Free Honeybath's Haven by Michael Innes Page B

presumed idleness, as a point of grievance? Viewing Prout as he thus did, it was perhaps curious that Honeybath should have so promptly insisted on having his company on this visit to Lightfoot now. But it seemed to Honeybath that, all things considered, a reconciliation between Edwin and Melissa was the best thing to go for. It was likely, at least, to put a stop to the indignity of Edwin’s fatuously entangling himself with low women. (This had shocked Honeybath very much – offending a strain of puritanical feeling in him such as artists are not popularly supposed much to indulge.) And if he was to develop some plan for bringing Edwin and Melissa together, it would be sensible to involve Melissa’s brother from the start. This was why he was now bundling Prout into a taxi.
    â€˜Not that he can have done all that little,’ Prout said, as soon as they moved off. ‘I’ve never quite believed it. It doesn’t make sense.’
    â€˜Ambrose, just what are you talking about?’
    â€˜Edwin’s golden decade, of course. I read some elderly critic calling it that the other day. Mind you, it was nearer five years than ten. There’s a word for a five-year period.’
    â€˜A quinquennium. Or a lustre.’
    â€˜That’s it – a lustre. And when a chap is at the peak of his performance like that, it’s almost certain he’ll work like mad. That’s what I mean by saying that the scarcity of early Lightfoots doesn’t make sense. There must be more of them. Somehow or other, they’ve gone underground.’
    â€˜Mere speculation, Ambrose.’ Honeybath spoke rather shortly, having heard this jeremiad before. It was almost an obsession of Prout’s. ‘I was fairly intimate with Edwin in those days, and it’s my impression that he found achieving that handful of masterpieces totally exhausting. Even if he’d been right down on the breadline he couldn’t have done more of them. There may be one or two in somebody’s cold storage. It’s impossible to tell. But I just don’t believe in the theory of a whole cache of them. I’ve told you so before.’
    â€˜Only a month ago I thought I’d run one to earth.’ Prout had paid no attention to these remarks. ‘An old woman called Gutermann-Seuss. You know the name?’
    â€˜There was an expatriate German Kunsthändler called that, I remember. He lived in Brighton.’
    â€˜Well, this was his widow – and living in Brighton. I had it on a most reliable grapevine that she possessed one of the things. And that she was uncommonly hard up.’
    â€˜It sounded promising, no doubt.’
    â€˜Certainly it did – particularly as she was reported as not particularly knowledgeable in her late husband’s line of business.’
    â€˜So that there was a good chance of driving an outrageous bargain with the old soul?’ Prout wasn’t to be blamed, Honeybath supposed, for subscribing to ethical standards which had doubtless been the late Mr Gutermann-Seuss’ as well. But this talk was distasteful, all the same. ‘But it was a mare’s nest?’
    â€˜Absolutely. What she possessed proved to be a worthless affair on which some crook had forged Edwin’s signature. Disgraceful, wouldn’t you say? It had sent me on a fool’s errand.’
    â€˜Too bad, Ambrose.’ Honeybath, although inclined to share Prout’s indignation from a somewhat different point of view, managed to be amused. ‘I hope you didn’t tell Edwin. It might have upset him.’
    â€˜Of course I didn’t. The whole subject of the lustre, or whatever it’s to be called, is tabu with him. He’s a most unreasonable man, even in his moments of sanity.’
    â€˜Too bad that your sister married him. And we have to try to get some reasonableness into him now. But we shan’t do it by badgering him. So we’ll go easy with