'ninety-nine. Viscount Sidmouth sent you?'
'He doesn't wish to be painted, Sir George.'
'Then you can bugger off!' the painter said. Sandman ignored the suggestion, instead looking about the studio which was a riot of plaster statues, curtains, discarded rags and half-finished canvasses. 'Oh, make yourself a home here, do,' Sir George snarled, then shouted down the stairs. 'Sammy, you black bastard, where's the tea?'
'Brewing!' Sammy called back.
'Hurry it!' Sir George threw down his palette and brush. Two youths were flanking him, both painting waves on the canvas and Sandman guessed they were his apprentices. The canvas itself was vast, at least ten feet wide, and it showed a solitary rock in a sunlit sea on which a half-painted fleet was afloat. An admiral was seated on the rock's summit where he was flanked by a good-looking young man dressed as a sailor and by Sally Hood undressed as Britannia. Quite why the admiral, the sailor and the goddess should have been so marooned on their isolated rock was not clear and Sandman did not like to ask, but then he noticed that the officer who was posing as the admiral could not have been a day over eighteen yet he was wearing a gold-encrusted uniform on which shone two jewelled stars. That puzzled Sandman for a heartbeat, then he saw that the boy's empty right sleeve was pinned to his coat's breast. The real Nelson is dead,' Sir George had been following Sandman's eyes and thus deducing his train of thought, 'so we make do as best we can with young Master Corbett there, and do you know what is the tragedy of young Master Corbett's life? It is that his back is turned to Britannia, thus he must sit there for hours every day in the knowledge that one of the ripest pairs of naked tits in all London are just two feet behind his left ear and he can't see them. Ha! And for God's sake, Sally, stop hiding.'
'You ain't painting,' Sally said, 'so I can cover up.' She had dropped the grey cloth that turned the tea chest into a rock and was instead wearing her street coat.
Sir George picked up his brush. 'I'm painting now,' he snarled.
'I'm cold,' Sally complained.
'Too grand suddenly to show us your bubbies, are you?' Sir George snarled, then looked at Sandman. 'Has she told you about her lord? The one who's sweet on her? We'll soon all be bowing and scraping to her, won't we? Yes, your ladyship, show us your tits, your ladyship.' He laughed, and the apprentices all grinned.
'She hasn't lied to you,' Sandman said. 'His lordship exists, I know him, he is indeed enamoured of Miss Hood, and he is very rich. More than rich enough to commission a dozen portraits from you, Sir George.'
Sally gave him a look of pure gratitude while Sir George, discomfited, dabbed the brush into the paint on his palette. 'So who the devil are you?' he demanded of Sandman. 'Besides being an envoy of Sidmouth's?'
'My name is Captain Rider Sandman.'
'Navy, army, fencibles, yeomanry or is the captaincy a fiction? Most ranks are these days.'
'I was in the army,' Sandman said.
'You can uncover,' Sir George explained to Sally, 'because the captain was a soldier which means he's seen more tits than I have.'
'He ain't seen mine,' Sally said, clutching the coat to her bosom.
'How do you know her?' Sir George asked Sandman in a suspicious tone.
'We lodge in the same tavern, Sir George.'
Sir George snorted. 'Then either she lives higher in the world than she deserves, or you live lower. Drop the coat, you stupid bitch.'
'I'm embarrassed,' Sally confessed, reddening.
'He's seen worse than you naked,' Sir George commented sourly, then stepped back to survey his painting. ''The Apotheosis of Lord Nelson', would you believe? And you are wondering, are you not, why I don't have the little bugger in an eyepatch? Are you not wondering that?'
'No,' Sandman said.
'Because he never wore an eyepatch, that's why. Never! I painted him twice from life. He sometimes wore a green eyeshade, but never a patch, so he won't have one in this masterpiece commissioned by their Lordships of the Admiralty. They couldn't stand the little bugger when he was alive, now they want him up on their wall. But what they really want to suspend on their panelling, Captain Sandman, is Sally Hood's tits. Sammy, you black bastard! What in God's name are you bloody doing down there? Growing the bloody tea leaves? Bring me some brandy!' He glared at Sandman. 'So what do you want of me, Captain?'
'To talk about Charles Corday.'
'Oh, Good Christ alive,' Sir George blasphemed, and stared belligerently at Sandman. 'Charles Corday?' He said the name very portentously. 'You mean grubby little Charlie Cruttwell?'
'Who now calls himself Corday, yes.'
'Doesn't bloody matter what he calls himself,' Sir George said, 'they're still going to stretch his skinny neck next Monday. I thought I might go and watch. It ain't every day a man sees one of his own apprentices hanged, more's the pity.' He cuffed one of the youths who was laboriously painting in the white-flecked waves, then scowled at his three models. 'Sally, for God's sake, your tits are my money. Now, pose as you're paid to!'
Sandman courteously turned his back as she dropped the coat. 'The Home Secretary,' he said, 'has asked me to investigate Corday's case.'
Sir George laughed. 'His mother's been bleating to the Queen, is that it?'
'Yes.'
'Lucky little Charlie that he has such a mother. You want to know whether he did it?'
'He tells me he didn't.'
'Of course he tells you that,' Sir George said scornfully. 'He's hardly likely to offer you a confession, is he? But oddly enough he's probably telling the truth. At least about the rape.'
'He didn't rape her?'
'He might have done,' Sir George was making delicate little dabs with the brush which were magically bringing Sally's face alive under the helmet. 'He might have done, but it would have been against his nature.' Sir George gave Sandman a sly glance. 'Our Monsieur Corday, Captain, is a sodomite.' He laughed at Sandman's. expression. 'They'll hang you for being one of those, so it don't make much difference to Charlie whether he's guilty or innocent of murder, do it? He's certainly guilty of sodomy so he thoroughly deserves to hang. They all do. Nasty little buggers. I'd hang them all and not by the neck either.'
Sammy, minus his livery coat and wig, brought up a tray on which were some ill assorted cups, a pot of tea and a bottle of brandy. The boy poured tea for Sir George and Sandman, but only Sir George received a glass of brandy. 'You'll get your tea in a minute,' Sir George told his three models, 'when I'm ready.'
'Are you sure?' Sandman asked him.
'About them getting their tea? Or about Charlie being a sodomite? Of course I'm bloody sure. You could unpeel Sally and a dozen like her right down to the raw and he wouldn't bother to look, but he was always trying to get his paws on young Sammy here, wasn't he, Sammy?'
'I told him to fake away off,' Sammy said.
'Good for you, Samuel!' Sir George said. He put down his brush and gulped the brandy. 'And you are wondering, Captain, are you not, why I would allow a filthy sodomite into this temple of art? I shall tell you. Because Charlie was good. Oh, he was good.' He poured more brandy, drank half of it, then returned to the canvas. 'He drew beautifully, Captain, drew like the young Raphael. He was a joy to watch. He had the gift, which is more than I can say for this pair of butcher boys.' He cuffed the second apprentice. 'No, Charlie was good. He could paint as well as draw, which meant I could trust him with flesh, not just draperies. In another year or two he'd have been off on his own. The picture of the Countess? It's there if you want to see how good he was.' He gestured to some unframed canvasses that were stacked against a table that was littered with jars, paste, knives, pestles and oil flasks. 'Find it, Barney,' Sir George ordered one of his apprentices. 'It's all his work, Captain,' Sir George went on, 'because it ain't got to the point where it needs my talent.'
'He couldn't have finished it himself?' Sandman asked. He sipped the tea, which was an excellent blend of gunpowder and green.
Sir George laughed. 'What did he tell you, Captain? No, let me guess. Charlie told you that I wasn't up to it, didn't he? He said I was drunk, so he had to paint her ladyship. Is that what he told you?'
'Yes,' Sandman admitted.
Sir George was amused. 'The lying little bastard. He deserves to hang for that.'
'So why did you let him paint the Countess?'
