David Dickinson - Death of an Old Master

‘Do you see your President often, Mr McCracken?’ said Piper with a smile.

‘Sometimes I have to see him when I feel my competitors are being unreasonable, Mr Piper,’ said McCracken, taking out a gigantic cigar. ‘And I usually see him six months before an election in case he needs any help with his campaign funds. But what of the Raphael, Mr Piper? I don’t mind telling you that I’ve lost more sleep about that painting than I ever did over the purchase of the Boston to Hartford railroad three years ago. And that could have left me a broken man!’

‘The Raphael is yours, Mr McCracken. I managed, not without some difficulty, to persuade my other client to withdraw. I have had to promise him something very special in return. And I had to agree a slight increase in the purchase price, unlikely to trouble a serious collector like yourself. For eighty-five thousand pounds in cash, Mr McCracken, one of the world’s most beautiful paintings is yours. I must say I envy you. The thought of being able to look at that Raphael every day for the rest of my life, in the morning sunlight, in the heat of the day, in the afternoon shadows, would fill me with such joy.’

William P. McCracken pumped Piper’s hand in a vigorous embrace. ‘From the bottom of my heart I thank you, Mr Piper,’ he said. ‘Why, we should celebrate. Let me take you out for a bottle of champagne!’

Piper pleaded the press of business. But he did agree to dinner at the Beaufort Club that evening. ‘Looking to the future,’ said Piper, ‘I cannot promise, Mr McCracken. But I believe I may shortly have something which would interest you. It may come to nothing, but the work is divine.’

‘I’d be very interested in any future propositions, Mr Piper.’

William Alaric Piper leaned back in his chair. ‘Let me offer a word of advice, now you have joined the ranks of the great collectors, Mr McCracken. As you know, there is no possible parallel between the world of business and the world of art. But a great businessman, a great industrialist such as yourself, will have a balanced portfolio of investments, not only railroads but steel, not only steel but mining and exploration, not only mining and exploration but banking and property and so on. When one goes down, the other goes up. In the same way the great collectors hold a wide variety of the great Masters in their portfolios. Not only Raphaels but perhaps Giovanni Bellinis from the great days of Venice, Gainsboroughs maybe, Holbeins, Van Dycks, some of the great Rembrandts.’

Piper did not mention that he had two Rembrandts in his basement which Mr McCracken’s compatriots refused to buy because they were too dark.

‘What might you get your hands on soon?’ asked McCracken.

‘It is a Gainsborough, Mr McCracken. A Gainsborough of the very highest quality.’

McCracken searched his memory. He found it hard to remember the names of the painters. ‘Gainsborough the guy who did all those aristocrats in their country parks? Lots of real estate behind them?’

‘How right you are, Mr McCracken,’ Piper smiled. ‘Absolutely correct.’ And, he said to himself, I shall certainly drink a glass of champagne with you this evening. The Gainsborough, after all, was something very special.

Lady Lucy intercepted her husband as he was hanging up his coat in Markham Square. ‘Francis,’ she whispered, ‘that young man from the gallery is here. He’s waiting for you upstairs.’

‘Is he a nice young man, Lucy?’ asked Powerscourt with a smile. ‘Why are you whispering?’ Powerscourt was at the bottom of the stairs now. Lady Lucy put her hand on his arm.

‘It’s Christopher Montague, Francis.’

‘What about him?’ said her husband, his mind already engaged with Jason Lockhart of Clarke’s Gallery, presumably sitting peacefully in the Powerscourt drawing room.

‘It’s this.’ Lady Lucy’s whisper was even quieter now. ‘Somebody left Christopher Montague a great deal of money about six months before he died.’

‘Did they indeed?’ said Powerscourt, fresh avenues of investigation opening up before him. ‘How do you know?’

‘I bumped into a cousin of mine coming out of the shops in Sloane Square. I’d been buying clothes for the children. Sarah, you know Sarah, Francis, you met her at Jonathan’s wedding a couple of years ago, she said everybody in the family knew about it.’

Jason Lockhart of Clarke’s Gallery was sitting nervously on the sofa. He was about thirty-five years old, wearing a dark blue suit with a white shirt and a discreet tie. ‘Lord Powerscourt,’ he said, ‘I came as soon as I could when I received your note. My apologies to your wife for arriving before you had returned. How can I help you in your inquiries?’

‘You were going to start a magazine, I believe,’ said Powerscourt, thinking about Lockhart’s voice. He sounded very like most of the other inhabitants of Old Bond Street but there was something wrong about the vowels. ‘With Christopher Montague. What can you tell me about it?’

‘It was going to be called The Rembrandt ,’ said Lockhart, ‘a magazine for the art connoisseur.’

‘And what about the article by Christopher Montague, Mr Lockhart? Did you read it?’

‘I did not,’ said Jason Lockhart, ‘but I knew what it was going to say.’ Powerscourt waited. ‘The article was going to be called “Fakes and Forgeries in Venetian Painting”. It was based on the exhibition that recently opened at the de Courcy and Piper Gallery. There are something like thirty-two paintings supposed to be by Titian. Christopher thought only two, maybe three, were genuine. Fifteen Giorgiones, only four by the master. Twelve Giovanni Bellinis, only one by the hand of Bellini himself.’

Master, thought Powerscourt, returning to Lockhart’s voice, master spoken with a very short a. Somewhere in the north of England? Yorkshire perhaps?

‘Forgive me,’ said Powerscourt with a smile, ‘forgive me for asking such a stupid question. But how does a gallery like yours or de Courcy and Piper know whether a painting is genuine or not?’

Jason Lockhart laughed. ‘That’s just the point, Lord Powerscourt. The gallery finds as many works of Titian or Giorgione as it can. It arranges with the owners to lend them to the exhibition, to be returned or sold afterwards. The gallery always accepts the attribution of the lenders. If the Duke of Tewkesbury says his Titian is a Titian, then the gallery accepts that it is, indeed, a Titian. There’s always a clause in the small print of the catalogue that all attributions are the owners’ not the gallery’s. That lets the gallery off the hook.’

Powerscourt had decided that the original accent, now heavily overladen with the upper crust of Mayfair, was definitely Yorkshire. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘So the Christopher Montague article would have been a bombshell. It would have offended everybody, the owners, the galleries, the dealers, the purchasers who would not have known whether they had bought the real thing or a fake.’

‘Exactly,’ said Lockhart. ‘There was absolutely nothing else that could have offended so many people so deeply.’

‘Would de Courcy and Piper have been hardest hit,’ asked Powerscourt, ‘seeing that it was their exhibition that was being torn to pieces?’

‘Initially, yes,’ admitted Lockhart. ‘They would have been very hard hit. But it wouldn’t have taken long for it to emerge that every other gallery behaved in exactly the same way.’

‘And what of your position in your own gallery?’ said Powerscourt, his mind racing. ‘Would your employers have been pleased that you were associated with such a venture?’

‘They knew all about it,’ said Lockhart. ‘I suspect they thought it might be enough to force de Courcy and Piper out of business altogether. All’s fair in love and war in Old Bond Street, Lord Powerscourt, believe me.’