Ruthven appeared, was duly dispatched and returned with the phone. Jury thanked him.
“I could easily have gone to the phone rather than the phone coming to me.”
“Hell, no. I want to hear what you say.”
Jury dialed as Melrose refilled their glasses and plopped another ice cube in Jury’s. Jury leaned back and waited and said to Melrose, “I’d be surprised to get anybody on Christmas Eve-hello. Mr. Jasperson, please. This is-? Mr. Jasperson, I’m Superintendent Richard Jury of Scotland Yard… No, nothing’s wrong…” Jury asked him about the two paintings and whether he’d had them authenticated and where they’d come from. “The thing is, Mr. Jasperson, what I’ve been led to believe is that what you’ve got there might be a panel from an altarpiece by Masaccio-”
On his end, Jasperson’s response must have been forceful-cried or cursed or laughed-for Jury moved the receiver away from his ear, regarded Plant with a shrug, then put the receiver back as Jasperson said something else, making Jury laugh. “I suppose not. Would anyone else connected with your shop possibly know…? No… Miss Eccleston, I see. Well, I might just pop round there for five minutes and see what is… Yes. Oh, no, you needn’t go there. Bad enough to be bothered at all on Christmas… Yes. Thanks. Wait. Tell me, if one of these panels did turn out to be by Masaccio, how much would it fetch at auction?… You don’t say. Thank you.”
Jury hung up. “Never saw them.”
Melrose sat forward, eyes wide.
“I think we should have a little talk with Amy Eccleston, don’t you?”
Melrose was up like a shot. “Let’s go.”
With their coats on and going out the door, Melrose asked, “How much did he say a Masaccio would get?”
“Around twenty-five, thirty million pounds.”
“My God! But why would she be selling it for a measly two thousand, then?”
“Maybe she doesn’t know anyone with thirty million.”
There were two other customers when Jury walked into C. Jasperson’s, American from the sound of them, middle-aged women in jumpers and slacks browsing and apparently giving sod all about the holiday. He liked that attitude.
Amy Eccleston, who had been conferring with them, excused herself and threaded her way through tables and chairs and objets d’art to join Jury near the front of the room. Her smile diminished fractionally when she saw his identification. “Oh.” Then the telephone rang and she was off to answer it, no doubt grateful for the pause it gave her.
Jury studied the table in the middle of the room, frowning at the gilt and fat cherubs embracing the table legs. Why would anyone need such a piece, much less at this shocking price? He let the tag dangle.
The middle-aged Americans smiled at him on their way out and he returned the smile. So they smiled again, perhaps thinking they had short-changed this man in the smile department. The bell jittered as they left.
Melrose, who had spent a few minutes outside contemplating the green, passed them in the doorway. He and Jury had decided it would be better if they entered separately so as not to arouse Amy Eccleston’s suspicions, at least not immediately.
Returning from the telephone call, Miss Eccleston saw Melrose and made a delighted sound. She said she’d fetch his painting in just a moment. To Jury she said, “Now, what did you want, Inspector?”
“Superintendent, actually. I understand you’ve sold two paintings lately attributed to the Italian painter Masaccio?”
With a self-righteous air, she corrected him. “No, indeed not! I didn’t say they were by Masaccio. I merely said there’s the possibility.”
“You came across them yourself, did you?”
“Yes. In Italy. I found them in a little church in San Giovanni Valdarno. I thought they were unusual and very striking. Of course, that they might have been painted by Masaccio didn’t occur to me at the time.”
“Even though,” put in Melrose, coming up on the two, “San Giovanni Valdarno was his place of birth?”
She looked from the one to the other, clearly disturbed that they appeared now to be together. “I wasn’t thinking of that. Superintendent, what’s wrong here? You seem to be accusing me of something.”
Jury had been making notes in his small notebook. “What makes all of this suspect is that Mr. Jasperson knows absolutely nothing about these two paintings. Yet they’re hanging here-or were-in his shop.”
“Mr. Jasperson?” Her face looked chalky.
Jury just looked at her.
“I’ve been with Mr. Jasperson for three years now. He’s always-”
“Too bad you won’t be with him for three more, Miss Eccleston. The way I see it is this: you’ve been doing this for some time. You’re here by yourself every Friday and on the occasional holiday. On those Fridays you hang your latest acquisition. You might have a buyer, you might not. If not, you merely wait until the next Friday. Certainly this elegant and pricy shop is a wonderful venue for expensive paintings. You pocket one hundred percent of the sale. Not bad. This week’s takings are four thousand pounds, no VAT. That’s a good return on an investment. It’s also extremely daring. What if one of your buyers happened to bring back whatever you’d sold when Mr. Jasperson was here?”
“This is ridiculous. I don’t need to-” She started to turn away.
Jury turned her back. “Oh, yes, you do need to. What you’ll need to do is leave this place. Leave the village. You won’t say anything-not anything -about these two paintings. Under no circumstances try to contact Mr. Trueblood. You’ll write Mr. Plant here a letter relinquishing all interest in the paintings. Then you have forty-eight hours to get out of town.”
“But what about Mr. Jasperson? I can’t just leave.”
“What you tell Mr. Jasperson is your own business. I’m sure you can think of something plausible.” He paused. “You’re getting off very lightly, Miss Eccleston. Thank your lucky stars that for some people, art really means more than money.”
She looked absolutely white.
Jury smiled. “Gather up your painting, Mr. Plant.”
Melrose didn’t bother with the wrapping paper.
“Merry Christmas,” said Jury.
“Good lord,” said Melrose, as they backed the car out of the parking place.
“What could you do to her?”
“Nothing. But she doesn’t know that. Of course, Jasperson could have her up on any number of charges.”
Melrose was carrying his painting with him in the front seat. He leaned it back and looked at it. “The thing is, we still don’t know.”
“Whether it’s genuine?”
“I don’t see how it could be. How could something like this have been missed for all of these years by experts in the field. I mean, how could it have just sat there in some little church-and no Italian Renaissance nut twigged it?” Melrose paused. “But as Tomas Prada-one of the experts-pointed out, what could these panels have been copied from, given the original paintings are missing?”
“Hmm. That’s a point, certainly. Can’t you live with it this way? ”
“Not knowing?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what Prada asked Trueblood.”
“And what did Trueblood answer?”
Melrose smiled. “He said, ‘I could; I’d just rather not.’ ”
Jury laughed. “Sounds like him.”
Forty-nine
“Your broccoli, now,” began Mr. Steptoe, who might have been Irish or might have been English. “Your broccoli, now, the best of your broccoli’s dark, so dark it’s purple. That has all the nutrients in it twice over the lighter green sort. And any that’s yellow, just you pass it up. Yellow means it’s finished, no nutrients at all.” He ate the stub of broccoli on which he had just passed judgment.