A Family Affair (8 page)

‘My goot Sir John!’ Braunkopf was even more shocked by this than by the flagitious spectacle on the canvas before him. ‘I recovered this piece my own property only by most puttikler ethical derangement.’

‘I’m not clear that it ever was your own property. You can’t make a valid purchase, you know, of something the other fellow doesn’t possess the right to sell. And it can’t be said you made much inquiry into the matter when it first came your way. But that’s by the by. I shall be most interested to hear about your ethical arrangement. Am I right in thinking that you began by consulting whatever knowledge you have of known collectors of blue pictures in this country?’

‘Exakly, Sir John. As Proprietor and Director this notable Da Vinci Gallery I make a puttikler study business deficiency. We file purchasers clients other goot freunds according to known special and particulous interests in whole voonderble vorlt of art.’ Mr Braunkopf, as he touched this cherished and sublime expression, looked regretfully at the empty half-bottle on his desk; he had erred in hospitality (he must have been feeling) in treating so particularly good a friend as Sir John Appleby to so meagre a symposium. ‘And natchly, Sir John, there is a blue file. There has to be a blue file, Sir John.’ Mr Braunkopf paused for a moment, as if dimly feeling that this contention ought to be substantiated. ‘All the colours in the spectrum – no? – must go to the composings the glorious sunlightings that voonderble vorlt. So I vork through them all.’

‘All the collectors of dirty pictures?’

‘High class, only.’ Mr Braunkopf sounded his reproachful note. ‘Nothink to do with pornography, no? Pornography is for middle-class persons; nobles gentry and all stimultaneous Da Vinci clients have refined interest in
erotica
.’

‘I think we can cut out all that.’ It certainly seemed to Appleby that it would be fruitless to pursue Braunkopf’s singularly confused morality and sociology. ‘You drew up a short list, I imagine, of persons whose tastes in this direction were backed by fairly substantial means. It was a most rational proceeding. But how did you subsequently contrive contacting them?’

‘Bargains, Sir John.’ Braunkopf beamed at the innocence of the question that had been directed at him. ‘I take a portfolio with some six ten top-class drawings regrettables. And I offer these regrettables at low figure suitable persons. Then I achieve conversion.’

‘I rather doubt that.’

‘I achieve conversion on various art topics. Relaxed conversion, Sir John, puttikler appropriate between established collector and reputacious dealer. Then I lead the conversion round to security, a most puttikler important topic collectors of regrettables. On account insurance, Sir John. One regrettable in a collection of respectables is easy to insure. But too many not, yes?’

‘So I should imagine. So you got these people to discuss security, and thefts, and so forth. No doubt you represented yourself as having connections which might make you more effective in recovering pictures, were a robbery ever to occur, than are the police. And credit where credit is due, Braunkopf. You’d make a very good job of that sort of talk.’

‘My goot Sir John, that is great kindnesses in you.’ Braunkopf seemed genuinely moved by the tribute thus paid to him. ‘And so, you see, I come to the owner this high-class regrettable.’ He gave Nanna and Pippa a wave. ‘It was my goot patron Mr Praxiteles. My
late
goot patron Mr Praxiteles.’

‘I find it hard to believe in the existence of a man with such a name. And do you mean he’s dead?’

‘Mr Praxiteles, Sir John, is a most wealthy and high reputacious shipowner. And not defunk. Not that at all.’ Somewhat surprisingly, the ghost of a grin hovered on the dignified features of Mr Braunkopf. ‘Just no lonker a goot patron the Da Vinci Gallery.’

‘I see.’ Appleby glanced rather grimly at the Da Vinci’s proprietor. ‘This fellow Praxiteles was the owner of the Giulio Romano, and he was foolish enough to disclose the fact to you – with the further information that it had been stolen, or at least made away with for a time?’

‘Exackly, Sir John. Removed from his collection by unknown depradatious persons, who left a note that only some jokings was intended, and that soon the Nanna and Pippa turn up again.’

‘It has already struck me that that might be the way of it. So your precious Mr Polyclitus–’

‘Praxiteles, Sir John.’

‘Praxiteles decided to keep mum for a little, and just hope the picture
would
come back, rather than risk embarrassing publicity? Then, sure enough, his faith in human nature was rewarded, and back it did come.’

‘After I had bought it, my goot Sir John.’ Braunkopf made this point urgently.

‘Not exactly that, as a matter of fact. When the authentic picture came to you here, you were proposing to act merely as an agent. You bought the copy – and no doubt after the original had been returned to Praxiteles. And now we come to the final act in your disreputable comedy, Braunkopf. You got the original out of Praxiteles, and here it is. Are you prepared to tell me just what persuasion you used? Not, I imagine, another cheque for £12,000.’

‘No, my goot Sir John, not that.’ Braunkopf produced this in a judicial tone, as if here had been one of the courses of action which he had envisaged, but which he had turned down for another equally reasonable. ‘Not exackly that.’

‘Not that at all, I rather suspect.’

‘Sir John, I was entirely fred.’

‘You were entirely what?’

‘I was entirely fred and open with Mr Praxiteles. I spilled him the whole peas.’ Braunkopf made a virtuous gesture. ‘Nothink was concealed from him, account high ethical standing the Da Vinci Gallery.’

‘In particular, I think, you didn’t conceal from him that you had placed the matter of the fraudulent sale of the copy to you in the hands of the police?’

‘Correk.’

‘And that you would now have to tell the police of Praxiteles’ ownership of the original?’

‘Natchly, Sir John. A citizen must give the police all assistings–’

‘Quite so. But you didn’t fail to point out to this reputable ship-owner that the result would be a great deal of embarrassing publicity?’

‘It was not the necessities, Sir John. Mr Praxiteles is most intellectuous smart person.’

‘I don’t doubt it. And you proposed a deal to him. He was to let you have the original, and you would let him have the copy?’

‘Correk. Praxiteles is not a true lover, Sir John, of the voonderble–’

‘He just liked Nanna and Pippa, and was prepared to put up with the copy, and let you blackmail him–’

‘My goot Sir John!’

‘And let you blackmail him out of a good many thousands of pounds’ worth of property, for the sake of preventing this ridiculous and unsavoury business from being made public. You were on pretty strong ground with him, I can see. But at least you’ve lost a customer.’ Appleby paused briefly, and then pointed to Giulio’s picture. ‘Why is it still here? Why haven’t you sold it by this time to some other Mr Praxiteles?’

‘It was the destitution that was important, no? Now I have the destitution, and there is no need to be precipitatious. The market for regrettables is very delicate one, Sir John – puttikler for high-class ethical concern. This prestigious
chef-d’oeuvre
Giulio Romano problesome shipped to United States of America.’

‘I see. Nanna and Pippa are waiting to be rolled up and sent across the Atlantic inside the exhaust pipe of a car?’ Appleby looked again at the painting. ‘Or perhaps you’ll get some poor devil of an art student to overpaint it with an English rural scene – in stuff that will come away again under a sponge?’

‘Not a rural scene, my goot Sir John.’ Braunkopf was suddenly indulgent before this inexpertness. ‘It is necessitous to follow the main lines of the existential composition, yes?’ He paused meditatively. ‘Perhaps a “Christ in the House of Mary and Martha”, no?’

‘I don’t think I need trouble you further at the moment. Except with a small piece of advice.’

‘Yes, my goot Sir John?’ Braunkopf – an intelligent man, who knew when he was in a spot – spoke with a resigned meekness.

‘No Mary and Martha at the moment. And no anything else. Put this thing back in your strongroom and leave it there. I can make no promises. But the extent to which my heart bleeds for Mr Praxiteles is a very moderate one. Not, you know, that it bleeds any more for you. And now, good afternoon to you. And thank you for the champagne.’

‘It is always the privileges, Sir John.’ Mr Braunkopf was all esteem, and indeed affection. ‘You will make my complimentings to my goot freund and patron Lady Abbleby, yes?’

‘I suppose so, Braunkopf.’ It was not the first time that Appleby had felt defeated by the resilience of the proprietor of the Da Vinci Gallery. ‘In fact, yes – I will.’

‘And to my equal goot freunds the yunk Abblebys, yes? Reminding them this present prestigious manifestation strikly contemporary art at most modersome prices–’

Appleby picked up his hat – his London bowler hat – and fled.

Walking back to his club through the filtered London sunshine, Appleby reviewed his accumulated material. There was rather a lot of it – almost what might be called an
embarras de richesse
. Five distinct frauds had swum within his ken.

Lord Cockayne had been robbed of a small picture by an unknown hand. It might have been entirely valueless. But if this fraud was in fact connected with the others, then the general pattern suggested that it was something worth a lot of money. How could the thief have known this? Here was a first question to which there was no answer at present.

Sir Thomas Carrington had almost certainly been the fortunate owner of an authentic specimen of equine portraiture by George Stubbs. Since Stubbs had happened to paint horses, dogs, curricles, phaetons, barouches, chaises, and the like, whether with or without their squirearchal owners and their wives, with an exquisiteness never achieved by any other painter, Sir Thomas must be supposed to have suffered a very considerable monetary loss indeed.

Mr Meatyard, affably conducted by Sir Joshua Reynolds round his studio, had been sold, so to speak, a pictorial pup. What it had cost him was unknown, but had certainly been as much as a cleverly calculating rogue had thought it useful to ask.

Lord Cockayne’s noble friend Lord Canadine had been the victim of the simplest of these stratagems. He had merely suffered the theft of what he regarded as a garden ornament, but which in fact might be vulgarly described as in a different price bracket altogether.

And Mr Praxiteles – with whom the series closed at present – had been deprived for a brief space of a work of art by Giulio Romano: this in order that Mr Braunkopf might be defrauded of £12,000. Mr Braunkopf had then, in effect, defrauded Mr Praxiteles of a like sum. So Mr Praxiteles, and not the designed victim Mr Braunkopf, had here eventually ended up as the loser.

So much – Appleby thought, as he began to walk down Lower Regent Street – for the skeleton of the affair. But that it was an ‘affair’ at all – that one aspect of it really did cohere with another – depended upon one’s accepting the significance of certain common features. The most striking was the exploitation, by the villain or villains concerned, of what had to be termed the embarrassment factor. Lord Cockayne had been told, by a post-haste emissary from an exalted quarter, that there would be discomposure and distress in that same quarter if he didn’t keep mum – and being by tradition and training a proconsul of Empire he had at once toed the line. There had been clever calculation behind that. Sir Thomas Carrington had merely wished not to look awkward as having offered to the Royal Academy (or whatever the body was) a Stubbs that perhaps had never been a Stubbs at all; and this had been enough to make him pull his punches. Mr Meatyard, at first noisily indignant, had seen himself heading for a figure of fun. Lord Canadine had been in the habit (one had to suppose) of leading his male guests (no doubt on a late-evening stroll in summer) to view, in some secluded corner of his demesne, a joke not readily to be accommodated with a refined modern taste. Mr Praxiteles had been similarly circumstanced; he would not be eager to publicize his possession of a choice collection of curious pictures; this had kept him mum when his – possibly temporary – loss had been discovered, and had subsequently made him knuckle under to the resourceful Braunkopf as well.

Most of this, Appleby told himself, he had totted up already. But there were two further points of significance. The first was the highly specialized character of the operations. Somebody had
known
about Lord Cockayne’s unsuspected treasure, had
known
that Sir Thomas Carrington possessed a Stubbs, had
known
not only that Lord Canadine’s garden ornament dated from classical antiquity but also that it had been treated in a disrespectful manner, had
known
about the sort of pictures collected by Mr Praxiteles. It was only the misfortune of Mr Meatyard that was a little out of series here, but it still fell within the general area of operations in the art market. And the second point was at least a related one. The entire sequence of frauds, although seemingly yielding big money every time, was too freakish to be thought of in terms of a professional criminal world. When that world impinged upon the art world – upon Braunkopf’s voonderble vorlt, one might say – it was usually by way of stealing masterpieces and holding them for a ransom which insurance companies or wealthy owners were often willing to pay up in an unobtrusive way. In operations of that kind there was really big money – money comparable with what might be gained by robbing mail trains and bullion merchants – and with this the gains from these bizarre operations, substantial though they must have been, simply didn’t compare. The whole lot, in fact, had something amateurish about them. But amateurish in the old-fashioned sense of the word. The element of fun or play – or of practical joke, if one cared to put it that way – distinguishably lurked in them.

But then again – and Appleby paused on the steps of his club – the mind behind them was quite as wary as it was crazy. It was a mind capable of biding its time, and of so minimizing risks. The series of five frauds covered a period, according to his reckoning, of over fifteen years. The perpetrator, that was to say, was capable of lurking and watching for two or three years before finding conditions which sufficiently assured him of success.