Scarper Jack and the Bloodstained Room by Christopher Russell

Author:Christopher Russell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141919294
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2008-10-07T04:00:00+00:00

Rupert was still in the half-painted dining room. Just. He’d exhausted his store of questions regarding the influence of classical art on the modern and was becoming desperate.

‘So tell me, please,’ he begged, ‘about brushes.’

‘Brushes?’ repeated the long-suffering Erskine without enthusiasm.

‘Yes, would you recommend squirrel hair or badger? Or is there really nothing to match Siberian mink?’

‘For oils or watercolour?’

‘Uh, yes. Indeed. Both. Either. Of course.’

As Jack turned from the table in Erskine’s room, he noticed again the scraps of canvas on their washing line by the window. Each one had splodges of paint, different colours daubed on singly then swirled together. He guessed the artist used these to experiment with mixing the shades he wanted for his canvases. One scrap in particular attracted his eye. The reds and blues and blacks were mixed in the centre to a deep bruise purple. But it wasn’t the colour that had made him look more closely. In the barely dry paint, he could clearly see marks where the artist had held the canvas. Marks made by fingers. What had he heard about such marks? Quite recently. He couldn’t remember but he reached up anyway and quickly unpegged the scrap of canvas, slipping it inside his shirt, next to the manilla envelope. Then he hurried back to the fireplace, scuffing his feet from side to side to obliterate the footprints he had made. Crouching beneath the mantelpiece, he blew some more damp, black dust from the hearth into the room, hoping to make it look as if there had been a sudden heavy fall of soot from an unswept chimney. With a bit of luck, Mr Jevons might even get another job.

Jack squirmed and clawed his way slowly up inside the flue until he reached the main chimney space again. There he paused, his feet braced against one wall, his back against the other, and silently spat soot from his mouth and rested his aching arms for a moment. He was anxious now about emerging back into the Knights’ attic. Their maid or housekeeper could be anywhere now; quite possibly on the backstairs. If he tried to go out that way, he might be seen, stopped. He concentrated hard, trying to work out which flue would lead down into the Shoreys’ attic instead. That would be a safer exit route. A sudden noise startled him, a key in a lock and footsteps on the bare boards below.

‘Feather-brained child…’ muttered Erskine.

He stopped in the middle of his room. Something was not quite right. He was used to remembering, visualizing the arrangement of objects. There was a gap in his line of colour samples. One was missing. It must have fallen from its peg into the litter beneath. No matter. He could find it later. And there must have been a fall of soot too. How messy. Everything was irritating but he was late, thanks to the idiot Rupert. He gathered up sketch pad and charcoal and hurried out.

Jack waited until he heard the key turning in the lock again, then eased himself down into the Shoreys’ attic chimney.

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