Paint Gold and Blood

by Michael Gilbert

  “Point taken,” said Peter. “Astrology is nonsense, but a lot of people believe in it.”

  “Long may they continue to do so,” said Stewart devoutly.

  There was a surprising convert at hand. The answer to Peter’s letter to Meyer arrived two days later.

  ‘I hasten to congratulate you,’ it said, ‘not only on the accuracy of your prediction, but on the tactful way in which it was presented. Noticing that there was a horse called Oxford Scholar taking part in the Levy Board Apprentice Handicap at Catterick Bridge with the reasonable price tag of eight to one, I placed two hundred and fifty on it with considerable confidence. A confidence well justified when it came in first, two lengths ahead of the favourite. I feel that our relationship must not be allowed to rest solely on the letters so far exchanged. It promises well for the future. I should be delighted if Starfax would pay me a visit at some convenient time so that we could discuss the possibilities of a fruitful collaboration.’

  Peter, when he showed this to Stewart, was laughing. Stewart looked serious. He said, “Certainly we will accept his invitation. But we must not allow ourselves to be manoeuvred into becoming permanent tipsters to this picture dealer. Also it’s clear that I shall have to go. If you went you would be hard put to it to conceal your connection with his secretary.”

  Peter said, “All right.” It sounded logical, but he knew Stewart well enough to realise that he was not going to pass up a promising opening of this sort if he could manage to get in on the act.

  “We’ll suggest a date ten days ahead. We don’t want to sound too eager.”

  3

  Harry Meyer came bouncing down the stairs at his Hertford Street house. It had belonged at one time to the unfortunate financier, Clarence Hatry, who had installed the gymnasium and the swimming-bath, but had used them rarely. Meyer used them every day. He also kept a careful record of his weight. One hundred and eighty six pounds on the scales and very little of it fat. His bald head gleamed from a morning of exertions on the parallel bars and the ropes followed by a fast ten lengths of the bath.

  His office was a room inside the front door on the right. Apart from it there was nothing to suggest to a visitor that he was not in the private residence of a wealthy man. “I do not keep a shop,” Meyer used to say. “Nor do I maintain a picture gallery. If you want that sort of thing, go to Bond Street.”

  In the office Lisa was typing and Mr. Chaytor was turning over the pages of the superb catalogue ‘The Genius of Venice’ which had been produced by the Royal Academy of Arts for their 1983 Exhibition. He was running the tips of his fingers over the reproduction of Titian’s Tarquin and Lucretia as though he could bring the fingers to life by stroking them.

  “Looking at the dirty pictures?” cried Meyer. “You’re a naughty old man. Did you know that? A filthy old man.”

  Mr. Chaytor sniggered and shut the catalogue.

  “Makes me wonder what you get up to when your wife’s away. Chase the tarts in Maddox Street, is that it? Or wouldn’t you know what to do with a tart if you caught one? I could always give you a few simple lessons. Tarts and how to masticate them.”

  Mr. Chaytor looked apologetically at Lisa, as though indicating that such matters ought not to be discussed in the presence of a lady. Lisa disregarded the look. She knew that if she said anything on Mr. Chaytor’s behalf it would only provoke Meyer to more outrageous assaults. If he allowed himself to be bullied that was his affair, she thought.

  She said, “This form arrived about an hour ago, by hand, from the Ministry of Culture. As far as I can see it’s in order. It’s been signed by the Secretary-General. And this time, I’m glad to say, they haven’t forgotten to stamp it.”

  She hoped Meyer would deal with it quickly. She was beginning to think about lunch.

  “Red tape,” said Meyer. “They strangle you with it. Like Laocȯȯn and his sons, eh. What picture is this?”

  “Family Friends. A cat and a dog sitting side by side in front of the fire. By Beatrice Oldfield.”

  “Ah, yes. One of Beatrice’s domestic masterpieces. Odd, is it not, how they appeal to the businessmen and magnificos of South America. A reaction, do you think, from their excessively macho life style?”

  This was accompanied by a broad smile shot at Mr. Chaytor.

  “Now, what is it we have to do next? Some further formalities no doubt.”

  He knew quite well what had to be done next, but liked to pose occasionally as a helpless citizen enmeshed by bureaucracy.

  “We need a photograph,” she said patiently. “We send this form and the photograph to the Ministry of Economics. Then, with luck, we get our export permit.”

  “Really. That seems so simple. You don’t think we ought to involve a third ministry somehow? We mustn’t make things too easy.”

  At this point the telephone on the desk rang and Mr. Chaytor, who was closest to it, picked up the receiver.

  He said, “What?” and then “Oh!” and again “Oh!” in tones of such horror and despair that Meyer leaned across, twitched the instrument out of his hand and said, “Who is that?” He listened for ten seconds and then interrupted the speaker at the other endHe said, “Just listen to me, my dear, and listen carefully. I realise you may now have to miss the two o’clock train from the Gare du Nord, but there’s normally a later one, around five o’clock for the seven thirty boat. You’ll probably have to book seats as the boat-trains are crowded at this time of year, but spread a little money around and you should manage it all right.”

  As she listened to him Lisa was seeing a different man. The bouncing, posturing bully was gone. This was someone altogether more formidable.

  “I will see Mrs. Westmacott myself, right away, and will explain what has happened. I’m sure she will understand. And I will go with her personally to meet the boat-train at Victoria. You should be there by half-past nine. I’ll check the exact time. By the way, what did you tell the two girls?”

  “You said you’d been involved in a taxi accident? Excellent. You kept your head.” His voice became colder and harder. “Don’t panic. Continue to keep your head. Understood?”

  He replaced the receiver and said, “That’s not advice, Chaytor. As far as you’re concerned it’s an order. Stay here and refrain from worrying. Go home at your usual time. Your wife will be with you long before midnight.”

  Lisa said, “You’re not forgetting that a gentleman called Starfactor is coming to see you at five o’clock.”

  “I had not forgotten it. What I now have to do happens to be more important than chatting to this astrological magician. Either put him off until a later date or, if he is up in the stratosphere and you are unable to contact him, you and Chaytor will have to entertain him.”

  When Meyer had swept out and the turbulence of his parting had subsided, Lisa said to Mr. Chaytor, who was sitting miserably silent and staring at the telephone, “Why don’t you come along with me and have some lunch?”

  “Oh, I don’t think I could—”

  “Of course you could. You’ll feel better when you’ve had something to eat.”

  “Ought we to leave the office empty?”

  “Why not? This is a private house, not a shop. We’ll go to that new sandwich bar in Ham Yard. I’ll stand you one of their pastrami specials.”

  It was not an easy meal. Lisa knew that it was no use asking what catastrophe had overtaken Gertrude Chaytor. Either she would be told, or she wouldn’t. This restricted the conversation to general topics. She would start a hare and Mr. Chaytor would make a feeble effort to chase it, before lapsing once more into dumb misery.

  By three o’clock that afternoon she had had enough. All attempts to make Mr. Chaytor go home had been met with: “Oh, I think I ought to stay here. There might be some message.” She got up and went out into the hall. The room opposite the office was Meyer’s own sanctum, in which he entertained important visitors. Meyer usually locked it when he went out, but on this occasion, in the flurry of his departure,
he had omitted to do so. Lisa knew that there was a telephone there, with a separate outside line.

  She dialled the Starfax office and was relieved to hear Stewart’s bland voice.

  “Of course. I’ll come round at once,” he said. “We can’t have Mr. Chaytor cutting his throat. Messy and unproductive. I will think up a few light-hearted reminiscences. Perhaps a limerick or two. You think not? Well, I will do my best. At least you will have a companion in misery.”

  As Lisa was making for the door her eye fell on the press which stood in the alcove between the two windows. It was an oddly shaped piece of furniture, broader than it was high, and she had often wondered what her employer kept in it. This seemed the moment to satisfy her curiosity. It was divided inside she found into a number of vertical slots clearly designed to hold pictures or prints. She eased out one of the canvases. It was a group of rather modern-looking shepherds, staring up into the sky, with their mouths wide open. She remembered Peter describing a picture like that, but she had forgotten the exact occasion. She made a mental note to ask him about it. The sound of feet on the steps outside made her slide the picture quickly back into its slot, but it was only the afternoon post.

  Mr. Chaytor was sitting exactly as she had left him. As she walked in he said, for the hundredth time, “If only I knew what had happened.”

  When Gertrude Chaytor had arrived at Dover Marine at midday on the previous day the Passport Officer had welcomed her with a smile. She was a familiar figure, in her nurse’s uniform, carrying a suitcase and a green umbrella carefully rolled. She was shepherding two small girls and a boy.

  “Off to France again, Missus,” he said. “And who have we got this time?”

  “Robin Pearce – take off your cap Robin. That’s right. And Jessica and Mavis Pearce.”

  The two small girls bobbed a curtsy. As the Passport Officer remarked later to his confrère on the Customs, “She’s the best type of old-fashioned nanny that Mrs. Chaytor. She looks after their manners. And no fooling round when she’s in charge of them neither.”

  “Pretty expensive, I imagine,” said the Customs Officer.

  He was wrong about this. Not only did Mrs. Chaytor fill all her clients with confidence, but her fees were not exorbitant. Over the past few years her personal escort service had become so popular that she was able to pick and choose.

  She installed the children on a bench at the stern of the boat, sheltered from the wind, and said, “The sea will be quite calm.” She spoke with such authority that they felt confident that the sea would do as it was told.

  By six o’clock that evening she had handed over her charges to the French Countess with whom they were to spend their holiday and was free to contemplate her own programme. She was staying, as she usually did, at a small hotel in the Rue Jacob. On the following day she was due to pick up Mrs. Westmacott’s two daughters and escort them home. Seats had been booked on the train which left the Gare du Nord at two o’clock. She had arranged with their hostess to meet them at the barrier at a quarter to two. She did not want them any earlier than that. It was her experience that children on their way home were more exuberant and less submissive than on the way out.

  Also this would fit in very well with the other meeting which had been fixed for half-past one at the Café Continental, less than five minutes’ walk from the station down the Boulevard de Magenta. The man she was meeting would be prompt to the minute and it was her intention that no time should be wasted on this occasion either.

  Since her hotel had no restaurant, her evening meal would be taken out. She had no objection to this. She had ample funds and a wide experience of Parisian eating places. She had chosen the Tartuffe, at the southern end of the Pont de Sully and had walked there in the pleasant sunshine of an early autumn evening; along the Quai des Grands Augustins and the Quai de Montebello, noticing on the other side of the river the squat shape of the Palais de Justice and the towers of Notre Dame. The streets were not crowded. It was the quiet time between the outflow from the offices and the influx of evening pleasure seekers.

  Thinking about it afterwards Mrs. Chaytor was not sure whether she knew that she was being followed. It was easy to be wise after the event. Certainly she had noticed nothing until she left her hotel that evening. Her mind had been on her charges and on her own arrangements. At this more tranquil moment she did have time to examine other people. There was a thin young man with a coffee-coloured face coming down the pavement on the other side of the road. Paris was full of such people. It was either him or another like him that she saw when she turned into the restaurant.

  She had given no thought to the matter then, or on the following morning when she paid her customary visit to the Louvre, buying two copies of their catalogue. She would give one each to the Westmacott girls to read on the way home. At half-past twelve she walked back to her hotel, settled the bill, recovered her overnight case and her umbrella and hailed a taxi. She reached the Café Continental at a few minutes after one o’clock. She was, as she liked to be, in good time.

  The Café was in two sections, the front half spilling out onto the pavement, the rear half under a glass canopy to which patrons could retreat when it rained. Mrs. Chaytor chose one of the tables in the covered portion. It was empty. When the sun shone most patrons preferred to sit outside. She ordered and paid for a café au lait and settled down to watch the passing scene.

  It was at this point that she first consciously noted the presence of the thin brown-faced youngster; and she would not have remarked on it if a flicker of memory had not told her that she had seen him, or someone very like him, the night before. He passed the Café twice. First, a few minutes after she arrived, ten minutes later on the opposite pavement. Even this did not register with her as unusual. The street was full of window-shoppers – many of them foreigners making last-minute purchases before they caught the boat-train. The matter was put out of her mind by the man who appeared.

  This time he had not sent one of his subordinates, but had come in person. It was, she realised, a considerable compliment. Very few people had met Agazadeh Zaman, in public or in private, since his arrival in Paris ten years before. Only a handful of people knew the address of his flat and those who did know it knew that he changed it every six months.

  He walked in, bowed slightly to Mrs. Chaytor, as though asking whether he might share her table and, when she smiled and nodded, sat down beside her. He ordered for himself a café cognac and offered Mrs. Chaytor a further cup of coffee, which she declined.

  He then opened the document case which he was carrying, extracted a rolled-up paper, some twenty-four inches long and handed it over to Mrs. Chaytor. Her overnight case was already open on the ground beside her. She put the roll into it and snapped the lid shut. She then opened her own capacious handbag, took out a stout envelope of the type used for registered letters and handed it to Zaman who slid it into his inner pocket.

  The double transaction was carried out so smoothly and quickly and so entirely without fuss, that only a close observer would have noticed anything at all. Mrs. Chaytor finished her coffee and got to her feet.

  She said, “I have a rendezvous with my charges at the station in five minutes’ time.”

  “Then I will not detain you,” said Zaman showing his teeth in a grimace. Mrs. Chaytor picked her way through the tables on the pavement, most of which were now occupied by folk taking their pre-lunch aperitifs. She walked away without looking back.

  As soon as she had left the thin young man sauntered up to the Café and threw something, with an overarm swing, in the direction of Zaman. He saw it coming, whipped up the light iron table and held it in front of him. The object struck the table and rolled off it towards the pavement. By the time it stopped rolling Zaman was flat on his face at the back of the empty rear section.

  The shock wave of the explosion threw Mrs. Chaytor, already thirty yards away, onto her face. Six of the people who were seated in front of the Cafe, and two who happened to be p
assing, were killed. Ten others were wounded. The thin young man, who had taken to his heels as soon as he had thrown the bomb, escaped unhurt; as did Zaman.

  Lisa had made three abortive attempts to make Mr. Chaytor go home; or, if not home, to go anywhere rather than remain crouched in his chair in front of the telephone, jumping every time it sounded off. When Stewart arrived he accomplished this seemingly impossible task by picking up the stamped and addressed envelopes on the desk and saying, “Be a good chap and put these in the post. We’ll stand by if there are any messages.”

  Mr. Chaytor looked surprised, but scrambled to his feet and said, “Yes, all right. I’ll do that.”

  Lisa said, “It’s very kind of you. Those two on top have to go by registered post.” And, when he had departed, “There’s always a queue at the registered letter counter. That should give us a breathing space.”

  “Excellent. There are a number of matters I wanted to discuss with you before I see your boss.”

  “Before we talk about anything,” said Lisa, “There’s something I want to show you.” She led the way into the room across the passage and took out the picture she had found there. “I’m sure Peter told me about a painting like this. Does it ring any bells with you?”

  “A peal of bells,” said Stewart. The excitement in his voice was carefully masked, but Lisa had known him long enough to be able to detect it. “Let us probe further.”

  He drew out two other canvases from adjacent slots and laid them on the table beside the one he had already examined. One of them was a conventional picture of the Holy Family in the stable with the babe. The other, more modern in conception, showed three bearded men, each bearing a casket.

  “What are they?” breathed Lisa. “Do hurry up.”

  Fatima in Bluebeard’s chamber. She had taken post at the window to give warning of anyone approaching the house.