David Dickinson - Death of an Old Master

De Courcy Hall seems empty. But not. Party of four guards, possibly ex-army Two prisoners. Forger, young man mid to late twenties. Mrs Forger, beautiful girl, possibly younger. Easel and numerous paintings spotted in forger’s quarters. Suggest you abandon fleshpots of London. Incomparable welcome here in this hotel. Norfolk weather magnificent. Fitzgerald.

Charles Augustus Pugh’s office was a temple to the existence of files. Files single, files in bundles, files with red ribbon, files with black marched in perfect order along a series of shelves that stretched up to the ceiling along three sides of the room. Two large windows looked out on to the perfectly manicured lawn of Gray’s Inn. At a large desk in the centre, also festooned with files, Pugh sat with his feet up on the desk, puffing happily at a small cheroot. His exquisite dark blue jacket was hanging languidly from the back of the chair. Across an equally exquisite waistcoat was a watch chain in very thin gold which he would finger from time to time. Pugh was about six feet tall with a Roman profile and a Roman nose that gave him a powerful air in court.

‘What have we got then,’ he asked cheerfully, ‘to smite the Philistines with? They didn’t say very much at the committal hearing, lot of stuff about motive, couple of witnesses who had seen him on the way to Montague’s flat and up the Banbury Road in Oxford. Can’t decide whether to call Buckley as a witness or not.’

‘There are any number of people who could have killed Montague,’ said Powerscourt. ‘My problem is that at the moment I don’t know which one of them did it. How long have we got before the trial?’

‘Bloody postponements,’ said Pugh. ‘You’d think when people get sent up to the Central Criminal Court, the prosecution would have sorted things out properly. But no. Two postponements in the past few days. Could be up there by the end of next week.’

‘Christ,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Right, Mr Pugh, here goes.’

‘List of suspects, then. Nothing like throwing mud in their eyes. Confuse the jury. Leave them thinking any conviction would be unsound.’

‘Number one,’ said Powerscourt, staring in amazement at the sheer number of the files. He wondered briefly if somewhere in a hot corner of the Egyptian temples some scribes had lived, surrounded with roll upon roll of papyrus, details of the construction of pyramids perhaps, carefully drawn up lists of what the current ruler wanted to take with them before they were incarcerated in their mausoleums in the sand.

‘Edmund de Courcy,’ he came back to the present, ‘possibly with the support of his partner William Alaric Piper, art dealers. Montague’s article was going to say that most of the works in their exhibition of Venetian Paintings were fakes, and some were recent forgeries. That would have been very bad for business. De Courcy may have also tried to kill me.’

He told Pugh the details of the flight down the hill from Aregno, the story of the Traitor’s Run. Pugh was writing with deceptive speed in a notebook in front of him.

‘Must be an interesting life, being an investigator, Powerscourt. Bloody sight more interesting than a monk’s life here with all these damned files, punctuated by occasional outings in front of the judge.’

‘Number two,’ Powerscourt went on.

‘Pardon me a moment, pray,’ said Pugh. ‘You don’t know if there is any evidence that de Courcy or Piper was seen in Brompton Square?’

‘No,’ said Powerscourt sadly, ‘but de Courcy did employ a Corsican at his gallery. You’ll be amazed to hear that the man has recently gone home. Family bereavement, I think. Corsicans go in for garrotting, as you know.’

Powerscourt noticed that Charles Augustus Pugh had just drawn the outline of the mountainous island on the page in front of him.

‘Pity he’s gone home,’ he said. ‘Don’t suppose the Corsican authorities would be very keen on sending him back to us. Tighter than those criminal families in the East End, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Number two,’ Powerscourt went on, ‘Roderick Johnston, senior curator of Renaissance paintings at the National Gallery. There is a growing demand for people to authenticate paintings, Americans wanting to be certain they’re taking a genuine Corregio back to Cincinnati, that sort of thing. Montague’s article would have confirmed that he, Montague, was now the leading authority in Britain, if not in Europe, on the attribution of Italian paintings. End of the line for Johnston. The man’s been living above his means for years. Harridan of a wife, keen to acquire pretty houses in the Cotswolds or grand villas in the hills above Florence. Johnston had a very strong motive for wanting Montague out of the way.’

‘What sorts of sums are we talking about?’ asked Pugh. ‘Quick fifty pounds in notes? Envelopes stuffed with five hundred in cash?’

Pugh’s voice was a rich deep bass. It sounded very quiet, here in his chambers. Powerscourt imagined it could be a potent weapon in the courtroom, rising to intimidate the opposition witnesses, rising and falling as he made his final appeal to the jury.

‘Think thousands, Mr Pugh, maybe tens of thousands.’

Pugh whistled at the size of the sums.

‘Suppose you have an artist of the highest class,’ said Powerscourt, ‘a Derby winner of an artist. Let’s take Raphael. You are a dealer, Mr Pugh. This Raphael comes into your possession. You have a rich American client, keen on building up the best collection in the United States. He has a very suspicious mind – he didn’t get all his millions in steel or railroads by believing everything he’s told. You prove to me that it really is a Raphael, he says. If it’s real, remember, it might be worth seventy or eighty thousand pounds. If it’s not real, it’s virtually worthless. Enter Roderick Johnston. Or enter Christopher Montague. You, the dealer, are at their mercy, unless you already have them on the payroll. Even then, they can name their percentage of the final price. Could be ten or fifteen. I believe it has been known to go up to twenty-five for the authentication. But once you, the dealer, have it, you have the sale.’

‘And they say,’ said Pugh, ‘that lawyers are overpaid. Perish the thought. And, presumably, once you are accepted as the best authenticator around, dealers will be queuing up for your services? The money will just keep on rolling in?’

‘Exactly so,’ said Powerscourt.

Charles Augustus Pugh took his perfectly polished black boots off his desk.

‘Any more?’ he said. ‘I think we could make quite a lot of mud with those two. I just don’t know if it’s enough to get him off.’

‘There is,’ said Powerscourt. ‘There is one other candidate but I do not feel sufficiently confident to give you the details at this stage. It’s only a hunch.’

‘Would you be able to tell me in confidence? No notes in my book, no mention of it anywhere.’

Powerscourt told him. Pugh leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. ‘God in heaven, Powerscourt, ‘he said. ‘I can see perfectly clearly why you might think that. God knows how you prove it.’

Orlando Blane and Imogen Foxe were eating their last supper. Orlando was so nervous that his hand shook as he tried to cut into the thick sausages their captors had provided. Imogen kicked him under the table. First of all they talked about horses, horses that had won the Oaks or the Derby in happier times gone by. Imogen found the potato frightfully hard to swallow – it was as if her body was refusing to do what she told it.

Imogen told him about the terrible war in South Africa, the endless sieges, beleaguered little communities of soldiers and civilians trying to eke out their rations before starvation finished them off, the British relief expeditions forever delayed by the skill of the elusive Boers who never lost a battle. They simply got back on their horses and rode away into the veldt.