Anne Perry - Resurrection Row

“It would be irresponsible of me to speak before I have proof.” Pitt evaded it with a slight smile. “I might wrong someone, and suspicion once voiced is seldom forgotten, no matter how false it proves to be later.”

St. Jermyn hesitated as if about to ask something further, then thought better of it. “Yes-yes, of course,” he agreed. “What are you going to do now?”

“Question the people who knew him best, both professionally and socially,” Pitt replied, taking the opening offered. “I believe you were one of his patrons?”

St. Jermyn gave an answering smile, no more than a slight relaxation of the face. “What a curious word, Inspector. Hardly a patron. I commissioned one picture, of my wife.”

“And were you satisfied with it?”

“It is acceptable. My wife liked it well enough, which was what mattered. Why do you ask?

“No particular reason. May I see it?”

“If you wish, although I doubt you will learn anything from it. It is very ordinary.” He turned and walked out of the door into the hallway, leaving Pitt to follow. The picture was in an inconspicuous place on the stair wall, and, looking at the quality of it compared with the other family portraits, Pitt was not surprised. His eye scanned the face briefly, then went to the left-hand corner. The insect was there, this time a spider.

“Well?” St. Jermyn inquired with a touch of irony in his voice.

“Thank you, sir.” Pitt came down the stairs again to stand level with him. “Do you mind telling me, sir, how much you paid for it?”

“Probably more than it’s worth,” St. Jermyn said casually. “But my wife likes it. Personally, I don’t think it does her justice, do you? But then you wouldn’t know; you haven’t met her.”

“How much, sir?” Pitt repeated.

“About four hundred and fifty pounds, as far as I can remember. Do you want the precise figure? It would take me some time to find it. Hardly a major transaction!”

The vast financial difference between them was not lost on Pitt.

“Thank you, that will be near enough.” He dismissed it without comment.

St. Jermyn smiled fully for the first time. “Does that further your investigations, Inspector?”

“It may do, when compared with other information.” Pitt walked on to the front door. “Thank you for your time, sir.”

When he got home, cold and tired, Pitt was welcomed by the fragrance of steaming soup and dry laundry hanging from the ceiling. Jemima was already asleep, and the house was silent. He took his wet boots off and sat down, letting the calm wash over him, almost as capable of being felt with body as was the heat. For several minutes Charlotte said no more than a welcome, an acknowledgment of his presence.

When at last he was ready to talk, he put down the soup bowl she had given him and looked across at her.

“I’m making noises as if I knew what I was doing, but honestly, I can’t see sense in any of it,” he said with a gesture of helplessness.

“Whom have you questioned?” she asked, wiping her hands carefully and picking up an oven cloth before opening the door and reaching in for a pie. She pulled it out and put it quickly on the table. The crust was crisp and pale gold, a little darker in one corner, in fact, perilously close to burnt.

He looked at it with the beginning of a smile.

She saw him. “I’ll eat that corner!” she said instantly.

He laughed. “Why does it do that? Scorch one corner!”

She gave him a withering look. “If I knew that, I would prevent it!” She turned out the vegetables smartly and watched the steam rise with appreciation. “Whom have you seen about this artist?”

“Everyone in the Park who has portraits by him-why?”

“I just wondered.” She lifted the carving knife and held it in the air, suspended over the pie while she thought. “We had an artist paint a picture of Mama once, and another for Sarah. They were both full of compliments, told Sarah she was beautiful, made all sorts of outrageously flattering remarks; said she had a quality of delicacy about her like a Bourbon rose. She floated round insufferably with her head in the air, looking sideways at herself in all the mirrors for weeks.”

“She was good-looking,” he replied. “Although a Bourbon rose is a little extravagant. But what is the point you are making?”

“Well, Godolphin Jones made his money by painting pictures of people, which in a way is the ultimate vanity, isn’t it, having your face immortalized? Maybe he flattered them all like that? And if he did, I would imagine a fair few of them responded, wouldn’t you?

Suddenly he perceived. “You mean an affaire, or several affaires ? A jealous woman who imagined she was something unique in his life and discovered she was merely one of many, and that the sweet images were just part of his professional equipment? Or a jealous husband?”

“It’s possible.” She lowered her knife at last and cut into the pie. Thick gravy bubbled through, and Pitt totally forgot about the scorched piece.

“I’m hungry,” he said hopefully.

She smiled up at him with satisfaction. “Good. Ask Aunt Vespasia. If it was anyone in the Park, I’ll bet she knows, and if she doesn’t, she will find out for you.”

“I will,” he promised. “Now, please get on with that and forget about Godolphin Jones.”

But the first person he saw the following day was Somerset Carlisle. By now, of course, everyone in the Park knew of the discovery of the body, and he no longer had any element of surprise.

“I didn’t know him very well,” Carlisle said mildly. “Not much in common, as I dare say you know? And I certainly had no desire to have my portrait done.”

“If you had,” Pitt said slowly, watching Carlisle’s face, “would you have gone to Godolphin Jones?”

Carlisle’s expression dropped a little in surprise. “Why on earth does it matter? I’m a bit late now, anyway.”

“Would you?”

Carlisle hesitated, considering. “No,” he said at length. “No, I wouldn’t.”

Pitt had expected that. Charlotte had said Carlisle had spoken slightingly of Jones as an artist. He would have contradicted himself had he praised him now.

Pitt pursued it. “Overrated, would you say?”

Carlisle looked levelly at him; his eyes were dark gray and very clear. “As a painter, yes, Inspector, I would say so. As an admirer and companion, possibly not. He was quite a wit, very even-tempered, and had learned the not inconsiderable art of suffering fools graciously. It is difficult to command more than you are worth for long.”

“Isn’t art something of a fashion?” Pitt inquired.

Carlisle smiled, still meeting his eyes without a flicker.

“Certainly. But fashions are frequently manufactured. Price feeds upon itself, you know. Sell one thing expensively, and you can sell the next even more so.”

Pitt took the point, but it did not answer the question as to why anyone should strangle Godolphin Jones.

“You mentioned other forms of worth,” he said carefully. “Did you mean purely as a companion, or perhaps more-as a lover in an affaire -or even several?”

Carlisle’s face remained impassive, amused. “It might be worth your while to investigate the possibility. Discreetly, of course, or you will rouse a lot of ill feeling that will rebound upon yourself.”

“Naturally,” Pitt agreed. “Thank you, sir.”

Discretion began with Aunt Vespasia.

“I was expecting you yesterday,” she said with slight surprise in her voice. “Where can you start? Is there anything you know about this wretched man? So far as I have heard, he had nothing to do with Augustus, and Alicia was one of the few beauties, or imagined beauties, around the Park that he did not paint. For goodness’ sake, man, sit down; you give me a crick in my neck looking at you!”