She paused to regather momentum, vibrating visibly with the strength of her feelings. ‘They made me feel so dirty, and maybe I was screaming at them a bit, I was so mad, but they’d no call to be so rude, and making out I was some sort of criminal, and just what right have they to tell me to pull myself together when it is because of them and their bullying that I am yelling at them at the top of my voice?’
It must, I reflected, have been quite an encounter. I wondered in what state the police and D.J. had retired from the field.
‘They say it was definitely arson and I said why did they think so now when they hadn’t thought so at first, and it turns out that it was because that Lagland couldn’t find any of my treasures in the ashes or any trace of them at all, and they said even if I hadn’t sold the things first I had arranged for them to be stolen and the house burnt to cinders while I was away at Betty’s, and they kept on and on asking me who I’d paid to do it, and I got more and more furious and if I’d had anything handy I would have hit them, I really would.’
‘What you need is a stiff gin,’ I said.
‘I told them they ought to be out looking for whoever had done it instead of hounding helpless women like me, and the more I thought of someone walking into my house and stealing my treasures and then callously setting fire to everything the madder I got, and somehow that made me even madder with those stupid men who couldn’t see any further than their stupid noses.’
It struck me after a good deal more of similar diatribe that genuine though Maisie’s anger undoubtedly was, she was stoking herself up again every time her temper looked in danger of relapsing to normal. For some reason, she seemed to need to be in the position of the righteous wronged.
I wondered why; and in a breath-catching gap in the flow of hot lava, I said, ‘I don’t suppose you told them about the Munnings.’
The red spots on her cheeks burned suddenly brighter.
‘I’m not crazy,’ she said bitingly. ‘If they found out about that, there would have been a fat chance of convincing them I’m telling the truth about the rest.’
‘I’ve heard,’ I said tentatively, ‘That nothing infuriates a crook more than being had up for the one job he didn’t do.’
It looked for a moment as if I’d just elected myself as the new target for hatred, but suddenly as she glared at me in rage her sense of humour reared its battered head and nudged her in the ribs. The stiffness round her mouth relaxed, her eyes softened and glimmered, and after a second or two, she ruefully smiled.
‘I dare say you’re right, dear, when I come to think of it.’ The smile slowly grew into a giggle. ‘How about that gin?’
Little eruptions continued all evening through drinks and dinner, but the red-centred volcano had subsided to manageable heat.
‘You didn’t seem surprised, dear, when I told you what the police thought I’d done.’ She looked sideways at me over her coffee cup, eyes sharp and enquiring.
‘No.’ I paused. ‘You see, something very much the same has just happened to my cousin. Too much the same, in too many ways. I think, if you will come, and he agrees, that I’d hike to take you to meet him.’
‘But why, dear?’
I told her why. The anger she felt for herself burned up again fiercely for Donald.
‘How dreadful. How selfish you must think me, after all that that poor man has suffered.’
‘I don’t think you’re selfish at all. In fact, Maisie, I think you’re a proper trouper.’
She looked pleased and almost kittenish, and I had a vivid impression of what she had been like with Archie.
‘There’s one thing, though, dear,’ she said awkwardly. ‘After today, and all that’s been said, I don’t think I want that picture you’re doing. I don’t any more want to remember the house as it is now, only like it used to be. So if I give you just the fifty pounds, do you mind?’
5
We went to Shropshire in Maisie’s Jaguar, sharing the driving.
Donald on the telephone had sounded unenthusiastic at my suggested return, but also too lethargic to raise objections. When he opened his front door to us, I was shocked.
It was two weeks since I’d left him to go to Yorkshire. In that time he had shed at least fourteen pounds and aged ten years. His skin was tinged with blue-ish shadows, the bones in his face showed starkly, and even his hair seemed speckled with grey.
The ghost of the old Donald put an obvious effort into receiving us with good manners.
‘Come in,’ he said. ‘I’m in the diningroom now. I expect you’d like a drink.’
‘That would be very nice, dear,’ Maisie said.
He looked at her with dull eyes, seeing, as I saw, a large good-natured lady with glossy hair and expensive clothes, her smart appearance walking a tightrope between vulgarity and elegance and just making it to the safer side.
He waved to me to pour the drinks, as if it would be too much for him, and invited Maisie to sit down. The diningroom had been roughly refurnished, containing now a large rug, all the sunroom armchairs, and a couple of small tables from the bedrooms. We sat in a fairly close group round one of the tables, because I had come to ask questions, and I wanted to write down the answers. My cousin watched the production of notebook and ballpoint with no show of interest.
‘Don,’ I said, ‘I want you to listen to a story.’
‘All right.’
Maisie, for once, kept it short. When she came to the bit about buying a Munnings in Australia, Donald’s head lifted a couple of inches and he looked from her to me with the first stirring of attention. When she stopped, there was a small silence.
‘So,’ I said finally, ‘you both went to Australia, you both bought a Munnings, and soon after your return you both had your houses burgled.’
‘Extraordinary coincidence,’ Donald said: but he meant simply that, nothing more. ‘Did you come all this way just to tell me that?’
‘I wanted to see how you were.’
‘Oh. I’m all right. Kind of you, Charles, but I’m all right.’
Even Maisie, who hadn’t known him before, could see that he wasn’t.
‘Where did you buy your picture, Don? Where exactly, I mean.’
‘I suppose... Melbourne. In the Hilton Hotel. Opposite the cricket ground.’
I looked doubtful. Although hotels quite often sold pictures by local artists, they seldom sold Munnings.
‘Fellow met us there,’ Don added. ‘Brought it up to our room. From the gallery where we saw it first.’
‘Which gallery?’
He made a slight attempt to remember. ‘Might have been something like Fine Arts.’
‘Would you have it on a cheque stub, or anything?’
He shook his head. ‘The wine firm I was dealing with paid for it for me, and I sent a cheque to their British office when I got back.’
‘Which wine firm?’
‘Monga Vineyards Proprietary Limited of Adelaide and Melbourne.’