“You feel you’re to blame?”
She shook her head. “Only when I’m in a bad mood. When I’m in a good mood I realize it was a disaster waiting to happen. Sooner or later she would have pushed it too far. It’s just a pity she couldn’t have left me out of it. Typical of her, really.”
“Were you close?”
“Not so you’d notice. In fact, I don’t suppose we liked each other, if truth be told. But she left this place to me simply because she wanted it kept in the family, and I was the closest relation who wasn’t a total deadbeat. Although I can’t say I have enough to keep it up, or the inclination either. More rabbit?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Some summer pudding, then? It’s very good.”
“I’d love some.”
She spooned it out, covered it with thick cream, and allowed Argyll a few moments to eat, admire and eat some more.
“Where do you fit into this family of yours?” he asked, desperate for a bit of context into which he could place his nosing through the family papers.
“On to me now, are we? OK. I’m the daughter of the family black sheep, Mabel,” she said, “who went to the bad. Although she had a much more interesting life than anyone here. Until she got sick, at least.”
“That sounds interesting.”
“It was, in a way. Mother was artistic, which in gentry-speak is always a euphemism for being unbalanced, if not actually certifiable. This is why I always had more sympathy for Veronica than most people. More practice. Mother spent a typical youth and was supposed to inherit Weller House—there were no sons, despite my grandmother’s conscientious efforts—find a rich husband who would rebuild the finances and generally do her duty. Instead, she got all sorts of ideas, and suddenly upped and left to become a war nurse in Spain, which shocked the family enormously. Being bountiful to the unemployed was one thing; wiping Bolshevik bums was quite another, and so naturally they disinherited her. From their point of view it was a natural thing to do, and I don’t know that Mother minded much. I was born under what you might call ambiguous circumstances just before the war started. She died when I was fourteen. The family, very reluctantly, took me over and tried to make a lady out of unpromising material, and I suppose failed quite badly. End of story. Am I boring you?”
“Lordy, no. Tell me more.”
“Not much else to tell, really. I married, had children and my husband and I parted company, giving me an adequate settlement.”
“That’s the Verney bit?”
“That’s it. He was a decent soul, really. I just hated him. At which point my life story becomes very dull and uninteresting. I moved around from place to place, settled in London, did this, that and the next thing.”
“You never married again?”
She shook her head. “No suitable candidates presented themselves. Not for the long-term, anyway. By the way,” she went on, making one of those leaps of the imagination which Argyll was beginning to find alarming. “Flavia rang again.”
“Oh?”
“Could you meet her in London tomorrow at lunch-time?”
“Oh. That’s a pity. I was quite beginning to enjoy myself here.”
“Are you indeed? Splendid. In that case you can come back. Will she be coming here as well?”
“I’ve no idea. Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“In that case, I hope she will make less of a fuss about staying here than you did. Coffee?”
10
Flavia began her researches into the life and times of Geoffrey Forster after an amiable lunch the next day with Argyll and Edward Byrnes at the dining club. Inspector Manstead, who never passed up an opportunity of either a free lunch or meeting a possibly important contact, came as well, and then decided to accompany her on her travels just to add a gloss of officialdom, as he put it, to her efforts.
Fortunately, London still retains its old local character for some of its trades. Many other occupations, which used to cluster together for protection, have long since been scattered to the winds: not many tailors still sew around Savile Row, journalists are too dispersed to fill the pubs of Fleet Street and complain about how they are unappreciated, and publishers have been cast to the winds, no longer making Covent Garden an interesting place to visit. Doctors do still dominate Harley Street, but are much too fine a bunch of people actually to talk to each other.
But enough art dealers do hang out in the area around Bond Street and St. James’s to give the place a particular character and, even though they might not like each other much, mutual interest and propinquity ensures that at least some show of professional solidarity remains. Thus, when Edward Byrnes made a face and telephoned Arthur Winterton for her, Winterton reluctantly made time to see Flavia.
One might think that the fact that both men were of advancing years, both had enjoyed as much success as they could reasonably desire, and both were quite unfairly wealthy, would have had a mellowing effect on them, blunting the competitive edge and allowing them to survey the art scene with the detachment that comes of total security. Not a bit of it. Both men had been profoundly jealous of each other for decades, and neither was going to give up now. Without the desire of Winterton to beat Byrnes, and without the fervent wish of Byrnes to trounce Winterton, both men might well have remained modest dealers of only limited prominence, rather than the two contesting giants of Bond Street.
For Argyll, who wanted little out of life except to be left in moderately affluent peace, watching how easily the veneer of urbanity was stripped off Byrnes by the mention of the word Winterton was a never-ending source of instruction. He had always assumed a couple of million in the bank would bring peace and contentment. It was a shock to realize that it did nothing of the sort. Winterton’s superior contacts on the American museum circuit could still make Byrnes incandescent with a jealousy of a very primitive variety. Byrnes’s knighthood, on the other hand, was quite capable of keeping Winterton awake until dawn if he should chance to think about it late at night.
He had, on occasion, mentioned his former employer’s Achilles heel to Flavia in the past and so she, as she walked into Winterton’s rival gallery three hundred yards up the street, was keenly looking for reasons to explain how such rivalry could be generated.
Certainly, style was important, she decided as they waited for the great man to appear. Whereas Byrnes’s gallery self-consciously cultivated the slightly old-fashioned, scholarly air, the high-quality faded look, Winterton had gone very much for the modern style in which everything was restored and interior designed to within an inch of its life. The difference was reflected in the men themselves, she realized as Winterton emerged; Byrnes had gone grey at least ten years previously and much of his hair had vanished, while Winterton had a full head of suspiciously black stuff despite his nearly sixty years. Byrnes, in a word, was expensively shabby in appearance, Winterton was expensively elegant. She had learnt—or rather Argyll had explained to her—that such things can indeed trigger conflict in a country like England which, despite its reputation, is more concerned with appearance than any other. The English may not dress well by continental standards, but the way they dress badly is of enormous importance.
Flavia and Inspector Manstead (himself a member of the cheap and dowdy tendency in couture) were whisked off into Winterton’s office and plied with tea and coffee.
Winterton sat himself behind his desk and placed the tips of his fingers together to indicate that he was taking the proceedings seriously and would, of course, do his best to help the police with their enquiries.