“It is very beautiful. I don’t think there’s a huge market for spirit houses where I come from, but your carving is exceptional. I might—”
“You don’t have to say that,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. Sit down. Finish your scotch.”
“I keep thinking chess sets,” I said. “When I look at your work. All those rows of little animals and carts and everything. My partner Rob—he’s a policeman—he loves to play chess. Do you think you could make a chess set, a distinctively Thai one?”
“I could do, I suppose,” he said. He sat there for a minute. “Elephants,” he said, finally. “I could use elephants for the knights. I would use two different colored woods, a red wood, and then black. Yes, I could do that. Are you saying you’d like one?”
“Yes,” I said. “I might like more than one. I have a couple of customers who play chess, and others who would just appreciate the beauty of it, even if they don’t play. You think about it.”
“You asked a lot of questions before, but I’m not sure how I can help you,” he said.
“I’m looking for William Beauchamp. He owned at least two portraits that were painted by your father.”
“Three,” he said.
“Three what?”
“Beauchamp bought three of my father’s portraits. He bought all I had. All of the portraits, at least. What’s left of his other work is here. There’s a lot of it in galleries and such, as I believe I mentioned.”
“So you did know Will Beauchamp,” I said.
“Not really,” he said. “He just came, bought some paintings, and left.”
“And you have no idea where he might be at this moment?”
“Not this or any other moment,” he said. “He paid cash. I didn’t need to know anything more about him. He did give me his card. I suppose I could look for that. He owned an antique store, I believe.”
“Fairfield Antiques off Silom Road.”
“That sounds about right.”
“Did you know who the portraits were of?”
“Two of them, I did. My father kept meticulous records. One was a Scot by the name of Cameron MacPherson. The other was his brother Duncan. Two well-to-do merchants who lived in Thailand after the war. I looked it up.”
“And the third? Do you know who the woman in the third painting is?” I asked.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to tell me?” he said.
I was tempted to be as reticent as he was, but relented. “Helen Ford.”
“Hmmm,” he said.
“Do you know who that is?”
“No.”
I debated about telling him his father had painted an axe murderer, but decided against it.
“I should,” he said.
“You should what?”
“I should have known who it was. Baffling, really.”
I had to agree with him.
“You see,” he said, “it would appear that my father was an extremely well organized man. I didn’t know him that well. He and my mother divorced when I was quite young, and she and I moved to England. I didn’t come back here until he died. But the evidence is there. That’s what made him so good at the portraits. He worked and worked at them until he had captured the essence of the person, not just their external appearance. I wish I had the talent. The artist gene seems to have passed me by.”
“But your carving is wonderful. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Fitzgerald Junior obviously had a serious inferiority complex. I don’t know why I felt I had to keep reminding him about his talent, though. He just seemed terribly vulnerable, I suppose, and I couldn’t resist mothering him.
“That’s nice of you. The point I’m making, and I’ll grant you I’m taking some time getting to it, is that my father kept the most careful records. I couldn’t find anything that would indicate who that woman was. Come, I’ll show you.” Fitzgerald led me along to the other pavilion and to the room that looked both bedroom and office.
“My father, mother, and I lived in a big old house apparently. I can’t recall it at all. I was just a baby when my mother took me to England. But he spent most of his days, and some of his nights, here,” Fitzgerald said. “This is where he worked. He had his easel set up in the sala and painted there. My mother has told me that in the early days, many of his subjects came here to pose for him. Now, here is where he kept all his records. You see what I mean when I say he was a meticulous man.”
He gestured toward a rather primitive teak desk with wooden drawers, one of which he pulled open. There were rows and rows of ruled cards, all sorted alphabetically by name, but also, I realized after I’d had a look, color-coded by date.
“The date on the back of the painting was January 1949-I have looked all through 1949, 1950, and several years before,” he said. “Now that you’ve given me a name, I’ll check that, too. See,” he said after a minute. “No Helen Ford.”
“Try Chaiwong,” I said. “Just as a test.”
“Chaiwong,” he said, rifling through. “Yes, here they are. Two portraits, one of Chaiwong, comma, Thaksin and Virat. This one was done in 1948. The other is Chaiwong, comma, Saratwadee and Sompom, age five. The date is 1949 for that one.” He handed them to me.
“I’ve seen these two portraits. They’re hanging in the Chaiwong family’s living room. So your father’s system works. I notice your father kept the dimensions of his paintings on the cards, too. Can you recall how big the portrait of Helen Ford was?”
“Maybe twenty inches wide by thirty,” he said.
“So how do you think Will Beauchamp found you in the first place?”
“Not hard to do. I advertised in the Bangkok Post classifieds. Beauchamp seemed a pleasant fellow. It was a couple of years ago, right after I got here. He came to look at the portraits, because he said he was opening an antique store, and wondered what I might have. He took the three of them. I was able to tell him who the others were, but not this one. He said he really liked it, and he might keep it for himself and try to find out who it was. I shouldn’t have let it go, really. It was one of the best paintings my father ever did. But I barely knew the man, remember him only vaguely. There were a few holiday visits with him, but that’s about all. I found him to be a difficult man, on those few occasions I was sent out to spend time with him. I had no sentimental attachment to his work, is what I’m saying. However, it now seems to me that I didn’t charge enough. You and Beauchamp are not the only people interested in that painting.”
“Who else is interested?”
“I’m not sure I should say,” he replied.
“I know Tatiana Tucker was interested in it. She’s making a documentary.”
“Tatiana? Right. Rather fetching young woman.”
“Others are interested, too?”
“Yes. I’ve had a couple of calls about it, not mentioning the name the way you have, but describing it pretty clearly. And another person, an attractive Thai woman, also came looking for the painting and Beauchamp. Can’t remember her name, though.”
“You’ve been very helpful,” I said.
“I don’t know how I could have been,” he said. “I don’t have much to tell you. However, I haven’t had a chance to look at my father’s diaries yet. They’re all those lovely leather volumes on the shelf there: one per year, pages and pages of very neat, tiny print. He did one every year from 1945 to 1949, then stopped, but took it up again in about I960. I thought there might be something in them about who the woman was, but you know, once I’d sold it, there didn’t seem to be much point. I did wonder, though, whether she was someone he was in love with. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about that, given she wasn’t my mother, but the portrait was so beautiful. It touched me in some way. Now that I have a name, I’ll look and see if there’s anything that would give a clue. Tell me where I can reach you.”