In the Frame by Dick Francis Read Free Book Online Page A

politely. ‘Insurance, madam.’
    ‘I thought you were coming on Monday.’
    ‘I happened to be in the district. No time like the present, don’t you think?’
    ‘Well, I suppose not,’ Maisie said. ‘And I hope there isn’t going to be any shilly-shallying over you paying up, though of course nothing is going to get my treasures back and I’d rather have them than any amount of money, as I’ve got plenty of that in any case.’
    The man was unused to Maisie’s brand of chat.
    ‘Er…’ he said. ‘Oh yes. I see.’
    ‘Have you found out what started it?’ Maisie demanded.
    ‘No, madam.’
    ‘Found anything at all?’
    ‘No, madam.’
    ‘Well, how soon can I get all this cleared away?’
    ‘Any time you like, madam.’
    He stepped carefully towards us, picking his way round clumps of blackened debris. He had steady greyish eyes, a strong chin, and an overall air of intelligence.
    ‘What’s your name?’ Maisie asked.
    ‘Greene, madam.’ He paused slightly, and added ‘With an ‘e”.
    ‘Well, Mr. Greene with an ‘e’,’ Maisie said good-humouredly. ‘I’ll be glad to have all that in writing.’
    He inclined his head. ‘As soon as I report back.’
    Maisie said ‘Good,’ and Greene, lifting his hat again, wished her good afternoon and walked along to a white Ford parked a short way along the road.
    ‘That’s all right, then,’ Maisie said with satisfaction, watching him go. ‘Now, how much for that picture?’
    ‘Two hundred plus two nights’ expenses in a local hotel.’
    ‘That’s a bit steep, dear.
One
hundred, and two nights, and I’ve got to like die results, or I don’t pay.’
    ‘No foal, no fee?’
    The generous red mouth smiled widely. ‘That’s it, dear.’
    We settled on one-fifty if she liked the picture, and fifty if she didn’t, and I was to start on Monday unless it was raining.

4
    Monday came up with a bright breezy day and an echo of summer’s warmth. I went to Worthing by train and to the house by taxi, and to the interest of the neighbours set up my easel at about the place where the front gates would have been, had they not been unhinged and transplanted by the firemen. The gates themselves lay flat on the lawn, one of them still pathetically bearing a neat painted nameboard.
    ‘
Treasure Holme
.’
    Poor Archie. Poor Maisie.
    I worked over the whole canvas with an unobtrusive coffee-coloured underpainting of raw umber much thinned with turpentine and linseed oil, and while it was still wet drew in, with a paintbrushful of a darker shade of the same colour, the shape of the ruined house against the horizontals of hedges, shingle, sea and sky. It was easy with a tissue to wipe out mistakes of composition at that stage, and try again: to get the proportions right, and the perspective, and the balance of the main masses.
    That done and drying, I strolled right round the whole garden, looking at the house from different angles, and staring out over the blackened stumps of the tamarisk hedge which had marked the end of the grass and the beginning of the shingle. The sea sparkled in the morning sunshine, with the small hurrying cumulus clouds scattering patches of dark slate-grey shadow. All the waves hadwhite frills: distant, because the tide again had receded to the far side of a deserted stretch of wet-looking, wave-rippled sand.
    The sea wind chilled my ears. I turned to get back to my task and saw two men in overcoats emerge from a large station wagon and show definite signs of interest in what was left of
Treasure Holme
.
    I walked back towards them, reaching them where they stood by the easel appraising my handiwork.
    One, heavy and fiftyish. One lean, in the twenties. Both with firm self-confident faces and an air of purpose.
    The elder raised his eyes as I approached.
    ‘Do you have permission to be here?’ he asked. An enquiry; no belligerence in sight.
    ‘The owner wants her house painted,’ I said obligingly.
    ‘I see.’ His lips twitched a