"I shall go myself. I am still good for something,” she said, and left.
Weylin glanced up and smiled an understanding smile. “I wonder if we shall become crotchety when we are her age."
"Mama is just bored. She likes to keep busy."
"I see by your sketchpad that you keep busy as well, Miss Barron. I am impressed with these sketches. I looked through the book when the footman delivered it this morning. I hope you don't mind?"
"Not at all. This is only a rough sketchbook. My finished works are better, I hope."
"I should like to see them sometime. You have a talent for catching the character of your sitter."
"Thank you. I always preferred to draw people. I thought I had a bit of a knack for reading their characters, but I own I never fathomed my uncle's double life. Of course, we have only Steptoe's word for it that he was up to any tricks here."
He put his pencil down and passed the sketchpad along to me. “How is this?” he asked. He had drawn in a long, curled mustache and a spade beard, of the sort schoolboys use to deface public broadsheets.
A bubble of laughter erupted at the childish manner of his execution. “Do you not feel you should put horns on his head, and a spear in his hand? This looks like Old Nick."
"I told you I would be no good at this!"
I turned the page to another drawing of my uncle, and shaded in a small brush mustache and a short beard, of the sort an elderly gentleman might actually wear. “Something like this was what I had in mind."
Weylin studied it a moment in an approving manner. “That certainly changes his appearance. I would hardly recognize him as the same man."
"He might have worn glasses, too. Even green glasses."
I turned the page and drew steel-rimmed glasses on the next sketch. The change was less striking. I filled the glasses in with shadow, which concealed the eyes and made Barry less easily recognizable. Weylin stationed himself behind me while I finished off the aging of Lady Margaret. It was distracting to have such a close observer, but his aunt was certainly recognizable from the final sketch.
"Amazing!” he said, sliding into the chair at my elbow. “There is just one thing that puzzles me, Miss Barron."
"What is that?"
"Why the deuce do you bother taking lessons of Borsini, when you are head and shoulders above him?"
The name Borsini was enough to throw me into a pelter, but the compliment did much to mitigate it. “I have learned a great deal from him,” I replied. “Not just in executing art, but in appreciating the great artists of history. Sometimes he brings art books with him, and explains the work of the masters. He is very familiar with all the great works in Italy, of course."
Weylin's lips stretched into a grin. “I have heard before that it is not the painting lessons per se that are his chief attraction. I daresay some ladies go for that foreign strain."
"I am interested in art, milord, not dalliance,” I said, and examined my conscience to see if it was true.
I had not learned much about painting techniques from Borsini for the past year. More and more the “lessons” involved examining the works of the Renaissance masters, as we sat with our heads together, while he related tales, probably apocryphal, of the great Italian homes where he ran tame. I had to wonder why he had left Italy, for he obviously did not enjoy the patronage of the nobility in England. Yet to think of painting in solitude in my new octagonal studio was less pleasant than to think of being there with Borsini.
Had I been hiring a gigolo, and not a painting teacher? No, he always behaved beautifully. He was more like a brother than a flirt. Oh, he took note of my gowns and coiffures and so on, but that was the art critic coming out in him.
"And Borsini? What is his main interest?” Weylin asked.
I felt it was the fee he was paid, but of course, did not say so. Instead I said, “Can you think of any way your aunt might have changed her appearance? Obviously a mustache or beard are ineligible, unless she was posing as a man."
Weylin chewed a smile. “I hardly think so.” I should mention that his aunt's excess flesh had gone mostly to her bosom and hips. One could only laugh to think of so much femininity stuffed into trousers.
Mama came down with her embroidery just as the sketching was finished. Weylin said, “Will you come with us on this search, Mrs. Barron, or would you prefer the comfort of the parlor? Our morning will involve a deal of walking. Perhaps you would be more comfortable here with your embroidery."
I felt his solicitude was a pretext to be rid of her, so that we two might have an unexceptionable excuse to spend the morning alone together, and was not entirely happy when Mama replied, “I am bored to flinders sitting on my haunches. I shall go with you. Why do you not take your aunt's picture and show it about, milord, while we take Barry's? In that way, we shall cover the ground twice as quickly."
"But…” He wanted to object, but could find no fault with such a sensible suggestion.
"An excellent idea, Mama,” I said.
Weylin rolled his aunt's sketch into a tube and left, after arranging to meet us back here for lunch.
As soon as he was gone, Mama said, “We would not want him listening if we learn anything to Barry's discredit. I had a reason for suggesting he might have been in disguise, Zoie.” My heart sank. “When I was searching out a clean shirt to bury him in, I found a clerical collar in his drawer-and a false mustache. You recall he had that old black suit he never wore. I happened to notice once when I was just tidying his room while he was in London that he had taken it with him. I hoped he was not trying to pass it off as a formal suit, for it was the wrong cut."
"Good lord! Why did you not tell me?"
"It did not seem important-until now."
"I had best alter another of the sketches,” I said, and drew in a clerical collar and mustache, before we went out to begin canvassing the hotels and jewelry stores.
We had no luck tracing Barry at any of the larger hotels. The Calverley, the Mount Pleasant, Earl's Court, the Royal Mount Ephraim, the Carlton, the Swan, the Camden-none of them recognized him in any of his guises. We took all the sketches with us. In mustache or beard, in green glasses or in clerical garb, he was unknown. That left dozens of small, private hotels.
"Let us try some jewelry shops,” I said, expecting the same result.
Our first stop was a small, dingy place behind the colonnade, with the unlikely name Kashmir, Prop. Albert Bradford. We thought the sequestered location and Indian name might have enticed Barry. We had perfected our technique by that time, omitting the use of a name for Barry. I opened the sketchpad to the clerical likeness of my uncle and held it up. “I am trying to locate an old relative. He is interested in jewelry. I just wondered if he had ever come in here."
The man behind the counter had a small magnifying glass attached to his head by a band that held it over one eye. He lifted the glass and glanced at the picture. The man was older than Barry, about seventy, to judge by his gray hair and lined face. He had bright brown eyes and a ready smile.
"Ah, you're friends of Reverend Portland,” he said, and offered his hand. “I am Albert Bradford. I haven't seen the reverend lately. Not ill, I hope?"
Mama and I exchanged a startled glance. We had not foreseen this question, and hardly knew how to reply. I said, “I hope not. As I mentioned, we are just trying to locate Reverend Portland."
"I have not seen him for months. He was used to drop in regularly to sell the jewelry his uncle left him. You would know about the jewelry, of course?"
We were highly desirous of hearing it. “About India, you mean?” Mama ventured.
Albert Bradford nodded. “The old nabob uncle who left him a small fortune in jewelry. There is no place like India for making your fortune. I was there myself, as you might have suspected from the name of my shop. I came home with a purseful of unmounted gemstones. My first thought was to sell them to a gems merchant, but I soon realized the real profit is in selling jewelry, so I had them made up by a jeweler I know. He is teaching me the trade."