Read Online The Claresby Collection: Twelve Mysteries by Daphne Coleridge - Free Book Online

from the tubes and a scent of turpentine in the air. Sebastian himself was striking in cream chinos and a white linen shirt, his shock of white hair and pale skin emphasised by a bright red neck cloth which protected the back of his neck from the sun, and a light straw hat with a red band around it. His face also showed a red tinge about the cheeks. His large canvas already looked imposing and the artist had taken a thick brush and was boldly marking out the area of sky in what looked like purple lake and the foreground in patches of raw sienna and burnt sienna. If Rupert hadn’t had more important things on his mind he might have been tempted to watch Sebastian Fullmarks at work. Famous mostly for his controversial modern work, there might have been cynics who questioned whether he was actually capable of good, solid, conventional painting. Still, he seemed confident enough with easel and brush, so perhaps he was about to prove his detractors wrong.

    Still vigorously applying purple paint to the sky, Sebastian indicated another table. “See – I have set out some limited edition replicas of my latest work: Plate of Meat! The original is in the Tate Modern, of course, but any money I raise from these today will be donated to repairing Claresby parish church.”

    Rupert glanced at what he had originally taken to be Sebastian’s lunch, but at the same time acknowledged the generosity of the gesture. If the Claresby villagers bought these from Sebastian today at whatever they paid for them, they would be able to resell them for a great deal more; Sebastian was, after all, very famous. And Laura would be happy for the donation to the church.

    “No sign of Floyd then?” Sebastian asked casually.

    “No; perhaps he had a bad night.”

    “Well he certainly slept – he was snoring continuously from midnight until four in the morning.”

    “Any sounds from him after that?” asked Rupert.

    “Well someone went for a pee in the bathroom at our end of the house at about six. Why, are you worried about him?”

    “Not really; Floyd was never the most reliable man around. Still, it would have been nice to watch him paint.” Rupert’s eyes travelled to the new colour that Sebastian was squeezing onto his palette. “Goodness! Is that actually gold? I didn’t know you could get a gold oil paint.”

    “Oh yes,” smiled Sebastian happily. “This is actually a renaissance gold – I find the Winsor and Newton gold a little too buttercup coloured for my taste. I have a tube of silver too: nice in clouds.” He proceeded to dab some of the gold into the foreground as highlights. Somehow the picture that was beginning to take shape seemed to bear no resemblance to the view of Claresby Manor as it stood in front of them, but Rupert supposed that this was all part of the great artist’s modern interpretation, or perhaps he was just building up an under-painting. Rupert didn’t really know much about paintings and was inclined to go for photorealistic scenes of the English countryside left to his own taste.
     
    Rupert could see Laura a little way off, standing with a cup of coffee in her hand and surveying the scene before her with some satisfaction. He left Sebastian and went over to join her.

    “I’ll go and help sell programmes at the gate come twelve,” she commented, glancing at her watch. “How is Sebastian getting on? I want the painting for in the Great Hall if it is any good; we need a modern interpretation of Claresby Hall.”

    “Hard to tell,” said Rupert, absentmindedly. “He is using gold paint – the writing on the walls in Floyd’s room was in gold.”

    “Is that relevant?” asked Laura, squinting her eyes against the sun as she looked questioningly at him.

    “Probably not; I just happened to notice.”

    “Did you find out anything new? You were saying something about the junk room earlier.”

    “Well, it linked to that fact that there were Egyptian hieroglyphs on the wall. Just before