So Pretty a Problem Page 3

  There was no sign of anything to arouse their suspicions and they went back to the hall. The inspector noticed a door at the end.

  “D’you know where this leads?”

  “To Carthallow’s studio,” Tremaine told him. “It’s built over the bedrooms, just under the roof. The stairs by-pass the rest of the house.”

  They were awkward stairs, narrow and winding. Penross climbed them slowly and pushed open the door of the studio. He glanced about him, obviously intrigued by the thought that here amidst this apparent confusion of materials so many works of art had been born. Carthallow had not been a tidy worker and the studio was littered with tubes of pigment, charcoal sketches, palettes and odds and ends of equipment.

  Penross walked across to a big easel standing against the far wall and examined it casually. He gave a low whistle.

  “Take a look at this,” he said.

  Mordecai Tremaine joined him. He looked at the canvas upon which Adrian Carthallow had been working. It presented a mass of staring colour. Blue, red and yellow had been smeared heavily across it so that the unfinished portrait beneath could barely be distinguished.

  He adjusted his pince-nez to give himself time to think.

  “Curious,” he said, inadequately.

  “The word curious,” Penross remarked dryly, “seems somewhat of an understatement. It’s Mrs. Carthallow’s portrait, isn’t it? You can just about tell that much.”

  “Yes. I knew he was painting her. But I haven’t seen it until now. Carthallow was inclined to be touchy where portraits were concerned. He didn’t like people to see them until they were completed.“

  “I see.”

  The inspector’s tone was non-committal, but Mordecai Tremaine did not feel very happy about it.

  When they went downstairs again the fingerprint men and the photographers had arrived and were bringing their apparatus into the hall. Tremaine said:

  “I don’t want to get in your way, and in any case I ought to be going back. You don’t want me for anything?”

  “I know where to find you if I do,” said Penross. “I’ll have to take an official statement from you for the record, of course. Possibly I’ll drop in on you later, but I can’t guarantee it. I’ve a feeling we’re going to be here for some time.”

  Mordecai Tremaine knew what he meant. Inspector Penross was a long way from satisfied. He intended to have more than Helen Carthallow’s unsupported story before he ruled a line under his report of Adrian Carthallow’s death and regarded the matter as closed.

  3

  JONATHAN BOYCE HAD listened to the whole story and to Mordecai Tremaine’s relief he had made none of the expected comments on the subject of his own presence on the scene of the tragedy. To a Scotland Yard detective, even on holiday, a body is a matter for professional interest and having, in addition, met the late occupant of the said body before his tenancy had been so abruptly terminated, Boyce was too thirsty for information to wish to start any red herrings, no matter how tempting.

  “Did Charles say whether he was coming over?” he asked.

  “When I left him,” Mordecai Tremaine said, “the fingerprint men and the photographers had just arrived. He looked as though he was going to be busy.”

  It seemed strange now to hear Penross referred to as ‘Charles’. Not, of course, that it was odd that Jonathan Boyce should have made use of the Christian name. But Inspector Penross engaged upon an official police investigation, with all the majesty of the law behind him, was not at all the same person as Charles Penross who had sat yarning with them in a deck-chair until long after the sun had gone down.

  Boyce and Penross were old friends. The Yard man’s elder sister and her husband had made their home in Falporth for some years, and Boyce had a standing invitation to spend his summer vacation with them. Which meant that it had been more or less inevitable that his acquaintance with Penross should have developed rapidly.

  Their first meeting had been a chance encounter on a fishing trip. They had discovered that they were members of the same profession, and from then on the prospect of talking shop with Charles Penross had been an added attraction to bring Jonathan Boyce year by year to Cornwall.

  On this occasion the annual invitation had been extended to include Mordecai Tremaine. Boyce had written a good deal in his letters to his sister about the retired tobacconist who had such an enthusiasm for crime detection, and in anycase Arthur and Kate Tyning had read enough about him in the newspapers to make them eager to see him in the flesh.

  For Mordecai Tremaine had found himself not long ago the centre of a brief but violent blaze of publicity. The Press had decided that it was a matter of no small interest that an elderly gentleman of mild appearance, whose pince-nez always seemed to be on the point of slipping off the end of his nose, and who had a weakness for reading literature in which romance was depicted in colours more roseate than nature should make a habit of solving murder mysteries in his spare time, and they had come to the conclusion that the public should know more about him.

  It had all been very embarrassing. Being naturally rather a shy individual he had found it difficult to cope with his reputation as an astute detective. He possessed the perpetual feeling that he was not living up to what people expected of him.

  This diffidence had been at the back of his mind when he had been with Penross during the afternoon. He had imagined that the inspector had been disappointed in him; that he had come to the conclusion that the idol was provided with feet of clay.

  Jonathan Boyce was pulling at his chin.

  “So Adrian Carthallow is dead,” he said thoughtfully. “A lot of people are going to heave a sigh of relief over that.”

  “You mean because of his pictures?”

  “I mean because of his pictures,” agreed Boyce. “He was a clever devil. But a bit too clever. It made him plenty of enemies. Colonel Neale, for instance.”

  Mordecai Tremaine knew why Boyce had mentioned Colonel Neale. For Colonel Neale was in Falporth. He had arrived a day or two earlier. And Colonel Neale had publicly announced his intention of teaching Adrian Carthallow what he had described, with suitable military adjectives, as a much needed lesson.

  The stir Adrian Carthallow’s portrait of Christine Neale had caused had not quite died down, even now. It had been a very good portrait. Technically, indeed, it had been an excellent piece of work—one of the best things Carthallow had ever done.

  But there was no doubt that it had also been a piece of sheer devilry that only Adrian Carthallow’s twisted sense of humour could have devised. It was difficult to understand just why Christine Neale had allowed him to show it. Unless it was because she had been infatuated with him, and had not realized what he had done until it had been too late.

  He had painted the woman’s soul. Or perhaps it would be kinder to say that he had painted the woman’s soul as he had imagined it to be.

  The hot, lustful eyes that had added the final touch of the wanton to the face of a woman whose sensuality was unmistakable had attracted the crowds all day when the picture had been shown, and columns of criticism on the rights and wrongs both of painting and of showing such a portrait had filled not only the art periodicals, but the popular press—which was a proof of the news value of Carthallow’s achievement.

  Those who knew her could be in no doubt as to whom the portrait was intended to represent. Christine Neale’s features had been life-like; so much so that it seemed that it was the woman herself who stared boldly down from the canvas.

  The devilish artistry of the thing lay in the fact that to the casual glance the portrait looked perfectly natural—just like any other well-executed likeness of a young and good-looking woman. It was only from certain angles that it seemed to come alive with that compelling sensuality.

  Christine Neale had vanished when the storm of comment had broken. According to informed rumour she had been sent off to South Africa, where a brother was farming well up country.

  The colonel had gon
e raging to his lawyers, breathing threats and ready to sue, but the case had never reached the courts. His legal advisers had managed to impress upon him the unpalatable but indisputable fact that it would merely make matters worse, since it would prolong the publicity. And it was certain that Carthallow would not only make the most of his opportunity to provide the newspapers with fresh sensations but had plenty of material with which to do so.

  Christine Neale had made no secret of the fact that she was in love with him. She had paraded her affections with the unthinking folly of a headstrong and spoiled young woman who had been allowed the use of too much money too early in life. Carthallow would have had little difficulty in convincing a jury that he had painted no more than the truth; that he had, in fact, displayed the consummate talent of a fine artist in bringing out the character of his sitter.

  Mordecai Tremaine had often asked himself what it was that made a man like Adrian Carthallow attractive to women. Christine Neale had not been the only one to fall in love with him, although she had perhaps revealed her feelings more foolishly than some of the others.

  Maybe it was because Carthallow treated them with such a contemptuous familiarity that they ran at his heels. Being a sentimentalist—and, moreover, a regular reader of Romantic Stories—Mordecai Tremaine was reluctant to admit that brutality towards a woman was the way to breed adoration. But whenever he thought of individuals of the Carthallow type he was aware of a disturbing feeling of uncertainty.

  Jonathan Boyce said, suddenly:

  “Wasn’t Carthallow painting his wife’s portrait?”

  “Yes,” said Tremaine, and added: “It looks as though somebody didn’t care for the idea.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that even if Carthallow was still alive he wouldn’t have been able to finish it. Somebody deliberately ruined it by daubing colour all over the canvas.”

  Boyce pursed his lips. He looked disturbed.

  “What did Mrs. Carthallow say about that?”

  “She hasn’t said anything,” returned Mordecai Tremaine. “Yet. She’d already gone to Mrs. Eveland’s when Charles discovered it.”

  “Had anybody seen the portrait—as far as it had gone?”

  “Mrs. Carthallow may have done so, but I don’t think anybody else is likely to have seen it. Carthallow didn’t like people viewing his unfinished portraits.”

  “So nobody knows . . .” said Boyce.

  His voice tailed away. Tremaine said:

  “That’s it. Nobody knows whether Carthallow was planning to put over another Christine Neale episode—with his wife in the role of the victim.”

  “Surely,” said Boyce. “Not his wife?”

  Mordecai Tremaine was very uncomfortable. He felt that ever since that moment when he had looked upon Adrian Carthallow’s extremely dead body the sentimental side of his nature had been forced to join issue with the criminologist whose duty it was to place truth above all else.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “especially his wife. In view of the latest developments. He didn’t have affairs with other women, despite the way they ran after him. So he may have been in love with her. The portrait may have been intended as his revenge for Imleyson.”

  “But I thought he didn’t mind about Imleyson.”

  “He seldom showed that he did,” agreed Tremaine. “But who can say what he really thought? On the other hand the portrait may have been intended as a genuine tribute. Perhaps he destroyed it himself because of something he found out.”

  Boyce was frowning.

  “That story of hers. Suppose Carthallow gave her the gun, just as she said. But suppose he knew that it was loaded and gave it to her deliberately. Because he wanted her to kill him.”

  “You mean he might have found out that things between his wife and Imleyson had gone further than he imagined? And that instead of going the orthodox way about it and shooting her first and then killing himself he arranged it so that she shot him?” Mordecai Tremaine shook his head. “It seems a clumsy way to commit suicide. And I can’t see Adrian Carthallow wanting to kill himself in any case.”

  “Unless he was in trouble of some kind we don’t yet know about,” said Jonathan Boyce, and then he smiled. “But I’m wandering into the land of theory, Mordecai! Doing the kind of thing I’ve always told you a policeman can’t afford. Maybe it’s because I’m on holiday and it’s someone else’s pigeon!”

  He thrust his hands into his pockets and stood, sucking on an empty pipe, staring out over the sea.

  “Poor old Charles! She’s an attractive woman. I’ve liked what I’ve seen of her—felt sorry for her, too. Sometimes, Mordecai, it’s a damnable job being a detective.”

  Mordecai Tremaine regarded his friend in surprise. It was unlike Jonathan Boyce to give way to sentiment. It was, he thought, a sign that Helen Carthallow had unwittingly appealed to the sense of chivalry that lay dutifully buried beneath the Yard man’s official dispassionate manner.

  It recalled his own state of mind towards her, although his attitude had been more non-committal. He had found it difficult to decide whether Helen Carthallow was the unfortunate victim of circumstances or whether she was a woman who possessed very little in the way of a heart, and was therefore deserving of no special outpourings of sympathy. Whether, in fact, her slightly too made-up face was the mask with which a brave but lonely and tormented creature had determined to face the world in an attempt to pretend that all was well with her marriage, or whether she was, in reality, no more than a shallow if physically attractive personality whose scarlet lips and painted nails betrayed her true nature.

  The death of Adrian Carthallow was, naturally enough, the main topic at dinner.

  “I suppose that by tomorrow there’ll be swarms of reporters on the scene,” remarked Arthur Tyning. “Falporth is going to be on the map. Fade-out of Famous Artist. Slain by Wife in Study, or Paradise Lost.”

  His wife looked at him reproachfully. She did not always approve of her husband’s sense of humour.

  “Poor Mrs. Carthallow. I feel sorry for her having to face all the questions and publicity. It’s bad enough to have lost her husband in such a tragic fashion, without having to bear the strain of all the police enquiries and reporters wanting to know everything as well.”

  “I trust that this solicitude on your part, my dear,” Arthur Tyning said, “means that should you ever manage to shoot me by accident you’d display a suitable remorse!”

  “Don’t joke about it, Arthur. Poor soul—it must be terrible for her.”

  “Sorry, Kate,” he told her. “But I can’t shed any crocodile tears for Carthallow. I think she’s well rid of him.”

  Tremaine noted that neither of them revealed any suspicion of Helen Carthallow, nor did they make any comment that was unfavourable to her. It seemed that only the naturally critical policemen, whose job it was not to take things at their face value, were at all doubtful as to the truth of her story.

  It was significant, too, he thought, that whereas Jonathan Boyce had referred to ‘poor Charles’ and Kate Tyning had spoken of ‘poor Mrs. Carthallow’, nobody had shown any sympathy for the corpse. Adrian Carthallow seemed likely to be unwept and unhonoured if not exactly unsung.

  He smoked his routine after-dinner cigarette whilst they chatted over their coffee, and then he remarked:

  “I think I’ll take a stroll up to Mrs. Eveland’s. There may be something I can do.”

  The Tynings looked slightly eager, like schoolchildren who had been secretly expecting to be invited to a treat but who had been afraid of having their optimism noticed in case the invitation didn’t come. Jonathan Boyce said heartily:

  “Good idea, Mordecai. It looks as though Charles is going to be too busy to bring us any news himself.”

  Mordecai Tremaine instinctively pushed his pince-nez further back on his nose.

  “After all, Jonathan,” he said, somewhat distantly. “I was there. She may need my help.”

  He made what he prided
himself was a dignified exit.

  4

  BUT WHEN HE was walking over the cliffs in the direction of Hilda Eveland’s house he knew perfectly well that he was not going because of any belief that he might be able to help Helen Carthallow. He was going because he knew that the whole story had yet to be told, and anything in the nature of a mystery was something he had never yet been able to resist.

  Besides, when he was honest with himself he admitted that Helen Carthallow had always fascinated him. Although he was a bachelor it was not because he was unmoved by the charm of a pretty woman. Her slim grace, her quick, eager movements, the toss of her head, the appeal of the child-like face with its delicate features—it was child-like in spite of those vivid lips and the eye shadow—had called to the sentimental part of him that lay behind the fact that he was an inveterate reader of Romantic Stories.

  Mordecai Tremaine was simple enough to believe that all attractive young women should be in love and be loved. And he had not thought that Helen Carthallow’s relations with her husband were as ideal as they should have been. He had felt sorry for her. He had wanted to do something about it. Which, of course, shows how fundamentally naïve in such matters he really was.

  His discovery of the existence of Lester Imleyson had been disturbing. His attitude towards marriage was soundly old-fashioned—as befitted a sentimentalist who had never experienced it—and the realization that Helen Carthallow might have turned for solace to a lover had been a shock.

  He had not, as a matter of fact, quite recovered from it. To this very moment it had created in his mind a vague bias against her and he was sufficiently aware of his own shortcomings to admit that he was still regarding her with a slightly distorted vision.

  It was very pleasant on the footpath. Falporth was situated on one arm of a great bay that swept in rugged magnificence from the town to the white lighthouse guarding the rocks at the other extremity, and walking towards Hilda Eveland’s house meant that all the way one faced that impressive coastline with the blue water breaking white against the cliffs.