‘Why indeed?’ Adam raised his own hat. ‘Your dealings with Garland and the others are your own concern, sir. I shall tell no one of them.’
Jinkinson smiled and replaced the hat on his head at a jaunty angle. He reached across the wheel of the cab to offer Adam his hand.
‘Goodbye, my dear Mr Carver. It has been a pleasure to renew our acquaintance. I have enjoyed our conversation. Confession, they say, is good for the soul and I have confessed so many of my little misdeeds to you. It is small wonder that I bid you adieu with such a light heart.’
With that, the enquiry agent was gone. Adam watched him disappear into the crowds that thronged the pavement of High Holborn and then rapped once more with his cane to attract the driver’s attention.
‘Doughty Street, if you please, cabbie.’
CHAPTER TEN
How went the Millais “At Home”?’
Adam was once again a visitor to Cosmo Jardine’s studio in Chelsea. He was sitting in the room’s only chair, smoking a cigarette. The painter was standing in front of his easel, applying the occasional brushstroke to King Pellinore and the Questing Beast and then standing back to judge the effect of each one.
‘My dear Carver, I would ask you, as a friend, to question me no further about that particular event.’
‘A social success of the first water, then?’
‘A débâcle. The beautiful Mrs Millais — Effie, as I presumptuously think of her — was not present. For long periods of time, nor was Millais himself. I was left to exchange pleasantries with two watercolourists of almost preternatural stupidity and to drink tea that was even more insipid than the company. Do you know Hardisty and Hepworth?’
‘I do not think I have had the pleasure of being introduced to them.’
‘They are like the Siamese twins who held court at the Egyptian Hall last year,’ Jardine said. ‘Chang and Eng, the indivisible brothers. Hardisty and Hepworth are much the same. Where one goes, so too must the other.’
‘I take it that they are not sparkling conversationalists.’
‘They are not. But let us speak of something else. I cannot bear to be reminded of the occasion.’
‘I shall torment you no longer with questions about it.’
‘That would be a kindness much appreciated.’
‘However, I have questions still about the gentleman who came to visit you, supposedly at Burne-Jones’s recommendation.’
‘Ah, Creech or Sinclair, or whatever he called himself.’ Jardine took several steps back from his painting, staring at it as if it might move should he take his eyes off it. ‘I have remembered one curious thing about his visit.’
‘And what is that? What curious thing did he do?’
Jardine continued to address his remarks to his canvas. ‘It was more what he said than what he did. If you recall, I told you that we spoke of art.’
‘You said that you spoke of art. I assumed that that meant poor Creech had to endure a lengthy lecture on the evils of photography and the dangers it poses to the true artist.’
‘Ah, you underestimate me, Carver. I do have other arrows in my quiver, you know. I believe on this occasion the subject of my disquisition was the purblind prejudice of the Academy. However, what I said is immaterial. It is what Creech-Sinclair said that signifies.’
‘And that was?’
‘At one point, when I had paused briefly to review my arguments in my mind, he suddenly asked me where I had been to school. I assumed that he was referring to my training in painting so I confessed that I was self-taught. But he was not. He was asking about Shrewsbury.’
‘I am not certain that there is anything strange about that. There are many who believe that his school says more about a man than anything else.’
‘When last we met, I think I said I did not recall him speaking of you. My memory played me false. He did mention your name. More than once, in fact. As if fishing for titbits of gossip and scandal.’ Jardine glanced briefly over his shoulder. ‘Of course, I refused to say anything that might incriminate you.’
‘My thanks for your discretion.’ Adam bowed ironically in the direction of his friend. ‘I suppose that I should be flattered by his interest.’
‘You were not the only person of my acquaintance in whom he was interested.’ The painter returned to the examination of his canvas. ‘He went on to ask me several questions about Fields.’
‘About Fields?’ Adam was surprised, but a moment’s thought banished his surprise. At the Speke dinner, Creech had been asking him about the expedition to Macedonia. Of course he would want to know more of the leader of that expedition. The only puzzle was why he had chosen Cosmo Jardine to cross-examine.
‘Yes, about Thomas Burton Fields. Once much-esteemed senior master at Shrewsbury School. Now Professor of Greek at Cambridge. And equally respected by all who encounter him there.’
‘Why would Creech ask you about Fields?’
Jardine shrugged. ‘I have not the slightest notion. I am not even sure how he knew that I am acquainted with the professor. Perhaps I mentioned it in the course of our conversation. But his questions were decidedly odd. Did Fields spend all his time in Cambridge? Did he have lodgings in London outside term? Did I see him in London? How he thought that I would be able to provide him with the answers to them, I do not know.’
The painter stepped back from his painting again and cocked his head to one side, as if he thought that seeing King Pellinore from an unusual angle might help him continue with the work.
‘Well, of course I was able to answer the last question. I could tell him that I have seen the professor only once since leaving Cambridge. And that was at a dinner at the Garrick. We exchanged possibly two dozen words. Maybe three dozen, if you include the introductory How do you dos.’
‘What on earth did Creech mean by asking whether or not Fields has lodgings in London?’
‘I cannot imagine what he meant by any of the questions.’ Jardine had taken a small brush from one of the glass jars in which all his brushes stood. He was concentrating on adding tiny details to the face of King Pellinore, his nose no more than a couple of inches from his canvas. ‘In any case, I have more than enough difficulties over which to cudgel my brains without devoting time to thinking about the oddities of a gentleman who is no longer with us.’
‘Difficulties, Cosmo? Amorous difficulties?’ Adam was used to listening to his friend recount either long stories of the pursuit of largely unattainable young women, or equally extensive accounts of his capture of those who were only too attainable. He prepared to hear another.
‘Would that they were. But they are financial. Some months ago I was obliged to attach my name to several bills and they fall due for payment at the end of the week. How the deuce I am to find the money to cover them, I do not know.’
‘Will your father not stump up?’
‘I fear I have tried Pater’s patience once too often this year.’ Jar-dine’s father, the dean of a small West Country see, had never shown any noticeable enthusiasm for his son’s choice of career. ‘Several begging letters have winged their way towards the deanery already, and the summer is only just upon us.’
‘You should endeavour to live within your means, Cosmo.’
‘Don’t, pray, be such a moralising old fraud, Adam. Have you no debts of your own?’
Adam thought a moment. It was true that he owed his tailor a trifle. He owed another trifle to the man who made his boots and shoes. And Berry Bros and Rudd had temporarily terminated his credit with them when his desire to put fine wines on his account had noticeably outstripped his ability to pay for them. Yet he did not consider himself much of a debtor.