The Blue Last (47 page)

Jury nodded and drank his whiskey. “What's this dealer's name?”

“Jasperson. The woman who's selling them is named Amy Eccleston.”

Jury leaned over and set his empty glass on the table. “I'd like a word with Jasperson. Do you have his number?”

“Here.” Melrose handed over a card from his jacket pocket.

“Where's the phone?” Jury rose.

Melrose waved him down. “No, sit down. Ruthven can bring it.” Melrose pressed the enamel button beneath the table beside his chair.

Ruthven appeared, was duly dispatched and returned with the phone. Jury thanked him.

“I could easily have gone to the phone rather than the phone coming to me.”

“Hell, no. I want to hear what you say.”

Jury dialed as Melrose refilled their glasses and plopped another ice cube in Jury's. Jury leaned back and waited and said to Melrose, “I'd be surprised to get anybody on Christmas Eve—hello. Mr. Jasperson, please. This is—? Mr. Jasperson, I'm Superintendent Richard Jury of Scotland Yard . . . No, nothing's wrong . . .” Jury asked him about the two paintings and whether he'd had them authenticated and where they'd come from. “The thing is, Mr. Jasperson, what I've been led to believe is that what you've got there might be a panel from an altarpiece by Masaccio—”

On his end, Jasperson's response must have been forceful—cried or cursed or laughed—for Jury moved the receiver away from his ear, regarded Plant with a shrug, then put the receiver back as Jasperson said something else, making Jury laugh. “I suppose not. Would anyone else connected with your shop possibly know . . . ? No . . . Miss Eccleston, I see. Well, I might just pop round there for five minutes and see what is . . . Yes. Oh, no, you needn't go there. Bad enough to be bothered at all on Christmas . . . Yes. Thanks. Wait. Tell me, if one of these panels did turn out to be by Masaccio, how much would it fetch at auction? . . . You don't say. Thank you.”

Jury hung up. “Never saw them.”

Melrose sat forward, eyes wide.

“I think we should have a little talk with Amy Eccleston, don't you?”

Melrose was up like a shot. “Let's go.”

With their coats on and going out the door, Melrose asked, “How much did he say a Masaccio would get?”

“Around twenty-five, thirty million pounds.”

“My God! But why would she be selling it for a measly two thousand, then?”

“Maybe she doesn't know anyone with thirty million.”

There were two other customers when Jury walked into C. Jasperson's, American from the sound of them, middle-aged women in jumpers and slacks browsing and apparently giving sod all about the holiday. He liked that attitude.

Amy Eccleston, who had been conferring with them, excused herself and threaded her way through tables and chairs and objets d'art to join Jury near the front of the room. Her smile diminished fractionally when she saw his identification. “Oh.” Then the telephone rang and she was off to answer it, no doubt grateful for the pause it gave her.

Jury studied the table in the middle of the room, frowning at the gilt and fat cherubs embracing the table legs. Why would anyone need such a piece, much less at this shocking price? He let the tag dangle.

The middle-aged Americans smiled at him on their way out and he returned the smile. So they smiled again, perhaps thinking they had short-changed this man in the smile department. The bell jittered as they left.

Melrose, who had spent a few minutes outside contemplating the green, passed them in the doorway. He and Jury had decided it would be better if they entered separately so as not to arouse Amy Eccleston's suspicions, at least not immediately.

Returning from the telephone call, Miss Eccleston saw Melrose and made a delighted sound. She said she'd fetch his painting in just a moment. To Jury she said, “Now, what did you want, Inspector?”

“Superintendent, actually. I understand you've sold two paintings lately attributed to the Italian painter Masaccio?”

With a self-righteous air, she corrected him. “No, indeed
not
! I didn't say they were by Masaccio. I merely said there's the
possibility.
”

“You came across them yourself, did you?”

“Yes. In Italy. I found them in a little church in San Giovanni Valdarno. I thought they were unusual and very striking. Of course, that they might have been painted by Masaccio didn't occur to me at the time.”

“Even though,” put in Melrose, coming up on the two, “San Giovanni Valdarno was his place of birth?”

She looked from the one to the other, clearly disturbed that they appeared now to be together. “I wasn't thinking of that. Superintendent, what's wrong here? You seem to be accusing me of something.”

Jury had been making notes in his small notebook. “What makes all of this suspect is that Mr. Jasperson knows absolutely nothing about these two paintings. Yet they're hanging here—or were—in his shop.”

“Mr.
Jasperson
?” Her face looked chalky.

Jury just looked at her.

“I've been with Mr. Jasperson for three years now. He's always—”

“Too bad you won't be with him for three more, Miss Eccleston. The way I see it is this: you've been doing this for some time. You're here by yourself every Friday and on the occasional holiday. On those Fridays you hang your latest acquisition. You might have a buyer, you might not. If not, you merely wait until the next Friday. Certainly this elegant and pricy shop is a wonderful venue for expensive paintings. You pocket one hundred percent of the sale. Not bad. This week's takings are four thousand pounds, no VAT. That's a good return on an investment. It's also extremely daring. What if one of your buyers happened to bring back whatever you'd sold when Mr. Jasperson was here?”

“This is ridiculous. I don't need to—” She started to turn away.

Jury turned her back. “Oh, yes, you do need to. What you'll need to do is leave this place. Leave the village. You won't say anything—not
anything
—about these two paintings. Under no circumstances try to contact Mr. Trueblood. You'll write Mr. Plant here a letter relinquishing all interest in the paintings. Then you have forty-eight hours to get out of town.”

“But what about Mr. Jasperson? I can't just leave.”

“What you tell Mr. Jasperson is your own business. I'm sure you can think of something plausible.” He paused. “You're getting off very lightly, Miss Eccleston. Thank your lucky stars that for some people, art really means more than money.”

She looked absolutely white.

Jury smiled. “Gather up your painting, Mr. Plant.”

Melrose didn't bother with the wrapping paper.

“Merry Christmas,” said Jury.

 

 

 

“Good lord,” said Melrose, as they backed the car out of the parking place.

“What could you do to her?”

“Nothing. But she doesn't know that. Of course, Jasperson could have her up on any number of charges.”

Melrose was carrying his painting with him in the front seat. He leaned it back and looked at it. “The thing is, we still don't know.”

“Whether it's genuine?”

“I don't see how it could be. How could something like this have been missed for all of these years by experts in the field. I mean, how could it have just sat there in some little church—and no Italian Renaissance nut twigged it?” Melrose paused. “But as Tomas Prada—one of the experts—pointed out, what could these panels have been copied from, given the original paintings are missing?”

“Hmm. That's a point, certainly. Can't you live with it this way? ”

“Not knowing?”

“Yes.”

“That's what Prada asked Trueblood.”

“And what did Trueblood answer?”

Melrose smiled. “He said, ‘I could; I'd just rather not.' ”

Jury laughed. “Sounds like him.”

“
Y
our broccoli, now,” began Mr. Steptoe, who might have been Irish or might have been English. “Your broccoli, now, the best of your broccoli's dark, so dark it's purple. That has all the nutrients in it twice over the lighter green sort. And any that's yellow, just you pass it up. Yellow means it's finished, no nutrients at all.” He ate the stub of broccoli on which he had just passed judgment.

Mr. Steptoe, the new greengrocer in Long Piddleton, sat between Agatha and Diane. They were one woman short, so that meant two men would be cracking elbows. Melrose had seated Agatha between himself and Mr. Steptoe; this had immediately resulted in a whispered exchange, Agatha insisting that she preferred not to sit next to a grocer who would have no conversation at all.
“But I'll be on your left hand, dear aunt, and you know I'll have all sorts of conversation.”
This irritated her even more, as Melrose knew it would.

But as it turned out, Mr. Steptoe had endless conversation, though it was all about vegetables. Mr. Steptoe had done beetroot, asparagus, parsnips and potatoes, had gone right around the dishes brought in by Ruthven and the slightly emaciated young lad Ruthven had dug up to help serve. Mr. Steptoe had pronounced each of these vegetables of excellent quality, which prompted Melrose to remark that they should be, for weren't they purchased at Steptoe's? Mr. Steptoe had thought that marvelously funny, and had excused himself from bragging by saying he honestly hadn't had that in mind at all.

“It's just that the right kind of vegetable, properly cooked, does indeed make the difference between a poor meal and a good one.”

“Remember,” said Trueblood, turning to Melrose, “the excellent flageolet beans at the Villa San Michele?”

Mr. Steptoe made a little noise. “Ah, flageolet! The best are in France, of course.”

Melrose thought his guests might as well be at Le Manoir aux Quatre Saisons, listening to Raymond Blanc.

Mr. Steptoe continued: “Yes, I had a very tasty dish of flageolet cooked with apricots in Paris.”

“The staple food of the Hunzas,” said Diane.

All eyes turned to Diane upon hearing this runic remark.

“Apricots,” she said. “Their staple food.”

“Diane,” said Melrose, “who in hell are the Hunzas?”

Diane waved the question away with ruby-painted nails. “Some Indian or other. Have we finished our dinner? Am I sitting in the smoking section? I'm way down at the end here, absolutely ostracized.”

“You've got me, Diane,” said Jury, taking her lighter to light her cigarette.

“Oh, don't I
wish.
”

“Funny,”said Melrose, “I certainly remember clearly the Villa San Michele—the magnificent vaulted ceilings, the faded frescoes on the walls of the lobby, the subdued service in the dining room and that knock-out view of Florence from the balcony. But I don't seem to recall the flageolet.”

“Trust Melrose,” said Agatha, “to sap all of the sentiment from any experience.” She went back to prodding a flower of broccoli around her plate.

“Not
any
experience, Agatha. Not the Masaccio experience, certainly. It had got to where I felt I knew him. Right, Marshall? You, me and Masaccio: We three, we happy three, we band of brothers.”

Thoughtfully, Diane exhaled a plume of smoke. “That has a familiar ring. And I agree with Melrose.” Having not been on the trip, Diane could take any side she wanted. “You know, some writer said Florence was absolutely
overflowing.
It was Henry . . . Henry . . . Oh, you know that writer who was so enamored of Italy.”

“Henry James?” said Vivian.

“That's the one, yes.” Diane exhaled another artistic-looking stream of smoke. “You know, Superintendent, you'd enjoy Florence. They've all sorts of crime, I mean interesting crimes, society murders, that sort of thing. Who was that count? The Conti di Rabilant, I think, was murdered there. And you'd look marvelous in the uniform of the
carabinieri.
Quite smart.” Diane smiled at him in her sultry way. “What are you working on at the moment?”

“A shooting.”

Diane was interested. “Tell us about it, this shooting. We might be able to help; we might come up with one or two good ideas. Why you've seen—” Diane spread her black velvet-garbed arm “—how we are!”

“Indeed he has,” said Melrose.

Trueblood made a sound between a hiccup and a laugh. “Dream on, Diane.”

“But you never know how the details will strike someone unfamiliar with a case. Don't you agree, Superintendent? Looking at something too long makes it all so familiar you can think it's always been that way.”