Denis Smith - The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes

Appleby shook his head. ‘Have you not heard?’ said he in surprise. ‘It was in the local paper. The other version of the painting was stolen last week. Two men forced their way into the owner’s house while he was out, overpowered his housekeeper and left with the painting. The matter is now in the hands of the police, so I understand.’

‘Do you know which police station is dealing with the case?’ asked Holmes.

‘Chelsea, I believe,’ returned Appleby, ‘as that is where the owner lives.’

‘Thank you,’ said Holmes. ‘As you will imagine, we are curious to know how you came to be selling two very similar copies of the same painting.’

‘They both happened to come on the market at the same time.’

‘From different sellers?’

‘No, the same seller – the widow to whom I referred in a previous conversation with Mr Dryson.’

‘It seems odd that she should have had two copies of the same painting. Might we know her name?’

Appleby hesitated. ‘Ordinarily, my client’s wish for privacy would preclude my giving you that information. As it happens, however, the lady in question has an appointment to see us this morning.’ He glanced at a clock on the wall. ‘She is due here in about ten minutes’ time. If you wish, you may wait and put your questions to her yourself.’

For a few minutes, we ambled round the gallery, idly examining the various objets d’art on display there, then Holmes indicated that we should join him in the street outside.

‘There is something odd here,’ said he, as we stood on the kerb, a short distance from the shop. ‘Did you feel it, Watson?’

‘Mr Appleby is very stiff and formal in his manner,’ I remarked, unsure what my companion had in mind.

‘Yes,’ said he; ‘but I fancy there is something more than mere formality. It seemed to me that there was a distinct look of apprehension in his eye when I began to question him, as if there were something else, other than simply names and addresses, that he did not wish us to know.’

He broke off as a smartly dressed woman approached the door of the Marchmont Gallery. She was, I suppose, nearer fifty than forty, but her face was an attractive, almost youthful one, and her carriage was erect and graceful. As this appeared likely to be the seller of Mr Dryson’s picture, we followed her into the shop, where Appleby introduced us.

‘There is not much I can tell you about the paintings,’ said she, when Holmes had explained our interest. ‘My late husband was the great collector of such things, not I.’

‘It seems odd that your husband should have had two paintings of the same scene,’ observed Holmes.

The lady smiled and shook her head. ‘I quite agree; but for some reason he seemed very keen on it – I don’t know why. We had a large house at the time, near Bethnal Green, with a large room on either side of the front door, and my husband hung a copy of The Tomb on the Hill in both of them. When I asked him about it, he just said he wished to be able to look at the picture whichever of the rooms he was in. The artist, a charming young man by the name of Andrew Philips, whom I met on several occasions, had originally painted the scene for the Eldersly family, who have estates in Yorkshire, I believe. The tomb is apparently that of some ancestor of theirs who soldiered abroad for much of his life. Anyway, they gave Mr Philips permission to enter it for the Royal Academy exhibition, and it was there that my husband saw it and was so taken with it that he asked if he might have a copy. Neither the Eldersly family nor Mr Philips raised any objection to this, nor, evidently, to there being two copies, which was what Mr Philips brought to our house in due course. That was about three years ago. Perhaps there was something in the theme of the tomb that appealed to my husband, but it seems a little morbid to me, for it was about that time that my husband first fell ill – a long illness to which he finally succumbed last summer.’

‘Might we know your husband’s name?’ enquired Holmes. ‘Then we can look out for any more of his collection which might come on to the market.’

‘Why, certainly,’ said the lady. ‘His name was Henry Cosgrove. You may have heard of him, as he was a prominent lawyer in his day, with a well-known and busy practice in Whitechapel.’

‘Thank you. And the artist’s address, in case we wish to look him up?’

‘He has a cottage to the west of Putney. I can’t remember the name of it, but you can’t miss it, as it stands all by itself. He says the air there is the clearest in the whole of London, which is why he chose it. The nearest station is the one on Barnes Common.’

‘What a very charming woman,’ said Dryson when the three of us were out in the street once more.

‘Indeed,’ I agreed. ‘What a delightful voice she has! And what poise!’

‘And yet,’ said Holmes with a chuckle, ‘all the time she was discoursing in so charming a manner, her fingers were clutching the bag she was carrying as a drowning man might clutch at a straw. What, you did not observe it? So tightly was she gripping it that I thought she might rend it in two.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘I don’t know, Watson. Perhaps there was something that Mrs Cosgrove was anxious we might ask her, something she would rather not discuss. But, come! I wish to make a few enquiries at Chelsea police station.’

Dryson asked if he might accompany us, to which Holmes raised no objection, and in twenty minutes we had reached the police station. Our visit there was but a brief one. The officer on duty informed us that a Mr Gerald Tacolstone of Oakley Street had reported the assault upon his housekeeper and the theft of his painting the previous week. ‘But,’ he said, ‘we have had a message from him this very morning, to say that his picture has been returned. It seems that someone rang at his door-bell early this morning and when his housekeeper went to answer it she found there was no one there, but a large packing-case had been left, leaning up against the railings. She and Mr Tacolstone took it into the house and, when they opened it, found it contained his painting.’

‘Unharmed?’

‘Apparently so. In any case, the matter is out of our hands now. The day after the robbery, we had a message from Scotland Yard to say that one of the detective officers there, Mr G. Lestrade, would be taking over the case. If you wish to know any more about the matter, Mr Lestrade is probably the man to ask.’

‘I wonder why Lestrade became involved,’ murmured Holmes, as we stood for a moment on the street outside the police station. ‘As you now have a different version of the painting, Mr Dryson, it seems very likely that the one you have is Mr Tacolstone’s and the one he has is yours. But I think we ought to verify this curious transposition of paintings by paying that gentleman a visit.’

Twenty minutes later, therefore, we presented ourselves at Mr Tacolstone’s house in Oakley Street. A stout, rubicund gentleman, with a glint of humour in his eye, he listened with interest as we described to him Mr Dryson’s experience and our subsequent enquiries.

‘Do you know,’ said he at last, ‘I am very glad that you have come, for it has quite taken a weight off my mind. I had begun to think I must be going mad. When my picture was returned, so I thought, I rushed to send a note round to the police station, telling them as much. I didn’t want them to waste any more time on enquiries now that I had the stolen item back. But I hadn’t looked at the picture properly when I sent off my note and, when I did so, I discovered to my astonishment that although the picture was largely the same as before, certain small details in it had been changed. I didn’t feel that I could bother the police again over the matter – I thought they would consider me a perfect idiot – and then I began to doubt my own memory of how the picture had been before. I had no reason to suppose, you see, that there was more than one copy of the picture. But now, although the mystery is not cleared up, it is at least a different mystery from what I had at first supposed and does not reflect on my own sanity in any way.’