“Inspector Manstead and I are attempting to get some details about paintings which passed through the hands of the late Geoffrey Forster,” Flavia began. Winterton nodded to indicate that he was paying attention.
“To be frank, there is a question mark over the provenance of some of them.”
“You mean some were stolen?”
“Just so.”
Winterton nodded impatiently. “Yes, yes. I see. Might I ask what these paintings were? I do very much hope you are not going to ask me whether I knew about this?”
Flavia shook her head at the very idea. “No. But obviously we do need to know about Forster. Friends, associates, that sort of thing. We need some sort of idea how this might have happened. Did you know him well?”
Winterton shook his head. “Oh, no,” he said with clear relief. “Fortunately, our association was only very loose.”
“And your impressions?”
Winterton thought carefully. “He was a man utterly devoid of anything that might be termed the finer feelings. To him, the value of everything was in how much cash you could get for it. To use the old cliché, he knew the price of everything, the value of nothing. I know it is old-fashioned, I can think of no better way of describing him than to say he was a scoundrel and a fake. Geoffrey Forster was just the sort of person who would expect to buy stolen works of art.”
“But Mr. Winterton, you have a high reputation, I believe. Why would you go into business with someone of whom you had such a low opinion? Surely that could only have harmed your standing in the art world?”
Winterton frowned with annoyance at the question, probably because it was quite a good one. He waved his hand vaguely to indicate the passage of time and the vagueness of the art dealing business.
“A sign of the times,” he said with a sigh. “We must all try to make the best use of our assets, until the economy picks up. In my case, I had this large building which was rather under-used, so I rented out a couple of rooms at the top to people who want an impressive business address but can’t afford their own gallery. Forster is one of three; he very rarely used the place: that was one of the conditions of letting him have it in the first instance, to be frank.
“And once he did me a favour, which saved me some potential embarrassment. I must say, I didn’t like the man, but I owed him in return. You know how it is.”
“Aha. I see. Could you tell me what this favour was?”
“I don’t think that is at all relevant.”
Flavia smiled sweetly, and Manstead scowled threateningly. Between them, they managed to convey how pleased the police would be with an answer, and how much trouble they might cause if he kept quiet.
“Very well, then. It was about three years ago. I had undertaken to dispose of a painting for the executors of the estate of a Belgian collector who had recently died. A very distinguished man. Whose name I will not provide. Forster heard about it as I was arranging for it to go to Christie’s. He alerted me to the possibility that it was not all it seemed.”
“What did it seem?”
“It seemed to be a fine, but undocumented Florentine school painting of the mid-fifteenth century. Quite valuable, in its way, although, without any proof of identity, not in the first league. Which is why I was not proposing to try and find a private purchaser.”
“And what was it?”
“I could never prove it, of course.”
“But…”
“But it did appear to bear a superficial resemblance to a painting of St. Mary the Egyptian by Antonio Pollaiuolo which was stolen in 1976 from the Earl of Dunkeld’s Scottish house.”
“And so you instantly reported this to the police?”
Winterton smiled grimly. “Certainly not”
“Why not?”
“Because there was absolutely no proof one way or the other. I could not in good conscience undertake to sell the painting myself, of course. But to drag the name of a famous collector through the mire—for that is what would have happened—by calling in the police over a painting which might very well have been bought quite legitimately, seemed irresponsible. I did check, and there was no indication of how the painting had arrived in the collection.”
“So you walked away?” Manstead interrupted indignantly.
Winterton grimaced with slight pain at the vulgar way this was put.
“Where is the picture now?” the English policeman went on.
“I do not know.”
“I see. So, let’s get this straight. You were selling a hot picture, Forster takes one look at it and tells you it was stolen. You pull out in case someone notices it. And you didn’t for a moment consider you might have been doing anything wrong?”
Winterton raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Of course not. I knew the Pollaiuolo painting had been reported stolen, of course. On the other hand, I didn’t know it actually had been stolen.”
Manstead positively fulminated at this comment. “That seems like splitting hairs to me.”
“I don’t care one way or the other what it seems to you. But I suspect Miss di Stefano here knows exactly what I mean. A painting is stolen; the owner registers the loss and collects on the insurance. Has it really been stolen? Or has the owner sold it through a dealer and faked the theft so he can be paid twice? Does the new owner think he is buying a stolen work, or does he think he is buying a legitimate painting which is being sold discreetly for fear of having to hand over too much to the taxman? What some previous owner has done fifteen years ago and in another country is not my concern: making a living at art dealing is hard enough without going out of your way to find trouble. In my case, I decided the best thing to do would be not to get involved.”
“And give Forster office space upstairs as a little thank you for heading you away from trouble?”
Winterton nodded. “I would prefer to say that my opinion of him lifted a little after that. But not that much.”
Manstead felt decidedly ruffled at this, but noticed that Flavia remained perfectly calm, dealing with Winterton’s explanation as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Indeed, he got the distinct impression she even approved of his decision. Certainly, she didn’t bother to follow it up.
“Now,” she said, taking control of the questioning once more, ”how did Forster know it was stolen? That’s the important thing, isn’t it? If he had no finer feelings, spotting something as obscure as a Pollaiuolo would hardly come easily to him. So how did he know? Not a famous theft, or a famous collection.”
Winterton shrugged.
“He didn’t say, ‘I know it’s stolen because I stole it myself?’ ” she suggested.
Winterton looked ruffled, a state which Flavia found a great improvement. “Of course not,” he said eventually. “Firstly, I doubt he had it in him. And if he did, he would hardly tell me, would he? A bit stupid, even for him?”
“Not necessarily,” Flavia said thoughtfully. “After all, I assume you would have sold it on the London market, wouldn’t you? And it might have been awkward had it reappeared. After all, I assume you are good at your job—you must be to have achieved your current position—so you would have done a proper check on the painting’s provenance, and perhaps discovered one or two inconsistencies. Was the painting sold?”
“I believe not,” Winterton said.
“And you told the family that it was a bit doubtful.”
He nodded.
“There you are then. One quiet word, and Forster stops a sale which might have caused him considerable problems. Perhaps he was not as stupid as you think. Now, how about Forster’s clients? Do you know any names?”
“Not many,” he said, replying now with great reluctance and scarcely concealed irritation. “He did business at one stage helping families sell off their possessions, I know. When the market turned down he went into that line of business more or less full time. He virtually became an estate manager for the house near where he lived.”