Bloodhounds by Peter Lovesey Read Free Book Online

then Diamond stepped inside, and the door slammed in the face of the press, if rather more heavily than the constabulary intended.
    The last time Diamond had seen the black-and-white marble tiled vestibule was when the lower floor had been in use as the public library. Now both floors were used as galleries, and the permanent collection was upstairs. He was escorted up the stone staircase past some paintings of rustic scenes, most of them featuring sheep, or what were intended by the artists to pass for sheep, but could have been giant, cream-colored rats, or armadillos. Landscape painters, he decided, weren't on the whole successful with sheep.
    Not the sort who spent his leisure hours looking at art, he'd never ventured up here before, and it was grander than he expected. At the top of the stairs was a tiled area surrounded by columns supporting the dome of the building, the underside of which was decorated in gilt with the signs of the zodiac. He stepped into the gallery, and was surprised by its size. It was a fine example of Victorian pomp, big enough for a ball-room, some fifty feet high, with a copy of the Parthenon frieze extending right around the walls below the glazed, arched roof that extended the length of the room. There were no windows. The pictures in their ornate gilt frames were attached to maroon-colored walls, and some were displayed on purpose-built units along the center of the room.
    "Safe as the Bank of England, I would have thought," he remarked to Julie Hargreaves, who had got up from behind the attendant's desk to greet him. "I suppose he could try a Riflfi- styleentry from the roof."
    A look of incomprehension crossed Julie's face, and he realized that the film Rififi must have been made before she was born. Not for the first time, he had to remind himself that his best support in the murder squad was female and not much over thirty. Julie was a colleague he could rely on absolutely. She was as bright as a brand-new coin, and it was a measure of her professionalism that he disregarded her good looks. He hoped it wasn't a measure of his advancing years.
    "It was a film," he informed her. "Maybe you saw one called Topkapi? Same method of entry . . . No? Never mind."
    "Two men spent the night on the roof," she told him.
    "Two of ours?"
    She laughed. "I hope so. There are two more up there now."
    "I take it that the picture is still in place?"
    "I expect you'd like to see it." She led him across the gallery to one of the display units in the center. "It's not so big as I imagined."
    He looked at the fixings before he examined the painting. The Turner was secured to the wooden unit with nails driven through small metal plates projecting from the back of the frame. A thief equipped with a crowbar wouldn't take long to achieve his purpose, but no system has been devised that will withstand that kind of assault. Galleries are better employed installing alarm systems and strong locks.
    As for the painting, he was less than impressed. It was a muted watercolor, a view of the Abbey from across the churchyard at an angle that to Diamond's eye was distorted, making the West Front outrageously taller than it is. He'd often sat on one of the wooden seats in the yard and looked at the building from that direction. Bath Abbey projected a sort of charm, but it had never pretended to be lofty. It wasn't as if the painting had other merits to compensate. He could see nothing remarkable in the pale blue and yellow ocher coloring or the brush-work. The total effect reminded him of a dull Sunday. Toward the bottom of the picture was an empty sedan chair with two attendants beside it, and elsewhere the artist had tried to add some interest by including several figures of women in long skirts.
    "Would you hang it in your front room?" he asked Julie.
    She smiled slightly. "I think it ought to be here, where everyone can enjoy it."
    "Be honest. Turner may have painted some wonderful pictures, but this one is crap."
    She said,