Truth Will Out (15 page)

‘And whatever happened to Primmy? Do you know what made her so dopey? Aunt Biddy said she wouldn’t wake up.’

‘She was all right this morning. She must have swallowed something poisonous. Some poisons make you sleepy before you actually die. Anyway, it’s no good asking me.’ Abruptly, she slid back below the bedclothes.

Maude, baffled and rapidly losing patience, shook her head. ‘Aunt Biddy’s making a sausage and potato pie so if you’re hungry, get up. No-one is going to wait on you. Now, I have things to do so you’ll—’ The telephone rang. ‘I must go. Try and pull yourself together!’

She ran downstairs and snatched up the telephone. As soon as she spoke, however, the line went dead. Maude redialled the operator. ‘Operator, the line went dead.’

‘I’m sorry, ma’am. The caller hung up.’

‘Thank you.’ She frowned. ‘Was it a man or a woman?’

‘A man.’

Baffled, Maude made her way into the kitchen where Aunt Biddy was humming cheerfully under her breath as she arranged a fancy edging around the edge of the pastry lid.

Biddy said, ‘That was a short phone call.’

‘This day started badly and it’s getting worse!’ was Maude’s only reply.

SEVEN

I
t was nearly two o’clock and the gallery was empty except for the staff. Jane Dyer and Frederick Barlowe faced each other over the desk at reception. Looking up from her chair, flushed with anxiety, Jane stammered as she spoke.

‘I really don’t . . . I wish you wouldn’t ask this, Mr Barlowe, because . . . because I don’t want to do anything that might hurt poor Mr Brent.’

‘For heaven’s sake, girl, be reasonable. No-one is trying to hurt him. It’s more a matter of protecting the gallery as well as preventing thieves from succeeding. If Mrs Brent goes ahead with this foolish plan of hers—’

‘But she’s trying to save her husband’s life!’ Jane stared at him, bewildered that he could not see the matter through her eyes. To her it was writ large. The kidnappers would kill Mr Brent if they did not get what they wanted and Jane knew it would break her heart to lose him from her life. Not that she owned even the smallest part of him, for he was well and truly married to Maude, but she loved him nonetheless and would never do anything to hurt him or the wife he adored. ‘You’re asking me to risk his life for the sake of a few pictures!’ she cried. ‘I think that’s truly wicked!’

Colour drained from his face and his expression grew thunderous. Jane drew back defensively. She had seen her employer angry before but never as furious as he was now.

‘I never took you for a fool, Miss Dyer!’ he cried. ‘We are not talking about a few pictures. We are talking about an artist’s inheritance! His reputation. The best of Cope’s paintings!’

Jane tried to interrupt him but he shouted over her.

‘Hell and damnation! Surely after all this time in the art world, you understand that much.’ He paused briefly to catch his breath and went on. ‘The police think it unwise but Mrs Brent seems determined to flout their advice so they ask us for help. We are trying to prevent a major robbery. All I am asking you to do is tell a small white lie. Just tell her I have been called away suddenly and you cannot find the list of paintings. Is that really too much to ask?’

Jane swallowed. Her throat hurt with the effort of holding back tears of fright and misery. It was all she could do, earlier in the morning, to come into the gallery at all. Sick at heart, she had been unable to eat anything and her mother had tried to keep her at home, ‘away from all the nastiness’. Now she wished she had allowed herself to be persuaded. It was becoming much nastier than she had expected.

‘Think, Jane!’ he urged, finally making an obvious effort to control his anger. ‘When it’s all over and Mr Brent is back safe and sound we can forget all about it – and he’ll be immensely grateful that we haven’t squandered a thousand pounds’ worth of valuable paintings, which, in case you hadn’t realized, have, over the last year or so, made this gallery famous. When he comes back he’ll have you to thank.’

‘If he does come back.’ She regarded him fearfully. ‘Suppose they kill him. Suppose we never see him again and never know what happened to him. How is Mrs Brent going to feel then, knowing that I helped to kill him? How shall
I
feel? Surely his wife knows better than we do, and if she wants to hand over the pictures—’

‘She’s not thinking straight, can’t you see that? Maude Brent is half mad with worry. How can she know what’s best?’ He waved his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘She can’t step back and see the whole picture – no pun intended.’

He smiled faintly and Jane longed to slap his face. Lionel’s life was on the line and Frederick Barlowe thought it funny! He was making stupid jokes. She regarded him with sudden loathing, wondering how she had ever thought him a decent man with principles.

Just at that moment the phone rang, cutting through the tense atmosphere.

They froze.

‘Answer it, Jane!’

‘I can’t!’ She sprang from her chair and retreated a few feet from the telephone. ‘No!’

R-r-ring! R-r-ring!

‘Jane! Do as you’re told!’

She shook her head.

Barlowe grabbed her arm, pulled her closer, snatched up the receiver and thrust it into her hand. He forced her fingers to close around it then forced it to her ear. His face was very close to hers and she was terrified. The operator said, ‘I have a call for you,’ and there was a click as the connection was made.

A woman said, ‘This is Mrs Maitland. I’m wondering if my picture is ready for collection. You told me to telephone either today or tomorrow. It’s
The Old Mill
by Andrew Lotts . . . Hello? Is anyone there? Hello . . .?’

The receiver dropped from Jane’s hand and she followed it on to the floor in a dead faint.

After lunch Aunt Biddy stood at the top of the cellar stairs and watched Maude’s careful descent into the gloom, where about thirty pictures lay propped against purpose-built wooden racks. Each painting had been carefully wrapped in brown paper and lengths of sacking, and tied with string. Each one carried a large white label, which in turn bore a number and details of the painting – the date it was painted and the subject matter. Arnold Cope had become fashionable in his mid-thirties and had been fortunate to find an experienced agent who taught him what he knew about storing works of art and controlling the rate of sales so that his income rose steadily and the supply of paintings for sale remained steady throughout his life.

In her pocket Maude carried a list that she had found after a prolonged search earlier – a list of the works that had remained when her father died, but which she knew was out of date. The price allotted to each picture was also unreliable but at least she would know which were the most valuable and could select those. Fewer valuable works would be easier to handle than a large number of the lower-priced items.

She paused to study the list, frowning in the dim light. Possibly half a dozen had been sold recently but they had not necessarily been the best and therefore not the most valuable. Maude thought carefully. There was really no need for her to make a varied selection of subject matter – all she wanted were paintings that would total one thousand pounds when sold. There were possibly a few paintings in reserve at the gallery itself, kept with those by other artists in the room over the gallery.

Maude was also at a disadvantage because, after her marriage to Lionel, she had spent very little time in the gallery, relying on Frederick Barlowe and Lionel to deal with the business side of the enterprise. Lionel was determined she should have no worries and she had easily been persuaded to hand over most of the day-to-day management to him.

Before Barlowe rang her back, Maude wanted to acquaint herself with the available paintings so that she would waste no time in making her selection when the time came.

‘Go steady down there, Maudie love!’

‘I am. My eyes are getting used to it.’ The overhead light bulb had failed and, unable to find a replacement, Maude was making the best of a powerful torch, stepping carefully over the uneven bricked floor and ducking her head to miss the worst of the cobwebs. As a child she had often sneaked down to the cellar to frighten herself with thoughts of ghosts and witches, enjoying the frisson of fear as she allowed her imagination to run riot. The rows of blind packages had assumed subhuman forms, lying in wait for the unwary to turn their backs . . . Spiders, too, had given her the shudders until eventually she had taken fright and scrambled frantically back up the creaking steps to the safety of the light.

Today, however, she had no time to reminisce and no desire to relive her childhood traumas. She had plenty of her own terrors to deal with and she forced herself to take a few deep breaths before she made her rounds. She checked each numbered package against her outdated list, trying to recall each painting but failing most of the time. With a pencil stub she marked the pictures that still remained. Later, Barlowe would advise her on the best ones to choose.

Time passed. Something scratched in a corner of the wall and she resisted the urge to run back up the steps. A mouse, perhaps. Definitely not a rat. Please God!

‘I should have brought Primmy down here,’ she muttered, although she knew that the excitable dog would be more trouble than she was worth.

As though reading her thoughts, Primmy suddenly appeared at the top of the steps and began to bark.

‘All right, Primmy! I’ve just about finished.’

Aunt Biddy called down. ‘I’m going to shut her outside in the garden.’

At last, reasonably satisfied with her findings, Maude went back up the steps and closed the door behind her. A fresh tray of jam tarts waited on the kitchen table but Maude had eaten too much pie at lunch and for the moment was satisfied with a cup of strong sweet tea.

Good for my nerves
, she told herself, only too aware of the task that would face her at two ten a.m. when she delivered the pictures.

Facing her aunt across the table, she tried to smile. ‘This time tomorrow it will all be over!’ she said firmly.

Biddy said, ‘God willing!’ and held up her hands. She had crossed the fingers of both.

Maude said slowly, ‘About Alice. I have a nasty feeling that she might be . . .’

‘With child?’ Aunt Biddy nodded. ‘I was trying not to think it, but now that you’ve said that . . . Well, it would explain her funny mood and what happened last night. But how on earth did she manage to carry on that sort of . . . behaviour without us noticing? When did she see this man? How did they meet? And, worst of all, who is he? Because if he was a decent type, she wouldn’t need to hide the friendship. We wouldn’t object.’

‘Unless she thought we’d disapprove.’

‘Or unless . . .’ Biddy screwed up her face in distaste.

‘Oh no! Don’t even think it!’

They were both silent, each trying to find a reason why Alice should have been spared the ultimate disgrace of rape.

Maude rubbed her eyes wearily. ‘If someone . . . If some wretch has assaulted her . . . we would have known, surely! She trusts us, doesn’t she?’

‘We could ask her, but would she admit it?’ Biddy regarded her niece helplessly. ‘As if we don’t have enough troubles with poor Lionel . . .’

Maude drew a long breath. She had lost her faith in Detective Constable Fleet and had spurned his advice, but now she felt the need to seek his help again. They couldn’t ignore Alice’s problem simply because they had other things to worry about. But had she been assaulted? If so she might refuse to speak of it to the police for fear of the embarrassment of discussing the details with a man.

She said, ‘It’s always seen as such a shameful thing . . . Most young women would feel their lives had been ruined. Oh no! I can’t believe it . . . But maybe we should ask her outright. She’d need to see a doctor and we’d need to notify the police.’

Biddy helped herself to another jam tart. She had already eaten two. Now she pushed the plate towards Maude and, to please her, Maude took one.

‘Look, Maude, you have enough to think about. Let me deal with Alice. I’ll take her up some tarts and a cup of tea and try to talk to her. You concentrate on Lionel.’

By way of thanks Maude hugged her. ‘I shall have to telephone the gallery,’ she said. ‘I thought Barlowe would have rung by now.

Ben Hemmings stood on the doorstep of the Romilees Hotel. He almost bounced on the soles of his feet and his blue eyes shone with anticipation.

Derek eyed him suspiciously. ‘If you’re here to speak with Mrs Brent, you’re out of luck,’ he told him. ‘She’s gone back to her place in Folkestone for a few hours.’

The reporter appeared undismayed by this news. ‘Mrs Brent is only one of the people I want to talk to,’ he explained. ‘I’ve been commissioned, as in
commissioned –
by a national magazine, no less – to do an in-depth article about kidnapping with this current case in particular. But I have to get it in as soon as possible in case the mystery is suddenly solved. You see my problem? If I get it in to them quickly I can leave the article with unanswered questions and then, with luck, I get to write a second, shorter, more specific piece which crosses the “t’s” and dots the “i’s”!’ He tapped his nose. ‘I get paid twice!’

Remembering that his sister had nominated her brother to deal with Hemmings, Derek opened the door for him and led him into their own private sitting room. ‘My sister is also out of the building,’ he said as Hemmings settled himself comfortably on the sofa and produced his notebook and pencil.

‘Aha! Is Mrs Cobb on a mission connected with the case?’

‘Hardly. We’ve had an unexpected booking for seven for supper tonight so she’s rushed out for a few more ingredients. Our dining room is fairly small, as you’ve seen, and seven extra means a bit of jiggling of the furniture and padding out of the menu. Ali wants to offer a third dessert and—’

‘Nice-looking woman, Mrs Brent. I sometimes think I married too young!’ Hemmings laughed.

‘Mrs Brent? I’ve never really looked at her.’ He frowned. ‘I suppose she is, although she’s not at her best with all this trouble.’