The Stargazey (25 page)

“Oh, she's exquisite to look at, I daresay. But she has no conversation. None. That's what I meant. I can't think why Clive ever married her. For her looks, I expect. But I still don't know how you come to know them.” She leaned forward, pulled her skirt down farther, clasped
her hands around her knees like a schoolgirl waiting to be told a bit of gossip.

“I met the brothers—your nephews?”

“Nicholas and old Seb? None of
mine
I shouldn't think, unless by marriage. But I scarcely see them. Go on.”

“I met them in their gallery. I'd gone there to have a look round.”

“This was all accidental?”

Melrose pursed his lips. “Coincidental, perhaps. Anyway, I managed to get myself invited to dinner.”

“But how? They might be peculiar, but surely they don't invite every Tom, Dick, and Harry who comes into the gallery back to their house for dinner.”

“I had leverage: I bought three paintings. Gave them the impression there was more where that came from, obviously had them believing I had a good deal of money.”

“Have you?”

“Yes.”

“What did you buy?”

“Do you know Ralph Rees? One of his.”

“Not one of the
snow
contraptions? Not one of
those
?” She clamped her hand to her forehead in mock horror. I can't believe you'd do that. You seem sensible enough.”

“I am. I purchased it for a friend who favors white.”

“He certainly must.”

“She.”

“She admires things virginal, does she?”

“Hardly.”

“All this makes me thirsty. Would you like some tea? Or a drink?” Melrose declined, and she sat back and fingered a ball of yarn. “That poor boy,” she said, sighing.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Ralph Rees. I do feel sorry for him.” She shook her head.

“Why? Because he's not any good?”

“Oh, no. Because he
is.
You see that portrait of me? It was just a little while before Clive died that he said he wanted a portrait of
me as the character I'd played in our last production.” She sighed, remembering.

Melrose got up to look at the portrait on the opposite wall. “I can hardly believe it!”

“Understandable, seeing me now. I was younger then.” Mona rose and joined him.

“No, no. I'm talking about Rees's painting.”

“Oh. Yes, if all you've seen of his work is that ridiculous stuff in the gallery. It's just beyond me, it really is. I couldn't help it, I simply told him he'd taken a wrong turning.”

“I don't understand why he would change so dramatically.”

“He claims his portraits were facile. They're too representational.”

“That's generally what portraits are supposed to be,” said Melrose dryly. “What would he say about John Singer Sargent? Too facile? Too easy?”

“I said much the same thing. You see this small one, this scene in Surrey? That's Ralph's too.”

It was a traditional sort of British landscape, sheep in a summertime meadow, a wagon filled with hay. “Yes, this is something I wouldn't mind hanging up at all. Do you know him well?”

“No, not really. I ran into him the first of the year and he told me he was doing something entirely different.”

“If he was talking about his
Siberian Snow,
he was certainly telling the truth. Do the Fabricant brothers have much influence over him?”

“Certainly. They have a gallery, after all.”

“Oh, but no decent painter is going to change his entire approach just to see his work displayed.”

“Why not? Writers become hacks to sell books, don't they?”

Melrose shook his head. “Probably they were hacks to begin with.” He leaned closer to the painting to look at the country scene. “Anyway, in this case, it would be the other way round, wouldn't it? Those white paintings aren't commercially viable; it's his other stuff that is. This agreeable little painting could find a buyer very quickly.”

“I suppose so. His portraits were well regarded. And so young—in his mid-twenties—when he did mine.”

They stood in silence for a few moments, contemplating the group of paintings. “Is this Matisse an original?”

“Yes. The Mary Cassatt isn't, though. It's a very good copy, a self-portrait.”

Melrose nodded and inspected another Impressionist painting, Monet or Manet, possibly, which showed a large gathering of people in the open air. He was struck by the similarity of several of the subjects, such as the two little girls at the center. “Whose is this?”

“Manet. It's called—oh, something in the Tuileries Gardens.”

They were silent for a few moments. He was trying to think of some way to approach the subject of the murder, when she helped him.

“My sable coat on a murder victim.” She shivered slightly. “Hard to believe.”

“I imagine. But . . . why did you give it to Olivia Inge?”

“She needed money, but I couldn't simply give her money. I told her if she didn't much fancy fur she should go ahead and sell it. Olivia's not well-off financially, and I knew she wouldn't take any from me, but I thought that might be something she could convert to cash.”

“So you weren't surprised when she sold it.”

“Not at all. I don't think I'd have taken it to a consignment shop, though. That did surprise me. She got two or three thousand for it. And the shop, of course, got its commission. Still, it's hard to imagine a person with that kind of cash to spend would be
in
a consignment shop. That's what surprises me.”

“You don't have much to do with the Fabricants, then?”

“No. I have no reason to. It would be strange for me to want to be around Clive's second wife. Particularly when she's Ilona Kuraukov. But they are not as disinterested in me as they might appear to be. They like to put Pansy in my way.”

Melrose frowned. “I'm sorry?”

“Money, dear boy, money. They seem to have some idea I'd settle a large part of it on Pansy. Because of Clive, you see. They seem to want me to regard Pansy as Clive's granddaughter, which she isn't. Seb took the Fabricant name when his mother married Clive. That does not make Pansy any sort of blood relation; she's nothing to me. She doesn't even
like me.” She was interrupted by a rather fearsome banging on a door somewhere out of sight. “That'll be a delivery from the grocer. His boy does like to make as much ruckus as possible. Please excuse me.”

Melrose nodded and watched her go. He then fell to contemplating the people in the Tuileries painting. He was struck by its seeming to be a collective portrait and, again, how much these men in top hats and beards resembled one another, as the two little girls in their full sashed dresses seemed so alike.

But his thoughts were interrupted by the entrance of a girl of around nine or ten, who set about looking under the chair opposite. Then she made quite a production out of rising from her near-prone position, ignoring his presence, and getting down to look under the sofa.

“What are you doing?” Melrose decided to be direct.

“I'm looking for my cat. He's a ginger cat.”

“There are plenty of charming surfaces for him to lie on. Why would he shove himself under a chair or a sofa?”

Still on her stomach, she said, “I don't know. I'm not a cat. His name's Horace.” She got up and, with her hands on her hips, rotated her head slowly to take in the charming surfaces. Then she dropped down again to look under the other slipcovered chair.

Given her apparent disregard for him, Melrose could only assume she had come into the room to inspect him. “You wouldn't by any chance in the world, by the most incredible coincidence, by the longest shot imaginable, and in line with my usual great good luck, be Linda Pink?”

“Yes!” This word was shouted from under the chair, where her head was.

“I admire your enthusiasm for yourself, but would you get up off the floor?”

She did, and so quickly that the air seemed jarred by her presence.

At that moment a really big, drab, scuffed-up cat, which had clearly gone the rounds with neighboring cats, came in and took up a position by her side.

“Horace, where've you been?”

“Having a kip in a dustbin, it looks like.”

Horace, insulted, swayed off with his chin in the air.

“Why don't you sit down?” Melrose asked, sitting himself.

“I don't know.”

Why were children always so literal? “It wasn't actually a question, Miss Pink. It was more of a request. So that I can ask you a few questions.”

“Are you a policeman too?” she asked, without sitting down.

Melrose debated lying but, unable to see the consequences of this, either good or bad, decided not to. “No. But I'm best friends with one you've talked to already.” He had always thought the “best friends” concept really packed a punch with children.

“With one of those Scotland Yard ones?”

“Yes.”

“He's my favorite policeman.”

“Mine too.” Melrose looked over his shoulder. “What happened to your aunt, anyway?”

“She's out in the kitchen talking to Billy. He's always got all these problems and talks a lot. What kind of questions?”

“Things about the herb garden, you know, where you saw this bod—ah, lady. There seems to be some question about when you saw her and where she was lying.”

“In the lad's-love. It was around seven o'clock, I guess.”

“Aren't we close to Fulham Palace here?”

“Yes, it's only over there.” She pointed off in a vague direction. Was he worth the trouble?

“Listen: If it's all right with your aunt, would you like to take a walk there? And perhaps find an ice-cream vendor. I'm sure they must have a refreshment place, for all the tourists.”

She stopped plumb in her tracks and stared at him.

Good heavens, he
was
worth it!

 • • • 

Melrose put his plan for a walk before Mona Dresser, who agreed to it. Melrose said he could perfectly understand if she thought it might not be good for Linda to return to the scene of the crime. He supposed there would still be tape around the place and they wouldn't be able to venture too near it.

Out of earshot, Mona said Linda had been questioned by so many policemen, and had of course been talking about little else, that she saw nothing against it. “But I don't think you'll learn anything new. She's very certain of her story; Linda can be quite stubborn.”

Really? Melrose raised his eyebrows.

 • • • 

“You lead,” said Melrose, once they were out.

Was there any doubt that Linda would do otherwise? She was already ten paces ahead of him.

“Wait at the curb!” he ordered.

This got him a look reserved for fools.

“Where are we?” He was casting glances about as if they'd left civilization behind.

“Bishops Park Road,” she answered, half running ahead.

When had they left the Fulham Road? Melrose had always loved the way London streets simply left off being what they were and started being something else, as if naming streets were nothing but whim. The Fulham Road lay more or less between the King's Road and the Brompton Road. Fulham was in SW6, and just off most of the maps of Central London, as if it had nearly made it but not quite and so had been banished to the outback that tourists don't visit. It hadn't that chic Belgravia look to it, where the bright sun fell across the pavement in spatters of gold coins. Nor had it the élan of Chelsea, or even the bedraggled charm of flowery South Kensington, which it bordered.

“We're here!” called Linda, as if the imposing stone gate piers were invisible to him. Then, moving off in another direction, she called, “We can get ice cream!”

The refreshments were located just a short distance from the gates. Melrose asked, “Do you want your ice cream now or when we leave?” This caused her face to pinch up with such a look of pained indecision, he knew they'd be stopping here all day if he didn't say, “Or both?”

Happy with that solution, she gave her order for a chocolate ice-cream cone, all the while looking with such longing at a glass jar holding candy sticks that he bought her one of those too. They returned to the gates and the grounds. Licking her cone, Linda had
on her face the mesmerized look that cats get when lapping up bowls of milk.

They walked through the gate piers, and Melrose felt immersed in that left-the-world-behind feeling that washes over one on the other side of gated grounds. Perhaps one thought of all gates as symbolic of a passage from one life zone to another.
(You are leaving SW3 for SW10, which has been freshly renovated for your pleasure.)
For one thing, the familiar noises of children yelling, traffic rushing, sirens, and bells were so diminished that they might have been part of the old frayed world unraveling.

Beside him, Linda carefully sculpted her cone as painstakingly as if she were Rodin. “The Palace Museum's right up that road a little.”

“I don't—”

“We've got to get maps.”

“Is this uncharted territory?” said Melrose. “Anyway, you know where everything is.”

“Almost. But you want to know about how the herb garden's laid out, don't you?”

As if she hadn't got it memorized, he thought, as he followed her into the cool environs of the little museum, which was composed simply of two or three rooms in what had been one of the wings of the palace. That building was itself so utterly unimposing—just a large squarish brick building—that he hoped people didn't come here thinking they'd find another Hampton Court or Versailles. But of course they wouldn't visit Fulham for that; he believed the poster on the pillar one passed to go to the museum:
LONDON'S BEST-KEPT SECRET
.