Death of a Ghost (12 page)

On the last word he brushed back the brown paper and revealed a strip of plywood packing within.

‘Here we are,' he went on, lifting it up and removing the layers of tissue, ‘all mounted and everything –'

His voice trailed away on the last word and a startled exclamation escaped the girl, for the pristine mount was empty, and, although they searched the parcel again and again, of the ‘Head of a Boy by Thomas Dacre' there was no sign whatever.

–

‘M
Y DEAR
fellow, fantastic! Positively fantastic!'

Max Fustian strode up and down the luxurious carpet which covered the floor of the principal salon of his exquisite little gallery and offered this opinion with a wealth of gesture.

The Salmon Galleries in Bond Street had been redecorated when he took them over and now they were a fitting tribute to his taste and business acumen. Save for a few carefully displayed pictures, Mr Fustian's stock-in-trade was kept delicately in the background, and the unwary visitor might imagine that he had inadvertently strayed into the private house of some fabulously wealthy personage whose taste was so elegantly refined that it had almost reached the point of negation.

The sound-proof walls shut out all noise from the street, and in the hushed atmosphere common to art galleries, cathedrals, and banks, Max's melodious drawl sounded less out of place than it had done in Belle's drawing-room.

Mr Campion leant upon his stick and watched the man with interest.

‘Well, I thought I'd tell you, you know,' he said half apologetically, since it seemed to be committing sacrilege to mention anything so vulgar as the contents of a brown-paper parcel in such a rarefied atmosphere.

‘My dear Campion, of course.' Max was magnificently condescending. ‘I've sent for the man who does our packing. No drawing in the mount, you say? It's fantastic. But then, you know, extraordinary things are happening in connexion with that wretched boy's death; the wildest things. I had an amazing ‘experience myself. I'll tell you about it. If you've seen Linda – poor child! how decorative she is in her grief – you know about Seigals' case of drawings. Really, until this morning I thought you were the last man in London, possibly in the world, to have a specimen of Dacre's work.'

With the movement of a ballet dancer he swooped down upon a beautifully chased steel box, the only object on an exquisitely figured walnut table, which in turn shared with two William and Mary chairs the privilege of being the only furniture in the room.

Mr Campion refused an Egyptian cigarette which looked odd, unpleasant, and possibly of enormous value.

‘You agree with Linda, then, that someone's trying to stamp Dacre's work out of existence?' he ventured.

Max raised his eyebrows and spread out his long white hands.

‘Who can tell?' he said. ‘Nothing's impossible, you know, Campion. Personally, I'm not inclined to bother about it. Dacre had talent, you know, but then who hasn't in these days? He was one of thousands – thousands. Talent is not enough, Campion. The modern connoisseur wants genius. Poor Dacre! Poor mediocre Dacre! Only his death made him interesting.'

Mr Campion grinned. ‘That's a distinction he shares with quite a lot of painters,' he ventured.

The other man's little bright black eyes flickered for an instant.

‘How exquisitely true,' he said. ‘But I suppose we ought to be grateful to Dacre that at least his death was genuinely interesting. All his work vanishing like this, it's quite romantic. My own experience was interesting. I didn't admire Dacre's work, you know, but there was a little thing – just a study of a hand – a little thing of no value at all, but it pleased me. There was something in the line, something – how shall I say? – enlightened, you understand. I had it framed rather charmingly. A new idea of my own; the moulding was carved from stone. It's exceptionally right for certain pencil drawings. The greys blend. I had it hanging in my dining-room just above a rather lovely stripped Stuart bread cupboard.'

He paused and held a gesture which Mr Campion took to indicate that he was visualizing a pleasing scene.

‘It was a conceit of mine,' he went on, sublimely unconscious of any impression but the one he intended, ‘to keep a certain coloured rose in a pewter jar a little to the left of the picture. It formed a little group, broke the line, and pleased me. The other night when I came into my flat I realized at once that someone had been there. Just little things, you know. A chair not quite in alignment, a cushion on the wrong end of the sofa. Just little things that offend one's eye. Although nothing was actually in disorder, you understand, I knew at once that someone had been through the place and I hurried into my bedroom.

‘There was the same story. Just little things altered. The moment I entered the dining-room the thing hit me in the eye. The pewter jar with the rose was set directly beneath the picture. I hurried over and there was the empty frame. The drawing had been taken out quite skilfully.

‘I don't mind admitting to you, Campion, that at first I was inclined to suspect Linda, although how she could have got into my flat I don't know. But after seeing her and talking to her I realized, of course, that she didn't know anything and was just as puzzled as I was. The whole thing's absurd, isn't it?'

‘The drawing had gone?' said Mr Campion, who seemed to be afflicted with a sudden stupidity.

‘Completely.' Max waved his hands in the air. ‘Just like that. Ridiculous, isn't it?'

‘Amazing,' said Mr Campion bluntly.

The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a sallow, somewhat scared-looking child in a travesty of one of Max's own suits.

‘This is Mr Green, who packs our pictures,' said Max with the air of one introducing a rare and privileged creature. ‘You've heard of our difficulty, Mr Green?'

The boy looked bewildered. ‘I can't understand it, Mr Fustian. The drawing was all right when I packed it.'

‘You're sure it was there?' Max fixed the young man with a bright, beady eye.

‘There, sir? Where, sir?'

‘I mean,' said Max with gentle force, ‘I mean, my dear Mr Green, that you're certain there was a drawing in the mount which you so carefully packed and sent to Mr Campion?'

The boy's sallow cheeks flushed. ‘Well, naturally, sir. I'm not barm – I mean, I'm sure it was there, Mr Fustian.'

‘There you are, Campion.' Max turned to his visitor with the gesture of a conjuror removing the black cloth.

Campion turned to the boy.

‘What happened to the parcel after you had packed it? Was it delivered straight away?'

‘No, sir. I understood you didn't want it delivered at once and so it stood on the rack in the room downstairs where we make tea for about a week.'

‘The room where you make tea, Mr Green?' said Max coldly.

The child who, Campion decided, could not be more than fourteen, wriggled painfully.

‘Well, the room where we wash our hands, sir,' he muttered.

‘In the staff cloak-room?' said Max in cold astonishment. ‘Mr Campion's beautiful drawing stood on the rack in the staff cloak-room for almost a week? Surely, Mr Green, that was a mistake?'

‘Well, it had to stand somewhere,' said the wretched Mr Green, goaded into revolt by this mixture of injustice and the inexplicable.

‘I see,' said Max coldly. ‘Then at any time during the week anyone could have tampered with Mr Campion's beautiful drawing. That will do, Mr Green.'

Mr Green departed miserably and Max returned to Mr Campion with a rueful gesture.

‘One's staff!' he said. ‘One's staff!'

Mr Campion smiled politely, but his pale eyes behind his spectacles were thoughtful. On the face of it this new development in the affair at Little Venice was frankly bewildering. At first he had been inclined to suspect Linda of a disordered imagination. Then the thought had occurred to him that some price-forcing conspiracy might be afoot. But although there are many collectors who will buy up all the pictures of a painter tragically dead there were surely few who would go to the lengths of committing burglary and appropriating old clothes.

On the other hand, in his own surroundings Max was inclined to be a more comprehensible person than he had appeared in Lafcadio's home. His somewhat extraordinary line of conversation sounded less bizarre in the gallery.

Mr Campion, who had the wit to make a study of men without considering himself a connoisseur of humanity, began to regard him with new interest. The Inspector, he felt, had not done him justice.

It was at this point in his reflections that Mr Isadore Levy, plump and intelligent, came hurrying up to murmur a few words to Max.

Campion saw the little black eyes light up.

‘He's come, has he?' he said. ‘I'll be with you immediately.'

Mr Campion hurried to make his excuses. In the past few moments he had become aware of a suppressed excitement in the gallery, an air of momentous happening.

‘I'll come back later,' he said. ‘Or perhaps you'd phone me?'

‘My dear fellow, don't go.' Max's tone was obviously genuine. ‘I have a client.' He lowered his voice. ‘Sir Edgar Berwick – yes, the politician. He rather fancies himself as an authority on Flemish art.'

He slipped his arm through Campion's and led him down the room away from the door, talking softly.

‘It's really rather amusing. He wants to make a presentation to his local art gallery, and I think I have something that will interest him. Come along; you must hear it. It's part of your education. I insist. And besides,' he added with sudden
naïveté
, ‘I'm better with an audience. You're a student of psychology, aren't you? Here's an interesting example for you.'

When he followed Max into the smaller salon which formed the other showroom of the gallery, Campion saw at once that salesmanship had already begun. The high narrow room with its top lights and stripped pine panelling had been prepared for the contest. The picture stood at the far end of the room on an easel and the only other touch of pure colour was provided by a long velvet curtain draped graciously over a second doorway. By happy chance or ingenious design, the vivid blue in the picture was echoed in this hanging. The effect was very pleasant.

When Mr Campion entered unobtrusively, behind Max, Sir Edgar was already standing before the picture, his grey head bent.

He was an oldish man, large and remarkably dignified. His skin was pink and his natural expression belligerent. At the moment he looked important and extremely wise. He also appeared to be aware of the fact.

Mr Campion, while feigning interest in a screenful of early German engravings, had leisure to observe the greeting. Max, he reflected, was superb. He approached his somewhat pompous client with just the right mixture of deference and friendliness and then stood beside him in silence, looking at the picture with somewhat self-conscious satisfaction, patently aware that he saw it as an expert and as no ordinary man.

Sir Edgar remained so long in contemplation that Mr Campion had time to get a glimpse of the picture itself and all the others in the gallery before the interview continued.

He was not a judge of oils, but he could see from where he stood that the piece was a Flemish interior in the Jan Steen manner. It represented a christening party in a pleasant, clean-looking room, where many little comedies were taking place. The painting seemed to be in good condition, apart from a rather serious crack straggling across one corner.

At length, when Mr Campion had completed his circle of the gallery and was back again at the colour prints, Sir Edgar stirred and turned to Max.

‘Interesting,' he pronounced. ‘Definitely interesting.'

Max seemed to shake himself out of a trance. He dragged his eyes away from the canvas and permitted a faint enigmatic smile to pass over his countenance.

‘Yes,' he said softly. ‘Yes.'

The superb non-committal of this opening gambit over, silence again ensued. Sir Edgar squatted down on his august heels and peered through a small glass at the texture of the paint on the very bottom of the canvas.

Presently he rose to his feet and spoke brusquely.

‘Can we have it out of the frame?'

‘Of course.' Max raised a hand and magically two assistants in baize aprons, one of them the ubiquitous Mr Green, appeared, the beautiful old frame was removed, and the picture, looking surprisingly less important, relinquished naked to Sir Edgar's little glass.

Then followed a minute examination of the canvas, back and front, interspersed by little grunts and muttered technicalities from the two combatants.

Presently the frame was restored, and they took up their old positions in front of the easel, Sir Edgar a little pinker and a trifle dishevelled from his exertions, Max quieter, more enigmatic than ever.

‘No signature and no date,' said the amateur.

‘No,' said Max. ‘Only internal evidence.'

‘Of course,' the other agreed hastily. ‘Of course.'

And once again there was silence.

‘There's no mention of this christening piece in the catalogue of Steen's work,' Sir Edgar ventured at last.

Max shrugged his shoulders. ‘In that case there'd hardly be a question,' he said and laughed a little.

Sir Edgar echoed his laugh. ‘Quite,' he agreed. ‘It's indubitably the right period.'

Max nodded. ‘We have only the picture to go upon,' he said, ‘and of course doubts naturally crowd into the mind. But there are little touches which you as an expert must recognize, Sir Edgar, that curious cross-grained canvas, that sitting figure in the foreground. Very like Steen himself. Interesting how those men went in for self-portraiture.

‘Of course,' he added, shrugging his shoulders, ‘I know no more than you. As I told you, it came into my hands in a perfectly orthodox way. I bought it at Theobald's in January. I paid fourteen hundred and fifty for it. I bought it after examining it very closely, you understand, and I backed my own judgement. I can't tell you whether it's a genuine Steen. I don't know. I'm inclined to think not. After all, a piece of luck like that doesn't happen these days. Not to me at any rate. A signed Steen was sold in the same sale for two thousand seven hundred pounds, and A. T. Johnson who bought that picture ran me up to fourteen fifty for this.