Sidney Chambers and The Shadow of Death (The Grantchester Mysteries)

furthest cometh behind.
    Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
    Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore,
    Fainting I follow. . .’
    ‘Stop it. People are giving us odd looks.’
    ‘I was enjoying myself.’
    ‘You mean you were enjoying my discomfort?’
    ‘A bit of teasing shouldn’t harm you, Amanda.’
    ‘I don’t like being teased. It’s embarrassing.’ Sidney’s companion finished her fish. ‘So you think we should find this Phillips man? Perhaps we could ask your friend the inspector to help us?’
    ‘I think you would have to ask him that, Amanda.’
    ‘Me?’
    ‘Yes . . . you . . . I can’t bear to think of the look on his face if I do it.’
    ‘Alternatively, of course, I could telephone Lord Teversham and find out the name of his insurance company. If the man who came was also called Phillips, and he works for a specialist company, then tracking him down should be fairly straightforward.’
    ‘You think you can do that?’
    ‘We have a list of art insurers at work. I am employed by the National Gallery. It’s almost my job.’
    ‘But it’s probably not the job that you are employed to do.’
    ‘Sidney, that is the clearest case of the pot calling the kettle black that I have ever heard. Let me take you home.’
     
    Wilkie Phillips lived in one of series of ramshackle buildings on the edge of a farm outside Ely. The surrounding land was fenced with barbed wire, the garden had been neglected for years and the house appeared as unloved as it was remote. Yet, on approach, Amanda noticed that the fabric of the building was sound. This was a home where the owner spent most of his time indoors.
    A telephone call to Lord Teversham, followed by a visit to the offices of London Assurance, where she had used her considerable charms to good effect, had yielded her the address. She had decided to pursue the investigation on her own, on behalf of the National Gallery, and without troubling either Sidney or his friend Inspector Keating. She would make her visit to Wilkie Phillips as informal as possible, in order to avoid suspicion, and then, if she discovered that the painting was in his possession, or she had any doubts about his trustworthiness, she would summon aid. Until then, Amanda was confident that she was perfectly capable of doing a simple bit of detective work on her own.
    On entering the building, she found herself in the hallway of one of the strangest houses she had ever seen. She had been permitted to enter by a small, bearded man who looked like an elderly version of Van Gogh. He apparently worried about neither appearance nor hygiene. The Harris tweed jacket and Fair Isle jumper, which he wore over a Viyella shirt, had clearly never seen a dry cleaner, and his loose-fitting corduroy trousers, in light tan, were held up with string. Although he was in his early sixties he sounded as if his voice had only just broken.
    ‘I don’t know what I can do for you,’ Wilkie Phillips protested. ‘There’s nothing of any value here.’
    ‘People have told me that you have a wonderful collection.’
    ‘I don’t know who you’ve been speaking to. I don’t have any friends.’
    ‘I am sure you do.’
    ‘Believe me, Miss Kendall. I do not.’
    The hallway was filled with paintings of blowzy nudes by Renoir and Degas. Although they were clearly fakes, and not all of them were to scale, the amount of female flesh on display did make Amanda wonder about the owner’s state of mind.
    ‘I don’t have visitors. When my mother was alive people came all the time but I’m not a great entertainer. Besides, I like to keep the paintings to myself.’
    ‘They’re very good.’
    ‘All copies, of course.’
    ‘I can see that. Who did them for you?’
    ‘A friend. Unfortunately he’s retired and moved away so the collection is closed. But I find I don’t need friends if I’ve got paintings . . .’
    Amanda could see that great trouble had been taken in the hanging, even though the walls were in need of re-plastering. Each painting had its own picture light, and the portraits that hung in the hall were large enough to evoke the sense of a sprawling, but neglected, country house. This was a poor man’s Locket Hall; and, like many a stately home, it was too cold and damp for art. However, Amanda did notice an open fire in the distance.
    ‘What is it that you are doing again?’ Phillips asked.
    ‘As I explained in the doorway, we are compiling a census of the nation’s great paintings