Barbara Taylor Bradford - Playing the Game

‘I like Mark’s well enough, and it’s a good choice for this evening. By the way, I saw the folder of requests for interviews with you on my desk in the den. You’ve caused quite a sensation, haven’t you?’ He grinned at her, his delight in her sudden fame apparent, and shook his head. ‘Over one hundred and fifty requests. Talk about the new movie star in town …’ He chuckled.

‘I suppose some people would find it flattering. However, I don’t. It worries me. Even agreeing to do a few of them would take up too much of my valuable time. I’m very busy at the moment. And anyway, you know I don’t like talking about myself. I’m rather a boring person.’

‘Come, come, Annette, don’t be so modest!’ he exclaimed, eyeing her oddly. ‘You’re not boring … you’re a talented woman – gifted, in fact, and you can hold your own with anyone in business and socially, and in any conversation.’

‘As long as it’s about art,’ she countered quietly.

‘No, no, that’s not true. You can talk about a lot of things. Books, the theatre, music and politics, so don’t be so silly, and don’t put yourself down. There are too many people ready, willing and able to do that.’

‘I don’t want to talk about myself to the press, Marius, honestly I don’t; it frightens me.’

Leaning closer to her, fixing those mesmeric eyes of his on her, he said authoritatively, ‘There is no reason for you to be afraid. The past is the past, Annette, and nobody’s going to bring that up, or start digging. Who you are today, what you’ve become is all that matters.’

She stared into his face, trusting his judgement as she had for as long as she’d known him, yet thinking about the phone call someone had made to Malcolm Stevens about Hilda Crump. Marius didn’t know about that phone call, or the mention of Hilda’s name after all this time. Should she tell him? No, it didn’t matter. It didn’t. She had to believe that.

Slowly, she said, ‘I think it would be better if I turned everyone down. There was a lot of publicity when I sold the Rembrandt. So why does another interview matter now?’

‘Another doesn’t. However, a really important interview in a major national newspaper does. The Rembrandt auction wasn’t your last, in fact, you’ve got another one coming up, which has now become even more newsworthy because of the discovery of The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer. Let’s put it this way, darling, you’re doing the selling, not the buying. You’re always going to need a big splashy feature about yourself – every renowned art dealer does, whatever you think. I’ll tell you what, as I promised we’ll go over the requests tomorrow morning, and I’ll select a few journalists with you. I will then ask around about the ones we choose, get the dope on them. How’s that?’

‘All right,’ she agreed; nonetheless she sounded reluctant.

Changing the subject, Marius said, ‘You told me you’d had the Cézanne sent to Carlton Fraser. What did he have to say?’

‘It’s not great news. Carlton is troubled about it. He’s not sure he can get the soot off parts of the canvas.’ She paused, and sounded genuinely worried when she murmured, ‘He said something really peculiar—’ She cut herself off, shook her head, her expression dismayed all of a sudden.

‘What did he say?’ Marius asked. ‘Come on, tell me, Annette.’

‘That a fall of soot from a chimney would definitely float in the air and could easily fall on to a painting hanging in the room. Then he muttered something about deliberate damage; that it looked to him as if someone had deliberately rubbed the soot into some areas of the painting.’

‘Good God! Who on earth would do such a horrendous thing? It’s verging on the criminal! To destroy a painting by the great Cézanne, or any other artist for that matter, is wicked.’ Marius sounded angry, and there was a look of genuine pain in his eyes. He sat rigid on the sofa, staring at her.

Annette recognized his fury at once. He could not bear to see anything of great beauty desecrated, and neither could she. Wanting to soothe him, she said, ‘I’m not sure Carlton is right about the deliberate damage part. I myself thought that someone had attempted to clean one side of it, not an expert but an amateur, and that they made a mess. Accidentally.’

Marius sat back on the sofa and closed his eyes. After a moment he snapped them open, and exclaimed, ‘Whoever did that is an idiot. And that person should be stood up against a wall and shot!’

Mark’s Club on Charles Street in Mayfair was quiet tonight, but then it usually was on Friday, since many of its members had already gone off to their country homes for the weekend. Although his preference was for jazzier places to dine, Marius was suddenly glad Annette had booked a table for them here. He’d had a hectic week in Barcelona and Mark’s was always a haven of calm tranquillity.

They climbed the stairs to the bar, which years ago Mark Birley, the founder of the club, had decorated in the manner of an English country house parlour. A fire blazed in the hearth and, since the room was only partially occupied with fellow diners, they had a choice of comfortable chairs and sofas on which to sit.

‘I’m always a sucker for a fire, as you well know,’ Marius remarked as they entered the room, and he guided her to the sofa near the hearth. A moment later he was ordering two glasses of champagne as they settled back and made themselves comfortable.

After a small silence, Annette said, ‘Going back to Cézanne, and our conversation earlier; even if Carlton does manage to clean and restore the painting, it presents a problem because there’s no provenance.’

His eyes narrowed, and he pursed his lips. ‘It beggars belief that a man like Alec Delaware, who made a huge fortune in business, didn’t protect his investment in art.’ Marius shook his head, and looked off into the distance, his mind turning rapidly. Bringing his intense gaze back to his wife, he asked in a low voice, ‘How good is the provenance on the Degas dancer?’

‘It’s perfect. The lineage is a straight line of ownership. It was one of those cast in bronze at Hébrard’s, and it was eventually sold by the Hébrard Gallery to a French art dealer, who then auctioned it off to a wealthy collector in Paris. The bronze passed through a few hands after that – several art dealers, private collectors in New York and Beverly Hills – and finally it was bought at auction in New York by Alec Delaware in 1989. It was not the one sold in New York by Sotheby’s in 1997, by the way. The papers are at home and you can look at them later, and you’ll see they establish provenance beyond any doubt.’

‘Sounds like it. Does the bronze itself have any identifying mark, by the way?’

‘Yes, Laurie thoroughly checked it, and the bronze is marked with a “G". The bronzes that were cast in the 1920s were marked with a letter from “A” to “T", and those were intended for sale to the public. Others were reserved for the Degas family, and for Hébrard. They were marked differently.’

He gave her the benefit of a wide, approving smile. ‘You two are the very best,’ he grinned, and asked, ‘What about the other art from the Delaware collection? Where do you stand with those pieces?’

‘There are documents which establish provenance, I’m relieved to tell you.’

‘So what’s going on the block, Annette? As well as the Degas dancer?’

‘A Degas painting. It’s a carriage with passengers, parked at the races. There’s a Mary Cassatt of a mother and child, and also a Morisot, of a woman facing a mirror. Laurie thought these three Impressionist paintings worked well together, and the artists were contemporaries, friends. It makes a theme.’