“The fund?”
Matthew plunked three sugar cubes into his mug and stirred it with a ceramic-handled spoon. His father, he explained, had established a foundation some years ago to fund creative artists. The money was used to send actors and musicians to school, to back new productions, to launch new plays by unknown playwrights, to support lyricists and composers who were just starting their careers. With David King-Ryder's death, all monies accrued from his work would go into that fund. Aside from a bequest to his fifth and final wife, the David King-Ryder Fund was the sole beneficiary of King-Ryder's will.
“I didn't know that,” Barbara said, impressed. “Generous bloke. Nice of him to give others a leg-up.”
“He was a decent man, my dad. He wasn't that much of a father when my sister and I were young, and he didn't believe in handouts or in coddling anyone. But he supported talent wherever he found it if the artist was willing to work. And that's a brilliant legacy, if you ask me.”
“Too bad, what happened. I mean … you know.”
“Thanks. It was … I still don't understand it.” Matthew examined the rim of his coffee mug. “What was so bloody strange was that he had a hit after all those rotten years. The audience went wild before the curtain call began, and he was there. He saw it. Even the critics were on their feet. So the reviews were going to be like a miracle. He had to have known.”
Barbara knew the story. Opening night of Hamlet. A brilliant success after years of failure. No note left behind to explain his actions, the composer/lyricist offed himself with a single shot to the head while his wife was having a bath in the very next room.
“You were close to your dad,” Barbara noted, seeing the grief still evident in Matthew King-Ryder's expression.
“Not as a child or an adolescent. But in the final years I was. Yes. I was. But obviously, not close enough.” Matthew blinked and took a gulp of his coffee. “Right, then. Enough. You've come on business. You said you wanted to see me about Terence …. That boy in black who came to see me in Soho.”
“Yes. Terence Cole.” Barbara gave Matthew the facts in anticipation of his verifying them. “Neil Sitwell—he's the head muckety over at Bowers in Cork Street—said he sent him to you with a piece of handwritten music by Michael Chandler that he'd come across. He figured you'd know how Terry could contact the solicitors for the Chandler estate.”
Matthew frowned. “He did? That's extraordinary.”
“You wouldn't know how to contact those solicitors?” Barbara asked. That hardly seemed credible.
Matthew hastened to correct her. “Obviously, I know the Chandler solicitors. I know the Chandlers themselves, if it comes down to it. Michael had four children and they're all still in London. As is his widow. But the boy didn't mention Bowers when he came to see me. He didn't mention a Neil Sitwell either. And most important, he didn't mention any music.”
“He didn't? Then why did he ask to see you?”
“He said he'd heard about the Fund. Well, he would have done, wouldn't he, since it got a lot of press when Dad died. Cole hoped for patronage. He brought me some photos of his work.”
Barbara felt as if cobwebs were filling her skull, so unprepared had she been for this information. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I'm sure. He had a portfolio with him and I thought at first he was hoping for financial support while he studied to be a set or costume designer. Because, like I said, those are the people the Fund supports: artists who're connected with the theatre in one way or another. Not artists in general. But he didn't know this. Or he misunderstood. Or he'd misread the details somewhere … I don't know.”
“Did he show you what he had in the portfolio?”
“Pictures of his work, most of it pretty awful. Gardening tools bent this way and that. I don't know much about modern art, but from what I could see, I'd say he needed to think about another profession.”
Barbara mused. When, she asked, had the visit from Terry Cole occurred?
Matthew thought for a moment and left the room to fetch his diary, which he carried back to the sitting room, open upon his palm. He hadn't recorded the visit since the Cole boy hadn't phoned for an appointment in advance. But it had been a day when Ginny—his father's widow—had been in the office and he had made note of that. Matthew gave Barbara the date. It was the very day of Terry Cole's death.
“Of course, I didn't tell him what I actually thought of his work. There would have been no point in that. And besides, he seemed so earnest about it.”