David Dickinson - Death of an Old Master

Clarke and his colleagues made sad and comforting noises. ‘What a breach of trust!’ ‘Abuse of clients!’ ‘Disgraceful behaviour!’ But they looked ever so slightly guilty. Johnny took up his picture, wrapped it in its thick brown paper, and made his farewells.

‘Just let me know when your experts want to see it, then,’ he said cheerfully, as he headed for the door. ‘I’ll bring it back myself, I promise you. I look forward to hearing from you, gentlemen. A very good day to you all.’

Out on the pavement Johnny Fitzgerald laughed loudly. The looks on their faces had been most enjoyable. He peered around the shopfronts of Old Bond Street. His eye fell on the offices of de Courcy and Piper, ‘art dealers of quality’, said the legend on the door.

‘Good morning,’ Fitzgerald said cheerfully to the young man behind the desk.

‘Good morning, sir,’ said the young man. ‘How can we help you?’

‘It’s this Leonardo here,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘It belongs to my aunt . . .’

‘What do you think she’ll wear, Lucy?’ said Lord Francis Powerscourt to his wife.

‘That’s a most unusual question for a man to ask,’ said Lady Lucy.

‘Well, she can hardly turn out in black, can she?’ said Powerscourt. ‘But then again, she wouldn’t feel happy in pink or something like that, would she?’

Lady Lucy laughed. ‘I’m sure you’d get it right, if you had time to think about it, Francis. Even you. I bet you anything you like she’ll be in grey. Probably in dark grey. Sad, but not actually mourning. Maybe a black hat.’

Mrs Rosalind Buckley had replied remarkably promptly to Powerscourt’s note inviting her to Markham Square. She was due in five minutes’ time. He had asked Lady Lucy if the conversation would be easier with another woman present. Lady Lucy had thought about it for some time.

‘I think she might say more about her private life to a woman on her own than she would to a man. In fact I’m sure of it. But talking to a man and a woman would be difficult for her. I think she would be more reluctant to speak in those circumstances. I think you need to speak to her on your own, Francis. Good luck!’

Mrs Rosalind Buckley was indeed wearing grey, dark grey, when she was shown into the drawing room on the first floor. She was tall and slim, an inch or two taller than Christopher Montague, Powerscourt thought, with curly brown hair, full lips and very sad big brown eyes. She looked about thirty years old, but it was hard to tell. Powerscourt thought that men of all ages could easily have fallen in love with her.

‘Mrs Buckley,’ he said, rising from his chair, dropping The Times on to the floor, ‘how very kind of you to come. Please sit down.’ He ushered her into the armchair opposite his own. She began to take off her gloves. The gloves, he noticed, were black.

‘Lord Powerscourt,’ she said, trying vainly to manage a smile, ‘it was the least I could do after what happened to Mr Montague. Please feel free to ask whatever you wish. I shall try to bear it.’

Christ, thought Powerscourt, she’s not going to start crying already, is she? Weeping women always upset him.

‘Perhaps I could begin with the simplest question of all, Mrs Buckley,’ he said. ‘How long have you been friendly with Mr Montague?’

They both knew what friendly meant.

‘About a year and a half,’ she said.

‘Really? As long as that?’ said Powerscourt. ‘How did you meet him, may I ask?’

‘We met at the preview of an exhibition of Spanish paintings in Old Bond Street. I’d gone with one of my sisters. Christopher, Mr Montague I mean, was entrancing about the paintings.’

‘And did you know about the article he was working on at the time of his death?’ asked Powerscourt.

‘I knew about it,’ said Mrs Buckley proudly. ‘I had a key to that flat in Brompton Square. I used to go and see Christopher when it was dark.’

Powerscourt could see her now, hurrying along in the shadows, keeping out of the light, racing towards the sanctuary of her lover hidden away behind the Brompton Oratory.

‘Can you remember what it said?’ asked Powerscourt. ‘Forgive me if these questions are painful.’

Mrs Rosalind Buckley looked hard at Powerscourt. ‘I can’t remember the arguments,’ she began. ‘They were very learned with lots of references to Italian and German professors in Rome and Berlin. But basically he said that most of the paintings on show in the exhibition of Venetian Paintings at the de Courcy and Piper Gallery weren’t genuine. Some of them were copies and some were recent forgeries.’

Powerscourt had been reading Christopher Montague’s first book about the birth of the Renaissance. An idea suddenly struck him. For the one thing that rang out from the Montague writings about Italian paintings was that he loved Italy, he loved the art, he loved the light, he loved the countryside, he loved the cities, he loved the food, he even loved the wine.

‘You know that Mr Montague inherited a very large sum of money abut six months before he died,’ he said quietly. ‘Do you know what he intended to do with it?’

There was a long pause. Powerscourt noticed that Rosalind Buckley’s hands were gripping the sides of her chair very tightly. Lady Lucy’s granddaughter clock was ticking softly in the background. There was a sudden sound of crying as if Thomas or Olivia had fallen down the stairs.

‘I do,’ she said. She said no more. Powerscourt waited. The crying was dying down as the child was carried up to the nurseries on the top floor. Still Powerscourt waited. Then he could bear it no longer.

‘Let me try to help you, Mrs Buckley, if I may.’ He was looking directly into the large brown eyes. ‘Please correct me if I’m wrong. I think Mr Montague was intending to buy a house or a villa in Italy. Maybe he had already bought it. Somewhere in Tuscany, I would imagine, would have been his favourite. He wrote beautifully about Tuscany, and about Florence in particular. Somewhere between Florence and Siena perhaps?’

There was another of those pauses. Rosalind Buckley looked as if she might cry.

‘You’re absolutely right, Lord Powerscourt,’ she said sadly. ‘Christopher, Mr Montague I mean, bought a villa near Fiesole up in the hills two months ago. He was going to write his books there.’

Powerscourt felt the questions were getting more difficult.

‘And were you going to join him there, Mrs Buckley?’ he asked quietly. ‘Up there in the hills with those wonderful views across the mountains?’

This time there was no pause.

‘I was,’ she said defiantly. ‘Of course I was going to join him.’

Powerscourt thought they would have been very happy, Montague writing his articles under the shade of a tree perhaps, Mrs Buckley keeping house in the sunshine, tending the flowers in the garden. But the worst part had now arrived.

‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘I have to ask you about your husband now, Mrs Buckley. It won’t take long.’

Rosalind Buckley bowed her head. Powerscourt couldn’t tell if it was shame or an invitation to proceed.

‘Did Mr Buckley know about your friendship with Mr Montague?’

Mrs Buckley kept her head bowed, staring at the patterns in the Powerscourt carpet.

‘He did,’ she said.

‘How long ago did he find out?’

‘About four or five weeks ago.’

That would be about a week before Montague’s death, Powerscourt reminded himself. Just a week. Long enough to make a plan.

‘Do you know how he found out?’ asked Powerscourt softly.

‘I think he found a letter from Christopher in my writing desk,’ she said sadly, her eyes now looking up at Powerscourt. ‘He had no business to do such a thing.’