He had lifted his finger to a waiter who approached with a perfectly blank face. “We shall not wait for the Ferguses,” Dr Natouche said. “You must be given a restorative. Brandy? And soda? Dry Ginger? Yes? Two, if you please and may I see the wine list?”
His manner was grand enough to wipe the blank look off any waiter’s face.
When the man had gone Dr Natouche said: “But I have not answered your question. Yes, I have read this book. It was a courageous action.”
“I wondered if you would know exactly what was done to him. The process, I mean.”
“Your colour is returning,” he said after a moment. “And so, of course, did his. It was not a permanent change. No, I do not know what was done. Sir Leslie might have an idea, it is more in his line than mine. We must ask him.”
“I would have thought—”
“Yes?” he said, when she stopped short.
“You said, when we were at the wapentake, that you didn’t think I could say anything to—I don’t remember the exact phrase—”
“To hurt or offend me? Something like that was it? It is true.”
“I was going to ask, then, if the change of pigmentation would be enough to convince people, supposing the features were still markedly European. And then I saw that your features, Dr Natouche, are not at all—”
“Negroid?”
“Yes. But perhaps Ethiopians—one is so ignorant.”
“You must remember I am a half-caste. My facial structures are those of my mother, I believe.”
“Yes, of course,” Troy said. “Of course.”
The waiter brought their drinks and the wine list and menu and hard on his heels came Sir Leslie and Lady Fergus.
They were charming and the luncheon party was a success but somehow neither Troy nor her host got round to asking Sir Leslie if he could shed any light on the darkening by scientific methods of the pigmentation of the skin.
-3-
Troy returned to the Zodiac, rested, changed and was taken in a taxi by Caley Bard to dinner with champagne at another hotel.
“I’m not ’alf going it,” she thought and wondered what her husband would have to say about these jaunts.
When they had dined she and Bard walked about Longminster and finally strolled back to The River at half past ten. The Zodiac was berthed romantically in a bend of The River from which one could see the Long Minster itself against the stars. The lights of the old city quavered and zigzagged with those of other craft in the black night waters. Troy and Bard could hear quiet voices in the saloon but they loitered on the deserted deck and before she could do anything about it Bard had kissed Troy.
“You’re adorable,” he said.
“Ah, get along with you. Good night, and thank you for a nice party.”
“Don’t go away.”
“I think I must.”
“Couldn’t we have a lovely, fairly delicate little affair? Please?”
“We could not,” said Troy.
“I’ve fallen for you in a bloody big way. Don’t laugh at me.”
“I’m not. But I’m not going to pursue the matter. Don’t you, either.”
“Well, I can’t say you’ve led me on. You don’t know a garden path when you see one.”
“I wouldn’t say as much for you.”
“I like that! What cheek!”
“Look,” Troy said, “who’s here.”
It was the Hewsons. They had arrived on the wharf in a taxi and were hung about with strange parcels. Miss Hewson seemed to be in a state of exalted fatigue and her brother in a state of exhausted resignation.
“Boy, oh boy!” he said.
They had to be helped on board with their unwieldy freight and when this exercise had been accomplished, it seemed only decent to get them down the companionway into the saloon. Here the other passengers were assembled and about to go to bed. They formed themselves into a sort of chain gang and by this means assembled the Hewsons’ purchases on three of the tables. Newspaper was spread on the deck.
“We just ran crazy,” Miss Hewson panted. “We just don’t know what’s with us when we get loose on an antique spree, do we, Earl?”
“You said it, dear,” her brother conceded.
“Where,” asked Mr Pollock, “will you put it?” Feeling, perhaps, that his choice of words was unfortunate, he threw a frightened glance at Mr Lazenby.
“Well! Now!” Miss Hewson said. “We don’t figure we have a problem there, do we, dear? We figure if we talk pretty to the Skipper and Mrs Tretheway we might be allowed to cache it in Miss Rickerby-Carrick’s stateroom. We just kind of took a calculated risk on that one didn’t we, dear?”
“Sure did, honey.”
“The Tretheways,” Pollock said, “have gone to bed.”
“Looks like we’ll have to step up the calculated risk, some,” Mr Hewson said dryly.
Mr Lazenby was peering with undisguised curiosity at their booty and so were Troy and Bard. There was an inlaid rose-wood box, a newspaper parcel from which horse-brasses partly emerged, a pair of carriage-lamps and, packed piecemeal into an open beer-carton, a wag-at-the-wall Victorian clock.
Propped against the table was a really filthy roll of what appeared through encrustations of mud to be a collection of prints tied together with an ancient piece of twine.
It was over this trove that Miss Hewson seemed principally to gloat. She had found it, she explained, together with their other purchases, in the yard of the junk shop where Troy had seen them that first night in Tollardwark. Something had told Miss Hewson she would draw a rich reward if she could explore that yard and sure enough, jammed into a compartment in an Edwardian sideboard, all doubled up, as they could see if they looked, there it was.
“I’m a hound when I get started,” Miss Hewson said proudly. “I open up everything that has a door or a lid. And you know something? This guy who owns this dump allowed he never knew he had this roll. He figured it must have been in this terrible little cupboard at the time of the original purchase. And you know something? He said he didn’t care if he didn’t see the contents and when Earl and I opened it up he gave it a kind of weary glance and said was it worth ten bob? Was it worth one dollar twenty! Boy, I guess when the Ladies Handicraft Guild, back in Apollo, see the screen I get out of this lot, they’ll go crazy. Now, Mrs Alleyn,” Miss Hewson continued, “you’re artistic. Well, I mean — well, you know what I mean. Now, I said to Brother, I can’t wait till I show Mrs Alleyn and get me an expert opinion. I said: we go right back and show Mrs Alleyn—”
As she delivered this speech in a high gabble, Miss Hewson doubled herself up and wrestled with the twine that bound her bundle. Dust flew about and flakes of dry mud dropped on the deck. After a moment her brother produced a pocket knife and cut the twine.
The roll opened up abruptly in a cloud of dust and fell apart on the newspaper. Scraps. Oleographs. Coloured supplements from Pears’ Annual. Half a dozen sepia photographs, several of them torn. Four flower pieces. A collection of Edwardian prints from dressmaker’s journals. Part of a child’s scrapbook. Three lamentable water-colours.
Miss Hewson spread them out on the deck with cries of triumph to which she received but tepid response. Her brother sank into a chair and closed his eyes.
“Is that a painting?” Troy asked. It had enclosed the roll and its outer surface was so encrusted with occulted dirt that the grain of the canvas was only just perceptible.
It was lying curled up on what was presumably its face. Troy stooped and turned it over.
It was a painting in oiclass="underline" about 18 by 12 inches. She knelt down and tapped its edge on the deck, releasing a further accretion of dust. She spread it out.