murder in oils 14

 

Chapter 14

 

“Has it occurred to you that after all that stress and emotion, I might be hungry?” asked Ida.

“Of course, my darling. That’s why we’re stopping at a pub for lunch,” said Alexander.

“You are good at taking the wind out of my eye,” said Ida.

“I live but to please,” said Alexander.

“Gloria was going on about stripping every bed, taking down the curtains round the studio to beat them, beating all the carpets, and so on,” said Ida. “I think she was going to do it to make sure I had heavy work, but now if she wants to go ahead, Anna can refuse, and Gladys will be needed for meals.”

“I can bear Gloria’s vicissitudes with equanimity,” said Alexander, drawing into the yard of an old inn, named ‘The Highwayman’s Rest.’  ’  It was timber-framed, build of stone on the ground floor, the first and second storeys above that being, presumably, wattle-and-daub, plastered on the outside with some pargetting work of dubious value having been added some time in the 15^th century, displaying sundry heraldic symbols which might be the mullet and crescet of the de Vere family if one had a strong enough imagination. He parked the car, and led Ida inside.

“Hullo, squire, you look like you’re off to a funeral,” said the landlord.

“Actually, we just came from one,” said Alexander. “We avoided the Wake, so what’s on the menu?”

“A lot more substantial than muckin’ funereral food,” said the man. “Pork chops, mash, green beans an’ baked onion. That do you?”

“Very well, thank you,” said Alexander.

 

Ida sighed, laying her knife and fork down properly on a plate cleared but for the bones.

“That was so nice,” she said. “I’ve really enjoyed food the last few days; we’ve been eating real food, not the fancy kickshaws Gloria thinks are appropriate.”

“I did wonder at the sauce that first dinner, which was more sauce than meat,” said Alexander. “Don’t get me wrong, nothing wrong with a good parsley sauce on fish, a fricassee of chicken in a roux sauce, pepper sauce with steak and so on; I even like coq au vin as a change. But you can get obsessed.”

“Exactly,” said Ida. “I don’t feel enthusiastic about eating Gloria’s succulent taste-tempters, because they don’t.”

“Nothing wrong with good plain food without disguising the tastes. Any sauces should supplement, not drown.”

“Exactly,” said Ida. “I am glad you will like me feeding you good plain food.”

“My darling, I look forward to it. But we can also have a cook housekeeper so you have time for your own pursuits, who, being an employee, you can throw out of the kitchen when you want to do your own thing.”

“Gloria wouldn’t countenance that. She’s furious that the family has been happily fed, you know!  She was expecting us all to have to survive on cornflakes this morning, having a full breakfast made her as mad as hornets.”

“You should not really... oh, hell, it’s funny, and you’ve had to put up with her for years.”

Ida beamed at him.

“Where do your parents live?”

“Essex, but we’re going via London, to Cartier’s. I want that ring for you,” said Alexander. “I rang them and asked them to put it aside; we are expected.”

“Goodness! Sounds like royalty,” said Ida.

Alexander laughed.

“According to family history, our descent from a royal duke is spurious, and was a rumour started to spite someone, doubtless like Gloria, but the Duke of York thought it a grand joke, and my ancestor ended up solving mysteries for the Duke and his set. But ‘everyone knew’ the connection, so it made it into Debrett’s.”

Ida laughed.

“I am glad you are not too grand,” she said.

“I’m a policeman,” said Alexander. “I’d get cut down to size by my colleagues if I were too grand.”

“Alex, would you mind if I tried my hand at painting? David laughed at my efforts.”

“Your drawing of Helen was very well executed. I know you were going for accuracy not artistic display, but every artist needs a framework of accuracy, even if departing from what can be seen in, say, cubism.”

“I would say that to do cubism well, you need more accuracy because you have to match what can be seen with what can be inferred,” said Ida.

“An interesting way of looking at it,” said Alexander. “We’ll pick you up some painting kit in town too.”

 

oOoOo

 

In Cartier’s, customers of one-off pieces get far more personal treatment than most customers, ensconced in a back room, with cups of tea, and trays of jewellery brought to them.

“I want this one for her, with the stones matching her midnight blue eyes, and the diamonds as bright as her smile,” said Alexander, stubbornly.

“It is beautiful,” said Ida, admiring the ring of three rows of offset stones, two rows of sapphires with a row of diamonds between.

“It is a part of a parure, monsieur....”

“Fine, I’ll have the parure,” said Alexander. “Nothing too good for my wife.”

“Monsieur is very discerning.”

“Monsieur is very demanding,” said Alexander. “And autocratic.”

Ida giggled.

 

oOoOo

 

 

Ida sat, admiring her ring, as they drove out into East Anglia, her art supplies in bulky packages next to the trunk full of Basil’s paintings.

“I hope your parents will like me,” she said, shyly.

“Bound to adore you, because I do,” said Alexander. “I wrote to Mama, and said I’d be bringing you down at some point.” He hesitated. “I won’t see much of you, over the weekend,” he said. “I have work to do; I brought Basil’s diaries with me, and I need to decipher them. He wrote in his own peculiar code.”

“I expect a policeman’s wife is used to her husband working peculiar hours,” said Ida.

“Good girl,” said Alexander.

 

oOoOo

 

Ida was not prepared for an effusive greeting from Alexander’s parents, most of his siblings having flown the nest. She burst into tears, and Lady Armitage – apparently his father was a baronet – hustled her up to a room prepared for her, pretty and feminine without being too feminine, with a fire blazing in the grate, and a kettle on a trivet by it.

“You must call me Margaret,” said Lady Armitage. “Or Mama, if you wish.”

“Mamargaret,” said Ida. “I barely remember my mother. Oh! What has Alex told you about me?”

“That you’ve had a very tough couple of years, and the only people who mitigated it have died,” said Margaret. “And yes, he told us about that wicked young man who got you hooked on drugs.  You must feel that you can talk to me about anything, you know.”

“Oh, thank you!” said Ida. “I... I think I would like to sleep now.”

“Of course. I will bring you a tray for dinner; you don’t want to have to socialise.”

“Oh, THANK you!” said Ida. “I am so happy, why am I weepy?”

“Because it’s all been a very great ordeal,” said Margaret. “Do you want a phonograph record on to go to sleep with?”

“Oh! I never thought of that. No, I think the crackling of the flames will be soothing,” said Ida. “I miss a real fire. Alex wants to buy my old house before David built the sewerage factory.”

“You must tell me all about it another time,” said Margaret.

By the time she reached the door, her future daughter-in-law was making little sleeping noises.

Margaret was determined to take good care of the poor little waif of a girl.

 

oOoOo

 

“You spoil me, Mamargaret!” protested Ida, on waking next morning. “I had a tray for dinner, and now one for breakfast?”

“You haven’t had enough spoiling, little girl,” said Margaret. “I hope you like all that’s on offer; a soft boiled egg, sausages, bacon, vegetable cakes, which are no more than bubble and squeak but we cook them in muffin tins, and freeze them, fried egg, mushrooms, tomatoes, and fresh orange juice as well as tea.”

“Oh, it’s magnificent,” said Ida, happily. “I do not think I can go to church though.”

“No, and nobody expects you to do so,” said Margaret. “I suggest you have a pyjama day, and curl up in my boudoir, where Alexander will be working. You have the gift of silence, for him, I am sure!”

“Oh, yes, I do not need to talk.  I will sketch, I think.”

“What a good idea.”

 

Thus, Ida, in her pyjamas and gaudy dressing-gown, was curled up in a pile of cushions in front of the fire in Margaret’s pretty boudoir, with a french window opening onto the terrace, almost devoid of flowers at this time of year, but with dried sea lavender and the pearly seed cases of honesty in a pair of vases. Chinese fabrics on the walls showed gay flowers and birds in panels, between pale blue painted walls. Over the fireplace was an oil painting of a handsome couple, who were apparently Sir Caleb and his wife, Jane, the first detective Armitages. A gaudy china elephant stood beside the fireplace, being used for a tea-tray.  Ida was sketching her old house from memory in watercolours, and Alex was grunting from time to time in frustration or satisfaction as his work went worse or better.

“I wish I could figure out what ‘TBW’ was, sometimes ‘TOBW’,” he said.

“That Bloody Woman, and That Other Bloody Woman,” said Ida. “He didn’t like Gloria or Anna.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” said Alexander. “Cheers.”

“Glad to help,” said Ida. “I know how Basil thinks... thought. I’m still having trouble.”

“He will never be truly dead while  you love him,” said Alexander.  “I wish we had a portrait of him, but he was too modest to do a self-portrait.”

Ida put away her watercolours, and got out a canvas, and oil paints, and sat herself up properly in front of the easel which was part of the supplies Alexander had bought her.

After a few false starts, she found herself painting surely and confidently, and the paint flowed happily from her brush.

 

“Are you two youngsters going to join us for lunch?” asked Margaret.

“Goodness, is it midday already?” asked Alexander.

“It’s almost one,” said Margaret. “No, don’t worry about being in pyjamas, Ida, dear, we’re not formal, but let me just use a little turpentine to take the green smear off your face. Oh, my, you have caught him; I’ve seen a photo of Alexander’s.”

Alexander came over, and gasped.

“You have his talent, my love,” he said. “Well, if we lose all our money, and the Bolsheviks take over so I’m out of a job with the criminals running the country, you can feed us with chalk pictures on the pavements.”

“What nonsense you do talk, at times,” said his mother, indulgently. “If we lose all our money, we can feed ourselves from the farm.”

“Yes, Mama,” said Alexander. “Living on eggs, chicken, cheese, and Swedes.”

“There are worse diets,” said Margaret.

 

“How are you doing, son?” asked Simon Armitage, Alexander’s father.[1]

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Alexander. “It really was private; he confesses the pain and the hardship in a way he never would to any person. It feels like an intrusion, but I’ve discovered something which makes me think hard. Ida, do you recall how you met Jonathon and his set?”

“Oh, it was a party that Helen gave; I think Gloria wanted to show off her skills in catering, and Helen wasn’t averse to the odd party. They were all part of the same set at university, and with Jonathon being so close, his people being from Fringford, it made some social life. I think he was an old flame of Gloria’s.”

“That makes a lot fall into place,” said Alexander, grimly. “Do you recall his folks’ name?”

“Grantham,” said Ida. “His brother was nearer my age, Timothy. He was a little beast, a bit like Keller, a cross between an octapus and a slug.”

“All hands but dripping with slime?” said Alexander.

“Exactly,” said Ida.

“Sketch me Jonathon, later, will you?” asked Alexander. “I want a few details about that young man, but as bright young things go, as the tabloids will call such people, I think it’s time Jonathon went.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Ida.

“Nick him, if I can,” said Alexander.

“Do you want me to be bait?” asked Ida, steadily.

“I might,” said Alexander.

“Alexander! Hasn’t she been through enough?” scolded Margaret.

“It might be more closure to help put him away,” argued Alexander. “And Keller, whom I believe is a mule for him, travelling to and from London, buying gents’ wear for the haberdashery.”

“He goes to Paris for fashion goods as well,” said Ida. “I wouldn’t have thought millinery or haberdashery paid so well, but plainly it does.”

“Got them,” said Alexander.  “Well!  I think I’ll be able to wrap up a smuggling ring, or at least, the British end of it, which has been a bit of a headache to the department. But there are still some missing pieces to the puzzle.”

“I am sure you will piece them all together,” said Ida.

“Yes, I think I will,” said Alexander. “Basil tried one of those opium cigarettes for the pain, once, and decided that the loss of control was not worth taking any more; unlike you, however, he knew perfectly well what he was trying.  Ida, is there a stillroom for making herbal cures at Foursquares?”

“There’s Gloria’s cubby,” said Ida. “Nobody is allowed in there, she makes herbal cures, and Basil’s tobacco in there, it’s entirely underground, with air ducts, behind the open part of the kitchen complex.”

“And are there any external panels to it?”

“Oh, yes! I can draw you a plan of where,” said Ida.

“Then I wish you will do so; I’ll push on a little more and then I’ll be off for a while. I’ll be late back.”

“Where are you going?”

“Burgling,” said Alexander.

“Darling, take the train. Your car is too distinctive,” said Margaret.

“Sunday service,” said Alexander.

“I’m coming with you as a lookout,” said Simon. “We’ll take my car. Goodness, it’s years since I cracked a ken.”

“And if I get caught?”

“An engaged man’s practical joke on his brother-in-law,” said Simon. “We’ll take fireworks, just in case.”

“You have far too felonious a turn of mind for a magistrate and former private investigator, Papa.”

“Why do you think I was such a good private investigator?” said Simon, chuckling happily. “Besides, anything I can do to break up the peddling of poisons to unwitting youngsters, I will.”

“You think Gloria is involved?” gasped Ida.

“I think Gloria is their chemist, taking raw goods and making them more potent,” said Alexander, grimly.

 

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[1] It’s a family name. He’s the great grandson of Simon, son of Jane and Caleb or thereabouts.