‘It is a possibility,’ Holmes replied, looking across at Petrie.
He, however, shook his head emphatically. ‘An excellent thought, Mr Holmes, but I’m afraid not. We do of course have something approaching one thousand portraits in total, which we intend to display in turn, but the Hamblin has hung in place since the opening of the Gallery.’
‘Approaching a thousand, you say? And yet of the handful of items to be damaged during the recent disturbance, this one happened to be the sole forgery in the entire Gallery? That seems improbable. Come!’
Holmes strode into the corridor without waiting for Petrie and me to follow, and made his way up to the first floor.
At first, I was unsure what he intended to do. He caught the attention of a young man, evidently a member of staff, then stood impatiently while Petrie and I caught up with him.
‘Do you keep a list of each artwork on display?’ he asked Petrie as soon as we were within earshot. ‘I assume you have some way of tracking whether a painting is in storage or not?’
The little Secretary beamed with pleasure, obviously delighted to play a part in Holmes’s investigations, no matter how small. ‘Why of course we do, Mr Holmes,’ he said, turning to the underling Holmes had just accosted. ‘Hoskin, go to my office and fetch the master art list, which you will find in the top right side drawer of my desk.’
Hoskin hurried off, leaving Petrie and me to make conversation, while Holmes glared at the paintings nearby, as though accusing them of having committed some crime.
Presently, Hoskin reappeared, clutching a sheet of paper in his hand. Holmes at once invited the man to accompany him, then began walking slowly down the centre of the corridor, pausing briefly in front of each painting in turn. His examination complete, he said either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to his new assistant, who recorded Holmes’s words by means of a tick or cross against the name of each painting on the list he held in his hand. In this manner, he traversed the entire Gallery over the next hour, ignoring both other visitors and myself.
Finally, he came to a stop in the furthest most room. Petrie and I, exchanging baffled looks, stood beside him as he gave one final instruction to the young man who had dutifully followed him round the Gallery.
‘What on earth have you been doing for the past hour, Holmes?’ I asked, though with my irritation at his high-handedness tempered somewhat by the knowledge that Sherlock Holmes rarely wasted his time, no matter how peculiar his actions appeared to be.
In reply, Holmes waved a hand around the room, indicating the paintings on display. ‘Come now, Watson, you are slow today! I told you exactly what needed to be checked before we left Mr Petrie’s office. There is every chance that a single forgery might have slipped through the Gallery’s net, especially when there are many hundreds of similar artworks in the collection – but the odds of that same dubious portrait happening by chance to be the one damaged during a break-in? No, that stretches the bounds of credibility to the extreme. Far more likely that there are a number of forgeries present – and so I have been noting down the likeliest contenders.’
Though it was, as ever, difficult to fault Holmes’s logic, still I had one concern about this explanation. Holmes – for all his undoubted genius and exhaustive understanding of crime and criminals – is curiously deficient in most other areas of knowledge. I have had cause before to remark on his astonishing indifference towards matters of astronomy, but he is equally deficient in the field of the visual arts. In short, I had no more confidence in Holmes’s ability to tell a genuine Vermeer from a fake than I would in that of Mrs Hudson. I said as much to Holmes – generating a glare from Mr Petrie – but he was in no way abashed by the accusation.
‘Quite right, Watson,’ he said, with a mischievous grin. ‘But between the Gallery itself and its storage spaces, we could be waiting weeks for a formal identification of potential forgeries to be completed, if at all. So, instead, I have chosen a cross-section of those on display, with a mild preference for those of a similar type to the King Charles portrait. Royalty and Civil War generals primarily, but with a small random selection taken from the remainder. Taken as a whole, I imagine I have identified one-tenth of the entirety, and would like each of them examined by an expert, Mr Petrie. I will be very surprised if at least one of them does not also turn out to be a copy of a missing original.’
I wondered if perhaps Petrie would object to Holmes’s plan, but on the contrary the man was all but clapping his hands with pleasure at the thought of becoming intimately involved in one of Sherlock Holmes’s cases. He took the list of potential forgeries and was already directing his staff to take down various paintings. Once everything was under way to his satisfaction, he excused himself in order to make arrangements to transfer the paintings to the restoration company who were working on the already damaged artworks. ‘They employ several well-known art experts in order to check the authenticity of new arrivals and will be able to verify those you have chosen by this time tomorrow. If you will step this way, Mr Holmes, I can give you their card.’
We followed him back down the stairs, with labouring Gallery workers already moving all around us, covering portraits with large cloths and lifting them down from the walls. Holmes’s definition of ‘a similar type’ was obviously wider than my own, for as well as portraits of the Royal family, I saw paintings of the fall of Carthage, of a country squire posed by a lake set in some hills, and of a group of five horses standing round a single, unsmiling gentleman. Other portraiture of equally wide variety swiftly followed these into the group to be taken away and evaluated.
Tomorrow, I thought, promised to be an interesting day.
Five
The weather the following morning was far more typical of the time of year. Cold and grey, with fog obscuring every street corner and tiny drops of rain hanging in the air like points of silk, the world outside was unappealing enough to curtail even Holmes’s eagerness to be off.
Consequently, it was nearly eleven o’clock by the time we roused ourselves sufficiently to make our way to the offices of the art restoration company. We stood on the pavement outside the address Petrie had given us, while our hansom faded back into the mist, and shivered in the cold, damp air. The street was dim in the poor light, but a large front window before us declared this to be the offices of YOUNG, MURRAY AND NOBLE, RESTORATION EXPERTS. Black velvet curtains hid the interior from view and gave the entire enterprise a luxurious, if slightly sepulchral, aspect.
In fact, once inside, it was clear that this was more a workshop than an office. The high, narrow interior, illuminated by the slanting light of numerous skylights which brightened the room without reaching below the top half of the walls, was plainly furnished, and dominated by a series of long tables on which lay paintings in various stages of repair. Other artworks were propped against the whitewashed walls, or sat on deep shelves, which stretched the length of one side of the building. The reason for the heavy curtains on the main window was clear now; it prevented the deleterious rays of direct sunlight falling on precious works of art.
Several restorers were hard at work as we entered. One man wielded a paintbrush no thicker than an eyelash, making tiny strokes on a triptych of the Holy Family, while another bent low over a cup made of the thinnest and most delicate china, a large magnifying glass held close to his eye as he worked. I would have waited for either one to finish, but Holmes had no such qualms and impatiently tapped the second man on the shoulder, causing him to jump and almost knock the cup to the floor. Before any unpleasantness could ensue I stepped forward and handed him my card, quickly explaining who we were and the nature of our errand. He considered the card for a moment then, with a final irritated glance at Holmes, indicated that we should follow him.
He led us through an unmarked wooden door and into the more clerical section of the business. A corridor ran parallel to the work area, with evenly spaced doors visible in the opposite wall. Our guide led us to one such, upon which was etched MR NOBLE, and, ha
ving knocked, left us to show ourselves inside.
* * *
Mr Noble was of less than average height but stockily built, about fifty years old, with a full beard, and beginning to show the first signs of losing his hair. He was dressed as one would expect, in a smart frock coat and trousers, and politely rose to greet us as we entered.
‘Good morning, gentlemen. I am Christopher Noble, one of the proprietors of the company. How may I be of service to you?’
‘I believe,’ said Holmes, ‘that you are expecting us? I am Sherlock Holmes, and this is my colleague Dr Watson. Mr Petrie from the National Portrait Gallery sent over a large collection of portraiture yesterday evening, and suggested we pay a visit today to check on progress.’
For once, the name Sherlock Holmes had little effect, but Mr Noble was undoubtedly a shrewd businessman, and mention of Petrie, presumably a major client, was enough to stir him immediately into action.
‘Of course, of course!’ he said, jumping back to his feet and shaking our hands again. ‘I had no idea that you were Mr Petrie’s associates. Please, follow me.’
With that, he shot past us and marched purposefully down the long corridor outside, his arms and legs moving in a blur of motion. Holmes glanced at me with a raised eyebrow and, I admit, I had some difficulty in preventing myself from laughing as the little man strode away from us down the hallway like some high-tempo marionette.
‘I think perhaps we should follow,’ said Holmes with a smile. ‘Otherwise he may soon be out of sight.’
Fortunately, the corridor was not long enough for that to be a problem and, in fact, Noble stopped in front of the third door along. He pulled a set of keys from his coat pocket, selected one, and unlocked the door. Pushing it open, he invited us to enter.
Art restoration requires a great deal of space to be carried out correctly, and the firm of Young, Murray and Noble had solved the problem of acquiring a premises sufficiently large for the purpose by purchasing the building behind their own, and knocking through the walls to create an entirely enclosed and secure storage area. In front of us lay a magnificently proportioned room, perhaps sixty feet long and almost as wide, entirely whitewashed and, as with the main building, lit by large skylights.
The portraits we had come to see were arrayed on dozens of slanting easels which criss-crossed the available space, almost touching at points and creating a bewildering pathway which reminded me of a maze more than anything else.
‘Gentlemen,’ said the excitable Mr Noble. ‘Here are the artworks supplied by Mr Petrie, all in perfect condition.’
He led us through the artificial aisles, pointing out one or other artwork as being of particular quality or value, until we reached the far wall, where a small desk stood, from which Noble picked up a large sheet of paper.
‘A list of everything we are working on for the National Portrait Gallery, with a record of the progress of the restoration.’ He quickly inspected the list. ‘Well this is excellent! Mr Petrie will be delighted to learn that as yet not a single one of the items delivered to us yesterday has proven to be less than authentic! My staff have checked—’ he ran a finger down one column of figures on the paper, ‘—one hundred and thirty-four items so far, and expect to complete the remainder within the hour.’
He beamed up at us, clearly of the opinion that he was the bearer of glad tidings, but one look at Holmes’s face convinced me that he was mistaken in that belief. Holmes was plainly disappointed that – at best – this investigation would be into nothing more exciting to his peculiar brain than a lone forgery. He said nothing, however, other than to enquire after the portrait of King Charles.
Noble pointed to the nearest easel. ‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘That is the Hamblin portrait over there.’
The painting was, as Petrie had said, undamaged, though the frame was currently being held together by two clamps and, I assumed, a quantity of wood glue. The portrait itself showed His Majesty in a reflective pose, standing next to a tonsured priest, the pair of them reading from an open Bible. The setting was presumably the King’s rooms, for a bed could be seen reflected in the mirror in front of which the two men stood. Though, like Holmes, I make no claim to any great expertise in artistic matters, there was a life-like quality to the two men’s images that I found somehow disquieting. I turned to mention this to Holmes, but his nose was by now so close to the canvas that he could not have commented usefully on the subject at all.
Perhaps aware that I was observing him, he straightened up wearily and began to speak – but whatever he intended to say was forgotten as the door was flung noisily open and Inspector Lestrade was framed in the doorway.
‘Mr Holmes!’ he shouted. ‘So there you are! The little chap at the Gallery said you’d be here this morning. I must have a word with you!’
With that, the doughty Inspector began to make his way across the room, initially striding forcefully between the tight-packed easels, then slowly tempering his pace as he passed the same painting for a second and then a third time. From our vantage point at the other side of the room, all we could see was the top of his bowler hat where it cleared the tall wooden frames, bobbing up and down as it doubled and even trebled back on itself. Now and again, Lestrade would shout, ‘Am I any closer, Dr Watson?’ but in truth he never was. After several minutes, I finally thought to ask Mr Noble if he might go and bring him to us.
The Inspector, following Noble as dutifully as any dog follows its master, was flushed and perspiring by the time he had successfully navigated the maze. Even so, he wasted no time in giving Holmes the details of an incident, which he rightly categorised as ‘very queer indeed’.
‘The thing is, Mr Holmes, that it’s not even definite that a crime has been committed. You recall the forged portrait of King Charles… ah yes, sir, that’s the very one there… well, it seems that whoever stole the original version and replaced it with a fake thought better of their actions. By which I mean that last night, under cover of darkness, the villain slipped back into the Gallery, genuine article tucked under his arm, and attempted to swap it for the forgery.
‘Of course, on account of the possible threat to the Royal family, we’ve kept this entire affair hush-hush, with no coverage in the press, so the beggar stumbled into more than he bargained for.’
Up until this point, Lestrade had been extemporising his tale from memory, but at this juncture that imperfect mechanism broke down again, and he was forced to consult his notebook.
He pulled it from his pocket and consulted it briefly. ‘It appears that he entered the building at round about two thirty-five this morning, by breaking a window on the ground floor, and then made his way up the main staircase, where he was spotted by one of the constables we’ve had stationed there for this past week. The lad raised the alarm and the intruder was chased back down the stairs and cornered in the basement. Once there, rather than allow himself to be arrested, he took poison and died on the spot.’
Lestrade closed his notebook and returned it to his pocket. Throughout his speech, I had been observing Holmes, watching his face become more animated as his enthusiasm waxed in light of this new development in the situation.
‘Poisoned himself, you say, Lestrade? You are quite certain? Now that is unusual. He was not English, I presume?’ Before Lestrade could interject, Holmes quickly explained, ‘No English criminal that I have heard of – and I have heard of them all – would commit suicide rather than be arrested. That type of behaviour rather smacks of the East, I think. An Indian, perhaps, Inspector?’
‘Chinese, apparently. I’ve not been to see the body yet, Mr Holmes, but my information is that the dead man was a Chinese, or something of that sort.’
‘That would have been my next suggestion, of course. Both the Indian and Chinese native is raised with a strong sense that his own life is of little consequence. Suicide, in their cultures, is not the sin it is in our own.’
As it turned out, this was an area where my army service allowed me to cont
ribute an example. ‘In Afghanistan, I knew a native soldier who took his own life after failing to obtain a fairly minor promotion. He’d brought shame upon his family, it seems, and this was thought a suitable way by which to expiate that shame.’ I shook my head, as saddened by the thought now as I had been then. ‘And that was a not uncommon occurrence, I remember being told by one or two of the older hands.’
‘Is that so, Dr Watson?’ Lestrade muttered morosely. ‘Be that as it may, this native wasn’t in danger of being overlooked for a new job, was he? And like I said, even now we’re not sure that any crime has been committed – other than his own suicide, of course.’
Holmes had stood in silent contemplation throughout this brief exchange. Now, he refocused his attention on Lestrade. ‘Oh, I think we can safely say that more than one crime has been committed. Why would this man try to return the original painting, if not to cover the fact that it had ever been removed? Why, for that matter, would he so fear capture that suicide would seem the better option? No, Lestrade, there is certainly a crime here. The trick is to discover on whose behalf that crime was committed.’
During this exchange, Mr Noble had been shuffling from foot to foot, either keen to get back to work, or made uncomfortable by the talk of dead thieves. Now he interrupted to ask if we would like to be guided back across the room and – by unspoken extension – be on our way. Holmes appeared not to hear him, but Lestrade agreed that there was nothing else to be found at the restorers.
I touched Holmes on the arm, and he started as he returned from wherever his mind had been. ‘We must take a trip, Watson!’ he announced. ‘A short cab ride to Limehouse and a visit to the Lord of Strange Deaths; that is the order of the day, I think.’
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