Gathering of Friends

It’s interesting, really. For all the things one can imagine, there will always be the unimaginable. And as I sit here and write this, I cannot help feeling that I (and a select few) will be the only ones to really be able to imagine it. Even then, it’s a challenge.
There were five of us sat around the table that evening.
Arthur and Jane Lovett were sat meekly at one end. A married couple, they were the newest members of the neighbourhood. As I watched them - and I naturally watched every member of the party, as though I were some sort of therapist, trying to build a picture for himself - I couldn’t help noticing how dependent they seemed on each other. Whenever one of them said anything, they always looked at the other, as if to confirm it was the right thing to do. I guessed this to be the result of not having had many outings as a married couple before.
‘We do appreciate your inviting us,’ Jane Lovett kept saying.
‘Oh yes, very kind indeed.’ Arthur would add, every time. It was almost as though they had practised their ‘sayings’ at home beforehand, and certainly the timings. I laughed (to myself) as I reflected the difficulties that surely must be attached to this new lifestyle.
They were addressing the host, of course, and I gazed over to her. Janet Clarke was a middle-aged woman of considerable charm and kindness. I expected her to have a gaggle of friends somewhere, around the same age, I should think. I sat there and pictured them, playing bridge, or rummy, or the like. For now, I was surprised at her choosing to spend her time with the village neighbours, when, from my perspective, she didn’t need to.
‘Oh, Edith, would you be such a dear and bring the drinks in for me?”
The old lady looked at Janet and smiled sweetly. The two women had been friends for longer than any of us had lived in the village, and a request like this was certainly not impoliteness on Janet’s part. They did everything for one another, and Edith took great care of her, as well as virtually everyone in the village. She was very much the mother of the children at the table that night.
She at once got up and headed towards the kitchen, but then stopped, and approached Arthur and Jane Lovett.
‘I understand that you two want brandy?’ she stared at them, and her voice was suspicious. I think we all noticed that.
‘Well, yes, I mean, if that’s what everyone else is having.’ Arthur smiled weakly and looked around in an all-too-sweeping glance.
Edith leaned in further to the Lovetts, making them highly uncomfortable.
‘Don’t feel you have to,’ she said, ‘I can easily put the kettle on.’
Arthur and Jane seemed to sit back in a sigh of relief. They protested a little to cups of tea, but quickly informed Edith that they would prefer them. The old lady clapped her hands together and went into the kitchen.
I loved this. How funny for Arthur and Jane Lovett, two perfectly grown up adults, to prepare themselves to drink what they felt they should rightfully drink in Janet’s company. I supposed that was the thing about Janet – her social style was all too methodical, and precise. No place for tea in the world of cards and brandy!
So there you have it, my company that night. Quite an interesting bunch, I thought. Our village was a larger one, rather divided into small groups of friendship. I, working in London (and admittedly spending most of my time there recently), hardly saw anyone from it these days. Even tonight I was feeling marginally out of place.
After the whole business with the tea, Arthur and Jane were chatting quietly amongst themselves. I watched Janet, who clearly found this unsettling, and it was at that moment that she decided to open up the subject in the first place.
‘I suppose you’ll have read about them,’ she said loudly but casually, and without looking at anyone in particular. ‘I, of course, heard about it from my friend Agatha. She’s simply always in the know, I believe.’
Arthur, Jane and I were now staring at Janet, waiting for more. She had got her audience reaction, but wouldn’t follow through. She sipped at her brandy and brushed her cards about on the table.
‘Excuse me, but what exactly have we read about?’ asked Jane.
Janet turned to her in a very surprised manner, and for a moment didn’t say anything. I looked around the room during this lapse. How dark everything seemed, even with the bright lights. How dark…
‘Why, that whole business with the room!’ exclaimed Janet sharply. This provided no insight for anybody, and for a moment I was disappointed at it. Then Edith caught my attention, for she had returned with my brandy and the tea for the Lovetts. Her arrival was a lot more welcome than whatever Janet was on about. I admit that I only half listened as she debated with Jane as to whether it had been all over the news.
‘Oh yes, I remember that,’ said Edith suddenly. ‘It must have been half a year ago now.’
‘Probably!’ said Janet. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t really matter how long ago it was, because they haven’t solved anything.’
I was becoming more and more frustrated at this. ‘My dear,’ I said, ‘would you kindly elaborate on this?’
Janet laughed. ‘Of course, Roger, how silly of me,’ She surveyed her audience. ‘My friend Agatha told me about it last week. There was a room in a manor house not too far from here. Bit of a small affair really, more of a country house than a manor house. But anyway, it so happened that the owner came home one day to find it ransacked, absolutely so!’
She paused, dramatically, as everyone digested what she had said so far.
‘You know what was odd?’ she said, twirling a finger around her brandy glass, ‘what was odd is that it was just the one room. The rest of the house hadn’t been touched, even though whoever came in could easily have walked around a bit.’
‘Maybe they found exactly what they were looking for,’ I suggested, and Janet nodded excitedly.
‘That’s exactly what I think!’ she exclaimed. ‘You see, for all the mess they had made, not very much at all had been taken. There were some pieces of jewellery in the corner, in a glass case. They must have been pretty valuable. I don’t know much about the owner of the house, but I suppose it was just another rich old country man, like the rest of them.’
She had clearly finished her story now, for she quickly got up and refilled her glass in the kitchen. I looked round at Arthur and Jane, who seemed a little confused. They perked up suddenly when Janet returned.
‘Did Agatha know what the room was like?’ Jane asked.
‘Oh yes, they had a picture of it in whatever newspaper she read. I remember her saying something about pale wood panels all around the wall, and a table of bread, cheese and wine. I thought those latter things were odd, really…’
She broke off. She had noticed, as we all had, the curious expressions Arthur and Jane Lovett had just adopted. They looked at each other.
‘You don’t think it could have been…?’ said Arthur.
‘Yes, I do!’ said Jane suddenly. ‘It’s the painting.’
Janet, Edith and I were now looking at her with the greatest interest. It was a surprise to see these two as unusually animated as they were now. Suddenly, the whole air of method had escaped them.
‘A few weeks ago, Arthur and I visited this gallery. It was just a small one, attached to a museum. The paintings there all seemed rather random, didn’t they dear? Yes, very random. There was some sort of mystery about them, and where they came from. It was all rather unnerving, really. There was one particular painting above a small group of chatting people. They all seemed to be rather confused about it.’
“And the painting,’ said Arthur suddenly, ‘was of that room! I remember now, it was just as you described, Janet. It was of a ransacked room and a man, just standing right in the middle of it. The odd thing is that no-one seemed to know anything about it.’
‘Did you see who painted it?’ I asked, for I felt sure that I had seen something like it, somewhere.
‘It was just signed with a few strokes, one of which looked something like an E, but it was all too unclear.’ said Jane.
Suddenly, what she had said turned a switch on in my head. I told them all how I had definitely seen a painting of a crime somewhere, though I couldn’t for the life of me remember where.
Edith turned to Janet. ‘Do you suppose they had any idea who might have committed the crime?’ she asked.
‘None at all, I’m afraid. But then again, why should they? It seemed that whoever went into that room took what they wanted and ran out again, all before anyone could come home. It’s just one of those little unsolved cases, I suppose.’
‘Hardly little, when you think about it,’ said Arthur. ‘I remember a similar thing, a couple of years ago. It was such a neat little crime really. Somebody nipped into a big house when the door was open and out they came with a handful of the finest jewellery and diamonds. I tell you, the stuff they keep on display in those houses!’
We were all quite enthralled in this, now. Janet got up and fetched a letter from Agatha, the friend who had told her about the robbery.
‘Oh, look at this! She’s written where it was. It was in Heather Hall, wherever that is.’
‘I know that place!’ I said. ‘Or rather, a friend knows it. He was telling me about a cleaner they once had, who they thought was stealing from them. Soon after they fired her completely, which I thought was rather unfair. Not long after that, they had the break in.’
‘That solves it! It was the cleaner who did it!’ Janet laughed.
‘Actually, it doesn’t sound too far-fetched,’ said Arthur. ‘The case I heard about years ago had a similar kind of thing. Cleaner gets fired for suspected stealing - or maybe for nothing at all. Soon after that the robbery happens.’
‘What house was that?’ asked Edith.
‘Well, let me think. It had an odd name, really. Ah, yes, Woodley Rivers!’ said Arthur.
‘That can’t be true!’ said Janet, looking shocked. ‘I knew that house, or rather I knew the people there. Trudy and James Smith! It must have been such a long time now, but they mentioned getting a new cleaner in. Someone called Enid, I think. You don’t think it could be the same one?’
‘I doubt it,’ I said, ‘although it is a bit of a coincidence.’
‘Ah but look, two ‘E’s!’ laughed Arthur. ‘We have a possible ‘E’ on the painting, and a possible name beginning with ‘E’ for the cleaner!’
Everyone laughed with him. At this point, we seemed to have all forgotten about the painting, and indeed the robberies.
‘Something we’ll never know about, I suppose!’ said Janet.
I found myself looking around the room again. There was something there that I hadn’t noticed before. It was a painting, a very nice one, of a room. The room we were in, to be precise, but with more daylight.
‘That’s lovely,’ I said, pointing to it.
‘And such a distinct style!’ said Jane, who was also admiring it. ‘We have one quite like that, don’t we Arthur?’
‘Yes, we do,’ he confirmed. ‘I remember they were in a small gallery somewhere, rather like the one of the room in Heather Hall. An old lady had done them, and had gone around virtually every gallery around the county. They were quite successful. All of them were of rooms, interiors, that sort of thing.’
Edith, who had been looking down, smiled a little. ‘I did them,’ she said modestly.
Everyone seemed to gasp a little. I felt a great rush of admiration for her.
‘Well, I’m very impressed!’ I said, and I was; the painting of Janet’s room was so well done.
‘Thank you,’ said Edith quietly, ‘I do a lot of paintings, you know. I particularly enjoyed the one I painted of a room of a house I used to clean in. You’ve been talking about it all night.’
Janet sat back, amazed. ‘You mean you painted that?’
‘Yes. Of course, the man standing in it was my invention. An attempt to make people believe it was a man who took the jewellery. It was something I had considered in my previous job, at Woodley Rivers. It was only when they had falsely accused and fired me, of course. Only then did I take the jewellery. And when it happened in Heather Hall, I simply decided to steer the police away from my direction with a picture of the thief. That, and the fact that no-one would believe that an old lady like me could do such a thing, I suppose.’
At that point, she smiled, in her sweet fashion, and turned to Arthur and Jane.
‘Would you like some more tea, my dears?’