McInnes for a long time. I’m very familiar with his work. There’s probably nobody else who’s as familiar with it.”
“Knew him,” said Walter Buie. “Knew him, Mother.”
This intervention was ignored. “And I assure you that the painting that Walter bought is absolutely genuine. It is the work of Andrew McInnes. There’s just no question about it.” She paused. “And there’s another thing. That particular painting of Walter’s is really very good. It’s far better than anything that he painted ten years ago. Far better.”
“It’s unsigned,” said Isabel. “And it’s unvarnished.”
“That’s because he didn’t have the time,” said Mrs. Buie.
“There’s nothing more to it than that.”
There was a silence. Isabel frowned. She was intrigued by something that Mrs. Buie had said. What did she mean when she expressed the view that the painting was better than anything painted ten years previously? She decided to press the point. “So you know when it was painted?” she asked.
The question took Mrs. Buie by surprise, and for a moment she seemed flustered. “I’m not sure . . .”
“But you said that he didn’t have time to varnish it,” pressed Isabel. “Forgive my asking, but how do you know?”
Then it dawned on her. It was so obvious. Andrew McInnes was not dead.
“He’s alive, isn’t he?” Isabel spoke so softly that she barely heard her own voice, but Mrs. Buie heard it, as did Walter; he gave a start and spun round to stare at his mother.
“No,” said Mrs. Buie. “Andrew died. He was drowned off Jura.”
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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Isabel watched her as she spoke, and saw the lie. It was evident, exposed; a person of Mrs. Buie’s nature, she thought, finds it hard to lie, impossible even.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Buie,” she said quietly. “I know that it’s rude of me, but you did seem to imply that you knew when the picture was painted. And then you said that you
Mrs. Buie looked away. When she spoke, her voice was distant. “Yes. You’re right.”
Walter glanced at Isabel. “Mother is perhaps not well,” he muttered.
Mrs. Buie turned to look first at Walter and then at Isabel.
There was irritation in her voice. “I’m perfectly well,” she said.
“And yes, Andrew is alive. You believe that you know a great deal, Miss Dalhousie, but I’m sorry to say that from my perspective you don’t really know very much at all. If you had bothered to go to the library and read the papers, you would have seen the reports. And you would have read that the body of Andrew McInnes was never recovered. It was assumed that he had been devoured by that whirlpool, but he was not. He made it to the shore after his boat capsized and it was then that it occurred to him that he had the ideal opportunity to make a fresh start—as somebody else. And who can blame him?”
There was silence. “Well?” prompted Mrs. Buie. “Can you blame him?”
“No,” said Isabel. “I can understand.”
Mrs. Buie appeared pleased. “Well, that’s something,” she said. She turned back to face her son. “That painting, Walter, which you so foolishly bought, was sent down to Lyon & Turnbull by me. Yes, by me.”
T H E C A R E F U L U S E O F C O M P L I M E N T S
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“You should have told me. You should have told me about that . . . and about Andrew.”
Her answer was snappy. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell you something that I had given my word not to reveal. Nobody was to know that Andrew survived.”
Walter was shaking his head in disbelief. “And you let me offer the painting to somebody else—to Miss Dalhousie here—
although you knew full well that it was not what I thought it was. You let me carry on.”
“It is exactly what you said it was,” said Mrs. Buie. “You were deceiving nobody. And if you had told me that you were going to buy it, instead of going off by yourself, then you wouldn’t have found yourself in this mess in the first place. Why did you suddenly get it into your head to buy a McInnes? Why didn’t you discuss it with me? I would have told you then. I would have put you off.”
Isabel thought she knew the answer to this. Walter Buie was trying to lead his own life, which was difficult, she imagined, with Mrs. Buie still being in the house. She felt a momentary surge of sympathy for him; he did not seem a weak man, but he was still a boy as far as his mother was concerned. The pictures on the wall were his mother’s, bought by her; perhaps he wanted something of his own.
That was Walter; his mother, though, was a different matter.
Mrs. Buie was such an unlikely conspirator, and Isabel wondered how she had been drawn into this elaborate deception.
“Why did Andrew McInnes get in touch with you?” she asked.
“If he wanted to disappear totally—which he must have—then why . . .”
Mrs. Buie cut her short. “As you know, I was his . . . well, I suppose you might call me his patron. I bought his paintings before he disappeared, and I have been supporting Andrew for 2 2 8
