necessary. I’m afraid I am here over something quite different. You were acquainted with the artist, Mr. Godolphin Jones, I believe?”
Did he imagine it, or was there a tightening of her fingers in her lap, a faint flush across her cheeks?
“He painted my picture,” she agreed, watching him. “He has painted many pictures and came highly recommended to me. He is a well-known artist, you know, and very much praised.”
“You think highly of him, ma’am?”
“I-” she drew in her breath-“I don’t really know sufficient to say. I am obliged to rest upon other people’s opinions.” She looked at him with a touch of defiance. Again her hands were tight in her lap, crunching the fabric of her dress. “Why do you ask?”
At last she had come to it. He had a sudden sense of anxiety, as if the knowledge might affect her more than he was prepared for.
“I’m very sorry to have to tell you, ma’am,” he began, unusually awkwardly for him. He had done this often before, and the words were practiced. “But Mr. Jones is dead. He had been murdered.”
She sat perfectly still, as if she did not understand. “He is in France!”
“No, ma’am, I’m sorry, but he is here in London. His body has been identified by his butler. There is no mistake.” He looked at her, then round the room to see where the bell was to call a maid, in case she should require assistance.
“Did you say murdered?” she asked slowly.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry.”
“Why? Who would murder him? Do you know? Are there any clues?” She was agitated now. He would have sworn it came to her as a complete shock, but she had changed. She was frightened, and it was not hysterical or nameless; she knew what she was frightened of. Pitt would have given quite a lot if he could have known also.
“Yes, there are several clues,” he said, watching her, her face, her neck, her hands grasping the arms of the chair.
Her eyes widened. “May I ask what they are? Perhaps if I knew, I could help. I knew Mr. Jones a little, naturally, having sat for the portrait.”
“Of course,” he agreed. “There are unfinished canvases that the butler does not recognize as ladies who ever called at the house for sittings, or any other purpose. And there is a camera-”
He was quite sure her surprise was genuine. “A camera! But he was an artist, not a photographer!”
“Exactly. And yet one presumes it was his. It is very improbable someone else’s camera would be there in his studio. The butler is quite positive he has not permitted anyone else to use it.”
“I don’t understand,” she said simply.
“No, ma’am, neither do we, as yet. I take it Mr. Jones never took photographs of you, say to work from when you were not available?”
“No, never.”
“Perhaps I could see the portrait, if you still have it?”
“Of course, if you wish.” She stood up and led him to the withdrawing room where a large portrait of her sat over the mantelpiece.
“Excuse me.” He went forward and began to study it carefully. He did not like it much. The pose was quite good, if rather stylized. He recognized several of the props from the studio, especially a piece of pillar and a small table. The proportions were correct, but the colors lacked something, a certain clarity. They seemed to have been mixed with a permanent undertone of ocher or sepia, giving even the sky a heavy look. The face was definitely Gwendoline’s; the expression was pleasant enough, and yet there was no charm in it.
He began to study the background and was just about to leave it when he noticed in the bottom left-hand corner a small clump of leaves quite clearly drawn with a beetle on one of them, distinct and stylized, precisely like one of those he had seen in the notebook at least four or five times.
“May I ask you what it cost, ma’am?” he said quickly.
“I cannot see what that has to do with Mr. Jones’s murder,” she said with marked coolness. “And I have already said he is an artist of excellent repute.”
Pitt was aware he had mentioned a subject socially crass. “Yes, ma’am,” he acknowledged. “You did say so, and I have already heard that from others. Nevertheless, I have good reason for asking, even if only for comparison’s sake.”
“I do not wish half London to be familiar with my financial arrangements!”
“I shall not discuss it, ma’am; it is purely for police use, and then only should it be relevant. I would prefer to find it out from you rather than press your husband, or-”
Her face hardened. “You are overstepping your office, Inspector. But I do not wish you to disturb my husband with the affair. I paid three hundred and fifty pounds for the picture, but I don’t see what possible use that can be to you. It is quite a usual price for an artist of his quality. I believe Major Rodney paid something the same for his portrait, and that of his sisters.”
“Major Rodney has two pictures?” Pitt was surprised. He would not have imagined Major Rodney as a man who cared for, or could afford, such an indulgence in art.
“Why not?” she asked, eyebrows raised. “One of himself, and one of Miss Priscilla and Miss Mary Ann together.”
“I see. Thank you, ma’am. You have been very helpful.”
“I don’t see how!”
He was not quite sure of himself, but at least there were other places to search, and in the morning he would call on Major and the Misses Rodney. He excused himself and set out in the returning fog to go back to the police station, and then home.
If Lady Cantlay had been startled to hear of Godolphin Jones’s murder, Major Rodney was shattered. He sat in the chair like a man who has nearly been drowned. He gasped for breath, and his face was mottled with red.
“Oh, my God! How absolute appalling! Strangled, you say? Where did they find him?”
“In another man’s grave,” Pitt replied, unsure again whether to reach for the bell and call a servant. It was a reaction he had been totally unprepared for. The man was a soldier; he must have seen death, violent and bloody death, a thousand times. He had fought in the Crimea, and from what Pitt had heard of the tragic and desperate war, a man who had survived that ought to be able to look on hell itself and keep his stomach.
Rodney was beginning to compose himself. “How dreadful. How on earth did you know to look?”
“We didn’t,” Pitt said honestly. “We found him quite by chance.”
“That’s preposterous! You can’t go around digging up graves to see what you will find in them-by chance!”
“No, of course not, sir.” Pitt was awkward again. He had never known himself so clumsy. “We expected the grave to have been robbed, to be empty.”
Major Rodney stared at him.
“We had the corpse whose grave it was!” Pitt tried to make him understand. “He was the man we first took to be Lord Augustus-on the cab near the theatre-”
“Oh.” Major Rodney sat upright as though he were on horseback in a parade. “I see. Why didn’t you say so to begin with? Well, I’m afraid there is nothing I can tell you. Thank you for informing me.”
Pitt remained seated. “You knew Mr. Jones.”
“Not socially, no. Not our sort of person. Artist, you know.”
“He painted your picture, did he not?”
“Oh, yes-knew him professionally. Can’t tell you anything about him. That’s all there is to it. And I won’t have you distressing my sisters with talk about murders and death. I’ll tell them myself, as I see fit.”
“Did you have a picture painted of them, also?”
“I did. What of it? Quite an ordinary thing to do. Lots of people have portraits.”
“May I see them, please?”
“Whatever for? Ordinary enough. But I suppose so, if it’ll make you go away and leave us alone. Poor man.” He shook his head. “Pity. Dreadful way to die.” And he stood up, small, slight, and ramrod stiff, and led Pitt into the withdrawing room.
Pitt stared at the very formal portrait on the far wall above the sideboard. Instantly he disliked it. It was
