Free The Silver Falcon by Evelyn Anthony

pictures? I don’t know exactly what everything is worth.’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ he said slowly. He frowned, looking into the whisky. ‘I’d have to take advice.’
    â€˜Of course you would,’ Isabel said. She came up and put one hand on his arm. ‘Richard, I’m so very glad. Take whatever you want. I feel so much happier.’
    â€˜You know I’m not exactly short of money?’ he asked. ‘My mother left me a couple of million, my grandmother left me half her estate; oddly enough I’ve invested very well. It’s worth almost double. You still want to give me the money? You might change your mind tomorrow –’
    â€˜I never change my mind,’ she said. ‘When I make it up, that’s the end of it.’
    He finished his drink and lit a cigarette.
    â€˜Don’t be a damned fool, Isabel. I wouldn’t take a cent of the money. I never asked for anything when he was alive and I wouldn’t touch it with a twenty-foot pole now. But I appreciate the offer. It’s not often I meet someone who wants to give me ten million dollars.’
    â€˜Richard please,’ she began, but he stopped her.
    â€˜Don’t mention the goddamned money again,’ he said. ‘But there is something I would like to have. There was a portrait of my mother used to hang in the dining room. Where the Herring is, opposite the picture of my father. I’d like to have it.’
    â€˜Of course,’ Isabel said. ‘I don’t know where it is, I’ve never seen a picture of her anywhere – not even a photograph.’
    â€˜He got rid of them all after she died,’ Richard said. ‘But she was painted by an expensive artist. Father didn’t like wasting anything; I’ll bet it’s put away somewhere. Ask Rogers; he’ll know.’
    They went up to the attic floor together; Rogers showed the way. The top floor was used for storage; there were rooms full of cases and furniture shrouded in dust sheets. The butler picked his way through and stopped before a stack of pictures standing against the wall. He didn’t look at Richard.
    â€˜Ah think the picture’s here, Mis Schriber,’ he said. ‘Ah’ll get it out for yuh –’
    â€˜No,’ Richard said abruptly. ‘I’ll do it.’ She knew that he didn’t want the butler to stay; there was an atmosphere of hostility between them. ‘Thank you, Rogers.’ He went out, and Richard glanced after him. ‘When I was a kid,’ he said, ‘I caught that bastard screwing one of the maids. She was only sixteen; if they didn’t lie down for him he got them fired. Here it is.’
    It had been covered by a green cloth; there was no dust on it. It was a big picture, the companion to the three-quarter-length portrait of Charles Schriber downstairs. He turned it round to the light.
    â€˜She was beautiful,’ Isabel said. ‘She had your colouring.’
    â€˜Yes,’ Richard said. He propped the picture upright. ‘Red hair ran in the family. They were all good-looking. She was said to be one of the most beautiful girls in Carolina.’
    The woman in the picture was in a white dress, cut low and showing a pair of sloping shoulders. She carried a posy of spring flowers on her lap. The face was a true oval, framed in long red hair styled in the fashion of thirty-odd years ago. The eyes were large and blue and they gazed at Isabel with a strange mixture of innocence and apprehension.
    It was a bad picture. Dated and unreal, a typical portrait of a pretty socialite of the early forties. And yet in spite of the artist’s ineptitude, something disturbing had come out in the canvas. Something sad and vaguely frightened.
    â€˜How old was your mother when this was done?’ Isabel asked. He didn’t answer for a moment. He looked grim and distant, as if his mind were somewhere far from the attic