I knew this was a habit among the wealthy. Young men would be sent off to finish their education, probably with some tutor in tow to keep an eye on them.Young men of my background, however, were busy earning a living at a similar age, and had been doing so from childhood.
‘My wife’s father, sadly now deceased, was also in the fine arts business,’ Benedict was saying. ‘I called on him regularly when in Italy and became a friend of the family. When I first met my wife she was no more than a child, a girl of fourteen. She was exquisite . . . lovely and vivacious, full of life and laughter, intelligent . . . to know her was to adore her.’
He looked towards the portrait and fell silent.
‘Was that her age when it was painted?’ I prompted.
Benedict turned his head and looked at me as though he had forgotten who I was. ‘Oh,’ he said at last. ‘No, she was a little older when she sat for that. Fifteen, I think.’
‘And, forgive me, sir, but I have to ask intrusive questions: how old was the lady when you married?’
‘Eighteen.’ Benedict gave me an ironic smile. ‘I see how your mind is working, Inspector. Yes, I am – was – somewhat older than my wife. Fifteen years older, in fact.’
So when the portrait of fifteen-year-old Allegra had been painted, her future husband had already been a man of thirty. Had the portrait been commissioned at his request?
‘When, may I ask, did you acquire the painting?’
He raised his eyebrows again and this time replied with a touch of impatience. ‘It was painted for me. I had already spoken to her father. He agreed to our marriage, once his daughter should reach the age of eighteen. Until then, I should have to console myself with the possession of a portrait in oils in place of the sitter.’
Had fifteen-year-old Allegra been as enthusiastic, I wondered, at the prospect of a husband so much older? I was beginning to feel a little dissatisfied by some of the words Benedict used. ‘Adore’ not ‘love’, for example. You might say they meant the same thing, but there again, in human terms, they might not. ‘Possession’ of the portrait, instead of the living girl . . . that also niggled at me.
‘May I ask a question in my turn, Inspector?’ Benedict’s voice broke into my musings. I realised with a shock that I had been silent for two or three minutes.
‘Certainly, sir.’
‘What has all this to do with finding the fiend who killed my wife?’
‘Probably nothing, sir, but we have to know the background of the victim.’
‘Then now you know it,’ he said simply.
‘You have no children?’ I got in one last personal question.
‘No,’ he said coldly. It was an intrusion too far. ‘I am finding this very difficult, Inspector; perhaps you could come again? Or I would be happy to come to Scotland Yard and we can discuss all this further. I really feel . . . my doctor has given me some powders, to calm my nerves. I am in need of a draught now.’
That led neatly to my last enquiry. ‘I understand, sir. I was told that you collapsed after identifying the body.’
His face twisted in pain at the memory. He nodded.
‘The assistant, Scully, who conducted you to see your wife, said that, when you were recovered enough to speak, you spoke of some “gates”. I understood that you said words to the effect, “They want to close the gates but it won’t help.” I may not be accurate, or Scully may not have told me accurately.’
‘Oh, he was correct enough,’ said Benedict brusquely. ‘You want to know what I meant? Let me show you!’
He got up and went to a table on which was stacked a pile of leather folders. When he came back he was carrying one which I saw was a sketch album. Benedict opened it and found what he sought. He turned the open pages towards me, so that I could see the picture.
It was a watercolour, signed S. B. I supposed it must be a copy of something he had seen, perhaps on his original Italian tour, perhaps later. The scene was mediaeval in style and quite terrifying. It showed a landscape. Across it raced a ghastly figure on a spectral horse in pursuit of a fleeing group of young men, also on horseback. The figure, which could only be Death, had galloped past a very elderly couple, ignoring them. The crone of a wife was pointing at him in amazement, unable to believe she and her aged husband had not been his chosen victims. But Death had other prey. He wanted the youngsters. The young men were finely dressed. They had golden curls. Their companions at the rear of their party had already fallen victim and were slung lifeless across their saddles, carried onward uselessly by their panicking steeds. The young men at the front of the group looked back in horror and desperation. Their intention was clearly to squeeze through the open gates of a walled city, as if, once inside, they could close them against the pursuing apocalyptic figure and escape. But they were doomed, and knew it. It was written on their faces. Even their horses knew it, eyes rolling and nostrils flared. They had reached the gates, but the earthly refuge would save none of them.Youth, beauty, wealth . . . nothing would cheat the pursuer.
‘I copied that,’ Benedict said, ‘from a wall painting in a chapel of the Dominican church in Bozen, as the Austrians call it, in the South Tyrol. The Italian name of the city is Bolzano. The mural is generally called “The Triumph of Death”. Death takes pleasure in seizing the young and fair, you see. He ought to take the old, but he . . .’
Benedict closed the book.
‘So he took my wife, Inspector. I am fifteen years older than she, but he took my wife first. No one can stop him. No gates can shut him out.’
‘Your wife didn’t die in the ordinary way of things . . .’ I said awkwardly.
‘Death is death,’ he replied. ‘We can none of us escape it and to rail against it is useless. But to destroy so wantonly, so needlessly, something, someone, so beautiful, that can never be forgiven.’
I uttered a few more words expressing my regrets, both for his loss and for my intrusion. I doubt if he heard them.
Miss Marchwood was awaiting me in the hall below. When I reached the bottom of the staircase she turned silently and led the way into the drawing room with the grand piano. I shut the door behind us and went to the nearer window to draw back the curtains. I like to see a witness’s face and Benedict had already outmanoeuvred me in that. I saw in hers that she disapproved of my action, but probably understood. Still in silence, we sat down facing one another. The ticking of a porcelain clock on the mantelshelf sounded far too loud.
I realised that she was waiting for me to begin our conversation and, to break the ice, I observed, ‘That is a pretty clock.’
‘It is from the Meissen factory,’ she said. ‘Mr Benedict acquired it on his travels.’
As, indeed, he had acquired Mrs Benedict, another beautiful possession.
How long, I asked Miss Marchwood, had she been the lady’s companion?
‘Since Mr Benedict brought his wife to England from Italy, almost nine years.’ Behind the pince-nez lenses her eyes blinked rapidly. She would not shed tears in front of me.
‘Then you and Mrs Benedict must have grown very close. This has been a very bad experience for you,’ I sympathised.
She inclined her head but said nothing. I had a feeling that getting information from Isabella Marchwood would be like drawing teeth. Because of loyalty to the dead woman? Or from a misplaced sense of propriety, a feeling that my very presence here sullied the house? I was supposed to be making my sordid enquiries far from this middle-class drawing room with its polished grand piano, silver-framed photographs and Meissen clock, was that it?
‘Before this tragic event, Miss Marchwood, were you happy here?’ I asked.
‘I have been very happy here!’ she snapped. Then she clasped her hands tightly in her lap and pressed her lips together.
‘Very well, then, tell me about last Saturday.’
I thought I might meet with more reticence but she began to speak quite fast. I wondered if she had rehearsed this, anticipating my visit. But I couldn’t help noticing that, as she spoke, her clasped fingers tightened, relaxed, and tightened again repeatedly.
‘Mrs Benedict wished to take a piece of jewellery, a brooch, to a jeweller’s shop in the Burlington Arcade. She knew the jeweller well. Tedeschi is his name. He is Italian by origin, I fancy, and so Mrs Benedict liked to visit his establishment. She – and Mr Benedict – had bought various items from Mr Tedeschi in the past.’
‘Why did she take the brooch there? Was something wrong with it?’
‘No, only that she didn’t much care for it and so didn’t wear it. She wanted to know whether it could be made into a ring, using the gold and the stones. She was told that it could be. We – she – left the brooch there.’
‘You had no notion, when you left home, that the weather in London would turn so unpleasant?’
Miss Marchwood took off her pince-nez and pressed the bridge of her nose where a faint red mark showed it had rested. ‘No, although the weather was overcast here. Of course, it’s not unknown for the London fog, when at its worst, to reach out as far as this. But there was nothing to indicate we shouldn’t make the journey.’
She replaced the pince-nez and continued more briskly. ‘We went up after lunch on the two-thirty train. As we drew near to London we realised that a thick fog, yellow with smoke, was gathering. It had already reached the outskirts of the city. By the time we got to Waterloo, it was very unpleasant. We stepped down from the train to find it swirling round us. It smelled disgusting. I suggested to Mrs Benedict that we turn back. We had only to walk to the down platform and take the first return train. But she said it wouldn’t take us very long, if we could get a hackney carriage, to take the brooch to the Arcade. So that is what we did.’
‘You had no difficulty finding a cab?’
‘At the station? No. We took a growler,’ she added, ‘not a hansom cab.’
I nodded my understanding. A growler was a closed vehicle, more suitable for ladies. For a pair of ladies to travel across London in an open-fronted hansom cab would have appeared improper.
‘But it still took us a long time to reach Piccadilly, as the cabman could only drive very slowly. He had to stop frequently. The traffic had become quite entangled. Some of the other cab drivers and coachmen almost came to blows. Pedestrians could not be seen until the very last minute and several were nearly run down by vehicles. Both Mrs Benedict and I were quite frightened. But at last we got there, to Piccadilly. We were both very pleased, I can tell you, to descend from the cab outside the entrance to the Burlington Arcade.’
‘I am sure you both were. I was out in the fog myself,’ I told her. ‘I know how difficult progress was. There could not have been many visitors to the Arcade.’
‘There were some, apart from ourselves, but no one was dawdling. All were concerned about how they should get home, I imagine. I was beginning to be very worried, too. We visited the jeweller’s and spent some time there, discussing the design of the ring that was to be made. We looked at one or two other items he had on display. When we came out of the Arcade we were horrified, truly, horrified.’ She leaned forward to emphasise her words. ‘It was so thick! We were both alarmed and asked a beadle to hail us a cab.’
The Arcade was, I knew, guarded by its own uniformed beadles.
‘But he was unable to do so. There were no cabs to be had by that time, and almost impossible to see if there were any about, even! We discussed what we should do.’
‘What time was this?’ I interrupted her to ask.
‘It was well after four. It must have been nearly five. I cannot tell you more exactly. We decided we would cross the road and walk the very short distance to the gallery. We could wait there in comfort and hope the fog lifted.’
‘Ah, of course, the Arcade’s main entrance is on Piccadilly and Mr Benedict has his shop in that street.’
A tide of red flooded her features. ‘Gallery, Inspector! Mr Benedict is not a shopkeeper!’
‘My error, please go on,’ I apologised.
‘We were more than a little afraid of being run down, while crossing the road, by some vehicle that hadn’t seen us. As we talked, discussing what we should do, a boy suddenly appeared, just materialised out of the fog. He startled me.’
‘A boy?’ I asked, startled. ‘What sort of boy?’
‘A street urchin, a crossing sweeper. He held his broom in his hand so I knew what he was. He’d heard our voices and what we said. He offered to take us safely across. He assured us he would know if anything approached. We agreed. He did guide us safely across. Then . . .’
For the first time Isabella Marchwood faltered in her account. ‘We were on the pavement on the south side of Piccadilly and I told the boy to wait, I would give him something for his trouble. I searched in my purse for a sixpence and found one. I paid the boy and he vanished, just melted back into the fog. I turned to speak to Mrs Benedict and she was no longer there.’
She fell silent and, when she showed no sign of resuming, I prompted her, ‘You called her name?’
‘Repeatedly!’ She leaned forward again. ‘I thought she had walked on ahead of me to the gallery.’
