Gentlemen Formerly Dressed

by Sulari Gentill

  “Just try it, Rowly. Start painting again and things will work themselves out. You’ll work them out.”

  Edna and Milton returned then to collect more boxes. They looked cautiously at Clyde, hopefully at Rowland.

  Rowland picked up a brush, rubbing the sable bristles between his fingers as he studied the sturdy easel. “I thought we’d go to Bletchley Park today,” he said glancing back at the wax head which Edna had left on the sideboard.

  “We’ll go tomorrow,” Milton replied, shrugging. “It’ll provide us a chance to give Pierrepont a proper send-off.”

  They set up a makeshift studio in the conservatory which looked out towards the spires of the university city over meadows of wildflowers. Clyde had thought of everything that Rowland might need.

  “Don’t be too grateful,” Milton warned. “They’ll be sending you the account for this paraphernalia.”

  Clyde suggested, in fact insisted, that they play croquet and, by this promise of competition, lured Murcott away. Rowland was left with peace and solitude to paint. For a while he just gazed at the easel, and then he began, though his hand shook and he felt sick.

  After the first tentative strokes, images seemed to explode onto the heavy sheets of cartridge: dark works in charcoal and wash, and splashes of vermilion. The compositions were raw and confronting. Rowland cast the images onto the sheet as if by doing so he could expel them from his mind. Visions of Germany: the Stormtroopers in line, a wall of brooding malice; the Königsplatz decked out in the banners of the Nazis; the inmates of Dachau, some broken, some defiant; a bonfire around which children danced while books were burned; and violence, pain, fear… his own attack.

  Finally Rowland paused; his hair was damp with perspiration and his breathing heavy. There were over a dozen wet sheets strewn across the conservatory floor. It was barely midday.

  Edna and Milton returned first. Apparently both had been banished from the game of croquet: Edna for cheating and Milton for making such a fuss about it. Still bickering about whether or not the sculptress had moved her ball illegally, they walked into the conservatory. And stopped. The paintings still lay on the floor. Rowland was endeavouring to clean his brushes. There was vermilion in his hair and on his waistcoat. He looked exhausted.

  Edna studied each painting in turn. “Oh, Rowly,” she said quietly. “This was in your head? No wonder you couldn’t sleep.” She stepped closer and took the brushes from him. “I’ll do this.”

  Rowland smiled slightly. He felt strangely relaxed now, and drowsy.

  Milton squatted over the painting of an adolescent—a fair-haired youth in Brownshirt uniform. He guessed it was the boy who’d been ordered to shoot Rowland as he lay tortured on the ground. There was a kind of desperate terror in the eyes of the young Stormtrooper, a creeping realisation of the fact that he was about to kill a man. The perspective was unusual, the gun large, dominant, the boy receding. Milton turned back to Rowland. “You look knackered, mate,” he said. “Go get some sleep.”

  “It’s the middle of the day,” Rowland protested half-heartedly.

  “Go, Rowly. We’ll make your excuses… and see that your paintings don’t scare our hosts.”

  Rowland was unconscious to the sunset but he woke early enough to see the following dawn. He had stirred not once in the last fifteen hours and if he dreamed, he did not remember it. For a while he lay still, enjoying the feeling of having slept. He shook his head. After weeks of Horlicks and counting sheep all he’d needed was to paint.

  He bathed and dressed, stuffing a tie into his pocket for Edna to see to later.

  Quietly, he slipped downstairs to the conservatory. Not even the servants were about yet, but Rowland had always preferred the softness of the light at this time.

  “Pierrepont,” he greeted the sculpted head, which sat on a small circular table. A glass of whisky had been placed beside it like some offering to a wax idol. Rowland smiled. Perhaps this was the send-off Milton had promised the demised peer.

  The pictures he had completed the day before had been neatly stacked beside the easel. He didn’t stop to go through them, clipping a clean sheet of cartridge to the board. He rummaged until he found a box of artists pencils among the packages of brushes and tubes of paint.

  Rowland worked more calmly than he had the previous day, taking time with detail. He was not sure his demons had been exorcised completely but at least now he knew how to deal with them. He drew from memory again, but a more recent image. Edna on the belltower, leaning out as if she could at any moment take wing and fly. The lines of the sculptress’ face were familiar, and to his mind perfect. He didn’t want his work to become permanently dark. To prevent that there was Edna.

  “Mr. Sinclair, there you are! Cook said she thought you were up and about.”

  “Miss Murcott… Good morning. I do hope I didn’t disturb you.” Rowland had been so engrossed in what he was doing he had not noticed Ivy’s entrance. She leaned against the door jamb, wearing a closely tailored riding habit, brandishing a crop in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

  “Not at all, Mr. Sinclair. I’m a creature of custom, and wretched without my morning ride.” She walked slowly over to the easel. “Do you have everything you need?”

  “Yes, thank you. You’ve been most kind to tolerate this mess.”

  “Not at all. I was quite intrigued by your paintings. You are rather talented, Mr. Sinclair.”

  “Thank you…” Rowland put down his pencil. It was obvious that Ivy was not going to allow him to go back to work.

  “Tell me, for how long have you known your fascinating troop of chums, Mr. Sinclair?”

  “A few years now.”

  “Where did you meet them all?”

  “I met Ed… Miss Higgins… at Ashton’s—an art school in Sydney. She introduced me to Mr. Isaacs who in turn introduced me to Mr. Watson Jones.”

  “How wonderful! And how did they all know each other?”

  “Miss Higgins and Mr. Isaacs have been acquainted since childhood; Mr. Isaacs and Mr. Watson Jones have similar political interests.”

  Ivy smiled knowingly. “They’re Commos aren’t they? It’s perfectly all right, Mr. Sinclair, England is very tolerant and liberal now. Why, there are simply legions of Communists in our set… Oxford was always full of them and I hear Cambridge is worse!”

  Rowland retrieved his pencil. “Would you mind if I drew you, Miss Murcott?”

  She glanced at the pencil sketch Rowland was making of Edna. “Why not? Why not, I say!” She stepped closer and looked up at Rowland. “How would you most like me, Mr. Sinclair?” she asked huskily.

  Rowland’s brow arched. “Just make yourself comfortable somewhere, Miss Murcott.”

  “Oh, I’m comfortable right here, Mr. Sinclair.”

  Rowland smiled. He couldn’t deny he had a good view of her face, but he wasn’t accustomed to having to reach around his model to find the easel. He let her be and moved the easel instead.

  Clipping a fresh sheet of cartridge to the board he began, working with the flat of the lead to pull out the shape of her face before he defined her features with the point.

  The Honourable Ivy Murcott stood with one hand on her hip and the other holding her cigarette. Her conversation had the appearance of being light, though she asked many questions: about Rowland’s friends, his interests, his travels. Every now and then she would drop into the conversation a phrase that may well have been taken as flirtatious or even improper.

  Fleetingly Rowland thought about kissing her, not because he particularly wanted to, but to see how she’d react. There was something rehearsed about her manner, a pretence at the femme fatale. He was sure that for some reason Ivy Murcott was feigning a romantic interest in him. He just couldn’t, for the life of him, comprehend why.

  “I say, what are you two up to?” Murcott wandered in wearing plus-fours and a tweed golfing cap. There was just the slightest note of accusation to his voice.

  “Go away, Archie
,” Ivy said irritably. “Can’t you see Mr. Sinclair is working on me? I expect he would prefer to do so in private.”

  “Actually, I’ve finished,” Rowland said hastily. “Come and tell me if I’ve done your sister justice, Murcott?”

  Ivy rolled her eyes, drawing impatiently on her cigarette, as Murcott approached the easel.

  “I say,” he said. “You’ve made the old girl look quite lovely!” He shook his head. “Who would have thought? It’s really quite remarkable.”

  An unmistakably volatile silence as Ivy seethed and Murcott grinned at his barbed wit. Finally, inevitably, Ivy turned on her brother. “What would you know about art, you fat buffoon?”

  “I know that Sinclair is a very gifted propagandist!” Murcott threw back. “He should be in advertising. Imagine what he could do for cabbages—I hear nobody’s buying cabbages anymore…”

  Ivy almost hissed, before stamping out of the conservatory.

  Murcott laughed as he watched her go. “She has a temper, my dear sister. You may want to take note, Sinclair.”

  “Good Lord, is that the time?” Rowland said, glancing at his watch. He picked up the wax head. “I’d better polish Pierrepont for his homecoming… he seems to be developing something of a patina.”

  “Oh yes, you were going to Bletchley today weren’t you, old boy?”

  “Yes, would you care to…?”

  “Sadly, I have another engagement today—Ivy too. You must take one of our motors though… I will not hear of you taking the train.”

  “Thank you, Murcott. That’s extremely kind.”

  “Not at all, old boy. Just wander over to the stables when you’re ready and take your pick. They’re all very sporting vehicles. It’s a shame I can’t come along really… we might have raced…”

  17

  SECRETS OF A LUXURY HOTEL DETECTIVE

  Surprising Number of Eccentrics

  Among the wealthy there are a surprising percentage of eccentrics, perhaps because they have the means to indulge in all their whims. Hotels, as a rule, do not serve such people, but if such guests have money and high connections, it is not always policy to refuse them accommodation. We detectives bear the brunt of their presence. The line between eccentricity and insanity in many cases is a slender one, and for that reason careful watch has to be kept on eccentric residents.

  The Queenslander, 1938

  Bletchley Park was, to put it politely, architecturally interesting. It seemed to Rowland that the mansion had repeatedly fallen victim to fashionable renovation at all costs. Either that or the original architect was mad. The result was a massive, eclectic conglomeration of Victorian Gothic, Tudor and Dutch Baroque with features that could only be described as baronial and Neo-Jacobean, and other elements that seemed more whimsy than anything else. It stood like a vast monument to asymmetrical inconsistency. Though the overt gaucheness of the structure should have been enough to offend an artistic sensibility, Rowland found the mansion more amusing than ugly. It was like a precocious child playing in its mother’s clothes—ludicrous but somehow endearing for its folly.

  Clyde brought Murcott’s Vauxhall to a stop in the sweeping driveway, and they disembarked. Milton carried the hatbox containing Pierrepont’s head.

  The first challenge was to choose a point of entry, for the mansion had several porticos. They opted for the largest, in the hope that the doors it housed were in fact the appropriate entrance. It seemed it was.

  Murcott had kindly provided them with a letter of introduction to both Lady Leon and Euphemia Thistlewaite, now Lady Pierrepont, and Rowland duly presented it to the manservant who answered the door. They waited while he took it in to “her Ladyship”.

  He returned minutes later. “Lady Leon and Lady Pierrepont will receive you in the lounge hall, sir. If you’d care to follow me.”

  Inside, Bletchley Park was similarly mismatched.

  Entering through the vaulted Gothic-style porch, they found themselves in a dark entrance passage with panelled walls and ceiling. The lounge hall was approached through a three-bay arcade of polygonal columns in grey marble. The room had no windows but its roof was made of painted glass. The furniture was Victorian and arranged about an elaborate stone and marble chimneypiece.

  Lady Leon stood to receive them, an operatic figure of regal carriage despite her advancing years. In the chair beside hers was a woman who might have been thirty, whose teeth seemed unable to fit in the confines of her mouth and whose expanding waistline was obvious at first glance—Lady Euphemia Pierrepont. Rowland introduced himself and his companions, expressed his condolences at the recent passing of Lord Pierrepont, and conveyed the regards of the Murcotts.

  At this last communication, Euphemia seemed delighted. “Oh, I haven’t seen Archie and Ivy in ever so long. We must invite them to visit. May I, Godmama? I am ever so in need of distraction.”

  “You shall have quite enough to distract you soon, my dear,” Lady Leon said sternly. “Now Mr. Sinclair, I believe you are making a delivery of some sort.”

  “Yes…” Rowland said tentatively, beginning to rethink the wisdom of what he’d come to do. Nevertheless, he continued. “I believe, Lady Pierrepont, that you are acquainted with a Mr. Francis Pocock who you commissioned to create a sculpture of the late Lord Pierrepont.”

  “Oh yes,” Euphemia replied, displaying an extraordinary number of teeth in what may have been a smile. “I thought it would be fun to have a statue of Bunky to play tricks on people! I was going to stand it in the hallway and laugh as callers got a fright. But now that Psychopompos has taken my Bunky to the Underworld, Theo thought it would be improper.”

  “Your brother shows discerning judgement,” Lady Leon said curtly. “What a silly notion!”

  “It seems Mr. Pocock had already begun work on the sculpture when Lady Pierrepont cancelled her commission,” Rowland said.

  “Well, I can hardly be held responsible for that,” Euphemia exclaimed. “I’m bereaved!”

  Rowland took a breath. “Mr. Pocock thought you might like the… bust… he completed before Lord Pierrepont’s passing… as a gift.”

  “Really, for nothing? Why that’s simply marvellous!” Euphemia clapped her hands. “Can I see? Can I see? Is that it?”

  “Lady Pierrepont, I should warn you…” Rowland started.

  But Euphemia had already launched out of her chair and snatched up the hatbox. She threw open its lid and squealed in delight. “Look, it’s Bunky!” She laughed, scooping out the head and tossing it like a ball. “Look at this, Godmama! I could hang it from the ceiling with my bats. And I didn’t have to part with a penny for it!” She kissed the waxen lips, exalted.

  “Bats?” Clyde murmured.

  Rowland glanced at his companions, unsure what to do. Euphemia was tossing Pierrepont higher and higher. She stopped suddenly and sat with her elbows resting upon the head in her lap. “Do you know where Lord Pierrepont and I were introduced, Mr. Sinclair?”

  “I can’t say that I do, Lady Pierrepont.”

  “Theo, my brother Theo, introduced us at a meeting of the Eugenics Society. It was very romantic—all that talk of selective breeding.”

  Lady Leon gasped, mortified. “That’s enough, Euphemia!”

  “Do you know a great deal about eugenics, Mr. Sinclair?”

  “More than I’d care to, madam.”

  “Oh, you don’t approve of eugenics,” she said, smiling sadly. “Natural selection is all very well for wild beasts but surely, Mr. Sinclair, the human race can aspire to more than that?”

  “Euphemia!” Lady Leon said sharply. “I don’t approve—”

  Euphemia jumped up abruptly. “I say, catch!” she cried, throwing the head in Rowland’s direction. Milton reacted quickly, intercepting the toss in a rather spectacular dive.

  “Stop this at once!” Lady Leon said furiously. “What is the meaning of this? Mr. Sinclair, that is not a bust. That is a head! You will take it back to your Mr. Pocock with the message that his
gift is declined!”

  “No!” Euphemia said, stamping her foot. “It’s mine!”

  “Euphemia, that is enough! I forbid you to accept that… that thing. It is indecent!”

  Lady Pierrepont glared at her godmother.

  Milton put the head back in the hatbox and closed the lid.

  Slowly, Euphemia turned to Rowland. “Godmama says I may not have the head. You may have it if you like…” She burst into tears suddenly. “It’s not fair,” she called back to her godmother as she ran from the room. “It’s not fair!”

  And so they were left with Lady Leon.

  “My goddaughter is, as you can understand, not herself,” Lady Leon said. “I’m sorry that you have had a wasted trip, Mr. Sinclair.”

  Clearly they were being dismissed. Rowland apologised for any disturbance their coming may have caused and they left… with the wax head.

  They sat wordlessly in the car for a few minutes.

  Then Clyde asked, “What in God’s name was that?”

  “Hundreds of years of selective breeding,” Milton replied, engaging the Vauxhall’s start button.

  Rowland shook his head. “Do you suppose that was grief?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t Mrs. Bruce say that Euphemia was odd? Perhaps this is what she meant,” Edna ventured. She patted the hatbox, comforting the wax head within after its ordeal at the hands of Lady Pierrepont.

  “What was it she said about bats?” Clyde asked.

  “Do you suppose she’s mad enough to have killed Pierrepont?” Milton said as he swung the car out of the drive.

  “Possibly,” Rowland replied, “but I don’t see her walking quietly out of the club afterwards.”

  “Unless the dread of something after death—the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns—is what pushed her over the edge…”