A Family Affair

A Family Affair by Michael Innes Page B

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Authors: Michael Innes
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after all, been running the place. He hadn’t, of course, himself seen either of the defrauded gentlemen, or taken any part in investigating their not very pertinaciously preferred complaints. But at least he had heard about them. Some capital could be made out of that.
    Appleby looked at his watch. At a pinch they could not merely find him a room in the club but produce the customary adjuncts of civilized slumber as well. And he could simply ring through to Judith. But first he had better check on whether anything could in fact be done that evening. Carrington was almost certainly a totally rural character, coming up to town once a year for a house dinner or the Eton and Harrow Match. Meatyard, on the other hand, sounded a metropolitan type. He would live surprisingly close to the West End in a surprisingly suburban sort of villa of the more commodious – or indeed imposing – type. Appleby made his way to the telephone directories. There wouldn’t be all that number of Meatyards in London. It was the sort of surname a lawyer would strongly advise you against dropping into a novel or a play.
    But what was a meatyard? Flicking through the pages, Appleby found time to ask himself this question. Had he ever found himself in a meatyard? No. Had he ever heard such a place mentioned? No. It was probably fallacious to equate Mr Meatyard with, say, Mr Cowmeadow or Mr Swineherd. ‘Meatyard’ was a corruption of something highly Anglo-Norman. This Mr Meatyard (the Sir Joshua one) was not in fact a simple citizen who had been practised upon as a consequence of defective education. He was simple because effete. He would prove to be like Lord Cockayne, only very much more so.
    Appleby found his man, and dialled his number.
     
    ‘I went into it,’ Mr Meatyard said. ‘I went into it thoroughly. I couldn’t have Reynolds. So I saw to it I had him .’
    ‘It’s a superb portrait,’ Appleby said – and reflected that it was a good beginning not to have to tell a fib. The picture dominating the lounge – it was certainly a lounge, for the vision of Mr Meatyard as of Norman blood had not fulfilled itself – was of a comfortable lady in middle life. She was distinguishably dressed for her occasion, but was not in the least swayed by any uneasy consciousness of the fact. She had sat to the greatest of living European painters, and been entirely equal to it.
    ‘I owed it to Martha,’ Mr Meatyard said, with quiet satisfaction. ‘I’d been had for a proper Charlie – eh, Sir John? But give me time, and I do find my way about.’ Mr Meatyard pointed firmly at the portrait of Mrs Meatyard. ‘Would you exchange that for one of their Reynoldses? Just answer me straight.’
    ‘I can’t be certain that I should.’ Appleby smiled. ‘Is that straight enough?’
    ‘I’ll make do with it.’ Mr Meatyard (who, oddly enough, turned out to deal in meat in a very big way) gave Appleby a shrewd look. One wouldn’t have supposed Mr Meatyard at all easily taken in – but then even very capable men can be curiously at a loss in fields remote from their own. ‘I looked into Reynolds, you know. I followed him up at that place down on the Embankment – the one named after the fellow who made money in sugar. Lyle, is it?’
    ‘Tate.’
    ‘That’s right – Tate. Well, I looked at Reynolds there, and in a good many other places as well. It seemed to me he painted invalids mostly. Nasty green tinge in their complexions, wouldn’t you say? I don’t think I’d care to have Martha looking like that.’
    ‘You felt you were well clear of Reynolds?’
    ‘Now you’re having your laugh at me, Sir John. And plenty of other people, back when this happened, looked like having their laugh too. I didn’t like the idea, I don’t mind telling you. Still, I look back to it now in what you might call a kindly way. It’s brought me a lot of pleasure, and that’s a fact.’
    ‘Being fooled, Mr Meatyard?’
    ‘No, no. This business of painting

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