“I’m beginning to wonder about you, Meyer.”
He drew the Major to one side and whispered a long rigmarole in his ear.
“Now, come, come,” said the Major, with a loud laugh that strove for cheerful informality. “I’ll put my hand in the fire for Sandoval. We can trust him absolutely. The only reason I didn’t tell him is because I thought it better if you people did.”
“You know what, the best thing would be if the boss saw him and talked to him direct. I can’t take the responsibility, and nor can you. He’ll be here any minute. Come on, Sandoval. And watch how you speak to him. The boss, you know, isn’t just trash like you and me, or this Meyer. He’s a genuine toff, a real gent. You have to call him Count. Count St Germain.”
They found Count St Germain in one of the rooms on the first floor. He was sitting in a large armchair reading a newspaper. Seeing Sandoval, he rose and took a few steps forward, then halted ceremoniously and waited. He was a large-faced man, of powerful build running a little to fat, with clean-shaven, rather ugly, but wonderfully expressive features. He reminded Sandoval of a cardinal, a cardinal as represented on the stage of the Comédie Française. When he began to speak the impression grew steadily stronger: he spoke the pure, magniloquent French of the actors of that great theatre. From the very first moment Sandoval felt that he was in the presence of a distinguished person.
“This is the painter, Count,” said Honoré. “Would you please have a word with him? The fact is, this Meyer hasn’t told him what it’s all about. It would be better if you could explain it yourself.”
St Germain offered Sandoval a seat and the others withdrew. For some time he chatted politely about Venice, listening with interest to Sandoval’s ideas about what mattered in art, and approached the real subject only gradually. He seemed to have been making up his own mind first, and speaking openly only when he had become persuaded of Sandoval’s trustworthiness. Sandoval realised he had been weighed in the balance, and found insubstantial.
“My dear young friend,” the Count observed, “you seem to be a remarkably sympathetic and straightforward sort of man. My unerring instinct tells me that we have nothing to fear from you and can admit you to our plans with confidence. We’ve just begun a major project whose fate will depend on certain crucial factors. We are in fact carrying out a patriotic duty. A patriotic duty to the home of every true art-lover, to Italy, or indeed, if you like, to old Europe itself.”
Sandoval waited in suspense to see what might follow this splendid preamble.
“As a painter, you will surely be aware of the danger hanging over our ancient, our most venerable, part of the world. You must be aware of it, and you must also feel sincerely concerned about it.
“I refer to the threat from America. This threat is very direct — and I’m now thinking specifically about the way it affects us art-lovers personally. What I mean is, within a decade or two, the Americans, the nouveaux-riches of that brash new culture, will reach the point where they have amassed unimaginable sums of money, and with it they will want to lay their hands on timeless treasures of art. As you know, over the last couple of decades a new and in every way more dangerous type, the American art collector, has been popping up all over Europe. These people scour the most beautiful countries of our continent, and wherever they find old pictures for sale they pounce on them, snap them up and take them home on huge ships, to a country where they will decorate restaurants and other such vulgar establishments. Those pictures, in our opinion, are lost forever, as far as Europe is concerned. It isn’t just one Guido Reni, Velázquez or Murillo going astray. That wouldn’t bother me at all. But what would be much more painful would be the great Italian and German primitives. And now they want to get their hands on the Holy of Holies, Titian. Fate has led one of these pirates to us, a certain Viking by the name of Eisenstein. He’s made his fortune buying and selling shirt collars, or some such item of domestic utility, and now he’s here in Venice, prowling around with the intention of grabbing a Titian. Now, our clear duty is to pluck Titian from the grubby claws of this American. In us he has met his match. The moment we realised that he was the sort of American who could never be talked out of wanting the great master — who would stop at nothing to achieve his vile purpose, but was prepared to rob and plunder to get it — we decided to mislead him in the interests of our sacred cause, as Dante did, when he threw sand down the throat of Cerberus: we dedicated ourselves to throwing a spurious Titian down the throat of this particular Cerberus to save the real thing from him. Do you take my meaning, young man?”
“Perfectly,” Sandoval replied, with a smile.
“I knew you would. Now, I’m sorry I can’t give you an advance for your part in the business. Just at the moment I don’t have sufficient funds with me. The high calling in which I labour has made serious inroads on my fortune. You understand me of course, young man?”
“Perfectly,” Sandoval answered, with a smile.
“I knew you would. And I can pay you only if our plans succeed, that is to say, if the American hands over the cash. But in that case I won’t in the least grudge your two hundred lire, since you seem such a thoroughly sympathetic young man.”
“Excuse me, it was three hundred lire!” Sandoval shouted furiously. He was now fully into his role.
“So, let’s say three hundred, then. The reason I’m being so generous is that I want to keep you interested should any future projects arise. And, now that we have understood one another so splendidly, I must ask you to make a start on the work. I don’t wish to press you, young man, but I’d be obliged if you could complete the masterpiece within three days.”
Sandoval felt like a man into whose hand God had placed the trumpet of Joshua. He knew that by doing the picture he would sooner or later gain a full insight into the plans of the fugitive, self-banished king, which at present remained so totally obscure. He set about his task, and worked away diligently at his Titian masterpiece, without anything particularly memorable happening in the gloom of the bogus palazzo. He encountered no one but Honoré, and from him he learnt nothing of interest.
But as night fell on the evening of the second day, he packed up his things and, quite ‘by chance’, did not go back down the way he had come but got himself lost in the complicated layout of the house. He ended up in an unlit room, and was just about to open the door into the next when he heard the sound of conversation coming from it. The speakers’ voices were very familiar. One he recognised as belonging to Mawiras-Tendal, and the other … the other speaker, beyond the shadow of a doubt, could only have been the ex-King.
Sandoval’s heart was beating wildly. This was a chance he could not let slip. He instantly sank down into an armchair and closed his eyes. Anyone opening the door would think he had been sleeping there for some time. But the room was dark, and he reckoned he wouldn’t be seen.
“I beg you, my dear Milán,” the King was saying, “it really is about time you gave up this aide-de-camp manner. You’ve stopped calling me ‘Your Royal Highness’ half the time, thank God, but that’s precisely why now, when you say ‘old chap’, it sounds as if you were piling every one of my titles back onto me. Don’t forget, I am simple Oscar now.”
“In that case, old man,” the Major replied, audibly suffering, like a man forced to swallow some bitter mouthful, “permit me to voice a few concerns.”
“Let’s hear them,” the King answered reluctantly. “All I ask is that you don’t talk to me about the situation in Alturia. I’ve had it up to the neck. I don’t dare to pick up a newspaper any more. These poor revolutionaries! That poor Delorme! But what can any of us do without money? It’s terrible.”