Sidney Chambers and The Problem of Evil (The Grantchester Mysteries) by James Runcie Page A

exhibition on the female nude with works by Rodin, Whistler, Burne-Jones and Augustus John. Sidney passed the time waiting for his friend by imagining what it might be like to take a life drawing class. It would have much to teach him about patience, the art of looking, and the nature of human anatomy. He wondered how closely the eye of the artist should mirror that of the clergyman or the detective. Perhaps he could try to be, in Henry James’s famous phrase, ‘one on whom nothing is lost’.
    He had just stopped to look more closely at two studies of a female nude by Eric Gill when he heard someone singing. It was a female voice; both high and delicate.
     
    ‘Mon amant me délaisse
    O gai! Vive la rose!
    Je ne sais pas pourquoi
    Vive la rose et le lilas!’
     
    He turned round. As he did so, a young blonde girl undid her fur coat to reveal that she was naked underneath. She draped the coat over her right shoulder and walked slowly round the room, still singing.
     
    ‘Il va-t-en voir une autre,
    O gai! Vive la rose!
    Qu’est plus riche que moi
    Vive la rose et le lilas!’
     
    A guard called out. ‘Stop that. Put your clothes back on, Madam.’
    The girl continued:
     
    ‘On dit qu’elle est plus belle,
    O gai vive la rose!
    Je n’en disconviens pas . . .
    On dit qu’elle est malade
    O gai! Vive la rose!’
     
    The guard shouted for help. ‘Omari! Come quick!’
    Bemused visitors from the surrounding galleries were summoned by the girl’s voice.
     
    ‘Peut-être elle en mourra . . .
    Mais si elle meurt dimanche
    O gai! Vive la rose!
    Lundi on l’enterrera . . .
     
    She circled the room twice.
     
    ‘Mardi il r’viendra m’voir
    O gai! Vive la rose!
    Mais je n’en voudrai pas
    Vive la rose et le lilas!’
    Then she walked out, her fur coat still over her shoulder, and disappeared.
    Sidney was just beginning to compose himself when Amanda arrived. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’
    ‘She was more beautiful than any ghost; a spirit from another world . . .’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Was it a vision or a waking dream, I wonder?’
    ‘What are you talking about?’
    ‘Fled is that music – do I wake or sleep?’
    Amanda was exasperated by her friend’s distraction. ‘Pull yourself together, Sidney.’
    He was unable to do so. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve just seen the most extraordinary thing. A beautiful woman gliding, yes gliding . . .’
    ‘Stop it. It’s quite insulting to get all soppy about one woman whilst in the presence of another. Besides, you’re a married man. Are you going to take me out to lunch or not?’
     
    It was only after the waitress in Le Bleu Blanc Rouge had taken their order of pork cutlets with mushrooms that Sidney recovered sufficiently to explain why he had been so unsettled. Amanda listened with as much interest as she could muster but admitted that she could not concentrate because she was bursting to tell him that she had recently had dinner with Gerald Gardiner QC, the defender of Lady Chatterley’s Lover at the notorious trial.
    ‘Such a clever man,’ she began. ‘I wish I’d discovered him earlier.’
    ‘Isn’t he in his sixties?’
    ‘I think I prefer the more mature generation. They’re more stable, more charming, and generally I can be sure that they’re not after my money.’
    Sidney tried to get back on to the subject of the girl in the art gallery. Could it be some kind of contemporary ‘happening’, he wondered, or was it something more sinister?
    ‘Honestly, Sidney, I don’t know why you are preoccupied. Some girls are just show-offs.’
    ‘I think she must have been French.’
    ‘There you are then.’
    ‘Not all Frenchwomen are exhibitionists.’
    ‘Have you been to Saint-Tropez?’ Amanda asked.
    ‘No, of course I haven’t.’
    ‘Well, there are plenty of them there, I can tell you. Had she shaved her armpits?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Sidney answered forlornly. ‘I didn’t