sorting the photographs to identify the girls. It was for Pitt to consider the other half of the trade-the clients. Naturally, Jones was more discreet than to write down names of those who might be sensitive, even violent, about their association, but Pitt thought he knew at least where he might begin: with the book of numbers and insects from Jones’s desk in his house. He had seen four of those elegant little hieroglyphics on pictures in Gadstone Park. Now he would go and question their owners, Perhaps they held an explanation to at least one mystery: why anyone should pay so highly for the work of an artist that was at best of very moderate talent.
He began with Gwendoline Cantlay, and this time he came to the point after only the briefest of preliminaries.
“You paid a great deal of money for your portrait by Mr. Jones, Lady Cantlay.”
She was cautious, already sensing something beyond trivial enquiry. “I paid the usual price, Mr. Pitt, as I think you will discover if you look a little further.”
“The usual price for Mr. Jones, ma’am,” he agreed. “But not usual for an artist of his rather indifferent quality.”
Her eyebrows rose in disbelief. “Are you an art expert, Inspector?” she said heavily.
“No, but I have opportunity to counsel with experts, ma’am, and they seem to be agreed that Godolphin Jones was not worth anything like the prices he received here in the Park.”
She opened her mouth and began a question, then stopped. “Indeed. Perhaps art is only a matter of taste, after all.”
This was a scene he had played put so many times and always disliked. Secrets were almost always a matter of vulnerability, an attempt to hide or reject a hurt of some sort.
But he had no alternative. Plastering over truth was not his job, even though he would like it to have been.
“Are you sure, ma’am, that he was not selling something else with his painting-perhaps discretion?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” It was the standard response, and he could almost have said it for her. She was going to resist as long as possible, make him spell out his knowledge.
“Were you not at one time fonder of Mr. Jones than you would wish known, Lady Cantlay-especially, say, by your husband?”
Her face flushed scarlet, and it was several painful seconds before she could decide what to say to him, whether to continue to deny it, or if anger would help. In the end she recognized the certainty in his face and gave in.
“I was extremely foolish, carried away by the glamour of an artist, I suppose-and flattered-but it is all past, Inspector, some time ago. And yes, you are correct. I did commission the picture before my-relationship-and then paid rather more for it when it was completed, to insure his silence. I would not have accepted it for such an amount, otherwise.” She hesitated, and he waited for her. “I–I would be obliged if you would not discuss it with my husband. He does not know of it.”
“Are you quite sure?”
“Oh, yes, of course I am! He would be-” All the color drained from her skin. “Oh! Godolphin was murdered! You cannot think Desmond-I assure you, I give you my most absolute word-that he did not know! He could not have. It was all most discreet-only when I went to sit for my portrait-” She did not know what else to say to convince him, and she cast around for some form of proof.
It was against all his convictions to feel sorry for her, and yet he did. They had nothing in common, and her behavior had been self-indulgent and thoughtless, but he found that he did believe her and had no wish to prolong her fear.
“Thank you, Lady Cantlay. If he did not know of the matter, he would have had no cause to wish Mr. Jones any harm, so far as we know. I appreciate your candor. The subject need not be raised again.” He stood up. “Good day.”
She was too relieved to say anything but a faint, automatic “good day” in return.
Pitt called next on Major Rodney, and here his reception was totally different, wiping away every trace of the rather ebullient feeling with which he had left the Cantlays’. Self-satisfaction disappeared like water down a large sink.
“You are extremely insolent, sir!” the major said furiously. “And I have not the least notion of what you are imagining! This is Gadstone Park, not one of your back streets. I don’t know what kind of behavior you are accustomed to, but we know how to conduct ourselves here! And if you persist in suggesting that my sisters have had some sort of liaison with this wretched artist, I shall sue you for slander, do you understand me, sir?”
Pitt tried with difficulty to keep his patience. The idea of Godolphin Jones in a romantic involvement with either of the two elderly jam-making ladies was ridiculous, and in taking refuge behind it, Major Rodney was obscuring the issue very effectively, whether on purpose or not. Pitt doubted him capable of the strategy, but the result was the same.
“I have not suggested anything of the kind, sir,” he said as calmly as he was able, but the hard, frayed edges of his temper showed. “Indeed, the possibility had not occurred to me. Both because I would not have considered your sisters to be ladies of a temperament or an age to indulge in such things, nor did I know they had purchased the pictures themselves. I had believed it to be you who had commissioned Mr. Jones?”
The major was temporarily thrown off balance. His cause for outrage had vanished just as he was getting into his stride and all ready to demand that Pitt leave the house.
Pitt pressed home his advantage. “Are the ladies of private property?” he asked. They were both unmarried and could not be heiresses since they had a brother, so it was almost impossible, and he knew it.
The major was growing increasingly redder in the face. “Our financial affairs are not your concern, sir!” he snapped. “I dare say it would seem like wealth to you, but it is merely adequate for us. We do not care to be ostentatious, but we have means, certainly. And that is all I am prepared to say.”
“But you did commission two large and expensive picture from Mr. Jones, costing nine hundred seventy-five pounds in total?” Pitt had added up the columns next to the caterpillars and had the satisfaction of seeing the major’s face pale and his neck tighten with shock.
“I–I demand to know where you gained such information. Who told you?”
Pitt opened his eyes wider, as if the question were foolish.
“Mr. Jones kept records, sir, very precise records; dates and amounts of payments. I had only to add them up to find the total. It was hardly necessary to trouble anyone else.”
The major’s body went slack, and he sat like a well-trained child at table, eyes forward, hands still, but no substance inside him. For a long time he was silent, and Pitt hated the necessity for digging out of him whatever wretched secret it was that Jones had blackmailed him with. But there was no alternative. There was no time of the crime to use to eliminate people, no weapon but hands, the strength of which would almost certainly rule out a woman, certainly any society woman. Possibly a servant used to manual work, wringing heavy, wet laundry, might have had the power? At the moment he could think of no avenue except to learn all the truth he could.
The major was a small man, inarticulate, rigidly stiff within himself both bodily and emotionally, but he had been a soldier; he had seen death before and been taught how to kill, had learned to become familiar with the idea and to accept it as part of himself, to know that at times it could be his duty. Was his secret of sufficient importance to him that he would have strangled Godolphin Jones and then buried him in Albert Wilson’s grave?
“Why did you pay so much for those two pictures, Major Rodney?” Pitt pressed again.
The major focused his eyes and looked at him with dislike.
“Because that was the man’s price,” he said coldly. “I am no expert in art. That was what everyone else paid him. If it was excessive, then I was misled. So were we all! The man was a charlatan, if what you say is true. But you will forgive me if I do not accept your opinion as final?” His voice was heavy with sarcasm, and from the weight of his tone, Pitt guessed it an unfamiliar sentiment.
Major Rodney stood up. “And now, sir, I have said all I have to say to you. I wish you good day.”
There was no point in struggling, and Pitt knew it. He would have to find out the secret some other way and return when he had more ammunition. Perhaps it was only some foolishness, something Jones had discovered from another patron, possibly an indiscretion with a woman, and Rodney’s sense of honor forbade him from saying so. Or maybe it was a genuine matter of shame to him, an incident of cowardice in the Crimea, or some other barrack- room weakness, a gambling debt welched on, or a drunken escapade.
For now he would have to leave it.
