Iain Pears - The Last Judgement

So far so good. Such a request, if rarely made in person, is not so rare. Art dealers spend quite a lot of their time trying to work out where their pictures have been in the past. Realizing that she was dealing with a colleague and not with a client, the woman became almost welcoming; asked him to wait a moment, disappeared through a curtain at the back then reappeared to ask him to go through.

Despite the name, Rosier Frères was now run by a dapper little fellow called Gentilly, who brushed aside Argyll’s apologies for interrupting with a sweep of the hand. Nonsense. Bored to tears this morning. Glad for the distraction. Who are you?

The aesthetic mating game interrupted business while Argyll laid out his credentials and Gentilly inspected them to see how seriously he should treat the young stranger. This is a standard routine, the artistic equivalent of dogs sniffing each other’s bottom before deciding whether to chase balls together or bury a fang or two into each other’s necks. What makes dogs decide to be friends rather than enemies is unclear; but no more obscure than what makes dealers decide to be co-operative or not to colleagues. In this case it was the former connection with Edward Byrnes that did the trick. Gentilly had, apparently, once done some business with Argyll’s former employer, and got on well with him.

So they talked about Argyll’s old boss awhile, swapped gossip, then commiserated with each other about the parlous state of the market, all by way of building up mutual trust and understanding. Then, all the preliminaries disposed of, they settled down to business. What, exactly, did Argyll want?

Leaving out some of the more interesting details, Argyll explained. He had acquired a picture which, judging by a label on the back, had probably passed through the gallery’s hands. Unfortunately it was many years ago. But he wanted to find out as much as possible.

‘How long ago?’

He said that it was probably sixty or seventy years. Certainly pre-war.

‘Oh, dear. I don’t know if I’ll be of much help, then. The Rosier family threw most of the records away when they sold up, and that was thirty years ago.’

He’d half expected that. Some dealers, the very old, very established ones, keep records of every work of art that passes through. Most run out of space to store the mountains of paper and sooner or later throw them out. At the very best they donate their records to archives or something; few keep such things hanging around the gallery to gather dust.

Gentilly was politely interested, at least, but Argyll had little else to tell him. He described the Socrates in as much detail as he could remember, but without seeing it for himself there was nothing the other man could usefully say. The only further thing he knew about it, Argyll said, was that it might have been owned by a man called Hartung. But even this was doubtful.

‘Hartung?’ Gentilly said, perking up. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’

‘You’ve heard of him?’

‘Good lord, of course. Before he fell from grace he was quite a big Paris collector. An industrialist, I think.’

‘This gallery may well have sold stuff to him, then?’

‘More than likely. From what I’ve heard — and it was well before my time, remember — he bought widely, and judiciously. What’s more, I may well be able to tell you. Like most dealers we’re extraordinarily snobbish in this firm. Ordinary clients — pouf. We throw away the records. Important ones, rich ones — ah, now that’s another matter. We like to remember them. You never know when we might be able to drop their names into the conversation. Hartung, you might know, is not the sort of person one likes to remember as a client, because of his subsequent career... None the less, he’ll be in our old Golden Book of the distinguished. Just one moment.’

And he disappeared to emerge a few moments later with a ledger-book. He thumped it down on the desk in a cloud of dust and opened it up with both hands, then sneezed loudly.

‘Not opened this for some time. Now then. H for Hartung. Let me see. Um.’

And with much frowning and grunting, little reading-glasses perched on the end of his nose, he laboriously turned the pages.

‘There we are,’ he said. ‘Jules Hartung, 18 Avenue Montaigne. First became a customer in 1921, last purchase in 1939. In all bought eleven pictures from us. Not one of our most lavish clients, but a nice selection. Very nice, I may say. Except for some mediocre wallpaper pictures.’

‘May I see?’ Argyll said, coming round to the other side of the desk in his impatience and peering at the ledger eagerly.

Gentilly pointed at a scrawled entry half-way down. ‘This is the one you want, I imagine. June 1939. One painting by Jean Floret of a classical scene, delivered to his house. And another, same painter, of a religious scene, delivered to a different address. The Boulevard St-Germain. The unfashionable end.’

‘Good. Must have been another in the same series.’

‘What series?’

‘There were four,’ he said briskly, displaying his knowledge. ‘All of legal scenes. This other one must be another one of the series.’

‘I see.’

‘Anyway, that’s one little problem cleared up. Now, how can I find out who lived at this other address?’

‘You are keen, aren’t you? Why does it matter?’

‘It probably doesn’t. Just being thorough.’

Gentilly shook his head doubtfully. ‘I don’t see how it can be done. With a lot of work you could find out who owned the apartment, if that’s what it was. But the chances are that it was rented. I don’t imagine there’s the slightest chance of finding out who lived there.’

‘Oh,’ he said, disappointed. ‘That’s a nuisance. What about Hartung himself? How would I get hold of people who knew him?’

‘It was a long time ago, and he’s not the sort of person people like to remember. People did bad things in the war; but he... Do you know the story?’

‘Bits. I know he hanged himself.’

‘Yes. Good thing too. I believe he was quite popular in the social whirl before the war. Very beautiful wife. But you won’t get many people admitting to having been his friend now. Not that there can be many left alive. It’s a very long time ago. All forgotten.’

‘Perhaps not.’

‘As you say; perhaps not. But it should be. The war’s over. Just history. What people did in the past.’

Despite his enhanced confidence in his ability to wheedle information out of fellow art dealers, Argyll’s subsequent assault on Jean-Luc Besson was not a great success.

After he left Rosier Frères, he calculated carefully, decided that the money would just run a taxi and directed it to Besson’s address. Simple and successful so far. He knocked, and Besson opened — about forty, with thinning hair pasted over the front of his scalp to spread it as widely as possible, and an unexpectedly open and friendly face.

Argyll introduced himself with a false name and, despite a none-too-convincing excuse for the visit, Besson invited him in. Coffee? Or tea? The English drink tea, don’t they?

He even began chattering away as the coffee was made without Argyll having to prompt him. He was taking a few days off, he said, as his visitor shuffled discreetly around the apartment eyeing the paintings. Not bad at all. It was a habit that both he and Flavia had. Flavia did it because she was in the police and had a suspicious mind; he did it because he was an art dealer and couldn’t help making running assessments of other people’s possessions. It wasn’t polite, really, but it was occasionally useful. He checked quickly through the pictures, eyed up the furniture, examined the grandfather clock and was on to the collection of photographs in art nouveau silver frames before the water was even boiling. Nothing of interest there; just Besson in the company of various anonymous figures. Relations, by the look of them.