“Even the Chinese understand that.”
“I thought the Chinese invented it,” he said, a smile tugging at his lips.
“They invented most things — why not that too?” Ava said.
“Well, in our business there is no intrinsic value in anything. A painting is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Today Jackson Pollock is a hot commodity, tomorrow he could be a throwaway. Okay, maybe not to that extreme, but you see, here we don’t deal in Jackson Pollock; the core of the business is your run-of-the-mill painter. More risk, less reward. So cash is always tight, and the value of the business — and our net worth — is hanging on the walls. We decided to cash in twice, put the money aside, and then get on with running the business as our father had done.”
“Except Glen didn’t stop?”
“No, he didn’t. But I did. I wasn’t proud of what we had done. I rationalized it, of course, but I was never proud, and I never — I swear to you — never even thought about doing it again.”
“When did you find out that Glen was still at it?”
“Five years ago.”
“When Maurice O’Toole died?”
He looked surprised. “Yes, precisely. Nancy came to see me here at the gallery. Maurice was broke when he died; she had nothing. She said she knew we’d been making all kinds of money from the Derains, the Dufys, and the like. She was looking for a lump-sum payment, a kind of death benefit, from our Liechtenstein account. I told her I didn’t know what she was talking about. She brought with her the same kind of paperwork you showed me today. It took me aback, I don’t mind telling you, finding out that Glen had still been working with Maurice and that he had a bank account in Liechtenstein. I told her she needed to talk to Glen.”
“She must have, because he sent her a hundred thousand dollars from a bank account in Kowloon,” Ava said.
“Kowloon too? My brother does get around.” Edwin Hughes took off his jacket and stood to hang it on a coat rack next to the Derain Tower Bridge painting. “I told you this one was real, didn’t I?” he said.
“You did.”
“Would you like a tea or coffee? Water?” he asked as he sat down again.
“I’m fine. Can we get back to your brother?”
He sighed. “We had it out, of course. He told me he needed the money. He was already twice divorced and was working on a third, and between the ex-wives and the kiddies and an expensive lifestyle, he had burned through the Modigliani money and a lot more on top of that. He swore to me then that he’d stop, and I believed him.”
“You weren’t worried about him, about the scheme being exposed?”
Hughes grimaced. “We were already joined at the hip, so to speak, through our previous transgressions. Although neither of us discussed it directly, we knew it. And then there was the matter of your Hong Kong clients.”
“What does that mean?”
He grimaced again. “These are Glen’s words, not mine. I’m not a lover of all mankind, but neither am I a racist. Glen tends to wander to the right on most issues. He said — and again, these are his words — that he had found a ‘dead ignorant’ dealer in Hong Kong who was selling the stuff to an ‘even more ignorant’ collector somewhere in China. He said he could have sent them crayon sketches done by a six-year-old and passed them off as a rare find, and they’d believe him. He said there wasn’t a chance in hell the collector would figure things out, and if he did he would have the dealer in Hong Kong to blame. Glen said he and the collector never met, never even communicated.”
“That’s true.”
“And then he promised me he’d stop, but of course he didn’t.”
“How did you find that out?” Ava asked.
“Helga Sorensen,” Hughes said.
Thank God for smart wives, Ava thought. “What happened?”
“The dealer in Hong Kong died, and Glen decided he’d made enough money and it was time to get out while he still could. He told me later he had thought about hooking up with someone else in Hong Kong, but the fellow there had been the perfect middleman. He didn’t want to trust anyone else.”
“How did he meet Kwong — that was the dealer’s name — in the first place?”
“Believe it or not, Kwong took out an ad in the Arts Journal looking for Fauvist paintings. Glen contacted him and the two of them went at it.”
“So Glen decides to pack it in when Kwong dies?”
“Exactly. And Helga’s upset because it’s become their best source of income. She evidently wrote to Glen a few times but he never answered her. So she wrote to the gallery saying that if we didn’t want more Fauvists then Jan could paint something else. When I opened the letter, I felt absolutely betrayed.”
“And you confronted your brother?”
“I did. I decided to terminate our business relationship and, if you must know, our personal relationship. We haven’t spoken in two years.”
“How did you divide things?”
“We didn’t. I had scheduled a meeting with our family solicitor to negotiate a settlement over this business, when I became ill. I was hospitalized for about a week while they muddled around with my heart. The day I came home, Glen had a letter delivered to me. It said that he had signed over his shares in the business to me, that they were essentially worthless anyway, and that he had long since outgrown the Hughes Gallery,” he said, looking pained. “I thought it was cowardly of him to do things that way, and I thought he was denigrating all the good work my father had done and that he and I had done together.”
Ava felt a twinge of sympathy for Edwin Hughes, paralleled by a growing dislike for his brother. She said, “You know, I wouldn’t mind having a coffee now. I take it black.”
Hughes stood. “I’ll get it and a tea for myself. I could use a break.”
Ava waited, checking her watch. It’s taking him a long time, she was thinking, just as he appeared at the door with two delicate china cups balanced on exquisite saucers. “Sorry, the water took forever to boil,” he said.
They sipped their drinks quietly, Ava’s eyes drawn almost magnetically to the Derain. “My father bought it in the 1950s for what was a considerable sum then,” he said. “It’s worth much more now, but for years Derain’s value languished. It would please my father no end to find his judgement finally validated by the market. It’s the finest piece the family owns. What a coincidence, eh?”
Ava nodded and then said, “Talk to me about your brother. What kind of man is he?”
“It’s difficult to be objective.”
“Then don’t be.”
“No, I should try,” he said. He leaned back, placed his hands behind his neck, and put his feet on the desk.
“First of all, he is an absolutely great appraiser. He knows his stuff, he really does, and has a fine eye for what’s going to be hot. That’s what’s upsetting to me. If he’d stuck to our knitting, this business could have done well. Instead he went after money, and when he got the money, he lost interest in our venture,” he said. “I mentioned the wives. Well, there were also the houses, the yacht, the wine collection, the useless wealthy friends. I wasn’t paying too much attention. I mean, I saw what was going on; I just didn’t stop to think about how he could afford it.”
“He was stealing,” Ava said.
Hughes nodded. “The money changed him in many other ways as well. Glen was always a bit cocky but he disguised his hubris with a smart sense of humour. Having the money allowed him to let loose the extremes in his character. Plainly said, he didn’t need to be polite anymore, so he wasn’t. He became vain, boastful, and over-the-top arrogant.”
“He doesn’t sound very likeable.”
“I have grown to detest him.”
“When did he move to New York?”
“The week I came out of the hospital. He didn’t visit me there, or at home. He contacted me by letter, saying that London had become provincial and that New York was where the action was.”
“And how has he done in New York?”