The Mysterious Commission Read Online Free Page A

‘It must be thought about,’ he said rather feebly. ‘There must he an interval for reflection, for serious consideration of the decency of the whole thing. I insist on that.’
    ‘Oh, certainly.’ Peach was instantly amenable. ‘We have till nightfall, after all.’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’ Not for the first time in the past half-hour, Honeybath could scarcely believe his ears. ‘Did you say nightfall ?’
    ‘Just that, sir. Mr X’s relations are very sensitive about the whole matter. Insanity is always a humiliating thing in a family, wouldn’t you say? It oughtn’t to be so, but it is so. They insist that Mr X’s residence should be approached in the dark. You will agree that it is thoroughly natural, I’m sure.’
    There was a short silence – occasioned, it need hardly be said, by Honeybath’s inability to find speech. He was obliged hastily to retrieve his sherry and gulp it before contriving further utterance.
    ‘I’m to be taken to this confounded residence, as you call it, in the dark every night, and positively to work under nocturnal conditions?’
    ‘Oh, no – nothing of the kind. We quite understand that you will want to paint in daylight. That’s de rigueur , I’ve no doubt.’ Peach paused on this expression; he was obviously rather proud of it. ‘But you will go, and come away again, in the dark. I can assure you that you will be most comfortably accommodated during your little fortnight. And there’s quite a good cook.’
    Rather like a man registering stress in a stage comedy, Honeybath had produced a handkerchief and mopped his brow. But although his thoughts may have been confused he really knew that there was only one thing to do. He must fish out those banknotes, chuck them at Peach’s irritatingly faceless physiognomy, and order him out of the studio and back to the company of that impressive and patiently waiting chauffeur. And here would be the end of the affair – except, perhaps, that Honeybath would then send for the police. For it could no longer be doubted that there was something uncommonly fishy about the mysterious commission. That was the one true word about it. It had a very fish-like smell.
    ‘So shall we say nine o’clock?’ Peach had got to his feet. He had contrived – incredibly he had contrived – to shake hands in a familiar manner with Charles Honeybath. Within seconds, the painter was alone in his studio.
     
    Every man has his price, so Honeybath must have had his. It would be untrue, however, to assert that it had been named that afternoon. Locked in a drawer in his desk, indeed, was a carrot (or the half of a carrot) which had been potent enough through the greater part of his interview with Mr Peach. But that it was continuing to exercise its potency, or to control the situation to the exclusion of other factors, is inconceivable. Charles Honeybath was an educated man; he was, it may be repeated, conscious that he had a reputation to guard; his financial embarrassments were not of the sort that constitute a threat to tomorrow’s dinner – or indeed to any subsequent dinner, indefinitely on to the grave. It would be a perfectly well-nourished Honeybath who would eventually present himself for that final banquet at which (as the eminent preacher John Donne once remarked) one is not the feaster but the feasted upon. He was in no state of desperation whatever.
    This being so, some other impulse must have been operative in prompting Honeybath to his immediate course of conduct. Perhaps it was intellectual curiosity. He had learned all that was to be learned about portrait-painting – or at least all that was to be learned about it by one who was neither a Rembrandt nor a Velázquez. His range of other interests was not extensive. He was not the type of the socially accomplished artist: a William Rothenstein, say, who has known everybody and has a story about each of them. A childless widower without the inclination to marry again, he was untouched by