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‘That took someone some time.’ Tash lifted a corner. ‘Heavy, too.’

I added it to the list.

After I’d photographed the paintings on the walls, I noted the dimensions.

There was a glorious oil seascape of the cliffs near Land’s End.

It was signed by Charles Naper and must be one of the few paintings of his that still existed.

He had burned most of his work. Also hanging in the room was a work of Sheba’s with her distinctive broad swathes of colour.

There was joy in just looking at it. It was simply framed so that nothing distracted from the image.

Tash peered at a small watercolour of a child. ‘This is exquisite.’ She lifted it off the wall and handed it to me.

I turned it over, looking for a signature or signs that it might have been in a sale somewhere.

The work had been done quickly, and a few strokes had captured the essence of the child, who looked to be around two.

The location was hard to pinpoint. It was a sketch, not a finished painting, and it was interesting in that it was beautifully framed.

Tash had moved on and was holding an old teddy bear. ‘He’s been well loved.’ She stroked the bald patch on the bear’s stomach.

I smiled. ‘Any maker’s marks?’

She shook her head. ‘Might have been home-made, looking at the stitching.’ She turned the bear upside down. ‘Beautifully done, but not from a factory.’ She placed it back on the chest of drawers. ‘This feels like it was a child’s room.’ She spun around. ‘But the house belonged to two women.’

‘Maybe it was for one of the two great-nephews?’

‘Nothing about it shouts boy’s room to me.’ She pulled a book from the shelf and handed it to me. Ballet Shoes .

‘You’re right. A niece, then?’

Tash began to look more closely at the books, and I wished I had a phone number for the gardener.

She seemed to know a great deal about both the artists.

Not that that information was important to the task today.

We were cataloguing everything and marking out certain pieces that might be of higher value.

As lovely as the collection of framed Christmas cards by Robert Borlase Smart and Patrick Heron were, I didn’t see them making much for the estate.

Although many painters lived and worked in Cornwall, only a few had made it into the big time.

Barbara Hepworth being one and Stanhope Forbes another.

‘There’s a copy of The Secret Garden here. It says, “To Isabella, love from Sheba”.’ Tash slipped it back on the shelf. ‘Sheba?’

‘I think it was what Bathsheba called herself.’

‘I’m not surprised. What on earth prompted her parents to lumber her with a name like that?’

I frowned.

‘You never paid attention at Sunday school.’ Tash wagged her finger at me. ‘King David had the hots for Bathsheba because he watched her bathe.’

‘Really?’

‘So the Bible says. He sent her husband to the front line of the battle so that he would be killed.’

‘Charming.’ I shivered at the thought. It was just so creepy.

‘Then he married her.’

‘Yuck.’

‘Exactly, so I’m with Sheba. Best to leave Bathsheba behind.’

‘Agreed,’ I said, walking out of the small bedroom.

Bastard was sitting on the table on the landing.

She looked almost like a statue next to a beautiful porcelain vase.

The landing was also home to fifteen paintings, one stone statue and one bronze, as well as a bookcase and an armchair.

I left the furniture for Tash and began with the largest painting.

It was a seascape, one of Sheba’s. Her distinctive use of colour and shape really stood out, with vivid turquoise and cerulean for the water and the sky, and bright greens for the fields.

It was stunning, and so vital. Joy and energy sprang from the canvas.

But it wasn’t everyone’s taste. Looking at the date on the back of the canvas, I saw that it was one of her last paintings, dated 2017.

Having searched the market to see what her work had been achieving, I’d been disappointed.

It deserved more attention and certainly more value.

‘Look at this book of poems.’ Tash held out the volume, with the dedication visible.

To Sheba, a young artist who shows so much promise.

Simon Forster

Venice, June 1934

‘We studied his poems at school,’ she said.

Memories of staring out of the window instead of focusing on the task at hand came rushing back to me. ‘We did.’

‘They were quietly sexy.’ Tash grinned.

‘Yeah, not John Donne, but in their own way they were intense.’

‘Do you remember Mrs Baker?’ she asked.

‘How could I forget? Her rendition of the poems was dire, but she made the history around them interesting.’

‘She did. When we learned that Forster stopped writing after his wife died during the war . . .’ Tash placed one hand on her heart dramatically, with the other on her brow. ‘God, how romantic we found it.’

‘We were so gullible then.’ I flipped the pages and saw some annotations. Sheba must have read the poems carefully. I didn’t have time to study them now, so I placed the book on the top of the console table to have a closer look at later.

We left the hall and entered the master bedroom. Here the view vied with the striking canvas I’d noted on my visit yesterday. It defied definition but stirred something strong. Passion, need and love.

I took it off the wall. It had been signed by Sheba on the front, and on the reverse was the date 1934, but with the 4 struck out and 5 written over it. The colours used were not what I’d call her Cornish palette. Where was she in 1935? Still in Venice?

Tash lifted an old quilt off a small chair. ‘Gorgeous colours.’

I nodded, but what caught my attention was the chair itself. ‘I think this is a Chippendale.’

‘Really?’ She squinted at the black-painted piece.

‘Yes.’ I stroked the curved arm. ‘I’ll double-check with my uncle.

Strangely, he said there was nothing noteworthy here.

’ To be fair to Stephen, I hadn’t noticed the chair when I’d done the walk-through, as the quilt had covered it.

As much as I didn’t care for him, I had to admit he had kept the business afloat with his furniture sales.

Tash put the quilt on the bed where it belonged. It was hand-stitched, and the autumnal colours matched the landscape above the bed, which wasn’t Sheba’s but her father’s.

She stood back. ‘I wonder if there are any other valuable pieces in the house.’

‘Not that I noticed yesterday.’

‘Too struck by that portrait, I imagine.’

‘True.’ I scratched Bastard’s head as she bumped my legs. ‘And by Bastard.’

‘Ah yes, the ghost cat that haunts the house.’

‘More like the cat that sees ghosts. She watches things that we can’t see. Like right now.’

Bastard was sitting on the edge of the carpet staring at the corner of the room. It was empty, not even a spider to be seen. Just an old metal plate covering what might have been an electric socket at some point.

‘Cats are like that, though.’ Tash dropped her notebook onto the bed. ‘I’m going to put the kettle on again and have a quick peek at the rest of the house.’ She stepped over Bastard, who remained fixated on the corner.

As she went downstairs, I made notes about the other paintings in the room and the abstract sculpture on the chest of drawers that might be an Arp.

There were so many things to follow up on, especially my uncle missing a Chippendale chair.

This wasn’t a straightforward inventory at all. Was he setting me up to fail again?