Death of an Elgin Marble (11 page)

The huge coffin dispatched from South Wales arrived safely in New York. The crossing had been peaceful, without any storms that might have disturbed the cargo. The passengers had all disembarked when a couple of men in shiny suits and with large hats pulled down over their eyes made their way aboard. They demanded to see the records of all freight carried on the voyage. Then they removed all mentions of the coffin from Bristol, details of its size, weight, length and general appearance. The vessel’s clerk was initially reluctant to carry out their instructions, maintaining that falsification of documents was a sackable offence. Two stilettos, one under each ear, persuaded him of his folly. When the men in the shiny suits had finished their work on the great ledger where the records were kept, it was as if the funeral statue, so carefully dispatched from the Welsh mountains, had never existed.

The visitors went below to supervise the unloading of the coffin. It was transferred to the back of a nondescript lorry which drove off in the direction of New Jersey.

Powerscourt told Lady Lucy on his return that he had rather enjoyed being a dead man walking. The terrible fire in the Hotel Mazzini was not reported in the British newspapers, fires and other disasters being regarded as part of the natural order of things in the unruly lands on the far side of the Channel. Now he was going to meet the Head of Greek and Roman Antiquities who had invited him to lunch at a fashionable restaurant near the British Museum, a place where people went to be seen as much as for the quality of the food.

‘A glass of prosecco, Lord Powerscourt?’ Tristram Stanhope was wearing a dark pinstripe suit with a cream shirt and the scarlet and gold MCC tie. ‘I always think champagne has grown rather vulgar nowadays. Every Tom, Dick and Harry seems to be drinking it.’ They were in a private room, the dark red walls lined with prints of famous actors and actresses from the past. Powerscourt examined Tristram Stanhope very carefully. Here at last was the man he had heard so much about. Here was a man who could answer many of the questions about the Caryatid that tormented him day and night. He thought the early halo of glamour that had marked Tristram Stanhope’s career – elected to a fellowship at All Souls at the age of twenty-three, winner of the Newdigate Prize, a famous Alpinist renowned for his easy grace on the high rock faces – was beginning to fade. Even the golden hair now had streaks of grey at the temples.

‘That would be very kind,’ replied Powerscourt, ‘I’ve always had a weak spot for prosecco. Tell me – forgive me for plunging into the middle of things, in medias res as it were, but I have a lot of questions for you – how do you find things at the museum on your return?’ Powerscourt remembered that Ragg’s obsession with secrecy meant he had not told Stanhope about the plain clothes policemen at the British Museum.

Stanhope smiled the kind of patronizing smile he might have worn if some opposing bowler had just sent him a no ball. ‘Well, let me be perfectly frank with you, Lord Powerscourt, things are bad, in my view, if not catastrophic!’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Far be it from me to cast doubt on my colleagues’ abilities,’ he said, and Powerscourt was sure that, as night follows day, Stanhope was about to do just that. ‘It’s Ragg,’ he went on, ‘perfectly competent administrator, but he’s a hopeless leader, absolutely hopeless. He’s made the wrong decision. How do you expect to get the Caryatid back? You are among the most distinguished practitioners of your profession in London, Lord Powerscourt, but forgive me if I say your resources are limited. We need to be working with the police. We need publicity. We need articles in the newspapers. We want eminent scholars like myself writing for the general public about her place in Greek culture and religion, where she fits into the long narrative of Athenian history. We want people coming forward with information every day until she is found. What do we have instead? A wall of silence. The clarion call not of the trumpet but of a broken reed. How on earth Ragg ever imagines the Museum will bring her home I know not. Is she supposed to acquire the power of movement after all these years and walk back into Great Russell Street of her own accord?’

He paused briefly while the waiter brought a dish of oysters to their table. ‘Only four for me,’ Stanhope said with a winning smile. ‘Six would be too many. Nothing to excess as our Greek friends used to say.’

‘If you had been here, Mr Stanhope, would you have called in the police from the very start?’

‘I most certainly would, Lord Powerscourt.’ Stanhope paused to brush the remains of his blond hair away from his forehead. ‘I tell you what the whole thing reminds me of. Years ago now I was due to play for Oxford against an MCC side at the Parks, our home ground in the city. It was important because an England selector was believed to be watching, looking for talent. On the day in question I was delayed by an accident on the Woodstock Road and was an hour late for the start of play. They should have waited for me, of course, but the MCC man was a stickler for the rules. Anyway, when I arrived our score was thirty-one for seven. The fool of a captain who had replaced me decided to bat first when even one of the college gargoyles could have told him that the wicket would be very difficult at first but would calm down later.’

‘So what happened?’ asked Powerscourt. ‘Were you too late?’

Tristram Stanhope coughed slightly and sipped delicately at his hock. ‘As it happens, I was able to make a contribution,’ he said. ‘I managed to make a hundred and thirty-seven not out and our score mounted to two hundred and fifteen all out. It was no good, of course. The MCC knocked our bowlers all over the place and won easily. But don’t you see, it all goes back to the fool of an acting captain’s decision to bat first. It’s the same with Ragg. He’s lost the match before it even started. I doubt we’ll ever get the Caryatid back now. I’m compiling a report for the Director when he gets back. Maybe then Theophilus Ragg too will be removed from his pedestal and sent into outer darkness. Rather like the Caryatid, don’t you know. I’ve been here before.’

‘What do you mean you’ve been here before?’

‘It was only a couple of years ago, actually. I was still at Oxford then – I’m just a Visiting Fellow now. But the old Provost died rather suddenly. There was a terrible battle over the succession between two factions, one for the redhead, the other for the bald man. The redhead was an English professor, full of high ideals and windy rhetoric. He wanted the College to move with the times, press for more modern subjects, chemistry, I suppose, biology, that sort of thing. He claimed we had to keep up with the Germans, science and all that. The bald one was a classicist of the old school, no need to change, keep things as they are. The battle grew so fierce that the two sides used to sit at opposite ends of High Table, not even speaking to each other. Then the Dean proposed a compromise candidate. Man by the name of Weightman, Albert Weightman. Theologian. World-famous scholar, could talk for hours about the Coptic Gospels, you know the sort of stuff. Quiet sort of chap, our theologian. Used to take most of his meals in his rooms. Came from a humble background, father a docker in Liverpool with eleven children. Our man had all the brains. When it came to the vote the theologian came through the middle and won by six votes.’

‘And they all lived happily ever after?’

‘Not so. Not only was the Coptic person from a poor background, he had no idea of the social airs and graces. Couldn’t tell a claret from a chianti. Barely able to handle a knife and fork according to his enemies. He surpassed himself at a College Feast, lots and lots of courses, enough wines to sink a battleship, you know the form. The theologian asked for HP sauce to put on his venison. That was it. I was prevailed upon to organize a petition to the College Visitor, sort of Super Chairman of the Board of Governors who arbitrates on disputes. Our visitor was the Bishop of Gloucester, possibly because the College still owns half of Gloucester for heaven’s sake. The Bishop suggests the theologian has to go. And the Bishop organizes his removal to the Chair of Theology at Durham. Very efficiently done I must say. Weightman was never seen in Oxford again. That’s what’s going to happen to that man Ragg if I have anything to do with it.’

The waiter came back to take away the remains of the oysters and refill their glasses. Powerscourt noticed that Stanhope never spoke of business when anybody else was in the room, as if he felt there might be listeners everywhere, possibly working for an unknown enemy.

‘I would welcome your opinion on this question, Mr Stanhope,’ he said, and turning to the waiter, ‘Those oysters were delicious, quite delicious.’

The waiter bowed slightly and departed.

‘Obviously the statue could have been taken by a madman, a lone maniac following the messages in his head. But I don’t think so. What do you think? Do you believe, as I think I do but without any great conviction, that she was stolen to order? That the thieves had a buyer long before they committed the crime?’

‘Even ancient historians,’ said Stanhope with a patronizing smile, ‘with the limited amount of original evidence available to them, are taught not to produce theories that cannot be substantiated by the facts, Lord Powerscourt. So I could not subscribe entirely to that theory. But it does have some merit.’

A Dover sole, gleaming with butter and glazed onions, appeared for Stanhope, roast lamb with a sweet-smelling mint sauce for Powerscourt. The hock was replaced with a bottle of wine.

‘Not many people know about this wine from Quincy, Powerscourt. I discovered it en route to the Jungfrau some years ago and recommended it to my friend, the proprietor here. I should welcome your opinion.’

‘Perfect,’ said Powerscourt taking a small sip, ‘a sauvignon blanc to challenge sancerre and pouilly-fumé, I should say.’

Stanhope smiled. ‘To your question, Lord Powerscourt. I have thought about this a good deal. People like to dismiss the possibility of rich collectors prepared to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on something they can only look at under cover of darkness in the depths of their cellars.’

Stanhope took a deep draught of his wine. Powerscourt thought the man was drinking too fast.

‘However,’ the Head of Greek and Roman Antiquities went on, ‘the key question is this. Let us suppose that you are a rich German industrialist who has made his fortune in engines for motor cars or turbines for dreadnoughts. It has long been a dream of yours to own a genuine ancient statue. You have a passion for antiquity – interest in the classics always increases when countries turn into empires or want to turn into empires. When you’re on the way up, so to speak, you concentrate on the rise of Athens in the fifth century
BC
. On the way down you become obsessed with the fall of the Roman Empire. Be that as it may, our rich German friend pays a great deal of money to the criminals who steal the Caryatid and deliver it to his schloss. But what do you say when the authorities come to call and ask you how you got it ? They might be the local police or the British Museum or the man from the Louvre. How did you come by this Caryatid hidden in the bowels of your great castle? This is where it gets interesting, Lord Powerscourt. Remember, there is no longer a Caryatid from London for the authorities to look at, no original for them to inspect and pronounce on the authenticity of your Caryatid one way or the other. The ones left behind in Athens have all deteriorated badly. You bought her on the Grand Tour in Rome some years ago, you say. This Caryatid has been here for years, you are talking nonsense, Mr Policeman, please leave my house at once. It would be very difficult to prove that the one supposedly bought on the Grand Tour is not the real thing when you no longer know, apart from photographs, what the real thing actually looked like.’

‘That’s most interesting, Mr Stanhope. How well you put it.’

‘If the Museum ever tells the truth and lets the world know that the Caryatid has been stolen I intend to give a series of lectures about the subject at the Methodist Central Hall. I have had the good fortune to speak there on a number of previous occasions.’

Stanhope refilled his glass again. Powerscourt wondered if the vanity might be forced even further to the surface by larger and larger helpings of quincy.

‘There’s another explanation our German millionaire could offer to the authorities. He could say he bought the statue in Athens or Corinth or Olympia. It had been found by divers at some wreck and brought to the surface because the fishermen knew how much money these things could fetch from rich foreigners. There are a fair number of famous pieces of Greek sculpture that have been brought up from the seabed. They’re remarkably well preserved. The marble may get dirty but it doesn’t disintegrate. Why, ten years ago or so, they discovered some strange artefact in a shipwreck off the island of Antikythera with dozens of gears. That should appeal to our German friend in his schloss. Earlier versions of his machinery perhaps. He could say that he found the Caryatid for sale in Corinth or wherever it was brought to the mainland. Receipts, you say? Receipts? It was years ago, Inspector. Written records in the shop or the art dealers where you bought it? Don’t be silly. And don’t even think of suggesting that the Greeks might have kept the details of the transactions. Greeks? You must be joking. So, you see, Lord Powerscourt, there is another very plausible excuse. How can you prove that the thing has not been on the seabed for all those centuries? You may be sure it will have been cleaned and recleaned by the most sophisticated machinery the Germans can provide.’

‘I see,’ said Powerscourt, as the waiter poured a final round of wine. The restaurant behind the private room was growing quiet now, as the diners departed to their various afternoons. ‘I’m sure you can answer my next question, Mr Stanhope. You mention our friend the German in his castle, rich from his engineering triumphs. There must be others who have the same love of Greek antiquities. Americans perhaps? Modern Greeks? Englishmen? What is the secret behind their affection for ancient Greece? Why do they love it so much? Why is it their favourite period in history?’