Death of a Gay Dog

by Anne Morice

‘I know it is and it gives me an idea. What did you say this Surrey mansion was called?’

  ‘Haverfield Court.’

  ‘But that’s where old Christabel Blake lives. Mill Cottage, Haverfield; just down the lane from the big house. Isn’t that an amazing coincidence? Now, if there’s anyone who is really well up in the art world, it’s – Oh, Robin, you brute! How could you?’

  ‘How could I what?’

  ‘Lead me by the nose. It was Christabel you were after, all the time. Why not say so?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said cheerfully, ‘it was much better that the suggestion should come from you. You always get so ratty when you think I am trying to use your friends to further my own ends.’

  ‘I don’t see why I should mind any less, simply because you further your own ends by trickery.’

  ‘Well, never mind; I won’t go near the old harpy, if you’d rather not. It isn’t all that vital. Just a hunch of mine, as I told you. Come to that, we don’t even have to go and stay with your aunt.’

  ‘Oh, far be it from me to stand in the way of any hunch of yours,’ I said, picking up the telephone. ‘And, anyway, I wouldn’t half mind seeing dotty old Christabel again.’

  (ii)

  Aunt Moo did not answer the telephone in person, ignorance of its mechanism being one of her devices for avoiding unnecessary exertion. On rare occasions she could be persuaded to speak a few words into the receiver, if it were placed in her soft white hand, but this was not one of them. Dolly, her factotum and scent-bottle washer, told me that she was watching show jumping on television. Between fences and thanks to a deal of cantering to and fro over the home course on the part of Dolly, we were able to establish that Aunt Moo would be glad to receive us at The Towers on Friday, provided we were prepared to take pot chance.

  It sounded like a sinister proviso, but Aunt Moo’s colloquialisms were invariably a fraction wide of the mark, and I requested Dolly to relay the news that pot chance would be the very thing.

  ‘What sort of mood is she in?’ I asked.

  It was not an idle question, for, although very cowed in her presence, Dolly was always ready for a free and frank exchange of views about her employer behind her back, while prudently dissociating herself by phrasing them in the third person.

  ‘A bit on the fidget, if you know what I mean, Miss Tess, dearie? Poor old Dolly was in hot water yesterday, when we found the sun had faded her bedroom curtains, but she’s chirpy enough today. It’ll brighten her up, having you and your boy here. She needs taking out of herself.’

  I privately considered this to be a very slapdash diagnosis, because Aunt Moo had always achieved everything she wanted in life by staying rigidly within herself, but I promised we would do our best in that department, and preparations went forward accordingly.

  One of the things I chiefly adore about Robin is his singular capacity to plunge headlong and immerse himself in each new project that comes along. It is like the Method, as applied to police work, and can be alarming to some people, because his manners, attitude of mind, even his appearance are tailored to fit each separate preoccupation, and they are never sure what to expect. Personally, I find it endearing, and I am not at all sure that it isn’t three-quarters of the secret of his success.

  Thus, having laid down the lines of his campaign to outwit the art thieves and having set the wheels in motion, he instantly began to think himself into the rôle of the deferential young man, setting forth to visit his wife’s rich relations. He smartened up his shoes and golf-clubs, debated with me at length about a suitable present for his hostess and spent a giddy half-hour at Simpsons, choosing an ice-blue pullover. The single imperfection in the last was the inevitable one that it looked too new, but we rumpled it up a bit and got the cat to sleep on it, and he declared himself satisfied. All seemed set for a delightful Sussex weekend.

  (iii)

  Strictly speaking, Aunt Moo, alias Muriel Hankinson, was not my aunt at all, being the widow and former housekeeper of my cousin Toby Crichton’s great-uncle Andrew, on the distaff side. It was generally held in the family that Uncle Andrew’s first wife had died of starvation, for his stinginess was legendary; but, if so, it may have been a broken heart which caused his own death a few years later, for Aunt Moo’s character underwent some drastic changes as soon as the marriage contract was signed. Her interests remained firmly rooted in housekeeping and local gossip, but she acquired an accent of such strangulated gentility as to make her largely unintelligible to her former cronies, and her notions of austerity were represented by a sponge cake made with twelve, instead of twenty-four new-laid eggs.

  At all events, this mean old uncle had not survived a minute longer than was necessary for Aunt Moo to get a tight hold on his every last penny, and her transition into opulent, domineering widowhood had been effected so smoothly that it seemed to most people to be the very rôle to which she had been born and for which all her previous life had been a mere apprenticeship.

  Inevitably, her manners were not conducive to universal popularity, but she did possess one staunch champion in the person of my cousin Toby. No doubt his regard had originated in a congenital propensity to admire what others denigrated, but it had developed into a genuine affection, which, in a grudging way, was reciprocated by Aunt Moo.

  Despite an age-gap of nearly forty years, they had much in common, being equally self-centred and equally reluctant to exert themselves when it could be avoided. Furthermore, their understanding may have gone deeper than this superficial level. Toby, for instance, had several times used some recognisable absurdity of Aunt Moo’s for a character in one of his plays, but she had either not noticed this, or been secretly flattered by it. Certainly, she never scolded him, although other shortcomings, notably his self-indulgence and irresponsibility, received their full share of censure.

  I referred to these matters as we drove through the interminable stretches of south-western suburbs the following Friday morning, for, although we both saw Toby whenever he was compelled to come to London, Robin had not set eyes on Aunt Moo since our wedding-day.

  ‘In theory, she ought to approve of you,’ I said. ‘A fine upstanding fellow like you!’

  ‘Not in practice?’ he asked sadly.

  ‘In practice, it entirely depends on how much you eat and how deliriously you rave about the food. You can lay the flattery on with shovels in that department. Hers is an appetite which grows by what it feeds on, in every sense of the phrase.’

  ‘So we should keep quiet about the primary purpose of our visit? Let it be understood that it was brought on by a craving for hot dinners?’

  ‘That will present no difficulties, as far as I am concerned, since I still don’t really understand what our primary purpose is. Have you got your eye on someone in particular, or is it just a matter of spying out the Burleigh land and keeping an ear to the Burleigh ground?’

  ‘That more or less covers it. I wouldn’t object to a little heart-to-heart with Sir Maddox Brand, if the chance came my way. I hear he has now retreated from Moscow.’

  ‘So you honestly think there may have been something bogus about that robbery?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t go as far as that, and for God’s sake, Tessa, don’t go spreading the idea that I’ve suggested he’s involved in anything illegal. The chances are a thousand to one that he’s just another innocent victim.’

  ‘Personally, I can never see the point of stealing valuable pictures. You can’t sell them, you can’t melt them down, and you can’t even show them off to your friends. I suppose you could secrete them in some dungeon and prowl round in the small hours for a solitary gloat, but I should imagine that would soon pall, and the insurance would be such a worry.’

  ‘Wherein, I may say you have touched on the nub.’

  ‘Have I really? What makes the insurance bit so nubby?’

  ‘Not in all cases, but in the particular series I’m dealing with three-quarters of the stolen property has been recovered intact, just before t
he insurance claim was due to be met.’

  ‘How very fortunate! Perhaps the thieves found out you were on their trail and got the wind up?’

  ‘No such luck. It was more likely all part of the original plan.’

  ‘You mean some kind of practical joke?’

  ‘Far from it. Quite large sums of money were involved; anything from five to twenty thousand pounds.’

  I pondered on this, while Robin manoeuvred his way through the chaos of Streatham High Street. Then I said:

  ‘The reward money?’

  ‘Correct. Five per cent of the insured amount handed over to anyone with information leading to the recovery, etcetera. So up pops some innocent citizen, without the faintest whiff of a record, who’s just had an urge to take a peep inside those crates which have mysteriously turned up in his barn or warehouse, or whatever, and just fancy!’

  ‘A couple of million pounds worth of Impressionist paintings right on his doorstep, I suppose? All the same, Robin, however innocent this character may have seemed, he must, in fact, have been in on the racket.’

  ‘Of course, but every life of crime has its humble beginnings, and he’d only have got a tiny whack for his part. Ninety-five per cent would have been paid over to the organisation, who never appear at all.’

  ‘And the insurance companies play along?’

  ‘Some do; and without too many questions asked. It’s frowned on, naturally, but you can understand it from their point of view. There is nothing to link their informant with the actual robbery, and they only have to cough up a minute percentage of what they would otherwise stand to lose.’

  ‘And it’s your belief that there’s a master mind directing operations?’

  ‘It begins to look like it. And it’s not a bad return, you know, for one night’s work. The only risk is in the actual snatch, and the really tricky part usually comes after that, in finding a market for the loot. There are some other features, too, which set these apart from the routine jobs.’

  ‘I thought there might be.’

  ‘For one thing, a highly trained and discerning eye selects the pictures to be removed. Sometimes, from a whole roomful only one or two are taken. It appears to be a random choice, but it invariably turns out to be one an expert would have made. Then there’s the packing and crating side. It’s always done in a highly professional way, using methods which would be quite beyond the average burglar. Even after a lapse of months, the pictures are found to be in mint condition. So there you are! The owner gets his paintings back, the insurance company is let off lightly, and some happy little soul walks away with a few hundred in his pocket, to take the missus to the Costa Brava. Incidentally, Tessa, I begin to feel that we shall end up there, ourselves. Is there no end to this road?’

  ‘You’ll see a tree about four miles from here,’ I told him. ‘You can turn left there, if you like. Well, I should never be surprised if old Christabel were to come up with a few sidelights on all this. She’s still very much in the thick of things, and I have a sneaking suspicion that she’s not quite so dotty as she pretends.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Robin said. ‘No suspicions are too sneaking to be ignored on an expedition like this.’

  Two

  (i)

  ‘If you plan to be around for a bit, Tessa, I might have a stab at painting you.’

  ‘What’s that you said?’ I asked in some amazement, and Christabel repeated it.

  It was not always easy to catch even the drift of her remarks because she invariably spoke out of one corner of her mouth with a cigarette dangling from the other, but on this occasion there was a further impediment to understanding. For the past few years, disdaining alike the counsel and cajolery of her friends and advisers, she had concentrated exclusively on abstract painting of the most uncompromising obscurity, and recognisable objects were a thing of the past.

  Had I been Christabel, I should have applied my talents mainly to self-portraits. Although now ancient, raddled and unkempt, she still possessed the most stunning bone-structure I had ever seen outside an early Garbo movie, with luminous, deep-set eyes, undimmed by advancing myopia. I might add that this opinion had been endorsed by experts, too, because for twenty years she had been the sole model and mistress of an eminent old artist called Daniel Mott, who had bequeathed her an immense collection of his own works, completed or semi-completed throughout his life, but never put on view.

  This had placed her in a commanding position in the art world, for she was constantly wooed by dealers and galleries to part with some of them, or lend them for exhibition. Certain unkind rumours had circulated at one time, to the effect that Daniel had not left her these pictures at all, but that during the last days, when she had ministered at his death bed, a plain van had darted back and forth on a succession of moonlight flits and conveyed them to a secret destination. However, I discounted them entirely, for poor old Christabel had not a particle of greed in her nature, as was evinced by her choosing the gypsy existence at Mill Cottage, when the sale of only one of Daniel’s paintings would have kept her in luxury for years. Furthermore, although she had subsequently branched out and developed a considerable talent of her own, she had resolutely refused to commercialise it, devoting herself to these outlandish abstracts, which she admitted gave pleasure to no one but herself, and to herself only in their execution.

  I reminded her of this, and she did not take it amiss but mumbled:

  ‘I know, ducks. It’s the only thing that grips me nowadays. Meant to keep on until I’d painted it out, even if it saw me out first, but the fact is I’m going blind.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, after years of this sort of thing,’ I said, glancing around at the vast collection of daubs which littered her attic studio.

  ‘I’ve got an urge to try a few more faces, while I can still see them. Frankly, you’re not my type; I can’t do much with pretty faces, as a rule. They give me the feeling there’s nothing left to bring out, if you get my meaning?’

  ‘Not at all,’ I assured her.

  ‘No, you wouldn’t understand; but there’s something about that grey and brown thing you’re wearing which appeals to me. There’s a quietness about it. I do love people with that quality of stillness, don’t you? You have traces of it yourself today.’

  ‘So would anyone who had just spent twenty-four hours in the company of Aunt Moo,’ I said, not best pleased to be saddled with this muted personality.

  ‘Oh, she’s quiet, too, in her way; though purposeful, you know. She sails serenely on, like a plushy trans-atlantic liner, but you wouldn’t catch her putting in to the wrong port. How long are you staying?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Until Robin has had enough, presumably.’

  Christabel stubbed out her cigarette in a saucer already overflowing with soggy butt-ends, lit another, screwed up her eyes and studied my greyish-brown quietness through coils of greyish-brown smoke.

  ‘Enough of what?’

  ‘Oh, healthy exercise, four hearty meals a day. A short trip on a plushy trans-atlantic liner, in fact.’

  ‘With a game of bridge before turning in?’

  ‘Quite so. I’m told we’re in for a bit of that tomorrow night. Not that either of us plays, but Robin rather wants . . . that is . . . we thought it might be fun to meet these Harper Barringtons. Do you know them? They live in something called The Maltings.’

  ‘They’re fairly new here, but I know them, yes.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound terribly enthusiastic.’

  ‘It wasn’t meant to. I can’t really do with them, myself. They’re culture climbers. Always asking my advice about what pictures to buy. “Buy any damn bloody thing that gives you pleasure to look at,” I tell them. They don’t go for that; they’re vulgarians.’

  ‘Aunt Moo is all for them, but that doesn’t mean a thing. What sort of vulgar?’

  ‘Every sort. He’s brash and boastful and she tries to compensate by being pseudo-diffident.’

  ‘Sounds heavenly. Who
else will be there?’

  ‘No idea, except there won’t be anyone who isn’t some kind of celebrity, however bogus. In fact, you’ll quite likely meet my landlord. He’s a great favourite and he gives them much better advice than I do. Always foisting some new genius on them, who’s going to hit the jackpot in a couple of years. That’s the kind of thing they like.’

  ‘You mean old Sir Whatsit down the road? I thought he was in Russia?’

  ‘So he was, but someone pinched his mouldy old pictures and he came scooting back, worse luck.’

  ‘You can hardly blame him. Half a million pounds would be enough to light a fire under most people.’

  ‘Oh, poppycock! I know ’em well and they’re not worth a quarter of that. Either the Press added a couple of noughts, to make a good story, or else they were grossly over-insured.’

  ‘You fascinate me,’ I said truthfully. ‘You really do. And I gather he’s another you’re not on the best of terms with?’

  ‘He’s hell, if you want to know. Tricky as they come. Life has certainly not been the same since my old landlord died and Brand bought up the property. I was a fool not to have nipped in ahead of him and got the freehold of this cottage, but I have a fatal tendency to let things slide, and the old man who owned it before was such a poppet; never a cross word. I just assumed that things would go on in the same way.’

  ‘Haven’t you got a lease?’

  ‘Umm.’

  ‘Then he can’t turn you out?’

  ‘He doesn’t need to. He only has to sit tight and let the place fall down around me, which it’s rapidly doing. The roof leaks, we’re riddled with dry rot and he won’t raise a finger.’

  ‘Couldn’t you do a few repairs on your own?’

  ‘Can’t afford to, my dear. At least, I’d scrape it up somehow, if he’d sell, but he’s after bigger fish. He thinks that with me out of it he’d be able to hook them.’

  ‘Surely he wouldn’t get much for it, if it’s as run down as you say?’