Chapter Thirteen

Opinion

The question had been inevitable, of course; there wasn’t an artist in the world who did not want to know what others thought of his work, and longed for approval and for praise. No one could be indifferent, and despite this man’s poise he was as eager and as vulnerable as any; perhaps more, because he tried so hard to conceal it.

“Tom,” Lorna said, “a sitter is no better judge of a portrait than the painter. I like this. I’m astonished you did such a finished picture so quickly, without a sketch or drawing to base it on, and I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad. Do you always work so swiftly?”

“As I told you, if it’s any good, yes,” he answered. “You—you like it?”

“Very much. I think John will, too. I’d like him to see it without being prepared – reactions can be valuable.”

Forrester laughed in a slightly embarrassed way.

“Touché,” he said. “The—” he waved his arms about, and mumbled a question she could guess rather than hear. “The others?”

“You certainly have an original style which comes from an original mind. I think you could become a fashion. I’d need to see more range of work over a longer period before saying whether I think you’ve even a touch of genius. But whatever the galleries and the experts say, you are not wasting your time and you are—as an artist!” she added with a smile—“worth helping.”

He stood very still before he said: “Thank you. Thank you very much.” And the humility was again quite unmistakable.

“And both my husband and I will try to help,” Lorna went on. She stopped, and for once he seemed incapable of words, so she changed the subject completely, by asking: “Tom—why did someone try to kill you yesterday? And why did someone try to kill John?”

She put the questions very directly, as if she knew that he could answer if he would. And she had posed them when he was in a gentler mood, perhaps a mood in which to answer.

He stood more stiffly. His eyes narrowed and his lips tightened, until suddenly he said with harshness and antagonism in his voice: “Nonsense. No one tried to kill me, I tried to kill myself. As for what happened to the great John Mannering, I neither know nor care. And if you gave me a lot of bull about my work in the hope of softening me up, you wasted your time. I don’t need help. I should have listened to Julie and not gone to see your precious husband. You can take it from me I’ll never go again.”

He was flushed with anger and his eyes were feverishly bright. She realised even as he was talking that this was no time to try to persuade him that he was wrong, every comment about his work had been genuine although he thought she had been simply breaking down his resistance so that he would talk. Every moment she spent here now would be wasted, so she turned away and stepped to the top of the ladder supporting herself by holding a rafter, then started backwards down the stairs.

She was nearly at the foot when she realised that someone else was there, and she glanced round to see a man in a well-cut Edwardian suit of khaki colour, black, shiny hair, dark eyes bright with obvious admiration. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought this was the neighbour, Clive Paget.

She wondered what he was doing here and why he had come in so quietly. She wondered how much he had heard of the conversation. And she wondered in the back of her mind why Tom Forrester had denied that someone had tried to murder him, preferring her to think that he had tried to kill himself. She was beginning to feel a kind of delayed shock after what had happened when she had first arrived, and her legs were unsteady.

The man put out a hand to steady her as she reached the floor. It was a firm, cool hand.

“Thank you,” she said.

“My pleasure.” He gave a bright smile and did not hesitate to show his admiration but there was nothing overbold in his manner. “Is Tom – Mr. Forrester – coming down, do you know?”

“I should doubt it,” Lorna answered.

“I just nipped in for a quick word with him,” said the other man. “My name is Paget, Clive Paget. Er—will you be staying?”

“No, I’m about to leave.”

“Tell you what,” replied Paget, leaning close and touching her arm lightly, “will you tell Mr. Mannering I’d like a word with him sometime soon? Thanks a lot.” He moved to the ladder and raised his voice. “Tom! Tom! I’m coming up.” He went nimbly up the ladder and Lorna saw his shiny black shoes almost twinkling; it was hard to think of anything more different from Forrester’s red socks.

She went downstairs, still feeling a little breathless; she seemed only now to be realising exactly what had happened between her and Forrester; was only now beginning to recall the impact he had made, the way she had been so vividly aware of his masculinity. She had a feeling that she had only managed to save herself from a situation as compromising as one could be; that he had set out to seduce her from the moment he had realised who she was.

Then, like a thunderclap, came another realisation: the girl Julie might be attempting to seduce John!

“Good gracious!” Lorna exclaimed aloud.

She opened the door of the Elf, and at the same time looked over the top of the car. A young woman was coming out of the door of a brightly painted house opposite Number 17. She was fresh and attractive in a pale green blouse and a dark brown mini-skirt, and she had beautiful legs sheathed in flesh-coloured nylons. She did not glance across at Lorna, only up and down as if to make sure the road was clear, then hurried to Number 17 and went inside.

So now Forrester, Paget and the girl were together.

“I wonder what John would do in these circumstances,” Lorna asked aloud and laughed. “I know what I’m going to do!”

She got into her car and drove off.

After a few minutes she felt a slight prickly sensation in her arms and legs, like incipient pins and needles. She began to shiver. A car, passing on the inside as she turned out of Wandsworth Bridge Road into New King’s Road, made her jump so much that her heart began to hammer. She drove very carefully, telling herself that she must concentrate, after all it wasn’t far to Green Street. Had she much further to go she would have pulled into a side street and parked until she felt calmer. This was delayed shock, of course. She had never known a man behave as Forrester, but that was far from the most significant factor; far more astonishing was her own response, the inner struggle she had been forced to make against the impulse to be ‘compliant’.

She turned the wheel towards Green Street, and a car horn blared; a small pale blue car with a dark-haired man in it roared past, the man glaring. Very carefully she turned into the street and pulled up outside their house. A few people stood about, a tall policeman was in the doorway. With another sense of shock she realised that she had left from the Club that morning, and she shouldn’t have come back here.

But she wanted rest; she needed some aspirins and some tea.

The policeman came towards her.

“Can I help you, Mrs. Mannering?”

“Yes, I think so. Is my flat free, yet?”

“Yes, madam. There’s a sergeant and a detective officer upstairs, but they’ll be through in a few minutes. I’m sure you can go up.”

“Thank you,” she said, as he opened the street door for her.

The sergeant and another man, whom she had seen last night, were about to close the lift door as she reached her landing, and the sergeant drew up.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Mannering.”

“I’m very glad you’ve finished,” Lorna said.

“All except for one thing,” the sergeant told her. “I hope it won’t be an inconvenience but the Chief Inspector asked us to lock the study door—the room where the intruder spent most of his time.”

“I should think it will be all right,” Lorna said, dubiously.

The sergeant frowned as he looked at her. Her headache was worse and she sensed that she was pale; obviously he had noticed that. He turned into the hallway with her, and asked in his deep but unmistakably Cockney voice: “Are you all right, ma’am?”

“I—I’m a little overtired,” Lorna admitted. In fact she had suddenly recalled what had happened when she had last been here alone; remembered opening the door to the masked man with the gun. She had not really thought about that before; it seemed to have happened only a few minutes ago. “I’ll make myself some coffee and lie down for a while.”

“Let us make the coffee, please,” the sergeant offered, and beckoned to the man outside. “You’ll be much better if you sit down for half an hour before you do anything at all. Which room would you prefer?” She led the way into the bedroom, too tired to stand on any ceremony, and dropped into a chaise-longue.

“You’re very kind.”

“Glad to be of help, ma’am.” The man was so broad and chubby and earnest and had the most attractive curly brown hair; and he had eyes more red than brown, and very shiny. Then suddenly he stiffened and alarm flared up in his eyes. “Nothing else is wrong, is it?” he asked. “Mr. Mannering’s all right?”

“Oh yes,” she said, touched by his obvious concern. “I’m just overtired and—well, I suddenly remembered how the man attacked me, and the fact that he was murdered here. Have you—have you caught the murderer?”

“Not yet, ma’am,” the sergeant replied. “But we will, don’t have any doubts about that. And there’s no need at all for you to worry. There’ll be a policeman on duty downstairs and in the hall up here. You’re bound to be nervous for a little while, but you really needn’t worry. Is Mr. Mannering coming?”

“He’ll be in this evening,” she answered. “He doesn’t know I’m back here.”

She sensed the man’s flush of disapproval of John, but was too tired to worry about it. Soon the police officer came in with coffee on a tray with a lace mat he must have taken out of a kitchen drawer. There was coffee in a jug, cream, sugar, plain biscuits. He placed these on a table by her side, and stood back.

“I hope that’s all right,” he said diffidently.

“It looks wonderful! And if one of you could give me my handbag, I’ve some aspirins in it, I’ll feel beautifully spoiled.”

They fussed a little more before leaving, and there was a depressing finality about the closing of the outside door. She leaned back, shifting a cushion behind her head, and closed her eyes. A picture not of John, not of the policemen, but of Tom Forrester filled her mind’s eye, and it did not go until she opened her eyes and poured out coffee. She put in plenty of sugar and a splash of cream, then drank slowly. It began to warm her almost at once. She had her feet up, and now unfastened the zipper at her waist; she had already kicked off her shoes.

What on earth was the matter with her?

She couldn’t be frightened about last night. Not now. And she couldn’t be interested in Forrester: that was ludicrous! But she had been virtually mesmerised. Or was it hypnotised? She could almost see his eyes and feel his hands. She remembered the effect of seeing the girl, too, and the way she had behaved with John. That picture in the Mirror had been quite remarkable; but then, what a picture she and Forrester would have made!

Suddenly, she exclaimed aloud: “That photograph!”

She had a sudden vision of the man who had run away from the house after Walker’s death; saw him turn and look up, and recalled the expression on his face and the click of the camera. She sprang up, knocked the tray, saved it from toppling and hurried into the drawing room for the camera. She saw no sign of it, although the last time she had seen it it had been on a small table, after John had put it down. She picked up the telephone in the hall and dialled Quinns; John himself answered, in the deep voice which seemed to make the wire vibrate.

“John Mannering, of Quinns.”

“John,” Lorna said, almost in exclamation. “The camera!”

“What cam—” he began, and then suddenly laughed. “The camera! I brought it here and took the roll to a shop for developing. I’ve been promised it for this afternoon.”

“Thank goodness for that,” she exclaimed. “I thought you might have left it and the police had taken it. I’m back at the flat, darling. The study’s still locked but everything else is clear, and I must say they left it immaculate.”

“Good for Willison! Will you stay home now?” Mannering obviously wanted the answer to be ‘Yes’.

“Oh, I think so.”

“Then I’ll call at the club for the things,” he promised.

“Thank you, darling.”

“Did you go to Riston Street?” John inquired.

“Yes,” she answered. “I simply had to.”

“How did you get on?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say that Forrester had tried to do to her what Julie had apparently tried to do with him, but she stopped herself. In a swift succession of thoughts she told herself that once she started to explain John would want to know more and more, and that if she tried to explain Forrester’s attitude and her own feeling, John would never really understand. It was far better to say nothing: she would soon forget and he would never know.

So she answered: “John, I really think he’s—he’s good.”

“Near genius?” asked John lightly.

“Very unusual anyway.”

“So, worth helping?” he persisted.

“Decidedly,” she answered. “But I doubt if he’ll let himself be helped now.”

“You got that impression too?”

“Strongly,” Lorna admitted.

“What did you do to affront him?” asked Mannering.

“I asked him why he pretended to have committed suicide when in fact someone tried to murder him,” said Lorna. “His attitude changed so quickly he was hardly the same man.”

Mannering chuckled.

“I’m not really surprised,” he said. “I never saw a man whose mood can change so fast! Did he answer?”

“He insisted that he attempted to commit suicide.”

“Ah,” said Mannering, softly. “Did he give you the slightest hint why?”

“No,” Lorna replied slowly, and after a few moments she went on: “I think he meant to imply that he was doing it as a martyr on the funeral pyre of art for art’s sake, but I can’t say that he put it in those words. I may have dreamed it up.”

“Possibly,” agreed Mannering. “But from what you saw of him did he seem likely to try to take his own life?”

She could picture Forrester’s brilliant eyes; his handsomeness; she could feel his strength and believe in his virility. He was as vivid a personality as she had ever known, and had no doubt at all that he lived life to the full and loved to the full, and would cling to it with all his strength.

“No,” she said, quietly. “I don’t think he would for one moment.”

“Nor do I,” said Mannering. “So we have to find out who attempted to kill him, and why. And I’ve a feeling that you are much more likely to make him talk than I ever can.”