A Place of Hiding

“Testimony of people who’d seen it in your grandfather’s house?”


“They’re all dead now, I presume,” Ruth said. “And besides Monsieur Bombard, I wouldn’t have known who they were anyway. So Guy had no other way to retrieve this but to buy it from whoever had it, and that’s what he did, depend upon it. I expect it was his birthday gift to me: to bring back to the family the only thing left of the family. Before I died.”

In silence, they looked down upon the canvas stretched across the desk. That the painting was old there could be no doubt. It looked Dutch or Flemish to St. James, and it was a mesmerising work, a thing of timeless beauty that had no doubt at one time been an allegory both for the artist and for the artist’s patron.

“I wonder who she is,” Deborah said. “A gentlewoman of some sort, because look at her robes. They’re very fine, aren’t they? And the book. It’s so large. To have had a book like that...even to have been able to read at that time...She must have been quite rich. Perhaps she’s a queen.”

“She’s just the lady with the book and the quill,” Ruth said. “That’s enough for me.”

St. James stirred himself from his contemplation of the picture, saying to Ruth Brouard, “How did you happen upon this this morning? Was it here in the house? Among your brother’s things?”

“Paul Fielder had it.”

“The boy your brother mentored?”

“He gave it to me. Margaret thought he’d stolen something from the house because he wouldn’t let anyone near his rucksack. But this is what he had in it, and he handed it over to me straightaway.”

“When was this?”

“This morning. The police brought him over from the Bouet.”

“Is he still here?”

“I expect he’s on the grounds somewhere. Why?” Ruth’s face grew grave. “You’re not thinking he stole this, are you? Because really, he wouldn’t have. It’s not in his nature.”

“May I take this with me, Miss Brouard?” St. James touched the edge of the painting. “For a while. I’ll keep it quite safe.”

“Why?”

He said only, “If you wouldn’t mind,” by way of answer. “You needn’t worry. I’ll get it back to you quickly.”

She looked at the painting as if loath to part with it, as she no doubt was. After a moment, though, she nodded and then removed the books from either end of the canvas. She said, “It needs to go into a frame. It needs to be properly hung.”

She handed the canvas over to St. James. He took it from her and said,

“I expect you knew your brother was involved with Cynthia Moullin, didn’t you, Miss Brouard?”

Ruth switched off the light that was on the desk and moved it back to its original position. For a moment, he thought she might not answer, but she finally said, “I discovered them together. He said he would have told me eventually. He said he meant to marry her.”

“You didn’t believe him?”

“Too many times, Mr. St. James, my brother claimed he’d finally found her. ‘She’s the one,’ he would say. ‘This woman, Ruth, is definitely the one.’ He always believed it at the moment...because he always mistook that frisson of sexual attraction for love, the way many people do. Guy’s trouble was that he couldn’t seem ever to rise above that. And when the feeling faded—as these things do—he always assumed it was the death of love and not merely a chance to begin to love.”

“Did you tell the girl’s father?” St. James asked.

Ruth walked from the desk to the model of the wartime museum on its central table. She brushed nonexistent dust from its roof. “He left me no choice. He wouldn’t end it. And it was wrong.”

“Because?”

“She’s a girl, scarcely more than a child. She’s had no experience. I was willing to turn a blind eye when he played round with older women because they were older. They knew what they were doing, no matter what they thought he was doing. But Cynthia...This was too much. He took things too far. He left me no choice but to go to Henry. It was the only way I could think of to save them both. Her from heartbreak and him from censure.”

“That didn’t work, did it?”

She turned from the museum model. “Henry didn’t kill my brother, Mr. St. James. He didn’t lay a hand on him. When he had the chance to, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Believe me. He’s not that sort of man.”

St. James saw how necessary it was for Ruth Brouard to believe in this fact. If she allowed her thoughts to go in any other direction, the responsibility she’d face would be excruciating. And what she had to bear already was excruciating enough.

He said, “Are you certain of what you saw from your window the morning your brother died, Miss Brouard?”

“I saw her,” she said. “Following him. I saw her.”

“You saw someone,” Deborah corrected her gently. “Someone in black. From a distance.”