Death of an Elgin Marble

by David Dickinson

  ‘I do, of course I do. Why didn’t you say so? But really, Francis, I know you fairly well by now. We have been married for a while. I’m sure you must have a view, one way or the other.’

  Powerscourt sighed and picked up his hat. ‘Very well. I am going to Amersham to root about in the outhouses and the neighbouring buildings of the Hellenic College.’

  He was halfway out of the front door now. ‘But let me tell you, Lucy, if you twisted my arm right up my back and asked me for my thoughts on the possible return of the statue, I would say yes, I think it will be returned. But I would not offer an opinion on whether it will be the real thing or a copy. I wouldn’t bet a single farthing on that, one way or the other.’

  William Tyndale Easton was sitting on a plain prison chair in front of a plain prison table. He was wearing a tweed jacket and a pair of brown trousers. His hair looked as if it had not been combed properly that morning and there was a small cut on his left cheek. The Maidstone police had arrived before he had completed his toilette. On the other side of the table were Sergeant Burke, looking serious, and Inspector Kingsley, who had conducted a long inspection of the prisoner, including a slow walk right round Easton’s chair. He knew that his first question could determine the shape of the whole interview.

  ‘Looking forward to going back, are you?’

  There was a long pause. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Easton sounded hesitant.

  ‘You know perfectly well what I mean. You’ve been there before after all, haven’t you?’

  ‘Been where, please, Inspector? You’re confusing me.’

  A more sensible prisoner would have told me to go to hell, or words to that effect, Christopher Kingsley said to himself. Easton was looking frightened now.

  ‘It was Pentonville last time, wasn’t it? God knows where it’ll be this time. His Majesty has a large number of places where he can park his criminals. You remember what prison’s like? The food? The lack of privacy? The beatings-up? The queues where you can be kicked and punched for a quarter of an hour at a time? The dark places at the end of a passageway where a knife or a fist or a boot might be waiting for you? I’m sure you remember them well.’

  Easton looked at the Inspector with pleading eyes. He said nothing. Kingsley wondered how many times he had been assaulted in Pentonville before Carver Wilkins gave him protection. The Inspector took a deep breath. He felt suddenly like a man about to jump off the edge of a cliff into the river below and is not sure he will survive.

  ‘Come, come,’ he began, ‘we don’t need to go into details at this stage. We just need to know how they worked, the links between you and Carver Wilkins and Dr Tristram Stanhope. That’s all.’

  A part of the Inspector’s brain was expecting an instant denial. But that was not the response he got.

  ‘What do you mean, the links between us?’

  ‘You know perfectly well what I mean. I should remind you of some of the crimes connected with the affair of which I speak: robbery, blackmail, extortion, murder. You can work out the length of prison sentence those crimes carry.’ The Inspector paused and placed his hands round his neck. ‘Or, indeed, the length of the drop.’

  ‘I didn’t know anything about any murders. I didn’t know there had been any. You’ve got to believe me, Inspector, please.’

  ‘We’ll see about that. We know perfectly well how the links worked but it would be good to hear it in your own words.’

  Easton looked desperately at his interrogators as if a very long stare might make them disappear. ‘This is how it worked,’ he whispered. ‘God help me and my family if Carver Wilkins ever finds out that I told you.’

  Scylla and Charybdis, Sergeant Burke, who had liked the ancient myths at school, said to himself. Scylla is here with my Inspector threatening him with the rope, Charybdis lurks in Deptford with broken bones and cigarette burns from the Twins.

  ‘Stanhope had the ideas. I worked them out. Carver Wilkins organized the criminals.’

  ‘Could you give us an example of how it worked in practice?’

  There was another pause, then a great sigh, as if from a man who realizes that he has no choice but to put more cards on the table.

  Inspector Kingsley took another deep breath and prepared for another jump.

  ‘How about the Caryatid?’ he asked. ‘The Caryatid from the British Museum?’

  ‘I didn’t have much to do with that, Inspector. Dr Stanhope told Carver how to bribe the Greek porters and when they should steal it during the fire alarm. I don’t even know where they took it.’

  ‘Really? Really?’ was the Inspector’s reply. ‘So what precisely was your role in the affair?’

  ‘I went to America for them. I’d been to New York once before to sort out the Turner before that all got stuck. I fixed up the sale of one of those Caryatids to that rich American fellow. His people bought me a very lavish dinner in New York. It must have been the most expensive meal I’ve ever had. Caviar, langoustines, champagne.’

  ‘We don’t want to know the bloody menu, thank you very much.’ Inspector Kingsley felt an overpowering urge to ask William Easton if he had travelled first class across the Atlantic. There was a knock at the door. A sergeant with a giant moustache handed a note to the Inspector. ‘Thank you,’ said Kingsley, taking out his spectacles to read it. ‘No reply for the moment, thank you.’

  Looking at his watch, Sergeant Burke noted that it was exactly half past eleven. He wondered if the time of the note’s arrival was not a coincidence.

  ‘This note provides more interesting information about your position, Mr Easton. It tells me that you have a great deal of money in your main bank account. How much of that came from the American sale?’

  Easton was trying to shrink, to turn himself into a smaller, almost invisible, Easton. ‘I don’t know. I have no idea.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped the Inspector. ‘Let me remind you of the more sinister aspect of these crimes, the blackmail, the murders. Do you want to be named in those indictments?’

  ‘It was a great deal of money. But then the man Mitchell is a very wealthy fellow. He’s a millionaire many times over.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘He had a town house in New York, you know. And a place out at the Hamptons where the millionaires have those parties. And one up near West Point.’

  ‘I don’t care if he owns all of Fifth Avenue and the Statue of Liberty.’ Kingsley was getting cross now. ‘How much?’

  ‘Well, there was rather a row about the price.’

  ‘For God’s sake, man. I don’t care if he gave you an updated version of the Sermon on the Mount. How much?’

  ‘Over a hundred thousand dollars.’

  ‘How much more than a hundred thousand dollars? And don’t give me any more nonsense or you’ll be back in Pentonville before lunch and you may never come out again.’

  ‘A hundred and twenty-five thousand.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said the Inspector, ‘it’s easy to see where your bank balance came from.’

  Inspector Kingsley had a sudden picture of the Twins, prowling round Maidstone looking for their prey. He thought Carver Wilkins would not hesitate to issue a termination order on William Tyndale Easton if he knew what he had told the police. He remembered Lucas Ringer, still holed up in his Aberystwyth hotel, the only man who could give firm evidence against the Twins, and even then, as the Inspector knew well, a clever barrister could plant doubt in the mind of the jury because the witness had seen the Twins in the pub, but that did not mean that they had committed the crime.

  Easton began to shake slightly, as if he had the beginnings of a fever. ‘Please, Inspector, I don’t think I should say any more now. I think I’ve said far too much already.’

  ‘Nonsense, man,’ growled Inspector Kingsley, but his mind was racing as he looked at his prisoner. The man was now rocking slowly from side to side in his chair. If he carried on with more warnings of immediate imprisonment and threats of the rope, Ea
ston might suffer a complete collapse. The Inspector had heard of colleagues in the past who had carried on too long with their interrogations so that the prisoners went to pieces and were unable to give evidence. Easton had given them invaluable information. Better, surely, to keep that intact than to humiliate and terrify him any further.

  ‘I’ve got other business to attend to,’ Inspector Kingsley said harshly. ‘I’m having you kept inside overnight. Don’t argue or you’ll be back in Pentonville. We’ll be here again tomorrow.’

  Dear Lord Powerscourt, (the letter was from John Hudson, European art critic of the New York Times)

  Please forgive the haste. I am about to set out for an exhibition in Florence. I have, as you requested, been making enquiries about Mr Huntington, the railway king who bought the Turner. I have been in touch with my friend Franklin, who has been talking to the politics and the business departments on the paper. They are entranced and fascinated by this story, the politics and business people. They want to buy you a very expensive dinner the next time you are in New York.

  Powerscourt smiled. He had never been to New York. Lady Lucy had been trying to persuade him to go for years.

  Myron Guthrie, (the letter continued) the chief politics man, has worked in London for some time. He says the principal thing to remember about Huntington at this time is that he is in the middle of a process that very few British people understand. The phenomenon is particularly American. Ever since the days of John D. Rockefeller and his control of the oil business, captains of industry have tried to buy out or ruin their main competitors. Then they have a monopoly. They can control the prices. They can, in effect, charge whatever they like. For years now these people have been known as robber barons.

  Powerscourt thought they were a long way from an oil painting hanging on the walls of Norfolk House on Chiswick Mall.

  When politicians opposed to big money feel things may have got out of hand they call for the Congress or a committee or a subcommittee of Congress to investigate the tycoon. These investigations are very thorough, far worse than the Inquisition apparently. Specialists from the Department of Justice go through the books. They check everything. They begin, according to their critics, with a presumption of guilt rather than innocence.

  Eighteen months ago, just before the Turner walked off the walls, Henry Huntington of the Huntington Library and his railways and all his affairs were put under investigation. It’s still going on. Nothing, according to my colleagues on the New York Times, would have given these investigators greater joy than to find that their victim had been importing or trying to import stolen works of art. It could have finished his whole career. So, they suspect the reason for the delay in bringing the painting across was simply Huntington delaying the transfer in case it damaged his business. They suspect the thieves in London may have got fed up waiting for their money and invented the change of name. For once the painting had a different name, not on any blacklist in the New York Police Department or any of the great galleries, the problem would have gone away.

  I hope this is useful,

  In haste,

  Yours sincerely,

  John Hudson

  Lady Lucy Powerscourt was having a last supper the evening before the Caryatid might reappear at the British Museum. Johnny Fitzgerald was still on manoeuvres in Warwickshire, but her husband and Inspector Kingsley were present at the feast. The Powerscourt fishmonger on Sloane Street provided some excellent oysters, the Powerscourt butcher on the King’s Road sent some delicious lamb and the Powerscourt cellars contributed a bottle of Batard Montrachet and a couple of Charmes Chambertin.

  Powerscourt passed on the details of John Hudson’s letter about events in New York. He was thrilled with the news from Maidstone. ‘Congratulations, Inspector,’ he cried, pouring him a large glass of white wine, ‘you’ve cracked the case wide open! Excellent news!’

  ‘Well done, Inspector, well done indeed,’ echoed Lady Lucy.

  ‘We have some more interesting news too,’ said Powerscourt, ‘though not as germane to the case as yours. I heard this afternoon from the British Ambassador in Athens. A Caryatid, a fairly authentic-looking Caryatid in his words, has been put back in her place on the Acropolis by the Archbishop of Athens and a couple of Metropolitans. The Greek military guarded her all night apparently.’

  ‘Heavens above,’ cried Inspector Kingsley, ‘how many of the bloody things are there? Do you have any idea, my lord?’

  ‘Before we start counting Caryatids,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘could you clear up something more important? There have been two murders in this case, two dead men, two families who have lost loved ones. Do you know why they were killed?’

  ‘I’ve thought a lot about that, Lucy,’ said her husband, ‘we know how Kostas and Carwyn Jones died, of course. We’re not sure why. But the evidence from the people in Wales suggests they were killed because they tried to blackmail Carver Wilkins. He had paid the two brothers pretty well, from what we know of the Kostas’s bank account, for stealing the Caryatid and replacing it with a fake. And he sent money to Lucas Ringer to pay Carwyn Jones for concocting the story about the statue. But they both had a bad dose of the Oliver Twists – they asked for more. Carver knew that if either of them started talking he’d be in trouble. He couldn’t take the risk. So he sent in the Twins, once to the tube station and once to Wales. God knows what happened to Kostas’s brother. We may never know, but we presume he’s dead too.’

  ‘How terrible,’ said Lady Lucy.

  ‘I agree,’ said Inspector Kingsley. ‘It is terrible.’ He didn’t refer to his decision to leave the Metropolitan Police because of another two or three murders. ‘There are other questions we need to clear up. Perhaps you could return to the number of Caryatids, my lord?’

  ‘Before I answer that,’ said Powerscourt, polishing off the last of the oysters, ‘let me ask you a question. Do you think the Caryatid, or perhaps a Caryatid, will be restored to the British Museum tomorrow morning?’

  The Inspector stared into his wine as if the answer lay in a tiny commune in the Cote de Beaune. ‘No, I don’t,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t think it will come back tomorrow. I don’t think the people who took it have any left. The cupboard is bare. All the copies and the original have been accounted for. Or do you think there are enough Caryatids floating around for one of them to get to Great Russell Street? I have, by the way, ordered a very light surveillance of the museum during the night. I very much doubt if the people who bring her back, if they do, will be the same ones who took her in the first place. Better to let her come home, I say. I come back to my question, my lord. How many of the damned things do you think there are?’

  Powerscourt paused and stared down at his plate. He picked up a single pea and held it aloft between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

  ‘One,’ he said, ‘sent to Greece, but fell into the sea on the way. Maybe there was an ancient curse over that harbour in Brindisi.’ He dropped the pea into the palm of his left hand and picked up another one.

  ‘Two, and this statue in a way is the key to the whole affair, this one is sent to upstate New York in a giant coffin where I think it now resides in the millionaire’s art gallery. Maybe the fellow could be persuaded to return it once he knows the circumstances, or he may claim that he bought it in good faith from friend Easton.’ A second pea was transferred to his left hand. A third took its place.

  ‘Three, there is now a Caryatid back in Athens, cherished by the Greek Orthodox clergy and the population of Athens. I should say there is a chance of that being the real one, but—’ another pea was transferred, another taken up ‘—I cannot be sure.’

  ‘Four—’ Powerscourt waved this particular pea around for some time as if some new thought had just struck him ‘—there was a Caryatid at the Hellenic College in Amersham the other evening. Maybe that will be the one to go back to the British Museum tomorrow morning, if it does go back. If not, God help us—’ a fifth pea was pressed into service
‘—there might be five of them. You see, it is virtually impossible to know how many Caryatids there are. There’s one vital fact that has been staring us in the face all the way through this investigation and we haven’t noticed it. I only thought about it for the first time a moment ago.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Lady Lucy.

  ‘Simply this,’ replied her husband. ‘The thieves had made a copy of the statue before the theft. They replaced the real Caryatid with their own version.’

  ‘So?’ Inspector Kingsley sounded puzzled.

  ‘So, they could have made three or even four copies before the theft. Don’t you see? They might have only needed to make one more copy after the event, the one over in Wales with the enormous coffin.’

  ‘God bless my soul,’ said Inspector Kingsley, ‘I see what you mean. Just going back to Amersham for a moment, I hadn’t realized that the one at the Hellenic College could be the one going back to the museum, but of course you’re right. Tell me, my lord, why did you say that the one going to America was the key to the whole affair?’

  ‘Well,’ said Powerscourt, ‘it depends on what or who you think the driving force behind the whole thing was. It depends if you think Byron is more important than Mammon for the participants. And we cannot forget the question of the relationship between the three players, Carver Wilkins, William Tyndale Easton and the good, or bad, Dr Tristram Stanhope.’

  ‘When you talk about Byron, Francis—’ the memory of the young men reciting Childe Harold had stayed with Lady Lucy ‘—do you mean that one motive for stealing the Caryatid might have been to send her back to the Acropolis where she came from? So the one in Athens is probably the real one?’

  ‘Exactly so,’ said Powerscourt. ‘On that assumption, the principal player would be Stanhope. Carver Wilkins probably thinks the Acropolis is a nightclub in the West End, and Easton, from what we know of him, is unlikely to read Greek poetry in bed last thing at night. But Stanhope would be different.’