‘Even to sacrificing his reputation as a connoisseur of fungi?’ she interrupted, with an unpleasant smile.
‘Even that,’ I answered. ‘It’s all very well for you to sneer — you never cared for his interests — you didn’t understand them — you understand nothing at all, and you care for nothing except your twopenny ha’penny emotions.’
‘I do know this,’ she said steadily, ‘that if your father had thought that I wanted to be free of him — which he didn’t, because he had too good an opinion of himself — but if he had, he would have taken care I didn’t get rid of him without a row. He loved making rows. He wouldn’t have made things easy for me. He wouldn’t have missed the opportunity of rubbing it in.’
Her expression was as ugly and common as her words. I felt that I could not control myself much longer and had much better go.
‘I repeat,’ said I, ‘that you never understood my father, and you never will. It isn’t in you. I don’t think it’s any good prolonging this discussion. I had better be going. Can you give me Mr Munting’s address?’
I hoped to have frightened her by the sudden question, but she only looked mildly astonished.
‘Mr Munting? I’m sure I don’t know. I’ve only seen him once since he was married, and that was at the Royal Academy. And at the — the inquest, of course. I think he lives in Bloomsbury somewhere. I expect he’s in the telephone-book.’
I thanked her, and took my leave. Married! My father had never thought to mention that. It upset all my ideas. Because, if Munting was married, then what object could there have been in my father’s suicide — or murder, whichever it was? His death would have left Margaret no nearer to marrying Munting. And any other relation could have been carried on perfectly well, whether my father was alive or not. Certainly, he might simply have destroyed himself in sheer despair and misery, unable to bear the dishonour. But it did not seem so likely.
This news made me alter my plans. I determined not to go and see Munting at once. It would be better, I thought, to get hold of Lathom, and see if I could obtain any light on the question from him.
A little inquiry among the dealers produced Lathom’s address. He was living in a studio in Chelsea. I presented myself at the place the next morning, and was received by a vinegary-looking elderly woman in a man’s cap, who informed me that Mr Lathom was still in bed.
As it was already eleven o’clock, I handed her my card and said I would wait. She ushered me into as extremely untidy studio, full of oil-paint tubes and half-finished canvases, and waddled away with the card towards an inner door.
Before reaching it, however, she turned back, sidled up to me and said in a glutinous whisper:
‘Begging your pardon, Mr ’Arrison, but was you any relation to the pore gentleman wot died so mysterious?’
‘What business is that of yours?’ I snapped. She nodded with ghoulish enjoyment.
‘Oh, no offence, sir, no offence. There ain’t no need to take a person up so sharp. That was a funny thing, sir, wasn’t it? You’d be ’is son, per’aps?’
‘Never you mind who I am,’ I said. ‘Take my card to Mr Lathom and say I should be glad if he could spare me a few minutes.’
‘Oh, ’e’ll spare you a few minutes, sir, I shouldn’t wonder. Look funny if ’e didn’t, sir, wouldn’t it? There’s lots of things as ’ud look funny, I daresay, if we knew the rights on ’em.’
‘What are you getting at?’ I said, uneasily.
‘Ho, nothink, sir! Nothink! If you ain’t a relation it ain’t nothink to you, is it, sir? People do go off sudden-like, sometimes, and nobody to blame. There’s lots of things ’appen every day more than ever gets into the papers. But there! That ain’t nothink to you, sir.’
She sidled away again, grinning unpleasantly. I heard her talking and a man’s voice replying, and presently she shuffled back again.
‘Mr Lathom says ’e’ll be with you in five minutes, sir, if you will be so good as to wait. ’E’ll come fast enough, sir, don’t you be afraid. A very agreeable gentleman is Mr Lathom, sir. I been doin’ ’im over three months, now, ever since ’e come over from France. Some time in October that would be, sir, before this ’ere sad accident ’appened. Mr Lathom was very much upset about it, sir. You’d ’ardly ’ave known ’im for the same gentleman w’en ’e came back after the inquest. Looked as if ’e’d been seein’ a ghost — that white and strange ’e was. A terrible sight the pore gentleman must ’a’ been. A crool way to die. But there! We must all die once, sir, mustn’t we? And if it ain‘t one way it’s another, and if it ain’t sooner it’s later. Only some folks is misfortunit more than others. Would you care for a cup of tea, sir, while you’re waitin’?’
I accepted the tea, to get rid of her. The stove, however, turned out to be in a corner of the studio, and having lit the gas and put the kettle on, she returned. All the time she was speaking, she rubbed one skinny hand over the other with a curious, greedy action.
‘Very strange ’ow things turns out, ain’t it, sir? There was a gentleman lived down our street, a cats-meat man ’e was, and the best cats’-meat in the neighbourhood — thought very ’ighly of by all, ’e was. ’E married a girl out of one of them shops w’ere they sells costooms on ’ire purchase. They ain’t no good to nobody, them places, if you asks me. Well, ’e died sudden.’
‘Did he?’
‘Ho, yes! very sudden, ’e died. A very ’ot summer it was, and they brought it in ’e’d got the dissenter, with eatin’ somethink as didn’t agree with ’im. So it may ’a’ bin, far be it from me to say otherwise. But afore the year was up she’d gone and married the young man wot was manager of the clothes-shop. A good marriage it was for ’er, too. Ho, yes! She didn’t lost nothink by ’er ’usband dyin’ w’en ’e died, if you understand me, sir.’
I made no answer. She took the kettle off and filled the teapot.
‘Now, that’s a nice cup o’ tea, sir. You won’t find nothink wrong with that. That’s ’olesome, that is. I knows ’ow to make the sort of tea that gentlemen like. Cutts is my name, Mrs Cutts. They all knows me about ’ere. I been doin’ for the artists this thirty year, and I’m up to all their goin’s-on. I knows ’ow to cook their breakfisses and look after their bits of paintings and sich, an’ w’en to speak an’ w’en to ’old my tongue, sir. That’s wot they pays me for.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘it’s an excellent cup of tea.’
‘Yes, sir, thank you, sir. My name is Cutts, if you should ever be a-wantin’ me. Anybody in these studios will tell you w’ere to find Mrs Cutts. ’Ere’s Mr Lathom a’comin’, sir.’
She lurched away as Lathom emerged from his bedroom.
I will admit that the first impression he made upon me was a good one. His appearance was clean, and his manners were pleasant.
‘I see Mrs Cutts has given you a cup of tea,’ he said, when he had shaken hands. ‘Won’t you have a spot of breakfast with me?’
I thanked him, and said I had already breakfasted.
‘Oh, I suppose you have,’ he answered, smiling. ‘We’re rather a late crowd in these parts, you know. You won’t mind if I carry on with my eggs and bacon?’
I begged him to use no ceremony, and he produced some eatables from a cupboard.
‘It’s all right, Mrs Cutts,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll do the cooking. This gentleman wants to talk business.’
The noise of a broom in the passage was the only answer.
‘Well now, Mr Harrison,’ said Lathom, dropping his breezy manner, ‘I expect you have come to hear anything I can tell you about your father. I can’t say, of course, how damned sorry I am about it. As you know, I wasn’t there at the time—’