A Family Affair (12 page)

‘I’ve already assured your husband that I haven’t turned private detective.’ Appleby found himself taking yet further satisfaction in the Meatyards. ‘But, Mrs Meatyard, what about that dozen of Moët et Chandon? I get it if I clear up this affair, and you get it if I don’t?’

‘Not that at all. We’ll simply have one of those large bottles – a magnum, isn’t it called? – between us if you succeed. But only, of course, if Lady Appleby sometimes comes to town.’

‘Nous,’ Mr Meatyard said happily. ‘What the classical Greeks and Romans called nous. Martha has it.’

‘But there is one idea that has occurred to me,’ Mrs Meatyard went on. ‘There’s no great harm in a joke. So until the moment that what you’re up to can be proved
not
a joke, there’s not all that trouble coming to you if you’re found out. It’s not criminal to shake hands with Albert and call yourself Sir Joshua Reynolds. It’s not even criminal to lead Albert round a lot of worthless pictures and assure him they’re masterpieces. So you’ve done nothing criminal until the very last phase of your plot.’

‘Collecting,’ Mr Meatyard said, ‘£8,000 for “Autumn Woods”, signed “Jos Reynolds”, bottom right.’

‘There’s a great deal in what you say.’ Appleby looked thoughtfully at Mrs Meatyard. A woman with so sound a head was likely to have an accurate memory as well. ‘But about one thing I’m not very clear. Precisely how did the whole thing begin? Wasn’t there something about an advertisement?’

‘It began with that, all right. “Eminent portrait painter accepts commissions under conditions of confidence”.’ Mrs Meatyard finished her rum and blackcurrant. ‘We didn’t realize that it sounded a bit off. In such a high class of newspaper too, it was.’

‘It has rather a curious ring. You or your husband just happened to notice it?’

‘No, it wasn’t like that. And there, Sir John, is the one point at which I criticize Albert. He was at the golf club, and it seems they got talking about having their wives painted. Boasting about it, I shouldn’t be surprised. And somebody thrust this advert under Albert’s nose. Only he couldn’t afterwards at all remember who.’

‘That’s certainly a very great pity indeed.’ Appleby found himself regarding Mr Meatyard with sober reproach. ‘You’re sure it was like that? You didn’t simply decide not to be able to remember – because you didn’t want the joke going the rounds at the club?’

‘Honest to God, Sir John.’ Mr Meatyard had actually blushed. ‘We’d all had a couple, if the truth be told.’

‘Albert is very temperate,’ Mrs Meatyard said. ‘Very temperate indeed. But you know what gentlemen are after golf. He brought the advert home with him, and we answered it that evening.’

‘And then?’

‘Well, this young man called, explaining he was acting as an agent. Very well spoken, he was.’

‘Could you say just
how
well spoken?’

‘It struck me he was a cut above what you might call that kind of errand. And trying to hide the fact.’

‘I see. As it happens, that interests me quite a lot. It chimes with a rather similar occasion I’ve been hearing about. And he explained this business of confidential commissions?’

‘Yes, he did. And it seemed to turn out quite respectable and above board.’ Mrs Meatyard considered. ‘Or
almost
above board.’

‘You had come to think there might be something disreputable about it?’

‘I had,’ Mr Meatyard said. ‘It wasn’t what would occur to a woman with a refined mind like Martha. But I thought this fellow might paint a man’s fancy girls – see?’ For a moment Mr Meatyard was unashamedly vulgar. ‘And in the altogether, perhaps – or something even rather less nice than that.’

‘No doubt it was a reasonable supposition.’ Appleby thought fleetingly of Nanna and Pippa. ‘But this apprehension proved unfounded?’

‘It was a straight business matter.’ Mr Meatyard had recovered his poise as a pillar of commercial society. ‘It seemed that this eminent portrait painter had gone on contract on exclusive terms. Mark you, I found out later – when I took up the whole subject, as I said – that something of the kind might be true enough. Some pretty big names among the painters do just that: undertake to work full-time over a period of years for one dealer only. Well, that was what we were told this chap had done. But he was looking round for an outside job or two on the quiet. And he was willing to offer attractive terms.’

‘Of course we pricked up our ears at that,’ Mrs Meatyard said. ‘After all, brass is brass.’

‘Most certainly it is.’ Appleby, who had brought up a fair-sized family on a professional income, found no difficulty in agreeing with this. ‘But there were other conditions?’

‘It would have to be kept quiet about for two or three years. In particular, we mustn’t mention the artist’s name.’

‘Which turned out,’ Mr Meatyard said cheerfully, ‘to be Sir Joshua Reynolds. “I’m sure you’ve heard of him,” the young man said to us. It must have been his big moment.’

‘It must, indeed. He might have found himself being kicked out of your house there and then. But he saw that he’d got away with it, and he advised you to ring up some picture dealer in Bond Street?’

‘Yes – a classy place I’d noticed in passing often enough. He told me just what to ask. What might I expect to have to give for a first-class portrait by Reynolds. Just that. And the answer I got didn’t half stagger me, I must say. But, of course, there was to be this cut-price element because of its being done on the QT. So I agreed to explore the matter further. And this young man and I went off in a taxi together to call on Sir Joshua. Rich – eh, Sir John? Enough to make a man laugh till his sides ache.’

‘I admit that it has its funny aspect.’ Making this discreet reply, Appleby found himself in fact overtaken by laughter of a quite immoderate sort. And this proved to be infectious. Whether or not the Meatyards had at one time been liable to wake up in the night and blush all over at the thought of their folly, they commanded a wholly agreeable attitude to it now.

‘1792’, Mrs Meatyard said, recovering.

‘1792’, Mr Meatyard echoed. ‘And when I came home, it was with –’ Less controlled than his wife, Mr Meatyard found himself unable to go on.

‘It was with “Autumn Woods” under your arm,’ Appleby said. ‘And signed by Jos. Reynolds, bottom right.’

‘And now we come to the
atelier
of the artist.’ Mr Meatyard, who had sunk back in his chair after failing to persuade Appleby to another drink, chuckled reminiscently. ‘Not what the French call an
atelier libre
, although I’ve no doubt I expected that. A nude girl holding a tambourine, and long-haired fellows strolling in and out with sketch-books, in what they call a haze of tobacco smoke.’

‘I see that you had already read,’ Appleby said, ‘about
la vie de Bohême
.’

‘
Trilby
, eh?’ Mr Meatyard was delighted. ‘And the
quartier latin
. Of course, I’ve run over all that since taking up pictures. But this place was a surprise, I don’t mind telling you. In Mayfair, and done up regardless. Mind you, some things were as you would expect. Sir Joshua had uncommonly long hair, and a velvet jacket covered with dabs of paint. Very old-world, he was – very old-world and courteous. But affable as well. And courtesy and affability don’t always go together, let me tell
you
.’

‘I’ve often noticed it,’ Appleby said. ‘But, of course, he’d be affable as well as courteous – wouldn’t he? – when he was after £8,000. By the way, how old would you say Sir Joshua was? Another youngish man, like his emissary?’

‘Oh, dear me – no.’ Mr Meatyard shook his head. ‘Silver hair, and had to walk around with the help of a stick. A gold-headed stick, it was. He told me it had been given him by the King of Spain.’

‘There isn’t a King of Spain.’

‘Ah, but long ago. When he was young, and his talent was first being noticed. He was called to Madrid to paint the Infanta. I remember wondering if the Infanta was a hospital or a cathedral.’ Mr Meatyard chuckled luxuriously. ‘Well, I’ve seen what’s to be seen in the Prado and the Escorial since then. Sir Joshua – the real Sir Joshua – is small beer, Sir John, when you get to know Velazquez. I recommend Velazquez to you.’

‘I must certainly get to know him, some time.’ Appleby produced this with proper gravity. ‘And then Sir Joshua showed you round his studio?’

‘Yes – and there were stacks of paintings. Not in frames, you know, but scattered around against the walls. Portraits, mostly. He told me that what he really liked doing was landscapes, particularly wooded ones. But he hadn’t much time to follow his private inclination, so he supposed the landscapes would have a certain scarcity value one day. He hunted around to show me one or two – and, sure enough, there didn’t seem many of them. Autumn was what he really liked, he said. And a little after that – quite by chance, you might say, his hand fell on “Autumn Woods”. I’ve never been one to be afraid of speaking up, Sir John. So I asked him for his figure, and offered him cash down. He acted like a perfect gentleman of the older sort – the sort, I’ve always noticed, who make no bones about money. “Eight thousand,” he said – just like that. So it was a deal. And when I’d fixed up about Martha’s sittings, I walked out the owner of “Autumn Woods”.’

‘You must look at it before you go.’ Mrs Meatyard made this reiterated suggestion an occasion for standing up; she was competently resolved, Appleby supposed, that her husband’s dinner hour should not be interfered with even by the most eminent of retired policemen. ‘But, first, there’s one question I’d like to ask you, Sir John. Just how have you come to interest yourself in our experience?’

‘It was brought to my notice at the time it happened, Mrs Meatyard, although it wasn’t my business actually to carry out an investigation. And now – as I have explained to your husband – it turns out to be only one in a series of frauds connected with works of art of one sort or another.’

‘And to be quite small beer among them.’ Mr Meatyard interjected this with morose satisfaction. ‘Sir John tells me I’ve been a minor victim. Which suggests there have been some super-Charlies, if you ask me.’

‘I see.’ Mrs Meatyard’s intelligent gaze was directed for a moment very thoughtfully upon Appleby. ‘When £8,000 is a minor matter, it must be really large-scale crime that is in question?’

‘Bigger rackets go on, Mrs Meatyard. Still, “large-scale crime” is fair enough.’

‘I suppose you are accustomed to such things, Sir John, and able to take them lightly. Can they be taken
too
lightly? Not that Albert and I haven’t been at fault ourselves, perhaps, in rather making a joke of it all. And we’ve only been able to do that because – as there’s no denying – Albert is a wealthy man now. In a way, of course, it
was
a joke. We’ve talked about that already. Were any of the other frauds like that, Sir John?’

‘Yes. Or at least it is safe to say that there is an element of the freakish in all of them.’

‘They were thought of by what must be called a freakish mind?’

‘Decidedly.’

‘And about a freakish mind there is always something unpredictable?’

‘Essentially so, I suppose.’ Appleby was beginning to find something vaguely disturbing in this inquisition.

‘So far, I take it, nobody can honestly be said to have suffered through these frauds?
Really
suffered, I mean?’

‘Well, no. Nobody has been put in any danger of missing his next day’s dinner, Mrs Meatyard.’

‘Which is why we talk about bets, and champagne, and a sporting interest. The whole thing is simply an amusing puzzle, Sir John, which you have taken it into your head you are going to work out?’

‘I don’t think I am able to quarrel with that analysis.’

‘Martha,’ Mr Meatyard said, ‘has a very analytical mind. I’ve been at her to sit on a board or two often enough. But she believes that a woman’s sphere is the home.’

‘But suppose this joker’s jokes caught up with him,’ Mrs Meatyard said. ‘What would happen then?’

‘It’s a question,’ Mr Meatyard said. ‘It’s a real question. He’s been playing for high stakes – hasn’t he? – if £8,000 is peanuts to him. He might turn nasty, if you ask me. Have you considered that, Sir John?’

‘I don’t believe I have.’ Appleby found himself uncertain whether to be amused or impressed. ‘But it’s a possibility I’ll bear in mind from now on. And now, I must really take my leave. But not before seeing “Autumn Woods”. And I’d like, of course, to see your Cézanne and your Gainsboroughs as well.’

Three Visits

Sir Thomas Carrington, of Monks Amble in the County of Northamptonshire, Bart., was by temperament something of a recluse. Moreover the disposition had been growing on him with the years. He had lately abandoned hunting, for example, as an impossibly gregarious pursuit, requiring a quite literal rubbing shoulders with a rabble of upstart townees. It was true that the MFH was his brother-in-law, and because of this he was constrained to permit the meet’s being held once or twice in the season before the windows of Monks Amble itself. But he always caused the shutters to be closed for the occasion, and by leaving ostentatiously bare the flag-pole on the west turret of his residence he intimated, at least to the adequately well-informed, that there was no possibility of his being found at home. He had turned shooting into a solitary occupation – much to the indignation of sundry neighbours who in former times had been welcome to turn up with a gun. Even so, Sir Thomas distinctly preferred fishing, since it called only for imitation flies and not for real dogs. It was indeed averred by the devout of the parish (Monks Amble with Toddle Canonicorum) that this reclusive squire was most exact in his weekly attendance at divine service. But as the Carrington family pew stood ten feet high, and was entered through a door giving directly upon Monks Amble park, this appeared a claim impossible of substantiation. There were even ribald and disaffected persons who declared it to be a myth unscrupulously fabricated for the edification of the village.