The Crystal Cage

by Merryn Allingham

  ‘Lucy? No. But that’s okay with Dad because she’s a girl, would you believe. He set her up in business—events management. Did I mention that?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I don’t think he ever expected to see a penny of his money back, but amazingly she’s turned out to be businesswoman of the decade. My brother is the most successful barrister in his chambers, which leaves me as the family failure.’

  ‘Hardly. Art Matters is a prestigious magazine. If they thought you were good enough to publish, you should get other offers.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, but it hasn’t happened. I’ve been hanging around on the off chance that some eager editor will get in touch—I’ve written a corker on art fraud in Romania—but no one’s interested. So it’s back to waiting tables very soon.’

  ‘And that’s presumably why you contacted me.’

  ‘I’ve worked really hard on the papers from the Exhibition,’ he assured me. ‘It’s not that I want you to do my work.’

  I allowed myself a slight smile since that was precisely what I did think. In response he leaned across the table, his body tense. ‘I figured that if you looked through the stuff at the V and A and came to the same conclusion, then I’d be justified in telling the Royde Society that earlier plans simply don’t exist.’

  ‘And you can happily advise them to use the Carlyon chapel for their nostalgia fest, meanwhile collecting your fee en route?’ I finished for him.

  ‘If they do pay out when they get the news—I’m not convinced, these cultural societies are often tightwads. Anyway, if they do pay, I’ll stand you dinner.’

  ‘My reward is rising all the time. How can I refuse?’ It was a very slight mystery, but any mystery was an event in my present limbo, and there was always a chance that I might strike gold. ‘I’ll have a look through the V and A archive once I’ve settled Mrs Carmichael,’ I found myself saying.

  ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘Don’t ask. She is my current burden—sorry, client. I’ll give you a ring when I know more.’

  He got up to go, pulling down the tee shirt that had ridden up over what was a neatly compact body.

  ‘Thanks, Grace, you’re about to save a dying man,’ he said, and started off at a sprint.

  ‘Hadn’t you better leave me your number? Do you have a card?’

  ‘Please. Do I have a card?!’

  He grabbed the menu and looked hopefully around for a pen, as if one might materialise out of the air.

  ‘Here.’ I handed him my silver ballpoint and he scribbled on the menu. ‘And I’ll have it back.’ He was halfway to the door again.

  ‘Sorry, but there’s a pawnbroker around the corner,’ he joked and handed me back the pen.

  Perhaps not such a joke. Nick Heysham appeared to live on the edge of respectability. Oliver would not approve. He would see him as a liability and wonder why I’d taken it into my head to befriend him. But when I broached the subject over dinner that evening, he seemed relaxed about the idea of my undertaking research for someone I hardly knew and without any likely recompense. His mind was on other things.

  ‘I’ve an idea to move the Gorski up to Newcastle next month.’ He absently stroked the small, spiky beard he’d managed to grow in recent weeks. ‘The exhibition worked brilliantly at the Papillon, and we did a good deal of extra business from it.’

  ‘Do you think Gorski is well-known enough in Newcastle?’

  It was a foolish thing to say. Oliver is very strong on the notion of ‘art for the people.’ But at the same time he’s good at spotting the next big thing, which is why he lives in a large house in Hampstead and drives a top-of-the-range Mercedes.

  ‘Don’t be snobbish, darling. The art world there is buzzing. Think of the Baltic, the Laing, the Shipley.’

  I thought about them while he began to clear the table.

  ‘We might take a trip together.’

  ‘To Newcastle?’

  ‘Yes, of course to Newcastle.’ He sounded a trifle impatient at my obtuseness. ‘If the exhibition is as successful as I expect, we must celebrate.’

  He was loading the dishwasher in a distracted fashion, imperilling some very expensive china. He always performed household chores in a kind of disassociated way, as if they were being done by someone else. He straightened up with the last rattle of cutlery and allowed a smile to lighten his customarily austere expression.

  ‘We could travel on from Newcastle. We haven’t had a real holiday for a long time and we’d enjoy a few days in the Highlands.’

  I tried to smile back convincingly but wondered why Oliver always talked about ‘we.’ He made the decisions and I went along with them. It was feeble, but I wasn’t going to feel ashamed at taking the easy road: the past was still written large in my mind. And since it looked as though I was shortly to be hoisted northwards, I’d better get on with Nick’s research as soon as possible. I knew for a fact that there were volumes of papers involved in the Great Exhibition, and they would all need to be checked. Once Mrs Carmichael was placated. And she would be. Tomorrow.

  * * *

  In the event it was nearly a week before I tripped up the sweeping grey arc of steps to the front entrance of the Victoria and Albert museum. Mrs Carmichael had been speedily dismissed, but a new client, Leo Merrick, had been phoning me constantly and growing more agitated with each call. He had begun to renovate a partly derelict building that he thought had once been a school, and he’d hit problems. Not the everyday problems of a dodgy roof or an inefficient drainage system. No, this problem was a ghost. His wife, who was refusing to visit the site again, let alone live there, swore that she had felt, heard, even seen, a deeply unhappy spirit. Since exorcism didn’t feature prominently in my list of skills, I couldn’t see how I could help. But he was adamant that if I could discover more of the history of the building, it would in some miraculous fashion show him the way forward. I wasted a lot of time trying to persuade him otherwise, but in the end I agreed to find out what I could.

  This morning the statue of Prince Albert looked benignly down on me as I passed through the revolving glass doors, exchanging the noise of Cromwell Road for the hushed echo of voices and footsteps. Even on a busy weekend, the bustle of bodies and the swell of chatter were muffled by the sheer scale of the place. Today, with few visitors, the building seemed more than ever like a cathedral: cream-flecked marble pillars, immense arches giving on to long vistas and the pale light of a diffused sun filtering and falling amid the ornamented stonework.

  The National Art Library was my destination and once through its double doors, I signed myself in and took a numbered disc from the board. Soft light trickling through arched windows and the smell of old leather were comfortably familiar, yet I was still surprised to find myself here. It was a measure of my restlessness, I suppose, that new sense of being captive, that I’d started on a path that was bound to lead nowhere. But even though a eureka moment was unlikely, I was looking forward to a few hours in the hallowed quiet of the Reading Room.

  I changed my mind as soon as the librarian pushed the loaded trolley towards me. I’d always known the store of papers would be large but never appreciated quite how large.

  ‘I’ve picked out what I think will be the most relevant papers for your search,’ she said a trifle grimly. I wasn’t surprised at her terseness since it must have taken her most of yesterday to put together the huge cache.

  ‘There’s more, of course. You’ll have to let me know what else you need, if you get through these.’

  She didn’t sound too hopeful and no wonder. I’d be here all day and more if I had to stagger my way through the pile of boxes she was carefully parking beside my reading desk. It was a far larger collection than I’d ever tackled before. But I’d agreed to do the research and a woman’s word is her bond. I thanked her and started with the obvious which is usually a good place to start.

  The original proposal for the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations, 1851, co
ntained illustrations, plans, elevations and sections from the working drawings of the building contractors but though the overall structure of the Exhibition Hall was clear, there were no specifics of individual display spaces or their architects and sponsors. The official Catalogue issued by the Royal Commission was more forthcoming with detailed accounts of the exhibits and at the very back, a list of the architects employed on the grand project. This was just what I needed, and it looked as though I’d be able to return my trolley largely untouched. But I searched the Catalogue in vain for the name of Lucas Royde. The major difficulty with the listing was that it recorded architectural practices rather than individual architects. The Society hadn’t been clear whether Royde had set up his own practice immediately after he’d returned from the Italian states or whether he’d first joined an existing firm. Trying to discover whether Royde had ever been an employee would mean researching each individual partnership. And the records were almost sure to be incomplete.

  Deflated, I turned to the trolley again and pulled out the box containing the prospectuses of all the exhibitors. These could be promising except for one crucial problem: they came in sixteen volumes and covered everything from raw materials to machinery to manufactures and since I had no idea who might have sponsored Royde’s display space, if it ever existed, it meant trudging through every single book.

  I broke for lunch around volume nine, and by then my eyes were raw. A deep longing to be elsewhere took hold of me, but I hate to be beaten, and a cheese and tomato sandwich later, I abandoned the idea of an early escape and drove myself back to the Reading Room. In my absence the surrounding desks had acquired a clutter of students and bags.

  ‘Looks as though you’ve got your hands full,’ the girl two seats away whispered loudly.

  ‘More than my hands,’ I muttered.

  I was beginning to dislike Nick Heysham with a passion. After hours of reading and several moments when I thought I might be on to something, not a single solid clue had emerged to bring me closer to my goal, and I still had seven more boxes of prospectuses to trawl. I let my mind wander and began idly to calculate the number of books shelved behind the lofty ironwork balustrade which encircled the room. I lost count somewhere around the second wall. It was time to return to volume ten.

  By five o’clock I’d discovered nothing, and I’d had enough. Any thought of professional glory had fled and I was ready to ring Nick and tell him he was free to say whatever he wanted to the Royde Society. His concerns were no longer mine. A hot bath and a glass of wine were. I started to repack the papers on the trolley and dislodged the final box, which was labelled trade advertisements and trade cards. Sheer curiosity pushed me to open the box and flick through the various publicity sheets. There were dozens of them advertising the most diverse assortment of goods: Henry Edwards’ highly esteemed custard powder (with directions) to make custards without eggs, Dewar’s brown Durham mustard, Appold’s centrifugal pump for draining marshes. Beneath the pile of advertisements lay price lists that told me how much J. S. Fry’s chocolate and cocoa cost in 1851, or how much money I would need to afford Anderson’s Exhibition patent Victoria car. Fascinating stuff but useless for my purpose.

  I felt foolish in having invested my hopes in so little. Irritably I bundled price lists, trade cards and advertisements back into the box. There was one I hadn’t seen before but that now caught my eye, a beautiful picture; I think in fact it must have been a painting of a scarlet-and-black wall hanging. I looked more closely. According to the motto beneath, it was made of Italian silk from the Veneto and quite exquisite in its vibrant colours and intricate pattern. The name of the company offering these wares had been largely obliterated, but if I’d been around in 1851 I could have seen this work of beauty and others like it at a pavilion constructed in association with Daniel de Vere and Partners, Great Russell Street. The question that immediately sprang to mind was the nature of that association. Were de Vere’s the middlemen, the importers of these sensuous silks, or perhaps they were the company charged with marketing the goods, including producing this very advertisement? But might ‘association’ in fact mean that de Vere and Partners were responsible for designing the display space? It was a notable name, in fact so notable that it hadn’t registered with me on my original trawl through the list of architectural practices involved in the Exhibition. I felt my heart beat a little too loudly.

  I scrabbled my way back through the discarded mounds of paperwork and pulled out the official Catalogue again. Hastily I skimmed the list of practices but there was no trace of de Vere and Partners. Next I read up the column rather than down. I don’t know what I expected to find that would be different. But still no de Vere. I began to feel a tingling at the base of my neck. Of course the advertisement might not be significant. Even if de Vere’s had been the original architects for this pavilion, they might have been replaced at some time by another practice, one that was listed in the Catalogue. But if not, here was a firm who had designed an Exhibition space for a company selling Italian silk—and the Italian connection might be pertinent—a firm of architects who did not in fact feature on the Exhibition’s official list. Could it be that I’d finally alighted on a clue?

  Chapter Two

  But I was getting ahead of myself. I needed to find out the precise nature of de Vere’s business; or rather, Nick Heysham did. I strolled towards South Kensington station thinking over what I should say to him. Away from the thunder of the Cromwell Road traffic, it was a pleasant enough walk in the late afternoon sun through tree-lined side streets, and I took my time. I should have been delighted that I’d found any kind of clue, but during the slow walk my earlier euphoria had almost evaporated. In retrospect it seemed such a tenuous link that I couldn’t in all faith imagine it would stand up to scrutiny. But since I wouldn’t be the one scrutinising it, I was happy to pass on the information I had. I reached for my phone and called the number Nick had given me.

  ‘Grace, hi! Great to hear from you.’

  I wondered if his enthusiasm was a permanent state. It could prove wearing if I saw too much of him. But that was hardly likely to happen. There was no reason for me to be involved any further since I’d gone as far as I could in satisfying my researcher’s curiosity. If he wanted to take it further, he could.

  I thought I’d get straight to the point. ‘I haven’t very exciting news for you. I’ve spent all day reading but without a single mention of Lucas Royde coming to light.’

  There was a pause at the other end of the line.

  ‘That could be exciting,’ he said slowly. ‘I can report to the Society that I’ve had an expert confirm my initial findings that the Carlyon chapel was the first Royde design in this country.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t bring me into any conversation you have with them.’

  ‘It surely can’t hurt for me to mention you.’ He sounded almost indignant. ‘Come on, help a guy out!’

  Annoyance at being coerced must have communicated itself in my silence, because his tone changed abruptly. ‘Listen, Grace, it would help me sound convincing and I won’t name you.’

  ‘You’re not being realistic. They’re certain to want to know exactly which expert you’ve been talking to.’

  ‘I guess so, but I can skirt round that. No worries.’

  I was sure he could since he seemed fluent in not quite telling the truth. But I didn’t fancy being dragged into his scheming. It was time to plant a question in his mind.

  ‘There was something you might want to follow up.’

  ‘What’s that?’ He sounded taken aback. Good.

  ‘Among the stacks of paper I waded through today, I found an advertisement for a company selling fine Italian silks. I couldn’t read the company’s name, but the advert mentioned an associated firm who might just be architects.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘If they were architects, they’re not listed officially in the Exhibition Catalogue, which is odd.’

  I could hear that I
’d lost him, but he was trying to keep up.

  ‘Why would that be?’

  ‘It could be for any number of reasons. Maybe the company changed their architects at some stage—after the ad was printed—and it’s the later architects who appear in the Catalogue.’

  ‘I’m sure this is fascinating stuff to you, but I’m grappling with why this could be important.’ His enthusiasm had deserted him at last. I decided to be kind.

  ‘If Royde worked on a pavilion for the Exhibition, it may not have been under his own name. He may have worked for one of the architects listed in the back of the Catalogue, or he may have worked for a firm that doesn’t appear there.’

  ‘I don’t see how that gets me any further.’

  ‘It probably doesn’t, but it may be worth a try. He doesn’t appear in the Catalogue under his own name, and if you can’t trace him working for another architect, then you can be pretty sure there’s no connection between him and the Great Exhibition.’

  He was uncharacteristically quiet, and I could see that I was going to have to spell out his options.

  ‘As I see it, you have the choice of going through the official Catalogue and checking every architect’s practice listed in the hope of discovering from their records who they employed in 1851. Or you could take a chance and just research this one firm who seem mysteriously to have been omitted from the record—that is, of course, if they are architects.’

  He caught on fast. ‘I’ll take a chance.’

  ‘I thought you might. The name is de Vere and Partners, and they operated from Great Russell Street. It’s possible that if they were architects, their offices are still used for the same purpose. The buildings are very old there and sometimes stuff doesn’t get jettisoned from one generation of workers to another. They might just have something hiding in the attic!’

  ‘I’ll get on to it, although it sounds like a dead end.’

  ‘More than likely, but this is the only clue you have and once you’ve investigated, you can claim your prize from the Royde Society with a clear conscience.’