A Family Affair (18 page)

‘There is no mystery about how the picture was returned to me. I received through the post a left-luggage ticket issued at Victoria Station. I went along there quietly in a taxi – it is as well to be unobtrusive about these things, is it not? – and collected the parcel which the ticket entitled me to. And my two dear girls – which is how I think of Nanna and Pippa, Sir John – were safe and sound inside it.’

‘You made no attempt to engage the interest of the police in the matter?’

‘None whatever. And there was assuredly no obligation upon me to do so. It was a mere joke that was being played upon me, was it not? English law is very odd about such things. A man can walk out of a public gallery with an important painting and hold on to it indefinitely – and yet, even if detected, it may be quite a business convicting him of theft. Isn’t that strange?’

‘I’m not sure, Mr Praxiteles, that you state the position quite accurately. In any case, it is not terribly relevant at the moment. I take it that, until Braunkopf turned up and virtually blackmailed you out of the returned picture in exchange for the copy, you had no inkling of his involvement in the affair?’

‘None whatever. Of course, I have had dealings with the Da Vinci, as he calls his concern. But he didn’t enter my head in connection with the disappearance of my girls.’

‘I can see that there was no reason why he should.’ Appleby paused. He felt a strong distaste for going back on his refusal to inspect Mr Praxiteles’ little cabinet. But perhaps he would be obliged to, after all. ‘About the copy now in your possession,’ he said. ‘Have you had it examined by an expert?’

‘My dear Sir John, I
am
an expert. An able man – for let there be no false modesty between us – gets up these things, does he not? You want to know about the quality of the copy. But there is really little to say. It has been made by a skilled copyist, rather than by a practising artist, I think. But there are many such.’

‘Are there many who would accept this particular sort of commission?’

‘There was nothing out-of-the-way about the commission, surely?’ Mr Praxiteles seemed surprised. ‘The copyist could not know that the original he was to work from – or
she
was to work from, since many of these persons are ladies – had been purloined for the purpose.’

‘It was a request for a rapidly executed copy of a highly improper painting by an Old Master.’

‘A minor Old Master.’ Mr Praxiteles was indulgent.

‘No doubt. And you think there would be plenty of copyists to take on such a job, with no questions asked?’

‘Dear me, yes. They are poor devils – the people who do such things. They seldom see a week’s dinners securely in front of them, I should say.’

‘It is a highly skilled copy? It seems to have taken in Braunkopf.’

‘Yes – but only because he had seen the original, and received an authoritative expertise on it, only a few days before. He probably barely looked at the copy when it was delivered to him as the returned original. There lay the whole cleverness of the exercise, did it not?’

‘Certainly it did. But the copy – the painting you now possess – is not to be described as a forgery?’

‘Obviously not. You need only turn it face to the wall, and you will see that it can have been painted only the other day. The picture surface itself is another matter. What they call the
craquelure
of the original had been reproduced. But Braunkopf could scarcely have been taken in even momentarily without that.’

‘Now, perhaps, we are getting somewhere.’ Appleby had sat up briskly. ‘For isn’t that outside an ordinary copyist’s technique? Aren’t these effects of shrinkage and movement, such as old pictures show, counterfeited only by electrical or chemical means?’

‘I see you are informed about such matters, Sir John. It is only to be expected in a detective – you do not regard the term as derogatory? – of your eminence. The
craquelure
does introduce an element of forgery, no doubt. So does the particular varnish used. But there are, I imagine, plenty of people who could do the job.’

‘Whoever did it required a canvas to do it on. The canvas might be traceable to a dealer, and a line on the copyist secured that way.’

‘I think it improbable.’

‘So do I. But one has to deal, you see, in possibilities as well as probabilities. And now, Mr Praxiteles, we come to the more important point. How was the picture stolen – or borrowed, if we are to prefer the term? I can’t believe that you haven’t considered the problem of security for your collection. Just how was it breached?’

‘Most agreeably – from the point of view of a little light-hearted fun. And to give just
that
impression, of course, was valuable to the whole enterprise. You understand me, Sir John? Remove my poor girls in a fashion that would never enter a mere thief’s head – in a fashion wholly bizarre, shall we say – and the presumption that it is a mere practical joke which is afoot becomes hard to resist.’

‘Quite so. Let me say, Mr Praxiteles, that you are far from taking me to unfamiliar ground. Please go on.’

‘Very well. The persons responsible for the rape of Nanna and Pippa – prepare to be staggered, my dear Sir John – were the President and Council of the Royal Academy.’

‘I’m not staggered in the least. But I must confess I’m uncommonly interested.’

‘I was in Paris at the time. I spend rather more of my time there than in London. Indeed, as you may see by glancing around you, I keep not much more than a camping place here in England. In Paris I am less skimpily accommodated. I hope I may have the pleasure of receiving you there one day.’

‘Thank you. It would be delightful. But please continue.’

‘This little
pied-à-terre
was left in charge of my confidential man. He is a Cretan, by the way, which of course means that he is an incorrigible liar. Upon this occasion, nevertheless, I am convinced that he is speaking the sober – or the wildly inebriated – truth. He could not conceivably have invented the gentlemen from Burlington House. They turned up one morning in a couple of large cars. Their dress was exceedingly formal: silk hats, grey toppers, grey bowlers – all that sort of thing. Except that one of them was dressed like Lord Tennyson in the portraits, it seems: a flowing cloak and an enormous hat. That, no doubt, gave the authentic artistic touch. One of them presented what purported to be a note from me.’

‘Authorizing them to make off with the Giulio?’

‘It was a little more comprehensive than that. They were, in fact, a selection committee, and they were to take the pick of my collection for an exhibition of importance. The exhibition was to be opened – one of them mentioned casually – by the Archbishop of Canterbury.’

‘The note was an effective forgery?’

‘It is impossible to say, since my man was careless enough to throw it away afterwards. Or – more probably – he wanted to conceal how easily he had been taken in. Well, the President and his Council chose my delightful girls, removed them from the wall, and went away with them. It was as simple as that.’

‘It was tolerably simple, certainly, granted the near-imbecility of your servant. They must have banked on that.’

‘No doubt means were taken to explore his degree of credulity. And perhaps I was at fault in employing him. But a fellow who is not too sharp-witted has his convenience at times. You must have experienced that.’

‘I can’t say that I have.’ Appleby spoke without much cordiality.

‘And yet I must put in a good word for Aleko. He at least remembered that he ought always to ask for a name. He had some dim apprehension of the significance of the office–’

‘President of the Royal Academy?’

‘Yes. But Aleko felt that he ought to have the gentleman’s actual name as well. So he asked for it, quite firmly, as these fellows were making off with their booty. And the President gave his name without hesitation. It turned out to be Sir Joshua Reynolds. Aleko wrote it down – or wrote down a rough phonetic equivalent of it – as soon as his visitors had departed.’

‘Do you think that Aleko had ever heard the name of Joshua Reynolds?’

‘It is most improbable.’ Mr Praxiteles made a slight gesture across the room. ‘He has heard of El Greco.’

‘He might have been none the better off if he had heard of Reynolds. It is a subject upon which a little knowledge appears to be a dangerous thing.’

‘I do not quite understand you, Sir John.’

‘A mere idle thought. No doubt this absurdity about Reynolds added to your sense of assurance that the whole thing was a mere joke?’

‘Certainly it did. As did the little reference to the Archbishop of Canterbury. One has to smile – would you not say, Sir John? – at the thought of his Grace unveiling, as it were, my dear girls.’

‘It is certainly not a service they stand in need of. By the way, just what means did these people take to tell you that you would get your picture back?’

‘The leader – shall we call him Sir Joshua? – simply left a sealed note for me in Aleko’s hands. It was typewritten, as you may imagine.’

‘And it said?’

‘What it said, Sir John, I can quote from memory.
The Secretary of the Society begs to inform Mr Praxiteles that his picture,
Nanna and Pippa
, has been borrowed for the purpose of exhibition at the Society’s annual banquet. It will be returned to Mr Praxiteles immediately thereafter.’

‘I see. But just what was this Society? It didn’t purport to be the Royal Academy?’

‘Ah, no. The joke was being taken a little further. The letterhead was that of the Society for the Suppression of Vice.’

‘Daddy not down yet?’ said Bobby Appleby, and surveyed the breakfast table with a critical and expectant eye. ‘Hoobin is annoying Mrs Colpoys by sitting in her kitchen waiting instructions to begin weeding the drive or something. And until the oracle speaks, Hoobin will sit.’

‘Then Hoobin must be indulged.’ Judith Appleby poured coffee. ‘I’m certainly not going to disturb your father. He arrived home very late.’

‘Well, well! The shocking old roisterer.’

‘I don’t think he’s been madly gay. He went up to London again, when he heard he could see the man Praxiteles.’

‘The owner of Guilio Romano’s naughty wenches?’

‘Yes. He rang up afterwards and said he’d only catch the last train, because he had a number of arrangements to make.’

‘You mean he turned mysterious? Would you call that a good sign?’

‘I suppose he didn’t want to say too much on the telephone. I rather gathered that he wasn’t coming straight back from town, but was just dashing off somewhere else.’

‘Not to Keynes, I hope.’ Bobby helped himself to what had some appearance of being both his own and his father’s bacon and sausages. ‘That’s something I want to be in on with him. As a matter of fact, I thought he might drive me over today, and drop me in Oxford on his way home. I oughtn’t to be away from the old place too long. It’s wonderful how they miss me.’ Bobby, although only beginning on his first sausage, took a prospective glance inside the marmalade pot. ‘When I got back to college after my last little excursion, my tutor stopped me in the quad and said how particularly delighted he was to see me in residence again. Nice of him, don’t you think?’ Bobby picked up
The Times
, assured himself at a glance that its interest for him was nil, and obligingly laid it beside his father’s place at table. ‘Do you think,’ he asked, ‘that the deep Sir John Appleby has a plan?’

‘I’m almost sure he has, but I’ve no idea what it is.’

‘He’ll have to tell us. This is turning into quite a family affair, wouldn’t you say? We’ll have to swap information as soon as he appears.’

‘Here he is.’

‘So there we are,’ Bobby said, half an hour later. ‘Mummy and I have pretty well done the job for you, it seems to me. But we’d still better go to Keynes, since Oswyn’s old dad expects you. And then I must get back to Oxford, no doubt. But your real goal is Cambridge.’

‘Cambridge, my dear lad? You think it would be useful to pay a visit to Cambridge?’ Appleby helped himself to what remained in the coffee pot. ‘And you can tell me what to do when I get there?’

‘Get the local dicks to arrest this shocking Professor Sansbury, I suppose. It’s him, isn’t it? The thing that sticks out a mile. It was Sansbury who authenticated the Giulio for Braunkopf–’

‘I’m not altogether clear how that ties up with the notion that he had also done the borrowing of it.’

‘It amused him to play a double role, so to speak. One in Braunkopf’s shop under his own name, and one
chez
Praxiteles, under the name of Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA.’ Bobby paused to light his pipe. ‘And I’ve discovered for you that it was Sansbury who valued Carrington’s pictures, and actually wanted to carry off the Stubbs on the pretext of having it cleaned. That’s about enough in itself. But now Mummy has found it was Sansbury who wrote and told Lord Canadine about the value of his statue–’

‘Wasn’t that a rum thing to do, if it was he who had already pinched it?’

‘He wanted Canadine to dig up information about its provenance. And he was just being freakish.
That
fits in, surely. The freakish is what turns up in this business every time.’

‘I certainly agree with you there. But just what have we got?

‘This man Sansbury – who doesn’t, by the way, strike me as all that freakish – bobs up in one or another relationship to three of these affairs. Are we to call that statistically significant?’

‘Of course we are.’

‘Suppose that there have been a good many more of these frauds and thefts and impostures than we have yet tabs on – which seems to me a probability in itself. Suppose that we did come on half a dozen others, and that Sansbury seemed unconnected with any of them. It would then simply be a matter of coincidence that we had come early upon the three he does figure in. Well, why
shouldn’t
he figure – quite innocently and harmlessly – in three out of nine such episodes? His professional world, after all, must be an uncommonly small one.’