Death of an Old Master

by David Dickinson

  And there he was now, in a bright check suit and brightly polished brown brogues, advancing towards the front door of de Courcy and Piper.

  ‘Mr McCracken, how very kind of you to call upon us in our humble gallery!’ Piper was his normal effusive self.

  ‘Kind of you to invite me,’ said McCracken, leaving his coat with a porter in the hall.

  Piper said he proposed to take his friend round the Venetian exhibition still on show. He had closed the gallery to the public for the morning. And then, said Piper, taking McCracken by the arm to steer him towards the Italians, then he had something very special to show him in the private viewing area on the top floor. Nothing, Piper assured McCracken, was for sale. All the items on display were marked down elsewhere.

  At first everything went well. William P. McCracken was much taken by the portraits. ‘Seems to me, Mr Piper,’ he said, staring at a Portrait of a Man attributed to Titian, ‘that human nature doesn’t change very much over the years. No, sir. Man over there looks rather like a character I came across in business some years ago. Bastard tried to close down my railroad. Damned near succeeded too.’

  Then disaster struck. They had turned a corner and arrived at Piper’s favourite painting in the exhibition, described as the Sleeping Venus by Giorgione. The background was an idyllic Italian landscape, a plain in the centre with some distant mountains. On the right a small town in brown climbed lazily up a hill. Lying across the centre of the picture on a satin sheet with a dark red pillow was a woman. She was completely naked. Sensuous and sensual, the sleeping Venus looked as though she had dropped down from heaven for a peaceful afternoon nap in the Italian countryside.

  Piper was about to launch himself on another of his panegyrics. Afterwards he thanked God he had waited, as he said to himself, for the beauty of the painting to sink in.

  William P. McCracken turned rather red. He moved away from the picture and strode back into the other room. ‘Mr Piper,’ he said, ‘I am deeply shocked. I am, I would have you know, the senior elder of the Third Presbyterian Church on Lincoln Street in Concord, Massachusetts. Yes, sir. I cannot tell you what the reaction of my fellow elders would be if they knew I was the possessor of such a painting. The Third Presbyterian would not like it at all. And Mrs McCracken and the Misses McCracken, why sir, they would be shocked to the centre of their being. The Good Lord did not make woman to lie about the countryside without a stitch on.’

  Privately William Alaric Piper was appalled at the hypocrisy of these American millionaires. He felt sure that they broke at least three of the Ten Commandments every day of their working lives. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor his railroad lines, nor his steel plant nor his banks, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s. He wanted to tell McCracken that the same artist who painted the Sleeping Venus had painted some of the most beautiful Madonnas in the world. But he did not. He knew he had no choice but to abase himself before the false gods of the Third Presbyterian of Lincoln Street in Concord, Massachusetts.

  ‘Forgive me, Mr McCracken, please forgive me. I have no wish, no wish at all, to offend your religious beliefs or those of your family and friends in Concord. Perhaps I should have warned you beforehand that sometimes these Renaissance artists painted people in the nude. Your customs are different from ours. Your view of what is acceptable is different from ours. We must respect that. Please forgive me.’

  McCracken smiled. ‘No need to apologize, my friend. We shall agree to differ. Maybe times will change and my fellow countrymen will come to adopt the different values of Europe. We shall see. But come, you have something else to show me on the top floor, I believe.’

  ‘Of course.’ Piper felt relieved. His eternal optimism returned as he led McCracken up to the private viewing room on the top floor. Piper took a large bunch of keys from his pocket and opened the door. The room was almost completely dark. Deep red velvet curtains were drawn tightly against the morning sun of Old Bond Street. Piper pressed a switch. It was like a shrine. Placed at the far end of the room on a large easel draped with velvet was the Hammond-Burke Holy Family. The lights played delicately on the curves and the colours of Raphael’s masterpiece, originally meant to hang on the walls of an Italian church, now waiting patiently in the top floor of a London gallery to captivate American tycoons and separate them from their dollars.

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful! Isn’t it divine!’ whispered Piper, praying that the elders of the Third Presbyterian didn’t believe in the commandment about not making any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath. The Madonna looked down with a practical, maternal love at the child beneath her. The sheep had a contemplative air, looking steadily out of the picture to the world outside. Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. The waters of the lake behind the Holy Family were calm, the trees around the edge casting long shadows across the surface. The horrors of the Agony in the Garden, the hill of Golgotha, the nails being driven into the Cross were far in the future. Piper waited to see what McCracken would say.

  ‘Mr Piper,’ he began, ‘you said you had something special up here. Boy, you certainly have. Is this for sale?’

  Piper shook his head slowly. He knew he could get a splendid price right here and now. But he needed McCracken to want the painting so much that it hurt. He wanted him to lie in his bed at night aching to own it, to possess it, to take this European glory back across the Atlantic. It couldn’t be made easy for him. But once he had felt the lure, almost the disease of collecting, he would come back for more.

  ‘I am bound to offer it to another,’ said Piper sadly. ‘Believe me, Mr McCracken, if there was any way I could let you have this picture, particularly after the offence I caused you downstairs, I would do so.’

  ‘Eighty thousand pounds, Mr Piper. That’s my offer. Eighty thousand pounds. Cash, not stock. You said that Raphael in the National Gallery went for seventy thousand pounds. Let nobody say that William P. McCracken doesn’t offer a fair price.’

  ‘All I can do,’ said Piper, wringing his hands, ‘ – how difficult this is, how much I hate to disappoint you – is to speak to the other party and get back to you.’

  ‘Can you do that this afternoon?’ Piper shook his head. ‘Tomorrow?’ Piper still shook his head. ‘Two or three days?’ Again William Alaric Piper shook his head. The longer William P. McCracken was left to wait, the greater would be his desire to possess the Raphael, the greater the possibility of future sales.

  ‘I shall get back to you as fast as I can. I cannot say when that might be. But I shall make it as quick as I can.’

  Piper turned off the lights and led the way downstairs. The lights faded quite slowly. For a long time the Madonna’s features glowed out of the frame. Then her face and her halo slowly vanished from sight. Raphael’s Holy Family waited in the darkness for more pilgrims to pay tribute to their beauty.

  7

  Thomas Jenkins of Emmanuel College was waiting for Powerscourt at Oxford railway station. ‘I hope you’re wearing a stout pair of boots, Lord Powerscourt,’ he said cheerfully, ‘we’re going for a walk.’

  Powerscourt remembered Jenkins saying he would take him to Christopher Montague’s favourite place in Oxford. He wondered if he was in for a full tour of the more ancient quadrangles, or an inspection of some of the spectacular gardens or some old and dusty library.

  But Jenkins led him away from the town. They crossed over a railway bridge and there in front of them was a huge open space. Jenkins pointed dramatically to his right towards the buildings of the city.

  ‘Over there, Lord Powerscourt, are the walls of Jericho. Here in front of us is Port Meadow, one of the oldest places in Oxford.’

  Powerscourt heard no trumpets. But he saw a vast open space of empty land with wild horses and cows roaming about the rich pasture. Two hundred yards away to his left the
river snaked its way beneath the hanging trees.

  ‘This was Christopher’s favourite place in Oxford, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Jenkins, pointing across Port Meadow. ‘We used to walk along here, over the river there and along the towpath to an old inn called the Trout for lunch.’

  ‘Let us do the same,’ said Powerscourt. ‘But why is it still wild? Why has nobody built on it?’ Powerscourt’s historical curiosity had temporarily won out over the interests of his investigation. A couple of wild horses drew near to the two men. The horses looked at them carefully and trotted off into the meadow.

  ‘The freemen of Oxford have had the right to graze their animals on this stretch of land since the tenth century,’ said Jenkins proudly. ‘They’ve held on to it ever since. The right is recorded in the Domesday Book. Before that they say that Bronze Age people used to bury their dead here.’

  Jenkins and Powerscourt were crossing the river on an ancient bridge. Small sailing boats were lined up in neat rows, waiting for their masters.

  ‘In a couple of months,’ Jenkins went on, ‘when winter really sets in, almost all of the meadow is flooded. It’s like a huge marsh or bog.’

  ‘Mr Jenkins,’ said Powerscourt, stepping smartly out of the way of an approaching trio of cyclists, ‘I do not believe you told me the whole truth when we spoke the other day in London.’ He looked at his companion severely. Jenkins blushed slightly and stared down at his feet.

  ‘What do you mean, Lord Powerscourt? In what particular?’

  Powerscourt smiled at the precise academic usage of ‘in what particular’. They were past the trees now. The late October sun was surprisingly warm. ‘It may be, of course, that you simply do not know the answers to my questions. But I think you do. There are two particulars. The first is whether Christopher Montague was going to start a new magazine dealing with the fine arts. The second is whether or not he was having an affair with a married woman in London. I suggest, Mr Jenkins . . .’ Powerscourt paused to retie his bootlaces. ‘I suggest that you consider your answers. We can discuss them more fully when we reach the Trout.’

  With that Powerscourt strode ahead up the towpath, overtaking a leisurely canal boat as he went. Ahead was a ruined abbey, the walls covered in ivy, the fading red of the bricks blending in with the landscape.

  ‘Twelfth-century foundation called Godstow Abbey,’ said Jenkins grumpily, ‘sort of finishing school for the daughters of the nobility. Henry the Second’s mistress was a pupil here and met a mysterious death. Maybe that would be a good subject for one of your investigations.’

  Powerscourt laughed. ‘It’s difficult enough investigating mysterious deaths today without asking questions about the past.’ He looked back across Port Meadow. The river swirled its tortuous trail through the weeping willows. Far in the distance the spires of Oxford stood out against the sky. An improbable campanile rose above the walls of Jericho. Powerscourt could see why the place had such an appeal.

  The beer tasted fruity. Jenkins and Powerscourt were seated by the water’s edge in the garden of the Trout. Powerscourt wondered if Johnny Fitzgerald, not quite such a connoisseur of beer as he was of wine, would approve.

  ‘To business, Mr Jenkins,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I have given you fair warning. You told me you had no idea what he was working on at the time of his death. I think he was writing an article about forgery. It was for a new magazine he was going to found. Surely you must have known something of that?’

  Thomas Jenkins took a large mouthful of his beer. ‘Well,’ he said, and paused. Powerscourt thought he could tell from the look in Jenkins’ brown eyes that he had been concealing something, ‘Christopher was always talking about founding new magazines. Nothing ever seemed to come of it.’

  ‘With whom? Was it always the same partner?’

  ‘Well, it was always the same chap, actually,’ replied Jenkins, ‘a man called Lockhart, Jason Lockhart. He’s a junior partner in a firm of art dealers called Clarke. They’re great rivals of Capaldi’s and that new firm of de Courcy and Piper.’

  Powerscourt filed the names away. He would write to the President of the Royal Academy on his return. The garden of the Trout was full now, the tables packed, visitors admiring the swirling waters of the mill pond by the bridge.

  ‘And the article on forgers,’ Powerscourt went on. ‘Did you know anything about that?’

  ‘He might have mentioned something about it,’ said Jenkins, taking another swig of his beer. His glass was almost empty. ‘But I didn’t think it worth telling you about. It was like the magazine. Christopher always had hundreds of schemes in his head at any one time. I didn’t mean to mislead you, Lord Powerscourt. There were so many things Christopher talks about.’ He stopped. ‘Used to talk about.’

  ‘And what about the married woman?’ said Powerscourt, raising his voice above the noise. ‘Did you think that might be misleading too?’

  Jenkins shrugged his shoulders. ‘I thought it better to let sleeping dogs lie.’

  ‘What was her name, man? What was she called?’

  Thomas Jenkins stared helplessly at Powerscourt. ‘You’re not going to believe this, Lord Powerscourt. Please don’t be angry with me. I don’t know her name.’

  Powerscourt wanted to bang his fist on the table. He refrained. ‘Do you mean that you don’t know her Christian name, or you don’t know her surname?’

  Jenkins looked distraught. ‘I don’t know her surname,’ he said very quietly. ‘I never met her.’

  ‘But you knew her Christian name, didn’t you?’ said Powerscourt.

  ‘She was called Rosalind,’ Jenkins whispered.

  ‘And where did she live?’

  ‘She lived in Chelsea.’ Powerscourt had to lean forward to catch the name. Good God, he thought. Somewhere in Chelsea, not far from where he lived. Maybe her home was on the other side of Markham Square.

  ‘Do you know what her husband does? Did she have any children? Was she involved in the world of art at all?’

  Thomas Jenkins rose from his seat. ‘The answer to all those question is don’t know, don’t know, don’t know. And now, if you will forgive me, I am going back to my college. I’ve done my best. But I’m not going to answer any more questions.’

  The entrance hall of the Beaufort Club in Pall Mall was full of Americans. Edmund de Courcy passed quickly through the differing accents, New York, Boston, Chicago, the Midwest. His business was not in the dining room or the smoking room with its large windows and the even larger cigars of the transatlantic visitors. His business was in the basement.

  The Beaufort had realized earlier than their competitors along Pall Mall that there was money to be made from the Americans. They had links with the top clubs in all the major cities in America. Financiers, importers, newspapermen, tourists came to the Beaufort and reported home that it was almost like being back in the States. There was American cooking, American whiskey, Cuban cigars. Most important of all there were other Americans to talk to. There was no need in the Beaufort to catch at the nuances of English irony or eat their terrible food. You wouldn’t have to talk about cricket. The Beaufort was a home from home, a slice of apple pie in the alien world of London. Many of the Americans felt homesick even going there.

  And the Beaufort had the American newspapers and magazines, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Sun Times, Harpers and Queen, Vanity Fair, The American. They kept the back copies of all these publications for a year. Sometimes Americans would arrive in London who had spent months in the even more alien climes of France or Italy, Egypt or St Petersburg, Russia, and would want to catch up on events at home.

  Edmund de Courcy sat at a small table in the basement with a great pile of America’s most fashionable magazines. Within these pages the advertisements for houses started at enormous prices, and no jewellery was on display that cost less than fifty thousand dollars. Here rich America was on display, their mansions, their yachts, their possessions, their wealth flaunted before a jealous world. />
  Edmund de Courcy was looking for illustrations of two very rich families. Not the husband, or the husband and wife, but husband, wife and children. One such family was the McCrackens, whose husband was, of course, in London, doing business with Edmund’s own firm of de Courcy and Piper. The other was a man due to arrive in England in two weeks’ time. The Piper intelligence service in New York had given warning that a Lewis B. Black, based in Philadelphia, was on his way. Mr Black may have dwelt in the city of brotherly love but he was said to be the most ruthless steel magnate in all America. His personal fortune – the Piper intelligence service had checked the figures with three different sources – was in excess of one hundred million dollars. And, even more enticing, Mr Black was interested in art. Nobody knew what kind of art, but a man with that kind of fortune has to collect something.

  De Courcy read about society balls in New York. He read of charity dinners in Boston. He read of Lucullan birthday parties in Chicago, and glittering evenings at the Metropolitan Opera. He saw illustrations of the American plutocracy on their yachts, at the weddings of their children and the Commemorative Masses for their dead.

  He had gone through four whole months of The American before he struck gold. There, in the drawing room of a very grand house, he found an illustration of Mr and Mrs William P. McCracken of Concord, Massachusetts, and their two daughters, aged about eight and ten, a small dog standing alertly beside them. De Courcy tiptoed carefully over to the door to make sure no one was coming. Then he took a small pair of scissors from his pocket and cut the page out of the magazine. He put it inside a large red notebook he had brought with him. The book had slightly larger pages than the magazine. De Courcy didn’t want to have to fold it.

  Two hours later he was on the verge of giving up. Various Americans had come down to the basement to look up old financial results in the New York Times or the football scores in the Boston Globe. They had greeted him cheerfully, wishing him a good day as he ploughed through the pile in front of him. But when he found it he was overjoyed. A large photograph showed Mr and Mrs Lewis B. Black, with their twin daughters, outside their new town house on Fifth Avenue. The girls looked about six years old. Mrs Black was wearing a hat composed largely of exotic feathers. Feathers, thought Edmund de Courcy. Hats made of fancy feathers in English portrait paintings. How many of the English Masters had painted such hats in their time? Lawrence, Hoppner, Romney. Gainsborough, Reynolds. What a treat! Out came the scissors. Mr Lewis B. Black and family joined Mr William P. McCracken and family in Edmund de Courcy’s special album.