'Boscowan?' Tommy looked at him inquiringly. 'Is that the name of the artist? I saw it was signed with something beginning with B but I couldn't read the name.'

'Oh, it's Boscowan all right. Very popular painter about twenty-five years ago. Sold well, had plenty of shows. People bought him all right. Technically a very good painter. Then, in the usual cycle of events, he went out of fashion. Finally, hardly any demand at all for his works but lately he's had a revival. He, Stitchwort, and Fondella. They're all coming up.'

'Boscowan,' repeated Tommy.

'B-o-s-c-o-w-a-n,' said Robert obligingly.

'Is he still painting?'

'No. He's dead. Died some years ago. Quite an old chap by then. Sixty-five, I think, when he died. Quite a prolific painter, you know. A lot of his canvases about. Actually we're thinking of having a show of him here in about four or five months' time. We ought to do well over it, I think. Why are you so interested in him?'

'It'd be too long a story to tell you,' said Tommy. 'One of these days I'll ask you out to lunch and give you the doings from the beginning. It's a long, complicated and really rather an idiotic story. All I wanted to know is all about this Boscowan and if you happen to know by any chance where this house is that's represented here.'

'I couldn't tell you the last for a moment. It's the sort of thing he did paint, you know. Small country houses in rather isolated spots usually, sometimes a farmhouse, sometimes just a cow or two around. Sometimes a farm cart, but if so, in the far distance. Quiet rural scenes. Nothing sketchy or messy. Sometimes the surface looks almost like enamel. It was a peculiar technique and people liked it. A good many of the things he painted were in France, Normandy mostly. Churches. I've got one picture of his here now. Wait a minute and I'll get it for you.'

He went to the head of the staircase and shouted down to someone below. Presently he came back holding a small canvas which he propped on another chair.

'There you are,' he said. 'Church in Normandy.'

'Yes,' said Tommy, 'I see. The same sort of thing. My wife says nobody ever lived in that house-the one I brought in. I see now what she meant. I don't see that anybody was attending service in that church or ever will.'

'Well, perhaps your wife's got something. Quiet, peaceful dwellings with no human occupancy. He didn't often paint people, you know. Sometimes there's a figure or two in the landscape, but more often not. In a way I think that gives them their special charm. A sort of isolationist feeling. It was as though he removed all the human beings, and the peace of the countryside was all the better without them. Come to think of it, that's maybe why the general taste has swung round to him. Too many people nowadays, too many cars, too many noises on the road, too much noise and bustle. Peace, perfect peace. Leave it all to Nature.'

'Yes, I shouldn't wonder. What sort of a man was he?'

'I didn't know him personally. Before my time. Pleased with himself by all accounts. Thought he was a better painter than he was, probably. Put on a bit of side. Kindly, quite likeable. Eye for the girls.'

'And you've no idea where this particular piece of countryside exists? It is England, I suppose.'

'I should think so, yes. Do you want me to find out for you?'

'Could you?'

'Probably the best thing to do would be to ask his wife, his widow rather. He married Emma Wing, the sculptor. Well known. Not very productive. Does quite powerful work. You could go and ask her. She lives in Hampstead. I can give you the address. We've been corresponding with her a good deal lately over the question of this show of her husband's work we're doing. We're having a few of her smaller pieces of sculpture as well. I'll get the address for you.'

He went to the desk, turned over a ledger, scrawled something on a card and brought it back.

'There you are, Tommy,' he said. 'I don't know what the deep dark mystery is. Always been a man of mystery, haven't you? It's a nice representation of Boscowan's work you've got there. We might like to use it for the show. I'll send you a line to remind you nearer the time.'

'You don't know a Mrs. Lancaster, do you?'

'Well, I can't think of one off-hand. Is she an artist or something of the kind?'

'No, I don't think so. She's just an old lady living for the last few years in an old ladies' home. She comes into it because this picture belonged to her until she gave it away to an aunt of mine.'

'Well I can't say the name means anything to me. Better go and talk to Mrs. Boscowan.'

'What's she like?'

'She was a good bit younger than he was, I should say. Quite a personality.' He nodded his head once or twice. 'Yes, quite a personality. You'll find that out I expect.'

He took the picture, handed it down the staircase with instructions to someone below to do it up again.

'Nice for you having so many myrmidons at your beck and call,' said Tommy.

He looked round him, noticing his surroundings for the first time.'

'What's this you've got here now?' he said with distaste.

'Paul Jaggerowski. Interesting young Slav. Said to produce all his works under the influence of drugs. Don't you like him?'

Tommy concentrated his gaze on a big string bag which seemed to have enmeshed itself in a metallic green field full of distorted cows.

'Frankly, no.'

'Philistine,' said Robert. 'Come out and have a bite of lunch.'

'Can't. I've got a meeting with a doctor at my club.'

'Not ill, are you?'

'I'm in the best of health. My blood pressure is so good that it disappoints every doctor to whom I submit it.'

'Then what do you want to see a doctor for?'

'Oh,' said Tommy cheerfully 'I've just got to see a doctor about a body. Thanks for your help. Goodbye.'

Tommy greeted Dr. Murray with some curiosity. He presumed it was some formal matter to do with Aunt Ada's decease, but why on earth Dr. Murray would not at least mention the subject of his visit over the telephone, Tommy couldn't imagine.

'I'm afraid I'm a little late,' said Dr. Murray, shaking hands, 'but the traffic was pretty bad and I wasn't exactly sure of the locality. I don't know this part of London very well.'

'Well, too bad you had to come all the way here,' said Tommy. 'I could have met you somewhere more convenient, you know.'

'You've time on your hands then just now?'

'Just at the moment, yes. I've been away for the last week.'

'Yes, I believe someone told me so when I rang up.'

Tommy indicated a chair, suggested refreshment, placed cigarettes and matches by Dr. Murray's side. When the two men had established themselves comfortably Dr. Murray opened the conversation.

'I'm sure I've aroused your curiosity,' he said, 'but as a matter of fact we're in a spot of trouble at Sunny Ridge. It's a difficult and perplexing matter and in one way it's nothing to do with you. I've no earthly right to trouble you with it but there's just an off chance that you might know something which would help me.'

'Well, of course, I'll do anything I can. Something to do with my aunt, Miss Fanshawe?'

'Not directly, no. But in a way she does come into it. I can speak to you in confidence, can't I, Mr. Beresford?'

'Yes, certainly.'

'As a matter of fact I was talking the other day to a mutual friend of ours. He was telling me a few things about you. I gather that in the last war you had rather a delicate assignment.'

'Oh, I wouldn't put it quite as seriously as that,' said Tommy, in his most noncommittal manner.

'Oh no, I quite realize that it's not a thing to be talked about.'

'I don't really think that matters nowadays. It's a good long time since the war. My wife and I were younger then.'

'Anyway, it's nothing to do with that, that I want to talk to you about, but at least I feel that I can speak frankly to you, that I can trust you not to repeat what I am now saying, though it's possible that it all may have to come out later.'

'A spot of trouble at Sunny Ridge, you say?'

'Yes. Not very long ago one of our patients died. A Mrs. Moody. I don't know if you ever met her or if your aunt ever talked about her.'

'Mrs. Moody?' Tommy reflected. 'No, I don't think so. Anyway, not so far as I remember.'

'She was not one of our older patients. She was still on the right side of seventy and she was not seriously ill in any way. It was just a case of a woman with no near relatives and no one to look after her in the domestic line. She fell into the category of what I often call to myself a flutterer. Women who more and more resemble hens as they grow older. They cluck. They forget things. They run themselves into difficulties and they worry. They get themselves wrought up about nothing at all. There is very little the matter with them. They are not strictly speaking mentally disturbed.'

'But they just cluck,' Tommy suggested.

'As you say. Mrs. Moody clucked. She caused the nurses a fair amount of trouble although they were quite fond of her. She had a habit of forgetting when she'd had her meals, making a fuss because no dinner had been served to her when as a matter of fact she had actually just eaten a very good dinner.'

'Oh,' said Tommy, enlightened, 'Mrs. Cocoa.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'I'm sorry,' said Tommy, 'it's a name my wife and I had for her. She was yelling for Nurse Jane one day when we passed along the passage and saying she hadn't had her cocoa. Rather a nice-looking scatty little woman. But it made us both laugh, and we fell into the habit of calling her Mrs. Cocoa. And so she's died.'

'I wasn't particularly surprised when the death happened,' said Dr. Murray. 'To be able to prophesy with any exactitude when elderly women will die is practically impossible. Women whose health is seriously affected, who, one feels as a result of physical examination, will hardly last the year out, sometimes are good for another ten years. They have a tenacious hold on life which mere physical disability will not quench. There are other people whose health is reasonably good and who may, one thinks, make old bones. They on the other hand, catch bronchitis, or flu, seem unable to have the stamina to recuperate from it, and die with surprising ease. So, as I say, as a medical attendant to an elderly ladies' home, I am not surprised when what might be called a fairly unexpected death occurs. This case of Mrs. Moody, however, was somewhat different. She died in her sleep without having exhibited any sign of illness and I could not help feeling that in my opinion her death was unexpected. I will use the phrase that has always intrigued me in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth. I have always wondered what Macbeth meant when he said of his wife, "She should have died hereafter."'