Thus Was Adonis Murdered (19 page)

“Benjamin,” I said, “could we make it that painting that was stolen in Verona last week?”

“What painting?” said Benjamin. “I haven’t heard about it.”

I had, as I have mentioned, spent part of the previous day in reading through copies of the past week’s
Times.
There had been an item in the Wednesday edition which I had thought, even then, of sufficient interest to cut out. I took out the cutting and laid it on the table.

“Oh yes,” said Selena, “I saw that in
The Times
last week.”

“I know you did,” I replied. “You referred to it as one of the instances of the Italian crime wave. That’s why I looked for it. It struck me at the time as curious—it’s quite usual, of course, for people to steal valuable paintings; but to steal one of little value seems decidedly eccentric.”

“My dear Hilary,” said Ragwort, “are you not being a little over-adventurous in your reasoning? I know the Major was in Verona on the day that the picture seems to have been stolen, but so, if you’ll forgive my mentioning it, were some quarter of a million other people, not counting tourists—it is, as you know, a large and populous city.”

“Besides,” said Benjamin, “I can’t see why Bob Linnaker should steal a valueless painting any more than anyone else.”

“All the same,” I said, “to please me, Benjamin, can you try to think of some convincing reason, before we go and see him, why that particular painting might, after all, be of interest to a customer?”

“My dear Hilary, to please you, of course I’ll try. But I really do think it’s a very long shot.”

I had supposed that to arrange any interview with Eleanor might prove more difficult: it was hardly to be expected that she would attend personally to the day-to-day running of Frostfield’s Gallery. We were fortunate, however: the private viewing of the annual exhibition by Frostfield’s of the work of promising young artists—“alas, all heedless of their doom” said Benjamin sadly—was to take place on the following evening. Benjamin, by virtue of his professional position, had naturally received an invitation. Plainly, he could not take us all; but he could, he believed, by a little innocent deception, secure admission for Ragwort and myself.

“I shall say, Hilary, that your College has decided to invest a proportion of its substantial funds in works of art and has chosen you, with my assistance, to explore the market. As a potential purchaser, you will need no invitation. And Eleanor will be so pleased with me for bringing custom in her direction that I shall get away with bringing Desmond as well. Of you, Desmond, I shall say simply that you are a young friend of mine who was very anxious to come to the private viewing and to whom I can refuse nothing. And in that, my dear Desmond, there is no deception at all.”

“If I am to be represented,” said Ragwort, “as a young man of dubious morals and importunate disposition, there could be no deception more gross. Still, I suppose I shall have to put up with it.”

We arranged, therefore, that Ragwort and I would call for Benjamin at his flat in Grafton Street and from there proceed with him to Frostfield’s Gallery and Showroom, a few minutes’ walk away, just off New Bond Street.

It is a mistake to take Ragwort anywhere near Bond Street.

Having reflected much on the best use to be made of our meeting with Eleanor, I had concluded that certain questions could discreetly be asked only by Benjamin. I was anxious, therefore, to arrive at his flat in good time to explain to him what he was to say and to ensure that he was properly rehearsed. Leaving New Square at half past four should have given us ample time for this purpose.

I had forgotten, however, that our route from Green Park Underground station would lead us past so many establishments displaying in their windows silver, jewellery, antiques, porcelain, crystal and other luxurious merchandise. Though I made frequent reference to the harmful effects on the profile of keeping the nose pressed continually against plate glass, it took us nearly half an hour to reach Grafton Street.

In the time remaining before Benjamin felt that we should be on our way, I was able to explain to him only once, and that in less detail than I could have wished, what he was to say to Eleanor. There had been not even the most perfunctory rehearsal. It was accordingly in a mood of some disquiet and remembering gloomily the rumours of his painstaking First that I accompanied Benjamin and Ragwort along New Bond Street, to arrive in due course at Frostfield’s Gallery.

The circular blue and gold emblem on the plate-glass doors announced to the public at large that Frostfield’s was a member of the British Antique Dealers’ Association and to the Latin-speaking portion of it that Art has no enemies but Ignorance: a saying attributed to Benvenuto Cellini. In the marble-floored entrance hall there was no ornament but a single sculpture, about four feet high, in metal on a stone base, in a style which one would describe, I suppose, as figurative with abstract overtones.

“That’s one of Kenneth’s things,” said Benjamin. “How sensible of Eleanor to have it there. People will remember, you see, that at just such an exhibition as this one some five years ago they could have snapped up something by Kenneth for a mere £500-—and now just look at the sort of price his work is fetching.”

Interested by the connection, I looked at the piece more closely. It was called “The Death of Adonis.” My readers will remember the story from Ovid and Shakespeare—the young Adonis, beloved of Aphrodite, meets his death while out hunting and is transformed into a flower. I could not tell if Ned might have served as the model—the artist had disdained portraiture; but he had suggested persuasively the notion of the young man becoming rooted to the place where he fell, sinking perpetually down towards the earth, while the spiky-blossomed flowers pushed upwards among his limbs. The price set by Frostfield’s on this achievement was £15,000.

“Kenneth’s rather fond of that sort of subject,” said Benjamin. “You know—Daphne turning into a bay tree and Narcissus turning into a narcissus and so forth.”

“What kind of flower is it supposed to be?” asked Ragwort.

“Traditionally,” I said, “Adonis is reputed to have been transformed into some kind of anemone. I think, however, that the artist has preferred to believe that it was a species of amaranth. The flower called in English lovelies-bleeding.”

Our spirits a little clouded, we went into the room which contained the exhibition. Eleanor, it seemed to me, had not dealt so meagrely with the promising young artists as accounts of her had led me to expect: the catalogue was attractive if not luxurious; the distance between the paintings was less, perhaps, than might have been insisted on by an established artist, but only fractionally so; the effervescent white wine which was offered to the guests was one of the more respectable substitutes for champagne.

“My dear Hilary,” said Benjamin, shrugging his shoulders, when I remarked on these matters, “what less could she do? This is, after all, Frostfield’s.”

As for the assertion he had made on the previous evening that it was pointless to hold an exhibition in September, because no one would be there—it was all too false: the long room was crowded to the point of discomfort with artists and potential customers. The artists, said Benjamin, were the ones in suits; the ones in jeans and flowered shirts were the customers—solicitors and stockbrokers and so forth. Eleanor herself was at the far end—the chances of any conversation with her seemed pitifully remote.

“She is moving round the room,” said Benjamin, “in a clockwise direction. Unless you have any superstitious objection to our moving widdershins, we ought to coincide with her somewhere near that picture of the Doges’ Palace, which will make an excellent starting point for the conversation you want me to engage in.”

Following the course which he suggested, we seemed unlikely to reach the point of coincidence with Eleanor in much less than an hour. I wondered if Benjamin could remember so long the lines I had allotted him; and I observed anxiously that he gave no sign of being engaged in silent rehearsal, but allowed himself to be led into gossip by almost everyone we met on our anti-clockwise progress. I recalled dismally that the rumours of his diligent First had come from a usually reliable source.

My mind was a little distracted from these anxieties by our encountering a singularly beautiful girl. I should mention, perhaps, lest I be thought in any way to have misled my readers, that her figure was pudgy, her complexion sallow and her hair a rather drab shade of brown. These possible defects, however, pass unnoticed in a young woman whose expression is that of a medieval saint after a particularly satisfactory vision of the Eternal City. She smiled ecstatically at Benjamin. She smiled ecstatically at me. She smiled ecstatically at Ragwort.

“Congratulations, Penelope,” said Benjamin.

“Thank you,” said the girl. “Yes, it’s nice, isn’t it?” Those who think the adjective inadequate to describe the joys of Paradise have not heard it spoken in such a tone.

“What,” asked Ragwort, when she had drifted blissfully away, “was that about?”

Benjamin pointed to a small brown and grey abstract hanging a few feet away. A little red star had been stuck to the corner. “That’s hers, you see. And the star means it’s sold. For rather less, I dare say, than she could earn with a fortnight’s temporary typing—and Frostfield’s, in any case, will be taking the lion’s share. These considerations, however, do not weigh much with an artist who has just discovered, for the first time, that a total stranger may care for their work enough to pay hard cash for it.”

Our path at long last crossed Eleanor’s, under, as Benjamin had calculated, the picture of the Doges’ Palace. His estimate of the welcome which would be accorded me, as one commanding substantial funds for investment in works of art, proved well founded. Eleanor was charming. That is to say, her manner seemed designed to merit that description: she displayed towards us a sort of girlish archness, such as a doting father might have found captivating in an only daughter at the age of eight. The effect was as of attempting to camouflage an armoured tank by icing it with pink sugar: a stratagem, in my view, doomed to failure.

I was wondering how I could discreetly prompt Benjamin to his first line, which I now felt sure he had forgotten, when the girl Penelope, pursuing some more erratic course than ourselves, came floating again towards us. There being in rapture no discernment, she smiled ecstatically at Eleanor.

“Ah, Penelope, my dear,” said Eleanor, “I see we’ve sold your little painting. How very nice. Have you had a word with the buyer yet?”

“No,” said Penelope. “Should I have done?”

“Well, my dear,” said Eleanor, “I do think it would be rather a good idea, don’t you? Of course, it’s a very nice little picture. But knowing that particular purchaser as one does, one can’t quite believe that the purchase had nothing at all to do with the fact that the artist was a rather attractive young lady. So I think it would be sensible if you had a little chat to him, Penelope dear.”

“Oh,” said the girl, her rapture growing dim. It was at this stage, I suppose, that I actually observed those possible defects of the face and figure which I have previously mentioned. I began to think Cellini had underestimated the enemies of art; and to wonder whether Eleanor might not, perhaps, have murdered Ned in a spirit of mere vandalism.

“Surely, my dear Mrs. Frostfield,” said Benjamin, “you speak in jest. From what one knows of that particular purchaser, it would only be if the artist were a charming young
man
that one could suspect an ulterior motive.” Benjamin has since admitted to me that there was no basis for this suggestion. He is, however, a kind-hearted fellow, always to be relied on to sign petitions and give donations to good causes.

“What a delightful picture that is,” he went on, “of the Doges’ Palace. Always a popular subject, of course, but that one is charmingly done. By the way,” he continued, looking at Eleanor with an expression of rustic innocence, “I gather, dear Mrs. Frostfield, that you’ve been in Venice quite recently?”

I felt a little relief from my anxieties: Benjamin had spoken his first line with admirable smoothness.

“Venice?” said Eleanor, waving her jewelled knuckles in a gesture of repugnance, “Venice? Oh, my dear Benjamin, please don’t ask me to talk about Venice.”

Upon being invited, however, to explain her distaste for the subject, she appeared willing to tell us at some length of the appalling experience which she had lately endured in that city. I do not set out verbatim her account of the murder, for it differed in no material respect from what we had heard already from Marylou. The emphasis, certainly, was a little different: Eleanor seemed to regard the matter principally as demonstrating a gross neglect on the part of the management of the Cytherea of their duty to ensure her own comfort and well-being. She concluded by saying dramatically that she would never stay there again.

Though her news was not in truth new to him, Benjamin managed to show on hearing it all proper signs of amazement and distress. For myself, as one not acquainted with either Ned or Kenneth, more general expressions of outrage seemed appropriate, mingled with a natural curiosity.

“Have they any idea who did it?” I asked.

“Oh yes. A girl travelling in the same group as ourselves. They arrested her almost at once. She’d been having some sort of affair with poor Ned apparently, and I suppose they must have quarrelled. I must say, I wasn’t at all surprised about that—I always thought her a rather unstable type: always drinking too much and falling over things. I never cared for her.” Poor Julia—so much for Ruth and Naomi.