Sidney Chambers and The Problem of Evil (The Grantchester Mysteries) (10 page)

As Cathy Keating finished speaking, Helena Randall walked past. She was wearing a diaphanous green summer dress, her arms were bare and she had just washed her hair. It hung, still damp, in soft waves almost to her waist, small stray tendrils framing her face. She had not noticed the party at the table and the four friends did not ask her to join them. Cathy Keating remarked that even though it was a warm day Helena would catch her death of cold dressed like that and that her uncombed hair would lose its shape if she didn’t watch out. It was a pity, she observed. Miss Randall could be quite a pretty girl if she just made more of an effort.

The two men looked at each other and knew that it was safest to say nothing.

A gathering of swallows flew above them, away and then into the distance, twittering in the skies. The sun had begun its decline. Sufficient unto the day, Sidney thought to himself, was the evil thereof.

Female, Nude

It was midday in October and Sidney was waiting for his good friend, the art historian Amanda Kendall, in the upper galleries of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. They had arranged to view the new acquisition of a painting by Matisse,
The Studio Under the Eaves
, before enjoying a leisurely lunch at Le Bleu Blanc Rouge. That afternoon, Amanda had an appointment to see the director of the museum in order to confirm that the collection’s portrait of William Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton was painted ‘after’ Hans Holbein the Younger and was therefore of considerably less valuable than the museum had hoped. Such a possibility might diminish the reputation of the collection but at least it would save on the insurance.

It was a long time since Sidney had spent any time in the galleries and he had forgotten that the Fitzwilliam contained works of art that were far more impressive than many people imagined. There were paintings by Italian Renaissance artists, particularly Venetian, a superb collection of landscapes of all schools, a distinguished group of portrait miniatures by British artists and a remarkable range of French Impressionist paintings which were like old friends: a lilac-washed Monet scene of springtime, a simple plate of Cézanne’s apples, and a Matisse portrait of a woman,
La Blouse Bulgare
, that always made him think of Amanda. He was reminded of the fact that the greatest paintings could always sustain repeated viewings. Like a classic book or a Shakespearean play, they were open to multiple interpretations. What mattered in art was not impact but resonance.

That autumn, there was a special exhibition on the female nude with works by Rodin, Whistler, Burne-Jones and Augustus John. Sidney passed the time waiting for his friend by imagining what it might be like to take a life drawing class. It would have much to teach him about patience, the art of looking, and the nature of human anatomy. He wondered how closely the eye of the artist should mirror that of the clergyman or the detective. Perhaps he could try to be, in Henry James’s famous phrase, ‘one on whom nothing is lost’.

He had just stopped to look more closely at two studies of a female nude by Eric Gill when he heard someone singing. It was a female voice; both high and delicate.

‘Mon amant me délaisse

O gai! Vive la rose!

Je ne sais pas pourquoi

Vive la rose et le lilas!’

He turned round. As he did so, a young blonde girl undid her fur coat to reveal that she was naked underneath. She draped the coat over her right shoulder and walked slowly round the room, still singing.

‘Il va-t-en voir une autre,

O gai! Vive la rose!

Qu’est plus riche que moi

Vive la rose et le lilas!’

A guard called out. ‘Stop that. Put your clothes back on, Madam.’

The girl continued:

‘On dit qu’elle est plus belle,

O gai vive la rose!

Je n’en disconviens pas
.
.
.

On dit qu’elle est malade

O gai! Vive la rose!’

The guard shouted for help. ‘Omari! Come quick!’

Bemused visitors from the surrounding galleries were summoned by the girl’s voice.

‘Peut-être elle en mourra
.
.
.

Mais si elle meurt dimanche

O gai! Vive la rose!

Lundi on l’enterrera
.
.
.

She circled the room twice.

‘Mardi il r’viendra m’voir

O gai! Vive la rose!

Mais je n’en voudrai pas

Vive la rose et le lilas!’

Then she walked out, her fur coat still over her shoulder, and disappeared.

Sidney was just beginning to compose himself when Amanda arrived. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘She was more beautiful than any ghost; a spirit from another world
.
.
.’

‘Who?’

‘Was it a vision or a waking dream, I wonder?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Fled is that music – do I wake or sleep?’

Amanda was exasperated by her friend’s distraction. ‘Pull yourself together, Sidney.’

He was unable to do so. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve just seen the most extraordinary thing. A beautiful woman gliding, yes
gliding
.
.
.’

‘Stop it. It’s quite insulting to get all soppy about one woman whilst in the presence of another. Besides, you’re a married man. Are you going to take me out to lunch or not?’

It was only after the waitress in Le Bleu Blanc Rouge had taken their order of pork cutlets with mushrooms that Sidney recovered sufficiently to explain why he had been so unsettled. Amanda listened with as much interest as she could muster but admitted that she could not concentrate because she was bursting to tell him that she had recently had dinner with Gerald Gardiner QC, the defender of
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
at the notorious trial.

‘Such a clever man,’ she began. ‘I wish I’d discovered him earlier.’

‘Isn’t he in his sixties?’

‘I think I prefer the more mature generation. They’re more stable, more charming, and generally I can be sure that they’re not after my money.’

Sidney tried to get back on to the subject of the girl in the art gallery. Could it be some kind of contemporary ‘happening’, he wondered, or was it something more sinister?

‘Honestly, Sidney, I don’t know why you are preoccupied. Some girls are just show-offs.’

‘I think she must have been French.’

‘There you are then.’

‘Not all Frenchwomen are exhibitionists.’

‘Have you been to Saint-Tropez?’ Amanda asked.

‘No, of course I haven’t.’

‘Well, there are plenty of them there, I can tell you. Had she shaved her armpits?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sidney answered forlornly. ‘I didn’t look.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘It was embarrassing, Amanda. But also strangely brave. I wonder what makes a woman want to do such a thing?’

‘I’m sure she’d tell you if you ever had the chance to ask her. Was she dark or blonde?’

‘Blonde.’

‘Naturally?’

‘Yes, Amanda, ash blonde.’

‘That’s probably why you didn’t notice the armpits. Aren’t you going to eat those mushrooms?’

Sidney was trying to find something on which to concentrate other than the girl. ‘The choice of setting was clearly deliberate. An exhibition of nude paintings.’

‘Perhaps she was making some kind of political protest, or she was drawing attention to the conflict between art and life, the real and the imagined, the naked and the nude? Kenneth Clark was always going on about it when I was a student.’

‘I imagine that the male students must have enjoyed such a concentrated form of study?’

‘Yes, the ones that weren’t pansies, of course; sum total, three, by the way. I went to one of the lectures when Clark explained that “nakedness” is the unadorned body viewed with embarrassment, whereas “the nude” is the body re-formed as art; a refined vision, balanced, prosperous and confident. Do you think your new friend was naked or nude?’

‘Somewhere between the two, I should imagine. But she’s hardly my friend.’

They finished their cutlets and were waiting for the chocolate mousse when Inspector Keating arrived. ‘At last,’ he said. ‘I’ve been all over the place looking for you. I had to telephone Hildegard.’

Amanda was amused. ‘Normally it’s we who seek you out, Inspector.’

‘Well in this case you might be relieved that I am coming to you, Miss Kendall. I believe you have an appointment with the Director of the Fitzwilliam?’

‘At three o’clock,’ Amanda answered.

‘He may be delayed.’

‘On what grounds?’

‘On the grounds that a painting has been stolen from the museum.’

‘What?’

The Inspector turned to his friend. ‘Sidney, I believe you were there at the time?’

‘I can’t think
.
.
.’

‘It was when some French girl was making an exhibition of herself. She was a decoy while, two rooms away, a thief was snatching a Sickert.’

‘An odd choice,’ said Amanda. ‘You’d get more for a Matisse.’

‘That’s as maybe. But it can’t be a coincidence. The girl and the thief must have been in cahoots. And you, Sidney, were a witness.’

‘Not to the theft.’

‘I want you to tell me exactly what happened. And I’d like you, Miss Kendall, to ask the Director a few questions on the side. Is he all he’s cracked up to be? Does he know more than he is letting on? I can brief you on the way over.’

‘Have you spoken to the security guards?’ Amanda asked. ‘These things are often inside jobs, you know.’

‘Only too well. We’re talking to them now; but none of them have done a runner and the painting’s vanished. It can’t have been the girl because she had nothing on; but we’ll have to find her. Sidney, I presume you can give me a description?’

‘Well
.
.
.’

‘In considerable detail, I would have thought,’ said Amanda.

The stolen picture was called
The Trapeze
, a circus scene at Dieppe which the painter had visited from 1919–22. It had been bequeathed to the gallery in 1939, and was considered to be one of Sickert’s finer and freer works. The subject was a young woman, seen from far below, preparing to swing across the highest part of the tent. It was a portrait of drama, risk and bravura, filled with the painter’s love of the theatre, but it was unclear why anyone would want to steal this work rather than a nearby Monet. Amanda thought perhaps that it would be easier to fence, but Sidney had begun to consider the painting’s theme. Perhaps an exhibitionist, like the girl in the gallery, would be attracted to a painting that displayed similar daring?

He recognised that, against his will, he was getting carried away by the prospect of a mystery to solve, and he told Inspector Keating firmly that he was already late for home. ‘I should get back to my parish duties now.’

‘Nonsense. You like this kind of thing.’

‘I may enjoy the intrigue and the thrill of the chase, but I am not sure that my life should be such a slave to excitement.’

‘Don’t be absurd.’

‘And Hildegard will not take kindly to the idea of my running round the country looking out for women who take their clothes off so readily.’

‘But I haven’t asked you to do that, Sidney. Don’t get your hopes up. I simply requested that you come back to the museum.’

‘Very well.’

The Director of the Fitzwilliam was a well-groomed man called Graham Anderson, with hair the colour of beach sand after rain. He had a naturally tanned face, good teeth, and a rather stylish moustache that he clearly waxed. This was a man who had perhaps been told once too many times that he looked like a matinée idol and had started to believe it; a minor vanity that had become more pronounced after he had twice been mistaken for David Niven.

He also had one of those extraordinary hard handshakes which Sidney disliked, the kind his namesake, the Victorian clergyman Sidney Smith, had once referred to as the
shakus rusticus
, ‘in which the recipient’s hand is seized in an iron grasp, betokening rude health, warm heart and producing a strong sense of relief when the victim finds his hand has been released and his fingers blessedly unbroken’.

Graham Anderson talked through the daring nature of the crime. He told Amanda and Sidney that he was puzzled by the theatricality of the theft. It would surely have been simpler to break in after hours or to organise some kind of inside job with one of the guards. Instead there had been an elaborate ploy of distraction, during which the painting had been cut from its frame. Amanda asked if she could take a look at what remained while the Director continued talking to the police.