Cast For Death (14 page)

‘I want you to prise it apart. I daren’t touch it – I might wreck it.’

Humphrey’s expression indicated that this would be a service to art.

‘Whatever for? Are you collecting plastic frames?’ he enquired.

‘I think there may be something underneath Othello.’

Humphrey made a crude remark.

‘I mean,’ said Patrick patiently, ‘I think it may cover some other painting. A stolen one.’

‘Pretty small,’ said Humphrey.

‘A little Corot,’ Patrick suggested.

Humphrey cast him a sharp look.

‘That robbery – no, Patrick. How could it?’

‘I may be entirely wrong – I rather hope I am – but I don’t want to go wasting people’s time at Scotland Yard or the National Gallery if that’s the case.’

‘And my time’s expendable,’ said Humphrey.

‘If I’m right, we pass it on at once. If not, there’s no harm done.’

‘Hm.’ Humphrey picked the picture up, balancing it between his hands. ‘It is a bit heavy for what it seems to be,’ he said. ‘I suppose we’d better proceed with infinite caution. Come along.’

Patrick followed him into his studio, where very gingerly Humphrey, who was primarily a historian but also a painter in his spare time, carefully damped the edges of the paper backing on the mount. They waited in silence until it began to curl, and then Humphrey began to ease it off. Behind it was a layer of thicker paper.

‘This is rather odd,’ said Humphrey, now intrigued. He took a tiny knife out of a drawer and inserted it under the edge of the frame; the plaster cracked at once. ‘Not at all strong,’ he said. ‘I suppose they were trying to keep the weight down.’

‘So there is something there?’

Humphrey worked very slowly and carefully now, easing the frame off the canvas it surrounded. The paper that covered the back of the painting extended over the front edges, and the canvas bearing the representation of Othello was attached to it by some sort of strong glue. Humphrey separated the paper at the side and tore away a tiny part of it. Under it could be seen a fragment of canvas much older, and covered in darker paint.

‘I’d better stop,’ he said reluctantly. ‘I’m not an expert on stolen property, and I may obscure clues if I go on. There’s another picture here. The monstrosity is stretched over the back of it, I think.’ He looked longingly at the thick paper. ‘It’s probably got some other layer beneath, as protection, but they’ll have wanted it to be ventilated in some way. I don’t suppose it was intended to be left like this for long.’

Patrick thought of the American lady, no doubt due to board a plane the next day. She would not discover the substitution until she reached home. It would not be difficult to trace her, but Gulliver himself was the person the police would want to question. He wondered how best to tackle the next step; a special department at Scotland Yard dealt with art thefts, though doubtless the local police did on-the-spot investigations. Colin would know whom to approach. Meanwhile there was the question of the picture’s safety.

‘You get on to some of your police chums,’ said Humphrey, whose thoughts had meanwhile run parallel. ‘I’ll keep the painting safe for the moment. I’m sure it’ll be taken off my hands very swiftly. How on earth did you stumble on this racket, Patrick?’

‘Quite by chance – because of a poodle,’ said Patrick.

‘I don’t see the connection.’

‘Nor do I, yet, but there must be one.’

If, in fact, other missing masterpieces were hidden under the dark paintings he had seen at Pear Tree Cottage, was Tina keeping them for Gulliver to collect?

‘What made you suspect there was something wrong about this picture?’ Humphrey asked.

‘I thought it strange that a woman should want a painting of this particular moment in the play and carry it away without looking at it. The parcel was brought to her ready wrapped, from the rear of the gallery.’

‘I see. It was a bit of luck you happened to be there at the time.’

‘Yes, it was. But it wasn’t the only picture being smuggled out like that. If I’m right, there’s a constant stream of them. There have been several art thefts in the Midlands lately and I think Gulliver has a good racket going – painting them over and passing them on. And maybe passing on the proceeds of other people’s thieving too.’ For if the pictures he had taken from Tessa were also disguised masterpieces, someone else had already blotted them out: unless Gulliver had been using the empty cottage as a hiding-place, in which case Tina wasn’t involved.

But the pictures had come up with all her furniture. Or had they?

He put this theory to Detective Inspector Colin Smithers on the telephone.

‘If the cottage was a hiding-place, and if Sam was going there, for whatever reason,’ he said, thinking of the Earl Grey tea, ‘he might have stumbled on what was going on.’

There were sacks in the garage of Pear Tree Cottage, and fragments of sacking had been found under Sam’s fingernails. But if he was trussed up at Pear Tree Cottage, why dump him in the Thames when the Avon was close by?

‘Have your colleagues got a lead on Sam?’ he asked.

‘Not as far as I know,’ said Colin. ‘You know how much of our work is dogged routine checking, Patrick.’

‘I had an idea about him,’ Patrick said. ‘But it’s so unlikely that I won’t mention it yet.’

‘Look for some evidence,’ Colin advised. ‘Meanwhile, I’ll send our art boys up to get your picture. We don’t want that trail to get cold.’

‘I doubt if Gulliver’s in it alone,’ said Patrick. ‘He’s the receiver and the despatcher. Others do the thieving, I surmise.’

‘Probably. I expect they’ll set some sort of trap to catch the lot of them,’ said Colin.

‘Have you seen Dimitris?’ Patrick asked. ‘He’s back in London now.’

‘I know. The business he came over about has just finished,’ said Colin. ‘His nephew died of drugs some time ago, over here. Dimitri came over for the hearing. He was in court today. He didn’t tell you, did he?’

‘No. How dreadful.’ ‘He wanted to see justice done, and report back to the family.’

‘I see.’

Patrick was sorry for what had happened, but obscurely elated because Manolakis had not gone to London solely to see Liz.

Leila Waters looked across her desk at Patrick. A faint smell of hot cheese from the pizzeria below wafted into the office through the fractionally opened window.

‘Yes. I identified Sam,’ she said.

‘But why you? Wasn’t there a relative?’

‘We knew of no one. It was either me or someone from the company. I probably knew him as well as anyone.’

‘Yet you didn’t know much about his private life.’

‘No one did,’ said Leila. ‘The police were quite satisfied for me to do it – I’d known him for years.’

‘Wasn’t it rather a distressing experience?’

‘What do you think? Do you know what the water does to people?’

Patrick knew a lot about drowned bodies. Sam’s was not the only one he had seen.

‘He’d dyed his hair for Macduff?’

‘Yes – he preferred it to wearing a wig.’

‘But he didn’t grow a beard?’

‘No – he’d have had to dye that too, wouldn’t he? And that wouldn’t have been so easy,’ said Leila.

‘But he did wear a beard for Macduff?’

‘Yes.’

‘He was good at make-up, wasn’t he? He’s unrecognisable in some of his old photographs.’ Patrick leaned across the desk and handed her one of the theatre programmes appropriated from Tessa. It showed a fat, elderly man: Sam, padded in face and body, playing Falstaff.

‘True enough. Make-up does wonders. But that was gross miscasting,’ Leila said. ‘Sam wasn’t a good Falstaff.’

‘Why? Too much unlike his own personality?’

‘Yes.’

‘Surely that’s the test of an actor – to go against type?’

‘Up to a point.’

‘It’s easier to act a role like your own nature?’

‘Not necessarily. Sometimes it can be a release to play another sort of person.’ She tapped the programme. ‘It was a long time ago – before he lost his nerve.’

‘You had no doubts about his identity when you saw the body?’

‘No. Nor did the woman who recognised him when he was dragged out of the river. She knew him at once.’

‘Who was she?’ asked Patrick.

‘I don’t know her name. Some passer-by.’

‘Was she at the inquest?’

‘No. It wasn’t necessary – it was just a preliminary enquiry so that the funeral could take place. Perhaps she’ll be at the resumed inquest,’ said Leila. ‘Now, I really am very busy.’

Patrick departed; he was the object of interested scrutiny from the patient clients lined up in the outer office, and this time the receptionist even gave him a smile.

Sergeant Bruce was writing a report when Patrick was shown into the busy office where he occupied a corner.

‘Ah, good morning, sir,’ he greeted Patrick.

‘Good morning, sergeant. You remember we met at Sam Irwin’s flat?’

‘I do, sir.’

‘You asked me to let you know if I thought of anything pertinent to your enquiries.’

‘That’s right, sir. And you have, I take it.’

‘I wondered how you got on to Miss Waters. The theatrical agent. How you came to suggest that she should identify the body.’

‘They told us at the theatre. No one there was keen to do it. Seems they think that play’s an unlucky one.’

‘Oh.’ Now he mentioned it, Patrick seemed to remember hearing about some theatrical superstition concerned with
Macbeth.
‘So you went to see her. What about the woman who recognised the body at the time it was found?’

‘Just a bystander. Knew him right away, but not in a position to give official recognition, legally speaking.’

‘I see. Who was she, sergeant?’

Sergeant Bruce looked at him, then made up his mind.

‘You were there, after all. Might have overheard her telling me, if you’d lingered on the spot,’ he said. ‘She was Mrs Amy Foster – from Putney. A hundred and eighty-seven, Montagu Court, that’s it – it’s a big modern block of flats up on the hill,’ the sergeant told him, referring to a note.

‘Keen theatregoer, eh?’

‘Yes, sir, so it seems. Quite a fan.’

‘Hm. Thanks.’

‘What’s on your mind, sir?’

‘I’m not sure. It might be worthwhile, though, sergeant, looking through the pathologist’s report. Or if it’s not mentioned, asking him.’

‘Asking him what?’

‘About the beard of the deceased. What colour it was. It goes on growing, doesn’t it, after death?’

Patrick drove straight to Putney, over the bridge and up the hill, where there were several blocks of flats, he knew. He pulled into a side road and soon found a postman who directed him to Montagu Court. It was a large, new block, and there was a porter.

‘Mrs Amy Foster?’ The porter shook his head. ‘We’ve no Mrs Amy Foster here. Of course, she could be staying with someone. But there’s not been any mail for her.’

‘A hundred and eighty-seven, that’s the number,’ Patrick repeated.

‘Well now, sir, you are asking for something. You must have come to the wrong block.’

‘It’s the address I was given,’ said Patrick.

‘There’s no such number here,’ said the porter. ‘We stop at a hundred and sixty. I’m afraid Mrs Amy Foster’s been pulling your leg, sir.’

It took Patrick a second or two to realise that the porter thought Mrs Amy Foster must be someone who did not wish to encourage his pursuit of her.

‘Why not invent the name of the block, then, as well as the number?’ he snapped.

‘Why not, sir, as you say. Perhaps she didn’t want to tell too big a fib. You might know Putney quite well, eh?’

The porter could be right, for the police must know the various blocks of flats. The lady might not want to be traced for all manner of reasons. Perhaps she was not supposed to be in London at the time. Perhaps she was not Mrs Amy Foster at all.

It would be pleasant to spend the evening with Liz and Manolakis, Patrick decided, driving slowly back towards the river. Perhaps the Greek would be ready to return with him to Oxford that evening.

He found a telephone box, stopped, and rang up Liz. She sounded in a hurry, and said that they were just off to a concert.

‘But Dimitri isn’t musical,’ said Patrick.

‘How do you know?’ asked Liz. ‘He’s not had much chance to find out, in fact. I’ve got these tickets, and he wants to go.’

She seemed to spend her whole time going to concerts, Patrick thought crossly.

‘Is everything all right?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ she answered. ‘Why shouldn’t it be?’

This conversation left him very bad-tempered, and the rush-hour traffic, in which he soon found himself wedged, did not help. He might as well go back to Oxford, he thought, for he had reached a dead-end here, and by now Humphrey might have news about the picture which could lead to something else.

Sam had possessed sodium amytal tablets. Tina Willoughby had swallowed barbiturates. Neither had left suicide notes. Both appeared to have plans for the future. Tina had probably been having an affair with Hugo Barry her neighbour; the ending of that, if it was over, might have disturbed her, but Hugo’s wife thought she had an actor friend. Sam was an actor, but did not show much interest in women. Pictures of dubious origin had been among Tina’s possessions and had been swiftly wafted away. Earl Grey tea had been in her house and also in Sam’s flat. Those were the known facts.

Tessa might know how long her aunt had owned those paintings. He could go and ask her.

Always more cheerful when he had thought of some positive action, Patrick pressed on through the traffic. He would call at Jane’s on the way home; she’d be eager to hear the latest developments, he was sure.

He arrived just as she and Michael were starting dinner.

‘Lucky it’s not chops,’ she said. ‘We can spare you some shepherd’s pie.’

While they ate, he told them how puzzled he was.

‘You still don’t know that Sam and Tina were acquainted, do you?’ Jane enquired.

‘No.’