Clattering feet, banging doors and rattling water cisterns were followed a moment later by a peremptory tap on his door. The dashing figure of Nathan Jacoby entered at once, bearing a disarming grin and a cup of tea. Earl Grey by the scent.
‘I come in peace!’ he announced. ‘Seven o’clock! Rise and shine! Orlando said this would be guaranteed to get your motor started. Urgh! Can you really drink this? I’ll put it on the night stand. There’s coffee brewing downstairs if you’re interested. Fresh bread’s come up from the village. All available in the refectory.’
He made his way over to the small high window and flung the shutters open, blinding Joe with daylight and a stream of fresh morning air. ‘Come and take a look at this!’
Joe shrugged into his dressing gown and wandered over. He breathed in gratefully, enjoying the sound of a late cockerel crowing away in the distance and the sight of the hills rolling in a myriad of green interlocking spurs towards the horizon. ‘Earth hath not anything to show more fair …’ he commented and found that he meant it.
‘Look, I’m going out with my camera today with young Frederick, one of the painters-the fresco bloke. We’ve hired a car. Plenty of space for you if you’d care to come along.’
‘Ah, yes. I introduced myself. I went to watch him at work after lunch yesterday. Good-looking young bloke from London … preparing to express himself on several square metres of damp plaster. Intimidating! At which end do you start?’
‘A dying art, he tells me. There’s only a handful of artists in Europe who know how to do it. I can paint a bit,’ Nathan admitted, ‘… the only reason some of the company are prepared to put up with me … but I’d never have the dash and sheer courage to embark on something like that. He’s twisted my arm to take him out to the Val des Fées. Silly name for a spectacular sight. Outcrops of ochre-iron-stained rock and soil … colours ranging from creamy white to darkest blood red. Rather eerie and hellish to my mind … But it seems to have a fascination for young Fred. Back home we’d call it Death Creek or Bushwacker’s Gulch or something like that. Here it’s called the Valley of the Fairies! The village houses are mostly painted with the ochre they extract and-you might guess-painters go wild for the colours. The Mont Sainte Victoire at sunset-well, you just have to express it in the local pigments, don’t you? Young Fred had the idea to chip bits off the rocks himself, pound and grind and prepare his own paints. Mmm … He ends up buying them ready prepared by Messrs Mathieu in the village droguerie like everyone else!’
‘And uses them to wonderful effect! He showed me his sketchbook. I saw some terrific ideas for the finished painting. Expressing scenes from local history in colours straight out of the ground-it has a certain appeal. Though I can’t immediately see what financial allure it might have for the lord? Fixed to the wall as it is-it must remain quite unsellable.’
‘Even the lord makes his personal choices. There are several items I know of that’ll never see the light of day outside this château. We’re never given the tour of his own private collection but it’s rumoured that he has one. Must be worth a fortune-he’s been collecting for years. Look-why don’t you come with us to the ochre valley? We’re starting out straight after breakfast.’
Joe cheerfully told him he could resist the fairy charms for the moment. Duty called him to stay at home and get to know some of the other inhabitants.
‘Thought you’d say that. But I also came to say-remember I have a camera. One or two in fact. For different uses. Not just for pleasure and art. And one of their uses is recording evidence, you know. The Ermanox will be perfect for the job. I was wondering if I might sneak into the chapel under a corner of your blanket permission to rove about. How about it? Shall we make a foray together into the forbidden chapel and take some shots of the depredations? If you think it’s worth it? Word is that you went in there yesterday …’
‘I was wondering how to ask!’ said Joe. ‘I found nothing very sinister, I’m afraid, but a record would be a useful thing to have.’
‘That’s great! Look-the light will have gone by the time I get back from the fairy realms … morning light is much better and that place has sensational east windows. How about an early start tomorrow morning, Wednesday, before the Inspector gets himself up here from Marseille? Present him with a fait accompli?’
‘And yourself with an unusual photographic opportunity?’
Nat grinned. ‘The thought had crossed my mind.’
‘You’re on!’ said Joe. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’
Left alone, he stood at the window sipping his tea and reviewing his day.
‘The lord sees that their everyday needs are catered for,’ Estelle had told him.
Well, this was certainly to all appearances a happy colony of worker bees, Joe had to think. He’d made full use yesterday of his leave to snoop about the castle and, after his visit to the chapel, had reconnoitred unchallenged, to his heart’s content. He’d leant over shoulders and admired half-finished works; he’d watched a lady sculptor pounding and chipping-‘No! No! The shape’s in there … I just have to reveal it …’; he’d helped Frederick Ashwell to mix and apply a coat of plaster to a wall ready to receive the fresco the lord had commissioned. He’d been impressed by the boy’s professionalism and had listened enthralled as he explained his techniques. Speed and forethought, apparently, were the watchwords. Knowing exactly what you were doing. Impossible to have second thoughts. The preliminary designs complete, the final painting had to be done at the moment the plaster reached the perfection of dampness.
He’d decided on a tactful approach for today. He would wait until the guests were once again at lunch before he’d go, list in hand, to check on the sleeping quarters of each person Guy de Pacy had named. The only names that did not appear were those of the steward himself and his lordship. Orlando had indicated vaguely that the two men occupied rooms in two of the corner towers.
The single men seemed content with their dormitory arrangements, bunking down on camp beds set out, suitably enough, in the old guardroom. A similar area had been allocated to the women on the floor above. Scattered on both floors were small, cell-like spaces put to the use of married couples of whom there were two and, of the others, one had been awarded to Joe and another to the Russian gentleman. Joe had protested his readiness to muck in with the other men but de Pacy had insisted he avail himself of a measure of privacy-‘in case you need to interview someone-or I need to speak to you.’
His things had already been brought up and unpacked while he was at lunch on the first day so he’d conceded with good grace and settled to enjoy his solitary state.
Why in blazes was he staying on? He asked himself the question constantly and the same answers came back ever more strongly. Two answers.
There had been the surprise of discovering that one of the faces around the lunch table had been familiar to him from photographs and newspaper articles he’d seen some years ago in his early days at the Yard: Earl’s Daughter lets her hair down at the Savoy with Dancing Dreamboat … Every playgirl’s favourite partner cuts a rug at Ciro’s … That sort of nonsense, he remembered. But Joe’s professional antennae had quivered at the sight of this guest who he was reasonably sure had a darker side to him than the limelit, cocktail-fired image the press displayed. He was known to the Vice Squad back home in London. But Joe’s hands were tied. There was no way he could make an accusation or even a discreet enquiry based on a piece of sketchily recalled Scotland Yard gossip.
And yet the man’s reported proclivities were too objectionable for Joe to ignore in the circumstances. He had to ask himself whether it would be sensible at least to alert Orlando, and decided that it was more than sensible-it was essential.