So Pretty a Problem

by Francis Duncan

  “I hope Adrian didn’t tear you away from your friends,” she said, with a smile. “He’s in one of his buoyant moods tonight.”

  “On such a night,” said Mordecai Tremaine, “all can be forgiven. In any case, Nita and I were hoping we might find you.”

  He thought that she was looking very beautiful. She was wearing a dark dress of some velvet material that shone under the light and that flowed gracefully about her as she moved. A tiny black silken mask concealed the upper part of her features; only the redness of her lips and the whiteness of her skin offered a contrast to the dress and the mask.

  Carthallow noticed his admiration.

  “Who is she?” he demanded. “Let me play the Fool, but for Helen, she whose face once launched a thousand ships, there is another title!”

  Mordecai Tremaine searched hazily in a mind too limp with the excitements and exertions of the past two hours to enable him to recall the character whom Helen Carthallow was supposed to represent. The only name that would come to him was that of Helen of Troy, which seemed too obvious.

  “The clue, my dear fellow,” said Carthallow. “I gave you the clue!”

  And then, as Mordecai Tremaine still stared blankly, he capered triumphantly.

  “The Dark Lady of the Sonnets,” he announced.

  The red lips under the silken mask parted in a smile.

  “You mustn’t mind Adrian,” said Helen Carthallow. “His cap and bells have licensed him for the evening.”

  “Shakespeare’s lady of mystery,” Carthallow was saying, more as if he was declaiming to the air because he loved the sound of the words than with any idea of addressing his companions. “The dark lady from nowhere who inspired the poet to touch the heights. Who can say her name or what were her thoughts—or who were her lovers?”

  For a fleeting, unreal moment Mordecai Tremaine experienced the sensation of gazing upon impossible things. It seemed that the face of the jester was a satirical mask; that Helen Carthallow’s sombre beauty was possessed of the taut quality of a woman who stood on guard, and that there was an anguish of waiting in the dark eyes that looked out from the silken strip.

  But it was absurd, of course, because her husband had taken her arm and she was smiling, and they were standing together like a pair of young lovers.

  Anita Lane and Helen Carthallow knew each other well, and it was only a moment or two before they had gone instinctively into the conversational clinch that develops inevitably when two women who need no introduction to each other get together. Carthallow glanced at them with exaggerated resignation and proceeded to escort Mordecai Tremaine to the bar. Thereafter to that gentleman the evening was a rosy blur, punctuated by vaguely arduous intervals during which he endeavoured to dance in a crush that had become even more reminiscent of a victory night celebration.

  When he climbed wearily into bed after having deposited at her flat an Anita shuddering at the thought of the early film show awaiting her only a few hours ahead, the whole thing had resolved itself into a mixture of waving streamers, dancing balloons and colourful, whirling bodies. Only an odd incident here and there still detached itself from the general background.

  Adrian Carthallow, in cap and bells, prancing like an excited schoolboy; Anita Lane’s flushed and eager face; Roberta Fairham showering paper streamers over them from her mailbag.

  Carthallow had introduced her—a fair-haired girl whose features it was difficult to keep in mind since they possessed so little personality. She was dressed as a postman and the bag was intended to represent her collection of letters.

  It was doubtful whether Mordecai Tremaine would have retained any clear impression of her among so much that was blurred had it not been for the adoration in her pale eyes when she had looked up at Carthallow. Her attitude had been that of a worshipper at a shrine; the artist had glanced across at him and shrugged significantly.

  So Roberta Fairham was among the women who were eager to fall for Adrian Carthallow. Tremaine, having witnessed the phenomenon for himself, could sympathize with him. It must be extremely embarrassing, even for a man so ready for adulation, to be pursued with such public constancy.

  Not that Roberta Fairham belonged to the obvious huntress type. She was not of the alluring race of sirens who can be depended upon to sweep the susceptible male off his feet and away from the arms of his lawful wife on an irresistible tide of glamour. Her adoration was of the self-effacing kind. She admired from a distance; she was content to build her dreams upon any stray glances that might be sent in her direction by her god in his wisdom.

  Helen Carthallow could not have failed to be aware of the situation but she gave no sign of it. Her manner towards the other woman was natural and friendly and with no suggestion that she had invested the title with significant capitals. No doubt she was resigned to the knowledge that her husband was a target for her sex and was accustomed to the necessity for treating philosophically what could not be mended. And, after all, a wife who is confident of her husband’s regard can afford to be tolerant where less fortunate females are concerned.

  With thoughts of Helen Carthallow occupying his mind it was, perhaps, inevitable that the last incident to drift cameo-like out of the evening’s happy blur should have concerned her.

  It had happened when Adrian Carthallow had been dancing with Anita Lane. His wife had asked to be excused from being hurled into the maelstrom occupying the dance floor and Tremaine had been sitting out with her. And in the midst of their conversation he had seen the dark eyes looking out from the mask become suddenly vitalized, and he had known that she was no longer listening to him.

  A gipsy had been going by. A tall, handsome gipsy, who moved with a muscular ease among the packed dancers. He had been looking over his partner’s shoulder full in their direction.

  Mordecai Tremaine had seen them staring at each other across the floor for just that instant that had yet seemed so long a time. Two young people facing each other with the world between them. The woman with the vivid contrasts of her white skin and dark gown and the red of her lips, and the man with his good looks and the virile confidence of youth.

  And that, he thought, would be enough of that. Romantic Stories could supply all the colour he needed.

  4

  A DAY OR two later a pleasantly worded note from Helen Carthallow invited him to a party she and her husband were giving for a few of their friends. With the feeling that he was developing into a gay dog Tremaine sent off an acceptance. Gazing into his mirror he found himself wondering whether this was indeed the same man who not so very long ago had been standing for many hours a day behind the counter of his shop dispensing cigarettes and pipe tobacco to his customers and not suspecting how much there was of interest in the larger world outside.

  But he knew that in that he was not being fair to his old self. It had been because he had known that there were more things in life than were bounded by ounces of Empire mixture and packets of twenty that he had developed into an amateur criminologist. And it was as a direct result of his dabblings in crime that he was tonight bound for Adrian Carthallow’s house, for he had an instinctive feeling that if it had not been for his reputation as a solver of murder mysteries he would never have attracted the artist’s attention.

  In these last few weeks murder seemed to have receded into the background of his life. He had paid little heed to the latest examples of man’s propensity for removing his fellow man—or woman—by such refinements as shooting, poisoning or the wielding of a blunt instrument. He was rather glad that it had been so. There had been a time when the thought of being engaged upon a real murder case instead of merely reading about it had exhilarated him and quickened his pulses; now he knew that there was more to such an investigation than the excitement of solving a fascinating puzzle. When you faced such a problem in the flesh instead of in the pages of a book it took on a different and more terrible aspect.

  There was a victim who was a reality instead of a name. There was a murderer one m
ight know intimately and even grow to like before one discovered the truth and realized that this was a human soul that had to be branded with the red stigma of guilt. When you reached the truth you had to hurry over it and then do your utmost to forget it before the horror of it could overwhelm you.

  It was a relief not to have to hound someone; not to have to work with the knowledge that that someone knew what you were trying to do and was waiting, with fear and hate in his heart, to see whether you were near the truth or not. It was pleasant to be able to go to the Allied Arts Ball and to Adrian Carthallow’s house and not have the eternal thought that these things were only a means to an end and that sooner or later you would have to strip away the pretence and stand forth as the accuser, invoking the awesome paraphernalia of the law.

  There were a lot of people present whom he did not know and at first he was doubtful whether, from his personal point of view, the evening was going to be a success. But he need not have worried. Carthallow went out of his way to make sure that he did not feel neglected.

  The artist’s house was expensively furnished. His income, Mordecai Tremaine reflected, must be a considerable one; it must be very pleasant to be a successful artist.

  Several of Carthallow’s own studies were on the walls. They were chiefly Cornish scenes, and Tremaine, who loved Cornwall, remarked upon them.

  “Most of them are of the coast near Falporth,” said Carthallow. “Helen and I usually spend a few months there during the summer. We’ve a house just outside the town.”

  He waited, as though he expected some comment, but Mordecai Tremaine, who had not at that time heard of the house called Paradise, was unsatisfyingly silent.

  Possibly because of Tremaine’s genuine interest in his work, possibly for obscure reasons of his own, Carthallow tended to become confidential. He slipped away from the rest of his guests for a few moments to lead the way to his studio, a big room occupying almost the whole of the top floor.

  Tremaine gazed around at the stacked canvases, the easel and the various tools of the artist’s profession—brushes, palettes, pigments, oils, varnishes. Crayon sketches lay untidily upon a raised table under the window. At one end of the room was a model’s throne.

  He sighed.

  “It must be satisfying to be able to create something,” he said. “Something that wouldn’t have existed if you hadn’t given your mind and your talent to it.”

  “It doesn’t always work out like that,” said Carthallow. “There are occasions when you ask yourself whether it wouldn’t have been better if you hadn’t started it!”

  But there was no ring of truth in his voice. There was, rather, a queer triumph.

  Mordecai Tremaine was wandering about the studio, gazing at the canvases standing against the wall, some finished, some obviously needing a considerable amount of work to complete them.

  He was thinking about the portrait of Christine Neale that had come out of this studio not so long ago and was wondering how best to phrase his question. At last he said:

  “When you decide upon a subject—a portrait, say—how do you approach the actual painting? Do you start with a definite plan in mind of what you’re going to do, or do you wait until the sittings begin and then paint exactly what you see?”

  Carthallow stood under the bright light in the centre of the room, his brow creased in thought, as though he was posing for one of his own portraits.

  “I try,” he said, “to paint something I think is typical of the person who is sitting for me. Different people create in me the impression of different moods. I try to catch the mood I think is the dominant one and paint it against a background that serves to emphasize that particular facet of the sitter’s personality.”

  Mordecai Tremaine nodded learnedly. He was trying to translate it into simpler language and apply it to Christine Neale. Carthallow had painted that portrait for a reason. He might, conceivably, have believed that he was painting truth as he saw it, but he had seen a certain kind of truth because he was a certain kind of man.

  “I see,” he said. “You don’t paint merely to reproduce what a camera might capture, but to paint a living individual?”

  “I paint,” said Carthallow, “always with the desire to find the soul that lies behind the eyes and pin it to the canvas.” The phrase seemed to please him. He repeated it with savour. “To pin the soul to the canvas. There is the true vocation of the artist!”

  “I envy you,” said Tremaine, momentarily fired by the same tendency to embark upon the purple passage, “because you possess the gift of immortality. After you have passed your creations will live on!”

  Instead of arousing Carthallow to further lyric heights his speech had the opposite effect.

  “You sound damned morbid!” the artist said. “Anyway, painting with oils on wood and canvas—or on anything else for that matter—is no way to win immortality. Pictures don’t last—not when you’re thinking in terms of centuries. If Reynolds, for instance, could have seen how many of his were going to crack or melt in less than two hundred years he’d have been more careful with the varnish!”

  “At least,” observed Tremaine, trying to regain lost ground, “you’ve had the satisfaction of being recognized in your lifetime. You’ve been able to taste your success.”

  There was a strange, shadowed look in Adrian Carthallow’s face; the look of a man who was hugging a secret to his inner soul.

  “I’m not like your perfect murderer, eh?” he said, with a sudden smile. “I don’t have to keep quiet about the wonders I’ve performed!”

  They went out of the studio and as they walked down the stairs the artist went on:

  “I’ve always felt sorry for people like Chatterton. He put his heart into the job of writing poetry and then couldn’t claim it as his own because he’d have betrayed himself as a fake. Poor little devil, starving in a garret when he ought to have been hailed as a genius!”

  Mordecai Tremaine found himself at a loss. There was something wrong with Adrian Carthallow’s argument and yet for the moment he could not tell definitely what that something was. He experienced the same kind of frustration he had known when Anita Lane had hung up her telephone receiver. Perhaps it was linked in some subtle fashion with the peculiar note he had detected in Carthallow’s voice.

  Before he could straighten out his thoughts they had reached the floor where the party was being held. As they entered the room he became aware that something unexpected was in progress. Instead of the hum of conversation, the clink of glasses and the strumming of a piano that he had left behind when he had gone out with Carthallow, there was an unnatural silence. Everybody was looking in Helen Carthallow’s direction. She was talking to a grey-haired man whose shoulders still carried a military squareness and whose form was still upright despite his years.

  At their entrance Helen Carthallow made an involuntary movement. The grey-haired man saw it and turned quickly.

  Helen Carthallow said:

  “Adrian—”

  There was distress in her voice. Carthallow stepped into the room. His face bore a sardonic expression. He said, coolly:

  “I wasn’t expecting this pleasure, Colonel.”

  The grey-haired man was already moving. No one had time to stop him.

  “You damned scoundrel!”

  His fist landed against Carthallow’s jaw. The artist staggered under the blow and went back against the wall. A thin trickle of blood showed on his lips.

  The other clearly intended to go after him, but before he could aim another blow two of the male members of the party had gripped him by the arms. Carthallow took out his handkerchief and wiped the blood carefully from his face. He said:

  “Let him go.”

  A little dubiously the two released their captive. Tremaine half expected that he would spring forward again, but he merely stood facing Carthallow with a deadly hate in his eyes.

  “You’re being very foolish, Colonel,” said Carthallow. “This kind of thing doesn’t do any go
od.”

  “I suppose,” the grey-haired man said icily, “that it’s too much to expect that you’ll settle this as man to man?”

  “Pistols for two?” said Carthallow, and his lip curled. “Don’t be absurd. This isn’t the eighteenth century, nor is it France. And if it’s fists you mean I could beat you to a pulp. I’ve done a fair amount of boxing in my time and I’m a younger man than you.”

  Mordecai Tremaine stood looking at Christine Neale’s father. There was nothing he could do. This was purely Adrian Carthallow’s affair.

  He felt sorry for the grey-haired man. It was easy to understand the motive that had driven him to invade the house of the man who had pilloried his daughter, foolish though the action had been.

  Carthallow said:

  “You realize, Colonel, that by assaulting me in this fashion you’ve laid yourself open to legal proceedings on my part. But I’ve no wish to make capital out of it. If you’ll leave at once I’m quite prepared to overlook it.”

  Colonel Neale did not speak. The hate in his face was undiminished, but he had the look now of a man who realized that he was in a false position and that any further attempt to get to grips with the object of his hatred would merely result in an undignified scuffle.

  He turned at last, his eyes searching for Carthallow’s wife.

  “My apologies to you, Mrs. Carthallow,” he said.

  There was a silence as he went out. It lasted for several moments. It was broken only when Adrian Carthallow stepped smilingly across the floor as if nothing had happened.

  “Why don’t you play for us, Helen?”

  She moved towards the piano. The colour was in her cheeks, but otherwise she gave no sign that the incident had affected her. Her long, slim fingers caressed the keys. Chopin, Mozart, and, finally, the elfin melancholy of Grieg.

  Mordecai Tremaine could have gone on listening to her and was annoyed when the steadily rising hum of conversation caused her to stop. He wanted to stand up and condemn such an exhibition of bad manners, but he knew nevertheless that she was not displeased. She had at least succeeded in doing what her husband had desired and had removed the awkwardness that had followed the scene with Colonel Neale.