[Poppy Denby 05] - The Art Fiasco Read online

  “Don’t worry, Poppy,” soothed Dot, “Yasmin will get to the bottom of it. She sent a telegram, by the way. She’ll be arriving at three o’clock. Will you be able to meet her?”

  “I don’t think we’ll be back from Morpeth by then. I’ll ask Delilah if she can pick her up. Do you think she can use the Rolls?”

  “Of course! She knows where the keys are kept. Right, Poppy, will you take the gentlemen upstairs to Agnes’ room? I’ll get us some drinks for when you get back down. Shouldn’t take you too long. Sherry, everyone?”

  Gus, Gerald, and Poppy all said yes to a nightcap and then went upstairs. Agnes’ attic bedroom was not as neat as she’d left it. Clothes and personal items were scattered across the bed and the floor after the police had searched them earlier in the day. Poppy hadn’t been there when it happened so wasn’t sure what they had taken. There wasn’t much anyway – just the contents of a large suitcase that Agnes had brought with her. Her fur coat was still at the Laing, and of course the beautiful green velvet gown she had worn to the reception was with her at the mortuary. Poppy and the two men wordlessly started gathering and folding, placing everything back in the suitcase. Poppy came across the catalogue for the Robson exhibition at the Laing under a discarded silk stocking. She matched the stocking with its mate on the bed and then paged through the catalogue. She could not find the two paintings she had seen earlier that day.

  “Er Gus, Gerald…” she said.

  Gerald tapped Gus’ arm and turned him towards Poppy so he could see that she was speaking to them.

  “Gentlemen, when I was at the gallery this afternoon the caretaker told me that he had last opened the back door in order to bring in two paintings that arrived late. Do you know anything about them? They’re not in this catalogue, so I’m wondering if they were intended to be at the exhibition in the first place, or were just afterthoughts.”

  Gus and Gerald looked at one another. Gus nodded to Gerald to speak on their behalf.

  “Er, yes. We brought them up with us on the train.”

  “So you brought them in with you when you arrived at the exhibition?”

  “No, we brought them around earlier. We came straight from the station, dropped off the paintings, and then went to the hotel for an early supper before we came to the exhibition proper.”

  “Oh,” said Poppy. “All right. That makes sense. So you dropped them at the back entrance?”

  Gerald nodded. “Yes. All paintings get received there. Out of the public view. Sherman sent us instructions in a telegram.”

  “Mr Sherman was in contact with you?”

  “Of course. Agnes never dealt with these sorts of arrangements. That’s why she hired a manager. I set the whole exhibition up with Sherman. Which was why it was such bad luck when I fell ill. Poor Agnes had to come on her own.”

  “Why didn’t Gus come with her?”

  Gerald looked at Gus. Gus replied. It was the first time she had heard him speak since the previous evening. “Agnes and I would have struggled without Gerald.”

  “But you are – were – her assistant.”

  “Her studio assistant. I helped her keep her paints in order. Primed her canvases. Framed her paintings. We got on very well. But socially… she struggled with me being deaf. She was shy and needed someone to talk for her sometimes. I couldn’t do that easily. Gerald could. So…” He spread his hands and shrugged. Poppy waited for him to say more. He didn’t.

  “So,” she continued, feeling she still hadn’t got to the bottom of the paintings, “why did you bring them up separately? Gerald?”

  “Sherman asked for them. Agnes hadn’t put them forward for display – as you can see from the original catalogue – but Sherman had seen them on a visit to Agnes’ studio and specifically asked for them.”

  “How strange,” said Poppy. “Why didn’t Agnes put them forward? Do you know?”

  Gerald looked at Gus who, after pausing to formulate his words, said: “Agnes had decided to rework Lilies in a Vase. She had never been happy with it. She didn’t think it was ready to show.”

  “So, that’s why the paint wasn’t quite dry… How strange, though, that you brought it even though it was wet.”

  Gus shrugged. “Oil paints can take many weeks to dry properly. Sherman wanted it and we saw no need not to bring it.”

  “No need? What about that Agnes didn’t want it shown?”

  Gerald and Gus looked at one another. Gus nodded to Gerald, who took over the conversation. “Agnes could be… well… she could be erratic. What she said one day wasn’t always what she said the next. So we took the chance that she wouldn’t mind. And besides, Dante Sherman can be very persuasive.”

  “Oh? How’s that?”

  Gerald cleared his throat. “He’s, well, very influential. For a man of his age. He has got one of the top jobs in the region. And he has friends at other galleries. If he took offence to something, it might influence other galleries.”

  Poppy was surprised. She had always been under the impression that it was famous artists that called the shots, not gallery curators. But, she had to admit, she didn’t know that much about it. Might be worth doing a feature article on it when she got back to London… She brought herself back to the present.

  “So had Agnes changed her mind? When she saw the paintings had arrived?”

  Gerald shrugged. “I’m not sure. She didn’t say.”

  Poppy nodded. From what she had gathered so far, that was very much like Agnes. She would often bottle things up – not say exactly what she felt. “I see. Oh – and the railway one – why didn’t she want that one to be exhibited?”

  This time it was Gus who spoke, slowly and carefully. “That I don’t know. She just didn’t put it forward. She never gave a reason.”

  “But it’s been seen before, hasn’t it? By the Tate?”

  Gus shook his head. “No, it wasn’t at the Tate exhibition.”

  “And why’s that?”

  Again Gus shrugged. Poppy frowned. She had not yet mentioned the letter she had seen from the Tate about authentication. But why had neither Gus nor Gerald mentioned it? Clearly the Tate had seen it, even if it hadn’t been exhibited. Was there some question over its authenticity? Poppy felt she needed to talk to Yasmin about it and decided not to press Agnes’ colleagues further now.

  “All right, thanks.”

  “Why do you ask?” asked Gerald. “Do you think this has something to do with her death?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Gerald. It’s just something that struck me as out of the ordinary. Those are the first things I look for when I’m investigating.”

  Gerald opened his eyes wide in surprise. “You’re investigating?”

  Poppy picked up a skirt and folded it along the waistband. “Not officially, no, but Yasmin has asked me to do a bit of digging. And as you probably know, I’ve done this sort of thing before.”

  Gerald grinned. “Yes, your sleuthing exploits are well known, Miss Denby.”

  Poppy smiled and continued folding. As she did, a photograph slipped out of the pocket of the skirt. She bent down and picked it up. It was a photograph of a painting of a young woman – not much older than a girl – with long black hair. The girl was naked, sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees. The nudity was obvious but no breasts or genitalia were shown. It was, Poppy supposed, what would be considered a “tasteful” nude. The girl looked out of the painting, her dark eyes innocent, not seductive. Who was she? She was vaguely familiar… Poppy turned the photo over and saw some handwriting: Stay away.

  She held the photo up for Gerald and Gus to see. “Do either of you know what this is? Is it one of Agnes’ paintings?”

  Gerald took it and examined it. “No, not as far as I know. It’s not her style, is it, Gus?”

  Gus was looking at the photograph, his face visibly paling. Then he shook his head firmly. “No, I’ve never seen it. Excuse me.” The young man turned on his heel and left.

  Gerald called af
ter him: “Gus! Are you all right?” Then he muttered an expletive, apologized to Poppy, and said: “He can’t hear me. I’m sorry Poppy, I need to see if he’s all right. This business with Agnes has hit him very hard. Can you finish here on your own?”

  “I can,” said Poppy and watched sympathetically as the manager went to comfort his friend. However, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Gus actually had recognized the painting.

  She slipped the photograph into her own skirt pocket then finished packing Agnes’ suitcase.

  CHAPTER 14

  SATURDAY, 5 OCTOBER 1924, MORPETH, NORTHUMBERLAND

  At ten o’clock on Saturday morning a train pulled into Morpeth Station. Waiting for it was a tall, grey-blonde man of sixty, wearing a black suit and a clerical collar. The Reverend Malcolm Denby was as lean and wiry as he had been when he was twenty-five years old and left his law studies at Durham University to marry an earnest Methodist girl whom he had met handing out free cups of soup to the poor of Newcastle. Malcolm, on his weekends home from Durham, started attending Brunswick Methodist Chapel in the centre of the city, rather than the high Church of England St George’s, in well-to-do Jesmond, which his family had attended for four generations. Alice Drew, the girl who had first caught his attention on a freezing cold morning on Northumberland Street, was a greengrocer’s daughter. Her father had a stall in Newcastle’s Grainger Market, and her mother, like all decent women, stayed home and looked after the house and their six children. Alice was the youngest child and had not had any formal education other than that offered on Sundays by Brunswick Methodist. But what she lacked in intellectual learning, she made up for in goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. She spoke to him often about the Fruit of the Spirit and how she felt called to help those less fortunate than herself – all in the name of her beautiful saviour, Jesus Christ. As he came from a family that was far more fortunate than hers, and had, after all, been baptized in the name of the same beautiful saviour, he felt stirred to do the same.

  Despite his family not considering Alice a good match, he married her anyway, in 1894, and changed his course from law to theology. A few years later he became an ordained Methodist minister, and he and Alice, and their two-year-old son Christopher, took up one of the mission’s more challenging posts in the twin mining villages of Ashington and Hirst, in Northumberland.

  The post was a hard slog. The miners were glad of the practical support of the mission – the Sunday school for the children and the access to spiritual services for baptisms, weddings, and funerals – but the expectation that they were to give up their one free day a week, where they didn’t have to go underground and could spend time in the fresh air and sun, was too much to ask for some. Beyond that, the mine itself provided leisure activities for its workers and their families – including galas, fairs, brass bands, and an array of educational courses held through the Miners’ Institute. Ashington was considered a model mining community by industry standards, and even boasted a state-of-the-art sports ground. Over the years Ashington had produced some fine sportsmen, including cricketers, rugby players, and footballers, some of whom were to eventually play for regional and national teams. Add to all that the lure of dog racing and fighting, as well as the all-consuming passion of pigeon rearing and racing, and the Methodist Mission – and indeed all of the other church groups trying to save souls in the town – were hard pressed to offer anything other than spiritual succour; and for many they found that at the Kicking Cuddy, anyway. Eventually, though, Malcolm and Alice’s hard work bore fruit, and a small, but thriving congregation took root, justifying the building of a fine stone chapel.

  They spent five years there, including their time overseeing the building project, and despite the many challenges, they were some of the happiest of their lives. It was there that young Christopher grew from a toddler to a child. And it was there that beautiful Poppy was born. But Malcolm knew it was also a hard time for his wife, Alice. He spent most of his time preparing sermons and officiating at services, but it was Alice who took the brunt of the day-to-day troubles of the miners and their families.

  Only this morning, after reading Walter Foster’s article in the Morpeth Herald about the murder of Agnes Robson, had he been reminded of the time when Alice had tried to help the unfortunate woman when she was a young girl, and all the rigmarole around it. It was that, he recalled, that had eventually prompted them to apply for the position at the more well-todo Morpeth Methodist. Alice could no longer take the hatred and vitriol thrown at the Robson family and their supporters after the death of the art teacher and the revelation that the young girl had been having conjugal relations with him, while the children of the miners innocently painted in the next room. To this day, Malcolm still shook his head at how the townsfolk saw the Robson girl as a willingly fallen woman, not a victim of a seducer who took advantage of his position of power.

  But now she was dead. He had been shocked to read that his very own Poppy had witnessed the death, and that his sister’s friend Grace had been arrested. He had hidden the newspaper from Alice over breakfast. He knew how she felt about their daughter’s wild escapades as a reporter and sleuth in London, which despite Poppy’s best efforts to play them down, sometimes still made it into the regional press up north. He too was worried about her, but unlike his wife had grown proud of their only daughter, and begrudgingly come to respect her choice of career. Alice, he knew, did not think she should even have a career; she thought that paid work was not something a Christian woman should aspire to – unless it was as the wife of a clergyman (with a two-for-the-price-of-one stipend) or, at a push, a teacher or a nurse. However, even those jobs should be given up to serve husband and family when the time came. And the pursuit of a husband and family – after pursuit of a relationship with God – should be their daughter’s primary goal.

  Malcolm, as a good Christian man himself, paid lip service to these views. Yet, secretly, he admired women who made a go of things. His Aunt Mabel had been a marvellous traveller and adventurer. His own sister, Dot, had moved to London back in the early 1900s and made a name for herself as one of the leading actresses of her day. And then, of course, she had become one of the famous Chelsea Six suffragettes, and helped pave the way for women to get the vote. As a political socialist, Malcolm quietly welcomed the extension of suffrage, but his wife, he knew, did not. And despite now qualifying herself to vote, he knew she had not yet acted upon it.

  Malcolm sighed inwardly. He had hoped that today, on the celebration of his sixtieth birthday, the Denbys would be able to have a rigmarole-free family get-together, with some friends and congregants from the church. But with the death of Agnes, and the supposed involvement of Grace Wilson (what in heaven’s name was going on there?), it would be far from it. Nonetheless, as the door of the train carriage opened and he saw his sister and daughter waiting to disembark, his heart leapt with happiness. He loved these two women, no matter what shenanigans they got up to.

  He waved at them: “Dot! Poppy! Over here!”

  A quarter of an hour later – with the help of station porters – Dot was disembarked from the train and into an awaiting taxi, her wheelchair strapped to the back. Malcolm got in the back with Poppy while Dot took the front seat. He directed the driver to take them to St Mary’s churchyard. “Your mother is there.”

  Poppy nodded. Her brother, Christopher, had died two days before her father’s birthday. It was the ninth anniversary of his death today.

  “Actually, Daddy, could you drop me at the graveyard? I wouldn’t mind going to visit Christopher too. I shall see if Mother wants to walk back with me. Or we can catch a bus. Is that all right?”

  Her father, his shoulder pressed against hers in the snug confines of the taxi, squeezed her hand. “Actually, I think that’s a good idea, pet. Your mother will be pleased to spend some time alone with you before everyone starts arriving for the buffet lunch. Your aunt and I can catch up, too.”

  “Splendid idea!�
�� said Dot, turning around and beaming at her brother.

  Poppy smiled to herself. Dot was never good at hiding her true feelings. What she really meant was: What a relief that I don’t have to spend as much time with my sister-in-law as I first feared.

  The taxi driver pulled up outside the cemetery and let Poppy out.

  “We’ll see you in about an hour,” said her father, and waved to her as they pulled off.

  Poppy climbed the stone steps and skirted around the 600-year-old church of St Mary the Virgin. She picked her way through fallen grave markers – some nearly as old as the church itself – and made her way towards her brother’s grave in the more modern part of the cemetery. Under a spreading yew, burgeoning with red berries, she came across the family burial plot of the Davison family. She stopped for a few moments to pay her respects. Buried along with other family members was Emily Wilding Davison, the suffragette who died protesting in favour of women’s suffrage at the Derby back in 1913.

  It was two years before her brother died and a year before the Great War started. She had been fourteen and her brother seventeen. They had joined a crowd of thousands lining the streets to honour the return of Emily’s body. Aunt Dot, Grace, and the four other members of the Chelsea Six had come north to attend the memorial. Soon afterwards, two of their members would be imprisoned for arson, when they returned to London. But for now, they were all together and she, Christopher, and both her parents had come to pay their respects. Poppy’s mother – although not a supporter of women’s suffrage – came out of respect for a fellow Christian woman and Methodist.

  Poppy wished she had some flowers to place on the grave, but all she had were her warm thoughts and prayers. She thanked God for Emily’s life and for the brave women – like her aunt and friends – who were inspired by her. She prayed too for Emily’s family, who, eleven years later, would still be feeling the loss of their loved one. And then she turned left towards where her own loved one lay.