It seemed that we were not talking so much about the music in its own right, as in its application to the ballet. I may not know a whole lot about classical music but when it comes to ballet I am the original man from Arkansas.
“Look, I know nothing about ballet——” I began.
But again he wasn’t to be put off his stride.
“You know nothing about ballet,” he sneered. “Of course you don’t. Who do you think you are? There are people all over the world have spent their whole lives at it, and when Tchaikovsky’s original score became available ten years back they mostly found they knew nothing about it either. I tell you there were some red faces around.”
He wasn’t trying to be offensive, I decided. It was just an effect he had on people.
“Could we talk about something else?” I suggested. “Like for instance what am I doing here?”
A great grin spread across his face, and now I realized what my memory had been searching for when I first saw him. He was the personification of those guys the old painters used to be so fond of. You know the ones, always sitting or lying around with an enormous goblet of the good juice in one hand, and a not over-modest lady in the other.
“Why, of course,” he boomed. “What are you doing here?”
“Fm looking for a man named Hugo Somerset.”
He sat up, scratching at the great pink belly.
“Your search is ended, my friend. Behold the man.”
“The name is Preston. I’m a private investigator. Like to ask you a few questions about the man who died last night, Brookman.”
“In that case we shall all need a drink,” he decided. “Would you mind?”
He indicated the piano-shaped liquor cabinet. I went over there and opened it up. There were drinks in there even I had never heard of, and I’ve been around bars a long time.
“Make it something I can pronounce,” I said.
He chuckled again.
“How about beer? You ought to be able to say that with a little practise.”
I dug out a couple of frosted cans and tipped them carefully into tall tumblers which had not come free at the supermarket. I passed one to Somerset, and it disappeared inside the huge soft fist. The beer was very refreshing.
“You want to ask about Brookman? Well why not. Everybody else in town has been treading all over the house all day. I like to think of myself as a democratic man. If somebody named Preston is of the opinion I should go through the whole circus again, why then you go right ahead.”
I knew how he felt. Too often I get there after the police and the reporters.
“How well did you know him?”
“Not well at all. He’s been around now for some months. Been to the house quite a bit.”
“Do you always let people you don’t know walk in and out of the house?”
“All the time,” he returned equably. “Before we talk about Brookman it might be of help to you if we talk a little about me. Do you know anything about me?”
“Only what I read in the papers. They said you were an entrepreneur.”
“That is so. Do you know what it means?”
“It’s a Beach End word for promoter.”
Again the booming laugh filled the room, and I watched with fascination the jiggling movements of various parts of the fat frame.
“That’s neat. Maybe a little unkind, but not inaccurate. Yes, I think we could accept that. Somebody once said, those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. I’m one of those who can’t, but I don’t teach. As you quaintly put it, I promote.”
“Promote what?”
“Anything artistic. Painters, poets, writers, musicians. If I find somebody who seems to have genuine talent, I sort of encourage them, foster them along. I am you see, tremendously artistic myself. Unfortunately, I haven’t any talent, except for appreciation of what others do.”
“That’s a talent of its own,” I offered. “And it must be a good feeling when you find someone.”
His eyes lit up.
“Ah, there have been a few. Very few I’m afraid, but I have been right each time, and those people have gone on to do things.”
“Could Brookman have been one of those?”
He shook his head emphatically.
“Not in a hundred years. He really did write poetry you know, and he assured me once that Poetry was his correct name. He did not manage to live up to that name. The kind of doggeral he churned out was no more than filth. Not suggestion executed with flair, there’s sometimes room for that. Plain sewer muck.”
Mr. Somerset evidently had not been impressed by Mr. Brookman’s work.
“Then why have him around?”
“There you touch the sadness of my existence, Mr. Preston. My life is filled with Brookmans. Composers with no ear for music, writers who rehash an old Hemingway, singers who are tone deaf. If I’m lucky one of them may bring along a friend who really has something. Perhaps today, perhaps next year. It has happened before, it will happen again. But there are vast deserts in between.”
“Is that damn music finished yet?”
I turned towards the new voice. A tall skinny brunette had come into the room. Her hair was drawn flat against her head and tied with a ribbon at the back. She had a thin, intense face, with large olive eyes which flashed with surprise as she saw me. She wasn’t any more surprised than I was, because except for the ribbon she was completely naked. She showed no intention of leaving.
“Ah Flower, there you are.”
“Who’s the new chum?” she queried.
“This is a Mr. Preston,” explained Somerset. “Mr. Preston is a detective.”
“Not another one?” she sighed. “I thought you told me all those ghastly people had finished here.”
She was leaning against the wall, for all the world as though it were a tea party. Since I was the only one who had any clothes on, I began to wonder whether it
