The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club · Chapter 17 (2/2)

“Yes⁠—at least, it isn’t really upstairs. It’s all on the same landing, only there are six steps up to Auntie’s room. Nurse Armstrong met me at the door, and said ‘He’s better now,’ and I went in and saw General Fentiman sitting in a chair, looking very queer and gray. He was behind a screen where Auntie couldn’t see him, or it would have been a great shock to her. Nurse said, ‘I’ve given him his drops and I think a little brandy will put him right again.’ So we gave him the brandy⁠—only a small dose, and after a bit, he got less deathly-looking and seemed to be breathing better. I told him we were sending for the doctor, and he said he’d rather go round to Harley Street. I thought it was rash, but Nurse Armstrong said he seemed really better, and it would be a mistake to worry him into doing what he didn’t want. So I told Nellie to warn the doctor and send William for a taxi. General Fentiman seemed stronger then, so we helped him downstairs and he went off in the taxi.”

Out of this spate of words, Parker fixed on the one thing he had not heard before.

“What drops were those the Nurse gave him?”

“His own. He had them in his pocket.”

“Do you think she could possibly have given him too much? Was the quantity marked on the bottle?”

“I haven’t the remotest idea. You’d better ask her.”

“Yes, I shall want to see her, if you will kindly tell me where to find her.”

“I’ve got the address upstairs. Is that all you want?”

“I should just like, if I may, to see Lady Dormer’s room and the studio.”

“What for?”

“It’s just a matter of routine. We are under orders to see everything there is to see,” replied Parker, reassuringly.

They went upstairs. A door on the first-floor landing immediately opposite the head of the staircase led into a pleasant, lofty room, with old-fashioned bedroom furniture in it.

“This is my aunt’s room. She wasn’t really my aunt, of course, but I called her so.”

“Quite. Where does that second door lead to?”

“That’s the dressing-room. Nurse Armstrong slept there while Auntie was ill.”

Parker glanced in to the dressing-room, took in the arrangement of the bedroom and expressed himself satisfied.

She walked past him without acknowledgment while he held the door open. She was a sturdily-built girl, but moved with a languor distressing to watch⁠—slouching, almost aggressively unalluring.

“You want to see the studio?”

“Please.”

She led the way down the six steps and along a short passage to the room which, as Parker already knew, was built out at the back over the kitchen premises. He mentally calculated the distance as he went.

The studio was large and well-lit by its glass roof. One end was furnished like a sitting room; the other was left bare, and devoted to what Nellie called “mess.” A very ugly picture (in Parker’s opinion) stood on an easel. Other canvases were stacked round the walls. In one corner was a table covered with American cloth, on which stood a gas-ring, protected by a tin plate, and Bunsen burner.

“I’ll look up that address,” said Miss Dorland, indifferently, “I’ve got it here somewhere.”

She began to rummage in an untidy desk. Parker strolled up to the business end of the room, and explored it with eyes, nose and fingers.

The ugly picture on the easel was newly-painted; the smell told him that, and the dabs of paint on the palette were still soft and sticky. Work had been done there within the last two days, he was sure. The brushes had been stuck at random into a small pot of turpentine. He lifted them out; they were still clogged with paint. The picture itself was a landscape, he thought, roughly drawn and hot and restless in color. Parker was no judge of art; he would have liked to get Wimsey’s opinion. He explored further. The table with the Bunsen burner was bare, but in a cupboard close by he discovered a quantity of chemical apparatus of the kind he remembered using at school. Everything had been tidily washed and stacked away. Nellie’s job, he imagined. There were a number of simple and familiar chemical substances in jars and packages, occupying a couple of shelves. They would probably have to be analyzed, he thought, to see if they were all they seemed. And what useless nonsense it all was, he thought to himself; anything suspicious would obviously have been destroyed weeks before. Still, there it was. A book in several volumes on the top shelf caught his attention: it was Quain’s Dictionary of Medicine. He took down a volume in which he noticed a paper mark. Opening it at the marked place, his eye fell upon the words: “Rigor Mortis,” and, a little later on⁠—“action of certain poisons.” He was about to read more, when he heard Miss Dorland’s voice just behind him.

“That’s all nothing,” she said, “I don’t do any of that muck now. It was just a passing craze. I paint, really. What do you think of this?” She indicated the unpleasant landscape.

Parker said it was very good.

“Are these your work, too?” he asked, indicating the other canvases.

“Yes,” she said.

He turned a few of them to the light, noticing at the same time how dusty they were. Nellie had scamped this bit of the work⁠—or perhaps had been told not to touch. Miss Dorland showed a trifle more animation than she had done hitherto, while displaying her works. Landscape seemed to be rather a new departure; most of the canvases were figure-studies. Mr. Parker thought that on the whole, the artist had done wisely to turn to landscape. He was not well acquainted with the modern school of thought in painting, and had difficulty in expressing his opinion of these curious figures, with their faces like eggs and their limbs like rubber.

“That is the Judgement of Paris,” said Miss Dorland.

“Oh, yes,” said Parker. “And this?”

“Oh, just a study of a woman dressing. It’s not very good. I think this portrait of Mrs. Mitcham is rather decent, though.”

Parker stared aghast; it might possibly be a symbolic representation of Mrs. Mitcham’s character, for it was very hard and spiky; but it looked more like a Dutch doll, with its triangular nose, like a sharp-edged block of wood, and its eyes mere dots in an expanse of liver-colored cheek.

“It’s not very like her,” he said, doubtfully.

“It’s not meant to be.”

“This seems better⁠—I mean, I like this better,” said Parker, turning the next picture up hurriedly.

“Oh, that’s nothing⁠—just a fancy head.”

Evidently this picture⁠—the head of a rather cadaverous man, with a sinister smile and a slight cast in the eye⁠—was despised⁠—a Philistine backsliding, almost like a human being. It was put away, and Parker tried to concentrate his attention on a Madonna and Child which, to Parker’s simple evangelical mind, seemed an abominable blasphemy.

Happily, Miss Dorland soon wearied, even of her paintings, and flung them all back into the corner.

“D’you want anything else?” she demanded abruptly. “Here’s that address.”

Parker took it.

“Just one more question,” he said, looking her hard in the eyes. “Before Lady Dormer died⁠—before General Fentiman came to see her⁠—did you know what provision she had made for you and for him in her will?”

The girl stared back at him, and he saw panic come into her eyes. It seemed to flow all over her like a wave. She clenched her hands at her sides, and her miserable eyes dropped beneath his gaze, shifting as though looking for a way out.

“Well?” said Parker.

“No!” she said. “No! of course not. Why should I?” Then, surprisingly, a dull crimson flush flooded her sallow cheeks and ebbed away, leaving her looking like death.

“Go away,” she said, furiously, “you make me sick.”