Iain Pears - The Last Judgement

Jonathan Argyll stared transfixed at the scene of violence that suddenly presented itself as he turned around. The dying man, tormented by agony but bearing the pain with fortitude, lay back in a chair. On the floor beside him was a phial that had dropped from his hand; it took little intelligence to realize it had contained poison. The skin was pale and his hand, clenched into a fist, hung down loosely towards the ground. To the left was a group of onlookers, friends and admirers, variously weeping, angry or merely shocked at the sight.

It was the face, though, that grabbed the attention. The eyes were open and glazed, but it had dignity and tranquillity. It was the face of a martyr, who died knowing that others would mourn him. Death would not end his renown, but merely extend and complete it.

‘Nice, eh?’ came the voice at his side.

‘Oh, yes. Very.’

He squinted in a professional fashion. Death of Socrates, at a rough guess, complete with disciples in attendance. Just after the old buffer has been sentenced to death for corrupting youth and drinks the hemlock. Not bad stuff, on the whole, but liable to be expensive. French school about 1780, or thereabouts, and much more pricey bought in Paris than elsewhere. The thought, as so often, dampened his ardour. He looked again, and reassured himself that maybe it wasn’t so desirable after all. Evidently not a well-known artist, he told himself. Needed a bit of a wash and brush up. Come to think of it, the treatment was quite cold and stiff as well. The fact that he didn’t have much money to spare at the moment completed his transformation of opinion. Not for him, he decided with relief.

Still, one must make conversation. ‘How much are you asking for this?’ he asked.

‘Sold already,’ the gallery-owner replied. ‘At least, I think it is. I’m just about to send it off to a client in Rome.’

‘Who did it?’ Argyll asked, mildly jealous to hear of anybody managing to sell a painting. He hadn’t managed to unload one himself for months. Not at a profit, anyway.

‘It’s signed by Jean Floret. Who he was I have no idea, but not what you might call a major figure. Fortunately that doesn’t seem to bother my client, God bless him.’

The man, a distant colleague of Argyll’s who had taken one or two drawings off him in the past, gazed with a satisfied expression at the painting. He was not a hugely pleasant character; a bit too sharp round the edges for Argyll’s taste. The sort of person where you made sure to check your pockets when leaving his company, just to make certain all the chequebooks and credit cards were still in place. Not that he’d ever done anything bad to Argyll, but the Englishman was determined to make sure he never got the chance, either. He was learning fast about the art business. People were friendly enough, and helpful enough, but occasionally came over a bit funny when money was involved.

He was standing in Jacques Delorme’s gallery about halfway up the Rue Bonaparte, a few hundred yards from the Seine. A noisy, fug-filled street, lined with booksellers and print shops and the lesser sort of art dealer; the sort of people who sold cheaper paintings but knew a lot about them generally; unlike the wealthy lot in the Faubourg St-Honoré, who unloaded vastly expensive tat on gullible foreigners with more money than sense. It made them more agreeable company, even though the surroundings were less chic. Delorme’s gallery was a little dingy, and outside the cars tooted their horns alarmingly close to the main entrance, this being one of those Parisian streets where pavements were more concept than reality. The weather didn’t help the slightly gloomy atmosphere either; the sky was leaden, and it had been raining more or less since he’d arrived in Paris two days before and was still splashing quietly but persistently into the gutters then gurgling down the drains. He wanted to go home, back to Rome where the sun was still shining, even in late September.

‘Just in the nick of time, frankly,’ Delorme went on, blithely unaware of Argyll’s disapproval of the northern European climate. ‘The bank was beginning to become very troublesome. They were muttering about the size of my loans. Reconsidering their position. You know how it is. Once I get the money for this, I should be able to fend them off for a while.’

Argyll nodded as sympathetically as he could manage. He didn’t have a gallery himself, but even in his low-cost, working-from-home venture, it was tough earning a decent living. The market was bad. The only thing worse was conversation with colleagues, as they managed to talk about nothing else except how dismal life was at the moment.

‘Who is this man with money, anyway?’ he asked. ‘He doesn’t want any nice baroque religious pieces, does he?’

‘Got a surfeit, have you?’

‘One or two.’

‘Sorry. Not as far as I know, anyway. He particularly wants this one. The only problem is how to bring him and it into contact soon enough to satisfy my creditors.’

‘I wish you luck. Have you had it for a long time?’

‘No. I wouldn’t spend money on something like this unless I knew I could unload it fast. Not at the moment. You know how it is...’

Argyll did indeed. He was in something of the same position himself. A properly disciplined art dealer would act like any other business. Small stock, high turnover. The picture trade didn’t seem to work like that, somehow. Paintings just demand to be bought, even though there may be no client in sight. So Argyll had lots of them now; many had been hanging around for months, and almost no one was buying anything.

‘Now, about these drawings,’ Delorme continued.

And so they got down to some hard bargaining. It wasn’t so difficult, considering that Delorme’s bank was pressuring him to sell something and Argyll was more or less under orders to buy the drawings whatever the price. It was the only thing keeping him going at the moment, his part-time post as European agent for an American museum. Without that he would have been in real trouble. It had been decided months ago that it really ought to have a Prints and Drawings collection, as it had a Prints and Drawings room with nothing to put in it. So when Argyll mentioned that he’d heard of a Boucher portfolio wandering around the Paris market, he’d been instructed to go and get it. And if he saw anything else...

He had. He’d dropped in on Delorme, whom he’d met a year or so back, and the Frenchman mentioned this Pontormo sketch. A quick telephone call to California and the bargaining could get under way.

The mutually enjoyable haggle ended satisfactorily; more than the drawing would have fetched on the open market, but a decent price none the less. A little ruthlessly, Argyll exploited the fact that Delorme evidently needed the cash. One thing about the Moresby Museum, it paid fast. Business was concluded with a promise of cash on delivery, a cup of coffee, a shake of the hand and a mutual sense of well-being. All that was needed now was a rudimentary letter of contract.

The only snag was the tiresome business of getting all his drawings off to California. Argyll just about knew his way around the Italian bureaucratic labyrinth; the French one was entirely different. He wasn’t looking forward to spending the next couple of days hanging around offices in Paris, trying to get all the forms signed.

Then he — maybe it was a hint from Delorme that jogged his mind — had one of those little ideas which are devastatingly brilliant in their simplicity.

‘Tell you what,’ he said.

‘Hmm?’

‘That picture. Your Death of Socrates . How about me taking it to Rome for you, to deliver to this client of yours? In return, you could do the paperwork for these drawings and send them off for me.’