The rain had eased to a moribund dribble by the time Inspector George Flint arrived at the Rees house. He was shown through to the murder room, where Anselm Rees was still in his chair, looking increasingly like a half-melted candle.
“A real mess,” said Flint to no one in particular. It was true: Rees’s head had been half severed at a single stroke. But that expression of calm on his dead face was enough to haunt the nightmares of even a battle-scarred old dog like Flint.
Flint’s attitude to crime was philosophical; while largely against it, he could still see it as a societal necessity. Take murder, for instance. Most murders are sordid back-street affairs, no mystery or magic to them. Usually the culprit is whoever was closest to the victim. But increasingly over the last few years, he had been conscious of a burgeoning subgenre of crime, which had rolled over the city like fog. These were the “impossible” crimes—typically high-society affairs, where men in locked rooms were killed under impractical circumstances, or where, for example, a body was found strangled in a snowy field, with only a single set of footprints trailing backward from the corpse. Murder as a puzzle.
It’s hard to let oneself become emotionally involved in a case like that. You must retain a sense of intellectual distance. To solve a crime of that variety you need a special sort of brain, which Flint simply did not possess. And so it becomes essential to look elsewhere for your answers.
“Any sign of a weapon?”
“No,” answered Jerome Hook. He was Flint’s second, a gangly young man well suited to leg work.
“So the killer took it with him. Or else he hid it somewhere in this room. Any joy in tracking down the mysterious visitor from earlier in the evening? The one who put the wind up Mrs. Turner?”
“Not yet. We’ve got uniforms on the case.”
“Good. Let me know as soon as you have anything. And what about this room? Don’t tell me we’re dealing with any of that ‘hermetically sealed’ nonsense.”
“Afraid so, sir. Both Olive Turner and Della Cookson confirmed the study door was locked on the inside. And as you can see for yourself, the French window is locked on the inside too.”
“But the killer must have got out that way. If he’d gone through the doorway into the hall then Olive would have seen him, that’s fair enough. But it means he must have gone via the windows, and then used some trickery to lock them from outside.”
“Not possible, I’m afraid, sir. You see, it had been raining for a while at the time of the murder. And just beyond the window is a stretch of flowerbed leading onto the lawn. The water has turned it virtually into slush. So no one could have got away via that route without leaving footprints. And as you can see, there aren’t any.”
There were footprints in the garden—men’s footprints—but they did not go anywhere near the house nor the French windows. So someone had been in the garden that night, during the rainstorm. But whoever it might have been, it was impossible to tell if it had occurred before, during, or after the murder. It might even have been a clumsy constable rooting around. Stranger things had happened.
“I see.” Flint steepled his fingers and considered the corpse. “So we have a killer who vanished like a ghost. Are we absolutely convinced that Rees was alive when the mystery man left?”
“Yes. He called out to Olive through the door. And he was heard taking a telephone call.”
“So the murder occurred in the few minutes between the visitor leaving and the arrival of Della Cookson. That’s our assumption, is it?”
“It does look that way, sir.”
“And do we know why Miss Cookson paid a visit so late at night?”
Hook shrugged his shoulders. “She’s in the drawing room, sir. Waiting to be questioned. The housekeeper’s with her.”
Della was resplendent on an antique fainting couch. She looked like a poster for one of her plays. Flint, though briefly awestruck, managed to regain his habitual look of impassive appraisal.
“You were a patient of Dr. Rees, is that right?”
She gritted her teeth. “Yes, I’d been coming to see him for about a month.”
“For what reason?”
“I don’t see why I should answer that. It’s got nothing to do with what happened here tonight, I can tell you that much.”
Flint cocked his head amiably. “That’s your prerogative. But please remember we’ll have full access to the doctor’s notes, so you may as well tell us.”
But her lips were sealed.
Olive Turner sat by the window peering out, her face a ghoulish white. She jumped slightly when Flint approached her. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m quite shaken.”
“It’s all right, perfectly understandable. I just wanted to ask you one or two questions while the events of tonight are still fresh in your mind.”
The housekeeper flapped a hand vaguely. “Ask away.”
“This visitor—the man who came to see Dr. Rees before Miss Cookson arrived. Are you completely sure this was someone you had never seen before?”
“Yes. He was a stranger. Everything about him. His face, his voice . . . it was almost as though he were in disguise. Like he was actively trying to conceal who he was.”
“Why might that be, do you think?”
Olive turned her glassy eyes on him. “How should I know?”
“You said Dr. Rees was expecting him. Did the doctor give you any indication as to what the meeting was about?”
“None at all. But I assumed he must be a patient. The doctor kept his patient list very secret.”
“And did he regularly see patients at night?”
“No. He kept strict office hours. That was why I was suspicious.”
“And there was something about this man’s behaviour that alarmed you?”
She thought for a moment. “He was a little like a wounded animal. There was something twitchy and off-kilter about him, like you never knew what he was going to do next. And he didn’t know the house.”
“What makes you say that?”
“When I told him the doctor was waiting in his study, he headed for the stairs. A return visitor would have known the study was on the ground floor. It stands to reason.”
“Hm.” Flint tapped his chin with a callused forefinger. “That’s a very useful observation, thank you, Mrs. Turner.”
Flint left the women and headed for the study again. His sergeant, Jerome Hook, accompanied him as he scribbled notes on a pad.
“All right,” Flint began, “let’s re-create the doctor’s activities. He was working on his notes. Do we know what he was writing?”
“He was typing up an article for The Alienist Review. His notes are incomplete—in fact they cut off midsentence—as though he was interrupted.”
“So it’s safe to assume that he was working on this when Olive brought him his supper. And it was then that he gave her the strange instruction ‘Do not show him in, simply direct him and let him find his own way to the office.’ Why might he do a thing like that? I’m looking for suggestions.”
Hook considered the question. “He didn’t want Olive to overhear their conversation. Any of their conversation. Maybe she was an eavesdropper.”
“Could be. We know she listened at the study door at least once. Right. So. She deposits the cheeseboard and leaves. Then, at quarter past eleven, she hears the visitor knocking at the door. We don’t know what Dr. Rees was doing in the interim, but we can assume he was eating his supper and working on the article. So, the visitor arrives. Rees lets him into the study, locking them in. They conduct their business in secrecy and then the visitor leaves. His departure is witnessed by Olive. She goes to check on the doctor, but he does not let her into the study. We know he’s alive, though, because he speaks to her through the door. What then? Olive makes her way up the stairs when she hears Della knocking at the front door—”
“No, that’s wrong,” Hook cut in. “You’re forgetting the phone call.”
“Why, so I am. The phone rings at eleven forty-five. Have we traced the call yet?”
“We have,” said Hook, referring to his notepad. “Took me a little while, but I spoke to the girl at the exchange myself. The call was made from a flat in Dufresne Court. The place is registered to Floyd Stenhouse, the musician. He was one of the doctor’s patients.”
Flint grunted. He was tone-deaf and did not follow music. “Stenhouse. I’ll speak to him presently. Right, what’s next? Olive (God bless her inquisitive soul) listens to the conversation. Then she goes back to the kitchen to retrieve her book. And as she reenters the hallway, she sees Della Cookson on the doorstep. Therefore the murder must have occurred during the two minutes or so between the end of the telephone conversation and the arrival of Della Cookson. Does that seem fair?”
“It does, sir.”
Flint smiled. “But at the same time, it’s completely impossible.”
As he spoke those words, Lidia Rees and Marcus Bowman arrived home. Hearing the commotion in the hallway, Flint went out to meet them. Marcus burbled and twitched with undue awkwardness in the presence of these stern-faced police types, but Lidia remained perfectly cool.
“Something’s happened?” she said.
“I’m afraid so,” said the inspector. “Are you Lidia Rees?”
“I am.”
Flint gave a solemn nod. “Then I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
Lidia seemed untroubled as she led Flint up the stairs and into her bedroom. Flint stood beside her as she sat at the dressing table and began to remove her jewellery.
“Your father is dead, Miss Rees.”
“I see.”
“I’m sorry to say he was murdered. In his office.”
“One of his patients?”
Flint was a little surprised by the question. “Were his patients violent?”
“Well, what else would it be? Robbery?”
“I suppose what I need to ask you, Miss Rees, is do you know why anybody would want to do any harm to your father?”
Lidia stared at herself in the mirror. For the first time, Flint noticed that her eyes brimmed with tears. “How did he die?” she said. Her voice was cool and crisp.
“His throat was cut.”
“And do you have any suspects?”
“Not yet. That’s why I need to ask you—can you think of any reason that somebody would want to hurt him?”
Slowly, she shook her head.
“Did you notice anything unusual in his behaviour? Did he seem worried or afraid at all?”
“My father was never afraid.”
“Who was he expecting this evening?”
She considered the question. “Nobody. Not that I’m aware of, anyway.”
“He had no appointments to your knowledge?”
“If he did, I would tell you.”
Flint exhaled thoughtfully. “But he did have two visitors this evening.”
Lidia turned away from her reflection to glare at the inspector. “Who?”
“A man in a trench coat. Mrs. Turner let him in.”
“And who was it?”
“She doesn’t know. It was a man she’s never seen before. Can you think who it might have been?”
“If I could, I would tell you. Believe me.”
“He spent some time with your father in the study. Mrs. Turner doesn’t know what they talked about. Dr. Rees seemed eager to keep the circumstances of their meeting a secret.”
Lidia hitched up her shoulders. “I see. No, my father mentioned nothing about this. Do you think this man was the murderer?”
“It would be the convenient assumption, but we have reason to believe your father was still alive when the man left. But naturally we’ll need to speak to this fellow, whoever he is.”
“And who was the second visitor?”
“Hm?”
“You mentioned my father had two visitors tonight.”
“Ah. The second was his patient Della Cookson.”
Lidia’s jaw tightened. “Della. She’s been coming to see him for several months.”
“Well, she turned up very late, in some distress. She was desperate to see your father. She had something she needed to talk to him about. Do you have any idea what that might be? The lady is being somewhat evasive.”
She shook her head. “I wish I did. Della is an interesting case.”
“Did your father talk to you about his patients?”
“Of course. In a purely professional capacity.”
“Why would she want to talk to him? Can you give me a general impression?”
There followed a long pause, during which Flint was able to take a sly sideways glance around the room. There were shelves lined with books and a large armoire, plus the luxuriant four-poster bed. But it was all somehow hollow and soulless, even after all these months of habitation.
“Do you think she killed my father?”
“We think the murder must have occurred at some point between the departure of the unidentified male visitor and Della’s arrival.”
“Then I can’t tell you. My father would never countenance the breaking of a therapeutic confidence. Even if it would help to solve his murder.”
“We’ll be going through his notes, Lidia. We’ll see all there is to see.”
“I’m sure you will. But all the same, I value my integrity. My father would never permit me to devalue that by providing you with irrelevant information.”
Flint nodded. “Fair enough. And to be perfectly frank, I’m more interested in the male visitor. Until we identify him, we won’t have a chance of catching the killer. So if you think of anything—anything at all—to share with us, any nugget of information, no matter how small, then I would be very grateful.”
He stood. “I’ll leave you alone now, Miss Rees,” he said. He made for the door. Then, almost as an afterthought, he turned back. “Oh, just one last thing. I don’t suppose there’s any kind of concealed entrance to your father’s study?”
“What do you mean?”
“Apart from the hall door and the French windows, is there any other way a person could get into or out of the room?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
Flint nodded. It was the answer he had been expecting. “Thank you, Miss.”
And he left her alone.
On his way down the stairs, Inspector Flint heard Marcus Bowman firing questions at Sergeant Hook.
“What is it that’s happened? What do you want? What have you done with Lidia? Where is she?”
“She’s perfectly all right, Mr. Bowman,” the Inspector supplied. “She’s just had a shock, that’s all.”
Bowman headed for the stairs. “Then let me see her, I need to talk to her . . .”
Flint placed the palm of his hand in the centre of the young man’s chest, holding him back. “Not just yet, sir. I need to ask you some questions.”
“What is it? What’s happened?”
“Dr. Anselm Rees is dead, sir. Murdered. He was killed within the last hour.”
This silenced Marcus.
“I need to ask where you were this evening.”
“I . . . I was with Lidia. All the time. She’ll tell you. My God, you’re not trying to tell me that you think I . . .”
“Where were you?”
“The Savoy. We, we had dinner there.”
There followed an awkward silence. “A club. In Soho.”
“Which one?”
“The Palmyra.”
“And what time did you leave?”
“Just-just now. I mean, just a few minutes ago. We took a taxi here. I, I said I’d see her home.”
“Very chivalrous of you, sir.”
Bowman studied him blankly. “Well I . . . left my car here, you see.”
Flint took Sergeant Hook to one side. “I want him questioned. I want the house searched. The slightest thing. A footprint. A fingerprint in the dust. Don’t let anything slip past you. I’m going back to the station.” He paused. “And then I shall need to visit someone.”
“Yes sir. Who’s that then, sir?”
A few hours later, around ten in the morning, London drowsed under a mire of drizzle as Inspector Flint emerged from the police car in Putney. The Black Pig public house loomed in front of him in its tumbledown splendour. After cleaning his mud-caked boots on the boot scraper, he headed inside.
The barmaid gestured wordlessly toward the snug. (Flint was a familiar face. She knew who he was after.) He headed through a low doorway into the next room, where threadbare armchairs were arranged artfully on the denuded floorboards before an unlit grate. A moth-eaten deer’s head glowered down from the mantle.
Joseph Spector sat alone, riffling a deck of cards absently. Flint sat down opposite him.
“You’re looking haggard,” said the old magician without glancing up. “I don’t believe you’ve shaved this morning.”
“I’ve been working since midnight.”
Spector’s gaze snapped up. “Murder, is it? Anybody I would know?”
“A psychiatrist. Dr. Anselm Rees.”
“Rees is dead? And who killed him?”
Flint steepled his fingers. It was what he did to show you he meant business. “Why do you think I’m sitting in front of you?”
“I see . . .” Spector leaned back, stretching his arms above his head. The gnarled knuckles crackled like twigs. He gave a yawn. “You’d better tell me everything.”
Flint outlined the events of the previous evening in detail. He painted exacting pictures of the key players: Lidia Rees and Marcus Bowman, the housekeeper Olive Turner, and the actress Della Cookson.
When they’d first met a number of years before, Inspector Flint had viewed Spector with the guardedness he reserved for clever con men. After all, Spector was a famed devotee of the macabre and maintained one of the most comprehensive libraries on both crime and the supernatural. But it was this very “otherness” surrounding Spector that made him a perfect foil in instances of impossible crime. The useful part about knowing a magician is learning how the tricks are done.
He would never have called himself a recluse, but these days Spector tended to limit himself to a few local haunts. He’d lived at the curious, squat little house in Jubilee Court—a faintly Gothic-looking pile which, with lights blazing in its windows, seemed to resemble a hollowed-out skull—for as long as anyone could remember. But more often than not he was to be found here in the snug at the Black Pig, this ill-lit public house with its low beams, muntins on the windows, not to mention the brass taps and burbling old beer engine behind the bar. Some would call it dingy, but as any magician knows, the absence of light is a trickster’s greatest ally.
“All right,” said Joseph Spector. “So. The housekeeper, Olive Turner, do we trust her?”
“Yes. We do.”
“Why?”
“Several reasons. One: she had nothing to gain from killing Doctor Rees. There was only a token provision for her in his will. Hardly worth killing over. Two: she’d only been working in the household for five months. I don’t believe that’s enough time to foster a lethal resentment. We’ve established pretty firmly that she and Dr. Rees had never met before Rees settled in England back in spring.
“And three,” Flint continued, “for me this is the clincher: Della Cookson arrived at the house after the murder happened. And Olive let her in. If she’d just killed her employer, do you think she would have done something like that?”
“Fair enough. Your first two points are meaningless, but the third does carry some weight. Then what about this locked room? Give me the details.”
“Two means of entry. The door, and the French windows. Both were locked on the inside.”
“Is that it?”
“Yes. Trust me, we’ve been over that room again and again.”
“No sign of a weapon?”
“None.”
“And no way the doors could have been locked from the outside?”
“Not at all. In both cases, the key was in the lock.”
“Any chance the glass in the windows might have been tinkered with?”
“None. As far as I’m concerned, Anselm Rees had his throat slit in a perfectly sealed room.”
Joseph Spector gave a smile. “My favourite kind. Any other notable features of the room I ought to know about?”
“The usual. Desk. Bookshelves. Oh, and a trunk.”
“What sort of trunk?”
“A big wooden one. But it was searched. It was completely empty.”
“I see. I’ll need to examine it for myself. But please go on.”
“We found two sets of footprints in the rear garden of the house. But neither goes anywhere near the house itself, so we’re hard-pressed to establish a link between the prints and the murder.”
“Anything else?”
“We’ve been trying to get details out of Della Cookson, but she won’t budge. Maybe you could have a try.”
“Well, I can give you an alibi for her. She was at the producer Benjamin Teasel’s house for most of the evening. Till around eleven o’clock. We all went there after the performance.”
“Some kind of party, was it?”
“Yes. Teasel’s a hound for that sort of affair. He loves the music, the dancing, the booze, the cigarette smoke.”
“Not your scene, I wouldn’t have thought?”
Spector smiled, split the deck of cards in two, and then slid them together again. Flint had no way of knowing it, but the old man had just performed a perfect weave shuffle, flawlessly interlacing the two halves of the deck. “You’ll be surprised what an old man will put up with for the sake of an attentive audience.”
“And how long was she at the party?”
“I can’t be entirely sure, but I know that she was there at ten thirty, and that she was gone by eleven.”
“She left by cab?”
“I believe so. Teasel’s house, I should point out, is in Hampstead.”
Flint nodded. “So it would have taken at least twenty minutes to reach the house in Dollis Hill. And she arrived just after the telephone call.”
“Telephone call,” Spector repeated, “yes, we’ll get to that. For now I’m more interested in Della Cookson. Was she searched?”
“We looked in her handbag. Needless to say, she was reluctant. But there was nothing of interest. Why? You don’t think she could have done it, do you? I mean, there’s no way she could have got into the study to kill the doctor. And even if she did, why would she then go around to the front door—?”
“Let me stop you there,” Spector interrupted. “While I admit that it’s unlikely she could have killed Rees in the circumstances you describe, I think we ought to be careful before we underestimate her part in the case.”
Flint opened his mouth, but he didn’t speak.
“What I mean is this,” Spector went on. “Do you have any way of knowing the real reason for her visit last night?”
Now Flint shook his head slowly.
“Or any idea why she became one of the doctor’s patients in the first place? The night before last was opening night for her new play, Miss Death. It’s at the Pomegranate, and I happen to have worked on the production. It looks set to be a hit. So last night, after the second night of the run, the producer held a party at his town house. The cast was there, the playwright, the director, and various high-profile figures from that circle.
“Now, my point is this: something happened at that party, Inspector Flint, which may cast the murder in a new light.”
“Are you going to tell me or not?”
Spector grinned. “Benjamin Teasel is a producer. He lives or dies depending on whether or not a show will run. And I happen to know that this morning Teasel was talking about cancelling tonight’s performance. So hopefully that gives you an inkling as to how serious this is.”
“More serious than murder?”
“To Benjamin, yes. During the party at his town house, he was burgled.”
“And what does that have to do with Della Cookson?”
“So you haven’t read the doctor’s notes yet?”
Flint shook his head.
“She’s a kleptomaniac. A compulsive thief. It’s an open secret at the Pomegranate, and the problem has become so severe that she sought the help of Dr. Rees. This is entirely off the record, you understand,” he added parenthetically, “but last night—before she visited the doctor—Della stole something of almost unappreciable value.”
“Tell me,” said Flint.
So Spector did. He began to recount everything he had seen for himself, alongside the accounts of others present.
The party at Benjamin Teasel’s house was almost putrid in its decadence. The centrepiece was a pyramid of champagne glasses, and a jazz trio honked away at the far end of the room while the young crew and company of Miss Death swung each other round and round in a whirligig of limbs.
Teasel himself adored playing host and had dressed for the occasion in a bright red smoking jacket, so there was no risk of his being lost in the crowd. Typically, he would stand proprietorially over the most important members of the company, snaring them in a conversational web from which they could not quite extricate themselves. Naturally, his focus was on Della Cookson.
Spector, meanwhile, established himself in the far corner of the ballroom, smoking his cigarillos and unburdening Teasel of several glasses of liqueur. Though Spector prided himself on his almost uncanny observational skills, he had to admit that the night of the party was not his finest hour. He concentrated a little too much on amusing his companions with a few old card and coin tricks to fully pay attention to Teasel and Della when they drifted toward him.
At some point, Spector was certain, Benjamin Teasel and Della Cookson left the party and went upstairs. They were gone about ten minutes. And then, when they returned, Della said a few hasty goodbyes and left the party altogether. That was eleven o’clock, or thereabouts. Teasel seemed a little nonplussed by his leading lady’s sudden flight. But not quite so nonplussed as he was an hour later, at the stroke of midnight, when the theft was discovered.
He strode to the front of the room and silenced the jazz trio with an abrupt wave. “Ladies and gentlemen!” he roared above the murmurs rippling through the crowd. “Nobody is to leave. There has been a robbery.”
“So what did she take?” Flint wanted to know.
“Only one item. It was a painting: El Nacimiento by the ‘mad Spaniard’ Manolito Espina.”
“And what makes you so sure Della was the one who took it?”
“It’s the only assumption. She was the only one who left the party, and therefore the only one who wasn’t searched.”
“Couldn’t a burglar have got into the house from the outside?”
“All the windows and doors were locked up tight. Except, that is, for the front door. But Teasel had two maids stationed there to admit latecomers. And they say there were no intruders.”
“Well. That is very strange indeed.”
“In fact, I just got off the telephone with Benjamin Teasel before you arrived here this morning. He’s most keen to get his property back.”
“What did he say to you?”
“He wants me to look into the case.”
Flint sat back in his chair, incredulous. “Why?”
Spector shrugged. “He trusts me. He knows I have a certain knack for these things.”
“Did he tell you anything else?”
“He did. He gave me his version of last night’s events.”
“Come with me. I want to show you something.”
With a tipsy Della Cookson on his arm, Benjamin Teasel headed out of the ballroom where the festivities were in full swing. He led her up a spiral staircase to a small side room. On a cord around his neck hung a pair of keys, one large and one small. With the large key he unlocked the door.
“Why have you brought me up here, Benny?” said Della, whispering playfully in the darkness.
“I’m showing you something. Something which I know you’re going to appreciate. You are a person of culture and sensibility, after all.”
Moonlight streamed through the single window into the sparsely furnished spare bedroom. With a painful grunt, Teasel knelt down beside the narrow single bed and pulled out from under it a large wooden chest. Using the small key around his neck, he unlocked the chest and lifted the lid. “Please,” he said, gesturing for Della to approach.
And there, with the throb and blast of the jazz and dancing beneath them, she took her first and last look at Benjamin Teasel’s treasure. Facing them from within the velvet-lined chest was an oblong painting in a giltwood frame.
“My God,” said Della.
“I know,” answered Teasel, aglow with pride. “Isn’t she beautiful?”
To try and describe such a work is inevitably a vain task. The art lies somewhere between subject and canvas. But the painting depicted a young woman, cradling in her arms an infant. The woman’s face was smooth as porcelain, the skin infused with the pinkish glow of joy and beatific innocence. The child, eyes screwed shut and mouth midshriek, was perfectly rendered. You could almost hear the cry.
“El Nacimiento, by Manolito Espina,” Teasel announced. “Isn’t she divine?”
Della stared down at the painting.
“You’ll forgive an old fool his grandiosity, but I couldn’t resist the chance to share this with someone who would truly appreciate it.”
“Where did you get it?” asked Della.
“On my travels,” came the answer, “from a person who had little inkling as to the work’s true value. Well, Della? What do you have to say?”
“It’s . . . dazzling,” she told him, not taking her eyes off the canvas. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Do? Della, it’s mine. I don’t have to do anything with it.”
“You’re not going to share it or display it or anything like that?”
“I would never put something like this on show, it would be too vulgar. It would detract from what is essentially a religious experience. And as for sharing . . . well, I’m sharing it with you now.”
“And you’re going to keep it here, under the bed?”
“You may not know it, Della darling,” Teasel began, “but this painting is alive. It breathes. That’s why I keep it in this room, in this chest. This is the only room in the house with adequate air. The painting is a curmudgeonly old thing and doesn’t care for sunlight or fluctuations in temperature. They would cause it to crack and curl. But by moonlight, it looks simply sublime.”
Della had to agree. In its giltwood frame of murky gold there could be no room for doubt: this was the real thing.
The corners of Teasel’s mouth creased, as though with satisfaction. He had achieved his desired effect. “Give me your honest verdict.”
“I . . .” began Della. Then she stumbled sideways, brushing Teasel with her elbow. He slammed shut the chest, jamming the key into the keyhole. And with a quick twist of his wrist, El Nacimiento was secure. He then replaced the pair of keys around his neck, and turned his attentions to the leading lady.
“My dear! What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” she said softly, “nothing at all.” Her gaze was fixed on the chest.
Teasel led her down the staircase and back to the festivities. But not before locking the bedroom door behind him.
“I think I’m going to call it a night,” said Della over the blare of the band.
“If that’s what you want, sweetheart,” said Teasel. She snaked her arms around this rotund little figure and gave him a peck on the cheek.
Joseph Spector caught up with her on her way to the door. “Something the matter, Della?”
“I have to see someone,” she said.
“Everything all right?”
But she was gone. The door swung shut behind her. It was not yet raining and the streets were deathly quiet. Spector heard her heels echoing on stone as she strode away.
Manolito Espina—who died around 1820—was as much famed for his ignominious descent into insanity in the final decade of his life as for the canvases that would survive him. His most celebrated work, The Yard at the End of the World, currently resides in the National Gallery. Even now it causes outrage among the more conservative sections of society. That a piece of that nature could be placed in such auspicious surroundings!
The epithet he acquired in his lifetime, and which still taints his legacy, is “El Desquiciato”—The Deranged. People tend to forget that Espina was not merely a schizophrenic, and the image of him as a frothing lunatic has been hard to dispel. But El Nacimiento was the product of his happier, youthful days. Before the darkness fell across his life. The features of the subject are so soft and delicate in texture that one might almost reach out and touch them.
The idea most people have of Manolito Espina is of the crazed hermit he eventually became, slathering canvases in darkness and depravity. But Teasel’s acquisition was the work of a younger, more sensitive artist. The caterwauling baby in its mother’s arms, that real sense of maternal affection in the young woman’s eyes which somehow transcended the mere material and paint. These days people associate Espina with tattered, ruined flesh and biblical tortures. The horrors of the Inquisition, or else a whirl of dark, wicked spirits. But to do so is to neglect his knack for capturing more benign human frailties. Emotion and affection. Raw love, like a heart laid bare. The subjects of El Nacimiento were anonymous, which only added to their ethereal wonder, and made one question whether the mad Spaniard was really so mad after all.
The only established facts were that Teasel had possessed the painting up until last night, and now he did not. It was locked away in a box, in a darkened room. There was only one key to the room and to the box, both of which were kept on a chain around Teasel’s neck. They had gleamed beneath the chandeliers as he danced with his guests. And then, like a magic trick, both keys and the painting were gone.
The party skidded to a halt. The police were called. Everybody—every single guest—was accounted for and searched by police. This caused considerable indignation. Even Spector had to endure the indignity. But the painting was gone. And the only guest unaccounted for was Della Cookson.
When Spector had finished describing all these events to the inspector, Flint sat for a moment, thoughtfully considering the deer’s head above the mantle.
“What about the frame?” Flint asked.
“Oh, the whole thing’s gone all right. Not a trace of painting or frame,” Spector said almost gleefully. “The window was bolted on the inside, but of course it was much too small to remove the painting anyway. All in all, and factoring in the giltwood frame, El Nacimiento was two feet in height and one foot in width. And yet the square window in the bedroom was scarcely eight inches. So what does that leave us? It leaves us with the fact that the painting must have been brought down one or other of the staircases. If it had been brought down the servants’ staircase, it would have had to be carried through the ballroom to the front door. I find it hard to believe even the most ardent reveller could have missed it. That leaves us with the main staircase, out in the hall. But there was always at least one maid at the foot of that staircase the whole time. And of course, the spectacle of a guest carrying a large and priceless painting would no doubt have attracted their attention. Resulting in rather a prickly problem, I think you’ll agree.”
“I’ll need to interview Teasel,” said Flint.
“I’d advise against that.”
“Why?”
“Because he’ll clam up. Remember, he may have come by the painting through somewhat unscrupulous means. He didn’t even want people to know he had the painting. So if an inspector turns up on his doorstep bleating about murder, I can guarantee that he’ll run screaming for the nearest lawyer.”
Flint grunted. “Maybe you’re right. From what you’re saying, it sounds as though he hadn’t managed to get it insured. But what’s all this got to do with Rees’s death?”
“I don’t know. Possibly nothing. But what’s undeniable is that Della Cookson was at the scene of not one but two major crimes last night. An art theft and an impossible murder. So I’m sure she’ll have plenty to tell us.”
Spector produced from behind his ear a cigarillo, which he slipped between his narrow lips and lit with a match. “But I think we had better bide our time. I know Della—she’s rather like a deer or some such woodland creature. If we get too close, come on too strong, she’ll bolt.”
“Prickly, aren’t you, you theatre types?” Flint offered with a wry lip-twitch.
“Well,” said Spector, “we’d better get going, hadn’t we?”
“Where to?”
Spector picked up his deck of cards and, with a flutter of his fingers, they disappeared. “Why, Dollis Hill, of course,” he said.