‘I put this to you, Mr de Courcy. You were quite right to be suspicious of the authenticity of this Reynolds. It is a forgery, pure and simple. What is more, gentlemen of the jury,’ Pugh was looking at them rather than at his witness, ‘the forgery and the fraudulent copy of the Titian we have just seen were created in your own house, Mr de Courcy, in de Courcy Hall in Norfolk. You were operating a Devil’s Kitchen of fakes and forgeries up there. Small wonder it was to your advantage when Christopher Montague was killed. Your own private fakery might have been exposed in the controversy. I put it to you, Mr de Courcy, that faking and forgery is a very profitable line of business. What takes the forger a few weeks or months to produce can be sold for tens of thousands of pounds. No wonder Christopher Montague’s article would have been, and I quote your own words back at you, very bad for business. That is the case, is it not?’
De Courcy’s reply was a mistake. ‘You can’t possibly prove a single word of that.’
Pugh swung round like a whiplash. He turned to face de Courcy. He stared at him. He raised his voice till it almost reached the street outside.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr de Courcy. I do beg your pardon. I most certainly can prove it. The man who forged and faked on your behalf is in this very courtroom this afternoon! Would you please rise, Mr Orlando Blane!’
25
Pandemonium threatened to break out. In a three hundred and sixty degree arc, about eighty pairs of eyes stared aghast at the slim handsome figure of Orlando Blane. Twelve good men and true on the jury benches, Horace Aloysius Buckley standing erect in the dock, the judge himself inspecting Orlando as if he was some outlandish specimen of foreign flower, Sir Rufus Fitch wondering what Pugh was going to hit him with next, the crowd in the public gallery, the newspapermen so astonished that they had dropped their pens.
‘Silence in court! I shall not repeat myself again!’
The judge had turned red at the insult to his court.
‘Your honour,’ Pugh had dropped his voice again, ‘with your permission I should like to ask Mr de Courcy to stand down for the moment. I should like to call Mr Blane to give evidence.’
‘Sir Rufus?’ The judge peered down at the prosecution counsel. There was nothing he could do in the circumstances. He nodded his assent.
Orlando made his way slowly to take the oath. Powerscourt reflected on the irony of the words. Here was a man who had cheated in the temple of art, forging and faking and copying, promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Would the jury believe him?
‘You are Orlando Blane, until recently resident at de Courcy Hall in Norfolk?’ said Pugh.
‘I am.’
‘Could you tell the court how you have spent the last few months?’
‘I was employed to copy a number of Old Masters, and to produce, or to forge, if you like, new Old Masters for sale to rich Americans.’
‘Did you know at the time who you were working for?’ said Pugh.
‘I did not, then,’ replied Orlando, ‘but I do now.’
‘And who do you now believe you were working for?’
‘I believe I was working for the firm of de Courcy and Piper, sir,’ said Orlando Blane.
‘What makes you so sure of that?’ Pugh went on.
‘The Titians,’ said Orlando. ‘The original was sent up to me in Norfolk. It was mentioned in the catalogue of the de Courcy and Piper exhibition of Venetian paintings. Therefore it could only have come from them. I created the drawing of the fake Reynolds of Clarissa, Lady Lanchester. I also created the painting of Clarissa, Lady Lanchester in the style of Reynolds which has now been sold by de Courcy and Piper to an American millionaire. They sent me an illustration of a Mr Black and his family cut from an American magazine. I was told to make a Gainsborough or a Reynolds which included a woman who looked identical to the wife of the Mr Black in the illustration. I had created, or forged, if you like,’ Orlando winced as he said the word, but Powerscourt had insisted he use it liberally, ‘a Gainsborough a few weeks before, so I transferred my allegiance to Sir Joshua Reynolds. I’ve always liked Reynolds.’
‘Quite, quite,’ Pugh cut in quickly, thinking that the jury might not appreciate the finer details of Orlando Blane’s preferences among the Old Masters. ‘Let me recap for the gentlemen of the jury, Mr Blane. Up there in Norfolk you were a sort of mail order forger. Orders came. You delivered. You were a sort of one man manufactory of forged paintings for the firm of de Courcy and Piper. If Christopher Montague’s article, of which we have heard so much, had been published, what impact would it have had on your output?’
‘I am sure,’ said Orlando, ‘that it would have put a stop to the production of the forgeries. De Courcy and Piper would have had people crawling all over every picture they sold. They would not have dared to continue with the constant stream of fakes flowing down from Norfolk. However good they were.’ He smiled apologetically at Imogen, watching pale-faced five rows away.
‘So to sum up, Mr Blane,’ Pugh was at his most genial now, ‘with the article published, the rich seam of forgeries would have stopped. But with no article, the little gold mine you had opened up in northern Norfolk for de Courcy and Piper was free to produce as many forgeries as you could create, to be sold on for large, possibly enormous sums, if the figures we have heard for the Raphael earlier are correct, and I am sure they are, to gullible Americans. The absence of the article was guaranteed to enrich de Courcy and Piper, is that so?’
‘That is correct, sir.’ Orlando Blane nodded carefully.
‘No further questions,’ said Pugh, and sat down. He took a long drink of cold water, slightly laced with gin.
Sir Rufus rose slowly to his feet. It was time for the prosecution to throw some mud in the defence’s eye.
‘Mr Blane,’ he said, looking at the new witness with considerable distaste, ‘how much were you paid for these forgeries of yours?’
Pugh suspected this would come. He had taken Orlando through the likely questions the evening before.
‘I was not paid, sir,’ said Orlando, ‘I was discharging a debt.’
‘How much was the debt for? How was it incurred?’
Powerscourt thought Pugh would rise to object. He didn’t. He was holding his fire.
‘The debt was for ten thousand pounds. It was incurred at the gambling tables of Monte Carlo.’
Another buzz ran round the court. The newspapermen could not believe their ears. This was almost too good to be true. One or two of them were smiling broadly at the sheer perfection of the story. It was much better than fiction.
‘Have you ever been imprisoned for debt in your past life, Mr Blane?’ Sir Rufus was sounding as offensive as he could.
‘No,’ he said. It was with great difficulty, he told Imogen later, that he did not add the words, ‘Have you?’
‘Did you cheat at the tables at Monte Carlo?’ Sir Rufus was trying his best.
‘I did not,’ said Orlando, remembering Pugh’s words about keeping calm at all times.
‘What other crimes have you been guilty of in your time, Mr Blane?’
‘Objection, your honour.’ Pugh was very quick to his feet. ‘My learned friend is trying to blacken the witness’s character.’
‘I was only trying to establish the veracity of the witness,’ said Sir Rufus, looking at the jury like a pompous headmaster. ‘A man who loses money he does not possess at the gaming tables, a man who cheats and deceives the public with his forgeries, cannot be regarded as a credible witness.’
‘I would remind you, Sir Rufus,’ said the judge, taking a surreptitious glance at his watch, ‘that we are here to try Mr Buckley on a charge of murder, not to preach a morality tale to the members of the jury. Objection sustained.’
Sir Rufus Fitch sat down. Powerscourt wondered if Pugh would ask some more questions. Ship definitely hit by hostile fire, he thought. Holed but not below the water line. Pugh rose to his feet again. He had noticed the judge checking the time. About half an hour before the train from Waterloo. He wasn’t finished yet. ‘No more questions,’ he said. ‘I would like to recall Mr de Courcy, your honour.’