AT HALF-PAST three Paul was mounting the studio stairs, nervous as to what his reception would be, and extremely nervous of explaining to Benvenuto that he had found Adrian. He felt—illogically, he knew—like a spy about to convict himself. It would have been easier if only he had not used Lou Cat.
A savoury smell greeted his nose as he got higher, and at the top he met Benvenuto emerging from the kitchen with a spluttering pan of bacon and eggs.
“Good man,” he said, “just in time to share my breakfast, lunch, and tea. Come along in. Afraid I was a bit terse this morning. My creative powers were better than my temper—at least I hope so.”
Considerably relieved, Paul followed him into the studio, and earnestly refusing offers of food he stopped opposite a canvas on the easel. Here were the eggs, the oyster shells, and the wine bottle sublimated into a still-life of remarkable beauty. The colour was pallid and cold, the form suggested rather than stated, the brush work nervous and sensitive. It gave Paul an impression both restrained and austere, and he eyed it with delight.
“I think it’s fine,” he said.
Benvenuto grunted. “They’re always so damn fine while you’re doing them. You think to yourself, ‘At last I’ve got it’—and in the end, of course, you haven’t. Still, it has its points.” He sat down at the table, his head on one side looking at it. “Well, have you been giving detection a rest?”
“As a matter of fact, since I saw you, I’ve found Adrian.” Paul blurted it out half defiantly.
Benvenuto paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. Then, after consuming a mouthful of egg and bacon, “Nice chap, isn’t he?” he said.
The remark for some reason enraged Paul—really, this taking things for granted was going too far—and he burst into an explanation of how he and Adelaide had borrowed Lou Cat and gone to the island, of how he had seen the paint on the rock, and realizing later its significance, had gone back to investigate, without suspecting for one moment that Benvenuto knew of Adrian’s hiding place.
Benvenuto nodded. “Unless a man is temperamentally a good liar,” he said, “it always seems to me a pity to load him up with information that he may have to conceal. There seemed nothing to be gained by telling you where Adrian was. I’ve been able to keep him supplied with everything he needs, and I gave him a small dinghy which he’s got hidden somewhere and could use in the event of my being eaten by a shark. Actually I don’t believe he’d notice if I didn’t appear for a week or two. He’s always pleased to see me, but I often find he’s completely forgotten to eat the food I take him. I’ve given up taking him fish—he invariably uses it as the subject of a painting, and leaves it about in the heat until it has to be returned hurriedly to the sea from whence it came. He’s doing some magnificent work—did you see any of it?”
Paul shook his head. “What an extraordinary chap he is. He betrayed not the slightest interest in the progress of events—and instead we discussed the Elizabethan poets. He’s a complete enigma to me.”
Benvenuto sat back from his meal and lit his pipe. “Nero fiddled while Rome burned,” he remarked, “and doubtless was denounced by his friends for callousness, bravado, or affectation. Actually, I expect he had got hold of a phrase that had been eluding him for weeks. A man of temperament is always misunderstood, and has the most abstruse motives ascribed to him when actually he is moved by perfectly simple ones. Shelley read his poetry to a girl friend through her prison bars, and aroused probably the most intense feelings of exasperation in the unfortunate lady’s breast. Yet he was only offering her something that seemed highly important and significant to him, regardless of the mere accidents of time and place—which is, after all, the best that any of us can do. It all depends on the point of view. If a man has got anything to express, in painting, music, writing, however it takes him, he has got to keep himself in a frame of mind that is impervious to the ordinary complications of existence. It may be irritating, even harmful, to the people with whom he comes in contact, yet in some circumstances he must leave the baby to cry for its milk and the butcher for his bill. I shall never marry, because I know I should be tempted to change the child’s napkins and take the dog for a walk. Adrian, on the other hand, could marry with perfect impunity to himself. He’d go on painting quite calmly if the house were on fire, simply because he hadn’t noticed it, though, mark you, if his attention were once attracted to it he would be capable of the most heroic deeds of rescue.”
Paul looked at him doubtfully. “It sounds an enviable frame of mind,” he said, “but it’s distinctly lucky it’s not more general. Tell me, how did you get him to do anything as practicable as seeking shelter on the island?”
“I’ll tell you,” said Benvenuto. “The beginning of it all was on Marseille platform, on the night of Wednesday, the day after the crime. I’d had a wire from Adrian asking me to meet him—he came down from Paris on the day train, and I went over in the car, got there rather early, and hung about on the platform. It so happened that the train was crowded and came down from Paris in two parts. I met the first half, and Adrian wasn’t in it, but among the passengers at the barrier I caught sight of our friend Leech. I went over and talked to him—I hadn’t seen him since I’d helped him over a case a year or so ago. ‘Hullo!’ I said. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’ He drew me to one side and explained he was down here after a chap suspected of a murder in a London hotel. This chap, it seemed, had eluded the police, and Leech was told off to hang about along the coast here, which he was known to frequent, and keep an eye on him. Also he said he was after a jewel thief, who was, of course, our friend the Slosher, as I learnt later. He said he was going on to St. Antoine the next day, in the guise of an ordinary tourist. I said good-bye, after recommending a hotel, and went back to wait for the rest of the train, which turned up half an hour later complete with Adrian. He was looking thoroughly worn out so I took him to the station restaurant for a meal, and bought a copy of the Daily Mail, which comes down from Paris on that train. I gave him a cocktail, and opened the paper to give him time to recover from the journey before asking him how things had turned out. You can imagine I was a bit taken aback to read an account of the murder of Luela in Bishop’s Hotel, and it immediately occurred to me that this was the case Leech was working on. I didn’t say anything about it to Adrian, but asked him how he’d got on in London and if he’d been able to pacify Luela. He shook his head gloomily, and said they had had a terrific dust-up over lunch the day before and parted on the worst of terms. I asked him how he’d passed the time before the boat left in the evening, and he was completely vague about it—said he’d wandered about, and thought he’d been in the park because he could remember a lot of pink flowers covered with dust, and that he’d seen no one he knew. He said he felt terribly upset because Luela had sworn she’d have him up for theft, and he couldn’t bear the idea of the disgrace it would be to his father. Obviously he had no idea what had happened, and I thought the best thing to do was to show him the Daily Mail, which I did. He seemed absolutely dazed when he’d read it and kept staring at me and saying, ‘Luela—poor Luela! Oh, God!’ The idea of his own danger never dawned on him at all until I’d explained it all carefully to him, and even then he was extremely scornful of the idea that he could possibly be suspected. I managed to persuade him in the end that Leech was actually in Marseille looking for someone who was almost certainly himself, and though I didn’t think he held a warrant for his arrest there might be one issued at any time. Then he really began to get in a panic, not, I am convinced, from the point of view of his own. safety, but simply because of what it would mean to his father, and he agreed at once when I proposed taking him straight away to the island that night. I promised him I’d make it my business to work in his interests, and once I’d got him on the island I believe he left the whole responsibility with me and has never bothered his head about the thing again. I go over in Lou Cat every second night and take him paints and food and tell him how things have been going, and he always listens attentively and thanks me for all the time I’m wasting when I might be painting, but I know he’s always glad to talk about the books he’s reading or the way his latest canvas is working out, or some other subject that seems to him really important. He doesn’t appear to mind the solitude at all.”
“I don’t know,” said Paul. “I think he’s got a bit nervy all by himself. He was quite ready to shoot me when I appeared, and I don’t believe I’d have got him to talk to me at all if I hadn’t explained at once that I’d got a letter for him from his father.”
“Eh—what’s that?” Benvenuto’s voice was sharp.
Paul looked at him in surprise. “It was only when I got out a letter I had from his father that he—”
Benvenuto jumped to his feet, the familiar danger signals alight in his eyes. “Ten thousand devils! Come on. I hope to God it’s not too late.”
In a moment, it seemed, they were running hatless through the town; completely at a loss, Paul followed Benvenuto, purely, he thought to himself, through force of habit. In ten minutes they were seated panting in Lou Cat, and for the third time that day the bowsprit was pointed toward the island.