Читать книгу Black Plumes - Margery Allingham - Страница 4

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“OF COURSE. It’s a serious thing and naturally Mr Field is furious.”

Miss Dorset leaned back in her chair in the secretary’s office and her thin face flushed.

“What painter wouldn’t be angry if he was rung up by a gallery in the middle of an exhibition and calmly told that one of his best pictures had been slashed? Oh, Miss Ivory, I do wish your father was back.”

She was one of those thin women who had once been sandy and she had grown old in the service of the firm without anyone noticing it, not even herself.

“Is David Field here?” Frances’ tone betrayed her, but the other woman was in no mood to notice it.

“Of course he is. They’re all up in Mr Meyrick’s office talking it over, making a fuss and giving Mr Field something to tell everyone in London. Formby’s story has made everything only too clear, and a very dreadful thing it is too. It’s that big portrait of the Mexican dancer, number sixty-four.”

“I don’t understand. Did Formby see who did it?” Frances was bewildered. Formby, the commissionaire, had been with the firm for years and it seemed hardly possible that any such unparalleled active violence could have taken place under his nose.

Miss Dorset did not look at her. “He insists that everything was all right at two o’clock when he went into the big gallery to speak to Mr Robert, who was there talking to Mr Lucar. When they came out about fifteen minutes later he went back again and found the damage. He gave the alarm and North phoned Mr Field. It’s just like all the other outrages, malicious, dangerous and obvious.”

“Does Formby actually say that nobody else was in there except Robert and Lucar, and that they were together? Does he see what that means?”

“Don’t ask me.” Miss Dorset’s suppressed agitation lent her a certain defiant rakishness. “I’ve worked for your father since I was seventeen and I’ve got a great respect for him. I’ve been making up my mind to go out of my place and write the truth to him ever since the Royal Catalogue affair. Now I’m not so sure that I ought not to send a cable. This is a very wonderful old firm with a great tradition and it’s a shame to see it floundering in the hands of a lunatic, if he’s nothing worse.”

Frances went slowly upstairs. The door to Meyrick’s private office was open, and she paused in the corridor.

“Can your people downstairs repair the thing, Madrigal? How long are they likely to be about it?”

The voice was not unexpected and Frances was irritated to find herself jolted by it. David Field was reputed to jolt a great many women in his casual, friendly passage through life. She went forward briskly, but the heavy carpet deadened her footsteps and she stood on the threshold unobserved.

The white-panelled room, once an eighteenth-century duchess’ boudoir, looked odd with Robert sitting behind the big desk and Lucar lounging idly by his side. Of all the unprepossessing people she had ever met Frances was inclined to give Lucar first place. He was a pip-squeak of a man, inclined already to fatness, with red hair and a red face which clashed with it. Yet even these defects might have been tolerable had it not been for his conceit. He alone of the group looked perfectly pleased with himself. Robert was even more nervy than usual. His coffin-shaped face was grey, he was punching small holes in the blotting paper with a dry pen, and his hand was shaking.

Formby was standing solidly with his back to her, and in the armchair beside him there was a tall thin figure at whom Frances did not look. She was not given to shyness in the ordinary way but she did not glance at David Field.

“Don’t worry, Mr Field. We’ll patch it up for you.” It was Lucar who spoke, and his jauntiness was insulting. “It may be out of the show for a day or two, but there you are. It can’t be helped, can it?”

Robert cut in at once. “You can rely on us absolutely. We shall see to it immediately,” he said hastily. “I can’t tell you how shocked and horrified we all are that such an accident should have occurred to such a fine picture when it was in our care.”

“You’re insured, of course?” Field put the question absently and an awkward pause ensued.

“Yes, we are, naturally. Fully.” There were unaccustomed spots of colour in Robert’s cheeks. “Naturally. But in this particular circumstance, I mean in view of the slightness of the damage, I think a claim would hold up the repair work unnecessarily. After all, we do want the canvas on show, don’t we? That’s the main thing.”

It was a bad cover-up and very obvious. Field rose and his lean figure was silhouetted against the light.

“Look here, Madrigal, exactly what sort of accident was it?”

It was an invitation to frankness typical of the man, yet Robert did not avail himself of it.

“I have no idea,” he said stiffly. “No idea at all.”

The painter shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, all right,” he said. “I’m probably a fool, but get it repaired and back in its place by the end of the week and we’ll forget the incident. But meanwhile, for the love of Mike, do look after the stuff. Meyrick Ivory was a good friend to me when I was beginning, and I don’t want to hurt the old man, but these things are painted in blood and sweat. I can’t let ’em be carved up indiscriminately. One more disaster and we’ll have to call the show off.”

Lucar opened his mouth. He had a curious self-conscious wriggle of the shoulders before making one of his more unforgivable utterances and fortunately Robert saw it coming.

“Quite,” he said quickly. “Quite. North is upstairs now arranging for it to be taken down. Perhaps you would go up to him, Lucar. Impress it on him that he must take every possible care. It’s a terrible thing to have happened.”

Lucar shrugged his shoulders. He slid off the edge of the desk where he had been sitting and, turning towards the door, caught sight of Frances.

“Why, it’s Miss Ivory,” he said, giving the name an unction which was both arch and insulting. “That’s cheered up my afternoon. Mind you, wait. I’ll be down in a minute.” He flashed a meaning smile at her and bounced out, leaving them all uncomfortable.

“Hello, Frances.” Robert forced an unconvincing smile. “You’ve met Mr Field, haven’t you?”

“I should hope so.” The painter sprang up. “She was my first client. I painted her when she was fourteen. The fee Meyrick paid me got me into the U. S. Hence my career. Hallo, Frances love, I’m very depressed. Someone’s been sticking knives into my beautiful señorita. What are you doing now? Come out and have a sherry. Or is it out of hours? Well, never mind, let’s go and eat ice cream.”

He was talking to relieve her from any embarrassment which Lucar’s reception might have afforded her and she was grateful.

“There’s nothing I’d like better,” she said honestly.

Robert cleared his throat. “I didn’t think you’d be going out, Frances,” he said. Frances caught the message in his eyes and was indignant. He was actually ordering her to stay because Lucar had expressed a wish to see her.

“Oh, but I am,” she said firmly. “I don’t get a sound offer of ice cream every day. Shall we go now?”

She held out her hand to Field impulsively, and he took it at once and tucked her arm through his. He swept her out of the room, and they left Robert standing behind the desk, his shaking hands resting on the blotting paper.

Looking back on that scene in the long, terrifying days to follow, Frances Ivory was to wonder how much might have been altered, how much disaster averted, had they stayed beside him.