The Mysterious Commission Read online

  ‘And very high that is, Mr Honeybath. Otherwise I shouldn’t be troubling you. And I assure you that Mr X is a very quiet gentleman – a very quiet and civilly behaved old gentleman indeed. Nothing in the nature of howls and grimaces; nothing of that sort at all. Conversable, in a manner of speaking, Mr X is. Advantages, he’s had.’ Lesson Six was fading out as Mr Peach strove to carry his point. ‘An Eton College boy in his time.’

  ‘Do I understand that he might be described as an Aristocratic Eccentric?’ Honeybath was weakening. If these people had money to burn, the sky could be pretty well the limit if one were to undertake so extraordinary a commission. ‘And is your Mr X at least sufficiently compos mentis himself to desire such a thing?’ Honeybath had a brilliant thought. ‘Would it be a comfort or consolation to him in his darkened state of mind?’

  ‘Precisely that; sir. Very much that, indeed. It is what is in the relatives’ mind. A Christian thought, Mr Honeybath.’

  ‘I see.’ Honeybath’s hand went out to the sherry decanter. ‘You had better tell me a little more about all this.’

  ‘Certainly, Mr Honeybath. Whatever my instructions allow. But confidentiality must be the keynote, if you follow me. And not only in the matter of the gentleman’s identity. His place of residence as well.’

  2

  At this point Charles Honeybath glanced rather desperately round his studio. He might have been Mr Sherlock Holmes (to whom he was addicted) hoping to secure the commonsensical if not wholly percipient counsel of his friend Dr Watson. It was upon just such unlikely missions as Mr Peach’s, indeed, that enigmatical plenipotentiaries had been prone to present themselves in Baker Street. Perhaps Mr X wasn’t a mere President or Prime Minister. Perhaps he was a Crowned Head, and Honeybath would end up with a pair of diamond cufflinks, the gift of Mr X’s second cousin once removed, a Very Gracious Lady. It would be The Case of the Mysterious Commission.

  Honeybath pulled himself together. He even pushed his own sherry-glass unobtrusively away from him. One obviously needed a clear head. Might not Watson have hinted that they were in the presence of a practical joke? Malicious rivals of Honeybath’s – and he laboured, after all, in a crowded vineyard – had got together over their own bottle of wine, and there had been a wager that he could be despatched on a fool’s errand. But where on earth had they got hold of a creature like Peach? Perhaps Peach was an out-of-work actor. And here he was, hired to practise upon the innocence of an out-of-work portrait-painter.

  These reflections – which at least showed that, at a pinch, Honeybath might prove an adversary of a wariness to be reckoned with – now suggested to him the uses of a protective irony.

  ‘Am I to be conducted into your nameless client’s presence,’ he asked, ‘at the end of a blindfolded journey in a hansom cab?’

  ‘Something of the kind would be a prerequisite, Mr Honeybath.’ Peach, recovering his more cultivated manner, enunciated this with the utmost coolness. ‘But only after an earnest of the seriousness of our intention. Guineas are a shade awkward when it comes to spot cash. But we can say one thousand pounds down.’ With a dexterity suggesting a well-rehearsed effect, Peach produced a bulky wallet from a capacious pocket. He opened it and extracted, one by one, several highly compacted bundles of what were plainly ten-pound notes. These he laid on a table in front of him. ‘Shall we count them over?’ he asked blandly.

  ‘I think not,’ Honeybath said austerely. But he was a good deal shaken. This astonishing display seemed at once to knock the practical-joke or hoax theory out of court. He had only to sweep the notes into a drawer and they did become precisely the earnest Peach had spoken of. He had only to carry them the few yards to his bank next door and they would be recoverable by Peach only at his own, Honeybath’s, pleasure. If the banknotes were forgeries (and anything seemed possible in this untoward situation), the teller would probably be sufficiently surprised at receiving so large a sum in this form to scrutinize them with sufficient care to discover the fact. He wouldn’t, on the other hand, be astounded, or even venture to ask an old-established customer questions. Honeybath knew that a good many commercial transactions were conducted on just such a cash basis, and that it was not a bank’s business to take any initiative in exploring whether some tax-dodging manoeuvre was involved. So now he temporized.

  ‘Do I understand,’ he asked, ‘that this portrait would not be painted here in my studio?’

  ‘It would not. I hope I have made it clear that a high degree of privacy is required.’

  ‘But there’s nobody here except myself. I live elsewhere, and at present I am not employing an assistant of any sort. Your client, if any slight strangeness in him makes it undesirable to attract curiosity, could come and go without the least danger of anything of the kind.’

  ‘It must be a condition, I fear, that the sittings take place in his private residence.’

  ‘And that I don’t even know where that is?’ Not unnaturally, Honeybath found it hard to accept that anything so melodramatic and absurd as this proviso was being advanced with a seriousness.

  ‘Just that.’

  ‘Very well. I will undertake the commission, Mr Peach. But, until I have familiarized myself with the circumstances, and can be assured that there is nothing scandalously irregular about so strange an arrangement, I shall require to be accompanied by a friend.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? Mr Peach, did I hear you aright?’

  ‘Certainly you did. We are trusting you’ – Peach pointed uncompromisingly at the banknotes – ‘and it’s fair that you should trust us.’

  Honeybath was baffled. Peach undeniably had a point. Moreover Honeybath doubted whether he himself had a friend in the world to whom he would care to confide the undignified and indeed demeaning bargain he seemed about to accept. But probably – he told himself – he was exaggerating that side of the thing. Sensitive natures such as his were inclined to be touchy. Peach had stated frankly that the prospective sitter was off his head. Perhaps those around him were a bit off their heads too, and it was a dotty sensitiveness of their own which had resulted in the thinking up of all this nonsense. At least he could go and see. And even before he did that, he could perhaps extract at least a modicum of further information from his visitor.

  ‘Provisionally, then,’ he said matter-of-factly, ‘the affair is settled. We can relax a little, my dear Mr Peach. May I offer you another glass of sherry?’

  Peach made no bones about embracing this further modest entertainment. He even raised his glass towards Honeybath and said ‘Cheers’ before drinking from it. Honeybath, although he might have resented so unwarranted a familiarity, decided to accept the ritual as signalling the establishment of a full measure of confidence between the contracting parties. It seemed the right moment to gather in and lock up the banknotes; and this he now briskly achieved. Peach watched him unconcernedly, even with a distinguishable air of benevolence.

  ‘Would you care to have a receipt, Mr Peach?’

  ‘Dear me, no. Nothing of the kind is at all necessary, sir. But there are one or two questions, if they may be allowed me. Sittings, for example. Would you say that fourteen are likely to be enough?’

  ‘I very much doubt it. My usual procedure–’

  ‘A pity, Mr Honeybath. Really a great pity. It is, you see, for no more than a fortnight that Mr X can be – well, put at your disposal. So it looks as if it won’t do, after all.’

  ‘My dear Mr Peach, do you really suppose that I can paint this thing in fourteen days – and work on it every day of the week? You must–’

  ‘Well, yes, Mr Honeybath. I do. It has to be regarded as part of the bargain, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I see.’ Honeybath stared at his visitor in what was – far more than at any previous stage of the interview – a sadly divided mind. Could he conceivably regard himself as retaining any shred of professional integrity if he were to allow this staring nonsense to go a single step further? But, of course, there was another way of loo
king at it. Peach and his principals (whoever they might be) were plainly persons so vastly ignorant of all aesthetic decorum that it was surely admissible to allow oneself a little licence in dealing with them. Between a finished portrait and what might be virtually a sketch in oils they would not have the slightest ability to discriminate. And he could easily lend to his likeness of Mr X the appearance of being little more than a brilliant improvisation. There would be nothing that wasn’t entirely respectable about such a frankly bravura affair – particularly as nobody was ever likely to know that he had pocketed two thousand guineas for the thing. And, as there didn’t seem to be much prospect of rational pleasure in painting a lunatic (even a harmless lunatic), the sooner the macabre but profitable episode was over the better it would be.

  ‘Very well,’ Honeybath said resignedly. ‘I’ll see what can be done.’

  ‘I’m sure I’m very grateful, sir. As Mr X’s relatives will be.’

  ‘Ah, yes – the relatives. Perhaps, Mr Peach, you wouldn’t mind telling me–’

  ‘But now another question, Mr Honeybath. If you are likely to feel a little pressed for time, sir, I wonder whether we could assist you in any way? Photographs of Mr X, for example – would they be likely to be of any use to you?’

  ‘Definitely not. I have nothing against the practice of employing photographs, and am aware that many of my most highly reputed colleagues do so.’ Honeybath was going into an impressive routine. ‘It would be entirely naïve to suppose that a portrait-painter is cheating when he employs such a resource. But it is simply not my habit. I begin by making my own sketches in pencil or crayon. There may be a dozen of them before I think of doing more than merely squaring up the canvas.’

  ‘That’s very interesting – very interesting, indeed.’ And Peach really did seem genuinely impressed. He was looking sharply at Honeybath. ‘On paper, sir, or something of the kind, these sketches would be?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘And they could be passed round? Mr X himself could have the handling of them?’

  ‘There’s no reason at all why he should not. Hold on to them, if he cared to.’

  ‘Well, Mr Honeybath, I’ll remember that. Something of a child, Mr X is, as I think I’ve hinted to you. Likes to have something to play with. And to show around.’

  ‘I see.’ Honeybath was faintly puzzled by this further twaddle. ‘And now, I’m afraid there is at least one question I must ask you. Where is this portrait you are requesting me to paint going to hang?’

  ‘To hang?’ For the first time, Peach appeared to be taken by surprise, and to find himself stumped for an answer. His instructions, perhaps, hadn’t run to this point. ‘Is the question material, Mr Honeybath?’

  ‘Of course it’s material. The scale of the thing; the pose, whether formal or relaxed; the lighting; the whole compositional key: these are all involved with the matter. You speak of Mr X’s relations as arranging the commission, which makes me incline to the supposition that the portrait is destined for a domestic setting. But I may be wrong. For all I know’ – Honeybath permitted himself a slight note of asperity – ‘your Mr X may be a retired bishop in some more than usually embarrassing stage of mental decay, and the picture destined for Lambeth Palace. Or he may have been a professor of Lord knows what, so that my work will end up in the great hall of Balliol College or Christ Church or in the London Senate House. Or he may have been an Alderman or a Lord Mayor–’

  ‘He certainly hasn’t been that, Mr Honeybath.’ Peach checked himself, and looked guilty. He had presumably been forbidden to make any positive statement whatever about the shadowy Mr X. ‘But I can tell you this. Mr X is to hang in very distinguished company – very distinguished company, indeed. Make no mistake about it. He’s been a man right at the top of his class in his time.’

  ‘I’m delighted to hear it.’ And it was certainly true that Honeybath’s curiosity was pricked. There had, for once, been an unmistakable ring of truth in Peach’s voice. He meant what he said. But Honeybath was not, in fact, all that pleased. Two thousand guineas tumbling in during a hard-up spell was quite something, but he still had his reputation to consider. Despite the hugger-mugger nature of the proposed transaction, it was not inconceivable that the portrait was really booked for some august place. He didn’t fancy the notion of a skimped and slapdash Honeybath finding itself on a line between a Reynolds and a Gainsborough, or for that matter between a Sutherland and Kokoschka. The mere thought of such a thing turned him cold. He almost saw those banknotes, tucked away so snugly in their drawer, turning to dust and ashes as they lay. ‘It must be thought about,’ he said rather feebly. ‘There must he an interval for reflection, for serious consideration of the decency of the whole thing. I insist on that.’

  ‘Oh, certainly.’ Peach was instantly amenable. ‘We have till nightfall, after all.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Not for the first time in the past half-hour, Honeybath could scarcely believe his ears. ‘Did you say nightfall?’

  ‘Just that, sir. Mr X’s relations are very sensitive about the whole matter. Insanity is always a humiliating thing in a family, wouldn’t you say? It oughtn’t to be so, but it is so. They insist that Mr X’s residence should be approached in the dark. You will agree that it is thoroughly natural, I’m sure.’

  There was a short silence – occasioned, it need hardly be said, by Honeybath’s inability to find speech. He was obliged hastily to retrieve his sherry and gulp it before contriving further utterance.

  ‘I’m to be taken to this confounded residence, as you call it, in the dark every night, and positively to work under nocturnal conditions?’

  ‘Oh, no – nothing of the kind. We quite understand that you will want to paint in daylight. That’s de rigueur, I’ve no doubt.’ Peach paused on this expression; he was obviously rather proud of it. ‘But you will go, and come away again, in the dark. I can assure you that you will be most comfortably accommodated during your little fortnight. And there’s quite a good cook.’

  Rather like a man registering stress in a stage comedy, Honeybath had produced a handkerchief and mopped his brow. But although his thoughts may have been confused he really knew that there was only one thing to do. He must fish out those banknotes, chuck them at Peach’s irritatingly faceless physiognomy, and order him out of the studio and back to the company of that impressive and patiently waiting chauffeur. And here would be the end of the affair – except, perhaps, that Honeybath would then send for the police. For it could no longer be doubted that there was something uncommonly fishy about the mysterious commission. That was the one true word about it. It had a very fish-like smell.

  ‘So shall we say nine o’clock?’ Peach had got to his feet. He had contrived – incredibly he had contrived – to shake hands in a familiar manner with Charles Honeybath. Within seconds, the painter was alone in his studio.

  Every man has his price, so Honeybath must have had his. It would be untrue, however, to assert that it had been named that afternoon. Locked in a drawer in his desk, indeed, was a carrot (or the half of a carrot) which had been potent enough through the greater part of his interview with Mr Peach. But that it was continuing to exercise its potency, or to control the situation to the exclusion of other factors, is inconceivable. Charles Honeybath was an educated man; he was, it may be repeated, conscious that he had a reputation to guard; his financial embarrassments were not of the sort that constitute a threat to tomorrow’s dinner – or indeed to any subsequent dinner, indefinitely on to the grave. It would be a perfectly well-nourished Honeybath who would eventually present himself for that final banquet at which (as the eminent preacher John Donne once remarked) one is not the feaster but the feasted upon. He was in no state of desperation whatever.

  This being so, some other impulse must have been operative in prompting Honeybath to his immediate course of conduct. Perhaps it was intellectual curiosity. He had learned all that was to be learned about portrait-painting – or at least all that was to b
e learned about it by one who was neither a Rembrandt nor a Velázquez. His range of other interests was not extensive. He was not the type of the socially accomplished artist: a William Rothenstein, say, who has known everybody and has a story about each of them. A childless widower without the inclination to marry again, he was untouched by those domestic exigencies and anxieties which serve to sop up the surplus nervous energies of many men. Again, he had never had a war to speak of; never fought in the warm rain or at the hot gates, bitten by flies. So perhaps – if very obscurely – he was looking for something. Perhaps he was so looking before it was altogether too late; looking for something to satisfy that much younger man who lurks still within many sedate outward presences, who sometimes shouts, soundlessly but urgently, beneath the plummy utterances of established middle age. Or, perhaps again, Honeybath simply obeyed a prompting to make himself a little more interesting to the world than he had been of late. Whatever the truth about Mr X might turn out to be, he promised to provide a story on the strength of which Honeybath could dine out for months ahead.

  Any or all of these things may have been true. Certain it is that, later that afternoon, the painter returned to his modest flat, packed a suitcase, left a note for the woman who came in to do for him, dined early in his favourite Italian restaurant, went back to the studio and did some more extensive getting together of the necessities of his craft there.

  And it was thus that nine o’clock came round.

  3

  Punctually the bell rang, and Honeybath went to the door. He expected to be confronted once more by the confidential Peach, but the man before him was the chauffeur. The car, since it was parked under a streetlamp, could be clearly seen, and it was evident that it was empty. There was nothing particularly disconcerting about this, but Honeybath nevertheless found that he was annoyed. He had, after a fashion, got to know Peach, and it had been obscurely in his head that during this drive – whether it was to prove long or short – he could, so to speak, go on with the fellow from where he had left off, and possibly extract at least a few additional scraps of useful information. But perhaps this unexpected state of affairs would actually prove advantageous. He might be able to pump the chauffeur.