The Silver Serpent

by Lena Jones

  At this, she glances around nervously, then nods.

  ‘OK then. But you really mustn’t tell anyone, or I’ll get into big trouble.’

  ‘I won’t! Thank you so much!’

  She fetches a short hooked pole and walks over to the gallery wall, where framed portraits and landscapes fill every space. It’s like a magic trick when she opens the secret compartment and reveals a hoard of other pictures. All the paintings from A Rake’s Progress are fixed to the back of the panels.

  ‘You mustn’t touch them,’ she warns.

  ‘Of course not,’ I reply.

  These works date back to 1733, and I hold my breath as I lean in to look more closely, not wanting to contaminate the surface. The Marriage is … different from the others. I try to work out why that is, and in the end I realise it’s because it’s slightly brighter.

  ‘Was this one moved at any point?’ I ask.

  ‘I think it had to be cleaned, around seven or eight years ago,’ she says. ‘You’re noticing that the paint is lighter, are you?’

  I nod. ‘Why weren’t the others cleaned at the same time?’

  ‘Oh – it was something to do with one of our patrons, Lord Rathbone.’

  I freeze at the name. ‘He suggested just this one painting be cleaned?’

  ‘As far as I remember, it was because this one had become mildewed, whereas the others weren’t affected.’

  ‘And did Lord Rathbone pay for the cleaning?’ It sounded really strange.

  She nods. ‘Mmm, that’s right.’

  ‘Did he fund any other restoration work?’

  ‘On other pieces in the museum, you mean?’ She considers for a moment. ‘I think there was a sculpture – but we don’t seem to have that on display any more. And there was a Turner landscape as well, where some of the paint was damaged and needed careful reconstruction.’ She looks hard at me. ‘I thought your project was on Hogarth, though.’

  ‘Oh, it is. But Lord Rathbone’s a governor at my school and I know his daughter …’

  She smiles. ‘What a coincidence! Such a charming man.’

  I gesture to The Marriage. ‘May I take a photo?’

  She looks so horrified you’d think I’d asked if I could spray-paint graffiti on it. ‘Oh, no! We don’t allow any photography in the museum. You may make a sketch, if you like.’

  I resist pointing out that this wouldn’t let me see the contrast between The Marriage and the other seven paintings in the group. So I say, ‘You’ve been really helpful,’ – and I mean it.

  It’s hailing when I step out of the museum. The sky is dark grey, plunging London into a curious, premature twilight. I pull up my coat collar and set off, almost jogging to the Tube station. My beret protects the top of my head, but ice trickles down the back of my neck.

  As I rush along, I Change Channel, blocking out my discomfort and homing in on the all-important questions about Mum:

  1. Had Mum been investigating a ring of art criminals?

  2. Did she die because whoever was behind the art fraud wanted to stop her?

  I couldn’t help wondering as well what Lord Rathbone had to do with it all.

  It’s a relief to reach the station. A train comes almost immediately and I spend the short journey running through the list of art pieces highlighted by Mum in her art book. There were only four works, but seven years or more have passed since she put those question marks in her book … If my hunch is correct, and each one of those paintings is a fake, who knows how many other priceless artworks could have been stolen and replaced with fakes since then?

  Then I think about Lord Rathbone – smug, complacent, self-important Lord Rathbone – and about what the attendant has just told me about The Marriage. It’s puzzling why he wanted that particular painting cleaned – one of the pictures on Mum’s list, and that Sam Cohen has confirmed is a forgery.

  Is it just a coincidence?

  Arthur’s already waiting in the main office corridor when I arrive at HQ. He looks like he’s just dragged himself out of bed. His hair’s sticking up at the back, and his shirt’s untucked in a couple of places.

  ‘Hey! Sunflowers,’ he says, seeing my dress, ‘like your favourite painting!’ I grin, pleased he’s remembered.

  ‘Hey, yourself! You look shattered.’

  ‘I stayed up too late, reviewing the file,’ he says.

  ‘Did anything occur to you?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘I found out something interesting,’ I tell him.

  He raises an eyebrow. ‘Oh? What’s that?’

  ‘The Hogarth painting highlighted in Mum’s art book – The Marriage, on display at Sir John Soane’s Museum – well, I’ve just been there …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, it turns out it was taken away for cleaning seven or eight years ago, probably around the time Mum was investigating. And it looks like my mum was on to something.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Forged artwork,’ I say.

  His eyes widen. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep. Those question marks I found in her old art book were all next to works she suspected of being forged.’

  ‘How did you find that out?’

  ‘I unearthed a letter she’d received from an art conservator, whose conclusion was that The Yellow House and The Marriage are fakes.’

  ‘What’s his name, this conservator? He could be a useful contact.’

  ‘Samuel Cohen. I’ve asked him if he knows anything about those two mismatched pictures on Sheila’s wall too.’

  ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘Just a hunch,’ I say.

  ‘Fair enough.’ He taps something into his phone. ‘Just making a note, for reference.’

  ‘There’s something else,’ I say, ‘about those two pictures in Sheila’s office …’

  He nods. ‘What?’ he asks.

  ‘Well, one of the gallery assistants confirmed that Sheila uses that wall to help her when she’s planning exhibitions. She’s been planning for an upcoming pop art show and had put up prints of pop art pictures. But two of the pop art images had been swapped out, for ones I suspect are forgeries. So I think Sheila had found out they were fakes as well.’ I take out my mobile and show him the photo of the grid from her laptop. ‘This kind of confirms it, don’t you think?’

  He raises an eyebrow. ‘Am I being slow here? How does a square filled with typewriter characters confirm Sheila was suspicious about forged paintings?’

  ‘Sorry – I forgot to explain! The important things are the hieroglyphic symbols in the grid – I think these are clues to different paintings. So the flower represents the Sunflowers painting, for instance.’

  ‘And the crossed-out snail means “no molluscs allowed”,’ he suggests.

  ‘I can see you’re going to take some convincing, but bear with me,’ I say. ‘What if that symbol stands for the Matisse collage, and the fact it’s crossed out means the collage work is genuine?’

  ‘I guess it’s possible,’ he says at last. Then he hesitates, as if he’s deciding whether to say something. ‘Look – there’s something that’s been bothering me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sunflowers. You know how you said it looked different, and now Sheila might also have thought there was something wrong with it?’

  ‘And it has an invisible A.’

  He frowns. ‘An invisible A?’ he repeats.

  I nod. ‘Yep. That and The Yellow House both have a really elaborate capital A written or painted on in invisible ink.’

  ‘How on earth did you find that out?’

  ‘It was Brianna, messing around with my ultraviolet torch.’

  ‘Wow … Well, anyway, one of the attendants I spoke to – Liane – said Lord Rathbone had requested a private viewing of Sunflowers before the show opened. I wonder why?’

  It’s my turn to stare. ‘Really? Arthur, I didn’t tell you – it was Rathbone who arranged for The Marriage at Sir John Soane’s Museum to be cl
eaned.’

  ‘Oh? That’s quite a coincidence,’ he says. ‘So he had easy access to Sunflowers and showed a special interest in The Marriage. There’s something else too … I found this. It was wedged behind the Sunflowers painting, the day I met you.’ He passes me something small, pushing it into my palm. I unfurl my fingers and examine the object. It’s an engraved cufflink, gold with a white griffon. ‘It’s the Rathbone family crest,’ he says.

  I peer at the mythical beast. ‘There’s something wrapped round it – like a scarf,’ I say. I rummage in my backpack for my magnifying glass. Under the powerful lens, the ‘scarf’ resolves itself … ‘It’s a snake,’ I say, feeling my heart speed up with excitement. ‘A serpent!’

  ‘Really?’ Arthur grabs the cufflink back and I hand him the magnifier. He peers through it for a moment and then looks at me in astonishment. ‘You’re right!’

  ‘Arthur,’ I say, almost in a whisper, ‘maybe Lord Rathbone is the Silver Serpent!’

  I reflect on where Arthur found the cufflink. Had it merely been lying on the floor, it wouldn’t have meant a thing. But behind the painting … There’s no way it could have got there, unless Lord Rathbone had been hanging the picture himself or, which is more likely, given his inflated sense of self-worth, telling others how to hang it. I can just imagine him getting in everyone’s way, while believing he was crucial to the whole operation.

  ‘Why didn’t you show me this earlier?’ I ask him.

  ‘I didn’t think it was relevant. I was just planning on handing it in to the receptionist – but I kept forgetting. And now you’re telling me The Yellow House is a forgery, and you’re wondering if Sunflowers might be another one, as there’s a print of it hanging on Sheila’s office wall …’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ I say, ‘… Lord Rathbone.’

  ‘I thought you couldn’t stand the man.’

  ‘I can’t, but I still can’t really believe he’d be involved in forgery and art theft.’ I sigh. ‘Well, let’s report to the professor and see what she has to say about all this.’

  As we start walking, someone comes round the corner – a familiar figure, with her dark hair scraped back in a ponytail.

  ‘Sofia!’ I call.

  ‘Agatha, hi!’ She walks over and looks as though she’s about to say something, but seems to change her mind.

  ‘Still stuck here?’ I say.

  ‘Yep. Right here, just like yesterday. I’m on desk duty again – research and admin.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Very dull.’

  ‘What happened to your case?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, we’re so short-staffed, we’re all having to take turns with the tedious stuff. My partner’s off doing the legwork, and we’ll swap over this afternoon. I can’t wait – I’m not made for sitting behind a desk.’

  ‘And is the professor in her office?’ I ask.

  ‘She should be. She was in a foul mood yesterday, though – you did well to avoid her.’

  We say goodbye to Sofia outside Professor D’Oliveira’s office. Our boss answers promptly when we knock, and we go inside.

  ‘So, you’re here at last,’ she says, looking from Arthur to me. ‘You do realise Dr MacDonald is expecting an outcome by tomorrow?’ She glances at the clock on her wall. ‘You’re aware it’s already mid-morning on the penultimate day of the investigation?’

  ‘We would have reported to you yesterday, but you were busy,’ I say.

  She frowns. ‘What time did you come by?’

  I hesitate, unwilling to bring up something we knew she felt was a waste of her time. ‘Oh, just in the afternoon … But we heard you were caught up with a problem to do with office supplies.’

  ‘Oh—’ She stops abruptly and frowns. ‘You heard about that silly mix-up? Yes, that did take me a while to sort out.’

  She gestures for us to sit down, so we take seats side by side facing her.

  ‘So where are you up to with the National Gallery disappearance?’ she asks.

  ‘We’ve talked to the attendants and receptionist, and viewed the CCTV footage,’ I say. It looks like Sheila Smith did leave as usual, at five thirty on Friday.’

  ‘She made it back to Westbourne Park, where she lives,’ continues Arthur. ‘We’ve had confirmation of that from a local shopkeeper.’

  ‘Right,’ says the professor. ‘So did she enter her flat?’

  ‘That’s where the trail goes cold,’ I say. ‘She wasn’t in at six thirty for a delivery, and there was no sign of any disturbance in her home. The groceries she’d bought aren’t in her fridge either.’

  ‘But we did find this,’ says Arthur, placing the bagged memory stick on Professor D’Oliveira’s desk.

  ‘A memory stick? Where did you get this?’ She begins pulling on latex gloves to remove the item from its bag.

  ‘Hidden in a vase in her living room,’ says Arthur.

  ‘At first, we thought it was from her,’ I add, ‘some kind of message. But we plugged it into her laptop, and it had a warning …’

  While I’ve been speaking, Professor D’Oliveira has inserted the memory stick into her own computer. We wait expectantly.

  ‘There’s nothing on it,’ she says at last, looking at us for an explanation.

  ‘There was,’ says Arthur.

  ‘But it vanished,’ I explain. I close my eyes briefly and Change Channel, so I can summon up the image in my mental filing cabinet. Then I open my eyes and say, ‘It read: “Stop investigating. AO and AF: We know who you are. You are powerless against us. If you want to keep your families safe, heed this warning.”’

  The professor scribbles the message down on a notepad and studies the words.

  After a moment, she looks up. ‘Any idea who this could be from?’ she asks.

  ‘Maybe,’ I say, and I draw out the note I found in Sheila’s flat. ‘There’s also this.’

  She picks it up, still in its evidence bag, and scrutinises it.

  ‘Any scent?’ she asks.

  I shake my head. ‘The paper’s good-quality though – it has a watermark,’ I point out.

  She holds the bag up to the light and nods. ‘Quite a standard one, unfortunately – I don’t think the lab will be able to make much of that. But you say you have a theory, Agatha?’

  ‘Yes – we think Lord Rathbone is the Silver Serpent.’

  ‘Lord Rathbone, the art patron?’ She sounds very surprised.

  ‘That’s right.’

  She frowns. ‘What makes you think he’s involved?’

  ‘Arthur found a cufflink behind the Sunflowers painting, and it has the Rathbone family crest on it.’

  Professor D’Oliveira looks at Arthur, who fishes the cufflink out of his pocket and hands it over. The professor picks up a magnifying glass and peers at the cufflink. ‘Is that a griffon … and a snake?’

  ‘A silver serpent,’ says Arthur.

  ‘It’s a bit tenuous, don’t you think?’ she says, putting down the cufflink and magnifier.

  ‘It would be,’ I say, ‘if there wasn’t further proof he’s involved.’ I fill her in on our suspicions about the forgery ring – first, the reports on The Yellow House and The Marriage that Sam Cohen had prepared for Mum, and his conclusions; then the mismatched pictures on Sheila’s wall; and, lastly, the fact that it was Lord Rathbone who had The Marriage removed for cleaning.

  The professor goes quiet as she listens.

  Eventually, she says, ‘The possible links between what Sheila had uncovered and your mother’s investigation aren’t solid enough to pursue at present. Let’s just focus on finding Sheila for now. We’d better see what comes up from inspecting the memory stick and the warning note to Sheila. Is there anything else?’

  We shake our heads.

  ‘Drop the memory stick and note off at the lab now. And one last thing,’ she says. ‘I would advise you both to take the necessary precautions, and not to do anything needlessly risky.’

  I’m not very sure what counts as ‘needlessly risky’, but I d
ecide not to ask, in case it rules out anything I might want to do.

  After saying goodbye, we head off towards the laboratory. Arthur knows its location so he leads the way. At the lab, we check in the evidence, although Arthur decides to keep hold of the cufflink. ‘We might need it to challenge Rathbone,’ he points out.

  ‘Now, do you fancy a hot chocolate before we do anything else?’

  ‘Arthur, we’ve only got until tomorrow evening to track down Sheila. I don’t think going for hot chocolate fits into the schedule.’

  ‘If we have it here, we can discuss our next steps while we drink.’

  ‘Here?’

  He stares at me. ‘Has no one shown you the canteen?’

  ‘There’s a canteen?’

  He looks astonished. ‘Did you not get your induction tour?’

  I shake my head. ‘I just got Sofia showing me the induction room. Does that count?’

  ‘No, it does not. Come on – we’re going to the HQ dining hall.’

  I have to focus hard to memorise the route as I jog to keep up with Arthur’s long strides. Left, left, right … through an unmarked door … down a short flight of steps, and through double doors into … a room like nothing I’ve ever seen – or certainly not below ground.

  If I hadn’t got used to suspending my disbelief, I’d have trouble believing this place was real.

  The canteen is huge. At least a hundred tables of varying sizes and shapes are spread out in a room filled with plants. We’re far from daylight, yet thriving greenery hangs from the ceiling and stretches up towards the roof. Guild staff sit around, reading, chatting, eating and drinking.

  ‘Wow!’ I say.

  ‘Cool, huh?’ He’s wearing a smug expression as if he designed and built the dining room himself.

  ‘Very cool,’ I say.

  Arthur waits until we’re seated with our hot drinks in front of us, before saying, ‘I was thinking … we should test Sunflowers – see if your hunch is right, see if it’s a fake.’

  I laugh. ‘How are we going to do that?’

  ‘It’s pretty easy,’ says Arthur.

  I look at him in surprise. ‘Is it?’

  ‘I’m one of the Guild’s art experts, don’t forget.’