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  Copyright & Information

  Paint, Gold and Blood

  First published in 1989

  © Estate of Michael Gilbert; House of Stratus 1989-2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of Michael Gilbert to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2012 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

  Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

  Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

  Typeset by House of Stratus.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  EAN ISBN Edition

  0755105354 9780755105359 Print

  0755132009 9780755132003 Kindle

  0755132378 9780755132379 Epub

  This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  Born in Lincolnshire, England, Michael Francis Gilbert graduated in law from the University of London in 1937, shortly after which he first spent some time teaching at a prep-school which was followed by six years serving with the Royal Horse Artillery. During World War II he was captured following service in North Africa and Italy, and his prisoner-of-war experiences later leading to the writing of the acclaimed novel ‘Death in Captivity’ in 1952.

  After the war, Gilbert worked as a solicitor in London, but his writing continued throughout his legal career and in addition to novels he wrote stage plays and scripts for radio and television. He is, however, best remembered for his novels, which have been described as witty and meticulously-plotted espionage and police procedural thrillers, but which exemplify realism.

  HRF Keating stated that ‘Smallbone Deceased’ was amongst the 100 best crime and mystery books ever published. "The plot," wrote Keating, "is in every way as good as those of Agatha Christie at her best: as neatly dovetailed, as inherently complex yet retaining a decent credibility, and as full of cunningly-suggested red herrings." It featured Chief Inspector Hazlerigg, who went on to appear in later novels and short stories, and another series was built around Patrick Petrella, a London based police constable (later promoted) who was fluent in four languages and had a love for both poetry and fine wine. Other memorable characters around which Gilbert built stories included Calder and Behrens. They are elderly but quite amiable agents, who are nonetheless ruthless and prepared to take on tasks too much at the dirty end of the business for their younger colleagues. They are brought out of retirement periodically upon receiving a bank statement containing a code.

  Much of Michael Gilbert’s writing was done on the train as he travelled from home to his office in London: "I always take a latish train to work," he explained in 1980, "and, of course, I go first class. I have no trouble in writing because I prepare a thorough synopsis beforehand.". After retirement from the law, however, he nevertheless continued and also reviewed for ‘The Daily Telegraph’, as well as editing ‘The Oxford Book of Legal Anecdotes’.

  Gilbert was appointed CBE in 1980. Generally regarded as ‘one of the elder statesmen of the British crime writing fraternity, he was a founder-member of the British Crime Writers’ Association and in 1988 he was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, before receiving the Lifetime ‘Anthony’ Achievement award at the 1990 Boucheron in London.

  Michael Gilbert died in 2006, aged ninety three, and was survived by his wife and their two sons and five daughters.

  Part One

  PRELIMINARY SKIRMISHING

  There is always, in every school, something nasty going on somewhere, even in places where hanky-panky is not tolerated. Growing up is, for some, a messy business. There are new experiences to be sampled, exciting sins to be dreamed of, prizes to be fought for. There is cheating, lying, greed, envy, sloth, wrath in as much abundance as in the House of Commons or a Cathedral Close. There is also idealism, romance, joy.

  John Thorn, Headmaster of Repton 1961–8;

  of Winchester 1968–85

  1

  It must be unusual for a boy who is three months short of his seventeenth birthday to be nearly seduced and nearly murdered within the same twelve hours, yet this is what happened to Peter Dolamore one April day on the north coast of France.

  He had spent the first fortnight of his Easter holidays in a visit to the Château de Lambrécie, east of Valeyrac, in the northern tip of the Médoc peninsula.

  The claret which this château produces is not one of crus classés (though it commands a ready sale in the markets of Bordeaux) but the château is noted for other things than its wines. Its owner, Joseph Wellborn, a Francophile Englishman, was a millionaire, a fact which did not make him outstanding in an area full of the wealthy owners of world-famous vineyards; but he was also the possessor, by inheritance, of a famous collection of pictures. “Much more valuable,” he would say deprecatingly when showing them to his visitors, “than the château which houses them or the vineyards which surround the château.”

  Peter could estimate their value from the precautions which Mr. Wellborn took to guard them. He had never been in a house which was bolted and barred so thoroughly at night; and looking from the window of his turret bedroom he had seen either Hervé or Michel-Ange, who took it in turn to act as night watchman, patrolling the grounds followed by the big Alsatian shepherd dog, Bruno.

  All in all it had not been a happy visit and he had been glad to be able to confine it to four days, on the grounds that it had taken him five days by bicycle to reach the château from Dieppe and would take him as long to return. His host had been formidably polite about this, as about everything. He had known Peter’s mother, a de Clissac, and he appreciated the fact that Peter spoke impeccable French; which was not surprising, since he had lived the first eleven years of his life with his mother in the St. Germain-en-Laye suburb of Paris.

  The chance which had produced the invitation to the château was the fact that Peter was a school friend of Lisa Shilling, Joseph’s niece, although this did not much improve the entente, since there were many matters on which Joseph did not see eye to eye with his elder sister.

  “The B and S is scrumptious,” Peter wrote to his friend Stewart Ives. “But I spend most of my time hoping I’m not going to drop some fearful brick. I get out as much as I can. The country round here is fairly uninspiring, though it’s fun watching the boats battling their way up the Gironde and there’s miles and miles of forest behind the château; that part’s pretty gloomy, actually. The second day I was here I went for a walk in it and got lost and was late for dinner. Didn’t make me popular. All in all I’m glad I’m leaving on Monday. I told them it would take me five days to the Channel, but I think I can do it in four, which will give me a free day for ancestor hunting.”

  There was no need to explain any of this. He and Stewart had known each other long enough to correspond in a sort of shorthand. He would understand that B and S stood for ‘browsing and sluicing’ and he knew about the de Clissac family.

  In accordance with this ambitious programme, on the Thursday evening Peter had pedalled into Sassencourt-le- Mauconduit, between Etretat and Dieppe, leg-weary and saddle-sore, but content. Two of the intervening nights had been spent in friendly farms and one in
a dry ditch, at no cost to his pocket, and he reckoned he could afford to pass the last two nights of his trip comfortably if not luxuriously. The Hôtel Commerce, a medium-sized establishment behind the market square, had seemed to be just the ticket. He had nearly fallen asleep over the dinner table, had creaked upstairs to the tiny room in the attic which had been the only accommodation available and had tumbled into bed and into the depths of untroubled sleep.

  On opening his eyes his first idea was that he was in hospital. When he had last been there, following the removal of his appendix, he remembered being tidied up for the consultant’s morning rounds. Two strong nurses had seized the bedclothes and tucked him in so tightly that he had hardly been able to breathe, let alone move. On this occasion the only difference was that there was one girl doing the tucking. Owing to the narrowness of the room, the other side of his bed was jammed against the wall.

  He tried to sit up, said, “Hey!” and then, in his best French, “Am I a sardine to be enclosed in a tin?” He had noticed the girl on the previous night serving in the dining-room and had heard her addressed as Claudette. She had a lively street-urchin face; but this, as he was able to observe as she bent over him, was the only boyish thing about her. He thought she was not much older than he was.

  She said, “Little idler, do you realise that it is now ten o’clock and that I have been ordered to make your bed?”

  He said, “Surely you would be able to do it more effectively if I was not in it?”

  He had managed to wriggle his shoulders clear of the bed clothes. This was unwise. He had forgotten that he was sleeping, as he normally did, naked. Claudette inspected what she could now see with approval.

  Although no girl had ever made such a direct approach to him before, he was not unaware of the impression he made. His widowed mother, being a Frenchwoman, had discussed the matter with her son. She had said, “Some English girls fall for the typical French male, with his black hair, his virile face and his air of maturity and attack. French girls, on the contrary, are often accablées by the young Anglo-Saxon who has, as you well have, mon petit, blond hair, a nez camus and a general look as though he had just been hatched from the egg. You will have to guard your virginity carefully.”

  Peter had been ten at the time of this pronouncement and had not taken it too seriously. Afterwards it had acquired a certain solemnity as being one of the last occasions on which his mother had spoken to him. She had been in bed at the time, with the onset of the leukaemia that had killed her. She had died a month later.

  On his recent journey through France, at the farms where he had lodged, he had had an opportunity to confirm what his mother had said. When entering a strange household he usually concealed his knowledge of French and he had been able to understand the unguarded comments which the female members of the family had made.

  “If I let you out of your nest,” said Claudette, “you must naturally pay a forfeit. It will not be too disagreeable, I hope. One kiss. Are you willing to pay such a price?”

  “If I must,” said Peter hoarsely.

  She slipped one arm under his bare shoulders and brought her face down towards his. She said, “Has no one taught you how to kiss? Open your mouth, baby.” Her tongue had come out and was probing for his.

  ‘This is all very well,’ said his inner monitor, ‘but if I do get out of bed, she’ll be able to see only too plainly what my feelings about her are.’ And then again, ‘What does it matter? Why not give her what she wants?’

  Someone was shouting from outside. It sounded like the manageress, a dragon of a woman. “Haven’t you finished up there?”

  “Nearly,” said the girl, disengaging herself and hurrying across the room.

  “Have I to come up and give you the back of my hand? There are a thousand things to do.”

  Peter was, by this time, propped up on his elbows. This offered a clear view of him down to his navel. Claudette examined it with increased pleasure. She said, “Tonight? Yes? I sleep alone. My room is at the end of the passage.”

  “Yes,” said Peter breathlessly.

  “What are you doing up there?”

  “Nothing, nothing. I am coming. Old cow.”

  Peter extracted himself from the bed and dressed thoughtfully. By the time he got down the dining-room was shut. He breakfasted at a café in the Square and turned his attention to the Michelin Guide.

  The fourteenth century church of St. Brieuc des Caves which stands in a somewhat isolated position on the eastern side of Sassencourt possesses a number of interesting features. Originally it served as a chapel to the de Clissaque family and stood within the boundaries of their domain. It contains many of their tombs, armorial tablets and funerary inscriptions. At the beginning of this century it was adopted as the parish church of Sassencourt and Pont d’Ancrette. There are larger and more imposing churches in the district, but this one continues to attract not only its own congregation, but numerous visitors, on account of its possession of a triptych, gift of an early de Clissaque, attributed to Niccolò Frumenti and known as the Triptyque Scholastique, on account of the fact that the centre panel only is the work of Frumenti, the side panels having been executed by two pupils, one of whom, Paulo Agostino, attained to an even greater repute than his master.

  He had had enough of bicycling in the last four days and decided to walk to the church, which he found nearly a mile out, on the side road to Gerville. A flagged path led from the road to the west door, which was locked. He was not discouraged. He knew that a side-door would usually be left open on week days, the main door being reserved for use on Sundays. The southern side of the church was blocked by the presbytère, a much later building, almost as large as the church itself. He therefore tried the path which ran clockwise round the building and found an unlocked door at the end of the north transept.

  The interior was dim and silent. The walls were thick and the windows were small and heavily crusted with old stained glass. There was no sign of the ‘numerous visitors’ mentioned in the guide book. Peter, who had had some experience of French churches, had armed himself with a torch.

  He spent ten minutes admiring the Frumenti triptych. The centre piece was the Virgin and the Holy Child. On the left were three, rather stylised, Magi. On the right a group of very human shepherds gaping up into the sky, with wide-open mouths. He tore himself away from this to examine the de Clissaque inscriptions and memorials. He started on the left of the transept and worked his way towards the eastern bay behind the high altar. Most of the plaques commemorated male members of the de Clissaque family who had predeceased their wives. In one case he noted that the widow, femme obéissante et soumise, had evidently thought it wrong to survive her Lord and had followed him respectueusement within three months. Other ladies had taken a more robust view and he noted Catherine de Clissaque who had survived her husband by forty years, outliving eight children and thirteen grandchildren who were all entombed in the same vault. ‘Quite a girl,’ he thought, writing down the names of the children in a note book he had brought with him.

  What he was looking for in particular was information about the later members of the family, whom he could link up with his known maternal grandfather and great-grandfather. Unfortunately there seemed to be a complete gap after the third quarter of the eighteenth century. This, he realised, was due to the fact that many members of the family would have perished in the Terror; others would have been driven abroad, to live for twenty-five years in penury, their estates confiscated and divided in such a way that it had been impossible to ask for restitution when the Bourbons had returned.

  These transcriptions had taken time. It was after four o’clock and his torch was showing signs of weakening before he reached the corner of the south transept. What he saw there looked promising. To start with, it was comparatively modern, a cercueil mounted on a low pediment; and the first name he saw on it had the modern spelling, ‘de Clissac’ and the date of death he deciphered as MDCCCXXXIII.

  “Eighteen
thirty-three,” said Peter. “That’s more like it. If I could read the rest of it I’d be getting somewhere.”

  The inscription ran right round the lid of the coffin. Unfortunately the box-like structure of a confessional had been erected close to its far side, but there was just room to squeeze between the back of the monument and the wall. To get in he had to shift a brass vase. He pulled it out and inserted his slim person behind the pediment. He hoped that his torch was not going on the blink altogether. He had squatted down to bring his eyes level with the lettering, when he heard two people coming.

  At first he thought it was one man, whose shoes clattered on the floor of the south transept. Since the only entrance to this transept was a door at the end which led out to the presbytère, he assumed that it was the curé. This was confirmed by a glimpse of the black soutane as the man swept past. Then he heard the second footsteps, much quieter. Someone wearing rubbers on his shoes had come through the side-door and was approaching. There was a murmur of greeting and then, to Peter’s dismay, both men made for the confessional.

  This was divided into three narrow compartments, the centre one for the priest, the outer ones for the penitents. He realised that, squatting where he was, he was going to be able to hear every word of the newcomer’s confession. This was intolerably embarrassing. He decided to extract himself and slip out of the church. Then he changed his mind.

  He knew the set words the penitent would be expected to use at the start: ‘Mon Dieu, tu es bon. Je t’ai offensé. Pardonne-moi mes péchés’ and the soothing reply: ‘Que Dieu notre père vous montre sa miséricorde.’

  But here came a very different opening. Before the man could speak the priest said in the sharp voice of one who seeks to be authoritative, but is secretly afraid, “Is everything arranged?”