St Kilda Consulting 04 - Blue Smoke and Murder

Therefore the painting cannot be attributed, despite your suggestion that it may be the work of a noted Western artist.
    We are not able to agree with your suggestion that the painting has great monetary value, although we are sure that it has great sentimental value to your family. We have conferred with otherexperts on Western landscape painting and they share our belief that the work, while pleasing and well rendered, has only a limited resale value.
    Under normal circumstances we would return the painting to you with this letter, but the canvas seems to have been misplaced. We believe it happened after it was in the custody of the second appraiser, and are earnestly endeavoring to locate and return it.
    In the meantime, we have contacted their insurance carrier and our own and are awaiting instructions on how to proceed. We will contact you again as soon as we can resolve this matter. We are sorry for any minor inconvenience this may cause you.
    Should you wish, we are presently prepared to make you an offer of cash compensation for what may be the permanent loss of the work. Judging by the limited market for unsigned landscapes with unproven provenance, of this approximate age, we believe the sum of $2,000 represents more than a fair settlement.
    Please advise us if you are willing to accept this offer along with our sincere apologies and best wishes.
    The letter was signed Ford Hillhouse. Jill read the letter again, this time translating the words into plain English.
    Modesty had sent one of the canvases to a high-end art gallery for appraisal and got a polite sneer in return.
    Jill knew enough about art and appraisals to recognize that when it came to putting a price on something, the lack of a painter’s signature was usually crippling. Artists signed works. Anything unsigned was automatically suspect. Without a definitive way to identify the painter, the work became a kind of aesthetic orphan.
    Or, in real English, barely worth the canvas it was painted on.
    Jill remembered her mother saying that there was a long, unhappy story behind the paintings, which were the work of a great artist.Then her mother had said never, ever, to speak about the paintings again or Modesty would kick them off the ranch forever.
    “Well, I kept up my silent end of the family bargain,” Jill said to the paintings. “Why did Modesty suddenly decide to pull one of these out of the attic and shove it into the public light?”
    The answer came as soon as the question was asked.
    Money.
    Those back taxes the lawyer mentioned. Modesty would have known that selling the breeding stock for tax money meant the end of the ranch.
    Frowning, Jill thought about the gallery’s letter.
    Modesty sent one painting to an appraiser, who sent it to unnamed “others,” and then she was told the unsigned painting was essentially worthless. And lost, by the way. So sorry.
    Why would someone offer two thousand dollars for a worthless painting?
    Simple. The painting isn’t worthless.
    Or is it just that the insurance people don’t want a court hassle over a missing painting of problematic value?
    “Probably a cheap way to avoid an expensive lawsuit,” she told herself.
    Or not.
    Jill looked at the other paintings. She really didn’t like what she was thinking.
    Modesty wouldn’t have lugged the paintings, the leather portfolio, and the old steamer trunk to the homestead cabin unless she was worried about the safety of the paintings.
    Or she was crazy.
    Life isn’t as safe as it seems to the young.
    Jill had a hard time thinking of her great-aunt as crazy. Snake mean? Sure. Hard as a whetstone? No problem. Man-hater? Definitely. Crazy?
    Like a fox.
    She looked at her watch. By the time she drove into town, the lawyer would have closed his office, the county records would be locked for the night, and the sheriff would be eating dinner at the Rimrock Café. He wouldn’t take well to being interrupted by anything less urgent than life and death.
    Modesty’s death didn’t qualify. It was yesterday’s news.
    “Looks like life isn’t real safe for the old, either,” Jill said to the paintings.
    Silence answered.
    Yet something had made Modesty move the paintings and family papers out of the ranch house. Within days or weeks of shifting the trunk, she’d died in a household accident while filling the old fuel stove in the middle of a cold night.
    And the painting she’d sent out for appraisal was missing.
    Unhappily, Jill looked from