Isaac Watts
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Meanwhile, as Laura had surmised, Dame Beatrice had by no means lost interest in the case. She was still curious about Camilla’s death by drowning, was challenged by the doubts and difficulties concerning it and decided that the most obvious approach to a solution of the problem was to find out more about the girl herself and the kind of life she had led before her disastrous visit to Saltacres.
Her first move was to contact Adrian and Miranda again in the early autumn and make an attempt to get them to tell her more about Camilla than she had gained from them so far. She rang them up and invited them to come and stay at the Stone House for a few days. Having received a surprised and pleased acceptance of this offer, she sent her car and her chauffeur to transport them from their London flat to the Stone House.
They brought their paraphernalia with them. She had suggested this.
‘Life is quiet here. You will be glad of something to do during your stay.’
So Adrian wandered happily in the woods and over the open stretches of the Forest picking up leaves and fungi and making a collection of beetles. He made what, to him, were delightful discoveries – the brilliant orange colour of the phlebia which he found on dead boughs of birch, oak and alder. He came upon a great spotted slug with snail-like horns and obese, mottled body, climbing the cap of amanita rubescens (known to country people as the Blusher because of its pink stain), and made a beautiful and delicate sketch which he gave to Laura. He found the elegant but poisonous wood blewit and liked the colour of the blue cap which gave it its name the Amethyst, and made another colour sketch for Dame Beatrice. The Verdigris toadstool, named for the violet laccaria, and the charming little marismius rotula, the Fairy Umbrella, he sketched for his own use. Wild flowers were hard to find at that time of year, for it was September, but he found ling and some sweetly scented dodder on the open heathland, and the common gorse was here and there in flower.
‘Adrian is so happy,’ said Miranda. ‘I’m glad the weather is fine. I wonder whether you will accept my picture of your garden? It has made a change from my usual work.’
It was after dinner each evening that they talked about Camilla. Dame Beatrice listened attentively to the small anecdotes, mostly connected with the art school which was the venue where Miranda had usually encountered Camilla before they had taken her to Saltacres.
‘She was too casual in her attitude to her work ever to become first class. She had talent, but she dissipated it. She frivolled away her time and then, of course, this everlasting chasing after men when, poor girl, she was not even attractive to them, did her work nothing but harm. Work must come first, and a long way first, if it is to win recognition,’ said Miranda.
Dame Beatrice enquired about fees at the art school. ‘Oh, the fees are reasonable enough,’ said Miranda.
‘It is the materials which cost the money,’ said Adrian. ‘Somebody once said that the best poetry is written on good paper with a good pen – or words to that effect – and the same theory applies even more closely to painting. If the materials are not up to standard, the results cannot be anything but disappointing.’
‘Could Miss St John afford good materials?’ Dame Beatrice enquired.
‘Oh, yes, those she used were quite adequate,’ Miranda responded. ‘She worked in an art dealer’s and picture-frame maker’s shop before she became a full-time art student, so she may have been able to get a discount.’
‘I should doubt that, once she had stopped working for them,’ said Adrian.
‘I believe I have been told that she had a private income,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Do you know whether she ever made a Will?’
‘I should think it extremely unlikely,’ said Miranda. ‘Are you suggesting that somebody murdered her for her money? I don’t believe she had all that much, you know. She dressed sloppily and cheaply—’
‘I don’t believe that is anything to go by in these days,’ said Adrian. ‘They all buy cheaply and then throw away. Mending is a dirty word with teenagers.’
‘Well, it’s hardly a romantic occupation,’ said his wife, ‘as you would know if you had to do it.’
‘When did Miss St John come into her inheritance and give up her employment, I wonder?’ said Dame Beatrice. Neither of the couple could remember the date on which she had enrolled at the art school, but Adrian promised to call at the place where Camilla had worked – he knew the shop and patronised it occasionally – and Miranda volunteered to produce the other information.
This was all the help they could offer, but when they got home they kept their word and did more than they had promised. Camilla had given in her notice at the shop some year and a half before she had accompanied the Kirbys to Saltacres, and she had registered as an art student at the beginning of the autumn term after her notice at the shop had expired. She received a discount on her own purchases whenever she brought another customer along, but the discount was very small.
‘One other thing I did,’ wrote Adrian in his small, neat, masculine hand, ‘was to ask about her Will. It does not appear to exist. I tried under Hoveton and all the other Johns and St Johns, and I also tried, of course, under her real name of Thomasina Smith.’
‘I don’t think I have heard that name before,’ said Dame Beatrice over the telephone when she thanked him for his letter and all the trouble he had taken.
‘She wasn’t proud of it. That’s why she changed it, but they knew her by it at the shop,’ said Adrian. ‘I’m sorry we’ve been of so little help.’
‘That is not true. I shall now go and see whether her flat-mates can add anything to what you have told me. You gave me the address – or, rather, your wife did. I will write straight away to Miss Minehart.’
Gerda Minehart’s answer came promptly, proving that artists can be businesslike. It was a lengthy letter. The writer had always been in touch with the Kirbys, since she and they had much in common, and, having heard Miranda’s account of Camilla’s death, she was completely mystified by it (she wrote) and would welcome a visit from Dame Beatrice, and so would the others with whom she shared the flat.
The flat turned out to be misnamed. It was not literally a flat at all, as it was on two floors. The lower one of these had been turned into a large studio which was shared by all four women. Above it were the four bed-sitting-rooms, one of which had already been let to another artist in place of Camilla. As she also had been acquainted with the dead girl, she was anxious to take part in the conference.
This took place on a Saturday, when the school was closed so far as the art classes were concerned, but open for students who wanted to put in some extra time there – chiefly, Gerda Minehart explained, the potters and sculptors, as the building offered facilities which many of the students did not possess in their homes or lodgings.
Dame Beatrice expected little to come of the visit so far as any explanation of Camilla’s death was concerned, but she found the flat-mates interesting. From Miranda’s description, she had no difficulty in identifying the three who had actually shared the premises with Camilla, even before the introductions were made.
Gerda Minehart was not only the oldest but the undoubted leader of the little group, and it was in her bed-sitter that the meeting was held. She was Jewish and while she was dispensing hospitality in the form of tea and cake she mentioned the name of Conradda Mendel. ‘She has often spoken of you,’ she said.
‘Yes, she was once connected with a case I was called upon to look into,’ said Dame Beatrice. She gazed at the one picture in the room, a spirited study of a horse being shod. ‘She also assists me to choose what to buy in the sale rooms from time to time when I am moved to acquire a modest item or two of antique silverware.’