Free Phantom of Blood Alley by Paul Stewart Page A

me.’
    He took me up a sweeping staircase, the tiled walls lined with gold-framed portraits of various sizes. At the first-floor landing, he strode through an arched doorway and into a high-ceilinged studio.
    It was cluttered with the tools of his trade – exotic rugs, animal skins and tapestries in one corner provided the backdrops to his portraits, while the tables and cabinets around the walls groaned beneath a bewildering array of props. There were tooled breastplates, plumed helmets, muskets, swords and shields for those of his clients who saw themselves as men of action or warriors from a bygone age; musical instruments, astronomical tools and ancient vases and urns for the artistic. There was even a stuffed polar bear and a lion skin for intrepid explorers to pose beside. In the centre of the studio, beneath a north-facing skylight, was a raised dais, upon which a gilded throne had been placed, with several tiger skins draped over its gilded arms.And opposite it, on an immense easel, was a large canvas with an unfinished portrait of a breathtakingly beautiful woman.
    ‘How can I help you, Mr Grimes?’ said Sir Crispin distractedly, gazing at the portrait. ‘I haven’t seen poor Laurence for months,’ he went on. ‘Not since our little falling out …’
    ‘Falling out?’ I said.
    He picked up a brush from the table beside the easel and dabbed at the painting.
    ‘Eighteen months ago, Laurence Oliphant came to me with an invention that he claimed would revolutionize portraiture – a process of photogravure, or “painting with light,” as I have heard it called, that he’d named oliphantography. I admit I was intrigued. I knew how the old masters had used mirrors and lenses to create projections on their canvases, and thought this new process might prove helpful. I became his backer, financing his experiments to the tune of ten guineas a month.’

    He picked up a brush from the table beside the easel and dabbed at the painting
.
    I nodded, impressed. It was a sizable sum.
    ‘Of course, I knew that there was no real artistic merit in Laurence’s work. The man was little more than a chemist, but he didn’t seem to see it that way …’ Sir Crispin’s voice trailed away as he scrutinized his painting. ‘Dear Laurence began to get ideas above his station. Started claiming that his “oliphantypes” were a new art form and would make painting obsolete! It was the talk of a madman.’
    Sir Crispin turned to me, his eyes blazing.
    ‘I have dedicated myself to my art. I studied at the best conservatoires in Europe. I learned from the great Reynaldo Bottacini to produce my own palette of colours, using cinnabar and cochineal for red, cadmium for yellow, arsenic for emerald green. Many was the long night I spent grinding lapis lazuli and azurite gems with a mortar and pestle to produce ultramarine of such vibrancy … Then this … this …
pharmacist,’
he said,spitting out the word, ‘with his glass plates and chemicals, tells me that he will replace the unique perspective of an artist’s eye with a mechanical lens …’
    He shook his head, and put the back of his clenched fist dramatically to his brow.
    ‘I wanted nothing more to do with him,’ he said. ‘I stopped his monthly stipend two months ago in order to put an end to his outlandish boasts once and for all.’ He turned back to the painting and dabbed at it angrily with his brush. ‘Laurence didn’t take it too well. Stormed out, muttering that I’d be sorry.’
    I remembered the oliphantype of Clarissa Oliphant. It might have been produced with chemicals, but it had managed to capture something of the essence of the person; some internal truth. I suspected Crispin Blears, when he’d seen Laurence’s work, had noticed it too.
    ‘And that was the last time you saw him?’ I said.
    Sir Crispin turned. ‘Well, yes, I suppose so …’ he said uncertainly. ‘Although there was the incident at the summer show at the Academy.’ He paused,