of sketches. ‘There’s something not — wholesome — about them,’ he ventured.
‘And this?’ Bringing out the original Children in the Square.
‘Now that’s capital,’ said Lintott, delighted to praise.
‘How about this?’ Showing him the new version.
‘Is it the...? Yes, so it is. The same place. Why don’t you paint it as neat, sir, if you don’t mind me saying?’
‘Inspector, don’t for a moment imagine I am criticising your likes and dislikes. But if you could put morality and technique behind you, and consider the effect. What effect has — where the devil are they? — this on you, and this and this,’ fetching out, in rapid succession, three early idylls, ‘and then — this?’ His first sketch of Claire, which Natalie had returned with the comment Why not draw her nice?
Lintott struggled towards enlightenment, and was relieved to see that Carradine’s own light had returned. He hesitated. He plunged. ‘That one looks like Bessie when she’s fretting. It ain’t pretty but it’s — right. I’ve seen many a woman carrying on inside herself, like that. More like my Lizzie,’ he added to himself in a lower tone. ‘Wants what she can’t have.’ He beamed paternally on the untouched, the unattainable. ‘Young men’s fancies, sir, for all they’re so nice. Couldn’t boil a kettle if they tried. That’s not what life’s about. I dare say that’s why folk like art, and I don’t — to be honest. It gives them a minute off, looking at a jolly picture, thinking it might be them if they were luckier, or richer, or handsomer, or a bit more dashing.’
He sensed that he had hit upon something important to Carradine and flowered. He walked round, picking up canvases and drawings, using eyes and mind. Impartial, objective.
‘Did you know as there was a heap of stuff in that attic of yours, sir? You should look it all up when you get back. You used to write stories for your sister and make pictures up round them, and stitch them into little books!’
Carradine sat down smiling, eyes clear and remote.
‘No guts to them,’ said Lintott suddenly. Carradine’s eyes lit and narrowed. ‘No, sir. Very pretty, very fanciful. Not flesh and blood and character. Shadows, that’s what they were — and what some of these are, too. That’s why you won’t put me on a canvas in a hurry.’ He was horrified by his loquacity and daring. ‘Not that you’d want to,’ he mumbled, and applied himself to his pipe. ‘It’s only what you’d expect of a young lad, mind you,’ he softened the rebuke. ‘Only, a man wants to do a man’s work. I had a constable like you once, as promised to be a smart chap. But he wanted to solve a case in his head without getting his hands dirty. I had a talk to him one day.’ He succeeded in lighting the tobacco, and shook out the match, thinking. ‘I told him he was dealing in human nature, not crossword puzzles. And human nature is good, bad and indifferent. You can’t take out a section of it as you fancy, and pretend the rest don’t exist. You’ve got to take all of it, see it for what it is, and deal with it. There’s a lot we can’t explain. That’s why the women take to religion as they do. It’s harder on them than on us. Although I call myself a Christian, and I’d fight to the last drop to defend folks’s right to worship, I’m more of a realist. I’ve seen too much to say “God’s Will” so easily.’
He studied the first sketch of Claire again.
‘That’s human nature,’ he said, and laid it down.
Carradine’s silent satisfaction transformed the studio. A catalyst, Lintott puffed and commented, untouched. But the late sun was luminous in the dust.
‘I know what it is!’ Lintott cried, echoing Carradine’s feeling on a humbler level. He was deep in the unwholesome sketches. ‘Something between you and her. And it should be kept private, what’s more.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Carradine, laughing. ‘You’ve picked up the emotional bond between artist and sitter.’
‘Emotional, yes,’ said Lintott, removing his spectacles in great satisfaction, ‘but there’s a good deal of old Adam and Eve in it, mark my words.’
Carradine clapped him affectionately on the shoulder. ‘You shall meet her this evening, and judge for yourself. She’s not Eve, Inspector. And now I am going to show you Paris at the altar.’
‘Church, sir?’ Lintott enquired, bewildered.
‘No, no. Paris at the comestible altar — the one which really matters! Paris worshipping fine food. In company with two charming French ladies.’
‘I thought the ladies might come into it somewhere,’ Lintott observed. ‘I’d best have a wash and brush up.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Carradine had chosen a table for four, at Chez la Mère Catherine in Place du Tertre, instead of taking his chance with the benches along the wall. This was for Lintott’s sake. He placed Natalie and Claire opposite because, as he explained, they could see and talk to them better in that position. The Inspector, doing his best to avoid gaping at the ladies’ décolleté, wished himself back in Richmond, and stared suspiciously at the menu.
Natalie, magnificent in flaming velvet and diamonds, had insisted on Claire appearing in ivory silk and pearls. The diamonds were real. Furthermore, since Carradine and Claire must be given every opportunity to court each other, she took upon herself the doughty challenge of Inspector Lintott. He replied, when he had
to, in gruff monosyllables.
‘This is not like your English food, no? You must try the langoustine. It is very good. This is not like your English restaurants, no? I have dined at your Claridge’s. It is very dull.’
‘Claridge’s is not comparable to Maison Catherine, Natalie,’ said Carradine. ‘It is a highly reputable hotel for very respectable people. We have others, I assure you.’
She laughed in a way Lintott considered too robust for a lady. The jewels shivered and quickened against a neck that was now voluptuous and would be fat. Then she returned to the fray.
‘You do not have lovers in English restaurants like this, no?’ And she indicated an elderly man talking fondly to a young girl, who hung upon him like a borrowed medal.
‘We do in some places,’ said Lintott, disapproving.
‘You are not so — honest — as us, no?’
‘About what?’ said Lintott sharply.
Her eyes widened. She was enjoying herself.
‘Look there, m’sieu. Do you see the gross gentleman with two ladies?’
Rubicund, good-natured, his napkin tucked into his collar, the man was inspecting all three plates and discoursing on their contents earnestly. He cut off a sliver of his chicken and offered it to the younger, more fashionable woman. He sopped a bit of bread in his sauce and offered it to the older, quieter woman. Both were eating tranquilly, hugely. He beckoned the waiter, tasted the wine, urged them to drink. He beamed upon their appetites, feeding them.
‘What are they, m’sieu? You are a — detection. Tell me of them.’
‘Bachelor gentleman taking his sisters out to dinner,’ Lintott guessed.
Natalie clapped her hands together and laughed even more robustly.
‘How English you are! The dull one is his wife, the pretty one is his mistress.’
