Enter Pale Death by Barbara Cleverly Page B

his gaze to fall on the young lady. Incolour 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.
    “Unattributed, I see.” Joe changed tack.
    “There’s nothing on the front, but so often there isn’t. It takes a complete egotist or an exceptional talent to clutter up the tiny space available with his own name, I’ve always thought. Would you scrawl your name across that glorious bosom? I wouldn’t!” He shook his head and sighed his admiration. “In any case, I think I know the artist responsible for these. Beauties, aren’t they? Wish I could afford them.” The man held out his hand. “Adam Hunnyton, impecunious art-lover. How do you do?”
    “Joseph Sandilands, similarly handicapped. Are you thinking of at least making a starting bid for them tomorrow?”
    “It’s not done to ask, Commissioner, and you know it. But I’ll tell you anyway. Sadly—no. They will go for vastly more than I can afford. Though I did take the precaution of leaving a modest reserve bid with the auctioneer, in case by some chance they were to escape the notice of the public. Late in the day and