Enter Pale Death (5 page)

“The assistant commissioner will be delighted to see you directly, sir,” the inspector said with unctuous formality as he signalled for an escort. “But first, your briefcase. Would you mind passing it over, sir? And the keys? A necessary nuisance, but it shouldn’t take long. Charming weather we’re having, wouldn’t you say? June can be so uncertain …”

“A
LWAYS A PLEASURE
to see you, Sandilands,” the minister murmured, shaking Joe’s hand. Again, Joe was taken aback by the workaday roughness of the hand, which seemed at odds with the suave appearance of the rest of the man. “We don’t meet often enough. Both busy men, of course, but we must make time. I’m back in London for the next four weeks and insist you meet me for lunch at my club.”

A constable appeared with a tray while the two men were still on their feet exchanging pleasantries. “Ah! Thank you, Smithson,” Joe said. “That’ll be all. I hope you can drink Assam, sir?”

The minister grabbed a mug, helped himself to two lumps of sugar, stirred, sipped, exhaled with pleasure and sipped again. “Nothing like a pot of Typhoo at this time of the morning!” Grasping his tea with the casual assurance of a stonemason, the spoon tucked away behind his thumb, he strolled over to the window and looked out, admiring the view as Lily had done an hour earlier.

“Third floor, is this? Not much higher to go! Got your eye on one of the turrets, have you?” His grin was quizzical, his tone light, his meaning all too clear.

“I don’t really care where they put me, so long as I can see a tree or two,” Joe said, shrugging away the challenge.

The minister peered out at the full-canopied ranks of greenery below. “Quite agree! Country men like us—we take our spring, our vigour, from growing things. We have a physical need for green arteries across the city, the parks which are its lungs. Whoever decided to plant London plane trees along the Embankment last century certainly knew his business. Coming on well!”

“You’re right. Of all trees, they have the knack of surviving all the city can throw at them,” Joe murmured blandly, wondering when the man was going to get to the point. Was it possible that he’d just turned up at his office to say, “Hello, I’m back in town, why don’t we have lunch together”? An unlikely waste of time. Still, you didn’t rush a minister.

“It’s all to do with the bark, don’t you know,” the time-waster went on, apparently preoccupied by the view. Or was he simply avoiding looking Joe in the eye? “That dark, dappled, camouflage colour they develop is due to the pollutants in the air. They absorb the nasty bits and when the moment comes, they shed the infected bark and leave a gleaming pure trunk underneath. Clever stuff, eh? I love the plane. Hardy, resilient, useful. And, you know, they have a certain air of authority—some might say magnificence.”

“Just the right tree to plant outside Scotland Yard, then,” Joe remarked. “The Met would seem to perform the same function as the London plane.”

This sally was greeted by a shout of laughter. “Cleaning up the filth while remaining unsullied by it all?”

“That and the magnificent authority you mention, sir.”

“Well, don’t worry. I’m not imposing myself on you this morning to test you on your arboricultural knowledge. Or to invite you
to dabble in further pollution.” He left a pause in deferential recognition of Joe’s recent sticky contact with the underbelly of English society. “My business is a personal one, Sandilands.”

It was always likely to be. Everything was personal with Truelove when it came down to it. Joe recognised that his foreboding was about to be justified. The affair this man had involved him in some months earlier had proved a sensitive one. The minister had emerged with an enhanced reputation and a further department in his portfolio of power. The police officer had just managed to hang on to his job. And there was always the nagging resentment that the man held a place of authority and, Joe admitted, regard amounting to affection, in the life of the girl he loved. Dorcas talked unselfconsciously of her patron’s interest and support, acknowledging—without resentment, it seemed—that she owed her budding career to the Truelove family endowment; his good will and his cash were essential for paving the way to her academic goal. It was more than resentment that Joe felt towards this charmer. He didn’t deceive himself. There was a heap of jealousy and a dash of impotent rage in the mix. The perfect scenario for a clash of antlers.

He put his head on one side and wondered if the Lord of the Glen would ever stop pawing the ground and declare himself. He hadn’t until this moment realised that the man had been chattering on to hide his unease. Wondering what earth-shaking crisis could make this man uneasy and alarmed by the admission that it was of a “personal” nature, Joe feared the worst.

Fancifully, he waited for the minister to smack him with a glove and suggest they throw their wigs down on the duelling green in the square outside Parliament. At dawn. “First blood,” would he demand, or “
à l’outrance
”? Joe was already choosing his second and deciding that cool, ruthless James Bacchus would fit the bill admirably.

“Fact is … I need to ask a favour of you … No, nothing at all
untoward,” Truelove added hurriedly, catching the slight narrowing of Joe’s eyes. “It amounts to two hours of your time—at the most.” And, with an awful echo of the comforting phrase Joe had just used to Lily, “It’s a small task and—who knows?—you may even enjoy it. Do you know Christie’s—the auction house in King Street?”

“I do indeed. I’ve spent many happy hours there over the years. My old uncles collected—and sometimes sold—works of art, antiques, valuable books there. They took me along as a young thing and trained me in the art of survival in the shark’s pool that is an auction house. I still dabble occasionally. Yes, I know it.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I was well briefed.” The glancing look, complicitous, humorous, was meant to suggest that his informant was Dorcas and invited comment. Joe gritted his teeth and wondered how much more the wretched girl had confided about his life and character. He glowered and maintained a cold silence.

Truelove took a catalogue from his briefcase and handed it to Joe. “Page twenty-seven.”

Before opening it, Joe inspected the cover and read:

Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods

respectfully give notice that they have been instructed by

Mr. J. J. McKinley

to sell at auction his renowned collection of Miniature Portraits at the

Great Rooms, King Street, London SW1 on Wednesday June 21st 1933

at 11.00
A.M
.

This collection makes one of the finest galleries of miniature portraits formed in modern times
,

comprising over three hundred examples of the best works by British and Continental artists

from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. There are examples of the work of Nicholas Hilliard
,

Samuel Cooper, Richard Cosway, George Engleheart, J.H.Fragonard and other eminent artists
.

The collection will be on view throughout the week preceding the sale and for one hour before

bids are taken
.

“Wednesday the twenty-first? That’s tomorrow,” Joe commented in puzzlement. “Thinking of taking a punt on a Hilliard, are you?”

“No indeed! Nothing so grand, I’m afraid. If you’ll just turn to page twenty-seven … There. Well down the listing. Thrown in at the end with no fanfare. Unattributed, you see. Artist unknown. What do you make of those two?”

Joe looked carefully at the matched pair. Watercolour on ivory, the description said. The illustration was in black and white, but the quality of the oval portraits set within simple gold frames shone out. The lady on the left was a beauty. Fair hair curled naturally around her forehead, pale eyes—blue?—held a touch of mischief reflected in the slightly curving mouth. Pearls, lace, satin and plump silken bosom seemed all to have found favour with the anonymous artist. The lord on the right, presumably her husband, had an equal glamour. He wore his own dark hair sleekly combed about his neat head, his eye was commanding, his mouth firm. A velvet coat, a swagger of gold epaulette, a flash of more shining braid on a striped revere framed a froth of expensive lace at his throat. A diamond pin glinted in its depths. Joe was enchanted and intrigued. He remembered Truelove had thrown down a challenge. The man
would
do that.

What did he make of them? Not difficult to return an answer. “Delightful,” he said. “I advise going straight down there and putting in a bid. Unattributed as they are, some lucky devil could get these for a song. Portraits, miniature or full-size, are not exactly going like hotcakes in today’s market. It’s all photography
and cubism these days. One does rather wonder at the wisdom of unloading an entire collection on to the market in one fell swoop. The whole exercise in itself risks further devaluing the art form.”

“I dare say.” Truelove clearly didn’t share Joe’s concern about fluctuations in the art market. “But the standard of the painting? And the sitters? What do you make of them?”

“The quality is of the very highest as far as I can make out from these reproductions. The sitters themselves, husband and wife, I’m presuming, are people of some rank. They would naturally have employed the best talent Europe could offer to take their likeness. No wigs, you see—hair not even powdered—and by the style of the clothes and the jewellery, I’m guessing Regency. The second decade of the 1800s. There is an artist—and the best available at this time—who sometimes failed to put his signature on his work … Um …” Joe searched his memory.

“You’re thinking of George Engleheart. The chap painted nearly five thousand of these things during his life. You’ll find his name on the back, mostly, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he failed occasionally to sign his work, particularly when he was getting on a bit. By the time he painted these, George would have been an old man of nearly seventy. It’s my theory that they were done by a much younger artist. Any more thoughts?”

“The sitters themselves are intriguing. Very attractive pair. Young. The fashion of the times was to have one’s likeness preserved on ivory as a betrothal or a marriage gift. I’d guess that’s what these are. Betrothal, most probably.”

“Why do you say that?”

Why
had
he said that? Truelove was listening with flattering attention. Joe plunged on, with a strong feeling that he was running in blinkers. He tapped the face of the young man. “The girl looks too innocent and happy to have been long in harness with this sour-puss opposite. Oh, handsome, certainly, but …”

“Grim? Forceful?”

“Not someone you’d choose to down a pint with. Look, sir, if you really don’t know the identity of the gentleman, I can give you a clue. If this jacket should prove to be red—” Truelove nodded. “— and the edging a dark blue grosgrain striped in gold …” Another nod. “Then he’s wearing the uniform of an officer in the East India Company. An army man who’s served in India. He’s either married, or is on the point of marrying, an English heiress. If you look carefully, you’ll see through the open window in the background a piece of bravura miniature painting.” He produced a magnifying glass from his desk drawer and handed it to Truelove. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s a freshly planted avenue of lime trees marching off into the distance. The kind of landscaping you often see defining wide acres of opulent estates a century or two ago. I don’t recognise it, but I think
you
might. I’d say an inquisitive man could stroll along to the record room at the War Office and check the army lists, collating names of officers serving in India and match one of them with that of a Suffolk landowner of the period.”

Truelove grinned. “Someone told me you were a detective, Sandilands. I shall heed the warning. It is, indeed, in Suffolk. The lime avenue is still there. And the lady and her gentleman are my great, great, I forget how many greats, grandparents.”

“Congratulations, sir! Are you going to tell me how your ancestors have fetched up in a London auction house on view to the world and on sale to the highest bidder?”

“They disappeared from their display case at the family seat before the war. One of those long golden Edwardian summers: 1906 was it? Something like that … I wish I’d paid more attention. I was a boy, just home from Eton, more interested in snaring rabbits and popping off my airgun than works of art, but I can just remember the hoo-ha and the excitement of having the Plod on the premises. The pictures were assumed to be stolen, by
person or persons unknown. But all that unpleasantness is behind us. It was investigated, of course, without result. No one was ever arrested or even came under suspicion at the time. Family members, staff and a company of friends assembled for a shoot were present, among whom, a royal personage.”

“And you don’t rush about the place shrieking, ‘Stop thief! Let the dogs loose and bring in the Bobbies!’ with King Edward on the premises. Too embarrassing.”

“No. You wait until the guests have departed and then you invite the local force to attend and allow them to grill the servants. There are hoops to be jumped through for insurance and other purposes. Tedious stuff. But it was thought better to make light of the loss. Whoever did pinch the pair was employed by the family, was known to them, perhaps even
was
one of the family. Really—kinder and more discreet not to find out.”

“The local force, you say?”

“No, in fact.” Truelove shrugged. “Apple-scrumping and poaching are as bad as it gets in the peaceable county of Suffolk, Sandilands. We are stirred by the odd outbreak of fisticuffs in a dockside tavern in Ipswich at the other end of the county occasionally, perhaps. Anything more demanding is dealt with by the Cambridge force. The city’s only twenty-odd miles away, they have a smart detective section and a well-equipped crime laboratory.”