‘Where are they?’
She licked her thin, dark lips. ‘Brown — Mr Himple’s regular valet — is in touch with him. If I have anything to report about the house, I do it through Brown.’ She smoothed her dress; her fingers plucked at a square inch of fabric as if she saw something on it. ‘I had an address for him at the beginning, but it was only a poste restante. They’re long gone from there, so Brown says.’ Through tone alone, she made it clear that a housekeeper should not have to communicate with her employer through a valet.
‘Where?’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t know!’ As if she regretted her sharpness, she said, ‘They spent the first month painting in France, a village, Hinon. In Normandy. They were supposed to spend the summer there, but he changed his mind. Quite an unspoiled spot, Mr Himple said. That’s why he wanted a French speaker. But he moved on.’ Her expression changed, suggested malicious pleasure. ‘Perhaps it was too unspoiled.’
‘The “new man”, too?’
‘I assume so. Although-’ The expression, malicious, almost a smile, touched her mouth. ‘Brown said Mr Himple has discharged him.’
‘Why?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘When?’
‘I don’t remember. The end of summer, perhaps.’
‘Then writing to him care of Mr Himple wouldn’t reach him.’
‘No, I suppose it wouldn’t.’
Denton was angry with her, made himself see her side of it. She had tried to fob him off at first with the idea of writing to the ‘new man’. She had wanted to get rid of him — Mary Thomason was nothing to her; why should she bother helping him? She wanted him to go, to leave her to her isolation and her loneliness. ‘But you’re sure you haven’t seen the young woman in the drawing.’
‘Quite sure, of course.’
‘But Mr Himple drew her.’
‘I don’t know that he did. Perhaps he did.’ She was looking towards the door, towards a black stone clock on the mantel.
‘Was the “new man” English?’
‘Certainly he was.’
‘You heard him talk, then.’
She compressed her lips. ‘Once or twice.’
‘What did he sound like — educated? Rough?’
‘He sounded like his class.’
‘But he spoke French.’
‘So Mr Himple said. I wouldn’t have known if he had. I don’t bother myself with foreign things.’
She didn’t know the new man’s name — he’d have to ask Brown. He asked if he could see the studio and was told he’d have to apply to Brown. She was eager for him to go now; she had said too much, he thought, not because she had anything to hide but because information was all she did have. Perhaps she got pleasure from treating as secrets things that were merely ordinary. He got Brown’s address from her and went away, glad to get into the gathering dusk and the cold.
The ducks were gone. The sun was gone, too, the dwindling light throwing everything into shades of lavender and dark grey-blue, the last light on the water like much-rubbed metal. On the Albert Bridge, the traffic rumbled and growled. A steam launch came down the river, its lights like tantalizing hints of certainty in the gloom.
Next day, he visited Brown in a tidy little house on the river almost as far as Kew. The valet was not yet forty, heavy-set, unintelligent. Yes, Mr Himple sent him regular letters. Yes, Himple and the ‘new man’ had stayed at Hinon for a month; yes, they had left there early and gone on to Paris and then ‘the South’; yes, Mr Himple had written that he had discharged the new man and was taking a villa with its own staff. No, he wasn’t sure of the villa’s location; he had been told only a poste restante address. But Mr Himple had moved again, heading for Italy incognito because of the crowds of English tourists, he said. He planned to winter in Florence, where he had a large acquaintance. He had sent back four paintings — ‘What artists call sketches in oil, sir.’ Mr Himple was ‘renewing his style’. It sounded like something Brown was quoting from one of Himple’s letters.
When would Himple be back? Brown didn’t know, didn’t know, sir, it was all a little puzzling — but Mr Himple was an artist, after all.
And the new man?
Gone. (Brown seemed relieved.) Never meant to be a permanent addition to the household, after all. (Brown hid his satisfaction at this pretty well.) His name was Arthur Crum. Yes, he was young. Thin, sir. Yes, the face in the drawing without a beard could be his. Yes, he believed the man Crum had modelled Lazarus. Brown knew nothing of a sister, however, either of the new man or of Lazarus. He was seldom at the studio when Mr Himple was painting, seldom saw the models. No, he was deeply sorry, but it wasn’t possible to see the studio in Mr Himple’s absence. Art was sacrosanct.
‘What did you think of the new man — Crum?’
‘It isn’t my place to think anything of him.’ Brown’s stolid, fleshy face closed up. ‘I have a very good position with Mr Himple, sir. My wages continue while he’s away. I don’t want to give any cause for Mr Himple to — think less of me.’
‘But this Crum, you said, has been discharged. Your opinion of him won’t matter now. You do have an opinion of him, I think.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Brown shifted uneasily. He cleared his throat, then burst out: ‘An upstart. He was an upstart, sir. He didn’t know his craft, between you and me, sir.’ Brown became almost animated. ‘I was a footman for nine years before I was allowed to even lay out my employer’s clothes. This Crum hadn’t done any of that.’ Brown was sitting in a small armchair. He stared at his large hands, then abruptly broke out again: ‘He couldn’t even speak good English, sir! He was a — a-He was of a very low sort, sir. Mr Nobody from Nowhere.’
‘Why did Mr Himple hire him, then?’
‘I’m sure I couldn’t say, sir.’
‘Was there something personal between them?’
Brown simply looked at him. His worry seemed to increase: to say anything on this score was to endanger his place, he meant.
Denton said, ‘Do you know how Crum and Mr Himple got acquainted?’
‘Crum was a model, sir. As I say, he modelled Lazarus. I believe that’s how he came to Mr Himple’s attention.’
‘Did he know anything about painting? Was he an artist himself?’
‘I think he knew the studio, sir — by that I mean, he could care for the brushes, and he knew how to make the varnishes and grind the colours. The rude work of the studio.’ Brown sniffed. ‘Hardly an artist. No idea of art, I suspect, although I’d never have engaged him in conversation about such a subject.’ Again, he seemed to have done talking and then abruptly realized he had more to say. ‘He was beneath me, sir! I wanted nothing to do with him. Mr Himple realized that, I think. If it hadn’t been for speaking French, there’d have been no thought of employing him, I’m sure. Mr Himple made that very clear to me when he continued my wages in his absence and put me in charge of the studio. Crum was merely temporary.’
‘Did Crum have some sort of hold over Mr Himple?’
Brown’s eyebrows drew together; a look of pain, almost of illness, took over his face. ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t know about that, sir.’
‘It has a stink to it, Munro.’
‘Not my manor. It’s Guillam’s business, missing persons.’
‘Guillam won’t give me the time of day, and you know it. Don’t you think it’s peculiar?’
‘Peculiarity isn’t a crime.’
‘An artist just happens to draw a picture of a girl who’s missing. A man who looks like her, probably her brother, models for the same artist, then goes off to the Continent as his valet right after she writes me a letter and disappears. The artist and the man travel together, then the artist reports he’s fired the man. So the girl’s missing and now the brother’s missing.’
