No Winding-Sheet mb-65

by Gladys Mitchell

  Laura drew Dame Beatrice’s attention to the crude but arresting work, although nobody could have missed seeing it.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if I could name the man who painted that monstrosity,’ she said. ‘It’s awfully like the Téméraire picture on the wall of the bedsit Pythias used to have.’

  Dame Beatrice waited her turn to speak to a beaming Mr Pybus, who appeared to be receiving compliments from gratified parents. When she had the chance, she asked the name of the painter of Vesuvius in Eruption.

  ‘Oh, that?’ said Mr Pybus. ‘I have really no idea. It was handed in, I believe, by an Old Boy whom I had taught when we were at the old school down the road.’

  ‘It is very striking.’

  At this moment a bell rang and Mr Pybus said, ‘Have you a seat in the hall? I think that was the signal that the prize giving is about to take place. I must lock up this room, I’m afraid. The staff and prefects have orders to marshal the prize winners and get the audience seated.’

  ‘Will your exhibition be open again when the ceremony is over?’

  ‘Yes, oh, yes, if anybody cares to come along.’

  There was another visitor who had noticed the resemblance of Vesuvius in Eruption to the Téméraire at Sunset. In the early days of his involvement in the case of the missing Mr Pythias, Routh had inspected the bedsitting room and had been extremely interested in the screaming picture which, before he had seen Mrs Buxton’s letter, he supposed that Pythias himself had painted.

  Leaving his Detective-Constable on guard over the prizes which were on display in the sixth-form room, Routh had made a tour of the building and had spent more time in the art room than anywhere else. He, too, like Dame Beatrice, had made enquiries about the Vesuvius picture and had received the answer that it had been sent in, unsigned, by an Old Boy and that, although Mr Pybus thought it an exaggerated ‘and really rather childish and silly piece of work’, he had exhibited it ‘for sentimental reasons, as the fellow must still have happy memories of his art lessons or he would not have bothered to send the painting in. Besides, he may be somewhere among our visitors and, if he is, he will expect to see his picture on the wall.’

  The prize giving went off as prize givings do. The choir and the orchestra gave of their best, so did the verse speakers. The head boy gave a speech written for him by Mr Burke, the headmaster read the school report, the chairman of governors made a far too long and extremely boring speech and then insisted upon closing the gathering with ‘Auld Lang Syne’ with everybody joining hands — a proceeding which Mr Ronsonby, compelled to hold the hands of his head boy and the chairman, found particularly embarrassing and distasteful, although it was a relief to know that at last the opening day was over.

  17

  Every Picture Tells a Story

  « ^

  Routh had not attended the actual ceremony of the prize giving. Dame Beatrice had waylaid him on her way to the school hall and said, ‘The room Mr Pythias had at Mrs Buxton’s — is it kept locked?’

  ‘Locked and sealed, but not for some days after the body was found, ma’am. Of course, we had no real evidence that Mr Pythias was dead until the foundations of that pond were dug out.’

  ‘Were you present when the room was sealed off?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, me and the Super saw it done.’

  ‘Was the painting still on the wall?’

  ‘Larger than life, ma’am. Now you mention that picture, I suppose you noticed the volcano thing in the art room?’

  ‘One could hardly miss it. Laura has decided that it was by the same hand as the wall painting in Mr Pythias’s bedsitting room.’

  ‘I don’t think there can be much doubt about that, ma’am, but we don’t know who painted them, although I might make a guess and so, I reckon, might you.’

  ‘Yes. When we know for certain who painted both, we shall be able to name our murderer, I fancy. I may have a confession for you in the morning.’

  ‘Not from the murderer, ma’am, I suppose?’

  ‘No, I do not imagine it will be from the murderer.’

  ‘Ah, well, we can’t expect everything, can we? Do you mean you will come to the station and report to the Super? It’s his case now, not really mine.’

  ‘I shall be there at eleven tomorrow morning.’

  When the prize-giving was over, the various exhibitions were to remain on show until ten o’clock. Most of the audience, however, went home after the ceremony. The headmaster entertained the governors to port in his office and had included Dame Beatrice and Laura in the invitation, but they had not accepted it. Instead, they returned to the art room to find Mr Pybus seated at his table. Half a dozen boys were putting the room to rights ready for next day’s lessons, for the tables had all been moved to the window side of the room and chairs arranged in the empty centre of it so that leg-weary or particularly interested callers could sit facing the pictures.

  Mr Pybus stood up when Dame Beatrice and Laura came in. The boys politely left two chairs in the middle of the room for them, said, ‘Goodnight, sir,’ and went home. Dame Beatrice and Laura seated themselves, but it soon became apparent that Mr Pybus was to expect no other visitors that evening, so the two women came up to the table, Laura bringing the chairs.

  ‘Now, Mr Pybus,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘I would be glad to have your opinion. What do you make of this rough but attractive little sketch and this even more attractive and beautifully finished painting?’ She laid the open letter on the table and unrolled the picture she had bought at the art dealer’s.

  Mr Pybus made no attempt to bluff matters out. He said, ‘So, the game is up, is it?’

  ‘I think you had better tell me the whole story,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘I didn’t kill Pythias, you know.’

  ‘But you used his trademark and stole his pictures to pass them off as your own. You will observe the pi symbol on the letter as well as on the finished painting.’

  ‘I didn’t steal the pictures. They were given to me.’

  ‘I shall be interested to hear chapter and verse about that.’

  ‘By what right? You are not connected with the law, are you?’

  ‘No, I am connected with the Home Office and Mrs Gavin is the wife of an Assistant Commissioner of Police, so you see that we do come armed with a little brief authority.’

  ‘I can’t stay here and talk to you about all this sort of thing. I’ve got to get home.’

  ‘To an extravagant wife for whom a teacher’s pay is insufficient to supply what she believes to be her needs?’

  ‘You don’t know my wife, do you?’

  ‘I am an inspired guesser with a fairly wide experience of human nature and behaviour. Even at only sixty-seven pounds apiece, I suppose poor Mr Pythias’s exquisite paintings are worth selling.’

  ‘He gave them to me.’

  Dame Beatrice cackled, but there was no mirth in the sound.

  ‘You must do better than that,’ she said. ‘You were given the pictures in exchange for holding your tongue on behalf of Rattock about the theft of the money for the tour to Greece, I think.’

  ‘I insisted on the cheques being sent to the bank. I made that a condition of my silence.’

  ‘Because you and that Buxton nephew thought the cheques might be too hot to handle, I suppose,’ said Laura. Pybus covered his face, a purely histrionic gesture which deceived neither of the women. Then he pushed back his chair and stood up. Laura stood up, too, and, with a powerful arm, thrust him back and bluntly told him to remain seated. Before this impressive display of women’s lib, Pybus capitulated.

  ‘All right, all right,’ he said. Laura resumed her own seat and took paper and ballpoint from her handbag.

  ‘Just rough notes, but we’ll get you to sign them,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘I won’t!’

  Dame Beatrice leered at him and he flinched.

  ‘If I am to persuade the police not to bring a capital charge against you, I think you will,’ she s
aid.

  ‘That’s blackmail!’

  ‘Yes, of course it is. How clever of you to know the word for it,’ said Laura. ‘It was also blackmail when you demanded the Pythias paintings in return for keeping silent about the stolen money and, of course, about the murder.’

  ‘He came in here at half-past eight this morning,’ said the Detective-Superintendent, ‘and gave himself up. Swears he knew nothing about the murder at the time. Just believed the story he had been told, that Pythias had gone away for Christmas, leaving the tour money locked up in his room. I don’t think, now I’ve talked to him, that he is cut out for villainy. Perhaps you would like to have a word with Routh. I believe he is expecting you.’

  Routh exuded a certain amount of satisfaction when they met. He said he was receiving kudos for the way he had conducted his share of the case. The Super, he added, had been very decent and had had him in while Pybus made his confession. ‘How much of it is true may or may not come out at his trial,’ Routh went on. ‘We shall hold him on a charge of receiving goods knowing them to have been stolen. We’ve also pulled in Rattock who, of course, is full of injured innocence and denies all of the tale told us by Pybus, but Buxton and his missus, not to mention the furniture van, are also involved, so we’ve bagged the whole lot of them and will get them sorted out later. We think Buxton was only involved in getting the body to the school quad, although he absolutely denies this and says all he did was to post an envelope for Rattock in Springdale.

  ‘I am inclined to believe him,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘I don’t think there is any doubt the body was carried in his van, ma’am, and buried while those chickens were being rounded up.’

  ‘Yes, but we know that the van was often left in the Buxton’s drive. Rattock, no doubt, knows how to drive it and although he must have had some help with the burial, I have little doubt that Pybus rendered it. Rattock, of course, has denied and will continue to deny the charge of murder and will insist that Pybus named him only to save his own skin. In any case, with so many male tenants at Mrs Buxton’s house, you can scarcely substantiate a murder charge against anybody in particular, I suppose,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘All Hatton Garden to a bit of costume jewellery it was Rattock’s crime, ma’am, but, as you say, we do need final proof of that and I fancy there is very little chance of having him follow Pybus’s example and sign a confession. When we questioned him he rambled a bit and contradicted himself once or twice, but I put that down to nerves. There’s no doubt he is a very frightened man. What he came out with amounts to this: it’s quite true that he was a boy in Pybus’s art class at the old school before this one was built. Pybus was always on the lookout for talent and took an interest in Rattock, thinking the boy had got a bit of a feel for painting and for colour, so he kept in touch with him after the lad left school. Rattock was the only one of Mrs Buxton’s tenants who was ever allowed to have visitors, but, according to Pybus, his own visits to Rattock were not very frequent. However, now and again he ran into Pythias at Mrs Buxton’s — and on one occasion Pythias went up to Rattock’s attic when Pybus was there and took a big portfolio of paintings with him.’

  ‘So at some time or other, Pybus became aware that Pythias had a talent far superior to his own.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it, ma’am. Well, to go back to what Pybus has told us, it so happened that on that breaking-up Friday before Christmas, Pybus paid a rather late visit to Rattock and spotted Pythias’s briefcase in Rattock’s room. Rattock told him that Pythias had had a bit of a turn-up with Mrs Buxton and had taken himself off to a friend’s house, leaving the money in Rattock’s charge as he had been unable to bank it in the dinner-hour.’

  ‘And Pybus swallowed this unlikely story?’

  ‘According to what he told us, he swallowed it hook, line and sinker, ma’am, and he swears that, until Pythias didn’t turn up at school and didn’t send in a medical certificate at the beginning of the Easter term, he had no suspicions of Rattock at all. After a bit, when still nothing had been heard of Pythias, he went to Mrs Buxton’s house and asked Rattock a few questions about Rattock’s story of being left in charge of the money. Rattock then told him that he was going to keep it, as he reckoned that Pythias was in some sort of trouble and had done a bunk. Pybus says he argued with him and that in the end Rattock agreed to return the cash to the school, but sent only the cheques to the bank and hung on to the actual money.’

  ‘He appears to have embroidered his story a little since he told it to me. Did you ask him anything about the picture of Vesuvius which was on exhibition in the art room?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

  ‘Yes, I did mention it. Pybus admitted that it had not been sent in specially for the opening-day exhibition, but that Rattock had given it to him and he had had it for some time. When he was planning this opening-day display, he thought it might prove attractive and eye-catching to what he called “the ignorant laity”. He also said he had not told Rattock that he was putting it on show simply because it had not occurred to him to do so.’

  ‘Did you query that explanation?’

  ‘No, ma’am. I thought it was probably true, and it didn’t matter much, anyway.’

  ‘I agree that it was true, but I also think that the fact he displayed the painting will prove to be Rattock’s Achilles heel.’

  ‘Could you explain that, ma’am? I realise that anybody who had seen the picture in the art room and the wall painting in Pythias’s bedsit would have no doubt that the same person painted both, but I don’t see how either picture could tell us anything about the murder. I wish you would tell me what you think happened on that Friday night the school broke up. Mrs Buxton’s story is that Pythias brought the journey money home with him and, when she refused to have it in the house for the weekend, he went off in a huff to stay with friends. Well, we can’t trace the friends and my hunch is that they don’t exist. We only have her word for it that he ever intended going away for Christmas at all. She may be lying about that, but it’s her story and she’s sticking to it.’

  ‘She also avers that a man and a woman called to take away Mr Pythias’s effects. That was almost certainly a lie.’

  ‘Oh, yes, we pinned that one down a bit, but only so far. I’m certain in my own mind that Buxton himself sold the things to dealers, but that doesn’t prove he murdered Pythias. What’s your version, ma’am, of what happened?’

  ‘The same, I fancy, as your own. When Laura visited the house on pretence of wishing to rent a room, she was well aware that Rattock was on the stairs listening to the conversation. I imagine he distrusted all visitors at that time. It seems quite likely that he overheard that altercation between Mrs Buxton and Mr Pythias on that Friday evening and realised that Pythias had in his charge a considerable sum of money.’

  ‘All clear and fits my own theories, ma’am. So the idea of murder came into Rattock’s mind. The thing about which I’m still in the dark is where the murder was committed. On the evidence of the golf-club, which we found in some long grass near the golf-course, it seems possible that the job was done there, but we’ve quartered the area without finding any other clue and we’ve been over the rooms at the house with a small-tooth comb. Mrs Buxton says Pythias left the house after their little set-to, but it doesn’t sound as though she actually saw him go.’

  ‘Because, of course, he did not leave the house that night. At least, that is my opinion. I think Mr Pythias went to his room that evening and Rattock tapped on the door and was admitted, although doubtless, from the point of view of Pythias, it was a surprise visit. I think they conversed and that Rattock took one of the golf-clubs out of the bag which was probably in a corner of the room, affected to demonstrate some stroke or other, but seized the opportunity to swing the club and kill the man.’

  ‘There’s no proof of it, ma’am. We got no prints off the handle of the club we found and the chap who bought the rest of the clubs can’t describe the man who sold them to him.’

&
nbsp; ‘Neither the prints of the murderer nor those of Pythias were on the club you found, of course,’

  ‘That’s right. Well, we’ve got a signed confession from Pybus, but there is no doubt that he didn’t see the murder committed. He only got suspicious when Pythias didn’t turn up at school. Even then, I’m not sure he suspected Rattock. It could have been anybody in the house who knew that the money was there. You pointed that out, and I agree.’

  ‘He probably asked some very searching questions the next time he visited Rattock, and the answers did not satisfy him.’

  ‘You’ve got something up your sleeve, ma’am. Would you care to come clean?’

  ‘Look at it this way: you and I have seen the pictures which we know were the work of Pythias. We have also (thanks to Pybus) seen the dreadful daub which was on exhibition in the art room. You yourself and Laura have identified the artist as the person who also painted the picture on the wall in Pythias’s lodging.’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘Oh, Mr Routh, can you really imagine that Mr Pythias, alive, would have allowed that daub to disfigure his apartment? He must have been dead when Rattock got in and painted that picture on the wall. It was done long before you locked and sealed the room. Although Pybus states that it was Pythias’s absence from school which gave him concern, I think he had seen the Téméraire at Sunset and it was that which caused him to challenge Rattock. The result we now know. Rattock took the money and, as the price of his silence, Pybus took the Pythias pictures and not only for the money they would bring him. Pybus may not be a genius at painting, but I am sure he is a true connoisseur of art. He is unprincipled enough, moreover, to have been prepared to pass off the pictures as his own work.’

  ‘Where’s my proof, though, unless Pybus was an eyewitness to the murder and I can make him come clean? I still haven’t a story I can take into court.’