‘What finished you?’
He shrugged. His dark clothes were well cut and expensive; so were the shoes with lifts in them that brought him up to about five foot eight. The woman in the chair was taller, tall enough to see the bald spot near the crown of his head. He looked at his watch again, he seemed anxious to get into a position where bald spots wouldn’t show and didn’t matter. ‘Susannah wanted me to help finance an art gallery, a crazy idea.’ He opened his hands and spread them shoulder-high. ‘Besides, I don’t have any money.’
I nodded and got up. ‘Forgive the intrusion. You were lucky, the guy who busted in here took a swing at me earlier in the night.’ I touched my head.
‘Good God! Do you think he’ll be back here?’
‘Thanks for the sympathy. No, I think he’s got what he wants.’ I finished the drink and said goodnight to Porter whose colour wasn’t so good. He looked a bit unsure of himself for the first time. The tall woman in the chair held out her glass for a refill and I gave her one of my wicked smiles and left.
I cleaned up the head wound, took some aspirin and went to bed. In the morning the head was still tender, but I’d had worse, and was anxious to try to bring about a meeting with the guy who’d given it to me. I used the telephone, and at ten o’clock I was inside Dr Bruno Ernst’s study. He lived in a little sandstone cottage in Balmain down near the wharf. The house looked small because it was full of books and paintings, without them there would have been enough room in it for people, but apart from Ernst himself the only other thing that appeared to live there was a cat. There would probably have been some silverfish. Ernst was a short, squat guy with a fringe of white hair around a bald head, and a spade-shaped white beard. He pushed a typewriter aside on his desk and started to pack a curved pipe with tobacco. Outside a cold wind was rippling the water and flapping the ropes on boats tied up at the wharf. I sat and waited until he’d puffed enough smoke into the air.
‘I understand you’re an expert on Charles Castleton, Dr Ernst.’
‘Bruno’, he said. ‘Not strictly true, no-one is an expert on him, in a way there is nothing to be expert on. I have some knowledge and an interest, yes.’
‘You authenticated a Castleton belonging to a Miss Woods a few weeks back.’
‘That’s right.’ He puffed smoke and looked a little uncomfortable. ‘I was never happy about it.’
‘Why not?’
‘It was unusual. There are lost Castletons, of course. He led an erratic life, gave pictures away, paid debts and liquor bills with them. In 1884 Castleton held an exhibition in Sydney, a little tin-pot affair, but it was reported in the papers of the time and some of the paintings were described. Do you know about this?’
‘Not in detail.’
‘The newspaper report only came to light fairly recently, and it is now taken as the best guide to Castleton’s later period. Most of the paintings mentioned can be accounted for, two cannot.’
‘And Miss Woods had one of them?’
‘Hmm, she had the painting which is called “Stockyards at Jerilderie”.’
‘Fences’, I said.
‘Indeed, a great many fences. This confers value on the work, a puzzling notion.’
‘You’re sure it was genuine?’
He shrugged. ‘I gave my opinion that it was, no-one could be sure. But the woman had another painting of the same subject which was obviously a fraud. The materials were modern, and the technique was crude. She said she had come upon the painting by accident and averted an attempt to produce a fake version. I found this commendable, you see?’
‘Yes, and this helped you to decide that the painting was genuine?’
He scratched at the squared-off beard, disturbing its symmetry. ‘It played a part in my judgement, yes.’
‘I see. Tell me, Dr Ernst, once you’ve inspected and okayed a painting is there any way for anyone to know that you’ve given it the thumbs up?’
‘Bruno. I’m sorry, I do not understand.’
‘Do you mark the painting in any way, Bruno?’
‘Yes, indeed, with a stamp which can only be seen under ultra-violet light. The stamp carried my initials inside an octagon-I marked the Castleton with it.’
I thanked him, and he insisted I have a glass of sherry with him while he showed me his paintings, books and the view. Too many paintings at once numb me, most of the books were in German, but I liked the view. The sherry was okay. As I moved towards the door, he gently suggested that he was due a consultation fee. I wrote him a cheque for fifty bucks and he waved me goodbye with it from his doorway.
I’d left my car in Darling Street, near the police station for safety, but I took a long walk through the Balmain streets trying to order the facts I had. The Woods woman’s story to Ernst sounded phoney, but could possibly be the truth. The only trouble was that there was a third painting in the works. ‘Stockyards at Jerilderie’ would have fitted the picture I’d seen in the Paddington house and I had to assume that Leo Porter’s lost painting was of the same scene. But which one carried Ernst’s mark? That seemed like the vital question, but was it? I worked up a sweat on the uphill stretch from the water and reached into my pocket for something to wipe my face with. I came up with the bit of paint-stained shirt. I looked at it and remembered what Porter had said about his former ladyfriend knocking around with artists. I also remembered the face of the man who’d hit me in the stomach. I hoofed it back to the car and drove through the ill-tempered traffic to the Cross.
Three years’ friendship with Primo Tomasetti seems like a lifetime; I park my car out behind his tattooing parlour for a modest fee and he bombards me with his ideas on the good life- they involve considerable strain on the liver and prostate. Besides tattooing and mural painting, both of which he has brought to a high and erotic pitch, Primo is a bloody good man with a pencil. I stuck the Falcon on the little concrete patch at the back and came up the rear steps into the dark den where Primo plies his trade.
He was tattooing a Kiss-type design on the face of a young girl and he winked at me as I came in.
‘What’s her mother going to think of that?’ I said.
‘She never hadda mudder; she was too poor, right sweetheart?’
The girl didn’t move a muscle. I watched it for as long as I could bear and then I went through to the kitchen and made coffee. Primo keeps an interesting collection of magazines back there, and I browsed through them while waiting for the coffee to perk. I made two long, strong blacks and took them back into the workshop. The girl was gone and Primo was holding his hands in front of his face and staring at them.
‘I hate what I do, Cliff, he said. ‘It’s a crime.’
‘Rubbish, you love it. And I know you, you put in that stuff you can wash out in six months. She was free, white and seventeen anyway.’
‘I suppose you’re right. Thanks.’ He took the coffee and I arranged some cartridge paper and pencils on his work desk while we sipped.
‘You want a new name-plate designed?’ he said. ‘A black falcon, maybe?’
‘I haven’t got a name plate. When I need the name freshly written on an envelope to pin to my door I’ll let you know.’
He blew steam off the surface of the drink. ‘You got no class, Cliff.’
‘True. How d’you reckon you’d go at one of those identikit jobs? I describe the face, you do the drawing?’
‘Sensational! It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.’
‘Drink your coffee and let’s have a go at it.’
The floor was half-covered with crumpled paper when we finished a bit over an hour later. We got it right in the end-Primo prompted me and I abused him, and between us we caught the essence of the man I’d seen in Susannah Woods’ house-his thin, peaked face, cupid bow mouth and dark, low-growing hair. I’d have known him from the drawing and I had to hope others would too. I thanked Primo and paid him a week in advance for the parking spot. He looked hurt.