David Dickinson - Death of an Old Master

McKenzie paused again. Powerscourt was thinking of another life about to be ruined.

‘The party made two trips to this particular emporium, not far from Richmond station. The first visit was two days before the murder of Christopher Montague. The second was just before the murder of Thomas Jenkins.’

‘And will the owner of the emporium come to court?’ asked Powerscourt. ‘Will they give evidence?’

‘They will, my lord. They have given me their word.’

‘Did you offer any money, William?’ said Powerscourt, a sudden vision of Sir Rufus Fitch moving in to discredit the witness.

‘I did not, my lord. I thought the legal gentlemen might have had a field day if I did.’

Powerscourt wondered suddenly how McKenzie had known that. Perhaps the man was a secret devotee of murder trials, a regular visitor to the courts of London and his native Scotland.

‘Forgive me, William.’ Powerscourt knew he should have felt triumphant, but he didn’t. ‘Are you certain this witness will turn up?’

‘Rest assured, my lord, the witness will turn up. Why, I am going to Richmond myself on Monday morning to escort the party to the court. They start very early, those trains on the District Line.’

Early on Sunday evening Powerscourt and Pugh held a final conference in Pugh’s house in Chelsea. At the same time Schomberg McDonnell was sitting in a quiet corner of the library of his club in Pall Mall. He began composing a letter to his master, the Prime Minister.

‘Dear Prime Minister,’ he began. ‘You asked me to find the best intelligence officer in Britain.’ McDonnell paused, his eye wandering over a couple of shelves filled with the complete works of Cicero. Should he tell the Prime Minister the names of the people he had consulted, the generals, the brigadiers, the majors, the staff officers? Probably not, he decided. The old man wouldn’t want to waste his time with the detail. He just wanted a name.

‘I believe,’ he continued, ‘that I have found the man you are looking for.’

London’s finest sign writers went to work very early on the Monday morning. By a quarter to nine, a busy time in the streets of the capital, the board that previously said de Courcy and Piper had been removed from the front of the gallery of that name. The staff in the artistic world round about gazed in astonishment as a new sign was erected. The Salisbury Gallery, it announced to Old Bond Street, Art Dealers and Suppliers of Fine Pictures, London and New York.

Piper and de Courcy had spent much of the weekend in hiding at a grubby hotel near Wolverhampton. Nobody, Piper had announced gloomily, would come looking for them in Wolverhampton. Nobody did. On Sunday evening under cover of darkness they returned to London and crept down into the basement where their stock was stored. De Courcy had devised an original code to tell his partner about the pictures. Alpha meant that it was genuine. Beta meant that it was a copy of an original in the gallery’s possession. Gamma meant that it was a copy of an original not in the gallery’s possession. Omega meant that it was a total forgery, not based on any original, but born out of the artistic knowledge and creative energies of Orlando Blane in the Long Gallery in northern Norfolk. After that Edmund de Courcy left the gallery that had borne his name.

Piper had decided that this was the only way in which they might rescue the business. Even then, he was not sure it would work. De Courcy was to take the blame for everything. He was the sacrificial lamb, slaughtered to keep Piper afloat. ‘Think of it like this, Edmund,’ Piper had said to him as they stared in horror at the dinner menu in their Wolverhampton retreat on Saturday evening, ‘greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his partnership for his friend. I can keep you on as a sleeping partner. I’ll pay whatever it takes to bring your mother and your sisters back from Corsica. You will still get a share of the profits if we survive. If we give in now the entire value of our stock will simply disappear. Nobody will ever buy any of it. They’ll think they’re all bloody fakes. It’s our only chance.’

At a quarter past nine William Alaric Piper made his way slowly along Old Bond Street to his newly named gallery. He was wearing a new suit in dark grey. There was an orchid in his buttonhole. He nodded genially to his acquaintances. He was going to bluff it out. Already at the back of his mind he could feel a strategy emerging for handling his clients. He sat down at his desk and waited for the American invasion.

By the same hour a long queue had formed around the entrance to the public gallery of the Central Criminal Court. There were law students come to watch the last day of what was bound to be a famous trial in the annals of London’s jurisprudence. Maybe they would read about the case in faded red leather volumes in years to come when they were senior members of their profession, Queen’s Counsel at least, if not High Court Judges. Today they could see it for themselves and tell their future juniors that they had watched all the proceedings in person. There were drifters, people who always turned up to watch a great procession or a military parade because they had nothing better to do. There were phalanxes of society ladies whose loud greetings echoed up and down the streets.

‘Darling, haven’t seen you since Freddy’s party!’

‘They say that Mr Pugh is frightfully good-looking!’

‘Somebody told me at the Devonshires’ that the police know de Courcy did it. They’re just about to arrest him.’

‘Nonsense, darling. Everybody knows that poor man Buckley was the murderer. Pugh’s just trying to confuse the jury.’

At twenty past nine a dishevelled-looking Johnny Fitzgerald burst into Charles Augustus Pugh’s chambers. Pugh was deep in conversation with Powerscourt, fastening his gold watch chain into place, making final adjustments to his wig. Fitzgerald thrust two sheets of paper into Pugh’s hand.

‘That’s the Italian connection,’ he said, looking around desperately for coffee. ‘Got some of it from Italian newspapermen here in London. Got the rest from a man who’d worked as a footman at the house in Rome. Man drinks like a fish, maybe a bloody whale. Had to keep refilling his glass, if you follow me.’

Pugh read it quickly and placed it carefully at the top of his papers. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you so much.’

The judge, Mr Justice Browne, had had his hair trimmed over the weekend. He always tried to have a haircut before he gave his summing up and pronounced sentence on his victims. Powerscourt had heard somebody refer to him over the weekend as Hanging Browne. The jury looked refreshed after their two days away from court. The foreman was wearing a smart suit, as if his wife had told him he must look his best with all those press men watching. Horace Aloysius Buckley looked as though he had hardly slept at all. His face was gaunt, his eyes staring from their sockets. But he held himself well on this, the last day of his trial. The area reserved for the gentlemen of the press was meant to accommodate six scribes at most. There were eleven of them there this morning, crammed tightly together like galley slaves at their oars, fresh notebooks at the ready. The judge glared at them balefully as if he was thinking of reducing their number. The journalists avoided his gaze and began scribbling on their pads. The public gallery was crammed to the rafters, a long line waiting outside in case some of those present decided to leave.

Charles Augustus Pugh, veteran of many a courtroom drama, was feeling rather nervous that morning. He looked at his tall glass and decided to wait.

‘Recall Mrs Horace Buckley!’

The society ladies peered forward to see what she was wearing. The rustle of their skirts sounded like a small breeze blowing through Mr Justice Browne’s courtroom.