urgency of beginning a check sounded keenly in Stephens’s voice.
‘All right… cut along to Hansom and see if we can get those cars pulled in. Though I would like to have talked to the drivers before you started to put the wind up them.’
‘I don’t want to upset your plans, sir-’
‘That’s all right. You may be lucky. And don’t forget our friend Johnson’s MG — I’d put that right at the head of the list.’
He chuckled as Stephens went striding away — another improbability had just occurred to him. Unless the murderer had happened to be left-handed, then he could hardly have done that job in his car. But the young Inspector wanted to be up and doing, and checking the cars was a chore which would have to be done. It might also do him good to work with Hansom for a spell… as an educating influence, the Chief Inspector had his points. Still chuckling, Gently continued on his way to the Castle Gardens.
There he had a stroke of luck, though it had not been unanticipated: he found the Palette Group’s illustrious chairman busy lionizing in the Gardens. With his natural flair for publicity he was exploiting the moment’s sensation, and long before Gently caught a glimpse of him he could hear the pontificating voice.
‘Art for art’s sake… that’s the purest piece of moonshine! So is Lawrence’s asinine assertion… doesn’t bear inspection for a moment. If art was for his sake, then why did he bother to publish? Why didn’t he burn his manuscript the moment after he’d finished scribbling…?
‘No, there is nothing here that will describe the creative process. Those who view art from a selfish standpoint haven’t learnt their A B C…’
Characteristically, Mallows was expounding his artistic credo, the man himself almost lost to sight in the centre of his knot of admirers. It was the first time that Gently had seen the great man in the flesh, though pictures of him were commonplace in the papers and illustrated weeklies. According to your viewpoint he was a Philistine or a prophet. Of later years opinion had been swinging more towards the latter role.
‘The first lesson in art is that art is a transitive term. It is a communication that takes place between one person and his fellows. The artist has a vision, a revelation of the truth, and this he needs to express, not to himself, but to other people…’
To get a better view of him, Gently climbed a few steps up the Mound. Mallows had a short and stocky figure which was easily hidden in a crowd. His features were thick and rather coarsened, but from a distance, very distinguished; he had a lavish head of iron-grey hair, locks of which were heaped over his forehead.
‘In art, one distinguishes three pillars…’
His audience, Gently noticed, was largely of women. They were mostly well dressed in the provincial way, and hung upon every word he was uttering. Some of them were young, dressed in jeans and sloppy jumpers, and these were probably students from the flourishing Art School. But the majority were serious, middle-aged women, or women arrived at a certain age.
On the outskirts of the group stood one or two men with bored expressions. They stared about them while Mallows was talking, and stole occasional looks at the exhibits. These, displayed on scaffolds beneath canvas awnings, were being well patronized by a steady stream of viewers. The group of stands stood in a crescent along the foot of the steep Mound, shaded partly by the giant elms which were rooted in the bank above.
‘These pillars are Vision, Expression and Reception. For the past fifty years or so the last pillar has been forgotten. The artists grew proud, they broke the law that gave them being. As a result we have witnessed anarchy, sterility and decadence, and an impudent arraignment of the public with whom the artists had broken faith…’
This was the doctrine which Mallows had been hammering for the last three decades, the doctrine that art was for someone, or that else it wasn’t art. In the late twenties and early thirties it had raised storms of abuse and mockery, but as aesthetic mysticism had begun to decline, so had the storms died away to murmuring. A little, perhaps, of the truth had been with this upstart provincial shake-canvas…
But now Mallows had said his piece and was stalking across to the attendant’s booth, leaving to break out behind him a cooing and animated conversation. Gently climbed down the steps again and also made his way to the booth. With the young man who sat at the table, Mallows was checking the sales of the pictures.
‘May I have a word with you, sir…?’
A pair of fierce grey-blue eyes rose to stare into his. Mallows had thick, up-brushed eyebrows ending in Mephistophelian points, and his jaw, one noticed, had an uncompromising jut to it.
‘Damn it, you’re not a reporter, are you?’
Gently modestly presented his credentials.
‘Aha — so you’re a policeman! I thought you had the professional approach. Now what can I do for you — do you want to buy a picture?’
‘As yet, I haven’t seen them-’
‘Well, we’ll soon take care of that. Nobody gets away from here without exposing themselves to our talent — put your notebook away, my dear fellow. You’d better come along with me.’
It was a novel situation, being required to ‘go along with’ someone, and Mallows supplied additional point to it by grasping Gently’s arm. He led him past the first few stands, at which a number of people were clustered, and steered him into a booth in which were displayed some quaint fish pictures.
‘There you are — what do you think of these? I read in the paper that you were an angler.’
Gently wondered whether to be frank and decided that he might as well be.
‘They aren’t the sort of fish I catch.’
‘Ah! You’re another one who doesn’t like Wimbush. And yet the poor fellow keeps painting these fish, as though they were the be-all and end-all of life. Do you think he’s a bit of a case?’
‘I don’t know… perhaps angling would help him.’
‘Now you disappoint me, Superintendent. I was hoping you would quote me a snatch of Freud.’
Mallows quizzed him for a few moments from the depths of his five feet seven; then he darted a look round the booth, to establish the non-proximity of Wimbush lovers.
‘Now — what do you want to see me about?’
‘First, a question about your car…’
‘It’s a 1957 Daimler.’
‘Where did you park it on Monday night, sir?’
‘Hum.’ Mallows cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘Now it’s really come to business, hasn’t it? I suppose that if I’d parked it by a certain set of dustbins, you’d pull a rope out of your pocket and hang me from the next tree.’
‘Did you park it there, then?’
‘No, no, not I! In any case, you wouldn’t park a Daimler by the dustbins.’
‘Then where did you park it, sir?’
‘On the Haymarket, as always. And since you’re not going to believe me, I’ve got a witness who will prove it.’
His witness, it turned out, was an old-age pensioner, a self-appointed attendant at the Haymarket parking space. In return for small tips he kept an eye on the cars, and had some undisclosed method for keeping places for his regulars.
‘Old George’ll see me clear without applying for habeas corpus — unless you hold that I bribe him when I buy him a drink. And he’ll vouch for Farrer too — he’s another contributory parker — and Farrer and I will vouch for each other. What are you going to do about that?’
‘Did any of the others park in the Haymarket?’
‘The whole lot did, for all I know. But seriously, there are only one or two who aspire to cars — three, I think, beside me and Farrer. Only they aren’t regulars at the Haymarket park, and so they’ll have to supply their own guarantors.’
‘Gould you give me their names?’
‘If you promise them a fair trial. They are Baxter, Aymas and Allstanley, the bent-wire merchant. Baxter has got a Singer and Aymas an old Triumph. Allstanley is respectable — he’s got a post-war Austin.’
‘And none of them were parked in the Haymarket that evening?’
‘I told you, I don’t know. I was one of the first there.’
‘But you know their cars — you’d have seen them there before?’
