Picture Perfect (25 page)

‘Go on,’ he said, ‘why did Denham think it was you who had taken it?’

‘There was a door,’ she said, it seemed too rude not to answer him when it was she who had brought up the subject, ‘one of those servants’ doors which match the walls, and it was open, so I went through,’ she decided she need not elaborate on the extent of her wanderings, Mr Leahey did not need to know any more, but today it seemed that he was more curious than usual.

‘But why did that make him think you were the thief?’ he asked and reluctantly Annabel found herself telling him about the store room and the door back to the gallery being locked on her return and finally about Jack’s search of the corridors.

‘So he virtually found you at the scene of the crime,’ Mr Leahey said as the carriage pulled into Bedford Square.

‘Yes,’ Annabel said, thankful to be home at last, and wondering with irritation why today, of all days Mr Leahey had chosen to show more interest in her than in himself.

Jack watched Annabel’s retreating figure in dismay, he hadn’t even begun to say what he wanted to say and he was sure she had no idea of the danger she was in. If anyone other than himself had caught her skulking around at the preview she would have been arrested and locked up the moment the theft had been confirmed. He prayed she wouldn’t do anything mad like confess her crimes to anyone else. Two young women by the front door of the lending library caught his eye and he recognised Annabel’s cousins who were talking in agitated whispers, then he clearly heard the taller one say ‘It’s his fault, let’s see what he has to say for himself.’ Madeline started marching towards him and Jack was galvanised into action. He slipped through the history section and swiftly made his way through scientific discoveries, Annabel couldn’t have got very far, he would catch her, take her into a coffee shop and force her to listen to him. She had to give this up, no matter how exciting or lucrative art theft was, at some point she was going to get caught and he couldn’t bear the thought of her being put in prison, not when she so obviously belonged at his side.

He had foiled Madeline, she was still searching among history and religion. At any moment she would look up and see him silhouetted in the bright sunlight as he opened the door, but even as he reached for the handle his way was blocked by a young girl wearing a determined expression. ‘What did you say to my cousin?’ she demanded; he had forgotten about Augusta.

Jack eyed her coldly, her interference was putting Annabel at risk, ‘Out of the way, please,’ he said. Although apprehension flared in Augusta’s eyes she shook her head, Jack tried again, ‘It is imperative that I speak with your cousin,’ he said.

‘So you can arrest her for crimes she hasn’t committed?’ Madeline’s voice hissed behind him.

Jack whirled round to face her, ‘That is confidential!’ he snapped, the less people who knew for certain what Annabel had been up to, the better. ‘Now please let me pass or I shall be forced to take extreme measures.’ Augusta at least believed him, he saw a flash of alarm in her eye and she stepped aside. Jack raced out into the street.

Annabel’s cousins’ interference had cost him precious time, there was no sign of her. Jack debated for a moment then headed for her home in Bedford Square, walking fast, sure he would overtake her on the way, but he didn’t.

‘Miss Black is not at home,’ the rather sophisticated ladies’ maid who opened the door insisted.

‘I need to know,’ Jack said through gritted teeth, ‘in what sense is she not at home. Is she not seeing anyone or is she really not here?’

The ladies’ maid looked genuinely shocked. ‘I couldn’t possibly tell you that, sir!’ she said.

Jack ground his teeth in frustration, ‘Then is Henry home?’ he demanded. Annabel’s brother wouldn’t pussy-foot around, he might not permit Jack to see his sister, but he would tell him if she were safe or not.

‘Mr Henry Black is away at present,’ the ladies’ maid said.

‘Is anyone in?’ Jack demanded, ‘Colonel Black, or Mrs Black?’

The maid seemed to relent, ‘Regretfully, none of the family is here,’ she said, ‘none at all.’

‘Thank you for your trouble,’ Jack ground out and sped back into the street, Annabel must have gone in some other direction, he had just made his way onto busy Shaftesbury Avenue when he saw a carriage he recognised and looking up from the crowd which he had been scanning intensely he saw Dermot Leahey driving none other than Annabel. His heart seemed to swell with relief, Leahey wasn’t quite the man he would have chosen to be Annabel’s knight in shining armour, he would have preferred that role for himself, but at least she was safe. He was about to call out to her, but she was talking hard and looked furiously angry. Jack guessed that her topic of discourse was most likely himself and he fervently hoped that she was being discreet. He decided he would give Annabel time to cool down and then speak with her again, perhaps she would consent to have dinner with him that evening.

Feeling much better now he had made a plan Jack decided to make what he hoped would be the final move in his investigation of Annabel’s original disappearance, or kidnapping as he was beginning to suspect it was. Albert Pollard’s address was in his pocket, he should have plenty of time to get to Camden and back and to question Albert before evening. It would be good to conclude at least one of his investigations of Annabel in a satisfactory manner.

Annabel arrived home to an empty house. She freshened up and decided to pay a call on her cousins, they had not finished examining her list of potential suspects when Jack’s note had arrived, and in light of his telling her that another painting had been stolen on Sunday night the task suddenly seemed a lot more worthwhile.

‘That man!’ Madeline said, surging to her feet the moment Annabel entered the room, ‘That awful man, how you can possibly have developed a
tendre
for someone like that I can’t possibly imagine!’

‘He’s not at all awful!’ Annabel said hotly, she might be furiously angry with Jack but that didn’t give Madeline the right to criticise him. ‘He’s just… misguided.’

‘Misguided?’ Madeline said incredulously, ‘He thinks you are an art thief and did you know he threatened Augusta?’

‘Did he?’ Annabel asked, ‘With what?’

Madeline looked at her darkly, ‘Extreme measures,’ she said. Despite herself Annabel laughed, the threat sounded so like Jack, ambiguously phrased, and with a hint of danger, but for all that she trusted completely that he would have done nothing to hurt her cousins. Madeline looked rather put out at not being taken seriously. ‘Mr Denham
did
accuse you of stealing a painting, didn’t he?’ she said.

Annabel felt herself sober up immediately. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘another one was stolen at the Royal Academy preview on Sunday, he’s sure I took it.’

‘Did he attempt to justify such an accusation?’ Madeline asked and Annabel felt herself colour uncomfortably.

‘I know why he thought I took it,’ she said, ‘I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘That proves nothing!’ Madeline said, she was right of course, but her indignation, gratifying though it was, wasn’t helpful.

‘Did you bring the guest list?’ Augusta asked quietly and Annabel smiled gratefully at her, Augusta was ever practical.

The three girls pored over the list, with Madeline questioning Annabel repeatedly on whom had been at which society function and whom had not, sometimes helping her identify people by their description alone and Annabel had to admire the thoroughness with which her elder cousin approached society. Dusk was falling by the time they had finished, ‘This is it then,’ Madeline said. ‘Lord Kent, it could be him I suppose, doing it for a lark, Lord Seaforth…’

‘He’s the curator of the Dulwich Picture Gallery,’ Annabel interrupted, ‘I really can’t see him doing it; he could hardly display the paintings he’d stolen there, could he?’

Madeline looked at her pityingly, ‘You’re not thinking like an investigator, Mr Denham is; how likely is it that you would steal these pictures?’

‘And someone called Dermot Leahey,’ Augusta said. ‘Who’s he?’

‘He’s a painter,’ Annabel said, frowning at Mr Leahey’s name. ‘It could be him, I suppose, he certainly knows art, and…’ she had a sudden vision of Mr Leahey the last time she had danced with him at the Cavendish ball, at the time she had thought she had been responsible for getting charcoal on his immaculate evening wear, but what if she hadn’t been the cause, what if Mr Leahey had sprung Jack’s trap and soiled his clothing by lifting down a frame which had been dusted with soot and chalk. Then she remembered Sunday night when he had seemed to appear out of nowhere, perhaps he had come through the concealed door, and at Almack’s and when he had asked her to keep watch for Jack while he deserted his post of watching for the thief, she had provided him with the perfect opportunity to slip down and steal the picture. She felt her anger rising as she recalled how afterwards he had tried to put the blame for his lack of vigilance on herself. She looked at Madeline and Augusta. ‘I think it could be him,’ she said.

Meanwhile Jack had tracked down Albert Pollard. Once he had convinced him that he was simply seeking information and had no intention of arresting him, Albert was willing to talk. ‘After all,’ Jack said as he placed a tankard of beer in front of the other man, ‘you were just a lad when the child went missing, there’s no question of your being a suspect.’

‘That’s right,’ Albert said enthusiastically, ‘I was only fift – twelve, but I remember it well, I was the boot boy and when the Beresfords threw my sister Molly out I went too.’

Albert was clearly not above lying, but Jack thought that if he appealed to his baser nature he would probably hear the truth. ‘Now I realise a busy gentleman such as yourself doesn’t have time to chat all evening, but perhaps if I pay you for your time you could think of this as a brief business arrangement,’ he said, sliding a couple of coins onto the table, ‘but I would need to know exactly what happened that afternoon in Bath.’

‘I can tell you everything,’ Albert said eagerly, then he glanced at the money.

‘Take this half now,’ Jack said hastily, ‘and the rest on the satisfactory completion of your tale.’

It turned out that the abduction of one of the twins had been planned for some time, all that was needed was an opportunity to take one, preferably in broad daylight and put her on a boat to be taken down the river. She would have been kept there while a ransom note was delivered and then returned upon receipt of the money. ‘It would have been safe, you see, to give her back, she was so young she couldn’t have said who’d done it,’ Albert said giving Jack the impression that he had had rather more to do with the plan than he was admitting.

‘What went wrong?’ Jack asked and Albert told him.

Molly had taken the twins out for a walk by the river and handed over one of them to the men on the boat when no one was looking, then she had taken the other one home with the tale that Hannah was lost, Molly and Albert were turned out immediately, ‘They didn’t even give us time to pack our clothes,’ Albert said, still aggrieved after all these years. Privately, knowing Lord Beresford, Jack thought the pair of them were lucky not to have found themselves being arrested and locked up. ‘Then we met the boat and sailed downriver,’ Albert said and that was when it became clear that not all was going to go to plan. ‘Molly had a sweetheart, the whole kidnapping was his idea. He turned her head with all his fancy talk, she’d never have come up with the idea on her own but he promised nothing could go wrong.’ Albert’s face darkened. ‘He made her take all the risks and she couldn’t see it. She had to take the child and all he had to do was to deliver the note, then meet us and the next day he would collect the ransom.’

‘
What made you so sure the Beresfords would pay up?’ Jack asked.

Albert gave him a slightly incredulous look. ‘They doted on those little girls, they’d have paid.’ But Molly’s sweetheart hadn’t met them, and without him the whole plan fell to pieces, the kidnappers on the boat didn’t know if the note had been delivered, and even if it had they had not been privy to its contents and did not know where to go to collect the money. ‘Molly was devastated,’ Albert said. ‘She really loved those kids, after a few days when it was obvious nothing was doing she decided to take Hannah home to Putney and bring her up as her own.’ And Jack knew the rest, after a month it had become too much for Molly and she had sent Albert to Coram’s with Annabel and a story about fishing her out of the river. But a piece of the puzzle was still missing.

‘
Why didn’t Molly’s sweetheart meet you?’ he asked.

Albert snorted. ‘. He was locked up, arrested that same day for stealing the silver, silly bugger, suppose he thought if he was leaving anyway he might as well take as much as he could get, we only found out afterwards.’

‘
He was arrested?’ Jack said, all his senses suddenly alert and with a foreboding feeling of danger pricking down his back. ‘He was one of the Beresfords’ employees and he was arrested?’

‘
That’s right,’ Albert said and looked at him oddly.

Quickly Jack dug out a few more coins for Albert without looking at the denominations, he had a feeling he was going to want to leave quickly. ‘Molly’s sweetheart, the ringleader,’ he said, ‘was his name Rafe Rollings?’