David Dickinson - Death of an Old Master

‘Wrong,’ said Pugh firmly. ‘The one on the right is the original.’ He turned to the court officials once more. ‘Please remove the original painting and leave us with the forgery. The real Titian is far too valuable to be left here. And could you bring in Exhibit E on your way back?’

Another sea of whispers rustled across the public gallery. Was there a third Venetian gentleman waiting in the wings to destroy an art dealer’s reputation? A fourth? A fifth? Powerscourt realized just how brutal a courtroom could be. It’s exactly like a battle, he said to himself. Not everyone leaves the arena alive. Pugh’s artillery is cutting swathes through the enemy ranks. He felt a momentary pang of sympathy for Edmund de Courcy. They might be able to save the life of Horace Aloysius Buckley, gazing open-mouthed at the drama below him. But how many others might be destroyed in the process?

This time it was a drawing that was placed on the easel. The supply of Titians had momentarily run out. It was a society beauty who sat on the easel, perched on a seat in an imaginary landscape with a glorious sunset behind her. She was wearing a long flowing dress. Her small hands were folded in her lap. And on her head was a hat of the most expensive and exquisite feathers the London milliners of the late eighteenth century could provide.

‘Do you recognize this drawing?’ said Pugh.

De Courcy stared at it for some time. ‘It looks like a Reynolds, a Sir Joshua Reynolds,’ he said finally.

‘Why do you say it looks like a Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr de Courcy?’ Pugh’s interruption was lightning fast. ‘Do you think it’s not genuine?’

‘I’m not sure. I can’t be sure,’ said de Courcy.

‘Let me refresh your memory for you.’ Pugh was burrowing among his papers once more. ‘This is the final sketch for a Reynolds, called, I believe, Clarissa, Lady Lanchester. The painting was recently sold, Mr de Courcy, by your very own gallery, to a rich American called Lewis B. Black for a sum of over ten thousand pounds. Is that not so?’

‘Yes,’ mumbled de Courcy.

The newspapermen were scribbling furiously once more. One or two of the elderly ladies in the public gallery had taken their fans out and were trying to calm themselves down. God in heaven, thought Powerscourt, how many gallons of drink had Johnny Fitzgerald poured down the throats of those Old Bond Street porters? Had they opened the offices up for him at two o’clock in the morning and shown him the account books while London slept outside?

‘I put this to you, Mr de Courcy. You were quite right to be suspicious of the authenticity of this Reynolds. It is a forgery, pure and simple. What is more, gentlemen of the jury,’ Pugh was looking at them rather than at his witness, ‘the forgery and the fraudulent copy of the Titian we have just seen were created in your own house, Mr de Courcy, in de Courcy Hall in Norfolk. You were operating a Devil’s Kitchen of fakes and forgeries up there. Small wonder it was to your advantage when Christopher Montague was killed. Your own private fakery might have been exposed in the controversy. I put it to you, Mr de Courcy, that faking and forgery is a very profitable line of business. What takes the forger a few weeks or months to produce can be sold for tens of thousands of pounds. No wonder Christopher Montague’s article would have been, and I quote your own words back at you, very bad for business. That is the case, is it not?’

De Courcy’s reply was a mistake. ‘You can’t possibly prove a single word of that.’

Pugh swung round like a whiplash. He turned to face de Courcy. He stared at him. He raised his voice till it almost reached the street outside.

‘I beg your pardon, Mr de Courcy. I do beg your pardon. I most certainly can prove it. The man who forged and faked on your behalf is in this very courtroom this afternoon! Would you please rise, Mr Orlando Blane!’

Pandemonium threatened to break out. In a three hundred and sixty degree arc, about eighty pairs of eyes stared aghast at the slim handsome figure of Orlando Blane. Twelve good men and true on the jury benches, Horace Aloysius Buckley standing erect in the dock, the judge himself inspecting Orlando as if he was some outlandish specimen of foreign flower, Sir Rufus Fitch wondering what Pugh was going to hit him with next, the crowd in the public gallery, the newspapermen so astonished that they had dropped their pens.

‘Silence in court! I shall not repeat myself again!’

The judge had turned red at the insult to his court.

‘Your honour,’ Pugh had dropped his voice again, ‘with your permission I should like to ask Mr de Courcy to stand down for the moment. I should like to call Mr Blane to give evidence.’

‘Sir Rufus?’ The judge peered down at the prosecution counsel. There was nothing he could do in the circumstances. He nodded his assent.

Orlando made his way slowly to take the oath. Powerscourt reflected on the irony of the words. Here was a man who had cheated in the temple of art, forging and faking and copying, promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Would the jury believe him?

‘You are Orlando Blane, until recently resident at de Courcy Hall in Norfolk?’ said Pugh.

‘I am.’

‘Could you tell the court how you have spent the last few months?’

‘I was employed to copy a number of Old Masters, and to produce, or to forge, if you like, new Old Masters for sale to rich Americans.’

‘Did you know at the time who you were working for?’ said Pugh.

‘I did not, then,’ replied Orlando, ‘but I do now.’

‘And who do you now believe you were working for?’

‘I believe I was working for the firm of de Courcy and Piper, sir,’ said Orlando Blane.

‘What makes you so sure of that?’ Pugh went on.

‘The Titians,’ said Orlando. ‘The original was sent up to me in Norfolk. It was mentioned in the catalogue of the de Courcy and Piper exhibition of Venetian paintings. Therefore it could only have come from them. I created the drawing of the fake Reynolds of Clarissa, Lady Lanchester. I also created the painting of Clarissa, Lady Lanchester in the style of Reynolds which has now been sold by de Courcy and Piper to an American millionaire. They sent me an illustration of a Mr Black and his family cut from an American magazine. I was told to make a Gainsborough or a Reynolds which included a woman who looked identical to the wife of the Mr Black in the illustration. I had created, or forged, if you like,’ Orlando winced as he said the word, but Powerscourt had insisted he use it liberally, ‘a Gainsborough a few weeks before, so I transferred my allegiance to Sir Joshua Reynolds. I’ve always liked Reynolds.’

‘Quite, quite,’ Pugh cut in quickly, thinking that the jury might not appreciate the finer details of Orlando Blane’s preferences among the Old Masters. ‘Let me recap for the gentlemen of the jury, Mr Blane. Up there in Norfolk you were a sort of mail order forger. Orders came. You delivered. You were a sort of one man manufactory of forged paintings for the firm of de Courcy and Piper. If Christopher Montague’s article, of which we have heard so much, had been published, what impact would it have had on your output?’

‘I am sure,’ said Orlando, ‘that it would have put a stop to the production of the forgeries. De Courcy and Piper would have had people crawling all over every picture they sold. They would not have dared to continue with the constant stream of fakes flowing down from Norfolk. However good they were.’ He smiled apologetically at Imogen, watching pale-faced five rows away.

‘So to sum up, Mr Blane,’ Pugh was at his most genial now, ‘with the article published, the rich seam of forgeries would have stopped. But with no article, the little gold mine you had opened up in northern Norfolk for de Courcy and Piper was free to produce as many forgeries as you could create, to be sold on for large, possibly enormous sums, if the figures we have heard for the Raphael earlier are correct, and I am sure they are, to gullible Americans. The absence of the article was guaranteed to enrich de Courcy and Piper, is that so?’