Free Honeybath's Haven by Michael Innes Page A

rather feared it might be like that.’ Honeybath had abandoned his palette. ‘What about that Mrs Plover? I had a notion she might rally round once Melissa had departed. It’s only about Melissa she makes really dark remarks.’
    â€˜And I don’t blame her.’ Prout offered this unbrotherly sentiment gloomily. ‘I got on to Mrs Plover, and she went in once or twice. But the other woman offended her.’
    â€˜The other woman?’ There was astonishment in Honeybath’s voice. ‘You don’t mean to say that Edwin has set up with a mistress?’
    â€˜Not exactly that. An occasional professional visitor, you might say. But it seems she and Mrs Plover happened to collide. Twice, I believe. And, to quote Mrs Plover, words passed.’
    â€˜It’s not seemly – not at Edwin’s age.’ Honeybath was genuinely dismayed by this fresh evidence of disorderly living on the part of his old friend.
    â€˜He can afford it. Edwin could afford a seraglio, if he had a mind to it.’
    â€˜Well, that’s something. It had occurred to me to wonder whether he and Melissa were a bit hard up. Investments gone to pot, or something like that.’
    â€˜Not a bit of it. It’s having money that has always been Edwin’s trouble, not lacking it. I’ve told you that before, Charles. It seduced him from honest labour when he was at the top of his form. And now, if he did lose his private income, it wouldn’t be possible to sell his pictures to seaside hotels.’ This dire verdict came from Prout with dark conviction. ‘As for that studio, the public health people are likely to be on about it at any time. It stinks.’
    â€˜Good heavens!’
    â€˜Half-empty cans of beer and half-empty bottles of milk. And the remains of kippers and potted shrimps.’ Prout shook his head. ‘Unbelievable, isn’t it? There was always something of the epicure about Edwin. He must suffer atrociously. And he could afford to dine where he chose every night of the week! Do you think he can have gone agoraphobic?’
    â€˜No, I don’t. I’d suppose him simply to be dispirited and out of sorts.’ Honeybath judged it sensible to discount extravagant interpretations of his friend’s disarray. ‘Perhaps being alone in Italy wasn’t a success. When he is alone, by the way, do you think he goes in for that freakish nonsense of being somebody else? It was a burglar, you remember, at the time of his bust-up with Melissa.’
    â€˜Edwin has gone up in the world since then. The last time I saw him, he had draped himself in a sheet and was declaring he was Praxiteles. Or it may have been Zeuxis. I forget.’
    â€˜Zeuxis seems the more probable.’ Honeybath divested himself of the smock which he affected when painting. ‘At least it isn’t madness, his putting on those turns. It amused him when he was a student.’
    â€˜That he once did it when sane doesn’t mean that he doesn’t now do it when dotty.’ Prout seemed determined to take the darkest view of his brother-in-law’s condition. ‘I just don’t know what we can do.’
    â€˜We can go and see him now,’ Honeybath said. ‘Both of us. I’ll call a cab.’
    This brisk resolution, had Prout known it, was the product of an unflattering estimate of his reliability as a witness which Honeybath had formed of him long ago. Indeed, Honeybath didn’t really care for Prout any more than he did for his irritating sister. Prout, so far as he knew, was tolerably honest in his business dealings, but he tended to see both persons and situations reflected in the somewhat distorting mirror of his own self-interest. He might well be representing Lightfoot’s condition as more hopeless than it was merely because the painter was no longer among his more profitable clients. Didn’t he always come back to Edwin’s idleness, or