Albino's Treasure

by Douglas Stuart

  ‘Did you believe him?’ I asked.

  Holmes was uncharacteristically indecisive. ‘Wealth breeds power, and it is in nobody’s interests for one man to gain such power. I do not necessarily believe the Lord, but nor am I convinced that he is lying. Riches do not interest him, nor personal power, but he might well intervene if he believes this Albino is a danger to China. I fail to see how that could be the case, but at the very least it appears that this forged painting is a far more interesting puzzle than I would ever have guessed.’

  He fell silent once more, but I could tell from the tight way he held his shoulders that he was thinking about the Albino, and about England’s Treasure, and wondering what each might be.

  Seven

  The following morning dawned wet and blustery. When I came through to our sitting room Holmes had already finished his breakfast and was standing at the window, watching the rain thrum against the glass. He remained thus for the entire time I was eating, a silent presence at the edge of my vision, then, as I pushed back my chair and lit a cigarette, he said, without turning, ‘We are at an impasse, Watson. No further forgeries at the Gallery, and nothing to show for our visit to Limehouse but an unpleasant memory, and a dead end. I was sure that the King Charles could not be the only forged portrait! I remain of that opinion, but having failed with one sample, are we any more likely to succeed with a second? And not only are we no nearer untangling the knot which surrounds the one forgery that we do know about, but now we have two new questions without answers: who is the Albino, and what is England’s Treasure?’

  ‘Undoubtedly something immensely valuable,’ I ventured, aware even as I spoke that such a wide generalisation would not impress Holmes. In an attempt to be more precise, I continued, ‘Or a weapon of some sort, perhaps? To take control of England, never mind the Empire, one would need either enormous wealth or a weapon of terrifying potency.’

  ‘A weapon? Perhaps. The Germans have been doing some… worrying… experiments with gases, I believe. Such a thing could be used to blackmail the authorities. But how could our nameless villain hope to maintain his threat? Sooner or later, his weapon would be removed from him, or nullified in some other manner. An antidote or an assassin would put paid to his plans either way. No, Watson, the treasure this Albino seeks is far more likely to be gold than guns or gas. Far easier to buy a kingdom, after all, than win one in war.’

  I could see no flaw in Holmes’s reasoning regarding either the nature of the Treasure or our own lack of progress. It was thus in a spirit of desperation that I suggested we return to the National Portrait Gallery, and check whether anything new had been discovered. I remained concerned that, in the absence of a new case, Holmes’s less welcome enthusiasms would raise their ugly heads again, and he would resort to the needle for stimulation. I need not have worried, however, for while I was still speaking, he whipped round with sudden energy and agreed heartily that this should indeed be our next destination.

  ‘And after that to the Scotland Yard mortuary, Watson. Perhaps the thief’s body will yield some indication of where we should be looking – and for what.’

  I followed him out of our lodgings, hastily snatching my hat and gloves on the way out the door, and wrapping my scarf tight around my neck as I prepared for the foul weather outside.

  * * *

  It was beginning to feel as though the National Portrait Gallery was never at peace. When we gratefully ducked inside out of the rain, we were greeted by an untidy mess of ladders and scaffolding. White cloths were draped over several of the items on display, and the first two rooms on the right-hand side were tight shut, with a sign on each door apologising for the inconvenience during essential maintenance work.

  We had no difficulty in finding Mr Petrie, who bustled up while we stood, dripping, in the corridor. ‘Mr Holmes. Dr Watson. This is a surprise. As you can see, we are in the midst of restoring the Gallery to something approaching its state prior to the recent disturbance.’

  Perhaps it was my imagination, but I felt that his voice had lost some of the keen enthusiasm which he had displayed at our earlier meetings and, particularly, upon making the acquaintance of Sherlock Holmes. Evidently the fruitless transfer of dozens of paintings to the restorers for checking, and then their passage back again, had caused a great deal of confusion and upheaval at the Gallery.

  Holmes, though, could be charming when he put his mind to it. Sensing that we were not entirely welcome, he took a step forward and warmly shook Petrie’s hand. ‘A pleasant one, for our part, I assure you,’ he began with a wide smile. ‘I was just saying to Watson that, before we ask you any more questions, we should check with you, to ensure that any pseudonym he uses when writing up this case is acceptable to you, and does not in any way prove personally embarrassing or inappropriate.’

  Holmes smiled effusively again, but he need not have concerned himself. I could tell from one look at Petrie’s stunned face that his exalted opinion of Holmes had been restored. ‘Writing up the case?’ he stammered with a glazed look of delight in his eyes. ‘I am to be in one of your cases, Mr Holmes?’

  ‘Why, of course! Isn’t that right, Watson?’

  I could only nod my agreement, though I cannot say that I felt completely comfortable with Holmes’s deception. I reassured myself with the thought that, should the case come to a successful conclusion, I would certainly write it up and would be sure to give Petrie a sizeable role. He had, after all, been of some assistance.

  For the moment, though, the Secretary was extremely apologetic. ‘I would be delighted to provide any possible service, of course, gentlemen,’ he was saying to Holmes, ‘but unfortunately I am just about to leave London for a few days. I intend to return on Tuesday, but I assume that your questions will not wait until then?’

  Holmes assured him that haste was vital. Petrie’s face fell, then brightened as Holmes went on to remark that, on this particular occasion, all he really needed was to speak to whomever would know most about the provenance of the forged painting of King Charles.

  ‘That would be our Miss Rhodes,’ Petrie cried. ‘Dr Watson, I think you met her briefly on your first visit? She will happily put herself at your disposal, and can answer any questions you might have. By happy chance, it was she, in fact, who initially purchased the painting for the Gallery.’

  I cannot deny that the prospect of speaking to Miss Rhodes was an appealing one. Holmes, of course, cared neither one way nor the other who helped us, but the combination of intelligence and beauty was one that I have always admired. Consequently, it was with a definite spring in my step that I followed Petrie and Holmes upstairs.

  Miss Rhodes was directing two Gallery staff who were in the process of hanging a painting as we entered the room in which she was working. Such was her absorption in her task that she remained unaware of our arrival until Mr Petrie had twice coughed in a marked manner and then finally called her name loudly. She turned with a frown on her face that was quickly replaced with a smile of greeting as she recognised both her immediate superior and, I like to think, myself and Holmes.

  In any case, she gave the workmen one last instruction and, leaving them to their task, hurried over to greet us.

  Petrie briefly explained to Miss Rhodes that we were hoping to speak to her regarding the recently uncovered forgery, before making his excuses and taking his leave. Holmes, meanwhile, indicated a nearby bench and invited Miss Rhodes to take a seat.

  ‘I am hopeful, Miss Rhodes, that you might be able to provide some detail regarding the history of the King Charles painting? I believe that you were the person who identified and purchased it for the Gallery?’

  ‘Yes, last summer,’ she replied. ‘I was on a walking holiday in Surrey, travelling across the county in the company of a friend. It was a day much like this one, with the rain hammering down in sheets and a wind which chilled us to the bone, and I may tell you that as we crested what felt like the twentieth rain-sodden hill of the day and caught a glimpse of Hamblin
Hall through the trees, it was as though our prayers had been answered. My friend does not keep in the best of health – our holiday was on the instruction of her doctor, who suggested exercise and fresh air as the best cure for her ailments – and I was keen to get her indoors as soon as possible. So we followed the drive up to the house and made ourselves known to the current occupant of the Hall. He was kindness itself and good enough to invite us in. While my poor companion warmed herself by the fire, he showed me round the Hall, taking as keen an interest in our comfort as any host could. In return, I explained the nature of my employment to him, and he was so courteous as to allow me free access to the various galleries.’

  ‘Where you discovered and, I assume, admired the portrait of the late monarch?’

  ‘Exactly, Mr Holmes. It was hanging all alone on the main staircase, and I actually almost walked past it.’ She laughed gaily. ‘It had not been well maintained, but I must say that that was true of the Hall in general.’

  ‘Hamblin Hall has seen better days?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, Mr Holmes. Willoughby – Mr Frogmorton, that is, the current occupant – does his best to maintain standards, but I believe that… well, it is an expensive business, they say, the upkeep of a house and lands.’

  Holmes nodded gravely in agreement. ‘That is undoubtedly true, Miss Rhodes. But you were describing the painting of King Charles?’

  ‘Yes. It had been hung halfway up the main staircase, as I said, in a position of prominence in spite of its air of neglect. Its placement alone would have inclined me to stop and examine it, for all that its coating of dust meant that it was not being exhibited to its greatest advantage. Still, there was something about the painting that caught the eye.

  ‘Mr Frogmorton, you must understand, had explained at the beginning of our talk that he knew nothing of art, and had little interest in learning. So, unfortunately, he could tell me very little about the provenance of the piece, nor even whom it portrayed. And that would have been the end of that, were it not for the fact that my friend, chilled by our walk in the storm, took quite unwell and Mr Frogmorton was again generous to a fault, and asked us to stay for a few days, while she recovered her strength.’

  ‘Mr Frogmorton’s wife was present?’ I interjected. ‘He is, I take it, a married man?’ I hurried to reassure her I meant no impertinence. ‘It is important that we know all the facts, Miss Rhodes, and you have not mentioned her as yet.’

  She coloured a little at my question, and I felt myself redden somewhat in response, concerned that she might take my clumsy words as an accusation. Before I could say anything further, however, she laid my mind at rest, both regarding the missing wife and my own potential lack of gallantry.

  ‘Lady Alexandra was visiting her sister when we arrived, Dr Watson, though there were servants in residence. She returned towards dinner time, as it happens, or we could not have remained overnight.’ She smiled in my direction, which was reassuring, but then spoiled the effect a touch by concluding, ‘I know that some people look askance at two young women travelling alone and unchaperoned, but Mr Frogmorton could not have been more of a gentleman, I assure you, and his wife was wonderful in her solicitude for our misfortune, and was particularly attentive to my poor friend.’

  Holmes gave the smallest of starts, as though wakening from a daydream, and, fearing his interest was waning, I thought it best to steer the conversation back to the painting.

  ‘I am sure she was,’ I said, returning her smile. ‘I must admit to being impressed by the manner in which you were trusted to buy for so prominent a gallery at such a young age, Miss Rhodes.’ I was aware of Holmes watching us closely, and congratulated myself on re-engaging his flagging interest. ‘Have you always been interested in art then?’ I asked, finally.

  The question appeared to discommode her for some reason I could not imagine. ‘Since I was a young girl, Doctor,’ she replied coldly after a pause then fell silent, her mood, it seemed to me, suddenly changed. Holmes, as one might have expected, noticed nothing amiss, and resumed his questioning as though I had never spoken and she never replied.

  ‘You were explaining, I think, that the painting caught your eye due to its prominent placement, Miss Rhodes, rather than any inherent artistic value? But presumably once you examined it more closely, there was some element in its construction, some portion of its makeup, which caused you to consider it afresh? Why else, after all, would you have chosen it alone of all the paintings in Hamblin Hall to purchase for London’s newest and most fashionable gallery?’

  Miss Rhodes visibly brightened as Holmes spoke, which was not, in my experience, the common reaction to one of his interrogations. There was an eagerness in the way in which she nodded her agreement, and a note of satisfaction in her voice as she described her time at Hamblin Hall, and explained that she had taken on the task of cleaning up the painting as a project with which to pass the time while her companion recuperated.

  ‘You would never have believed it, Mr Holmes! From underneath that dust and grime there emerged an enchanting image of England’s martyred King at prayer. The colours were as fresh as the day it was painted, vibrantly green and red, and the brushwork… well I could not have been more surprised to discover something so beautiful in a Hottentot village! I almost feared that Willoughby would insist on keeping it, in the end!’

  ‘Quite so,’ Holmes agreed. ‘The artwork was striking, then. Was there anything else you noticed about it? Any element other than its quality which stood out as unusual?’

  ‘Nothing, Mr Holmes. It was memorable only in its loveliness.’

  ‘It could not – and I hesitate to ask this and do so only for completeness’ sake – have been a forgery?’

  ‘No!’ Miss Rhodes was vehement in her denial. ‘As I said, I cleaned it myself, and in doing so became more intimately acquainted with the painting than is common even in a gallery such as this. The painting I purchased and which was originally hung in these rooms was a seventeenth-century portrait of a living king, not some cheap imitation from two centuries later!’

  ‘A real treasure then, would you say?’ Holmes’s voice betrayed no sign that this particular choice of words held any special meaning. It may be that it did not. In any case, Miss Rhodes nodded her agreement.

  ‘A piece worth treasuring, I should say, Mr Holmes. To discover it had been stolen and replaced with a poor imitation was a blow, but it caused me even greater pain to realise that none of our visitors even noticed the switch.’ She shook her head, sorrowfully. ‘One tends to think of the London public – certainly those who visit our gallery – as cultured and educated, but that anyone could mistake that forgery for Hamblin’s original…’ She trailed off disconsolately.

  ‘Yet you did not yourself notice the substitution, Miss Rhodes?’

  ‘I had been out of town for the past week, Mr Holmes, and I can assure you that there had been no substitution before I left. Whatever occurred did so after I departed.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Holmes. ‘The painter, then, this Hamblin,’ he continued. ‘Could you perhaps tell me a little of him? Of his life and his work.’

  ‘If you think it will help,’ she replied.

  Holmes beamed at her with approval. ‘It will help enormously, I assure you. The more specifics that Dr Watson and I know, the better.’

  ‘Though forgotten now,’ Miss Rhodes began, as though addressing a lecture hall, ‘Sir Horace Hamblin was a prodigy of his age: a polymath, an artist, writer, mathematician and scientist, with interests in every area of the scientific and artistic life, from translating Latin poetry to the mathematics of cryptography. An unapologetic and notorious Cavalier and secret Catholic, Hamblin was a close personal friend of King Charles, until they had a mysterious falling-out during the Civil War that led to a cooling of their friendship. Hamblin created this single painting of the King at some point in the 1640s, before he was himself killed by Roundheads in November 1647.

  ‘Legend has it that, following the
King’s escape from captivity on November the eleventh of that year, a company of Parliamentarian soldiers was sent to search the estates of known Royalist sympathisers. In due course they rode up to Hamblin Hall but Hamblin had been forewarned by his tenants, and they found the Hall barred to them. The Roundheads camped outside for days, wary of his reputation locally as a man prone to unholy scientific experiments and content to wait him out.

  ‘Eventually, however, pride overcame fear and they smashed in the door. When they marched inside, they discovered that Hamblin had wired up a convoluted series of levers and pulleys, reaching from the front entrance up the main staircase as well as left and right into the neighbouring rooms. The first man to enter, the captain of the Roundhead forces in the area, was killed by an arrow fired via a thin wire attached to a tensed bowstring. Four more Roundheads allegedly fell to one or other of Hamblin’s many booby traps before he was captured and hanged from a tree in his own grounds.

  ‘His memory is much revered in the local area, even to this day, because he had every opportunity to flee before the Roundheads arrived and chose not to do so, through loyalty to his friend, the King.’

  The thought appeared to disturb and sadden Miss Rhodes, and she fell silent. Holmes, however, was unmoved by either the death of this most loyal of subjects or by the distress felt by the more modern young lady currently seated beside him. He frowned at her silence and prompted her to continue. ‘So much for Hamblin the man,’ he said. ‘But what of Hamblin the artist? Did he paint any other works?’

  ‘If he did, then no trace has remained of them. There are a handful of engravings and charcoal sketches from his university days which are, I believe, held somewhere at Oxford, but other than that he seems entirely to have eschewed art for science.’

  ‘That is unusual,’ Holmes murmured to himself and for once, when I asked him to explain himself, he deigned to do so.

  ‘The artistic temperament is not one which can simply be turned on and off, as though a tap, Watson. You recall the matter of the French sculptor, Seneche, and the Duc d’Amboise in seventy-seven? Or closer to home, the Scotsman Liddell, who included the names of his victims in each of his paintings? Each man caught because he could not bear to stop creating. And yet Sir Horace appears to have been interested in art as a young man, and to have painted his King years later, but to have done nothing, created nothing, during the decades in between.’