Yrs Faithfully,
Wm. Coutts
I read the letter three times. Then I take it to the desk and ask the archivist to make a photocopy. I hand him the box of letters.
— Could I have the first box again?
I go back to my table and take out the inventory ledger, flipping to the pages for 1919. It lists receipt of three “Grafton” paintings on March 14: Kronborg Slot, Dr. Lindberg, and Nude Study. The last one is crossed out. I turn the page and there are two more of Eleanor’s paintings entered in July 1919: Four March Hares and The Unvanquished.
I lean back into my chair, looking up at the ceiling and trying to keep myself from smiling. I know I should stop, because I can’t be sure about anything. But I keep smiling anyway. I look through the rest of the box, but it’s hard to concentrate now and soon the archive begins to switch off its lights.
A warm rain is falling outside. I start off toward Victoria, stopping to call Prichard from a pay phone. His secretary tells me he’s in a meeting, but when I get back to my hotel room the red light on my phone is blinking. I pick it up.
— Good evening, I’m calling from Twyning and Hooper. Is this Mr. Tristan Campbell?
— Yes.
— Please hold for James Prichard.
Sitting on the bed, I take my notebook and the photocopies from my bag. The red digits of the alarm clock read 6:17. Prichard must be working late.
— The prodigious Mr. Campbell. Don’t tell me you’ve another theory.
I read Prichard the letter from Coutts and describe the ledger entries. It is a moment before he speaks.
— Is this all you’ve found so far?
— Yeah, but it’s important. Don’t you see—
— Yes, yes. Prichard sighs. You believe the picture was of Imogen.
— Exactly.
— Which is why it was destroyed.
— Right.
— And why would that be necessary?
— Because it showed her nude. Because she was pregnant. Or because it showed her in Sweden at all, right before Charlotte was born—
— Pure conjecture, Prichard counters. Very likely Eleanor wished it destroyed because it was only a preliminary study. It sounds as though it was shipped to London by accident. Perhaps she simply didn’t like the picture.
— But someone wanted it. Why destroy a painting that already has a buyer?
— I can imagine any number of reasons. You don’t know the subject of the destroyed painting. You’re connecting it to this Nude Study by circumstantial evidence. What you really have is a theory, the two sisters in Sweden. You’re looking for proof of that theory and so you find it, but the theory may be skewing your research, not to mention your conclusions. For instance, you say the letter is from 1919. But when was Charlotte born?
— In 1917, but I doubt there was much of an art market then. It makes sense that Eleanor wouldn’t have tried to ship the paintings or sell them until after the war. Especially since they were up in Sweden.
— Possibly. But again, it’s far too much conjecture. What you need are facts.
— I have plenty of facts—
I flip through my notebook, speaking quickly.
— I know they refitted the Swedish house in the winter of 1916, so that Eleanor could winter in a house that’d never been used in winter. I know Charlotte was born there. I know Eleanor painted something there that was shipped to London in February 1919, a few months after the war ended, and whatever was in the picture bothered her so much that it had to be destroyed at the gallery instead of being stored or sent back. I know there’s a picture in the gallery ledger called Nude Study received in February 1919—
— It’s all quite fascinating. But it’s hardly evidence.
— It could lead me to evidence.
— To what?
— Birth records, for one thing. In Sweden they were all kept by the local parish, I’ve been reading about them. There ought to be an entry for Charlotte listing the names of her parents. It might say something different from the English records. The parish also kept annual registers of each household, and if the Leksand house is there, it’d say who was living there at the time. Imogen could be there. Has anyone looked at the Swedish records?
— There’ve been vital records searches at least three times, Prichard says. They were done internally by our staff. I don’t know where they looked, but I’m told it was exhaustive. Of course, I know nothing of these parish registers. Do you intend to go to Sweden?
— It’s a short flight over there. And it’s the best lead I have.
Prichard sighs. — I won’t dispute that. If you must go, I’d suggest sooner rather than later. You’ll want to know as soon as you can if you’re on track. And Mr. Campbell?
— Yeah.
— You’re not looking for a painting. You’re looking for evidence.
I hang up and walk downstairs. The concierge is still on duty and I ask if he can find me a cheap flight to Stockholm. He types into his computer.
— Tomorrow seems fairly booked, but the next day there’s a Ryanair flight that’s seventy pounds.
He grimaces. — But it leaves at six a.m. And Stansted’s so far, you’d practically have to sleep in the airport—
— Can you do that?
The concierge looks up at me, hesitating.
— Some do. But I certainly wouldn’t recommend it.
I show the concierge my credit card and walk away with a printout of my itinerary. Then I go into the business center and send an e-mail to the regional archive in Uppsala. I tell them I’m coming to their reading room on Thursday and I’d like to request materials in advance: Leksand’s birth records from 1906 to 1920 and two parish registers, 1910–1916 and 1917–1931.
I spend my last morning in London buying research books on Charing Cross Road: a fraying cloth-bound mountaineering history of Everest, a small paperback from the seventies titled Daily Life in the Trenches, 1914–1918 and an enormous copy of The Reckoning of Fortune: War on the Western Front. Then I send e-mails to my father and stepbrother. I can’t tell them about my research and I don’t want to lie, so the messages end up short and vague. I send them anyway.
In the evening I go to the hotel to collect my bag. On my way out I try to give the doorman a five-pound note, but he won’t accept the tip. We shake hands.
— Where are you off to?
— Sweden.
The doorman winks at me.
— Be careful, he says. Europe isn’t like here. They’ve their own way of doing things.
It is past ten when I arrive at Stansted Airport. The last planes have departed and the next ones don’t leave until morning. Sleeping travelers are strewn across the benches, their coats spread over them. On the terminal floor young backpackers doze on sheets of newspaper.
I brush my teeth in the public bathroom and fill my water bottle under the tap. On a sheltered spot beneath a check-in counter I spread my sleeping bag. I lie in the bag chewing squares of chocolate from the hotel. All night they continue security announcements every half hour.
19 August 1916
19 August 1916
The Regent’s Park
Marylebone, Central London
They walk out of the park onto Marylebone Road in the darkness. Most of the streetlamps are off for fear of air raids, a few with blue glass shades projecting murky light below. Beams of searchlights swarm across the sky, hunting zeppelins among the clouds and stars.