Enter Pale Death(13)

The assistant gulped, took the card and excused himself, hurrying off to find a higher authority to deal with this nuisance.

While his back was turned, Joe took the opportunity to nip into the viewing hall.

He stood in the doorway to the Great Room to get his bearings and assess the crowd. A second or two’s pause was long enough to absorb the atmosphere which never failed to excite him. He breathed in the warm scents of wood, leather, oil paint and polish and caught a passing high note of Penhaligon’s Hammam cologne. The room was well lit by natural light, and Joe raised his eyes to the high ceiling, as he’d always done, to watch in fascination the golden motes dancing upwards in the shafts of sunlight. His child’s imagination had made them out to be a precious mixture of slivers of gilding, specks of gold and silver and oil paint, but with his present knowledge of forensic science, he was ready to believe this fairy dust was in reality no more than flakes of human skin and possibly dandruff.

He glanced at the assembled company. Dapper city gents, suits from Savile Row, ties from Jermyn Street, haircuts from Raoul at Trumpers. No, perhaps no dandruff. Raoul didn’t permit dandruff.

Joe strode forward to the centre of the room and stood, taking in the scene. He slapped his gloves against his thigh and wished he’d had his officer’s swagger stick to hand. A thin crowd of no more than a dozen here, he decided, but enough to get the handle of the rumour-mill turning. And, at least, they were all looking at him. Conversation had stopped and speculative glances were being exchanged. He referred to his catalogue, checked the sale numbers of the miniatures he was interested in and made straight for them. All eyes followed him.

The portraits did not disappoint. He was instantly absorbed by them. Joe checked that his identification of the young officer’s uniform had been correct, nodding with relief to see the rich red colour of the velvet coat with its contrasting blue and gold flash. A fine young fellow.

Only then did he allow his gaze to fall on the young lady. In colour she was even more appealing. The eyes were—as he’d assumed—blue, the hair had the colour and thickness of an August corn-stook. Her green dress was of a silk whose lustre the artist had seized on to express the undulation of a high and rounded bosom. The pearls encircling her neck were lavish. How painters enjoyed their pearls, Joe was thinking as he leaned closer to admire the glancing highlights. But the special quality of the portrait which, after more than a hundred years, leapt out and seized him by the heart was the expression on the girl’s face. The smile, just fading—or being suppressed—betrayed an intimacy between the sitter and the painter. Though almost certainly amounting to no more than a moment of shared merriment given the circumstances of the encounter, it yet revealed an understanding of character that no photographic image was capable of replicating, Joe thought with regret.

He yearned to hear replayed the badinage that had just passed between them. What had he said, the painter, to leave those periwinkle eyes glinting with mischievous challenge, the red lips straining to hold back laughter? In contrast, the second subject’s features were lacking in emotion, dour and watchful, his attention directed away to his right. For him, the painter hardly existed; he was a necessary means to an end, a time-consuming interruption in his active life. The kind of restless subject who, in a later age, would have appreciated the swift clunk of a camera shutter.

Joe became aware that he was sharing the viewing space in front of the items with one other interested party: a quiet man, and, like himself, totally absorbed. This suited Joe very well. He would be able to start up a perfectly natural conversation with the stranger, a conversation which might well be overheard by the room in general if he spoke in a cleverly pitched police voice. Joe exchanged a smile with the second miniature fancier, liking what he saw. The man was Joe’s own age—perhaps a year or two older—dressed in a grey city suit with the tie of a Cambridge college. Clean-cut, handsome features were framed by abundant light-brown hair, which sprang out in all directions in defiance of recent attempts by a barber to exercise some control. The healthiest moustache Joe had ever seen adorned his upper lip. The sharpness of his eyes was accentuated by the honest wrinkles of a man who liked to spend his days outdoors. Large gnarled hands clutched his catalogue; large feet, comfortably rather than elegantly shod, were fixed in the military at-ease position. Difficult to place. Joe decided to hear the man’s voice.

“Do you suppose they had a happy life?” Joe hazarded the first comment.

“Assuming he survived the plagues of India and the Napoleonic Wars and that she survived childbirth and boredom, I see no reason why not.” English upper-class. Deep, smooth and confident, was Joe’s first impression.