“Maisie!” Georgina Bassington-Hope waved to Maisie when she saw her pull up at the station, then walked over to the passenger side of the MG, opened the door and sat down. “I cajoled Nolly into giving me a lift into town. She had to run a few errands, you know, visit the farm tenants, and so on, but if I ask a favor of her, she acts as if I’ve petitioned her to go in and feed herself to the lions.”
Maisie checked the road, then pulled out.
“No, don’t let’s go yet, I’d like to have a word first.”
“Of course.” Maisie drove on for a few yards, parked the motor car, turned off the engine, then reached for the scarf and gloves she’d pushed behind her seat. “Only you won’t mind if we walk rather than sit here. I see you’re wearing sturdy shoes, so come on, let’s go.”
Georgina agreed, but appeared rather taken aback. Maisie guessed that she was usually the one with the ideas, the one who made suggestions.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Well, first of all, Nick’s carriage-cottage. Did you glean much from your visit?”
Maisie nodded, composing her reply, while at the same time assessing Georgina’s mood. The way she walked, held her hands at her sides, opened and closed her fingers into her palm, then just as quickly pushed her hands up into the sleeves of her coat, all revealed a depth of tension, but what else? As they walked, Maisie came into step with her client, holding her hands and shoulders in the same fashion. She felt that not only was Georgina afraid, but her fear came from an expectation of something untoward. In her work, Maisie saw fear revealed time and time again but had learned that it was experienced in degrees, demonstrated in quite different actions and responses from person to person, from one event to another. Anticipation of bad news resulted in a more depressed aura surrounding the one who was afraid—different from, say, that of one who was fearful of another person, or who feared failing to do something by a certain time, or perhaps the consequence of a given action. Maisie suspected that Georgina was rather afraid of what might be uncovered, and that she was also somewhat regretful of her decision to delve into the cause of her brother’s accident. She considered that such feelings on Georgina’s part could have come as a result of some new information received, or perhaps a sense she had bitten off more than even she could chew.
“I came away with more questions than answers, to tell you the truth. Mind you, that’s not unusual at this stage in an investigation.” Maisie paused. “I find that I have become rather curious about Nick’s work. He was a most interesting artist, wasn’t he?”
Georgina took a handkerchief from her pocket, which she dabbed against the small drops of perspiration on her brow and on either side of her nose. “Yes, he was certainly interesting, and innovative. But, in what way did you discern that he was ‘interesting’?”
Maisie reached inside her coat and glanced at the old nurses’ watch pinned to the lapel of her jacket. “I noticed on one or two pieces that Nick depicted people he knew—their faces—in scenes that they couldn’t have posed in. I thought it was interesting that he would do such a thing. In fact—and bear in mind, I know nothing about art—I assumed that, much like a writer who casts a character inspired by a person known to him, yet who then protects that person with a fictional name, so the painter will employ all manner of disguises to avoid revealing the real person in a given scene. Nick seems to have gone out of his way to do the opposite.”
“Which piece are you referring to?”
“The mural on the walls of his cottage.”
“The smugglers?”
“Yes. It appears he used the fictional character, Dr. Syn, from the books by Russell Thorndike, to inspire an illustrated story. Yet when you look at the faces, they are men known to him.”
“Oh, of course! You know, I think he only did that the once. I remember him saying that fishermen have such weatherbeaten faces, like rocks chiseled by sea over the years, so he wanted to paint them in an historical context. He said that the sheer look of the men brought to mind the whole mythology of smuggling in the area. Then, of course, he read that book and was inspired to depict the story as a decoration for his carriage—all very appropriate, I must say, being on the edge of the mysterious Marshes.”
Maisie nodded. “Yes, I thought it was rather clever. Mind you, I was curious about one thing, you know.” She turned to Georgina as they walked back to the MG and noticed beads of perspiration across her forehead.
“Oh, what’s that?”
Maisie took her seat and leaned across to open a door for Georgina. She started the engine, then continued. “I’ve placed the three fishermen who inspired the smugglers in the mural, but not the face behind the character of their fearless leader on his charger.” She let the comment hang in the air, looked both ways to check the road, then pulled away from the station and drove toward the High Street. “Left or right?”
Seven
“Gower, our gamekeeper, occasional footman and general estate factotum lives there with his wife, the housekeeper. Frankly, I wonder why we still have a gamekeeper, but Nolly is determined to raise funds by opening the estate to shooting parties. We’ve always had the locals, you know, and they all pay a bit to shoot, but Nolly has her eye on bigger things—in fact, she got the idea from one of Nick’s clients.” Georgina pointed to the right. “Carry on along here, then turn right, over there, by that oak tree.”
Making her way along a drive bordered by snow-dusted rhododendrons, Maisie drove slowly to avoid ruts in the road, following Georgina’s instructions. “One of Nick’s clients?”
“Yes, the American tycoon who is desperate to have the triptych. He said that there are still men with plenty of money over there, and they’re all looking for a bit of old Europe. I think that if Nolly were left to her own devices, she’d sell the whole place and my parents along with it—now there’s a bit of old Europe for you!”
“Is this it?”
“Yes, we’re here. And thank heavens, Nolly isn’t back yet.”
Maisie slowed the MG even more on the approach, so that she could study the property, which she thought was a magnificent example of a grand medieval country house, if now a little down-at-heel. It appeared almost as if three houses had been joined together, there were so many pitched roofs and even some ornate candy-twist Elizabethan chimneys, clearly added at a later date. The sturdy beams that framed the structure were completed by brownish-gray rendering that Maisie suspected had been laid on top of walls made of ancient wattle-and-daub. Diamond-paned windows had changed shape with the centuries, and here and there the beams were less than true where the ground had settled under the weight of walls and burden of years. Despite its size, the ivy-clad house seemed warm and welcoming, and in its way reminded her of Chelstone.
As she parked the MG, the heavy oak door opened with an eerie sound as cast-iron hinges groaned for want of some oil. A tall man of about seventy years of age approached them, but before he reached the motor car, Georgina leaned toward Maisie.