The Bohemian Girl Part 21

Denton remembered that he had meant to ask about Wenzli, the man who had put down the deposit on the 'little Wesselons'. He also remembered who had first mentioned Himple - Henry James, at the dismal party at his publishers. Something about Himple's having gone away.

Maybe he had come back.

'Mary Thomason as a young man, with and without beard.' He spread the piece of paper on his desk. Janet Striker, his dressing gown held closed at her throat, bent to look at it. It was Atkins's evening off.

'We should look at the painting,' she said.

He put his hand on her b.u.t.tock. She flinched.

'I'm taking liberties,' he said.

'Perhaps I'll get used to it.'

'I hope not.' He tried to make it a joke, but it wasn't.

It was the same skittishness. He wondered when she would end it.

The Raising of Lazarus was indeed an enormous painting, the figures life-sized, the landscape so expansive that it was impossible to take in the whole thing at once. A printed note said that the actual site of the Apostle John's account was shown, sketches for it made in the Holy Land by the artist himself. The clothes, mostly cloaks and s.h.i.+fts, were 'archaeologically authentic', but the faces were, as Augustus John had said, as English as Spotted d.i.c.k. Despite the seriousness of the subject - a man raised from the dead, after all, a miracle by the Messiah - there was something terrifically lightweight about it. was indeed an enormous painting, the figures life-sized, the landscape so expansive that it was impossible to take in the whole thing at once. A printed note said that the actual site of the Apostle John's account was shown, sketches for it made in the Holy Land by the artist himself. The clothes, mostly cloaks and s.h.i.+fts, were 'archaeologically authentic', but the faces were, as Augustus John had said, as English as Spotted d.i.c.k. Despite the seriousness of the subject - a man raised from the dead, after all, a miracle by the Messiah - there was something terrifically lightweight about it.

'Like Handel played on the tin whistle,' she murmured.

He actually knew who Handel was. 'They're all play-acting,' he said.

'Oh, that is is it, isn't it. He's posed them all. As if it's a studio photograph that went on too long. It is frightful, isn't it.' it, isn't it. He's posed them all. As if it's a studio photograph that went on too long. It is frightful, isn't it.'

He went closer and studied Lazarus. There was no mistaking that face now. With the memory of the drawing and John's sketches in his head, he thought of Lazarus as 'Mary's brother'. He said, 'Himple used her for the sister and her brother for Lazarus.'

'If they really look so much alike, he could have used either to model both.'

A lot of handsome young men filled the crowd that followed Jesus. Denton said, 'Either Jesus or the artist favours the good-looking ones.'

'Mmm, boys. Yes, I suppose. That might cast another light on the brother.'

'What are you saying - Himple liked young men but used Mary as a model? Or her brother? I told you that James said that Himple had "decamped". I wonder if we can find him to ask some questions. '

She turned back before they left the gallery. 'It's so huge. Can you imagine having that on your wall?'

'It would cover a lot of cracked plaster.'

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

Denton wrote to Erasmus Himple, RA, but had no answer as yet. On her own initiative, Janet Striker went to the Reading Room and brought back what there was in the obvious sources about Francis Wenzli, the artist who had put down a deposit on the Wesselons. Wenzli was apparently a few years younger than Denton, the latest in a line of minor, originally Austrian painters who had emigrated to England to escape Napoleon. The current incarnation, according to an article on 'Our Contemporary Artists' in Pearson's Pearson's, was a society portraitist and landscape painter who specialized in country houses.

'It appears he can put both your wife and your country place on the wall for you,' Denton said to Atkins. 'And you, yourself, if you've a mind.'

'Maybe he gives discounts for quant.i.ty, like the insurance men - "Family Rates Our Speciality".'

Denton was getting ready to go out, his work day over. His brain felt blurry. He thought that if he didn't finish the d.a.m.ned novel soon, he was going to take a rest. However, he didn't say this to Atkins; Atkins liked his employer to be busy making money. Denton said, 'How's the moving-picture business?'

'We're doing what they call "casting". Theatrical term. My pal, the one who owns the camera, worked for Dan Leno, he he calls it casting - like casting about. Trolling for pike, more or less. Thinking of hiring Cohan as a Boer.' calls it casting - like casting about. Trolling for pike, more or less. Thinking of hiring Cohan as a Boer.'

'How's the housemaid?'

Atkins made a rude noise. 'Getting full of herself. Wants her young man to be hired for the soldier. Says she won't kiss anybody else. Her young man looks a bit like a rat and is about the size of a kid just out of skirts. I told her if she didn't shut it I'd hire the parlourmaid from Number 17 instead, who's her worst enemy.' He shook his head. 'Not the walk in the park I thought it'd be. You going out?'

'To talk to that painter, Wenzli. Sent him a note; he, at least, answered.'

'Sounds a bit rum. Pus.h.i.+ng for a knighthood, they say.'

'Who says?'

'Gossip in "Society Talk".' This was a column in the new magazine that Frank Harris was editing. Denton suggested it was odd reading for Atkins.

'Learning from my betters.'

Wenzli wasn't Augustus John's sort of artist, certainly. He lived in Melbury Road in Kensington - 'the artistic environs of the late President of the Royal Academy, Lord Leighton' as Pearson's Pearson's had it - but kept a studio in St John's Wood that had been 'at one time the artistic demesne of Mr Bourke', which meant nothing to Denton, but once inside it he thought he understood: it was a studio for an artist who wanted to live like a stockbroker. had it - but kept a studio in St John's Wood that had been 'at one time the artistic demesne of Mr Bourke', which meant nothing to Denton, but once inside it he thought he understood: it was a studio for an artist who wanted to live like a stockbroker.

Wenzli was already there, in fact was waiting for him. He hadn't been working - there was no paint on him, no smock, no paint-loaded palette. He was wearing a grey sack coat and waistcoat, rather too-light fawn trousers, a high collar, had somewhat the air of a dandified military officer in mufti. Bearded, moustached, he gave the sense of having just been let go by the regimental barber, who might be still snapping his cloth out of sight somewhere.

A butler had opened the door, ushered Denton into a building in the style called Queen Anne, and up to a first-floor studio the size of a provincial city's railway station. The ceiling was more than twice his own height away; carpets covered the floor; a fireplace with a Gothick chimney-piece big enough to have parked a cab in took up part of one wall; easy chairs stood here and there; and, on a marble-topped table that could have sat twelve, the tools of the trade were set out, as if to prove that in fact an artist was here somewhere. Near it stood an easel ten feet tall, on it a six-by-four canvas filled mostly by two young girls and a dog. The artist himself stood in front of it as if prepared to defend it.

'I'm Denton.'

'Yes. Yes. You wrote for an appointment.'

Actually, Denton had mailed his card, with 'Re: Mary Thomason' pencilled on the back; Wenzli had sent him a note telling him to see him at his studio, not his home.

'Your house and your studio are at different places.'

'I must be free of distractions.' Wenzli exhaled and relaxed the abdomen he had been holding in, now proved a rather soft-looking man, his belly slack but pouty, well-filled - not a nun for art. Denton said, 'Mary Thomason.'

'That was written on your card, yes.'

'You know the name.'

'Why, yes. She was my model once or twice. She had an interesting ambience.'

'She's disappeared.'

'Ah. Oh.' He seemed unsure whether to be surprised. 'Yes.'

'You knew that she had disappeared?'

'I heard something or other.'

'Where?'

'Why do you ask?'

Denton studied the man's face. There was an expression at the sides of the nose and around the eyes as if he might weep easily. There was also a hint of fear. Denton said, 'What was your relations.h.i.+p with Mary Thomason?'

'There was no "relations.h.i.+p"! What an improper question!' Wenzli tried to straighten his back to a.s.sume the military pose again, but he stayed several inches shorter than Denton. 'What are you driving at, sir?'

'Before she disappeared, Mary Thomason wrote me a letter. She said she was afraid of somebody.'

Wenzli flushed. 'I was kindness itself to the girl. When I saw her, which was only - two or three times-'

Denton looked around the studio. 'This is a private spot. Very private.' He turned back to the painter. 'She came here?'

'I work work here!' here!'

'You put down a deposit on a painting at Geddys's in Burlington Arcade. Where Mary Thomason worked.'

'What can you be getting at?'

'And then let the painting and the deposit go - immediately after she disappeared. Why did you do that, Mr Wenzli?'

Wenzli started to pull in his belly again and gave it up. He managed to look stern, nonetheless. 'I have work to do. You will have to leave.'

'Did Miss Thomason model in the nude?'

'There spake the voice of Mrs Grundy! And of ignorance; few real artists need the nude model. No, she did not. What you imply is libellous.'

'Slanderous, I think.' Denton picked up one of the brushes and spread the bristles with a thumb.

'That's an expensive brus.h.!.+'

Denton put it down and leaned back against the marble table. 'You didn't ask what I do or what I am, Mr Wenzli, so I a.s.sume you know. Did Mary Thomason ever mention my name?'

Wenzli started to say something, hesitated. 'She might have said something. Your articles on travel were very popular just then.' He meant the articles about the motor car adventure, which Denton had turned into the book.

'"The former American lawman".'

'That's the reputation you have, I suppose. I really don't see what this is in aid of.'

'So that if you saw that Mary Thomason had written to me asking for protection, you'd know she was serious.'

'Ah-why-What's the point of all this? You must go, really-!'

Denton went and stood quite close to him. 'Her letter, in an envelope addressed to me, was in the back of the painting you were going to buy. There's no question but that she put it there herself. There's really only one reason for her to have done that that I can see, Mr Wenzli. She wanted you to find it.'

'This is madness.'

'You'd know my name; you'd read that she was afraid somebody was going to hurt her; you'd know she was serious. It was a warning. '

'But I never found it! I never found such a d.a.m.ned thing!'

'Were you going to hurt her, Mr Wenzli?'

'Certainly not!'

'Had things got to a certain point, Mr Wenzli? Despite yourself? Did you kiss her?'

'This is infamous!' Wenzli went to a bell-pull that hung beside the vast chimney-piece; it was heavy enough to have rung changes on cathedral bells.

Denton said, 'The police have been told about her disappearance.' He paused an instant; so did Wenzli. 'I think you'd do better to talk to me than to Detective Sergeant Guillam. He's a right b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'

Wenzli looked more than ever as if he might weep, but he was actually tougher than he looked. He said in a testy voice, 'I'll have you thrown out if you won't leave.'

'You and that butler couldn't throw me out between you.' Denton crossed his arms. 'It's the police or me.' He walked down the studio to look at the portrait of the two young girls, then addressed them rather than Wenzli. 'Did you kiss her? Was there more than that - touching-?'

'Get out!'

'You won't get a knighthood by lying to me, Wenzli. Did you touch her or didn't you?'

'There was nothing between us!'

'I think there was. You did kiss her, didn't you. And then there was more - she didn't discourage you - she wouldn't undress for you but she'd do certain things - with her hands, was it, Wenzli? Or her mouth?'

'Stop it, stop it! This is disgusting!'

'You could take me to court. But I don't think you will. I think that those things happened and then-' Denton could see it. He knew how it went. He knew how he had done it himself, once upon a time. 'And then you got a bit rough. And you frightened her.'

Wenzli was red-faced. He had moved away from the bell-pull and had, perhaps unconsciously, taken up a mahlstick, the padded stick that he used to support his painting hand when he was working on fine detail. It wasn't much of a weapon, but it told Denton that he'd touched a spot. And he realized that Wenzli was capable of frightening a woman, even with his softness and his apparent weakness. He was arrogant, and frustration made him angry, a potent combination. Wenzli might well be capable of hurting a small woman. 'You frightened her, Wenzli.'

'I didn't do anything of the kind.'

'So she wrote the note for you to find, but I believe you that you never found it - or you'd have destroyed it. But she disappeared, and you heard that she'd gone - or maybe she just didn't come back, didn't keep an appointment - and then you you were frightened. You wanted to erase your relations.h.i.+p with her. You never went back to Geddys's. You wrote him you didn't want the painting. You let him keep the deposit.' were frightened. You wanted to erase your relations.h.i.+p with her. You never went back to Geddys's. You wrote him you didn't want the painting. You let him keep the deposit.'

Wenzli tapped the mahlstick against his thigh, then threw it towards the marble table; it hit and bounced off and thudded on the carpet.

Denton kept pus.h.i.+ng. 'What was so important about the painting? '

'I decided I didn't like it.'

'No, there was more than that. What?' He waited. He said, 'I really don't want to bring the police into it, Wenzli. They won't pursue her disappearance unless I stir it up for them. They're busy men; they have more important cases. She's been gone a long time. But if I lay it all out for them, they'll come to question you. Do you want it in the cheap papers - "Noted Artist Questioned in Girl's Disappearance"?' He waited. 'Does your wife want that?'

'You s.h.i.+t s.h.i.+t!'