Death by Sheer Torture by Robert Barnard

tonight.’
    ‘Now, how in God’s name—?’
    ‘Calm down. I haven’t been listening in to your calls. I heard at the Marquis of Danby when I slipped down for a double Scotch last night. I can see why you don’t want them here, but do bring her up for a meal, won’t you?’
    ‘If she sets her mind on it, I don’t see how I can stop her,’ I said gloomily. ‘Short of its being one of Aunt Kate’s nights.’
    ‘She was on on Wednesday. It’ll be another ten daysbefore she’s on again. With a bit of luck even you will avoid her spinach blancmange.’
    ‘How do you stand it?’ I asked.
    ‘You mean the family in general, I take it, rather than the spinach blancmange?’ He considered for a moment—really, I thought, he is quite nice, and not unintelligent. ‘Well, I suppose the brute fact of the matter is that it’s better than teaching. Teaching in an ordinary school, I mean. Almost anything is better than that. So long as I’m part of the great army of the unemployed I can stand it here. I’m used to my Mama’s little ways, and as for the rest—well, they must appear appalling to you because you’ve been so long away, but I find I can put up with them.’
    ‘I hear you’re looking into this notion your mother has got that a picture has disappeared from the house.’
    He raised his eyebrows to heaven. ‘Just what I was going to have a chat to you about last night. If it was only one picture, though . . .’
    ‘She thinks a lot have gone?’
    ‘Once she got the idea, she started thinking of things she’d known as a child—pictures, furniture, Great-Grandfather Josiah’s christening spoon, God knows what. Then she’d scream they were missing, cry blue murder—and then of course she’d find them and go quiet. On the Rampage and Off the Rampage, as Joe Gargery says. Personally I don’t know what to think.’
    ‘You mean not everything’s been found?’
    ‘No, alas: we’d get some peace if it had been. Of course, stuff gets lost, furniture breaks, things get given away. But certainly there seem to be things missing.’
    ‘What picture was it that set all this off?’
    ‘It was a thing by Holman Hunt, called The Rustic Wedding. A sort of companion piece to The Hireling Shepherd.’ I shuddered. ‘Yes, indeed. I remember it dimly from childhood, and it too has greens that sear theeyeballs. Which makes it odder that it can’t be found. Likewise a picture by William Allan entitled Lord Byron Reposing in the House of a Turkish Fisherman After Having Swum the Hellespont.’
    ‘Christ.’
    ‘Exactly. But if I remember it rightly, it’s not something you could just tuck away somewhere.’
    ‘But you remember it framed.’
    ‘True. That’s a point. Anyway, the fact is that these, at least, seem to be gone. Then there are Aunt Eliza’s—that’s another problem. Nice old thing, as I remember her, but not the most methodical of women, and her will, I hear, was a mess. Who owns the ones that are here, were there more here when she died? The fact is, I agree there should be a proper inventory made. Because the security in the house is far from impressive, and it could be that any one of us is taking them off and popping them, one by one. As my dear mother, in her nice way, made us all very much aware.’
    ‘I gather it was suggested a professional might do the inventory.’
    ‘Exactly. Your papa’s bright contribution. Now, the advantage of this suggestion—you don’t mind if I abuse your papa, do you?’
    ‘Be my guest.’
    ‘Well, the advantage of this suggestion was that it looked as if your papa was keen to get the job done properly and insisting it be done by an outsider. And it is work for an expert, not for a dilettante like me. But the fact is, the expert could only deal with what is here now. He wouldn’t know a thing about what should be here but isn’t. So the proposal, to my ears, smelt just the tiniest bit fishy.’
    ‘I see your point. Or it could have been pure