“Why, Mr. Plant. What a pleasant surprise!”
Liar.
“Whatever brings you here?”
“Books, oddly enough. Where are your art history books?”
“Art? History?” A finely wrought eyebrow was raised.
“Now, put those two words together, Mr. Browne, and you’ll be very close to what I came in for.” He should, he supposed, be milder, but Browne was such a goddamned fool.
Theo Wrenn Browne tilted his head in the direction of some shelves. “Over here.”
Melrose followed him. The pickings were slim, which didn’t bother Melrose at all, since he didn’t intend to pick anything. What he wanted was to know exactly what Browne knew about the other panel in Jasperson’s shop. Certainly, Browne would be delighted at any opportunity to burst Trueblood’s little balloon.
“Now, here’s a nice one.” Browne tried to foist Andy Warhol on him.
“No.” Melrose pulled down some lackluster study on Flemish art, then reshelved it. Only one book bore at all on the subject-that is, to get the subject going: Early Renaissance Art. He started thumbing through the thick slick pages. “Ah. Brunelleschi… Donatello… Masolino…” he read in a whisper.
“What are you looking for, Mr. Plant?”
“Italian Renaissance paintings.” And he continued in that reverent way: “Giotto… Masaccio…”
“Oh!” said Theo, happy to recognize a name, happier to have bad news to impart. “Mr. Trueblood’s so-called painting.”
“ ‘So-called’?” Melrose managed to look confused. “I don’t know why you say that. We’ve just got back from Florence.” He turned back to the book and muttered, “The Church of San Giovenale a Carcia-”
“And-?” Theo prompted him.
“And what?”
“You said you just got back from Florence.”
“That’s right.” Melrose continued his whispered communion with the book. “San Gimignano… Monteriggioni…” The pages fluttered. Melrose hadn’t the vaguest notion what he was doing. But he had some dim idea that it would come to him.
Frustrated, Theo insisted. “You said you just got back from Florence.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But you said it as if that explained something.”
“Florence-” Melrose paused. “Florence explains everything!” He clapped an arm about Browne’s shoulders, a gesture that completely stumped Theo. He tried to step back, but Melrose had him in a lock.
“The Brancacci Chapel!” Here Melrose threw out his other arm and drew, between thumb and forefinger, a banner in air and, as if reading the print thereon, exclaimed, “The Brancacci Chapel! You’ve seen it, of course?”
“I? Uh, no, no. Now if you’d just let me get back to-”
Melrose’s arm tightened and he began to walk both of them to the store’s big bay window. “Imagine!” he exclaimed. Across the street were his friends seated at their favorite table-Trueblood, Diane Demorney, Joanna the Mad, Vivian Rivington. “Imagine we are within this glorious chapel, face-to-face with the frescoes. Just close your eyes-”
Theo didn’t want to.
“And imagine seeing Adam and Eve and the expulsion from Paradise.” Trueblood had his head in his hands much like the figure of Adam, and Joanna, her head thrown back in a rictus of laughter that bore a stunning resemblance to Eve’s howl. Melrose was rather enjoying this reenactment. “Then we have Tribute Money-” Dick Scroggs had entered the perimeter of the window. “Next, we have St. Peter Healing the Sick with his Shadow.” Melrose made a wiping motion with his hand, as if scenes were appearing and disappearing, as if they were watching a dumb show. Mrs. Withersby hove into view, the veritable model for the poor wretch begging for St. Peter’s help. In the case of Withersby, it was bumming cigarettes and whatever else life had on offer.
“Uh, Mr. Plant, I think, yes, I think that’s my phone ringing!”
Melrose hugged him closer. “Let it ring, let it ring. Let me tell you about San Gimignano-” And Melrose did so, told him about San Gimignano and Siena, in mind-withering detail, all the while enclosing the bookseller in an iron grip. Finally, he released him and said, “I must be on my way. Coming to the pub, are you?”
“Uh, no. No, I think not. Not this evening.” He took several steps backward.
“Pity. Good evening, then.” Melrose whistled himself out the door.
“Good lord, Melrose! Where have you been? We’re all dining at Ardry End tonight. It’s Christmas Eve.” Diane Demorney made these announcements as if they had just then come to mind unbidden by outside exigency. “Are we exchanging presents tonight, then?”
Marshall Trueblood lit a cigarette. “You mean for what you actually want?”
“Very funny. But were we to get something for everyone? That would make-” she counted the people around the table by actually pointing her finger. “If Agatha’s coming, that’s, let’s see, six. If everyone is to give everyone else a gift, that’s-” Running out of fingers, she squeezed her eyes and put her hand to her forehead.
Joanna said, “Count me out, Diane. I’ve got to be on my way to Devon this afternoon. Promised I’d turn up for Christmas dinner tomorrow.”
“Where in Devon?” Diane asked, not happy with a further refinement on a problem she hadn’t yet solved.
“Exmoor.”
Diane’s martini actually stopped on its way to her mouth. “Exmoor? But people don’t live there, do they? It’s a moor.”
“You’ve never been righter, Diane.”
People waited patiently, for Diane’s present count. Finally, Vivian said, “Diane, if there are six people and all six are giving each of the others a gift, then-” Vivian made an encouraging noise.
“Easy for you to say, Vivian, you’ve already done yours.”
“That’s beside the point; the point is the number.”
Melrose wished he was back in the Brancacci Chapel. “Actually, there will be seven, not six.”
Diane looked as if he had thrown the final spanner in the works. “Who else?”
“I’ve invited Mr. Steptoe.”
They all looked blank.
“Our new greengrocer.”
They still looked blank. Finally, Vivian said, “That’s sweet of you Melrose. He can get to know people.”
“Yes, I thought so.”
From the bar, where he was reading the Sidbury paper, Dick Scroggs called over, “Don’t see your horoscope column today, Miss Demorney.”
“The stars are on holiday, Dick.”
“No presents,” said Melrose. “You have to do that on your own, go house to house, or whatever.”
Diane heaved a sigh of relief, tapped a red fingernail against her empty martini glass and gave Dick Scroggs a little wave. “Did you set a time, Melrose? I mean will we be having drinkies beforehand?”
“We’re having drinkies beforehand right now.” He smiled. “But, yes, more drinkies will be on offer this evening. Come at seven.”
Forty-eight
Richard Jury reached over to the ice bucket Ruthven had left, at Jury’s request, plucked up a cube and dropped it in his whiskey. He had inclined lately toward as bitter a cold as he could get-cold walks, cold drinks, cold rooms, bitter and anesthetizing cold. He did not know why other than wanting to arm himself against the specter of Christmas past, present and probably future. He did not like Christmas; he felt depleted by it.
“That’s a thirty-year-old single malt you’re watering down,” said Melrose Plant. They were seated in comfortable chairs next to the fire.
“It’ll be gone before the ice melts. Now, back to St. Jerome.”
“I think it’s John, St. John.”
“You didn’t see whatever’s left of this polyptych in the church in Pisa?”
“It’s no longer there. That’s part of the point. Parts have found their way into various churches and museums in Europe. And some of the panels are still missing.”
Jury nodded and drank his whiskey. “What’s this deale
r’s name?”
“Jasperson. The woman who’s selling them is named Amy Eccleston.”
Jury leaned over and set his empty glass on the table. “I’d like a word with Jasperson. Do you have his number?”
“Here.” Melrose handed over a card from his jacket pocket.
“Where’s the phone?” Jury rose.
Melrose waved him down. “No, sit down. Ruthven can bring it.” Melrose pressed the enamel button beneath the table beside his chair.
Ruthven appeared, was duly dispatched and returned with the phone. Jury thanked him.
“I could easily have gone to the phone rather than the phone coming to me.”
“Hell, no. I want to hear what you say.”
Jury dialed as Melrose refilled their glasses and plopped another ice cube in Jury’s. Jury leaned back and waited and said to Melrose, “I’d be surprised to get anybody on Christmas Eve-hello. Mr. Jasperson, please. This is-? Mr. Jasperson, I’m Superintendent Richard Jury of Scotland Yard… No, nothing’s wrong…” Jury asked him about the two paintings and whether he’d had them authenticated and where they’d come from. “The thing is, Mr. Jasperson, what I’ve been led to believe is that what you’ve got there might be a panel from an altarpiece by Masaccio-”
On his end, Jasperson’s response must have been forceful-cried or cursed or laughed-for Jury moved the receiver away from his ear, regarded Plant with a shrug, then put the receiver back as Jasperson said something else, making Jury laugh. “I suppose not. Would anyone else connected with your shop possibly know…? No… Miss Eccleston, I see. Well, I might just pop round there for five minutes and see what is… Yes. Oh, no, you needn’t go there. Bad enough to be bothered at all on Christmas… Yes. Thanks. Wait. Tell me, if one of these panels did turn out to be by Masaccio, how much would it fetch at auction?… You don’t say. Thank you.”
Jury hung up. “Never saw them.”
Melrose sat forward, eyes wide.
“I think we should have a little talk with Amy Eccleston, don’t you?”
Melrose was up like a shot. “Let’s go.”
With their coats on and going out the door, Melrose asked, “How much did he say a Masaccio would get?”
“Around twenty-five, thirty million pounds.”
“My God! But why would she be selling it for a measly two thousand, then?”
“Maybe she doesn’t know anyone with thirty million.”
There were two other customers when Jury walked into C. Jasperson’s, American from the sound of them, middle-aged women in jumpers and slacks browsing and apparently giving sod all about the holiday. He liked that attitude.
Amy Eccleston, who had been conferring with them, excused herself and threaded her way through tables and chairs and objets d’art to join Jury near the front of the room. Her smile diminished fractionally when she saw his identification. “Oh.” Then the telephone rang and she was off to answer it, no doubt grateful for the pause it gave her.
Jury studied the table in the middle of the room, frowning at the gilt and fat cherubs embracing the table legs. Why would anyone need such a piece, much less at this shocking price? He let the tag dangle.
The middle-aged Americans smiled at him on their way out and he returned the smile. So they smiled again, perhaps thinking they had short-changed this man in the smile department. The bell jittered as they left.
Melrose, who had spent a few minutes outside contemplating the green, passed them in the doorway. He and Jury had decided it would be better if they entered separately so as not to arouse Amy Eccleston’s suspicions, at least not immediately.
Returning from the telephone call, Miss Eccleston saw Melrose and made a delighted sound. She said she’d fetch his painting in just a moment. To Jury she said, “Now, what did you want, Inspector?”
“Superintendent, actually. I understand you’ve sold two paintings lately attributed to the Italian painter Masaccio?”
With a self-righteous air, she corrected him. “No, indeed not! I didn’t say they were by Masaccio. I merely said there’s the possibility.”
“You came across them yourself, did you?”
“Yes. In Italy. I found them in a little church in San Giovanni Valdarno. I thought they were unusual and very striking. Of course, that they might have been painted by Masaccio didn’t occur to me at the time.”
“Even though,” put in Melrose, coming up on the two, “San Giovanni Valdarno was his place of birth?”
She looked from the one to the other, clearly disturbed that they appeared now to be together. “I wasn’t thinking of that. Superintendent, what’s wrong here? You seem to be accusing me of something.”
Jury had been making notes in his small notebook. “What makes all of this suspect is that Mr. Jasperson knows absolutely nothing about these two paintings. Yet they’re hanging here-or were-in his shop.”
“Mr. Jasperson?” Her face looked chalky.
Jury just looked at her.
“I’ve been with Mr. Jasperson for three years now. He’s always-”
“Too bad you won’t be with him for three more, Miss Eccleston. The way I see it is this: you’ve been doing this for some time. You’re here by yourself every Friday and on the occasional holiday. On those Fridays you hang your latest acquisition. You might have a buyer, you might not. If not, you merely wait until the next Friday. Certainly this elegant and pricy shop is a wonderful venue for expensive paintings. You pocket one hundred percent of the sale. Not bad. This week’s takings are four thousand pounds, no VAT. That’s a good return on an investment. It’s also extremely daring. What if one of your buyers happened to bring back whatever you’d sold when Mr. Jasperson was here?”
“This is ridiculous. I don’t need to-” She started to turn away.
Jury turned her back. “Oh, yes, you do need to. What you’ll need to do is leave this place. Leave the village. You won’t say anything-not anything -about these two paintings. Under no circumstances try to contact Mr. Trueblood. You’ll write Mr. Plant here a letter relinquishing all interest in the paintings. Then you have forty-eight hours to get out of town.”
“But what about Mr. Jasperson? I can’t just leave.”
“What you tell Mr. Jasperson is your own business. I’m sure you can think of something plausible.” He paused. “You’re getting off very lightly, Miss Eccleston. Thank your lucky stars that for some people, art really means more than money.”
She looked absolutely white.
Jury smiled. “Gather up your painting, Mr. Plant.”
Melrose didn’t bother with the wrapping paper.
“Merry Christmas,” said Jury.
“Good lord,” said Melrose, as they backed the car out of the parking place.
“What could you do to her?”
“Nothing. But she doesn’t know that. Of course, Jasperson could have her up on any number of charges.”
Melrose was carrying his painting with him in the front seat. He leaned it back and looked at it. “The thing is, we still don’t know.”
“Whether it’s genuine?”
“I don’t see how it could be. How could something like this have been missed for all of these years by experts in the field. I mean, how could it have just sat there in some little church-and no Italian Renaissance nut twigged it?” Melrose paused. “But as Tomas Prada-one of the experts-pointed out, what could these panels have been copied from, given the original paintings are missing?”
“Hmm. That’s a point, certainly. Can’t you live with it this way? ”
“Not knowing?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what Prada asked Trueblood.”
“And what did Trueblood answer?”
Melrose smiled. “He said, ‘I could; I’d just rather not.’ ”
Jury laughed. “Sounds like him.”
Forty-nine
“ Your broccoli, now,” began Mr. Steptoe, who might have been Irish or might have been English. “Your broccoli, now, the best of your brocco
li’s dark, so dark it’s purple. That has all the nutrients in it twice over the lighter green sort. And any that’s yellow, just you pass it up. Yellow means it’s finished, no nutrients at all.” He ate the stub of broccoli on which he had just passed judgment.
Mr. Steptoe, the new greengrocer in Long Piddleton, sat between Agatha and Diane. They were one woman short, so that meant two men would be cracking elbows. Melrose had seated Agatha between himself and Mr. Steptoe; this had immediately resulted in a whispered exchange, Agatha insisting that she preferred not to sit next to a grocer who would have no conversation at all. “But I’ll be on your left hand, dear aunt, and you know I’ll have all sorts of conversation.” This irritated her even more, as Melrose knew it would.
But as it turned out, Mr. Steptoe had endless conversation, though it was all about vegetables. Mr. Steptoe had done beetroot, asparagus, parsnips and potatoes, had gone right around the dishes brought in by Ruthven and the slightly emaciated young lad Ruthven had dug up to help serve. Mr. Steptoe had pronounced each of these vegetables of excellent quality, which prompted Melrose to remark that they should be, for weren’t they purchased at Steptoe’s? Mr. Steptoe had thought that marvelously funny, and had excused himself from bragging by saying he honestly hadn’t had that in mind at all.
“It’s just that the right kind of vegetable, properly cooked, does indeed make the difference between a poor meal and a good one.”
“Remember,” said Trueblood, turning to Melrose, “the excellent flageolet beans at the Villa San Michele?”
Mr. Steptoe made a little noise. “Ah, flageolet! The best are in France, of course.”
Melrose thought his guests might as well be at Le Manoir aux Quatre Saisons, listening to Raymond Blanc.
Mr. Steptoe continued: “Yes, I had a very tasty dish of flageolet cooked with apricots in Paris.”
“The staple food of the Hunzas,” said Diane.
All eyes turned to Diane upon hearing this runic remark.
The Blue Last Page 34
