Picture Perfect (24 page)

‘What do you know about the child?’ he asked. Miss Pollard suddenly looked cagey.

‘It’s not against the law, you know,’ she said.

Kidnapping, not against the law!
Jack nearly said, but stopped himself just in time, clearly he and Miss Pollard were talking at cross purposes. ‘Tell me,’ he said leadingly, Miss Pollard looked rather harrowed so he added ‘Perhaps we have reached a time when we should forgive,’ hoping that whatever she knew was something for which forgiveness was applicable.

To his surprise, and giving him a twinge of guilt, Miss Pollard’s eyes were full of tears when she looked back up at him. ‘She was my only niece, you see, neither my brother or I married and had children, my niece was the only one, and if Rafe Rollings hadn’t got himself locked up he could have married Molly and they could have kept her, but on her own it was too hard for Molly to manage so she took her daughter to an orphanage.’

‘
Her daughter?’ Jack echoed, no one had made any mention of the nursery maid having an illegitimate child when she was dismissed, and knowing the Beresfords he could not imagine them keeping a fallen woman in their employ.

‘
I begged her not to,’ Miss Pollard continued, ‘but she said it was the only way and none of us ever saw little Hannah again.’

‘
I see,’ said Jack, the happenings of that summer afternoon sixteen years ago were beginning to fall into place. Had Molly Pollard somehow found herself in custody of the supposedly missing Hannah and dared not return her to the Beresfords? It appeared that she had come back home to Putney and passed her charge off as her own child, keeping Annabel for a month or so and then asking her brother Albert to take her to an orphanage. The only thing which did not make sense was why Molly hadn’t returned Hannah to her family but since she had enlisted her brother Albert’s help perhaps he would be able to answer that question. ‘Thank you,’ he said, very pleased with what he had learned, then he noticed Miss Pollard was still dabbing her eyes with a rather worn lace handkerchief. ‘I can’t tell you very much,’ he said kindly, ‘but perhaps it would it help you to know that Hannah was adopted and brought up by a loving family.’

‘
Really?’ Miss Pollard asked. Jack hoped that she would stop crying, but although she appeared comforted tears continued to pour down her face.

‘
Really,’ he said. ‘There’s just one more thing, I would like to speak to your brother Albert. Can you give me his address?’

Jack returned to his house pleased with the evening’s work, but his contentment did not last for long, Mills, his valet was waiting for him with a letter that had been delivered an hour earlier. Jack ripped it open and scanned it briefly, it was from Lord Seaforth and was short and to the point, a painting by Caravaggio had gone missing, presumed stolen on Sunday night.

‘
Well?’ Augusta demanded when the three girls found themselves alone in the drawing room after lunch with Mr and Mrs Black.

‘I made a list of everyone who was at the preview,’ Annabel said and fetched it, she decided not to mention her encounter in the dark with Jack nor to say that far from taking steps to clear her name she had incriminated herself further, her cousins did not need to know that.

‘You can cross this name off,’ Madeline said, scrutinizing the list, ‘and Mr Jacobs and the Pettigrews and Mr and Mrs Drake, none of them have vouchers for Almack’s. Now who’s here who wasn’t there on the other occasions?’

Annabel cast her mind back to the evening of the first theft, at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. ‘Mr Forbes wasn’t there,’ she said, ‘but I don’t believe anything was stolen from the preview after all, so this is pointless.

‘But you - ’ Madeline began only to be interrupted by a knock on the door and Laura came in and curtsied.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss Annabel,’ she said, ‘but this note has just been delivered and the man who brought it was most insistent that it be given to you immediately, although he is not waiting for a reply.’

‘Thank you, Laura,’ Annabel said and felt her heart start to beat faster, for no good reason she was sure it was from Jack. She slit the note open with her pencil and read it quickly, hearing Jack’s voice, decisive and with a touch of arrogance, in her head as she did so.

Dear Miss Black,

It is imperative that we meet urgently to discuss a matter of great interest to yourself. I am awaiting you at the Shaftsbury Lending Library, please come at once.

Yours,

Jack Denham

He was hers. For a moment that was all Annabel could take in and then the content of the note pressed itself upon her. Of course meeting alone with Jack would be quite improper, but the lending library was somewhere she could legitimately go by herself and if she were seen there, chatting to a chance-met acquaintance, no one would think anything of it, the only thing she had to decide was whether or not to take her cousins into her confidence or simply to tell them she was going to go out and abandon them. They were both staring at her, wide-eyed, Madeline still with Annabel’s list in her hand ready to discount more names while Augusta held a pile of Annabel’s old invitation cards which she had swept down from the mantelpiece and Annabel felt she couldn’t treat them so badly. Wordlessly she held out Jack’s note.

Madeline put two and two together immediately. ‘This is the man you spoke with at our musical evening, isn’t it? And it’s all got something to do with these pictures being stolen.’ Suddenly her eyes widened even more. ‘Oh, Annabel, you aren’t consorting with an art thief are you?’ Well, not quite two and two, Annabel amended silently. She shook her head.

‘No, but he thinks he might be.’

‘What!’ Annabel couldn’t help feeling rather gratified by Madeline’s astonishment. ‘You can’t mean that he thinks you stole those paintings?’

‘That is exactly what he suspects,’ Annabel said.

There was a shocked silence, then Madeline spoke ‘Perhaps we should put on our hats.’

There was a hush inside the library and it was dimly lit but Annabel found her eyes adjusted quickly and something caught her eye from behind a shelf in the far corner. ‘Stay here,’ she whispered to her cousins, something in the quicksilver movement told her it was Jack and swiftly she made for the history section.

‘You came,’ with the barest touch on her arm Jack drew her behind the stacks, and how was it that he made such a simple statement of the obvious sound so intimate?

‘Yes,’ she said and smiled up at him.

He seemed to return the smile in spite of himself because his eyes crinkled while his lips moved as if he were about to speak, but then instead he stooped to kiss her, his mouth just brushing hers and his hand cupping the back of her head. Then without releasing her he said ‘Did you steal a painting on Sunday night?’

Annabel recoiled as if he’d slapped her, she knew he had suspected her but hearing it point blank was different.
No!
she wanted to say,
how could you ever think such a thing?
But she found she was speechless.

‘There was a little storeroom,’ Jack continued mercilessly, ‘off another room close to the hidden door, with paintings on hangers.’

‘I know the one,’ Annabel whispered, he must be talking about the small, windowless room she had come across and the end of the empty gallery.

‘That night its door was unlocked, I am reliably informed that it is always kept locked unless a senior fellow of the Royal Academy wishes to fetch or return a painting, because its most valuable works are kept there, but that night the door was left wide open and when an inventory was taken the loss of a Caravaggio was discovered.’ Jack took Annabel’s hands in his and she allowed him to draw her closer. ‘Is there anything you want to tell me?’ he asked beseechingly.

‘No!’ she said ‘No!’ But despite her denials she could see he was not convinced, he really did believe she had stolen the Caravaggio. Jack let go of her hands suddenly as if he could not bear to touch her.

‘You must realize that I have been entrusted with the recovery of the stolen paintings and the arrest of the thief,’ he said almost coldly. Annabel felt her shock start to turn to anger, he didn’t believe her.

‘Then we have nothing more to say to each other, Mr Denham!’ she hissed and wished he were still holding her hands so that she could jerk them out of his grasp. As it was she had to settle for turning on her heel and striding out of the library, completely forgetting her cousins and unaware of their startled faces as she pushed past them out onto Shaftsbury Avenue. The afternoon sun seemed particularly bright after the dimly lit library and Annabel felt rather dazed as she set off, heedless of her direction, her thoughts seething. Jack seemed so sure of himself, so superior in his condemnation of her, and he had no real proof. Bitterly she thought back to that night at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, he had asked her to trust him and she had, she still wanted to with all her heart, but that trust was not returned, she had told him she hadn’t stolen the paintings and he simply hadn’t believed her. He was so arrogant, so certain of his judgement, so infuriating!

‘Mind out the way, love,’ someone said to her and she realized she had reached the Hay Market. She looked around at a the bustling stalls a little nervously, it wasn’t a place she would normally come by herself and she felt angry with Jack for letting her walk all this way alone, angry with him for not running after her and imploring her forgiveness. For a moment she found herself at a loss, she didn’t want to walk back up Shaftsbury Avenue again, but there were no hackney cabs in sight, just a jostling crowd of strangers all intent on their own business, but she knew that sooner or later one of them would see her, an unchaperoned girl, as their business and the prospect was not enticing. Then she remembered she was not far from St James’s Square, she could call on the Beresfords, even if they were not home someone would be pleased to summon a cab for her.

Purposefully she set off. As she left the market she noticed out of the corner of her eye a large figure detach itself from the crowd and head in her direction, she quickened her step but the man did not change his pace and she shook her head at her own foolishness. She turned a corner and abruptly the noise and the people were left behind, in fact the street seemed eerily deserted and she couldn’t help looking back. The man had followed her and seemed closer than before. She walked faster now, almost running, but it was no good, the man strode after her, undaunted, he would catch her at any moment. The sound of a carriage clattering down the street distracted her and she nearly tripped on the uneven cobblestones, just managing to save herself as the carriage drew to a halt at her side.

‘Miss Beresford,’ for one wild instant she thought it was Jack, seeing his error, instinctively knowing she was in danger and coming to save her, but the man leaning down from the carriage was not Jack, it was Dermot Leahey.

‘I’m not Miss Beresford, I’m Miss Black,’ Annabel gasped and realized she was pleased to see him. ‘A man…’ she turned to look but the stranger had vanished.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Me Leahey said.

‘Nothing,’ Annabel said, not wanting to appear any more foolish than she must already.

‘I thought you were your sister,’ Mr Leahey said, ‘we are so close to the Beresford residence. Were you on your way there?’

Now that it was not necessarily her only option Annabel found she did not particularly want to go there. She smiled sunnily up at Mr Leahey, hoping to mask her discomposure.

‘I have walked rather further than I intended,’ she said instead and let the sentence linger. Thankfully Mr Leahey proved to be the gentleman she hoped he’d be.

‘May I drive you home?’ he said at once and Annabel accepted his offer in relief. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, you seem a little hot and bothered,’ Mr Leahey remarked after they had driven in silence for a while and Annabel found that her anger with Jack, which she had temporarily forgotten about while she felt herself to be in danger, had returned. If anything she felt even angrier than before, if Jack Denham hadn’t persisted in his ridiculous delusion she would never have been stalked in the first place.

‘Mr Denham,’ she began in a high, tight voice, and hearing how she sounded attempted a more moderate tone. ‘Mr Denham believes I am behind the recent art thefts.’

Mr Leahey threw back his head and laughed, startling the horse, Annabel clutched the side of the carriage, not knowing whether to be pleased that he thought the accusation absurd or annoyed with him for finding it funny. ‘Why on earth does he think you are responsible?’

‘His evidence is completely circumstantial,’ Annabel said, ‘do you remember telling me he had laid a trap for the thief at the Cavendish ball?’

‘Yes,’ Mr Leahey nodded, ‘with charcoal and chalk on the picture frame, or some such thing.’

‘That is right, well there happened to be a little soot on my dress, so Ja- Mr Denham suspected at once that I had taken the da Vinci. Then on Sunday night an old master was stolen from the Royal Academy.’ She stopped suddenly, remembering that Jack had gone to great lengths to ensure that no one but himself knew she had been wandering around in the unlit corridors beyond the gallery that had been open to the public, but it seemed Mr Leahey’s interest had been piqued.