well-liked person and, like the young unfortunate Theo, seemingly one with everything to live for.
‘Nothing here, sir,’ said Cogan at last, slipping the papers into a large envelope and labelling it.
Lamb was looking at the empty brandy bottle still lying on the floor beside the bed, reading its label. ‘I’d have to think twice,’ he remarked thoughtfully, ‘about whether I could afford a fine old cognac like that, myself, and yet here he was, a struggling young artist with scarcely enough money to keep body and soul together, one would think. Committing the sacrilege of drinking it straight from the bottle, what’s more,’ he added, his eyes searching round for a glass, and finding nothing except the stained mugs.
‘I don’t suppose such niceties were much on his mind at the time, sir,’ said Cogan sensibly. ‘Money neither.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Guy Martagon dined that evening at his club in Pall Mall, and afterwards stayed on, hoping to catch sight of Julian Carrington, who was an old and trusted friend of his father’s and one of the executors of his will. As a retired banker, he had been of great help to Guy in tidying up his father’s financial arrangements, and in particular the vexed question of how – or indeed if – the Pontifex could continue after Eliot’s untimely death. Guy now hoped to gain advice – or at the very least, another point of view – on a more delicate matter which had been uppermost in his mind ever since a meeting some few weeks ago with Ambrose Hardisty, the family solicitor.
Carrington was always in and out of the gallery, but there had been little chance that day of any private and uninterrupted conversation amid all confusion over the suicide of Theo Benton, one of the exhibitors, and discussions as to whether or not the exhibition should be postponed, and if so, for how long. Guy abandoned the attempt for a private word. He was by no means sure that the banker would be able to tell him what he wanted to know, and not wanting to embarrass either of them by arranging a formal meeting if this wasn’t the case, he had decided it might be better to contrive an apparently chance encounter with him at the club.
He knew that Carrington was in the habit of dining alone there several times a week and when he arrived he was told that the gentleman usually dined at a fairly late hour. So, when several acquaintances of Guy’s, already in high spirits, saw him and insisted on his joining them for dinner in a private room, he reluctantly allowed himself to be persuaded, after asking to be informed immediately when Mr Carrington arrived. He was really in no mood for this crowd of so-called gay bachelors, dandies and would-be sophisticates who thought themselves men of the world, whose only aim in life seemed to be to get rid of as much money as they could in the shortest possible time, with pleasure seeking in one form or another as the centre of their existence. But he’d once been on the fringes of this set, had been at school with most of them, and they continued to press him until it would have been boorish to insist on dining alone. When they had finished eating – a noisy affair, accompanied by a good deal more drinking on their part – the suggestion was put forward to repair to a notorious gambling club – and perhaps afterwards…a little diversion, what? Guy declined, as gracefully as he could. They told him he was a damned killjoy. What the devil had he been up to, out there in India, to change him so? He smiled and shrugged and gave non-committal answers. These men, once friends of a sort, now induced in Guy nothing more than a sense of ennui. He saw them depart with relief.
There was no sign of Carrington even then in the dining room, but he was assured that the gentleman might well still turn up within the next hour. They were used to his late arrival. Resigning himself to a further wait, he passed the time pretending to read the newspaper, half dozing in the deep
‘Nothing here, sir,’ said Cogan at last, slipping the papers into a large envelope and labelling it.
Lamb was looking at the empty brandy bottle still lying on the floor beside the bed, reading its label. ‘I’d have to think twice,’ he remarked thoughtfully, ‘about whether I could afford a fine old cognac like that, myself, and yet here he was, a struggling young artist with scarcely enough money to keep body and soul together, one would think. Committing the sacrilege of drinking it straight from the bottle, what’s more,’ he added, his eyes searching round for a glass, and finding nothing except the stained mugs.
‘I don’t suppose such niceties were much on his mind at the time, sir,’ said Cogan sensibly. ‘Money neither.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Guy Martagon dined that evening at his club in Pall Mall, and afterwards stayed on, hoping to catch sight of Julian Carrington, who was an old and trusted friend of his father’s and one of the executors of his will. As a retired banker, he had been of great help to Guy in tidying up his father’s financial arrangements, and in particular the vexed question of how – or indeed if – the Pontifex could continue after Eliot’s untimely death. Guy now hoped to gain advice – or at the very least, another point of view – on a more delicate matter which had been uppermost in his mind ever since a meeting some few weeks ago with Ambrose Hardisty, the family solicitor.
Carrington was always in and out of the gallery, but there had been little chance that day of any private and uninterrupted conversation amid all confusion over the suicide of Theo Benton, one of the exhibitors, and discussions as to whether or not the exhibition should be postponed, and if so, for how long. Guy abandoned the attempt for a private word. He was by no means sure that the banker would be able to tell him what he wanted to know, and not wanting to embarrass either of them by arranging a formal meeting if this wasn’t the case, he had decided it might be better to contrive an apparently chance encounter with him at the club.
He knew that Carrington was in the habit of dining alone there several times a week and when he arrived he was told that the gentleman usually dined at a fairly late hour. So, when several acquaintances of Guy’s, already in high spirits, saw him and insisted on his joining them for dinner in a private room, he reluctantly allowed himself to be persuaded, after asking to be informed immediately when Mr Carrington arrived. He was really in no mood for this crowd of so-called gay bachelors, dandies and would-be sophisticates who thought themselves men of the world, whose only aim in life seemed to be to get rid of as much money as they could in the shortest possible time, with pleasure seeking in one form or another as the centre of their existence. But he’d once been on the fringes of this set, had been at school with most of them, and they continued to press him until it would have been boorish to insist on dining alone. When they had finished eating – a noisy affair, accompanied by a good deal more drinking on their part – the suggestion was put forward to repair to a notorious gambling club – and perhaps afterwards…a little diversion, what? Guy declined, as gracefully as he could. They told him he was a damned killjoy. What the devil had he been up to, out there in India, to change him so? He smiled and shrugged and gave non-committal answers. These men, once friends of a sort, now induced in Guy nothing more than a sense of ennui. He saw them depart with relief.
There was no sign of Carrington even then in the dining room, but he was assured that the gentleman might well still turn up within the next hour. They were used to his late arrival. Resigning himself to a further wait, he passed the time pretending to read the newspaper, half dozing in the deep
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