The Quality of Mercy (24 page)

‘My name’s Ben,’ the young man said, smiling. ‘I doubt Reg’ll ever get round to introducing us. In fact, he probably can’t. He frequently forgets my name.’

‘Nonsense, dear boy! I know perfectly well who you are but, it is true, my old brain does play tricks on me.’

‘Is Mr Harman your teacher?’ Verity asked.

‘I’d hardly say that,’ he replied affectionately, smiling at the old man. ‘I listen to his anecdotes of times past and the great painters he has known and he tells me I’m not a patch on Gertler or Augustus John.’

‘I can’t pretend to teach these boys,’ Harman said, taking the remarks in good part. ‘They never listen. They think they know it all. I tell them to go to the National Gallery and copy the great masters but they take no notice.’

‘He’s fearfully out of fashion,’ Ben said with a chuckle, ‘so we have to keep it a deadly secret that he’s tutoring us.’

‘Blasted child,’ Harman murmured, patting the young man’s head and smiling. ‘This lady is . . .’ he scratched his head, ‘a friend of Adrian Hassel.’

‘I know Adrian. I say, are you
the
Miss Browne – Browne with an “e”?’ Ben said, excitedly. ‘He talks so much about you.’

Verity blushed. ‘Nice things, I hope.’

‘Awfully. He says you are the bravest and the best of the war correspondents and he can’t think how you haven’t been killed yet. Oh! How beastly. I didn’t mean . . .’

‘I take it as a compliment. Now, may I borrow your tutor for half an hour?’

‘Of course!’ said the irrepressible youth. ‘You want to grill him about Peter Gray. The whole place has been talking about it. Do you think he was murdered? Damn – there I go again. Sorry, Miss Browne. I hang my head in shame.’

He did so and Verity laughed, feeling old enough to be his mother. ‘Did you know Mr Gray?’

‘I met him once. A great man, but not – what shall I say? – not friendly, like Reg here. However, I think he’ll be remembered after we’re all dead and gone. Don’t you agree, Reg?’

Verity saw that the old man enjoyed being treated as an equal and called by his first name.

‘I do indeed. Now, get on and do what I told you. The ears are quite wrong and why the streak of blue in his hair?’

They went to a small café nearby which Harman told her was much frequented by the students and Verity ordered coffee and cake.

‘What is it you wish to know, Miss Browne?’ Harman inquired as he stirred the watery-looking coffee the waitress had brought. Verity was suddenly aware that he was not the vague and gentle old fellow he pretended to be. His shrewd eyes beneath white bushy brows were taking her in and judging her. ‘You think my old friend was murdered? The police don’t.’

‘I don’t know if he was murdered but we – Lord Edward and I – think the police don’t want to investigate the possibility in case they embarrass Lord Louis Mountbatten.’

‘Hmm. That’s probably true but I don’t think he was murdered and I don’t like you worrying Miss Gray. It does no good to raise questions in her mind which can’t be answered. She’s had enough heartache already, poor child. Peter was a very good painter but he wasn’t an easy man – particularly after his wife died.’

‘Vera was still a little girl?’

‘Yes but she grew up quickly. Had to. There was an old aunt or something but she died or left – I expect Vera’s told you all this – and then she had to cope on her own.’

‘With the shell shock?’

‘Yes. I was a conscientious objector. Went to prison for it,’ Harman said proudly. ‘And would do so again. What did the war do to those brave men who joined up in 1914 so eager to serve their country? Peter was badly affected but he was by no means the worst. “Basket cases” they called them! Lives destroyed for nothing. That’s what I call murder. And now we have to do it all over again. What a waste! That young man you saw just now . . . I can’t bear to think of him lying dead in France . . .’ He wiped what might have been a tear from his eye. ‘I’m sorry, what were we talking about?’

‘You were saying that Vera looked after her uncle.’

‘That girl’s a saint,’ he said vehemently, chewing his upper lip. ‘We all tried to help – his friends, you know? But the burden fell on her young shoulders and she bore it without complaint.’

‘When did he start painting the view from Tarn Hill?’

‘When his wife died. When Betty died . . .’ he repeated mournfully.

‘So he painted the same view hundreds of times during . . . what? Twenty years?’

‘Like Monet and his water lilies.’

‘Did he ever tell you why?’

‘He didn’t tell me but I knew.’ Harman hesitated. ‘I should have told you when Lord Edward asked me after the memorial meeting why Peter might have walked down to the farm buildings at the bottom of Tarn Hill but I thought it was too private a thing to tell strangers. Perhaps I was wrong. His wife was brought up in that farmhouse. He courted her there and he told me they often walked up the hill to contemplate the view . . . It was the epitome of peace for him, if you can understand.’

‘Home and beauty,’ Verity muttered.

‘That sounds trite,’ he rebuked her. ‘I would go so far as to say he painted his soul in that view.’

‘The painting! I must look at it again!’

‘Which painting?’ Harman asked, startled.

‘The one he was working on when he died. I thought I had looked at it but now I realize I didn’t see it at all. Goodbye, Mr Harman,’ Verity said, rising and almost knocking over her untasted coffee. ‘You have been most kind and I think . . . I think you may have explained why Peter Gray died.’

‘What?’

‘I can’t say anything more until I’ve seen the painting again. Goodbye . . . and thank you.’

Putzi was being evasive and Edward was finding it more and more difficult to hide his irritation. He didn’t want to go back to Germany . . . he thought his life would be in danger . . . but his son Egon was there. He wanted to stay in England . . . or go to America or Switzerland . . . He needed money . . . he was homesick . . .

The meeting was taking place in his suite at Claridge’s and Putzi had made it clear that he expected the British Government to foot the bill. Edward was trying to explain that ‘nothing will come of nothing’ and he had to decide whether or not he was going to work for the British. The implied threat was that he might otherwise be bundled off back to Berlin where it was more than likely he would be sent to a camp or shot.

Putzi was claiming not to be anti-Semitic. ‘Unity Mitford, you know her?’ Edward said he had met her. ‘She does not like Jews and I have told her to shut up about it. She’s always boring me about Jews. She’s a Jew-baiter and she hates Americans. But I have to keep on her good side, you understand? She is a great friend of Hitler’s.’

His attitude to Hitler veered between slavish devotion and petulant protest. He said he hated Goebbels who had poisoned Hitler against him.

‘They say you slept with Joan Miller when you were in Berlin,’ Edward suddenly threw in to see what reaction he would get.

Putzi looked sly. ‘She is a very beautiful woman. Do you not think so, Lord Edward?’

Edward had to master a strong desire to kick him. Instead he said, ‘Did you have Herr Mandl’s permission to sleep with his wife?’

‘He wanted me to speak well of him to Herr Hitler.’

‘So he
did
give you permission?’

Putzi tapped his squashed nose with a finger. ‘There are some things which do not need putting into words, are there not?’

Edward, by this time reckless in his dislike, asked, ‘Did you mind that you were sharing her with a young Jew – Georg Dreiser? Is that why you killed him when you saw him at Broadlands?’

‘I do not know what you mean, Lord Edward. Are you trying to be offensive? Why should I kill this man I had never heard of?’

‘I did not see you watching the polo.’

‘Joan and I had one or two things to say to each other so we walked about talking of old times.’

‘Did you go near the stables?’

‘The stables? Why? Ah, I remember! That was where the poor man met his end, wasn’t it? I think we did go near the stables,’ he added insolently. ‘I remember the smell of the horses. I do not like horses.’

‘Did you see anyone near the stables?’

‘No, but we were rather wrapped up in each other.’

‘So wrapped up in each other that you did not hear the pony kicking against the stable door?’

‘What is this, Lord Edward? Are you a policeman? Are you going to arrest me?’ He smiled and Edward wanted to hit him. He managed to control himself.

‘No, I am not a policeman but I would like to find out who killed Georg Dreiser. Like you, Herr Braken, he came to England as a refugee from the Nazis and was killed – probably by someone who knew him back in Vienna.’

‘I am not a refugee,’ Putzi responded, stung by the comparison with a Jew. ‘I may choose to stay here but not if I am to be treated with . . . with contempt. Do your superiors know how you speak to me? I could help your government but why should I when you call me a murderer?’

‘I didn’t call you a murderer,’ Edward said, backtracking hurriedly. He had a vision of Liddell’s fury if he got to know how the interview had gone. ‘I just want to find out who killed Georg Dreiser. We do not permit anyone to be murdered in England without doing our utmost to bring the murderer to justice. I gather it is different in Germany.’

Edward heard himself insult Putzi with horror. He was no good at diplomacy, he realized, if it meant you had to smile with villains.

Putzi looked at him with undisguised amusement. He had won a sort of victory and he knew it.

In a very short time, Frank had become intimate with the American, Stuart Rose. They drove down to Marlow to dine and dance at Skindles in a 1932 Delage – a super-sports version of the four-litre D8 – not Rose’s but ‘borrowed from a friend’ as he put it airily. Skindles was expensive – gin and tonic an exorbitant ninepence – but it was fun to mingle with the
jeunesse dorée
, dine off oysters and champagne and dance into the small hours before racing back through the night to London.

They went to art galleries and parties – Rose seemed to know everyone – but at no time did he talk politics or make a pass at him. It was as though he looked on Frank as a perfect specimen of a particular type of upper-class English boy – unfamiliar to him and therefore of considerable interest, to be studied as an example of a species. He knew that the one thing which would disgust the boy was a hint of anything of a sexual nature.

Connie was not entirely happy about this friendship but she had come to the same conclusion as had Edward – that if she tried to come between them it would only make Frank more eager to be in Rose’s company. And there was no doubt he was learning a lot. Eton was as philistine as any other English public school and Frank was lamentably ignorant of the visual arts and hardly less so of music and drama. Rose took him to the theatre and then, afterwards, backstage to meet the actors. It was a new world to Frank and he revelled in it.

Sunita was recovering and urged him not to mope at her bedside but it hurt when he regaled her with stories of parties and other jollities from which she was excluded. He seemed – naively – to think she would not be jealous when he told her of meeting Noël Coward and dancing with Gertie Lawrence. ‘But she’s old enough to be my mother!’ he exclaimed when she said something about it.

‘But do you miss me sometimes?’ she asked timidly. And he would explain that he would much rather be with her than at Skindles and she put on a brave face determined not to appear to be ‘chasing’ him.

Sunny was also unhappy. He did not like the way his host flirted with his wife but he was reluctant to have a row and Mountbatten would not hear of them leaving Broadlands or Sunita recuperating elsewhere.

‘Where would you go?’ he demanded of Sunny. ‘She’s not well enough to travel. Take her to the South of France next month but stay here at least until the end of April.’

Sunny reluctantly acquiesced. At least Lady Louis had returned but Ayesha still seemed to spend a great deal of time in Mountbatten’s company. Sunny trusted his wife absolutely – of course he did – but he could not help but be jealous.

Verity thought it was by accident that she bumped into Rose in Sloane Avenue. She had Basil with her and was going to walk him in Kensington Gardens. Rose lifted his hat and asked if he might accompany them.

‘It’s such a wonderful spring day,’ he said. His accent was noticeable but difficult to pin down and she asked him where he had grown up. To her surprise, he said Baton Rouge.

‘I thought that if you were a Southerner you’d speak like this,’ she said, attempting a Southern drawl.

‘I left home soon as I could. I was real happy to be gone,’ he said demonstrating how ‘Southern gen’lmen’ really spoke. ‘I’ve spent most of my life on the east coast and quickly learned to lose my home-town roots – voice and all.’

‘Why did you leave?’ He looked at her and she blushed. ‘I mean just because . . . because you don’t like women?’ she finished unhappily.

‘But I do like women,’ he contradicted her. ‘Just – not for sex.’

Verity blushed again to her annoyance and said quickly, ‘I don’t suppose they like Communists in Baton Rouge either.’

He laughed and she looked up at him. He was really very attractive.

‘No, durn it – they sure don’t,’ he responded in a rather good James Cagney voice.

‘But you are a Communist?’ she persisted.

‘Hey, let me take hold of the dog. He’s too big for you – too big for London. He almost knocked over that baby carriage.’

‘We call it a perambulator.’

‘Oh, sure – a pram, I remember.’

Verity was still waiting for an answer to her question. ‘If you are a Communist, you’re a very odd one.’

‘Because I like fast cars and good restaurants? I don’t think you have any right to criticize.’

‘I wasn’t criticizing – just asking. So you yearn after the revolution?’

‘Something like that, I guess,’ he replied gaily. ‘In fact Owen Coombs is a friend of mine.’

‘Coombs!’ Verity said, startled. ‘Oh, I see. That was why you “bumped into me”? He said a Party member would contact me but it never occurred to me that would be you. You want to tell me what to do?’