His At Night

She scrambled off the bed, where she’d sat frozen. “Ah, no, Pe

“Oh, look, Angelica, your hat is on the floor.” He picked up her hat and handed it to her.

“My,” she said. “I wonder how that happened.”

Pe

Freddie, flushed scarlet, cleared his throat. “What—what brought you to London, Pe

“Oh, the usual. Then I remembered I still had the key to your house and thought I’d come by and see you.”

“It’s always good to see you, Pe

Pe

“How are Lady Vere and her aunt taking the news?”

“As well as could be expected, I suppose. Although I suspect I’ve been a true bulwark to them in this awful time. But there’s nothing any of us can do, so we might as well talk about happier things.”

He looked about the studio, his gaze landing, to Angelica’s dismay, on the covered canvas. “Did you just say you’ve been spending a lot of time in the studio, Freddie? Is it for the commission you accepted right around the time of my wedding?”

“Yes, but I’m not quite finished yet.”

“Is that it?” Pe

“Pe

He turned around. “Yes, Angelica?”

“Freddie and I were just about to leave to call on the art dealer Signor Cipriani,” she said. “You want to come along?”

“That’s right, Pe

“Why are you calling on him?”

“You remember the painting at Highgate Court, the one of which I took photographs?” Freddie rushed, his words stumbling over themselves. “Angelica has been helping me track down the painting’s provenance. We think a painting by the same artist passed through Cipriani’s hands—and Cipriani never forgets anything.”

Pe

They ushered Pe

Pe

“Come back to my house later?” she murmured. Her servants had the afternoon off.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Douglas had not talked while awaiting trial—set for five days hence—but progress had nevertheless been made on the case.

Based on information they had uncovered from the coded dossier, Lady Kingsley had tracked down a safety-deposit box in London that contained a thick stack of letters addressed to a Mr. Frampton. The letters were from the diamond dealers, each agreeing to look at Frampton’s artificial diamonds.

“You see,” Lady Kingsley had said excitedly at their meeting in the morning, “that’s how he got the diamond dealers to cough up the money. I think in the begi

For Vere, however, the most crucial piece of the puzzle still remained missing: the true identity of the man now known as Edmund Douglas. Until Freddie and Angelica mentioned their own investigation, he’d never thought to pursue that particular line of inquiry. Now he could have slapped himself for overlooking such obvious and important clues.

Sometimes it was better to be lucky than to be good.

Cipriani was about seventy-five years of age and lived in a large flat in Kensington. Vere had expected a place overflowing with art, but Cipriani was a ruthless curator of his own collection. The parlor where he received them had a Greuze and a Brueghel and nothing else.

Angelica described the painting she and Freddie had seen in the vicarage at Lyndhurst Hall—Vere had not paid any attention to it, apparently. Cipriani listened with his hands tented together.

“I do remember. I bought it from a young man in the spring of ’seventy.”

Twenty-seven years ago.

“Was he the artist?” asked Angelica.

“He claimed that it had been a gift. But judging by his nervousness while I assessed his painting, I would say he was the artist. Of course, there was also the coincidence that the artist’s initials were the same as his.”

Vere hoped his best vapid expression was enough to hide his excitement. He further hoped either Freddie or Angelica would inquire after the young man’s name.

“What was his name?” Freddie asked.

“George Carruthers.”

George Carruthers. It might be a pseudonym, but at least it was a place to start.

“Have you ever come across him or his works again?” asked Angelica.

Cipriani shook his head. “I do not believe so. A shame, rather, as he had more than a modicum of talent. With proper instruction and dedication, he could have made some interesting art.”

The subject of George Carruthers exhausted, Angelica and Freddie talked with the old man on the latest developments in art. Vere did not fail to notice the way they glanced at each other—he could only hope that he hadn’t interrupted their very first instance of lovemaking.

He smiled inwardly. He had always wished fervently for Freddie’s happiness: not only for Freddie’s sake, but for his own, so that he could one day live vicariously through Freddie’s domestic bliss.

Presupposing that he himself must always be on the outside looking in. That his own life would remain barren of the kind of contentment he so easily imagined for Freddie.

He remembered the way his wife had looked at him the day before, above the banks of the River Dourt: as if he were full of possibilities. As if they were full of possibilities.

But his mind was already made up. It was time she understood.

When they rose to bid Cipriani good-bye, Vere suddenly remembered that there was something more he wished to know, a question that no one else had asked.

So he did the asking himself. “Mr. Carruthers, did he say why he was selling his painting?”

“Yes, he did,” replied Cipriani. “He mentioned he was raising funds for a venture to South Africa.”