nothing at all to do with the fact that the artist was a rather attractive young lady. So I think it would be sensible if you had a little chat to him, Penelope dear.”
“Oh,” said the girl, her rapture growing dim. It was at this stage, I suppose, that I actually observed those possible defects of the face and figure which I have previously mentioned. I began to think Cellini had underestimated the enemies of art; and to wonder whether Eleanor might not, perhaps, have murdered Ned in a spirit of mere vandalism.
“Surely, my dear Mrs. Frostfield,” said Benjamin, “you speak in jest. From what one knows of that particular purchaser, it would only be if the artist were a charming young
“What a delightful picture that is,” he went on, “of the Doges’ Palace. Always a popular subject, of course, but that one is charmingly done. By the way,” he continued, looking at Eleanor with an expression of rustic innocence, “I gather, dear Mrs. Frostfield, that you’ve been in Venice quite recently?”
I felt a little relief from my anxieties: Benjamin had spoken his first line with admirable smoothness.
“Venice?” said Eleanor, waving her jewelled knuckles in a gesture of repugnance, “Venice? Oh, my dear Benjamin, please don’t ask me to talk about Venice.”
Upon being invited, however, to explain her distaste for the subject, she appeared willing to tell us at some length of the appalling experience which she had lately endured in that city. I do not set out verbatim her account of the murder, for it differed in no material respect from what we had heard already from Marylou. The emphasis, certainly, was a little different: Eleanor seemed to regard the matter principally as demonstrating a gross neglect on the part of the management of the Cytherea of their duty to ensure her own comfort and well-being. She concluded by saying dramatically that she would never stay there again.
Though her news was not in truth new to him, Benjamin managed to show on hearing it all proper signs of amazement and distress. For myself, as one not acquainted with either Ned or Kenneth, more general expressions of outrage seemed appropriate, mingled with a natural curiosity.
“Have they any idea who did it?” I asked.
“Oh yes. A girl travelling in the same group as ourselves. They arrested her almost at once. She’d been having some sort of affair with poor Ned apparently, and I suppose they must have quarrelled. I must say, I wasn’t at all surprised about that — I always thought her a rather unstable type: always drinking too much and falling over things. I never cared for her.” Poor Julia — so much for Ruth and Naomi.
Ragwort did splendidly. He lavished on Eleanor a generous mixture of sympathy (for her appalling experience), admiration (for her fortitude in surviving it) and indignant outrage (at the failure of the hotel to protect her from it). There were moments when I felt that he might be overdoing it;
but he assures me that with women such as Eleanor this is not possible.
“And you were actually interrogated by the police? Oh, Mrs. Frostfield, how perfectly disgraceful. Surely someone could have done something?”
“My dear boy, the Manager was simply hopeless. And the Graziella woman, who was supposed to be our courier, wasn’t even there. One was obliged to submit.”
“Dreadful,” said Ragwort, “quite dreadful. And refusing to find you a room in some other part of the hotel — I find that completely unforgivable. To expect you to spend the night in the same room, almost next to the one where you’d found this unfortunate young man lying murdered—”
“It wasn’t I who actually found him, of course,” said Eleanor. If, as Ragwort afterwards maintained, her disclaimer came more promptly than was natural, it was by a fraction of time too minute for my own perception. “But I had seen him carried out on a stretcher, only a few feet away from me. With a sheet over him, thank God. But that was quite dreadful enough, I do assure you.”
“Appalling,” said Ragwort. “I do think it’s wonderful of you to be here, Mrs. Frostfield, so soon after such a frightful experience.”
“One has one’s responsibilities,” said Eleanor heroically. “I couldn’t let down my young artists, you know — it means so much to them to have me here in person. By the way, Benjamin, you naughty man, how did you know I’d been in Venice? I thought it was quite my own little secret.”
I almost began to feel a measure of good will towards her: she could not have offered Benjamin a better cue if she had read my script herself.
“That’s the extraordinary thing,” said Benjamin, now looking so innocent as to be practically half-witted. “I had a postcard from Venice, you see, from someone who said they’d seen you there. And they simply signed themselves Bruce and said they were looking forward to seeing me. Which is really rather embarrassing, because I can’t think who they are. I’ve been racking my brains to think who it could be. So I’d rather been hoping, Mrs. Frostfield — this frightful news about Ned made me forget all about it — I’d rather been hoping, as it’s obviously someone who knows you, that you might be able to work out who it is and save me from some unspeakable
I was filled with relief. Benjamin is a dear, good, intelligent young man: I do not doubt that the rumours about his First are inspired entirely by malice. “Bruce?” said Eleanor. “Bruce? How very mysterious, Benjamin. I certainly didn’t meet anyone called Bruce in Venice. In fact, I don’t think I know anyone at all of that name. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
There was nothing in her gunmetal-blue eyes to suggest that she was lying; though, if Julia’s account of her conversation with Kenneth was to be relied on, it seemed certain that she must be.
“Benjamin,” I said, “about this painting that was stolen in Verona.” After leaving Frostfield’s, he had hospitably invited us back to his flat for another glass of wine. “Have you been able to give any further thought to the matter?”
“Yes,” said Benjamin, looking rather pleased with himself, like a man about to put on an amateur conjuring performance at a village fair. “Yes, I have. You believe, Hilary, as I understand it, that Bob Linnaker has the picture but doesn’t believe it has any particular value. Which, indeed, so far as one knows, it hasn’t. In order, however, to persuade him to admit he has it, you wish to pose as a customer anxious to acquire it.”
“That,” I said, “is an admirable summary of the position.”
“Well, the obvious thing, of course, would be to say that there’s a Tiepolo or something painted underneath it. But it’s difficult to see how you’d know about something like that — and anyway, that would just make Bob start scraping away at the thing himself. So I thought of something else, which I hope may quite appeal to you. May I invite you to entertain an hypothesis?”
“Certainly,” said Ragwort, “we shall be delighted to.”
“Well,” said Benjamin, “I should like you to suppose that at some time round the turn of the century the Committee, or whatever it is, in charge of the Church of Saint Nicholas in Verona had a meeting. And that one of the members pointed out that on one of the walls they had a rather boring blank space, which would look much better with a picture over it. And that another, while agreeing that this was the case, said it wasn’t on, because all round the space were a lot of nice pictures by Bassetti and other great Masters of the seventeenth century and it’d have to be something that fitted in with them, and they didn’t paint pictures the way Bassetti did any more. To which the first speaker replied that in the next village but one there was a young man, called, let’s say, John Smith — or, since my hypothesis is set in Italy, Giovanni Fabbro — who could paint, if called on to do so, just like Bassetti, or indeed like any of the other great Italian Masters. Who could produce, in short, the sort of thing that the speaker, while not professing to be an expert in such matters, would personally be prepared to call Art, which was more than could be said for any of this Impressionist and Cubist rubbish. Will you accompany me so far in my hypothesis?”
“Certainly, Benjamin,” I said. “Do proceed.”
“Good. So Giovanni is instructed to do a nice Madonna in the style of Bassetti, being reminded no doubt, when it comes to agreeing the price, that the work is for the greater glory of God and that only limited funds are available. His reputation spreading, he is commissioned to do similar work by other churches and by private patrons with the occasional gap between Old Masters on the walls of their villas and palazzos. I should like you now to assume the First World War.”
“By all means,” said Ragwort. “We shall be happy to oblige you.”
“Desmond, how kind. Well then, the First World War. And as a result of it, many strange vicissitudes and reversals of fortune, leading to the disposal of a number of valuable collections. And when the collection of the Barone di Cuesto or the Conte di Cuello comes up for auction, and it is well established, on the best possible
