Death of a Delft Blue

‘About there being something more to it than merely the granduncle’s displeasure about Florian’s popping over to Amsterdam to sit for the bust, and all that. And I don’t believe he’s fallen down that Hole. If he was with a girl, surely she’d have raised hell if he’d met with an accident or couldn’t climb up again. Do you think he’s deliberately gone into hiding?’

‘He’s obviously taken himself out of the bosom of the family, if only temporarily.’

‘I’m glad, of course, if it’s proved that he hasn’t been murdered, but it’s a bit of a let-down, isn’t it? Let’s go to Hayfield tomorrow and tear the place apart to find this girl. If we can’t flush her in Hayfield, we’ll try Glossop. I’m not going home without something to report. What say you?’

‘I’m with you all the way,’ said Gavin cordially. Laura scowled at him.

‘Yes, you got your own way about the Eldon Hole, didn’t you?’ she said.

‘No, you very nobly gave it me,’ said Gavin. He refilled her glass. ‘Here’s to another kind love!’

‘Polygamous brute!’ said Laura. They set out, after a late breakfast on the following day, for Hayfield and called in, at Gavin’s suggestion, for a drink at a public house.

‘If the girl does live in Hayfield, the chances are that Florian has entertained her here,’ he said. ‘Let’s occupy stools, put our feet on the brass rail, and obtain speech with the barmaid. I’m glad it’s a barmaid. Barmen, unless they’re the landlord, always seem to have such nasty, suspicious minds, whereas barmaids are little friends of all the world, (so long as you don’t get fresh with them). When I give you the O.K., come out with your classic description of Florian’s loveliness, will you?’

The barmaid recognised the description.

‘Why, he’s been in here several times,’ she said. ‘He works at the garage. Do you know him, then? He speaks very nice and his manners is nice and he’s that handsome you don’t know where to look. Is he a relation of yours?’

‘No, not a relation,’ said Gavin. ‘He’s quarrelled with his family and taken himself off, and, as my wife here knows him, we’ve said we’ll try to find him. His people are very well off and he really isn’t trained to earn his own living, so they’re rather worried about him.’

‘Oh, he may not be trained, but he knows about cars all right. He’ll come to no harm without some woman gets her hooks on him. He looks too good tor this world. Just like an angel, he is. What a film star he’d make! It isn’t right he should dirty they beautiful hands in a garage.’

Laura thought of the effeminate and beautiful hand she had seen in the picture at Hoorn, and shuddered.

‘I don’t suppose he’ll stay there long,’ she said. ‘Actually, he’s writing a book about caves. We were rather afraid that he might have attempted to climb down Eldon Hole.’

‘Ah. that’s a dangerous place. Mind you, it has been done, but the last lot as tried nearly had a serious accident with their ropes and pulleys and things, so I was told. Ah, it’s a nasty place, that is. I wouldn’t wonder but what it might be haunted. They say there’s a dreadful great cave down there at the bottom. Fair gives me the shivers to think about it, that it do.’

‘When he comes here, does he come alone?’ Gavin enquired.

Sometimes, and sometimes not. Sometimes he had brought Gertie Summers, but he hadn’t treated her. That was to say, she did the first round and he did the second, and never anything but beer, and two half-pints each was all they had.’

There seemed to Laura no point in seeking out Gertie. It was going to prove a very simple matter to find Florian, after all. They obtained directions from the barmaid and set out for the garage.

Florian was servicing a car. Laura recognised the back of his blond head and spoke to him. He turned round, his beauty not in the least marred by a smear of black grease across one temple. Not unnaturally, he was greatly surprised to see Laura.

‘Oh, hullo, Mrs Gavin,’ he said, with the wolfish smile which distorted and marred his countenance. ‘What brings you to these parts?’

‘Curiosity, your aunt Opal and your uncle Sweyn,’ Laura replied. ‘Gavin, this is Mr Florian Colwyn-Welch.’

‘Granted your curiosity, what has my aunt to do with it?’ asked Florian, acknowledging the introduction with a mere nod of the head.

‘She told us you had gone to the Dolomites,’ replied Laura.

‘So I would have done if I could have afforded it. I couldn’t, although I tried to touch her for a loan, so here I am. I didn’t let her know, of course. I don’t want her following me. Uncle Sweyn told you about the postmark on my letter to him, I presume? — so, if he told you, he’s probably told her, and that’s a beastly bind.’

‘He did not say anything about a postmark, so far as I am aware, but he seemed to have a pretty good idea of where you were,’ said Laura.

‘Yes, I asked him for a small loan, too, and he was obliging enough to cough up. Anyway, I’ve got a job now, so I’m all right for the time being, although how long I’ll stick it I don’t know. This is a dead and alive hole, but no worse than Leyden Hall, I suppose. Give me Amsterdam every time, unless I could live in London. How are they all at home?’

‘Naturally, rather worried about you.’

‘Granduncle?’

‘Rather grieved, but I think he’d get over it if you went back and made your peace with him. He’s very fond of you, you know.’

‘Not since he caught me trying to pick his pocket. Not a hope, though, the wily old fox! You’d have thought he’d guessed what I was up to, and was ready to pounce!’

‘We had an idea that it wasn’t just the sculpture and the painting.’