Last Nocturne (19 page)

‘How long is it since you saw Theo, Mr Benton?’

‘Three weeks. He came to visit us about once a month. That was less of him than either his mother or I would have liked. But he came, on the understanding that we kept off the subject of his painting which, to be frank, I could neither appreciate nor sympathise with.’

‘Not an uncommon reaction, I fancy,’ Lamb murmured.

‘Quite. But we’d succeeded in burying our differences – at least to the extent where we respected each other’s right to have them. There was no bad blood between us of late, for which I can only be thankful now – though I made no secret of the fact that I didn’t approve of his chosen way of life – how could I?’ He gestured round the sordid attic room Theo had called his studio. The first sight of it had rendered him speechless. But shock had released feelings this strict, somewhat limited man would never have expressed had he not been under great strain. ‘He’d rejected other decent, straightforward courses he could have followed and taken to – this. Why?’

Lamb knew that Joseph Benton had started his business as a watchmaker and jeweller in a small way, and that he’d expanded until he now owned a small chain of jewellery shops, managed by others but kept firmly under his eye and his direction. He was hard-headed in business, nonconformist in his beliefs, had a narrow outlook on life and opinions that would not be shifted, but he was a good man, according to his own lights – simply bewildered in a world where children defied their parents and went their own way. Nevertheless, he hadn’t disowned his errant son; Theo had been his child, no matter how it pained him that he should have chosen to live his life according to ambitions and principles his father couldn’t begin to understand. And that, in Lamb’s book, marked several points in his favour.

‘I only met Theo once, Mr Benton, at his sister’s engagement party.’

‘I recall the occasion.’

‘I spoke with him there – the only time I ever did – but I was impressed by the force of his ambition.’

‘Were you? It wasn’t something I found easy to understand, but for his mother’s sake, I agreed to a sort of – truce, you might call it. I told him I would support him until he established himself. I was still supporting him when he died. Even when he lived abroad.’

‘That was in Vienna, I understand?’

‘Paris, Vienna, Paris again. Much to his mother’s disapproval. Thank God she’s never seen this place – or these,’ he added, his face drawn into a mask of incomprehension as he contemplated what was left of the canvases, stacked in the wooden racks. ‘They call this art? Not as far as I know it, and I’m not entirely the Philistine my son thought me. I’ve had my wife and daughter – as you know, Mr Lamb, not an ill-looking pair, if I do say it myself – painted together by none other than Mr John Singer Sargent. Now there’s an artist! There’s realism, if you like!’

Lamb, who knew that Mrs Benton was a grey-haired and wrinkled lady tending somewhat to stoutness, and that Berenice, though sweet-natured, took after her father too much ever to be regarded as a beauty, inclined his head, but said nothing. Sargent, like other men, had his living to make, after all, and moreover knew how to go about it very well, with his brilliant and exquisite portraits of society women – or anyone else with the money to buy his services. Having his wife and daughter painted by him must have set Benton back a tidy sum.

‘How much do you know about the exhibition at the Pontifex Gallery where Theo was showing his work?’

‘The Pontifex? Enough to say that if this – this – is a sample of the work being shown there, I’m ashamed that Theo saw fit to call himself one of their number.’

Lamb thought it very likely Benton had never actually seen any of his son’s work before. He flipped over the pictures with scarcely concealed distaste until he came to the framed painting of the little girl. This brought him up short, and for a long time he said nothing, peering to look for the signature as if there must be some mistake, as indeed Lamb himself had done. ‘He could paint like
this
– and yet he painted
those?
’ he exclaimed, his words almost precisely echoing those of Cogan before him. ‘Now
this
I will take. I believe my dear wife would be more than glad to have it. Unless, or until, it is found to belong to someone else?’

‘No one has claimed it so far.’ Lamb thought it an unnecessary complication at this juncture to tell him there were doubts about its authenticity. ‘Tell me, Mr Benton, was Theo happy about this exhibition?’

Benton thought, then said carefully, ‘Not as happy at the prospect as I would have imagined. In fact, since he came back from Vienna there were times when his mood was – what I can only describe as…well, sombre.’

The impression Sickert had also gained of Theo’s paintings. Dark. Sombre. What Lamb himself had felt about those little nocturnes.

Benton was shaking his head sadly. ‘I asked him if he had got himself into debt, or anything like that, but he said not. His mother thought there might have been a girl in Vienna, a romance that hadn’t turned out well. She was probably right, she usually is.’

Lamb made a mental note of that. Jealousy was as good a motive for murder as anything else, although there had been no mention of any particular woman in the interviews with Theo’s friends and acquaintances.

‘How long did he stay in Vienna?’

‘Twelve months or thereabouts. I’ll tell you something…his mother and his sister were agog to hear about his life there – you know what women are. Some friend of theirs had been rhapsodising about Austria and how beautiful it was, and they were pestering me to make arrangements with Cook’s to take a cruise up the Danube, and to pay Theo a visit while we were in Vienna. Before we had the chance to do so, he arrived home and threw a wet blanket over the scheme. Vienna was too hot in summer, too cold in winter. The Danube wasn’t blue, it was the usual dun colour of rivers everywhere, and the food so heavy we’d feel as stuffed as Christmas turkeys most of the time. He was unlike himself, very morose, and refused to say any more. It upset his mother so much she abandoned the idea altogether.’

Lamb had so far managed to divert his attention from the easel with the cover thrown over the spoilt painting and had wedged Tilly Tremayne in behind it, in order not to upset him further, but Benton didn’t appear to notice. He looked towards the stacked paintings for the last time. He said sadly, ‘Well, well,’ then fell silent. After a while, he blew his nose loudly. ‘I don’t want any of them, except the picture of the little girl. I must see about getting rid of the rest.’

As the old man turned to go, Lamb said, ‘If it’s any consolation to you, Mr Benton, I’ve just been speaking to someone who believes your son’s work may well come into its own before many years have passed.’

‘Thank you, sir, but I would rather have Theo alive and unknown than posthumously famous. The only consolation you can give me is to find his murderer.’

Guy Martagon shut the door behind him as he left the glassed-in corner of the hall where the telephone was housed and strode to the stairs. Maids carrying plates of cakes covered with glass domes scurried out of his way; a footman carrying a silver tea urn stepped adroitly aside. The second of his mother’s ‘afternoons’ was shortly to begin. Avoiding with some agility the arrival of the plump tenor who was to give a Schubert lieder recital and the young woman who was to intersperse the songs with readings of her own poetry, he took the stairs two at a time to his room. Once there and the door closed behind him, he paced towards the window and stood looking out, unseeing, his hands clasped behind his back.

Did this mean the case was going to be re-opened?

The telephone call had been from Chief Inspector Lamb, the policeman who had been in charge of the investigation into his father’s death, telephoning to ask if he might see and talk to him again on the following day. He hadn’t been prepared to go into lengthy explanations, but Guy had immediately put his own interpretation on what little the detective had said. The death of the artist, Theo Benton, was not apparently as straightforward as it had at first seemed, and Lamb’s very caution sent out signals. His nerves already overstretched with worry over his mother and the missing letters, Guy had a keyed-up sense of things coming to a head – which was what he had wanted, yet he was stunned. Of all the possibilities, this was the one he had feared most of all. Was it in fact possible? Did such things really happen to civilised people? The thoughts chased one another around in his head and wouldn’t make sense. He had to pull himself together. Somehow, he had to get through the time until the next day.

At that moment, his eye caught sight of Grace Thurley as she came down the front steps and began to walk rapidly away from the house in the direction of the main road. He realised suddenly that chance and necessity were for once coinciding: the ‘chance’ opportunity he had been trying to contrive for several weeks. He made a grab for his outdoor things, rushed down the stairs and out of the front door and was just able to catch up with her before she reached the corner of the square. ‘Miss Thurley!’

She turned a startled face to him. ‘Why, Mr Martagon! You made me jump.’

‘Where are you off to in such a hurry, may I ask?’

‘I hadn’t really decided. Nowhere special, just for a walk, I suppose.’

‘Alone? Where is Dulcie?’ He frowned.

‘I’ve left her in peace in the schoolroom. I could see she was longing to seize the opportunity to get on with some drawing.’

He could scarcely blame Miss Thurley for quitting the house this afternoon, nor Dulcie for hiding herself away – both would undoubtedly have been pressed into service had they not done so. He admired their tactics and suppressed a smile. ‘It’s very commendable of you to be so considerate of Dulcie, but nevertheless, ladies shouldn’t walk alone,’ he remarked severely.

‘Aren’t you a trifle out of date, Mr Martagon? Haven’t you noticed that we twentieth century women are now – theoretically, at least – free to do as we please?’

Guy was by nature inclined to regard the feminine sex as the gentler one, despite his mother and the many other women who were nowadays doing their best to prove the opposite, and he still harboured notions of old-fashioned chivalry which had been instilled into him as a boy. And of course, women
did
go out independently, without a male escort, but Guy was not about to demolish his case by admitting this. Besides, he was very much afraid Grace Thurley might regard his ideas as regressive. She was quiet and composed and had a charming smile, yet he had already discovered she had a gleam in her eye and a sharp turn of phrase which he was sure it would not do to underestimate. She was looking at him now with mild amusement and he thought she might laugh outright if he were to mention the danger of pickpockets or thieves, or strange gentlemen who might try to strike up an acquaintance – though it also struck him that the look he had noticed before in those smoky blue eyes might well be the only effective deterrent needed for anyone attempting anything of the sort. He suddenly became aware of where her amusement was directed, and rather hastily buttoned his coat, adjusted his hat. He had forgotten his gloves.

She seemed to have a way of discomfiting him. He never liked to be at a disadvantage and determined to do better as he fell into step with her, unashamedly employing the social dexterity he had learnt at his mother’s knee and had since impatiently disregarded whenever he could. ‘So you see yourself as one of these emancipated modern women, do you, Miss Thurley? I wouldn’t have thought it of you. No, of course you don’t, or you would be wearing an uncompromising hat and something disagreeable in serge, instead of that charming new outfit.’

He was pleased to see that she wasn’t averse to the compliment, despite her self-assurance. He didn’t make pretty speeches easily but in this case he’d meant what he said. The costume she was wearing, in some sort of dark brown silky stuff, fitted her slender figure to perfection. It also showed off her honey-coloured hair, and the biscuit-coloured straw of her hat gave a glow to her fair skin. She seemed determined not to pay too much attention to the flattery, however. ‘Thank you, but my outfit isn’t new, Mr Martagon – merely as a matter of interest.’ (Had he but known it, it was the same outfit she had worn on that cold spring evening when she had given Robert his ring back – poor Robert, to whom she had scarcely given a thought since then.)

‘Hm. Well, merely as another matter of interest, I repeat, I don’t think you should be alone – especially on such a lovely day. You must let me escort you to wherever it is you wish to go.’ In an instant this became, neither a duty nor a way of getting through the afternoon, but a consummation of something which had been for some time devoutly desired.

‘I’m afraid that would be an undue trespass on your time.’

‘Then you may regard it as taking pity on me, if that makes you feel better. I’m presented with a free afternoon, too, and nothing to do. I daren’t stay in the house in case I get roped in. The sound of a sobbing tenor brings out the worst in me.’

‘Which must, of course,’ she returned, straight-faced, ‘be avoided at all costs.’

‘Must it? Dear me, I didn’t believe I was so frightening. You’re not afraid of me, are you?’ People often seemed to be on the defensive where he was concerned, as if they expected for some reason to be gobbled up by him. He couldn’t think why. But Miss Thurley was not easily intimidated. ‘No, I believe you’re laughing at me. Where were you intending to walk?’

‘Oh, I hadn’t made up my mind.’ In the short time since her arrival in London, Grace had been experiencing a heady sense of freedom and was determined to make the most of whatever time she had to herself. She went to galleries and museums; she walked, a richly rewarding pastime of which she’d grown very fond, not aiming for anywhere in particular but enjoying the prospect of coming across some new place, some gem of church architecture, an unexpected city garden. She relished going as an independent lady into teashops, alone or with Dulcie, or riding on the top deck of an omnibus. The Crown Jewels were on her list. ‘I thought I might go down to the river,’ she told him. ‘There’s practically the whole of London I’ve yet to see, and long to.’