William Alaric Piper coughed slightly. ‘Mr McCracken,’ he said in mournful tones. ‘We have a problem.’
‘Problem, what problem?’ said McCracken, standing defiantly by the picture as if he would fight anybody who tried to take it away from him, ‘I thought you said this thing was for sale?’
Piper nodded. ‘It was for sale, Mr McCracken. When I spoke to you of the Gainsborough, it was for sale. Not any more. The owner has changed his mind.’
McCracken put his arm around the frame. ‘You can’t do this to me, Mr Piper. Not now when I’ve had the chance to see it. Please, not now.’
‘I’m afraid it happens more often than you would think, Mr McCracken,’ said Piper mournfully. ‘The owner decides to sell. He is quite determined. The painting comes down to be sent away. There is a gap on the wall. I’m sure a man like yourself with such sensitivity to the beauty of paintings, can understand what it feels like. After a day or two the owner feels sad. Then it gets worse, Mr McCracken. After a week or two it becomes like a bereavement, a death in the family, gone from the walls of the family drawing room. Eventually it becomes unbearable. The owner has to have the painting back.’ William Alaric Piper fiddled briefly with the rose in his buttonhole as if he were going to cast it over a coffin making its last journey down into the grave. ‘Can you see that, Mr McCracken?’
‘Sure I can see that, Mr Piper. It’s how I felt some years back when I thought I’d lost the deal to buy one of my Boston railroads. But I came through it. Yes, sir. We Americans like to get what we want, Mr Piper. What do I have to do to buy the painting?’
Piper shrugged his shoulders. Impossible, said the gesture.
‘Let’s try talking dollars here, Mr Piper. What sort of price did the owner think he would get for this Gainsborough?’
‘I fear it is not a question of money,’ said Piper, ‘it is a question of loss. Beautiful things bring their own special powers. The owners get addicted to them, as if they were some terrible drug.’
William P. McCracken thought of the Raphael in Room 347 of the Piccadilly Hotel and his worship of it. ‘I can see that,’ he said. ‘But I’m not going to give up. What price did the owner want?’
Piper decided it was time to give in. ‘Twelve thousand pounds was his asking price,’ he said, ‘maybe a bit high for a Gainsborough, but the thing will always keep its value.’
‘Double it,’ said McCracken decisively. Piper could suddenly see what had made him such a power in the railroads of America. ‘Just double it. But please, Mr Piper, can you get me an answer in the next twenty-four hours? Throw some more money at it if you have to. I had to wait a long time for the Raphael. I couldn’t bear to have to wait as long again.’
William Alaric Piper drew the curtains back over the painting. ‘Leave it with me, Mr McCracken. I will see what I can do. But I am not hopeful of success.’
Lord Francis Powerscourt was looking at a map of South Africa and shaking his head sadly. Powerscourt had marked on his map the three railway towns of Ladysmith, Mafeking and Kimberley now under siege in the war with the Boers half a world away. The greatest Empire the world had ever seen was being humiliated by a couple of tiny Republics in the vast expanse of Southern Africa. His thoughts on military strategy were rudely interrupted as Johnny Fitzgerald burst into the room.
‘What news from Old Bond Street, Johnny?’ said Powerscourt, closing his atlas with a thud.
‘I’m glad I don’t really have to sell anything, Francis. That’s a very strange world. I’ve been back to all three of them, Clarke’s, Capaldi’s and de Courcy and Piper, while their experts looked at the picture. Actually it was the same expert all three times. And the odd thing was, he never let on in the other two places that he’d seen the Leonardo before.’
‘Do you think he was being paid three times for the same attribution, Johnny? Did he say it was a Leonardo?’ asked Powerscourt.
‘I’m sure he was paid three times. Twice he said it wasn’t a real Leonardo. He always took a very long time peering at the picture. So after the first time I pretended to fall asleep.’
‘And what did you discover during your slumbers, Johnny?’
‘Well,’ said Fitzgerald, moving by force of habit towards the sideboard, ‘thirsty work, Francis. I think I’ll try a little of this white Beaune, if I may.’
Powerscourt was always fascinated by the speed of his friend in the complicated business of finding corkscrew, opening bottle, pouring liquid into a glass. On this occasion it took less than ten seconds.
‘I think,’ Fitzgerald settled back into his chair, Beaune in hand, ‘I think I discovered two things. The man’s name was Johnston, I’m pretty sure of that. Big fellow, looked like a prize fighter. Didn’t catch the Christian name. On one occasion at Clarke’s I heard a bit of the conversation between the Clarke people after Johnston had left and before I’d woken up. They said they wished Montague was still alive, as if they thought he was better than Johnston.’
‘And the other thing?’ said Powerscourt, wondering if Johnston was the expert who would have been supplanted by Montague, a man who might lose enough to turn him into a killer.
‘The other thing was at de Courcy and Piper’s. Johnston seemed to know them very well, as if this was regular work. Piper asked him if he would attribute it to the school of Leonardo. That would make it worth quite a lot. Not as much as a real Leonardo, of course.’
Days awake and asleep in Old Bond Street had given Johnny Fitzgerald an easy familiarity with this strange new world. ‘They’d moved away to the other side of the room by this point, Francis, as if they didn’t want anything overheard, so I didn’t catch it all. There was a lot about percentages, about normal terms. Piper was very excited about some American called Black who’s arriving in London shortly. He seemed to think he could sell it to him for thousands and thousands of pounds.’
Johnny Fitzgerald stared into his glass. ‘Another thing, Francis, I don’t suppose it means much. The last time I was at de Courcy and Piper’s the porters were carrying in an enormous package. It looked like it contained three or four large paintings. And it said on the front that it came from Calvi or Galvi, somewhere like that.’
There was a knock on the door and the footman handed Powerscourt a letter. It was from Chief Inspector Wilson. And it contained the remarkable news that not only had Mrs Rosalind Buckley been seen in Oxford shortly before the murder of Thomas Jenkins, but that Horace Aloysius Buckley, her estranged husband, had been seen in that city on the very day of the murder.
‘What do you make of that, Johnny?’ said Powerscourt, handing the letter to his friend.
‘Looks perfectly straightforward to me,’ said Johnny. ‘Of course it may not be. But if you were a betting man, Francis, you would surely say that our Horace Aloysius is now the hot favourite in the Montague Jenkins Memorial Handicap. Almost impossible to get any decent odds on him at all at present. Christ, look at it. He finds out Montague has been carrying on with his wife. End of Montague. Then, maybe he’s employing private detectives, he finds out that she’s also carrying on with this Jenkins person. End of Jenkins. I should say Horace Aloysius is three to one on, myself. What say you, Francis?’
Powerscourt stared at the floor. ‘I’m not placing any bets, Johnny. It’s too plausible. It’s too obvious. For the moment, I think Horace Aloysius is probably in the clear. Deranged, possibly. Overwrought, probably. Unstable, certainly. But a murderer? I’m not sure. I’m really not sure.’