Nine Buck's Row (9 page)

Once set free, Scrappy raced about the studio with great abandon, delighted by all the wonderful new things to examine. The room was enormous, the roof sloping down steeply at the rear, half of it fitted with heavily leaded glass panes to make a skylight. Sunlight streamed down, mercilessly exposing the shambles. There was a long wooden table littered with newspapers and pots of paint, a shabby pink couch with a dented pillow and soiled sheets, an old black Franklin stove with its pipe climbing up to the ceiling, two disreputable chairs, stacks of canvases leaning against the walls. It was a wildly disorganized room, but there was a certain charm. Sketches had been tacked on the huge mahogany wardrobe, and a green silk Chinese screen concealed part of one corner.

Daniel Lord lighted the kindling in the squatty black stove, and there were ominous noises as the heat began to crackle. He put a fat brown kettle full of water on the stove and dug around until he located a small red lacquer box of tea, handing it to me with a flourish.

“You'll find cups and saucers somewhere,” he promised, “and I believe there's a tin of biscuits. Looking for them should keep you occupied for a while. I'll make myself presentable—”

He took some things from the wardrobe and stepped behind the screen in the corner. I could hear him moving about and splashing water as I looked for the biscuits, finally locating them under the sofa, and the cups and saucers, neatly stacked on a shelf beside cans of varnish and paint. I made the tea and opened the tin of biscuits, small flaky squares with chocolate icing. Everything was ready when he stepped from behind the screen.

He had changed into a green and gray checked tweed suit with matching vest, a gold watch-chain stretching across his stomach. The clothes were of fine quality but rather shabby, as though they'd been worn too many times. The overall effect was almost comic, and he looked like nothing so much as an impudent child masquerading as an adult.

I served the tea, and he sat down in one of the rickety chairs, crossing his right ankle over his left knee and balancing the saucer in his lap while taking one of the biscuits.

“Tell me about yourself,” he said. “Are you really Nicholas Craig's ward?”

“Yes,” I replied. “It—it happened rather suddenly.”

A strange look passed over his face. “I heard about that. I'm sorry, Susannah.”

“I'd rather not talk about it.”

“Quite understandable. Life is much too grim. We should concentrate on the bright things. How do you find the worthy Mr. Craig?”

“He—he's all right.”

“Rather a stick, I'd say. Grim fellow, always looks like he's staring into an open grave.”

“You're a friend of his?”

“Hardly that. I've passed him on the stairs a time or two. He's very suspicious of me. Different philosophies of life.”

“What's your philosophy, Mr. Lord?”

“Daniel, please. My philosophy? Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

“That's not very original,” I replied.

“Granted, but it's the best I've got to offer. We live in an age of grave responsibility and duty. Duty to family, duty to England, duty to the Queen. We're stifled by dull convention. We're shackled by meaningless formality. We're repressed by absurd moral codes. As a result, hypocrisy is rampant. Anyone with courage is a misfit.”

“Are you a misfit?” I asked quietly.

“I try to live with courage,” he said, “but then I'm a black sheep—undeniably.”

He frowned, the generous mouth pressed tight. His blue-gray eyes were dark, and he looked genuinely disturbed. All the vivacity seemed to have gone out of him, and I had the feeling that he was an essentially sad person, the frivolity merely an affectation. He quite obviously came from a good family—his voice was cultured, his face had the smooth, imperious features of the landed gentry. He had called himself a black sheep. Black sheep might rebel and eagerly leave the flock, but they were of necessity alone, cut adrift from all that was familiar.

“Duty bores me,” he continued in a low voice. “Responsibility doesn't sit well on my shoulders. I'm a man, not a machine that can be wound up and made to perform in a prescribed manner.” He looked up at me, glaring, and then he laughed softly and shrugged his shoulders. The brooding man disappeared, and the merry lad returned.

“I'm being a wretched host! Forgive me. These periods of gloom come over all of us. Fog over a sunny day. Alas, people are never what they seem to be, Susannah.”

“I've discovered that.”

“Already? Then you're indeed fortunate.”

I set down my empty teacup and glanced at the clock sitting on one of the cluttered shelves. Scrappy was fighting with a pile of paint-speckled rags, scattering them in all directions. I. gathered him up in my arms and smiled politely at Daniel Lord.

“Thank you for the tea. I'd better go now. I want to pay my friend a visit, and—”

“What? You'd leave without asking to see my work? That's the rankest sort of insult to an artist. Come, let me show you my pretty pictures. I'm quite good, actually, though you'd never know it from looking at my more popular things.”

He smiled charmingly, set his teacup aside, and leaped up to take my elbow and show me around the room, pointing out various paintings. I knew very little about art, but I could see that the paintings weren't really much good. Most of them depicted the countryside, what looked like Scotland, with lots of moors and heather and crumbling old castles in the background. While the details were sharply executed, the colors were much too bright, and he lacked a sense of artistic balance. I listened intently as he told me what he was attempting in a given canvas, what he had hoped to achieve with the various combinations of greens and yellows.

I made polite comments and gave my full attention to the pictures, but it was plain to see that Daniel Lord was little more than an amateur. Anyone at all might have done as well with the proper tools and a few lessons. I found this rather sad, for he was so obviously proud of his work.

One painting was particularly disturbing. Artistically, it was better executed than the others, but the subject matter was alarming. It depicted the carcass of a deer hanging on a pole, a servant with a knife gutting it while a gentleman in deerstalker cap and tweed suit watched, the butt of his gun resting beside a polished black boot. There was much blood and an aura of savage cruelty.

“Lovely, isn't it?” he said.

“I think it's disgusting.”

“Bravo! It's supposed to be. The noble sport—shown for what it actually is. See the look of achievement in the man's eyes as he watches? See his arrogant satisfaction? I've captured it splendidly. The painting shows the barbarism of our national past-time.”

I stared at the painting, repelled yet fascinated at the same time. He must have known quite a bit about hunting to have achieved those effects, I thought. Only someone with a thorough knowledge of the sport could have depicted it in such accurate detail.

Daniel Lord seemed to read my thoughts.

“Yes, I used to hunt,” he said lightly. “When I was younger I rode the hounds with the best of them, a proper Englishman with gun in arm. I was inordinately proud of my trophies. I was, in fact, very much like the fellow in the painting, and then—” He paused, shaking his head as though in disbelief.

“And then?” I prompted.

“I grew up,” he said. “I learned that a man didn't have to kill in order to prove himself a man. I realized it was just another of the hypocrisies we practice in a supposedly civilized country.”

We were silent for a moment, and then Daniel Lord shrugged his shoulders and gave me a jaunty smile. “So much for art,” he said, leading me over to the table. “Now we'll take a look at commerce.
This
is what I do for money. It's a shocking compromise, but it pays the rent—”

He picked up a portfolio of watercolors and spread the pictures out in a row on the edge of the table. There were six, each a portrait of a beautiful woman: a heavy-lidded blonde, a sultry brunette, a spirited redhead, and so on. Each wore an elaborate coiffure. Each had dark, limpid eyes and a coy, inviting smile. I was reminded of the series of Windsor ladies Sir Peter Lely had painted for the Duchess of York in the seventeenth century. These portraits were as lush and provocative, every bit as good.

“You sell them?” I inquired.

“These lovely ladies adorn the inside lid of cigar boxes. A gentleman opens his cigar box and a seductive female smiles up at him. I suppose it encourages him to smoke more. Anyway, my ladies are extremely popular with the manufacturers.”

“You must have known some very beautiful women,” I said.

He smiled wryly and put the pictures back in the portfolio, tossing it aside carelessly. He was an attractive man, I thought, with the solid, unassuming good looks typical of the English. His face was too long, and the full mouth was out of keeping, but these flaws merely emphasized the overall effect.

“I've known a few,” he said in reply to my comment. “Beautiful women aren't very hard to come by if you know where to look.”

“Oh?”

“I generally know where to look,” he replied.

He gazed into my eyes, his own full of amusement. I could easily see why beautiful women would be attracted to him. He had great appeal, a personal magnetism that drew one to him, and there was strength and authority as well, despite his jaunty mannerisms.

“I'd like to paint you sometime, Susannah,” he said.

“Whatever for? I don't look like any of those women.”

“You've got a special quality—youth, for one thing, and innocence. It's far more interesting.”

I didn't know what to reply. Daniel Lord tilted his head back and gave a jolly little chuckle, amused by something. Scrappy made fretful noises, growing uncomfortable. He pushed against my arms with tiny paws, eager to be set down again.

“Run along,” he said. “Your guardian would have an attack if he knew you were up here alone with such a depraved character.”

“I—I'll try to see that Scrappy doesn't wake you up again. I hope we didn't intrude.”

“It was a most welcome intrusion,” he said, leading me to the door. On the landing he made another mock bow and smiled that engaging smile that made him seem so young. He had so much charm, such obvious breeding. As I took Scrappy back down to my bedroom, I couldn't help but wonder what combination of circumstances had caused a man like Daniel Lord to end up in a dingy attic studio in the East End.

7

As I walked briskly down Old Montague Street, I could see Millie standing in front of the block of flats, talking to a tall, slender bobby. She wore a vivid green dress, and her long coppery red curls glistened as she tilted her head back to look into the bobby's eyes. He had a stern expression, and as I drew nearer I was surprised to see that it was Sergeant Caine, blond waves temporarily restrained by his sleek black helmet. He looked very manly in his neat uniform and the short, shiny black cape, his truncheon hanging from a belt loop.

“Hello, Suzy!” Millie cried. “Doesn't Jamie look delicious in his new uniform? Imagine, he's pounding the beat now. Isn't that divine?”

“Afternoon, ma'am,” Caine muttered. His cheeks were flushed a faint pink, and his blue eyes were filled with anger. Millie smiled prettily. I was reminded of a perky little terrier pestering a solemn Great Dane. Caine was trying hard to keep his composure under her barrage of aggravation.

“Such broad shoulders,” she said. “I never
realized
. Do you promise to protect us from the fiend, Jamie?”

“That's my job,” he said angrily.

“I'll feel ever so much safer, knowing you're around,” she told him, brown eyes sparkling mischievously. “You'd better run along now. Perhaps I'll see you tonight. I'll throw you a kiss from the window when you pass by.”

Sergeant Caine curled his fingers around the butt of his truncheon and marched on down the street, quite formidable despite his youth. Millie gave a delighted laugh and seized my hand, watching the black cape swirl about his shoulders as he moved away.

“He's been demoted,” she said happily. “Isn't it wonderful? No more cushy jobs at Scotland Yard. Now he's got to patrol an area just like the other bobbies. And it's all your fault, Suzy!”

“
My
fault? What do you mean?”

“Sir Charles Warren was furious that he'd allowed you to speak to that journalist chap, had him on the carpet as soon as he got back from leaving here yesterday. Breathing fire, he was, and upbraided him properly, told him he needed to see what the life of a bobby was really like. He assigned him to this beat as punishment.”

“But that's awful—” I protested.

“Not at all. Jamie's pleased, actually. He won't have Sir Charles breathing down his neck, for one thing, and, for another, he'll have an opportunity to keep an eye on
me
! He couldn't be happier about it. Isn't he the most adorable man? Much too strait-laced, of course, but so
master
ful! When he looks at me with those disapproving eyes I feel ever so cozy and warm.”

“I thought you said he was a bore?” I remarked.

“That was
yesterday
,” she replied blithely. “Come on, let's go upstairs. He came to call on me last night,” she continued, leading me up the flight of rickety wooden stairs. “He brought me a box of chocolates and told me all about what happened. Then he gave me a stern lecture on propriety—really, the most amusing man! Said he was taking over and I wasn't to see any other men. I told him to go hang, naturally, and I thought he was going to
beat
me.”

Millie's father met us on the landing. Sturdy and physical, he was nevertheless absent-minded, a great amiable bear of a man who couldn't understand how he had come to be saddled with such a flighty daughter.