Duncan Kyle - The King's Commisar

At£3,250,000 the painting was knocked down to Mr Sudbury. There was sadness among disappointed buyers round the world that the masterpiece would not now go to America, or South Africa, or Brazil. But there was great happiness among the cognoscenti in Britain that the Turner would not now go aboard. None of this happiness was apparent among the purchasers.

'We shall sell it again,' Malory murmured as he and Pilgrim walked out into St James's. 'Perhaps even make a profit. Care for a bracer? My club's up the road.'

'Thanks, but not now.' Pilgrim had hailed a taxi that was emerging from King Street into St James's. As it pulled up, he glanced at his watch. Timing's right, he thought. In his flat a few minutes later, phone in hand, he punched up the three-zero-five of Florida, then the Key Biscayne code and the number of Robizo's private office.

'Hello.'

'Pete?'

'Who is it?' The voice was flat, almost but not quite hostile.

'Pal, how goes it?'

Now the tone changed. They had been brought out of Hungary together as boys in 1956, had gone to school and business school together. Now Pyotr Nagy was private assistant to Pepe Rabizo.

'Why wasn't Pepe bidding tonight?' Pilgrim demanded.

'For the Turner? Because he bids himself - no middlemen - and he had business right here.'

'Would he want it?'

'Price?'

'It went for three and a quarter.'

'Dollars?'

'Pounds, Pete. This is England.'

'Hey, that's big, even for Pepe!'

'Pepe could buy fifty, don't snow me. You want it?'

'Can you get it?'

'I think so.'

'Hey, Pal, it's Pepe - for Chrissake don't putz around. Do him a favour and he's your friend. But foul up, oh boy!'

Pilgrim flushed. The painting now belonged to Hillyard, Cleef. He was Senior Partner. A quick sale, even a profit beckoned. He said, 'Plus ten per cent.'

'And you can deliver?' *

'Right.'

'Pepe'll be very happy. He wanted it. I'll telex his confirmation.'

Pilgrim hung up. He found he was sweating a little. Pepe Robizo was big, dangerous and enormously rich: a huge-scale building contractor with strong connections in Washington and even stronger ones in the Mafia, now trying hard to buy social acceptance through his art gallery. Pilgrim took a shower, and then, as he shaved, regarded his face in the mirror with satisfaction. Money-back-plus-ten for the price of a phone call!

Two signatures were always required upon any Hillyard, Cleef cheque for a sum of more than one hundred pounds. This was another Zaharoff legacy. Malory, not much relishing the task, took the half-signed cheque to Pilgrim's office next morning and placed it before him. I7SPilgrim glanced at it in silence and reached for his pen, then did a double take.

'I remember exactly, ,' he said, 'because it is graven upon my heart, the figure we had to pay for the goddam thing! And it was not three million, five hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds! We paid three and a quarter!' His voice had risen.

Malory sighed. 'I'm afraid there's something called a buyer's premium. Ten per cent on the price paid.'

'Oh yeah.' Pilgrim remembered it now. 'That goes to the auctioneer for doing nothing, right? Three hundred and twenty-five thousand! We're in the wrong business, Horace.'

Malory, hatted and coated, went on his way to St James's, accompanied by a security company van and several men armed with clubs and gas sprays, to collect the Turner. He returned less than an hour later and the security men bore the painting, no longer in its twelve-foot-square crate but in a light wooden one more appropriate to its size, up the stairs to the partners' room. The men then adjourned to stand unobstrusively outside 6 Athelsgate.

Malory, meanwhile, approached the crate with a cold chisel and a hammer. It proved not difficult to open. With Pilgrim's assistance the painting, in its steel frame, was lifted out. Together they examined the frame. In the back there was a small flap, closed and sealed. Malory broke the seal with anxious fingers, and lifted the flap to reveal a key. There was a keyhole in one corner. When the key was turned part of the frame came open and a small bundle of papers was revealed. It was all very simple. If rather expensive.

CHAPTER EIGHT

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Fourth instalment of the account, written by Lt-Cdr H. G. Dikeston RN, of his journeyings

in Russia in the spring and summer of 1918

I stood swaying in the night, feeling like death, and repeated, in Russian, 'I am in urgent need of your assistance. It is most important that I speak with Mr Preston, the Consul.' I could barely stand, so powerfully was the fever upon me now; but the man stood there in silk, looking down his nose at me. He said again, 'It is too late,' and made to close the door.

It was Ruzsky, beside me, who turned matters. He said in a low and threatening voice, 'Urgent! We are from the Urals Oblast Soviet. You should have a care, Comrade.'

The man frowned. 'Who are you?'

'Commissar Ruzsky. He is Commissar Yakovlev,' said Ruzsky. 'Inform Preston at once.'

And so it was done. Preston appeared; I told him I must speak with him urgently and alone; he took me to an upstairs room and looked upon me with no great favour. 'What the devil is all this about?'

'It is about the King's business,' I said, and he looked at me sharply, cocking an eyebrow; he must have wondered if this were a joke of some kind. 'Have you a Navy List?' I then demanded. He had, the Lord knows why, for he stood a thousand miles from navigable ocean. I said, 'Dikeston, Henry George, Lieutenant-Commander.'

'Then what's this Yakovlev nonsense?' he demanded, laying the List to one side.

'I want your word, Preston,' I told him. 'Your word that nothing about me, and nothing of what I tell you, will ever be passed to another soul.'

He frowned at once, reluctant. 'Only if you convince me you are on the King's errand. You'll have to prove it.'

'I can't. ' But I told him my tale and showed him my paper from Sverdlov, and I could see he soon began to believe. Mention of Zaharoff made him scowl, though. ' That man -and with the King!' It was as though he could not believe it.

'And with the King's blessing,' said I. 'Now: your word.'

He gave it, and I then explained our difficulties. Preston had some of his own. He was under pressure from both London and the embassy in Moscow to intercede for the Imperial Family and had been making daily attempts to visit them. All his requests had been refused. 'However,' he went on, 'though I have been unable to have audience of His Majesty, or to speak with him, it is possible to see him from a distance. Come with me.'

I accompanied him to the stairs and we climbed to a room on the upper floor, where he drew back a curtain and, as the moonlight entered the room, said, 'You see?'

And indeed I did. The consulate lay beyond the Ipatiev House, with the result that the view that lay before us was a slanting one. But from that upper room the line of sight was of a height to pass over the palisade and see direct into a corner of the courtyard of the House of Special Purpose. The space was deserted now, of course, and no movement was visible in the former Ipatiev House, though in a few places there was light at a dimmed window.

'You do see them?' I asked Preston.

'Oh yes.' He was matter-of-fact in his manner of delivery, but it was easy to see that Consul Preston had deep feelings. 'For an hour or so each day the Tsar and Tsarina and their daughter come into the courtyard there, for air and exercise. They walk up and down. Imagine - for the Tsar of all the Russias to be so confined!'

'Could you communicate with them?' I demanded. 'Would it be possible?" He shook his head. 'I dare not.'