“I suppose there must be.”
“And we are just about to ship some more to England for swapping purposes. Things that might have been found in English country houses. Small things, but the Führer’s principal agent likes quantity, as well as quality.”
“He has an eye for quality, as well,” said the Countess, with something like a snort.
“Oh yes, he has, and he has had his eyes on the pictures here at Düsterstein,” said Prince Max. “The Führer’s principal artistic agent, as you may know, is that very busy man, Reichsmarschall Göring, and he has already visited my cousin to discover whether she would like to present her family collection to the Führermuseum as a token of her fidelity to German ideals. The Reichsmarschall is extremely fond of pictures, and he has an enviable collection of his own. I understand,” said Max, turning to the Countess, “that he has asked the Führer to revive in his favour the title that Landgrave Wilhelm III of Hesse gave to his adviser on art—Director-General of the Delights of My Eye.”
“What effrontery,” said the Countess. “His taste is veryvulgar, as one might expect.”
“Well, my dear Cornish, there you have it,” said Prince Max.
“And you are doing this as a sort of quixotic anti-Hitler thing?” said Francis. “Just to do him in the eye? Surely the risk is immense?”
“We are quixotic, but not so quixotic as all that,” said the Prince. “There is a certain recognition for this work, which is, as you say, dangerous. Friendly English firms are most generous. Certain art dealers are involved. They arrange the swaps, and they sell the Italian treasures that go to England in return for the sort of thing we have been dealing with this morning. Such a group of lesser pictures as this may be exchanged for a single canvas—a Tiepolo, even a Raphael. The work is quixotic, certainly, but—not totally selfless. Some money does change hands, depending on how well we do.”
Francis looked at the Countess, and although he was pretty good at controlling his features, astonishment must have showed. The Countess did not flinch.
“One does not restore a great fortune by shrinking from risks, Mr. Cornish,” she said.
That girl did well with Francis’s horoscope, said the Lesser Zadkiel. She even hinted at your involvement in his fate, brother. That must have surprised you.
–I am not so easily surprised, said the Daimon Maimas. In the days when people understood about the existence and influence of daimons like myself we were often recognized and called upon. But she did well enough, certainly. She warned Francis of an impending crisis, and against his increasing preoccupation with money.
–He has good reason for it, said the Angel. As he says, everybody exploits him and he is open to exploitation. Look at that gang at Düsterstein! Prince Max assumes that Francis will be delighted to be included in the picture hoax—to give it the least objectionable name—because he regards it as an aristocratic lark, and it honours Francis to be one of the jokers. The Countess thinks, in her heart, that a bourgeois like Francis is lucky to be allowed into an aristocratic secret, and to work for his keep to sustain it. And Saraceni has the genial contempt of the master for the neophyte. But if that scheme were ever uncovered, Francis would suffer most, because he is the only one who has actually forged a picture.
–No, brother, he has forged nothing. He has painted an original picture in a highly individual style, and if any connoisseur misdates it, the more fool he. It is Prince Max and the Countess who are passing it off as what it is not. They are aristocrats, and, as you well know, aristocrats did not always achieve their position by a niggling scrupulosity. As for money, the whole story has not yet been told.
–I bow to your superior knowledge of the case, my dear Maimas. What pleases me is that François Xavier Bouchard, the dwarf tailor of Blairlogie, is at last about to burst upon the world, and be admired, as the Fuggers’ Jester, Drollig Hansel. And all because Francis learned to observe, and remember, under the influence of Harry Furniss.
–These are the little jokes that relieve the tedious work of being a Minor Immortal, said the Daimon Maimas.
“Do you suppose that La Nibsmith will take Prince Max’s broad hint?” said Saraceni. “You heard what he said when he gave her that book: for astrological notations. He is mad to have her cast his horoscope.”
“And won’t she?” said Francis.
“Apparently not. He has been begging—in so far as so aristocratic a person can beg—for several months. She is capricious, which is her right. She does not do it professionally, but she is very good. A genuine psychic. Of course, casting horoscopes depends a good deal on the psychic gifts of the astrologer. Germans arejust as keen for that sort of thing as Americans. The Führer has an astrologer of his own.”
“She doesn’t look like my idea of a psychic.”
“Psychics often don’t—the real ones. They are frequently rather earthy people. Has she cast your horoscope yet?”
“Well—yes, as a matter of fact, she has.”
“Have you a good destiny?”
“Odd, apparently. Odder than I would have thought.”
“Not odder than I would have thought. I chose you for my apprentice because you were odd, and you have revealed new depths of oddity ever since. That picture you painted while I was in Rome, for instance. It was a portrait, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I won’t pry. It had the unmistakable quality of a portrait, a feeling between subject and painter, which cannot be faked—not to my eye, that’s to say. Where are your preliminary drawings?”
Francis produced them from a portfolio.
“You are a thorough creature, aren’t you? Even your preliminaries on the right paper, in the right style. Not your Harry Furniss style. Nevertheless, I’ll wager that when you first drew that dwarf, it was in your Harry Furniss manner.”
“It was. He was dead, and I did a few sketches while he was being prepared for burial.”
“You see? Odd, as I said. How you profited from Harry Furniss’s book! Forget nothing; learn the trick of remembering through the hand. I shall be interested to hear what they think of it in London.”
“Meister, who are ‘they’? Haven’t I a right to know what I’m mixed up in, working here with you? There must surely be some risk. Why am I kept in the dark?”
“ ‘They’ are a few very distinguished dealers in art, who make all the business arrangements in this little game which, as you say, involves some risk.”
“They’re swapping these worthless, or at least trivial, pictures for pictures of greatly superior quality?”
“They are exchanging certain pictures for others, for complicated reasons.”
“All right. But is it no more than what Prince Max said? An elaborate hoax on the German Reich?”
“It would be a very bold man who would try to hoax the German Reich.”
“Well, somebody seems to be doing it. Is this a government thing? Some sort of Secret Service lark?”
“The British government knows about it, and very likely the American government knows—but only a very few people, who would deny all knowledge if there should be a discovery and a row.”
“It’s for private gain, then?”
“There is money involved. This work we are doing is not unrequited.”
“ ‘Unrequited’! What a word for such a thing! You mean that you and the Countess and Prince Max are getting damn well paid!”