Thus Was Adonis Murdered (20 page)

Ragwort did splendidly. He lavished on Eleanor a generous mixture of sympathy (for her appalling experience), admiration (for her fortitude in surviving it) and indignant outrage (at the failure of the hotel to protect her from it). There were moments when I felt that he might be overdoing it;

but he assures me that with women such as Eleanor this is not possible.

“And you were actually interrogated by the police? Oh, Mrs. Frostfield, how perfectly disgraceful. Surely someone could have done something?”

“My dear boy, the Manager was simply hopeless. And the Graziella woman, who was supposed to be our courier, wasn’t even there. One was obliged to submit.”

“Dreadful,” said Ragwort, “quite dreadful. And refusing to find you a room in some other part of the hotel—I find that completely unforgivable. To expect you to spend the night in the same room, almost next to the one where you’d found this unfortunate young man lying murdered—”

“It wasn’t I who actually found him, of course,” said Eleanor. If, as Ragwort afterwards maintained, her disclaimer came more promptly than was natural, it was by a fraction of time too minute for my own perception. “But I had seen him carried out on a stretcher, only a few feet away from me. With a sheet over him, thank God. But that was quite dreadful enough, I do assure you.”

“Appalling,” said Ragwort. “I do think it’s wonderful of you to be here, Mrs. Frostfield, so soon after such a frightful experience.”

“One has one’s responsibilities,” said Eleanor heroically. “I couldn’t let down my young artists, you know—it means so much to them to have me here in person. By the way, Benjamin, you naughty man, how did you know I’d been in Venice? I thought it was quite my own little secret.”

I almost began to feel a measure of good will towards her: she could not have offered Benjamin a better cue if she had read my script herself.

“That’s the extraordinary thing,” said Benjamin, now looking so innocent as to be practically half-witted. “I had a postcard from Venice, you see, from someone who said they’d seen you there. And they simply signed themselves Bruce and said they were looking forward to seeing me. Which is really rather embarrassing, because I can’t think who they are. I’ve been racking my brains to think who it could be. So I’d rather been hoping, Mrs. Frostfield—this frightful news about Ned made me forget all about it—I’d rather been hoping, as it’s obviously someone who knows you, that you might be able to work out who it is and save me from some unspeakable
faux pas
when I next meet them.”

I was filled with relief. Benjamin is a dear, good, intelligent young man: I do not doubt that the rumours about his First are inspired entirely by malice. “Bruce?” said Eleanor. “Bruce? How very mysterious, Benjamin. I certainly didn’t meet anyone called Bruce in Venice. In fact, I don’t think I know anyone at all of that name. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

There was nothing in her gunmetal-blue eyes to suggest that she was lying; though, if Julia’s account of her conversation with Kenneth was to be relied on, it seemed certain that she must be.

“Benjamin,” I said, “about this painting that was stolen in Verona.” After leaving Frostfield’s, he had hospitably invited us back to his flat for another glass of wine. “Have you been able to give any further thought to the matter?”

“Yes,” said Benjamin, looking rather pleased with himself, like a man about to put on an amateur conjuring performance at a village fair. “Yes, I have. You believe, Hilary, as I understand it, that Bob Linnaker has the picture but doesn’t believe it has any particular value. Which, indeed, so far as one knows, it hasn’t. In order, however, to persuade him to admit he has it, you wish to pose as a customer anxious to acquire it.”

“That,” I said, “is an admirable summary of the position.”

“Well, the obvious thing, of course, would be to say that there’s a Tiepolo or something painted underneath it. But it’s difficult to see how you’d know about something like that—and anyway, that would just make Bob start scraping away at the thing himself. So I thought of something else, which I hope may quite appeal to you. May I invite you to entertain an hypothesis?”

“Certainly,” said Ragwort, “we shall be delighted to.”

“Well,” said Benjamin, “I should like you to suppose that at some time round the turn of the century the Committee, or whatever it is, in charge of the Church of Saint Nicholas in Verona had a meeting. And that one of the members pointed out that on one of the walls they had a rather boring blank space, which would look much better with a picture over it. And that another, while agreeing that this was the case, said it wasn’t on, because all round the space were a lot of nice pictures by Bassetti and other great Masters of the seventeenth century and it’d have to be something that fitted in with them, and they didn’t paint pictures the way Bassetti did any more. To which the first speaker replied that in the next village but one there was a young man, called, let’s say, John Smith—or, since my hypothesis is set in Italy, Giovanni Fabbro—who could paint, if called on to do so, just like Bassetti, or indeed like any of the other great Italian Masters. Who could produce, in short, the sort of thing that the speaker, while not professing to be an expert in such matters, would personally be prepared to call Art, which was more than could be said for any of this Impressionist and Cubist rubbish. Will you accompany me so far in my hypothesis?”

“Certainly, Benjamin,” I said. “Do proceed.”

“Good. So Giovanni is instructed to do a nice Madonna in the style of Bassetti, being reminded no doubt, when it comes to agreeing the price, that the work is for the greater glory of God and that only limited funds are available. His reputation spreading, he is commissioned to do similar work by other churches and by private patrons with the occasional gap between Old Masters on the walls of their villas and palazzos. I should like you now to assume the First World War.”

“By all means,” said Ragwort. “We shall be happy to oblige you.”

“Desmond, how kind. Well then, the First World War. And as a result of it, many strange vicissitudes and reversals of fortune, leading to the disposal of a number of valuable collections. And when the collection of the Barone di Cuesto or the Conte di Cuello comes up for auction, and it is well established, on the best possible authority, that the Barone’s ancestors had commissioned a number of paintings by Veronese, it is unlikely to occur to anyone that out of six paintings which all look like the work of Veronese one is actually the work of Giovanni Fabbro. Assume now, however, the passing of the years and the development of more sophisticated technologies in the authentication of paintings: so that various collectors gradually discover that some of the great Italian Masters which they are proud to possess are in fact the work of an unknown twentieth-century copyist. What,” asked Benjamin with the air of a conjuror demonstrating to his audience that the hat is completely empty, “do you think happens then?”

“Much crossness, I should think,” answered Ragwort. “Demands for money back. Letters to newspapers about the decline in standards in the art trade. Lawyers of two continents brushing up on the law of misrepresentation.”

“Ah yes, certainly.” Benjamin looked gratified, as if receiving confirmation that the hat was indeed empty. “Certainly, all of that. But then. Then, my dears, when the dust has settled a little and the National and the Met are selling off these impostures for what they can get, it occurs to people that old Giovanni must have been rather a clever chap to do these convincing imitations, which have taken in all the experts for such a long time. So they start thinking that if they can’t afford a real Titian or Veronese, a genuine forgery by Giovanni Fabbro might well be the next best thing. With the result, dear children,” said Benjamin, with the benevolent satisfaction of the conjuror actually producing the rabbit from the hat, “with the result that among a certain section of collectors forgeries by Fabbro become rather sought after and, in consequence, valuable.”

“Benjamin,” I asked, “is all this probable or merely possible?”

“It is not,” Benjamin answered, “improbable. It’s more or less exactly what happened with Van Meegeren. With whom, indeed, the point has now been reached at which people are forging Van Meegeren forgeries.”

“Meanwhile in Verona?” I said.

“Meanwhile in Verona, as you so astutely say, Hilary, everyone knows that the third picture on the left after the first transept is not one of their valuable Old Masters but just a rather nice picture by a comparatively modern local artist. Which would be, no doubt, what they would tell the police when it was stolen.”

Ragwort was rather carried away by the story: he asked Benjamin if he really believed that the painting stolen from Verona might be valuable as a forgery. Benjamin found this a sufficient pretext to pat him indulgently on the shoulder.

“Desmond dear, I don’t think anything of the kind. I haven’t the faintest idea why that particular painting should have been in the Church of Saint Nicholas and I have no reason whatever to suppose that it is the work of a celebrated copyist or forger. Giovanni Fabbro is entirely my own invention. My hypothesis is a meretricious little thing, hired out to you, as it were, for half an hour’s casual diversion: it is only Bob Linnaker, we hope, who may be sufficiently persuaded of her virtue to take her in marriage.”

Back in Islington, feeding the cats, I reflected on the possible significance of Eleanor’s denial that she knew anyone called Bruce. One wondered if she had suspected, after all, that the story of the postcard was a fabrication, and it crossed my mind that she might, if so, telephone my College to seek confirmation of my
bona fides.
Had she done so, she would not, of course, have found anyone to confirm that I was authorized to invest the College funds in the purchase of works of art; on the other hand, in view of the happy indifference of most of my colleagues to the financial affairs of the College, she was equally unlikely to have found anyone to deny it. Remembering the chillness of her gun-metal-blue eyes, I found this a remarkably comforting thought.

“Bags I do the Major,” said Cantrip.

Over coffee on the following morning, that is to say on the Wednesday, I had added my own impressions of Eleanor to the account already given by Ragwort. We were considering what was next to be done.

“It is to be remembered,” said Selena, “that we are assuming the Major to be a possible murderer. If we were not making that assumption, there would be no point in seeing him. If we are making it, I am not quite happy about any of us seeing him alone.”

“If you’re going to go and buy a load of stolen goods,” said Cantrip, “you can’t take a whole crowd of friends with you. The presence of third parties reduces the prospective seller to a clamlike condition.”

“Well,” said Selena, “couldn’t Benjamin go with you, as a professional adviser?”

“No,” I said. “I asked him last night. He’s flying to New York today for some exhibition or other.”

“Bother,” said Selena. “How very heartless of Benjamin.”

“So one of us’ll have to go alone,” said Cantrip. “And why I bags it’s me is because I’m the only one that knows karate. If the Major cuts up rough, I shall leap upon him with panther-like swiftness, crying ‘Hoocha!’—old Japanese war-cry—and stun him with a single blow of incredible precision. Oh, I say, frightfully sorry, Ragwort.”

Attempting to demonstrate the proposed movement in the confined space provided for our accommodation by the coffee-house, Cantrip had brought his left elbow into abrupt contact with Ragwort’s shoulder, at a moment when Ragwort was raising his cup to his lips.

“That’s quite all right,” said Ragwort, “don’t worry for a moment. I had rather been hoping that this suit might last another week or so before it had to go to the cleaners; but no doubt I was wrong. In referring, however, to karate, are you quite sure that you’re not confusing it with some new kind of dance?”

“Just because you’re miffed about your suit,” said Cantrip, “there’s no need to be offensive about my karate. I’m jolly well up on it. I knew a chap at Cambridge who was a Black Belt and he showed me how to do it, one weekend when it was raining.” Proficiency in the ancient art of the Samurai requires, as I understand it, some years of rigorous training. It even involves, I have been told, a certain cultivation of the soul: the question whether Cantrip has such a thing is a matter, as my readers may recall, of some dispute. Still, he has a good deal of agility and natural aggression—it did not seem to me that it would be seriously irresponsible to allow him to interview the Major alone. I nonetheless felt obliged to raise an objection.

“Cantrip,” I said, “it won’t do. He saw you at the airport, when you were looking at the luggage. He might recognize you.”

“Well yes, I expect he will,” said Cantrip. “And if he doesn’t, I’ll remind him. I’ve got it all worked out. I’ll go into his shop and pootle around for a bit, the way you do in antique shops. And after a while he’ll come up to me and ask if I’m looking for anything in particular. And then I shall give a tremendous start of surprise.”

“Cantrip,” said Selena, “you won’t overdo it, will you?”

“I shall give a tremendously natural and convincing start of surprise and say, Good heavens, wasn’t he at the airport on Saturday when I was making such a frightful ass of myself? And he’ll say, Good Lord, aren’t you the frightful ass who couldn’t find his suitcase? And I shall say, Yes, what an extraordinary coincidence. And then I’ll go on to say what a frightful ass he must have thought I was. And he’ll say yes, as a matter of fact, to be perfectly frank he did think I was rather a frightful ass.”

“And when,” said Ragwort, “a
consensus ad idem
has been reached on this point?”

“Well, then I’ll go on to say that why I was in such a stew was because I was supposed to be meeting my Uncle Hereward for lunch and my plane was late. I’ll try to get the idea across that I’d been in Paris with a girl my uncle didn’t approve of and I didn’t want him to know I’d been away at all—it’ll add what we in Fleet Street call human interest.”