‘Put the word out, please,’ said Powerscourt, rising to his feet and holding his wife by the hands. ‘What do you say to dinner out, Lucy? It’s all those young people we had here earlier on this afternoon. I’m feeling quite reinvigorated.’
Powerscourt and Chief Inspector Beecham were greeted by a bizarre sight when they went to meet Joseph the steward in the Hall on the Tuesday morning after Edward and Sarah’s tea in Manchester Square. The top half of the tables were roughly laid out with knife, fork and spoon. Each place had its own wine glass. And circulating round this phantom feast were the waiters who had served at the real one. It was, Powerscourt thought, like looking at the three ages of man. The old boys were back, swaying slightly as they carried round their dishes of imaginary vegetables, the veteran nearest Powerscourt with a face that looked like a parchment map. The regular staff of the Inn, middle-aged mostly, looked as if they served imaginary guests every day of their lives. The young men, two of whom did not look to be properly awake yet, were carrying bowls full of imaginary soup, or filling glasses with water Joseph had put in empty wine bottles. Powerscourt thought the prospect of it being turned into wine were slim.
‘I thought this would get them into the swing of things,’ said Joseph cheerfully, emptying a couple of wine glasses into a bucket. ‘I’ve told them all to be ready to answer questions in a few minutes.’
Chief Inspector Beecham had gone to Dauntsey’s place and sat down in it, looking carefully at the passing waiters.
‘Gather round!’ said Joseph and a macabre circle assembled round the place of the poisoned bencher. ‘Lord Powerscourt!’ He introduced him like a major-domo.
‘Thank you all very much for coming in today,’ he began. ‘I know it can’t have been easy for you. Now, do any of you remember anything about the feast? About Mr Dauntsey’s death?’
There was a certain amount of shuffling and then one of the regular waiters spoke up. ‘We’ve talked about this a lot, my lord, on the night itself and earlier this morning. We don’t see how the poor gentleman could have been poisoned at the feast. They started with that terrine. We took the plates up to the High Table and nobody could have known which one was going to Mr Dauntsey, no one at all. Then there was the soup, my lord. How are you meant to put a drop of poison into a bowl of soup when you’re carrying two at a time? It’s not possible. Same with the wine, you don’t know whose glass you’re going to refill when you collect a fresh bottle from the wine room. If you wanted to kill the whole lot of them’ – Powerscourt suspected this might be the preferred option for this particular waiter from the vehemence with which he said it – ‘that would be easier. The cook slips the poison into the soup and off you go. Or you add something special to half a dozen bottles of wine and finish them off like that. But one person, no, not possible.’
The waiter stared at them rather defiantly, as if he thought they would contest his findings. They did not.
‘First class,’ said Chief Inspector Beecham. ‘We agree with every word of that.’
It is a rare, almost impossible event for an investigator like Lord Francis Powerscourt to come face to face with the man whose death he is investigating, for the living, as it were, to meet the dead. But it was happening now, the day after the phantom feast in the Hall. Edward had been the midwife to the meeting.
‘New benchers,’ he said cryptically to Powerscourt, ‘always have portrait done. Hangs in Hall or library.’ Now Edward mentioned it, Powerscourt remembered seeing some of these portraits displayed in prominent positions. He recalled, in particular, the two full-length Gainsboroughs of previous benchers behind Alexander Dauntsey in the Hall on the night of the feast. ‘Painter man wants to see somebody from Inn. Check he’s got the details right.’
Powerscourt and Edward were walking along the Mall that runs from Hammersmith Bridge along the river in the direction of Chiswick. Some of the houses were recent but there were also some fine eighteenth-century specimens looking out over the Thames. Number 35, The Terrace, Powerscourt learned, was where their painter lived, a man by the name of Stone, Nathaniel Stone.
‘Who the hell are you? What the devil do you want? Why can’t you leave me alone?’ This violent reaction to Edward ringing the bell came from a small red-bearded man with angry eyes, wearing a painter’s apron now stained with all the colours of the rainbow and a few more besides.
‘My name is Powerscourt,’ said Powerscourt in his most authoritative voice, ‘and this is my friend Edward. We have come from Queen’s Inn about the portrait of Mr Dauntsey. As you probably know, Mr Dauntsey is dead but the Inn still wants his portrait.’
‘Why couldn’t you say so?’ The red-bearded man sounded as though he was going to continue in the same vein. ‘You’d better come in. Thought you’d come about a bill. You look like you might have come about a bill. Had a lot of trouble lately with that bloody bill.’
He led them upstairs to a great drawing room that looked out over the river, back to Hammersmith Bridge on the left, and across the water to the fields of Barnes on the other side. A large easel, Powerscourt noticed, contained a full-length portrait of a society beauty, almost finished, he suspected, except for some elaborate lacework on the cuffs.
The little man glowered at the portrait. ‘She’s been driving me mad all day, that woman.’ He walked right up to the canvas and stared moodily at where the lace should have been. ‘Progress, that’s what they keep telling us, progress. Bloody electricity coming in to light everything up. Bloody motor cars coming along to run us all over.’ Nathaniel Stone picked up a brush and began prodding uncertainly at his canvas. ‘Bloody telephones coming in so your creditors can harass you in your own home without ever leaving their bloody offices. Bloody cameras – all right, I know they’ve been around for a long time – but they’re getting better and better all the time. Won’t be any bloody portraits left for us painters at all, some bloody monkey with an expensive camera will take our trade away.’
The little man paused and peered at those elusive cuffs once more. Powerscourt was about to speak but he wasn’t quick enough.
‘Progress? What progress?’ Nathaniel Stone spat bitterly into his fire. A sudden hiss flared up, matching the temper of the owner. He pointed back to his easel. ‘Four hundred years ago, three hundred years ago, any fool with a brush could have painted that cuff. Last year I could have done it. The year before I could have done it. When I was twenty-one years old I could have done it with my eyes closed. Now I can’t do it at all. I’m not progressing. I’m not progressing at all. I’m going bloody backwards.’
Powerscourt wasn’t sure how much this bravura display was genuine and how much was for effect. ‘Mr Stone,’ he said firmly, ‘you underestimate yourself, you really do. The reputation of Mr Nathaniel Stone in London’s artistic circles would not be what it is today if you were a man going backwards.’ Powerscourt would have had to admit that his knowledge of the Stone reputation was small, if not non-existent, but wounded artistic egos must be salved somehow. ‘I am sure it is the bill that is responsible,’ he went on. ‘Bills have a habit of being extremely disagreeable. They put a man off his stroke or his brush. They occupy the brain so it cannot issue proper instructions.’
Out of the corner of his eye Powerscourt saw Edward making discreet signs at him. Edward’s right thumb was moving rhythmically down into the palm of his left hand. The gesture was repeated over and over again. What on earth was Edward trying to tell him? Powerscourt saw that Nathaniel Stone was limbering up for another broadside of oaths. Suddenly he got the message. Edward was counting banknotes.
‘However, Mr Stone,’ he continued, ‘if it would help with the disagreeable bill, we could make a preliminary payment on Mr Dauntsey’s portrait.’ Powerscourt began rummaging about in his wallet. ‘Should we say thirty pounds, Mr Stone? Perhaps that would help?’
Stone looked at the notes greedily, like a man who finds the oasis after long days wandering in the desert. Powerscourt wondered what happened to the
money. The man must be well paid and his portraits were excellent. Perhaps there was a Mrs Stone and a battalion of little Stones to feed. Maybe there was more than one Mrs Stone.
The painter stuffed the notes into his back pocket. They didn’t seem to have improved his temper very much. He swore violently as he lifted the society lady off her easel. ‘Bloody cuffs,’ he said bitterly, ‘bloody lace, why didn’t I make the bloody woman wear those very long gloves? Even I can manage gloves these days.’ He began heaving the painting towards the door. ‘Be back in a minute. Bringing your Mr Dauntsey for you to have a look at.’
Powerscourt and Edward smiled to each other. Then there was a great bang from next door. ‘My God,’ they heard Stone say, ‘the Hungarian Ambassador! In his Robes of State! With that damned Transylvanian fur! He was meant to be finished three months ago!’ Then a thin scraping sound as if something was being pulled across the floor. ‘Christ!’ There was real pain in the voice now. ‘The bloody Bishop of Rochester! Four months late and I never got that bishop’s crook right!’
The back room seemed to be a treasure house of unfinished masterpieces. Maybe he was like Leonardo, Powerscourt reflected. The man seemed to be constitutionally incapable of finishing a picture.
‘No, please God, no.’ Stone’s voice had turned into a high-pitched wail now. ‘The Cabinet Minister’s wife! That’s so far back I can’t remember the woman’s name!’
A loud crash followed as if a group of paintings had all fallen forward on to the floor. ‘Where’s that bloody lawyer gone? Who’s this? Oh, my God, it’s the Great Conductor! I should never have tried him with that baton, it was never going to work. And who are you, for heaven’s sake?’ Again they heard the scraping sound as if a canvas was being pulled along the floor. ‘You’re not, my God, you’re not. You can’t be. You can. You are. You damned well are. In Christ’s name, you are the bloody Governor of the Bank of England, due for delivery, it says here on the back, eight months ago.’
There was another loud bang. Powerscourt was to say afterwards that it was yet another canvas falling over. Edward maintained that Nathaniel Stone had kicked the wall very hard. The complaints went on.
‘You’re not a damned lawyer, you’re the Editor of The Times, for God’s sake. When were you due to be delivered? Six weeks ago. They might forgive me that. And you? Are you Dauntsey? No, you are not. You are some miserable banking person, meant to be handed over last October. Oh my God!’
Powerscourt suddenly remembered that his sister had commissioned a portrait of her husband, the distinguished banker William Burke, but he had no recollection of seeing it on the Burke walls. Perhaps it was still here. Perhaps he could ask the little man about it. Another wail came from next door.
‘How could I! One of the very few people I’ve painted I really liked! You wouldn’t expect me to like the bloody King’s Private Secretary, but I did. And he’s still here! Five months late! All because of that monocle! I should never have tried it! And here’s some bloody General with huge moustaches. Who the hell are you? I don’t bloody know. Here’s Dauntsey. Thank God for that.’
Muttering under his breath, Stone returned and placed Dauntsey on the easel. Edward was astonished. ‘Brilliant, Mr Stone,’ he said, ‘absolutely brilliant. It’s a perfect likeness. I can’t tell you how lifelike it is.’
Nathaniel Stone had painted Dauntsey in some great room with a grey wall, a pillar behind him and wooden boards at his feet. He was wearing a light grey suit with a cream shirt. The red bencher’s robes sat comfortably on his shoulders. Powerscourt saw that he had light brown hair, thinning slightly at the temples, a high forehead, a Roman nose and eyes of light blue. In his left hand he was holding a number of briefs, the fingers long and slender. His expression was serious but there was a very faint hint of a smile. Surely this was a man, Powerscourt thought, you could imagine walking the great park with its deer at Calne or playing cricket on his very own pitch in the hot and dreamy days of summer. Above all, he reflected, Stone had made him impressive, a man to be reckoned with. Powerscourt thought he would have liked him if he had met him alive.
‘Tell me, Mr Stone,’ said Powerscourt, ‘what did you make of Mr Dauntsey? Did you like him? You must have spent a fair amount of time with him at the sittings.’
‘It’s a very strange thing,’ said Stone, shaking his head, ‘how people behave when they’re sitting for a portrait. It can take up to ten hours, five two-hour sessions, if things aren’t going well. Some of them tell you their life story, they really do. I had a man last year, peer of the realm, no less, and he spent the entire ten hours complaining about his wife. You’d think he might take a break now and then, but no, on and on he went. Last month I had a woman who complained about her daughter all the time. Envy possibly. But Mr Dauntsey was different. He didn’t treat me as his father confessor. He was very polite, very considerate, asking if he was sitting the right way. Quite unusual, that, he treated me as an equal, not some hired hand.’
‘Did he mention Queen’s Inn at all?’ asked Powerscourt.
Stone looked at the Dauntsey in oil in front of him. ‘I don’t think he did,’ he said, scratching his head. ‘Hold on, he did say one thing, but I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time. It was something about very strange things going on there. He didn’t say any more than that.’
‘He didn’t give any detail about the strange goings on?’
The painter thought for a moment. ‘No, he didn’t,’ he said finally, ‘he said it quite quietly, almost as if he was talking to himself.’
‘Anyway, it’s a very fine painting. You must be very pleased with it, Mr Stone,’ said Powerscourt tactfully.
There was a sort of low muttering from the man in the apron. ‘Fools they send me! Fools! Blind people despatched to look at pictures, my pictures! God help us all!’
Stone subsided into a battered chair to the left of his easel and glowered at them. Powerscourt suddenly realized what the trouble might be. The man might be a perfectionist. Plenty of people of his acquaintance wanted things, their clothes, their lawns, their horses, their women, to be as near perfect as possible, but knew that they were never going to reach one hundred per cent success. But a few, an unlucky few, were destined to be dissatisfied with anything less than perfection. One of Lady Lucy’s elderly relations was so obsessed with the perfection of tidiness in her home, as Lady Lucy called it, that she practically had a fit if you moved an ashtray two inches to the left. And for a painter it might be much worse. A section of Transylvanian fur, a conductor’s baton, a courtier’s monocle might reduce a man to despair. Powerscourt felt rather sorry for Nathaniel Stone.
‘It’s the bloody shoes, for God’s sake.’ Stone was speaking quietly now as if the long encounter with the unfinished works had exhausted him. Powerscourt and Edward peered closely at the shoes. Black. Leather. Highly polished. Expensive. New. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with them at all.
‘Can’t you see, Pursecourt or whatever your name is, that the shoes are all wrong?’
Powerscourt couldn’t see it at all. Stone leapt out of his chair. Some of the earlier vigour and all of the earlier bad temper seemed to be returning.
‘A child of three, for God’s sake, could tell you that the light in the painting is coming from the right of the sitter. There’s even a bloody great shadow behind him so the morons of Queen’s Inn could tell where it was coming from if they put their minds to it.’ Now he pointed dramatically at the two shoes. ‘The direction of the light means that the left-hand shoe should be in the light and the right-hand one in shadow. And what have I done, fool that I am? They’re the other way round, for Christ’s sake. I’ve tried three times to fix it and everything just gets worse.’
‘Mr Stone,’ said Powerscourt firmly, ‘I have absolutely no doubt that the benchers and the barristers of Queen’s Inn will be happy with your splendid painting just as it is.’ Little bit of pomposity might not go amiss, Powerscourt said to himself. ‘I go further. S
peaking on their behalf, and as your patron as it were on this occasion, I forbid you to attempt to change the shoes. I shall arrange the transport of the painting from here to the Inn tomorrow and the completion of the payment of your fee. And soon there will be another commission. As I said when we arrived, Alexander Dauntsey is dead. A new bencher will be chosen to replace him after a decent interval. A new portrait will be required. I cannot speak for my colleagues but I am sure it is more than likely you will be asked to carry out the work.’
The mention of death seemed to subdue Nathaniel Stone. ‘How did he die?’ he asked very quietly. ‘He was here in this room only two weeks ago.’
‘He was murdered,’ said Powerscourt, rising to take his leave.
The red-headed man saw them out, down his creaking stairs. Even as the door closed behind them they could hear him muttering, ‘Murdered, murdered, murdered,’ over and over again.
‘Wish we could have seen them,’ said Edward, walking briskly beside the Thames on their way back to the underground railway.
‘Seen what?’ said Powerscourt, trying to populate Calne with various versions of Dauntsey, Dauntsey taking his dinner in the great dining room, Dauntsey walking through his estate, Dauntsey relaxing at his billiard table or looking at his paintings after supper.
‘Those other paintings,’ said Edward. ‘The Hungarian Ambassador. The Private Secretary. The Governor of the Bank of England. I bet they were all very good. Like our Mr Dauntsey.’
But as they reached Queen’s Inn, they could tell that something was wrong. Groups of porters were inspecting every staircase. Powerscourt thought he could see Chief Inspector Beecham and a couple of his men on the roof. The Head Porter told them what had happened in the middle of the great court.
‘It’s Mr Woodford Stewart, sir. He’s disappeared. We know he meant to leave early today, sir. He mentioned it to two people in his chambers and to his clerk. He meant to leave by two at the latest. It’s now five o’clock. He’s not at home, sir. We spoke to his wife by the telephone. His coat and his papers that he would take away with him are still here, sir.’
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