She looked nervous suddenly, and Flavia knew that she was not telling the truth when she shook her head and explained that she’d been out all day.
“I got back here last night and spent all morning talking to the police. Then I went to Norwich to see the solicitors. After that I spent the evening with friends. I didn’t know anything about it when the police came round this morning, asked to see them and then started shouting when they discovered all the papers had gone.”
Flavia nodded thoughtfully. Such a rush of alibis, with all the tension vanishing as she spoke, almost as though she was reassuring herself as it came out She was on the whole far too nervous. in Flavia’s admittedly uncharitable view.
She sipped a glass of beer and pondered thoughtfully. No, she finally decided she would go hungry. Safer that way. She had never seen food that looked quite like that before and didn’t really care to experiment with what effect it might have on her stomach. Argyll did his best with a sausage roll and, to make up for their lack of appetite, Inspector Manstead, newly arrived from London to view proceedings, tucked enthusiastically into a second Scotch egg, then made the repast even more tasty by adding a large pickled onion to the mixture in his mouth. Flavia shuddered, and tried to concentrate.
“So what do they reckon? Your colleagues, I mean?” she asked.
Manstead chewed meditatively a while longer, then disposed of egg, sausage meat and pickled onion in one mighty swallow. “I don’t think they reckon anything yet. They want to think that our Gordon was responsible; nice and simple, no problems. But they don’t, really. They’re hanging on to him for want of anything better.”
“They’ve talked to Mrs. Forster, I understand?”
“Yup.”
“She mentioned Forster’s safe deposit box?”
Manstead smiled. “Yes, she did. And it’s been checked out.”
“And what’s in it?”
“Nothing. It seems that Forster arrived that afternoon, just before closing time, and took everything out of it.”
“What? What did he take?”
“They don’t know. Of course they don’t.”
“Wouldn’t do to go snooping around in clients’ boxes. It’s not Switzerland, you know.”
Flavia frowned. “So, if I understand this right, Jonathan telephones—when was it?”
“About two-thirty,” Argyll put in. “A bit later, maybe.”
“And Forster immediately leaps into his car, rushes into Norwich and collects his package,” Manstead continued for her. “It takes about forty-five minutes to get in. That evening he is dead, and when we look, there is nothing which appears out of place, as though it was collected from a safe deposit the previous day. But, of course, we don’t know what we are looking for, do we?”
Flavia sniffed and scratched her nose. “Jonathan?” Flavia asked, turning her attention on to him more completely. “What exactly did you say when you rang him up?”
Argyll looked flustered, and tried to remember. “That I was making enquiries about a picture I had heard about through an old friend of his.”
“And?”
“And that I’d heard he might know something about it.”
“And?”
“And that it might have been stolen. And that I wanted to talk to him about it. And that I didn’t want to talk over the phone. He said I should come to see him here.”
“So it’s possible that he thought you wanted to buy it?”
Argyll conceded this was possible.
“And also possible that he rushed off to get it so you could view the goods before making an offer?”
Another nod. “I suppose. Except, of course, that I specifically mentioned the Palazzo Straga.”
“Ah.”
“And it still hardly explains why he’s dead, does it? Or why his papers got burned up. Can’t blame me, this time.”
Manstead, who’d been listening to this with some pleasure, downed a good third of his pint then smacked his lips. “Ah, country life,” he said with satisfaction. ”Good beer, good food, fresh air. What am I doing living in London, eh? Perhaps,” he went on, “pictures have got nothing to do with it.”
Flavia gave him a doubtful look. “My friends in the force say there are lots of other more interesting lines of enquiry, and Gordon’s refusal to say where he was is only one of them.”
“For example?”
“For example, the fact that Forster was carrying on with the cleaning girl, and Mrs. Forster didn’t like it one bit. She may look like a long-suffering simpleton, but even she must have got a bit annoyed by that. Can’t say I blame her, either. And there is the problem of the London trip, of course,”
“Which problem is that?”
“Mrs. Forster is in London, staying with her sister. But on the evening of Forster’s death, she goes on her own to the cinema. She leaves the house at five, and comes back way after midnight. I know some films need some editing, but nine hours is a bit long, even for one of these avant-garde things. Acts a bit oddly, so the sister says, when asked why she was out so late.”
“And what does she say to you?”
“She says she was out, went for a walk, ate, saw a film, then, as it was a nice evening, walked home. Maybe she did.
“But now there’s the affair of the burning papers,” he went on. “And who could have burnt them but her? Safeguarding her position by destroying evidence of what he was up to? Not wanting her husband’s estate confiscated by outraged victims?”
“Have you had any response from the Belgians about that picture Winterton mentioned?”
Manstead nodded. “I have. A nice man, that, by the way. Kind of you to put me in contact. As for the picture, they sent this. It’s still in the collection.”
He slipped out a slightly murky photograph from his file and, with a little smile of expectation, handed it to Flavia. It was very far from being a clear image. Flavia peered at it, and grunted.
“We’ve also shown it to the Earl of Dunkeld, who swears blind it’s his. Pollaiuolo. St. Mary the Egyptian.”
Flavia nodded, and sipped her beer. “How was it stolen?”
“Simplicity itself. Big family wedding on”—here he paused and looked at his notes—“the Saturday. 10th July 1976. Blushing bride marches down the aisle, organ plays, confetti thrown, party held in the ballroom—such useful things to have about the house, ballrooms, don’t you think? Anyway, the whole thing is a huge success. Flawless. Everything right and proper and wonderful. Except that in the morning the library had this picture hanging up in it. Late at night a tired but proud father goes in for a quiet and relaxing sit down…”
“Blank spot on the wall?”
Manstead nodded. “Exactly. By which time everybody had gone home. Could have been anyone of seven hundred miscellaneous guests, relatives, caterers, musicians or vicars.”
“Has anyone cast an eye over the guest list?”
“I’m sure they did. But I assume nothing came of it.”
“Could they do it again?”
“I’ll ask. Of course, if Forster was as good as your boss reckons, he would hardly have been there under his own name. Might not even have been on the guest list at all. Long time ago, as well. You can look at the file yourself, if you want.”
“Please. So. How did it get to Belgium?”
“That’s the problem, of course,” Manstead said with a smile. “The man who bought it is dead. And, naturally, his records don’t say. Wouldn’t, would they?”
“Any note about Forster selling them anything?”