Serpent in the Garden (26 page)

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AFTER BREAKFAST Joshua lost no time in seeking out Sabine’s maid. Marie was a small, dark-skinned, dark-eyed woman, aged about thirty, with purple circles about her eyes and a disgruntled, downturned mouth. Having listened to him explain his business, Marie gave a hefty sigh. “How many times more must I go over it all?” she exclaimed petulantly.

“Who else has been to ask you?”

“Mrs. Mercier, Mr. Bentnick, then yesterday Miss Manning came. Is that not enough?”

“Come, come,” said Joshua, puffing himself out. “A valuable jewel has been lost. You can’t expect it to be treated like losing a button.”

“So long as I don’t get the blame,” she said, “when you were the last to have it.”

Joshua surveyed the flowers woven into the Aubusson carpet. Why was it everyone in this house seemed so reluctant to speak openly to him? Was there no one without some secret grievance? A man of less composure might have taken Marie by the shoulders and shaken her for her impudence. But Joshua mastered the impulse. “No one is accusing you of anything,” he said gently. “Just show me first where the necklace box was kept when Mrs. Mercier was away.”

Marie moved toward the dressing table, where Sabine had fingered the necklace so lovingly. She opened the top drawer on the right-hand side. Marie took out the shagreen box, opened the lid, and held it out to him.

“This is where the necklace was kept. And this is what madam found when she opened the box. No necklace.”

Joshua closed the box and held it in his hand. “Tell me what happened when Miss Violet brought the box to you on the day I left for London.”

She answered readily, as well she might, for the story was one she had related several times before. “I took the box from Miss Violet, put it inside the drawer, where it is always kept, and locked the drawer.”

“What happened to the key?”

“I put it where madam always keeps it.” She pointed to a small silver box on the dressing table.

“Was anyone else present when you did all this?”

“Why, yes, sir. Miss Violet was here and so was Miss Caroline.”

“Tell me,” Joshua said, “and please think carefully before you reply, do you believe that the box you put away on that day was empty?”

She answered with scarcely a moment’s pause. There was an expressionless tone in her voice that suggested she was repeating her response, rather than thinking carefully about it. “I can’t be certain. But I have held the necklace in the box so often I am sure I would have noticed if it was as light as this.” Here she waved her hand at the object in Joshua’s hand.

“Between the time of Mrs. Mercier’s departure and her return two days later, did anyone enter this room, apart from yourself ?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “The room wasn’t locked. Anyone might have come in. I can’t be expected to stay here every minute of the day.”

“What was the purpose of Mrs. Mercier’s trip?”

Marie looked puzzled. At last, thought Joshua, a question she hasn’t answered before. “I don’t know.”

“Whom did she visit?”

Marie shrugged.

“Come,” said Joshua, smiling winningly, “you must have some idea. I can see how bright and observant you are. Did she let nothing slip?”

Marie blushed coquettishly. “There was a note …” Her voice trailed away.

“A note,” said Joshua, trying to conceal his excitement. “Do you have it?”

“I’m not certain if the mistress …”

“She needn’t know,” said Joshua, smiling persuasively again, “and if it helps retrieve her jewel, I will ensure you benefit handsomely.”

Marie looked at him and then turned to a small
bonheur du jour
at the side of the room. She opened the flap and extracted a folded paper from one of the compartments. Clearly, thought Joshua, there was not much that escaped Marie’s eye.

Joshua took the paper and unfolded it. The hand was curlicued and curvaceous, unmistakably the same as that on the note with the illegible signature he had found in Herbert’s desk. There were but two lines written on it.

Come at 6 o’clock.

Your offer is much overdue.

“Who sent this? Do you know?”

Marie shook her head.

“And when Mrs. Mercier returned from London, she gave no indication of where she had been?”

“None. She seemed at first greatly relieved when she came back. But of course that didn’t last. She went to put on the necklace; but when she opened the box she saw that it was gone.”

“And what was her reaction?”

“She was incredulous at first. Shook her head as if she didn’t believe it. Then she became very distressed. She sent for Mr. Bentnick, but before he came she had fainted. We laid her on the bed and summoned a physician; but even after he arrived it was some hours before she regained consciousness.”

J
OSHUA adjusted the easel and turned his attentions to his mahogany carrying box of pigments. The powders had been ready ground and he began to mix them with linseed and spirit. He was preparing for Sabine’s arrival, which he expected in an hour or two, and worked with the unhurried confidence of someone who knew precisely what he was about.

While he performed these routine tasks, his mind wandered over what he had learned thus far. The note the maid had showed him suggested that the purpose of Sabine’s recent journey was to meet the claimant for whom Cobb and Hoare had acted, and resolve the dispute. And yet both she and Herbert pretended not to know who the claimant was. Was this why the disappearance of the necklace had come as such a shock? She had believed the matter settled, only to return and find the necklace gone. Perhaps she spoke the truth when she said the dispute had nothing to do with the necklace’s loss.

But since there was no evidence of disturbance, it appeared the theft of the necklace was not the work of a casual intruder. The thief had known where to look. This suggested someone inside the household, or at the very least someone familiar with the house.

Sabine had raised Lizzie Manning’s name, citing her family’s poverty as a possible motive. Joshua had disregarded this, but having discovered Arthur Manning, who was well acquainted with the house, he could not avoid the conclusion that he might easily stoop to theft. But was he a murderer? Before he could ponder further on this, the timepiece in the corridor chimed the hour, and Sabine, dressed in her finery, swept in for her sitting.

She immediately began to examine the canvas. As she sat down, plumped her skirts around her, and waited for Joshua to arrange the finer details of her pose, she complimented him on the fine manner in which the light reflected off her skirt and gave it such richness and volume. “It is still incomplete,” said Joshua modestly. “When it is finished it will have still greater luster.”

Joshua was burning to ask her more about the visit to London. And yet he had questioned her once on the matter and feared that if he did so again, she might suspect he had read the note. But once he picked up his palette and brushes and began to scrutinize his subject, he forgot his other preoccupations, his wariness of Sabine, the danger she represented. He was struck by her luminous complexion; her eyes had a depth he hadn’t remarked before. He comprehended what it was that had so smitten Herbert. She was mesmerizing, sirenlike; a man might drown in her embrace, forget everything that he was or would be—or go to any lengths to keep her.

During the following hour Sabine spoke not a word. Joshua began with her face. He worked on the structure of the lips, painting them slightly parted, using glazes of vermilion and red lake to emphasize their voluptuousness, the way they came forward from the rest of the face and the corners tipped upward a trifle, as if she were half smiling. He concentrated then on the eyes, on their relation to her nose, on the way the eyelids hung heavy and sensual, on the deep iridescent hue of the iris and the light reflected in it.

Sometimes when he painted, Joshua thought he would never end. He worked day after day adding highlights, deepening shadows, touching up details such as locks of hair and the smallest nuance of brows and lashes. At worst, even when he forced himself to declare a picture complete, it was no more than a sum of its parts—a nose, two eyes, a mouth—soundly delineated, a good likeness, but lacking some intangible soul. But at best, a mysterious alchemy took place. Canvas and paint imbued a composition with its own life, its own spark. In the Bentnick painting, the transformation took place in that hour on that day.

When the clock chimed five and the sitting was over, Sabine swept from the room as grandiosely as she had entered. Joshua surveyed his handiwork. He knew it was his best work thus far—perhaps the best he would ever paint. The realization made him feel two things. On the one hand it seemed quite miraculous that he was the creator of such a work. On the other, he felt a curious detachment, as if by its brilliance it was too good to be his. Some other hand had made it; Joshua Pope was a spectator at the exhibition of a stranger.