He smiled benignly. "It is indeed a portrait of the Blessed Virgin, but this particular example is only a copy, and of no great significance." He did not add a word to this statement before climbing back into his car to be whisked away.
"What a relief," I said once the car was out of sight. I turned round to look for Charlie, but he was nowhere to be seen. I rushed back to my office and found him holding the picture in his hands. I closed the door behind me so that we could be alone.
"What a relief," I repeated. "Now life can return to normal."
"You realize, of course, that this is the Bronzino," Charlie said, looking straight at me.
"Don't be silly," I said. "The bishop—"
"But did you see the way he held her?" said Charlie. "You don't cling to a counterfeit like that. And then I watched his eyes while he came to a decision."
"A decision?"
"Yes, as to whether or not to ruin our lives, in exchange for his beloved Virgin."
"So we've been in possession of a masterpiece without even knowing it?"
"It would seem so, but I'm still not sure who removed the painting from the chapel in the first place."
"Surely not Guy . . ."
"Why not, he's more likely to have appreciated its value than Tommy."
"But how did Guy discover where it ended up, let alone what it was really worth?"
"Company records, perhaps, or a chance conversation with Daphne might have put him in the right direction."
"But that still doesn't explain how he found out it was an original."
"I agree," said Charlie. "I suspect he didn't, and simply saw the picture as another way of discrediting me."
"Then how the blazes . . . ?"
"Whereas Mrs. Trentham has had several years to stumble across—"
"Good God, but where does Kitty fit in?"
"She was a distraction, nothing more, used by Mrs. Trentham simply to set us up."
"Will that woman go to any lengths to destroy us?"
"I suspect so. And one thing's for certain, she isn't going to be pleased when she discovers her 'best laid plans' have once again been scuppered."
I collapsed on the chair beside my husband. "What shall we do now?"
Charlie continued to cling to the little masterpiece as if he were afraid someone might try to seize it from him.
"There's only one thing we can do."
I drove us to the archbishop's house that night and parked the car outside the tradesmen's entrance. "How appropriate," Charlie remarked, before knocking quietly on an old oak door. A priest answered our call and without a word ushered us in before leading us through to see the archbishop, whom we found sharing a glass of wine with the Bishop of Reims.
"Sir Charles and Lady Trumper," the priest intoned.
"Welcome, my children," said the archbishop as he came forward to greet us. "This is an unexpected pleasure," he added, after Charlie kissed his ring. "But what brings you to my home?"
"We have a small gift for the bishop," I said as I handed over a little paper parcel to his grace. The bishop smiled the same smile as when he had declared the picture to be a copy. He opened the parcel slowly, like a child who knows he's being given a present when it isn't his birthday. He held the little masterpiece in his hands for some time before passing it to the archbishop for his consideration.
"Truly magnificent," said the archbishop, who studied it carefully before handing it back to the bishop. "But where will you display it?"
"Above the cross in the chapel of St. Augustine I consider would be appropriate," the bishop replied. "And possibly in time someone far more scholarly on such matters than myself will declare the picture to be an original." He looked up and smiled, a wicked smile for a bishop.
The archbishop turned towards me. "Would you and your husband care to join us for dinner?"
I thanked him for the kind offer and muttered some excuse about a previous engagement before we both bade them good night and quietly slipped out the way we had come.
As the door closed behind us I heard the archbishop say: "You win your bet, Pierre."
Chapter 36
"Twenty thousand pounds?" said Becky as she came to a halt outside Number 141. "You must be joking."
"That's the price the agent is demanding," said Tim Newman.
"But the shop can't be worth more than three thousand at most," said Charlie, staring at the only building on the block he still didn't own, other than the flats. "And in any case I signed an agreement with Mr. Sneddles that when—"
"Not for the books, you didn't," said the banker.
"But we don't want the books," said Becky, noticing for the first time that a heavy chain and bolt barred them from entering the premises.
"Then you can't take possession of the shop, because until the last book is sold your agreement with Mr. Sneddles cannot come into operation."
"What are the books really worth?" Becky asked.
"In his typical fashion, Mr. Sneddles has penciled a price in every one of them," said Tim Newman. "His colleague, Dr. Halcombe, tells me the total comes to around five thousand pounds with the exception—"
"So buy the lot," said Charlie, "because knowing Sneddles he probably undervalued them in the first place. Then Becky can auction the entire collection some time later in the year. That way the shortfall shouldn't be more than about a thousand."
"With the exception of a first edition of Blake's Songs of Innocence," added Newman. "Vellum bound, that is marked up in Sneddles' inventory at fifteen thousand pounds."
"Fifteen thousand pounds at a time when I'm expected to watch every penny. Who imagines that . . . ?"
"Someone who realizes you can't go ahead with the building of a department store until you are in possession of this particular shop?" suggested Newman.
"But how could she . . . ?"
"Because the Blake in question was originally purchased from the Heywood Hill bookshop in Curzon Street for the princely sum of four pounds ten shillings and I suspect the inscription solves half the mystery."
"Mrs. Ethel Trentham, I'll be bound," said Charlie.
"No, but not a bad guess. The exact words on the flyleaf, if I remember correctly, read: 'From your loving grandson, Guy. 9 July 1917.'"
Charlie and Becky stared at Tim Newman for some time until Charlie finally asked, "What do you mean—half the mystery?"
"I also suspect she needs the money," replied the banker.
"What for?" asked Becky incredulously.
"So she can purchase even more shares in Trumper's of Chelsea."
On 19 July 1948, two weeks after the bishop had resumed to Reims, the official tender document for Trumper's was released to the press to coincide with full-page advertisements taken in The Times and the Financial Times. All Charlie and Becky could do now was sit and wait for the public's response. Within three days of the announcement the share issue was oversubscribed and within a week the merchant bankers had received double the applications necessary. When all the requests had been counted, Charlie and Tim Newman were left with only one problem: how to allocate the shares. They agreed that institutions who had applied for a large holding should be taken up first, as that would give the board easy access to the majority of shares should any problem arise in the future.
The only application that puzzled Tim Newman came from Hambros who offered no explanation as to why they should wish to purchase one hundred thousand shares, which would give them control of ten percent of the company. However, Tim recommended that the chairman should accept their application in full while at the same time offering them a place on the board. This Charlie agreed to do, but only after Hambros had confirmed that the bid had not come from Mrs. Trentham or one of her proxies. Two other institutions applied for five percent: Prudential Assurance, which had serviced the company from its outset, and a United States source which Becky discovered was simply a front for one of the Field family trusts. Charlie readily accepted both these applications and the rest of the shares were then divided between another one thousand, seven hundred ordinary investors, including one hundred shares, the minimum allowed, which were taken up by an old age pensioner living in Chelsea. Mrs. Symonds had dropped Charlie a line to remind him that she had been one of his original customers when he opened his first shop.