‘It would have been very bad for business,’ was as far as de Courcy would go.
‘And do you regard it as significant, Mr de Courcy, that all of Montague’s papers were removed from his desk so that nobody, from that day to this, has seen the actual text of the article? Would that have been good for business?’
‘It certainly worked to our advantage,’ admitted de Courcy. He seemed to be relying on a policy of saying as little as possible. He still stared, as if hypnotized, at the easels.
‘Tell me, Mr de Courcy . . .’ Pugh was at his most emollient. Powerscourt suspected he was going to bring the forgeries into play very soon. ‘Were any of the paintings in your exhibition fakes or forgeries or copies? Take your time. Remember you are under oath, Mr de Courcy.’
It’s like a fork with a knight in chess, Powerscourt realized. If you saved your castle, you would lose your bishop. If you saved your bishop, you would lose your castle. You were impaled. If de Courcy said yes, he would destroy his own reputation. If he said no, then the easels might do it for him. Powerscourt suddenly realized how sharp it had been of Pugh not to place the paintings on the easels immediately but to hold them up, like a time bomb, waiting to explode under the de Courcy and Piper Gallery.
‘To the best of our knowledge,’ de Courcy began, ‘all the paintings were genuine.’
‘You are sure of that? Quite sure, Mr de Courcy?’ Charles Augustus Pugh looked directly into de Courcy’s eyes. The court had gone very quiet. Even the newspapermen had stopped the incessant scribbling in their shorthand.
‘I am,’ said de Courcy, blinking rapidly.
‘My lord,’ said Pugh, turning to the judge, ‘I propose to bring on Exhibit C.’
Two court officials hurried from the room. Exhibit A was on a little table in front of the jury It comprised a length of piano wire similar to the one used to garrotte Christopher Montague. The prosecution believed it was important for the jury to see an approximation of the murder weapon. Exhibit B sat beside it. This was the Trinity College, Cambridge tie found in Jenkins’ room on the Banbury Road in Oxford.
The porters brought in a painting about three feet high and two and a half feet wide. It sat in a gold frame. They placed it reverentially on the easel nearest to the witness box. A rather saturnine Venetian nobleman, almost four hundred years old, had come to inspect the Central Criminal Court. His body was almost at right angles to the artist, clad in a blue doublet, with a dark blue cloak thrown across his shoulders. Round his neck was a chain of very fine gold. He gazed imperturbably at the jury The jury stared back. The judge put on a different pair of glasses and inspected the latest visitor to his courtroom. Behind Powerscourt the crowd were rising, leaning forward to find a better view.
Pugh let the excitement die down before he spoke. ‘Do you recognize this painting?’ he said to Edmund de Courcy.
‘I do,’ replied de Courcy. ‘It is the Portrait of a Man, by Titian.’
‘And,’ Pugh went on, ‘it appears in the catalogue of your exhibition of Venetian paintings as Item Number 34.’ Pugh had pulled the catalogue out of his sheaf of papers and was helpfully showing it to the members of the jury.
‘Would you be so kind,’ Pugh turned to the court officials once more, ‘as to bring in Exhibit D?’
There was an outbreak of whispering among the crowd. What was coming next? What rabbit was Charles Augustus Pugh about to bring forth now? The judge stared at them and raised his gavel. The whispering stopped.
Another painting about three feet high and two and a half feet wide, set in a gold frame, was placed on the next easel. The same Venetian, in the same doublet with the same cloak and the same chain around his neck stared out at the jury He had achieved the alchemists’ dream over the centuries, he had reproduced himself perfectly.
Edmund de Courcy went pale. Orlando Blane smiled quietly to himself. The public gallery made so much noise that the judge banged his gavel very loudly on his great desk.
‘Silence in court! Silence, I pray you! Any more of these unseemly interruptions and I shall clear the court! Mr Pugh!’
‘Do you recognize this painting?’ he said to de Courcy.
‘I do,’ came the answer. ‘It is the Portrait of a Man, by Titian.’
‘And which of the two paintings,’ said Pugh in a very firm voice, ‘is the real one?’
De Courcy looked at them both very carefully. He looked at Pugh as if pleading for mercy. Not quite the Judgement of Solomon, thought Powerscourt, staring at the drama unfolding in front of him, but a terrible question all the same. He wondered if Orlando Blane knew the answer. He wondered if Pugh knew the answer, some private mark on the frame perhaps which would remind him of the difference between the true and the fake.
It was obvious that Edmund de Courcy did not know the answer. He stared at the two easels like a schoolboy looking at an exam paper for which he has done no preparation at all.
‘I would not wish to hurry you, Mr de Courcy,’ said Pugh, sounding faintly exasperated with his witness, ‘but I repeat my question. Which is the real one?’
Still de Courcy did not speak. The two Venetian gentlemen were still inspecting the jury.
‘The one on the left,’ de Courcy whispered.
‘I’m not sure that the jury would have heard you, Mr de Courcy. Could you speak up for the court?’ said Pugh.
‘The one on the left,’ de Courcy replied in a louder voice. Fifty-fifty chance he’s right, Powerscourt said to himself.
‘Wrong,’ said Pugh firmly. ‘The one on the right is the original.’ He turned to the court officials once more. ‘Please remove the original painting and leave us with the forgery. The real Titian is far too valuable to be left here. And could you bring in Exhibit E on your way back?’
Another sea of whispers rustled across the public gallery. Was there a third Venetian gentleman waiting in the wings to destroy an art dealer’s reputation? A fourth? A fifth? Powerscourt realized just how brutal a courtroom could be. It’s exactly like a battle, he said to himself. Not everyone leaves the arena alive. Pugh’s artillery is cutting swathes through the enemy ranks. He felt a momentary pang of sympathy for Edmund de Courcy. They might be able to save the life of Horace Aloysius Buckley, gazing open-mouthed at the drama below him. But how many others might be destroyed in the process?
This time it was a drawing that was placed on the easel. The supply of Titians had momentarily run out. It was a society beauty who sat on the easel, perched on a seat in an imaginary landscape with a glorious sunset behind her. She was wearing a long flowing dress. Her small hands were folded in her lap. And on her head was a hat of the most expensive and exquisite feathers the London milliners of the late eighteenth century could provide.
‘Do you recognize this drawing?’ said Pugh.
De Courcy stared at it for some time. ‘It looks like a Reynolds, a Sir Joshua Reynolds,’ he said finally.
‘Why do you say it looks like a Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr de Courcy?’ Pugh’s interruption was lightning fast. ‘Do you think it’s not genuine?’
‘I’m not sure. I can’t be sure,’ said de Courcy.
‘Let me refresh your memory for you.’ Pugh was burrowing among his papers once more. ‘This is the final sketch for a Reynolds, called, I believe, Clarissa, Lady Lanchester. The painting was recently sold, Mr de Courcy, by your very own gallery, to a rich American called Lewis B. Black for a sum of over ten thousand pounds. Is that not so?’
‘Yes,’ mumbled de Courcy.
The newspapermen were scribbling furiously once more. One or two of the elderly ladies in the public gallery had taken their fans out and were trying to calm themselves down. God in heaven, thought Powerscourt, how many gallons of drink had Johnny Fitzgerald poured down the throats of those Old Bond Street porters? Had they opened the offices up for him at two o’clock in the morning and shown him the account books while London slept outside?