A Private View

by Michael Innes

  ‘Well, Boxer opened the door and walked in, with the constable and Zhitkov following. Limbert was lying dead on the floor, just where you’re standing now, sir. There was a good deal of congealed blood – and some of it had actually got through a crack in the boards and advertised itself down below. The doctors decided that Limbert had been shot early in the small hours – perhaps round about two o’clock. And the whole place was turned upside down, as I’ve said. It certainly looked like murder. And a murderer – or a whole band of them – could have got away easily enough. They had only to walk out, closing the door behind them, and troop downstairs.’

  ‘What about the street door?’

  ‘Nobody bothers about it, and it stays unlocked all night. There was another route they could have taken as well – but didn’t. Have a look at that south window, sir.’

  Appleby turned away from the large north window and crossed the room. A light iron fire escape ran down from the upper storeys and past the south window to a deserted yard below. ‘I see. Not very usual in these small houses.’

  ‘At some time in the past the whole building was used as a little sweatshop. Dozens of wretched girls cooped up in the attics sewing, so that an escape was required by regulations. As you see, this window has stout old-fashioned wooden shutters on the inside. Limbert quite often had them closed, because he didn’t want light from that way. And they’ve got heavy bolts – put on for security, I suppose, when the fire escape was erected. When the body was found, the shutters were closed and the window bolted. So nobody did actually make off that way. And that’s the whole story, so far as the purely local investigation is concerned.’

  ‘Not much of a story.’

  ‘I agree.’ Cadover nodded gloomily. ‘But there’s the fact that we have to accept. Until this girl Grace Brooks told us that yarn a few minutes ago there was just nobody round about here prepared to witness to anything unusual. Except, of course, the police raid on the Thomas Carlyle.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Everybody who was still awake at midnight knew that there was something on there, and perhaps that made them indisposed to notice anything else.’

  ‘Unfortunate.’

  ‘It just shows that the Commissioner should steer clear of crackpot ideas put up to him by influential ladies of title.’ Cadover was unusually tart.

  ‘That’s one way of looking at it. But might this raid have had any other influence on the affair?’ Appleby, who was now prowling restlessly round the studio, stopped and looked inquiringly at Cadover. ‘Have you considered that?’

  ‘Thoroughly, I hope. And it is just possible that somebody knowing about the raid in advance – and who mightn’t, with Lady Clancarron on the job? – saw it as a useful distraction, and planned the – um – operation against Limbert accordingly. But that’s extremely unlikely. The thing was almost certainly pure coincidence. Not that there’s an end of the matter. You see, between midnight, when our people took up their positions, and somewhere round about two o’clock, when the raid, or fiasco, or whatever it’s to be called, was all over, nobody could have stirred in the streets round about here without having to give an account of himself. I needn’t go into the whole topography now, sir; you may simply take that as a fact. And it suggests that, as far as the Limbert drama was concerned, the whole set-up was complete by midnight. And that it was then confined within these walls until two o’clock or thereabouts.’

  ‘Sort of sealed room.’

  ‘Something like that. And perhaps rather unnerving for the criminals, if there were any. Suddenly discovering, I mean, that for some inexplicable reason the whole district was stiff with police.’

  ‘What about activity on that fire escape?’

  ‘I’ve looked into that. Anybody leaving the yard below would have been spotted, as long as our people were on the job. But I can’t find that the escape itself was under observation. Everything too dark on that side of the house. People may have been hopping up and down it, and in and out of windows for that matter, all through the night. And of course up and down the inside staircase as well.’

  ‘And along the roofs?’

  ‘The roofs are out. There’s a possible route from above the Thomas Carlyle along the Gas Street roofs, so we had a couple of men up there. They’d have seen any funny business.’

  ‘Dear me.’ Appleby was mildly astonished. ‘What odd things go on in the Force nowadays. Men lurking on roofs to catch expensive people drinking bad champagne in cellars. How very thorough.’

  ‘The roof notion was her ladyship’s. Talking of cellars, there’s quite a handsome one here. You get at it from under the stairs. No other way out – not even a coal-hole – but it would be quite a good spot for anybody wanting to lurk.’

  ‘Like the fellow Grace Brooks talks of. By the way, what about the other girl in the picture – the one upstairs. When was she discovered to have vanished?’

  ‘Mary Arrow. As you can see, Limbert had a telephone – there it is in the corner. The constable got on to his station at once, and there was another man here in no time. One of them went all over the house to see what was what. Miss Arrow was out. Bed not slept in, and breakfast either not eaten or completely cleared away. Door unlocked. And she just didn’t come back. When it began to look odd the local people found a bosom friend of hers a couple of streets away. This girl had a look round, and swore that Miss Arrow had taken nothing away with her except the clothes on her back. Tweeds.’

  ‘Not even a toothbrush?’

  Cadover stared. ‘I don’t know that they looked into that.’

  ‘In novels people setting off on an unpremeditated adventure commonly snatch up a toothbrush. A thoroughly unlikely proceeding which novel-reading might nevertheless actually induce. We’ll have a look.’

  ‘Yes, sir – of course.’ Of this, his chief’s first positive suggestion in the Limbert affair, Cadover did not appear to think highly. ‘We inquired into Miss Arrow’s background. Nothing there. But she has people to whom she is in the habit of writing home every three or four days. They’ve had nothing from her to date.’

  ‘That doesn’t look good.’

  ‘That’s what it will presently be necessary to admit to them.’

  ‘And Limbert’s background?’

  ‘Army people. Parents both dead; no brothers or sisters; plenty of uncles and aunts. Boy had an impeccable past. All the usual inquiries made for a lad of that class: local vicar, housemaster, tutor at Cambridge, respectable people to whom he had introductions while studying in Paris. Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing will come of nothing.’

  ‘There’s always a wise word in Shakespeare, no doubt.’ Cadover had gone back to the Stubbs. ‘This oughtn’t to be left here, if it’s really valuable. Limbert left no will, but a family solicitor has turned up and proposes to settle his affairs. We’re responsible to him, as long as we keep a key of this place.’

  ‘Then we’ll take the Stubbs away with us.’ Appleby crossed the room, took down the picture, and glanced at the wall behind it. ‘Can we get in to this Mary Arrow’s flat?’

  Cadover nodded. ‘I’ve got a key in my pocket.’

  ‘Then we’ll take a glance at that before closing down for the night.’

  The apartments of the missing woman corresponded exactly to those of Limbert below. They had an air of spaciousness proceeding from the circumstance that they contained almost nothing except a bed and a grand piano. There was a drawing of a female torso by Limbert on the wall. Appleby paused before it. ‘I don’t suppose you know whether this represents Miss Arrow?’

  ‘How could I? It hasn’t even got a head.’ Cadover was exasperated. ‘I suppose they start with bodies, because they’re easier to do. But we have photographs of the girl, if you’re interested.’

  ‘Good-looking?’

  ‘I suppose she would be called that.’

  ‘She certainly lives the simple life.’ Appleby had moved to a narrow shelf near the bed. ‘Spartan plainness all round –
except for these things.’

  ‘These little pots and bottles?’ Cadover looked suspiciously at the shelf.

  ‘Cosmetics – and just those considered basically necessary. But of their kind, very good indeed.’

  ‘Expensive?’

  ‘My dear man – what do you suppose? And now for the bathroom. Thirty years on the job doesn’t make one quite comfortable about this sort of snooping. Do you remember the death of Hardy’s Mrs Henchard? “And all her shining keys will be took from her, and her cupboards opened; and little things a’ didn’t wish seen, anybody will see.” It has often haunted me, when nosing around… I thought so. No toothbrush.’

  Cadover came to the bathroom door. ‘No toothbrush?’

  ‘She must have had one. A girl doesn’t spend all that on cosmetics and then fail to clean her teeth. But look for yourself. Mug, yes. Brush, no.’

  Cadover’s fingers went to his jaw. ‘Perhaps she has dentures, and just soaks them in something.’

  ‘Nonsense. There’s an empty tube of ordinary toothpaste there on the window sill. I really think there’s no doubt about it. She thought “I’m going after this, and I don’t know when I’ll be back.” And at that – being a novel-reader, as I said – she picked up the toothbrush and dropped it into her handbag. Can you see any other explanation?’

  Before taking up this challenge, Cadover stooped down and peered under the bath. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can. The brush may have been taken by another person in order to induce the supposition you have arrived at.’

  ‘An ingenious suggestion – one also belonging to the world of the novel, if you ask me. I’m going to suppose that the missing toothbrush tells us quite a lot. That the girl didn’t simply go out in a normal way, get knocked down by a bus, and for some reason elude identification in hospital. That she wasn’t, on the other hand, kidnapped by criminals. That she was persuaded – or perhaps merely persuaded herself – to go off in a great hurry, possibly in some spirit of adventure, and with the expectation of being absent from this flat for at least one night. Had she a valid passport?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Currency?’

  ‘She got thirty pounds in traveller’s cheques a few months ago, and they were all cashed in France a week later. She might have brought enough back in francs to go abroad with again. No other transactions of that sort since, and none of her ordinary cheques have turned up at her bank since she vanished. Incidentally, I didn’t inquire about the state of her account. But I was given a hint that it was in a perfectly healthy state. All this austerity, and breakfasting off a moonlight sonata’ – Cadover, as he permitted himself this unwontedly picturesque expression, gestured at the grand piano – ‘was a matter of principle, I rather gather. Father is a Rural Dean. But the mother has money. And – talking about money – there’s another thing. We found a small strongbox in a drawer over there, unlocked and left open. There was nothing in it but a little Italian money – a couple of thousand-lire notes. So she may have wrapped whatever else was there round that toothbrush. Would you say a novel-reader would do that?’

  Appleby smiled. ‘Decidedly. Do you mean the strongbox was in that chest of drawers in the corner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Go on looking at it. Don’t look towards the south window. There’s somebody reconnoitring us from the fire escape.’

  ‘Is there, indeed?’ Cadover contrived to remain staring at the chest in a most convincing brown study.

  ‘I’ll do something intriguing. Meanwhile you slip downstairs and get on the escape through Limbert’s window. That will fix him.’

  Cadover nodded and drifted towards the door. Appleby dropped to his knees and went through the motions of one who picks fine hairs off the pile of a carpet. He brought a matchbox from his pocket and appeared to tuck something away in it. When he judged a suitable interval to have elapsed he got up and walked straight towards the window. A head disappeared as he did so. He threw up the sash and peered out. At the same moment Cadover emerged upon the iron structure from the window below, just recognizable in the dusk. The intruder, thus neatly caught in the process of scurrying towards ground level, instantly sat down on one of the steps, produced and lit a cigarette, and gazed into the surrounding void with the air of a man meditating at leisure upon the mutability of human affairs.

  ‘Good evening.’ Appleby spoke drily from above – but to no effect. The philosopher of the fire escape continued to muse.

  ‘Now then – you there. What are you up to?’

  This was Cadover’s more brusque address from below. The abstracted stranger could be discerned as moving his head slightly, and vaguely scanning surrounding space, as if uncertain whether he had not been addressed by some celestial visitant.

  ‘You can go up or you can go down. We want to have a look at you.’

  Cadover’s voice, now loud and menacing, appeared to persuade the ruminative figure of what was the lesser of two evils before him. He got to his feet and climbed. ‘A mild night,’ he said. He contrived to give this statement the air of pure soliloquy. ‘How pleasant to step out upon this convenient stairway and smoke a cigarette.’ He paused, like a man surrounded only by a great loneliness, and well pleased with his own company. ‘Yes, indeed. It is an amenity which you are fortunate to enjoy, my dear fellow… Dear me – I had no idea!’ He started elaborately as his glance met Appleby’s. ‘Good evening. I fancied I was quite alone.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Appleby drew back. ‘Perhaps you’ll come inside?’

  The stranger climbed in, and was presently followed by Cadover. The latter eyed him grimly. ‘So it’s you, Mr Zhitkov. I rather thought it was.’

  ‘Good evening, Colonel.’ Zhitkov was a foreigner who spoke fluent but slightly erratic English. ‘How do you do, reverend sir?’ He had turned to Appleby. ‘We are all here much distressed about your daughter. It is an anxiety to us. She was in my thoughts only a few moments ago, when I stepped out for a breath of this delightful evening air.’ Whether from fright, or because the delightful evening air was of decidedly wintry temper, Zhitkov’s teeth were chattering slightly.

  ‘I am not Miss Arrow’s father.’ Appleby much doubted whether he had really been taken for a Rural Dean. ‘Like Inspector Cadover, I belong to the police. You were peering in on us a moment ago.’

  ‘Can I have done that?’ Zhitkov’s manner was that of a man presented with some impersonal observation of minor scientific interest. ‘It was my impression that I had not climbed so high. But no doubt I had. I was in deep thought, you will understand, over a technical problem.’

  ‘We’re doing a little deep thinking over a technical problem ourselves. Perhaps you can assist us.’ Appleby turned to Cadover. ‘What account does this gentleman give of his movements during the material times?’

  ‘In his studio, he says, on the ground floor. Alone. No witnesses.’

  ‘And perhaps now and then taking a breath or two of night air on the fire escape – of course without noticing?’

  Zhitkov made as if to speak, thought better of it, and took a quick, nervous puff at his cigarette. He was a small man in late middle age, dressed in old, carefully tended, somewhat formal clothes. Although his situation was disadvantageous and his manner patently disingenuous, he gave no suggestion of impudence. He had, in fact, an air of breeding – or of what is left of breeding when it has for long been played upon by an unstable or shiftless temperament. One met such people on the fringes of the great ballet companies. Appleby put him down, provisionally, as some sort of Slavonic emigré of long standing. ‘Mr Zhitkov,’ he said, ‘I understand that you are a sculptor?’

  ‘I carve. And I model, experimentally, in several new mediums.’

  ‘It is your living?’

  Zhitkov hesitated. ‘I do a certain amount of commercial work. In wax.’

  Cadover was interested in this. ‘Do you mean the sort of things in shop windows?’ he demanded. ‘I thought they were done from moulds.’

  ‘I do a l
ittle of that. The demand now is often for figures so stylized that it is useless to take moulds from the life.’

  ‘I never knew that. And waxworks for funfairs, and so on?’

  Zhitkov shrugged his shoulders. ‘And that too,’ he said, rather coldly. ‘C’est mon deuxième métier. That is something which few artists avoid nowadays.’

  ‘That’s very true, unfortunately.’ Appleby’s manner was now amiable. ‘By the way, Mr Zhitkov, did Gavin Limbert have a deuxième métier?’

  ‘I think not. In his family were les gens riches. So he was not constrained to it.’

  ‘No copying, for instance – or doing stuff in the manner of the old masters for the American market?’

  ‘Nothing of the sort.’

  ‘I know that there are a good many ways in which an artist can get mixed up in funny business with some profit to himself. Nothing of that sort?’

  Zhitkov’s eyelids flickered. It was almost as if a new – and disconcerting – idea had been presented to him. ‘I know of nothing.’

  ‘You may have heard that this afternoon, during the private view at the Da Vinci, a painting of Limbert’s was stolen–’

  ‘What?’ Zhitkov’s cigarette dropped to the floor, and his eyes had dilated. ‘Not the – not his last painting?… stolen?’

  ‘Definitely his last painting. You know it, Mr Zhitkov?’

  ‘I saw Limbert at work on it once or twice. It was most interesting.’ Zhitkov had very much the appearance of a man trying hard to regain control of his nerves. ‘A wonderful work.’

  ‘You consider that Limbert was a promising young painter?’

  ‘Certainly. He would have been a great painter. We are all in deep sorrow at his death.’

  ‘This final painting of his – the one that has been stolen. Would you say that it was his masterpiece, and well worth stealing?’

  Zhitkov hesitated – and Appleby wondered if it was really in the interest of a sound aesthetic judgement. ‘But assuredly. It was in a new manner. Limbert had done nothing quite like it before. The tones were remarkable. It was what we call a painters’ picture. Doubtless it has been stolen on the instructions of some unscrupulous collector.’