David Dickinson - Death of an Old Master

Imogen had gone to sit beside Orlando on the sofa. She was stroking his hand.

‘Take your time,’ said Powerscourt. ‘You don’t have to give me a reply now if you don’t want to.’

‘But if I don’t give evidence, Lord Powerscourt,’ Orlando said, ‘then this poor man may be hanged for something he didn’t do?’

‘That is correct,’ said Powerscourt gravely.

‘Let me tell you, Lord Powerscourt,’ Orlando was sitting up straight now, his eyes blazing, ‘we have received nothing but kindness at your hands. I might be dead if you hadn’t come along. There is honour, even among forgers. The profession is as old as art itself. I could not bear to think of that poor man losing his life just because I kept quiet. If you wish me to do so, I shall gladly give evidence.’

‘Well done, Orlando, well done,’ said Imogen.

Then they heard a voice shouting through the house. ‘Old Masters for sale!’ it said. ‘Buy your very own Old Master now! Titians for sale! Giorgione going cheap today! Reynolds and Gainsborough! Old Masters for sale.’

Johnny Fitzgerald walked through the door, a couple of canvases under his arm. Orlando Blane and his forgeries were reunited in Powerscourt’s Rokesley Hall.

Rarely in its long history had Number 25 Markham Square been such a whirl of social activity. The mornings brought a constant rush of visitors, nearly always female. Streams of post, delivered by postmen, footmen or by hand of bearer, poured through the letterbox. At lunchtime Lady Lucy would go out to a rendezvous with some more of her informants. By three thirty in the afternoon she was back At Home to receive another wave. In the early evening tea sometimes turned into early evening drinks. In the evenings she and Powerscourt would dine out with yet more of her relations, Powerscourt for once not complaining about anything at all. The auxiliaries, as Powerscourt referred to the outer ring of the vast regiment of relatives, were often the most productive of all in terms of information as they moved in different circles of London society. There were now three days left before the trial.

The letters were divided into two piles, one for Bridge and one for Buckley. Lady Lucy had purchased a large black notebook, rapidly filling up with entries, the first half devoted to Bridge, the second to Buckley.

Powerscourt read all the letters. He listened gravely to his wife’s account of her various conversations across the West End of London. Some of the reports came from places as far away as Hampstead or Richmond. Random pieces of information lodged themselves in Powerscourt’s brain. Alice Bridge was a most accomplished pianist, he read. There was confirmation that Rosalind Buckley was noted for her skill in archery.

‘What do you think, Lucy?’ he said to her late one evening. They had just returned from what he thought was one of the most boring evenings he had ever spent. The obituary columns or the lists of financial prices in the newspapers, he felt, would have been more entertaining. But he had smiled, he had kept the conversational ball in play, he had done his duty. ‘What do we have to show for all your magnificent efforts?’ He smiled at her and kicked off his shoes to lie full length on the sofa.

‘Two things, Francis. Alice Bridge has changed in the last month or two. There was definitely a romantic attachment. It seems to have ended. But nobody seems to know who it was. Nobody has heard of Christopher Montague. I think I shall be able to find out at the beginning of next week. Is that too late?’

‘My learned friend Mr Pugh,’ said Powerscourt, ‘said he doesn’t think the prosecution case will take very long. He could be on his feet for the defence as early as the second day of the trial.’

‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘but my informant will only be back from the country late on Sunday night.’

‘And the second thing, my love?’ said Powerscourt, thinking that all this activity seemed to suit Lady Lucy.

‘When she was much younger, Rosalind Buckley, or Rosalind Chambers as she was then, lived in Rome. There was some terrible scandal, whether it was to do with the Romans or to do with the Chambers, I do not know. But three different people have mentioned it to me.’

‘Scandal in Rome,’ said Powerscourt happily, his imagination drifting away. ‘Poison in the College of Cardinals. Pope’s mistress murdered. Swiss Guard supposed to protect the Pontiff at all times engaged in vice and drugs trade.’

‘Come back, Francis,’ Lady Lucy smiled at him.

‘Probably all happened at one time or another, I shouldn’t wonder. Should I ask Johnny Fitzgerald to go to Rome?’ Johnny Fitzgerald had returned to the porters of the art world he had met earlier, buying them drinks, subtly picking their brains.

‘Wouldn’t the Italian Ambassador be a bit easier, Francis? He lives only a couple of streets away from here.’

‘You’re absolutely right, Lucy. I shall write to the fellow immediately. I’m sure Johnny would have liked Rome, you know. So very different from Norfolk.’

One resident of Markham Square was not taking part in the great round of socializing. Early every morning William McKenzie set off on private journeys of his own. Each day he was travelling further and further afield in quest of his prey. Each evening he reported another day of failure to Powerscourt. He would spread the net wider yet, he would say. Powerscourt thought he would soon end up far out of London. Maybe he would reach Guildford or even Winchester.

Charles Augustus Pugh was writing furiously at his desk in Gray’s Inn very early the following morning.

‘Take a seat, Powerscourt, I won’t be a minute.’ Pugh had been entranced by the news that the forger was prepared to give evidence. He had risen from his chair and paced round the room, addressing perhaps an imaginary jury as he went. ‘A forger, a forger,’ he kept muttering to himself. ‘Did I hear you right, Lord Powerscourt, that you also have some of his forgeries in your possession? We could have a parade of bogus Titians or whatever the damned things are called? How simply splendid! It’ll be a sensation. Tell me, do you have a copy of the catalogue of the exhibition of Venetian paintings?’

Powerscourt said he was sure he could lay a hand on one. And with that news Charles Augustus Pugh had thrown back his head and laughed a laugh of pure unadulterated joy. He was still writing furiously, the courtyard outside his windows very silent. Only the birds were at their business this morning.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said finally, leaning back and returning his shoes to their accustomed place on top of his desk. The suit was dark blue this morning, the shirt Italian silk. ‘I presume that so far you haven’t managed to find the Holy Grail?’

Powerscourt shook his head.

‘Never mind,’ Pugh went on, ‘maybe it’ll turn up in time. Now this is the plan of campaign. Tell me what you think.’

Pugh paused for a moment and looked up at the ceiling. ‘The weakest point in the prosecution’s case is the murder in Oxford. We know that Jenkins was a friend of Montague. The prosecution will be saying that Buckley killed Montague, bloody man admits he was in the same room as the victim on the day of his death, damn it. And he had a very strong motive. He killed one, therefore he killed the other. Buckley admits to being in Oxford on the same day. Then there’s that business with the tie. That’s all. No real evidence that he went to the room, no witnesses apart from the man who saw him come off the train and the man who saw him at the bottom of the Banbury Road in Oxford that same day. I think we could confuse the jury about the times of Buckley’s movements. And we have the godson in Keble who gave Buckley tea. So that’s the first line of attack, as it were.