by Iain Pears
‘That’s quite all right,’ Flavia assured him. ‘It’s very good of you to see us at all at such short notice.’
‘Good heavens, my dear young lady, I am delighted. An old man like myself rarely has the opportunity to welcome young people into his house. Especially beautiful young women like yourself.’
No mention of handsome young men, Argyll noted. Ah well. At least he paid his compliments with decorum. No slobbering over hands or any nonsense like that.
They sat down, Argyll and Flavia on a thin-legged and rather insubstantial settecento sofa, Benedetti in the much more voluminous leather armchair. Both of the visitors studied their host carefully as the maid, who appeared to double up as a nurse, arranged a heavy woollen blanket around him. He was probably in his eighties. Not very well preserved, but evidently looked after himself well. A wizened and cherubic old face that the shrinkage of the years had made to look several sizes too big for the little body underneath it. When he was all tucked in and comfortable, he looked steadily at them both, waiting for them to begin.
Flavia explained how Masterson was murdered while doing some work on the old man’s painting. He nodded quietly and listened to her patiently. He was most distressed to hear it, he said quietly. A charming woman.
‘You met her, then?’
Indeed, he said. She’d paid a brief visit the previous week. His friend Georges Bralle wrote to introduce her and he was more than happy for her to come. Especially as she was interested in his pictures.
‘I am very proud of my little collection, even if that committee was less impressed. A great shame that.’
‘Do you know Bralle well?’
‘Not well. When I thought of selling the sketch a couple of years ago Georges suggested I consult his committee officially. That, of course, was before they had a fight and he retired in protest.’
‘They had a fight?’
‘Something like that. Maybe not. Georges was always a bit prickly about that committee. Tended to regard it as his personal property. I’m sure it was all his fault. Charming man, but a bit difficult.’
‘So did you consult the committee?’
‘I did. And eventually Professor Roberts came to see it.’
‘And he said he believed your work was not by Titian?’
‘Not at all. He made it clear it was only a preliminary visit and that follow-up examination by a colleague was necessary. But I reckoned by his reaction that he thought it was very much genuine, especially when I showed him the documentary evidence Bralle had sent me.’
Now this was a puzzle. No one had mentioned documentary evidence before. Quite the opposite. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Georges sent me various gleanings from his research over the years – when he remembered – I haven’t actually seen him for a decade or more. You know, fragments from here and there. He never studied the picture particularly, but would occasionally come across a little snippet and send it. Taken altogether I thought it looked quite impressive. On the desk,’ he said, gesturing in that direction.
Flavia went and picked up a file he had brought out in preparation. Clearly he was acute enough to work out what they were coming for. She glanced at the contents – the letter of introduction from Bralle, sale contracts from the 1940s, cleaning and framing bills and so on. Nothing else. She pointed this out.
‘Oh, silly me. Of course, I gave it all to Professor Roberts to hand over to his colleague.’
‘So what went wrong?’
‘I don’t know. Roberts said that side of things would be handled by his colleague, who would draw up the final report, incorporating his own findings. Evidently this man didn’t find the evidence convincing enough. I was most disappointed, I can tell you, as was Georges when I told him the result.’
‘And what did Dr Masterson think?’
‘I don’t know that either. She said she would tell me later, when all her work was done. We didn’t discuss it for very long. I’m afraid I talked too much. I don’t get many visitors these days, and when I do I get carried away. I must have bored her dreadfully with my little anecdotes, but she didn’t admit it. She sat and listened to me for a long time, and even missed her train. Very kind, I thought.’
‘So she didn’t see any documents?’
‘I offered to get her copies, but she said she didn’t need them. I was a little surprised, I must say.’
‘When Professor Roberts was here, what did you talk about?’
He thought again, and remained silent for an alarmingly long time. Eventually, he nodded slowly to himself as he pinned the memory down. ‘Most of the time, nothing. I showed him the picture and left him alone with it. That took about an hour. Then I gave him a drink, he declined my offer of lunch and he went. We spent some time discussing my wish to sell the picture.’
‘In what way?’
‘Obviously, I said I rather hoped he would report the picture to be genuine because I wanted to sell it. He said that he would do what he could. He was most helpful. After the committee voted against it, he wrote apologising for what he said was a piece of bureaucratic silliness and offered an attribution based on his own authority until it was all sorted out. With, of course, a fee of five per cent on the sale price. I gather that is a normal way of proceeding. I consulted Georges, who suggested I wait to see if the committee changed its mind. So I turned it down. It was tempting, but I wasn’t in that much of a rush to sell.’
Argyll felt his mouth sagging open in astonishment. He glanced at Flavia, but she seemed as calm and unconcerned as ever, so he bided his time.
‘Perhaps you might want to see this famous work?’ the old man went on. ‘It seems a pity to come all this way without looking at it.’
Both nodded with enthusiasm at the idea, and Benedetti slowly eased himself out of his seat, Flavia helping on one side and Argyll on the other. When he was set upright and balanced, he slowly led the way into what he called his cabinet, a small study where he kept his smaller pictures.
It made Argyll’s heart burn. What he would do for a room like this! Delicate plaster ceiling, marble fireplace with logs burning gently in it, dark, well-polished oak shelves supporting thousands of leather-bound books. Light, warmth, a feeling of well-packed comfort. And pictures, several dozen of them, of high quality, arranged in the old style, one above the other, with none of the modern sparse, spotlit fastidiousness.
‘Beautiful,’ he said. ‘Absolutely beautiful.’
Benedetti smiled appreciatively at him. ‘Thank you. Without any modesty at all, I must say you are quite right. It is my favourite place in the world. I am never happier than when I am sitting in here. I shall be sorry to leave it. Alas, I don’t expect heaven will have anywhere half as nice, even if I am lucky enough to get in. There it is, by the way.’
He pointed shakily to a picture hanging between the windows, sandwiched between a small seventeenth-century Flemish interior and what appeared to be an eighteenth-century French landscape.
It was a fairly innocuous scene. A man in a red and white striped outfit with a beaky nose was sitting at a table, on which there was a pile of food, wine and large flowers. He was surrounded by three other people, one dressed as a friar, and on the far wall was a carving of the crucified Christ. The subject’s hands were folded over his stomach. Angels, as they do sometimes, were flying around the room blowing trumpets. A perfectly normal scene of everyday life in the sixteenth century. It was painted in thick, heavy brushstrokes as though done in a hurry. Clearly a sketch for a finished painting.
‘Well, Jonathan, this is your area. What do you think?’
Argyll stared at the picture, ever more amazed. What on earth were these people playing at? He shook his head in confusion. ‘I don’t understand this at all,’ he said.
Both of his companions eyed him curiously. ‘I mean,’ he said, ‘I can’t see that there is any doubt about it. It is so obviously a preliminary sketch for one of the panels in the Padua St Anthony series; I don’t understan
d why there was any doubt.’
‘Are you certain?’ Flavia asked, impressed by his confidence. ‘After all, you’re no Titian expert yourself.’
‘Yes. Firstly, Titian, it seems, painted a sketch of a scene for the series which was rejected by the friars. So he did another. This has the right proportions. The colouring is right, the style is right. St Anthony was a friar, as is this character here. In all three pictures the central character wears a red and white striped outfit. I’m sure this is the Miracle of the Meal. If your lives of the saints are a bit shaky, St Anthony was at a dinner where the host tried to poison one of the guests. St Anthony’s presence made the poison harmless, and everybody felt awfully guilty and repented of their sins. You know the routine.’
Benedetti nodded in agreement. ‘Very learned, young man,’ he said, unaware that Argyll had got it out of a cheap guide book bought the previous day. ‘However, there is one little snag. As Dr Masterson noticed, the whole point about the legend is the guest ate the poison happily, “praising God in his heart”. This man seems decidedly ill. Besides, there’s the little inscription at the bottom. The Book of Job, I believe. Homo igit consutu…“A man dies and he disappears.” Hardly appropriate for a miracle of salvation.’
They all advanced on the picture and stared at it closely. Undoubtedly the old man was correct; those around the central figure, as much as they could be distinguished, seemed more jubilant than awestruck. And the guest himself did not look at all like someone who had just been given an indisputable sign of Divine protection. In fact, he looked very poorly indeed, with a thin, pallid face accentuated by straight dark hair and a look of anguish that emphasised the somewhat sharp nose.
‘Hang on a second, there. Flavia. Isn’t that hooter familiar, somehow?’ Argyll whipped out his collection of photographs once more and laid them out on the rosewood desk. Pretty convincing.
‘There,’ he said. ‘Proof positive, or pretty nearly. The guest is the same person as the murdering husband in the other scene. And, incidentally, the same as the figure in the Marchesa’s portrait. That’s why Masterson couldn’t be bothered with documentary evidence. She didn’t need it. That’s why she went to Padua.
‘I don’t know what you will think of this,’ he went on with a sudden and unexpected burst of dynamism, ‘but I work as the Italian agent for Byrnes Galleries in London. If you want to sell this picture, I will take it. Flat commission charge or percentage, and I can guarantee it will get a very good price. And no fee for authentication. With all this, it scarcely needs it.’
Benedetti thought for a while, and then nodded. Old, but fast on his feet where money was concerned. Once a banker, always a banker. Must be the Lombard air. ‘That sounds an interesting proposition. You will have to take care of all the documentation and preparation and all that. I will send you a letter detailing my requirements, and you can send a provisional contract for my lawyer. No sale as a Titian, no fee. Is that right?’
Argyll nodded, wondering if he was going too far, and surprised that the man had turned out to be so decisive. At the very least he expected several weeks of protracted negotiations. But he had rarely felt so convinced of anything, certainly not a picture. ‘Agreed. And I shall be collecting my fee. Of that I am sure.’
Flavia coughed gently to indicate that she was still there. ‘I hate to interrupt, but we are here on a murder investigation, not a picture buying expedition. And I’m not too sure of the proprieties of buying and selling what might turn out to be evidence.’
Argyll grinned happily. ‘Sorry about that. But it takes so long to organise sales these days that I’m sure this case will be over before it goes ahead.’
‘Not too long, I hope, young man. Remember, I am old, and have descendants to worry about.’
‘Tell me about Georges Bralle. Where does he live?’ Flavia asked to get the discussion back on more appropriate lines.
‘In the South of France. He went to live in his little house there when he retired. He almost never leaves it. Why do you ask?’
Flavia shook her head. ‘Because he did leave it not very long ago. That letter of introduction for Masterson was written from a hotel in St Gall, Switzerland, on the day Masterson herself was there. For someone who has retired from the committee, he keeps in close contact. I thought it might be quite interesting to hear what he has to say. An informed outside view, so to speak. Do you have a phone number?’
Benedetti looked apologetic. ‘I’m afraid you will find him a difficult man to talk to. He has no telephone; always disliked them and now he’s retired he indulges all his little whims. He has never really approved of the twentieth century. A very good letter writer, but that might not be fast enough for you.’
He gave her the address while Flavia asked him if he would be prepared to make a formal statement about what he had told them. He said he would, of course, be delighted, and they left. Outside once more she hailed a taxi and told the driver to go to the nearest car rental company as quickly as he could manage.
‘I don’t like the sound of that. Where are we going?’
‘France,’ she said. ‘Or more particularly, Balazuc. A village in the Ardèche, I believe. About a nine-hour drive. We can be there by tomorrow, then fly back from Lyons to Venice. Very dramatic and a thorough pain in the neck, but no choice.’
11
Having ended up in the one position he hoped to avoid – that is, on an Italian motorway and in the passenger seat of an Alfa Romeo with Flavia driving through the Friday rush-hour traffic – Argyll tried, nonetheless, to keep himself calm and collected. He quietly recited a prayer for the dead as she settled the car down at a steady one hundred and sixty kilometres an hour, but apart from her habit of using both hands to light her innumerable cigarettes, she did relatively little to make his incantations necessary. She was a very good driver. It was everyone else on the road that worried him.
He was, in any case, still quite impressed with the way he had grabbed the opportunity which presented itself in Milan, and Flavia was equally congratulatory.
‘But are you sure it’s the real stuff?’
He nodded firmly. ‘Absolutely sure. Feel it in me bones.’
‘Don’t see that it’s conclusive, though.’
‘It’s not. That’s why I’m happy to go with you to see Bralle. I want to see whatever evidence it is that he dug up.’
‘But why is the man so miserable when he’s meant to be beatific?’
The problems of scholarship. ‘I don’t know. All these questions. All I can say is that Masterson was convinced and I’m willing to take a bet on her judgement. And on that of Bralle and Roberts, come to think of it. It’s just a pity she’s not around to give us a little hint. The question I’m more worried about is why did Kollmar, alone of everyone who’d studied it, disagree? And then say Roberts told him it was a dud when Roberts had told you and Benedetti pretty much the opposite? And why did Bralle say Kollmar hadn’t made a mistake?’
‘Tell me.’
‘I don’t know. Finally, what about Roberts’ disgraceful behaviour to Benedetti?’
‘Eh?’ she asked absently, undertaking a truck then pulling out to pass a BMW, whose owner resented it and gave chase. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The cut. Roberts offered Benedetti an authentication in exchange for a cut of the sale price when it went under the hammer. Monstrous. He can’t do that sort of thing.’
‘That’s not so serious, is it?’
‘Not serious? Of course it is. Virtually prostitution, that’s what it is. Selling your opinion for money while pretending to be motivated only by the wish to find out the truth? Besides, what reputation would the committee have if everyone thought its opinions were swayed by how much the owners were willing to hand over? Disgraceful.’
He seemed really shocked, which Flavia thought a bit excessive, considering how he made his own living.
‘That’s not the same at all,’ he said primly. ‘Everybody knows art dealers are in it for the
money. That’s why no one trusts us. Academics, paid by the state to be objective, are entirely different. They shouldn’t take rake-offs.’
‘Money,’ she said with satisfaction when his little burst of piety subsided. ‘Always helpful to have a money motive in a murder case, so I’m told.’
‘Not much, mind you. That picture might fetch a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on a good day. It’s only a sketch. Five per cent of that is only seven and a half thousand. Not enough to kill anyone for, I reckon. Perhaps it was a threesome – the founder members, Bralle, Roberts and Kollmar.’
‘And Masterson?’
‘Kollmar discovers she has gone to Milan, where she would find out about his suppression of evidence.’
‘How?’
‘How what?’
‘How does he discover she has gone to Milan?’
Argyll waved his hand airily to dismiss such trivialities. ‘How should I know. I am hypothesising. Facts are your business. Anyway, he slips away at the opera, knifes her, and slips back. Or Roberts does.’
‘And who pinches the pictures? Signora Pianta?’ She glanced at him sceptically. ‘You make it sound more like a game of musical chairs than a murder investigation.’
Argyll was stumped, which was a pity as he had been starting to enjoy himself. ‘Oh, well, I’ve no doubt the explanation will come to me in due course.’
It was a long drive; much too long for consistent conversation and, besides, they were already tired by the time they started. After stopping for dinner it was nearly midnight before they even got to the French border. Once they’d crossed, Argyll, who had taken over the driving and was proceeding at a more genteel pace, pulled the car off the road.
