He said, gently, “Don’t you think, Colin, that this might be a moment to clear up some of the points which have been puzzling us all?”
“If I can,” said Chaytor. It was the hour for confession. “What points had you got in mind?”
“We all saw your wife when the headlights caught her. She was trying to get over that gate. Ergo, she thought she was being pursued. Presumably by Jemal. Now why should she think that?”
To help him along, Peter said, “We really do know a lot about it already. And what we don’t know we’ve guessed. She was acting as a courier, yes? To bring back one of the really valuable pictures, the ones that Goraji and Rasim stole for Agazadeh Zaman.”
“You know about them?”
“I was given a run-down by Commissaire Paul Meurice when I was in Bordeaux.”
“If you know that, you know the whole story.”
“Most of it,” said Stewart. “Some things are still a bit puzzling. One question first. Why did these pictures have to come to England at all? Couldn’t Zaman have arranged for them to be sold in France?”
“Yes. If he wished to get a tenth of what they were worth. Or even less. The only man who could realise anything approaching their real value was Meyer. He had the contacts you see, in São Paulo in Brazil and Bahia Blanca in the Argentine. South America is the best market for truly valuable paintings. Local industrialists and war criminals with money, who have taken refuge there. They are attracted by a form of property which is easily transportable and increases in value every year. Meyer has been dealing in this market for many years.”
“Right,” said Stewart. “So your wife brought them over and Meyer sold them in South America. One final point, then. These were well-known paintings, on what I believe they call the Interpol list. Once they got to South America, no doubt they would be safe enough. The authorities there are, I understand, notably tolerant. But they had to get through the controls at this end. How did Meyer manage that?”
“He had various methods,” said Chaytor. After this there was a long silence. When it was clear that this was all he was going to offer them, Peter said, “Do you think we might have a look at the one she’s just brought with her? I suppose it’s in that case.”
They thought that he was going to refuse, but after a moment of hesitation Chaytor shrugged his shoulders and said, “Why not? I shouldn’t mind having another look at it myself before it disappears.”
He lifted the case onto the table, opened the lid and gripped the catch between thumb and forefinger, turning it first in one direction, then in the other. When the false lid folded down all they could see was a single piece of white cardboard, exactly fitting the interior. Chaytor fiddled this out using the blade of his pen-knife and there was the picture. It was firmly held by transparent corner pieces, on the thicker cardboard which backed it. Chaytor took it out and held it, tilted, on the table.
Whilst they had been talking morning had been coming back into the sky.
Chaytor said to Peter, “If you’ll switch out the light, we shall be able to see it better.”
The brown shadows and half-tones of the background and the silver and drab green of the coat concentrated the eye on the face; the face of a young man, confident in his power and sure of his destiny.
“The greatest of the Dutch masters,” said Chaytor reverently. “Lesser than Velazquez and Titian, but excelling them in humanity. It’s hard to realise, isn’t it, that Rembrandt was barely out of his teens when he painted this?”
Stewart was rubbing one finger gently over the picture. The three centuries and a half since it had been painted had hardened the surface of the paint and produced a faint spider’s web of cracks, almost invisible at a distance. He said, “Lucky it’s been carefully handled. It would never have done to have rolled this one up in an umbrella.”
Peter was the only one who said nothing. He was revolted at the thought that a thing of such beauty should be destined to adorn the estancia of some ex-Nazi thug or the penthouse flat of a Brazilian millionaire.
He kept these thoughts to himself.
Seeming to sense his reserve, Chaytor said, “You realise that there was nothing criminal in what we were doing. We were breaking a lot of administrative rules, that’s all. If we’d been found out, no doubt we’d have been fined. The pictures confiscated, perhaps.”
Peter realised that Chaytor was talking to reassure himself. He still said nothing.
They were half-way home in Stewart’s car before he broke his silence. He said, “He didn’t tell us much we didn’t know. And the one thing we did want to know, he didn’t tell us.”
Stewart grunted. He was concentrating on his driving. The mist was still lying in patches in the hollows. For most of the time they were in the clear, then, without much warning, they were travelling in a white obscurity through which they crawled cautiously forward, feeling their way.
As had happened before when he had lost a night’s sleep, Peter’s brain was working with particular clarity. All the remaining questions were concentrated into a single question. If one could see the links one could see the answer. It would not come by thinking about it. It needed a spur from outside.
A red tail-light showed suddenly. Stewart braked in good time and for a whole unpleasant minute they were stationary, wondering if a less cautious driver would ram them from behind. Then the lorry in front of them moved on and they were out in the early morning sunlight.
Stewart said, “All clear ahead now.”
“I hope so,” said Peter.
4
“Well, I’ve been offered a job on this paper,” said Ron. “It’s run by a character I was at school with.”
“What sort of paper?” said Peter. He was alone in the Starfax office. Stewart was off on some ploy of his own.
“It’s a marketing magazine. A freebie. Most of it’s advertisements. With bits between to fill up the gaps. Blocks, they call them. Well, I did one or two of those, when they were hard up for something to put in. They seem to have gone down O.K. Now I’ve been offered a full-time job.”
“Grab it,” said Peter, “with both hands. I’ve got a feeling this lark may not last much longer.”
“The skipper certainly seems to leave most of it to you nowadays.”
This had become the pattern. As Stewart lost interest in his brainchild, Peter became more and more involved. He had a touch which endeared him to his correspondents, particularly the female ones. Some of them, he was alarmed to discover, were already elevating him to the status of guru. One lady had, without demur, paid four fees of fifty pounds to obtain the advice of the stars on matters which should more suitably have been put to her doctor. Another was, he suspected, feeling her way to an offer of marriage. Whether with himself or the stars only time would show.
“I’ll be off, then,” said Ron.
One result of the swing in their responsibilities had been to bring Peter into closer contact with their three regular assistants. They had quickly ceased to be puppets and had acquired three-dimensional personalities. Ronald and Leonard Terry had both been educated at the Sir John Summerfold School, near the Oval cricket ground and could, when it suited them, speak the classless middle-English of the television age. After leaving school they had taken different paths. Leonard was the boy who was clever with his hands. Ronald preferred to save his hands and use his brain. Both of them, he noticed, had regulated their accents and their modes of speech to accord with the company they kept; Len, with his clipped participles and unexpected diphthongs sometimes sounded almost like a stage cockney, whilst Ron could have passed for a modern product of the London School of Economics. He wondered, incidentally, how they spoke when they were at home together. Perhaps they didn’t talk to each other. Some brothers didn’t.
Peter was thinking about this when the telephone rang. It was Lisa and she sounded worried.
She said, “We’ve had a man round here – in fact he’s been round twice – asking for Meyer. He seemed quite upset when I couldn’t p
roduce him and admitted I wasn’t certain where he was. Not the perfect secretary, he evidently thought.”
“What sort of man?”
“I guess he was a policeman.”
“Did he have a name?”
“It sounded like O’Keefe.”
“Then he is certainly a policeman. A Detective Superintendent no less.”
“I had a feeling he might be someone important.”
“According to Les, he’s one of the coming men at the Yard. Said to be excellent at putting on a fatherly act. But watch out for it, Les said. It’s only an act. Really he’s a very tough customer.”
“I got that impression, too.”
“So what did he want with Meyer?”
“He didn’t say. He just wanted to know where he was and how soon he could see him. All I could tell him was that he’d been going to Brussels first and would be away for a day or two. Had he left an address or a telephone number? Neither, I said. This seemed very strange to him and I think he thought I was stalling. That was when the fatherly manner slipped a bit.”
“Don’t panic,” said Peter. “He can’t arrest you for not knowing where your boss is.”
Meyer had indeed been to Brussels, but he was no longer there. On the Monday afternoon he had had an appointment with the manager of the Banque Liégeoise, where he had been received with the deference due to a man who had, for some years, maintained a very large current account. He was ushered straight into the manager’s sanctum and offered a cigar. The manager took one too and they were lit with appropriate ceremony.
When he was comfortably settled and had agreed that the government was scandalously incompetent (much better leave things to businessmen), that the state of the nation was what might have been expected and the weather deplorable, Meyer cautiously opened the real business he had come to discuss.
“As you must know,” he said, “I have, in the past, found in South America, a ready market for my clients’ paintings.”
Monsieur Blaineau did know it and said that it showed a commendable spirit of enterprise.
“I now have a chance,” continued Meyer, “to operate in a reverse direction. It has come to my knowledge privately that a South American businessman – you will, I am sure, excuse me for not mentioning his name – is prepared to sell one of the few remaining portraits by Goya which is still in private hands. He has, I fancy, little idea of its real value. If I can buy it at the price offered I have a purchaser in New York who would pay – well, a great deal more than I had given.”
“It is always an agreeable state of affairs,” said the manager, “when one can sell for more than one buys. I imagine such opportunities do not often occur.”
“Very rarely. And when they do they have to be grasped swiftly, but carefully. There is an additional complication. For various reasons the vendor has stipulated that the money must be paid to him either in local currency or in some form which is freely transferable into local currency.”
“South American currency of some description,” said the manager thoughtfully.
“Correct. But there is a further complication. The paramount requirement in this case is secrecy. I have, I need hardly say, every confidence in you and in the few persons in your organisation who would be cognisant of the transaction at this end.”
“You are very kind.”
“But this confidence does not necessarily extend to the people who would be handling the matter if it were to be conducted on a normal bank-to-bank basis. Too many busybodies would be asking themselves why is Mr. Meyer, the well-known picture dealer, exporting such a very large sum of money to South America? And it would be a large sum. It would, temporarily, amount to almost the whole of my balance with you. You appreciate my uneasiness.”
“I do indeed,” said Monsieur Blaineau, who was himself exhibiting the sort of uneasiness which a bank manager feels when a large sum, held on current account, and therefore paying no interest and earning a comfortable income for the bank, is threatened with removal. “But tell me, how would you obviate this difficulty?”
“There is only one way. I have a courier who operates from Paris. He would have to take the money across personally.”
“In Belgian francs?”
“They would have to be exchanged, either here or on arrival, into the appropriate currency.”
“Cruzeiros or pesos.”
“Or australs.”
“Certainly, if you require the money in the Argentine.”
“It is not a question,” said Meyer sharply, “of where I require it. The person who will dictate that is my vendor. If he plans to retire in the Argentine when he gets his money, then naturally he will require it in the currency of that country.”
Monsieur Blaineau said, “I quite follow that.” He was trying to sound as broad-minded as a bank manager can when a favoured customer is suggesting to him what amounts to the closing of his account. He said, “You will, of course, have considered the various steps which have to be taken in connection with a transfer in cash.”
Meyer regarded the fingernails of his left hand for nearly half a minute before he said, “Tell me frankly, Monsieur Blaineau, do you feel competent to advise me on this transaction?”
“It is a little out of my field. But there are experts whom I can consult, without, of course, mentioning any names.”
“How quickly?”
“I could have an answer for you by tomorrow.”
“Good. Tomorrow I shall be in Paris. I have a small apartment in the Rue Oberkampf in the eleventh arrondissement. I have written down the telephone number for you.” He handed him a piece of paper. “Please do not leave it lying about. Only a few people know of my Paris pied-à-terre and the fewer the better. I will expect a call from you around midday. Agreed?”
“Certainly. And have no fears. As is necessary in my profession I have an excellent memory for figures.” He extracted one of the long cedar-wood matches which had been used for their cigars and set fire to the paper, depositing the ashes in the tray on his table.
“It is a pleasure to do business with a man of such discretion,” said Meyer, with a smile which nearly reached his eyes.
He caught the evening Brabant Express and was in Paris in time for dinner. He doubted whether Monsieur Blaineau would be able to give him any useful advice or help, but he had achieved his real objective, which was to prepare the manager for the removal of his personal fortune from the Belgian bank to a Parisian one.
Next morning he paid two visits. The first was to the Paris office of Messrs. Mauger & Finch, whose London office looked after most of his travel arrangements. He had a word with young Mr. Finch. His return reservation to London had been made for that day. Since he had decided to spend a second night in Paris he now wished it to be rescheduled for a Wednesday morning flight. This was achieved, without difficulty, on the telephone. Having paid the small extra charge involved, Meyer said, “There was one other thing. An agent of mine, who is resident here, may shortly have to make a trip on my behalf to South America. He will have business to conduct either in São Paulo or in Bahia Blanca. One of the difficulties is that I shall not know until the last moment which of the two will be his destination.”
“No problem if it is São Paulo. Both Air France and British Airways have flights twice daily to Rio. From there he would catch the local shuttle to Sao Paulo.”
“And Bahia Blanca?”
“That needs a little more thought. Aero-Argentina runs a direct flight daily from Geneva. It leaves at the rather awkward hour of two o’clock in the morning and I have never known it to be fully booked. However, if your agent is resident in Paris, it means that he will have to go first to Geneva. Nothing difficult about that, of course. Only some additional expense—”
“The expense is of no importance. What matters is the timing. It will not be certain until the last moment when he will have to leave. But when that moment comes, it is essential that he should leave at once. Flying to Geneva might waste an entir
e day and that could be fatal to the particular piece of business which he will be called upon to transact. You will excuse me if I do not go into details—”
“Certainly.”
“I take it there are no direct flights from Paris?”
“Occasional charter flights, of course. But no scheduled service.”
“I hardly think,” said Meyer with a smile, “that important though this matter is it would warrant chartering a trans-Atlantic aircraft—”
“Might I, then, make a suggestion.” Mr. Finch was scrabbling through the heap of timetables and information booklets on the table, like a terrier who has scented a promising bone. “I am fairly certain – no – yes, here it is. A.C.S.C., which is the Chilean national line, has recently inaugurated a daily flight to Santiago. Its first and only stop is Buenos Aires. It leaves at twelve o’clock in the morning – a much more civilised hour – and with the clock in its favour it reaches Buenos Aires at four thirty. Bahia Blanca is not much more than three hundred miles south-west of Buenos Aires and there is a local service daily – a return service in fact – so your agent could be in Bahia Blanca early in the evening. How would that do?”It would do excellently. And I am much obliged to you. If his negotiations are successful, my man may have to proceed from South America to New York. In the first instance, therefore, I would propose to book him a single ticket. How much would that cost?”
Mr. Finch, having played a complicated tune on his desk calculator, said, “The South American exchanges tend to fluctuate, but it should not cost you much more than four hundred and fifty pounds. Tourist class, I assume.”
“Then I will deposit with you now the sum of six hundred pounds. That should cover all contingencies. Then all that will be necessary will be a telephone call from me to you, stating which booking I need. It will be a person-to-person call. You do understand that the prime requisite is confidentiality.”
Mr. Finch said that he understood perfectly.
Meyer’s second call that morning was at the Banque de La Guyane. Here again he was ushered straight into the office of the General Manager.
Paint Gold and Blood Page 16
