A Family Affair Read online

  ‘I think we’ll find it has come back.’ Appleby spoke gently but firmly. He knew where he stood with Hildebert Braunkopf. It was one of the many points of good citizenship in that estimable man that he had a wholesome respect for the police. ‘In your strong room, I suppose it will be?’

  And Mr Braunkopf, having hesitated for a moment, emitted a fat and dispirited sigh. Then, with a beckoning motion, he waddled slowly across his gallery. It was almost with compunction that Appleby followed him.

  Nanna and Pippa were undoubtedly nice girls. Unfortunately they were represented as occupied in a fashion that could not possibly conduce to edification. It was evident that Mr Braunkopf felt this keenly. However laudable was his good friend’s desire to give pleasure to an ageing uncle, it was painful to see one of Sir John’s scrupulous refinement actually brought into the presence of this lascivious spectacle. It was not even as if it were the authentic work of Giulio Romano, and therefore contemplatable in the saving consciousness that it was worth a lot of money. So anxious was Mr Braunkopf to obviate the flaw in taste and decorum which had produced this confrontation that he even – after a two-minute session with the canvas – suggested to Appleby immediate adjournment to another room in order to enjoy the modest pleasure of a glass of champagne.

  It had taken Appleby less than these two minutes, however, to realize that he was now experiencing – as it were in reverse – what had befallen Braunkopf on the occasion of his agonizing discovery. Braunkopf had thought to see an original painting and become aware that he was seeing a copy. Appleby had thought to see a copy and was suddenly convinced that he was seeing an original.

  ‘I’ll give you two hundred guineas for it,’ he said.

  ‘But, goot Sir John, it is not the reasonables!’ It was patent that Mr Braunkopf’s agony was extreme.

  ‘Come, come, Braunkopf. Except as a curiosity, the thing has no value at all. One can have pretty well any picture in the National Gallery copied for fifty pounds. To refuse four times that amount for this is very odd indeed.’

  ‘It has what we call the association interest, Sir John. An unfortunate episode in the history of the Da Vinci. I should have the unhappiness in parting from it.’

  ‘You mean you have a sentimental regard for it? But of course you don’t.’ Appleby took three brisk steps forward, and suddenly reversed the painting on the easel upon which Braunkopf had reluctantly placed it. What was revealed was the back of a very ancient canvas indeed. ‘My dear Braunkopf, you really weren’t careful enough. You took it into your head that you had been cheated into accepting a copy. But it was the real thing, safely back again. And here it is.’

  There was a moment’s silence, while the unfortunate Braunkopf digested these ironical observations. Then, if he did not positively rise to the occasion, he at least accommodated himself to it.

  ‘Sir John,’ he said with dignity, ‘I must make you the confidences.’

  6

  ‘It was authentink criminous fraud,’ Braunkopf presently resumed. He had had the hardihood to withdraw from his sanctum for a couple of minutes, and return with two glasses and a half-bottle of champagne. Appleby, who was able to tell himself that he was in no sense a police officer on duty, accepted this refreshment without demur. The ritual production of wine and cigars upon important occasions was one of the proprieties of Braunkopf’s world, and there would be no advantage in turning it down. And Braunkopf, thus indulged, solemnly raised his glass. ‘Sir John,’ he said, ‘it is hip-hip hurrah three cheers, yes?’

  ‘Well, yes – although I believe that, as a toast, it is commonly contracted to “cheers”. Cheers, Braunkopf.’ Appleby let some moments decently pass before adding firmly: ‘You are asserting that the story you told at Scotland Yard was true?’

  ‘But of courses, Sir John!’ Always a man of delicate feeling, Braunkopf had plainly struggled not to let too much of surprise and reproach sound in this response. ‘Only I did not quite give credences that this low immoral picture was truly in the possession of anonymous nobility gentry like for instance my goot freunds Sir John and Lady Abbleby the Duke of Horton the Duke of Nesfield KG other my goot freunds patrons the artisocracy. It would be aspersious – yes? – to suppose any members the British artisocracy have dealings feelthy peectures.’

  ‘Your sentiments do you great honour. What you are saying is that you didn’t believe this story of a nobleman discovering a Giulio Romano by accident among a lot of lumber?’

  ‘That is so, my goot Sir John. One develops the instinctuals, no? I had the instinctual this Nanna and Pippa belong some low-born wealthy person collector feelthy peectures now weeding out some few paintings perhaps buy others feelthier.’

  ‘It sounds a more likely story, I agree. But I’m surprised it didn’t make you a bit more wary. For you were caught out in the end, weren’t you? Despite this being here now’ – and Appleby pointed to the authentic Nanna and Pippa on their easel – ‘you were landed with a copy?’

  ‘Yes, Sir John. Just how I told the police, all authentink and above plank.’

  ‘But you didn’t remain altogether above board with them for long? You cooled off in your real wish to assist them, I think? And it was because you had yourself thought up something better?’

  ‘That is correck, Sir John.’ Braunkopf seemed not at all perturbed by these somewhat hostile questions. ‘I put on my thinking hat. And soon I stopped believing anybody had made proposings to themselves to sell this puttikler shocking picture at all.’

  ‘Ah!’ Appleby was now really interested. ‘You conjectured that it had simply been abstracted from the possession of its owner – conceivably without that owner’s knowledge – and brought to you, along with a plausible story, for the purpose of that expertise by Professor Sansbury, as I think it was?’

  ‘Correck, Sir John.’

  ‘It would then have been copied – again on the plausible story presented to you – before being restored to its normal location. And the copy was brought back to you – with the result that you were caught off your guard, and persuaded to part with a great deal of money for it?’

  ‘Twelve thousand pount, Sir John!’ There was the liveliest pathos in Braunkopf’s voice as he recalled this sum; he seemed quite to have forgotten that it was a mere trifle in the regard of such a solid institution as the Da Vinci Gallery.

  ‘Well, something has happened since then.’ Appleby again glanced at the authentic Nanna and Pippa. ‘I think you had better tell me just what.’

  ‘I was determined on destitution.’

  ‘That does seem one way of looking at it. You’d been uncommonly careless, if you ask me.’

  ‘It would only be justice, no?’ Braunkopf showed himself as having been perplexed by Appleby’s last remark. ‘I had a right to destitution.’

  ‘Oh, I see. You certainly had a right to restitution, if the criminals and the cash they had made off with could be traced. But it isn’t the cash you’ve ended up with. It’s the picture. Go on.’ Appleby paused invitingly. But Mr Braunkopf, although not to be described as normally an unready man, was reluctant to proceed. He replenished Appleby’s glass. He walked over to the easel, contemplated Nanna and Pippa fixedly, and contorted his features into what was evidently designed as an expression of deep moral reprobation. ‘Did you trace it and steal it?’ Appleby asked.

  ‘My goot Sir John!’ Braunkopf was even more shocked by this than by the flagitious spectacle on the canvas before him. ‘I recovered this piece my own property only by most puttikler ethical derangement.’

  ‘I’m not clear that it ever was your own property. You can’t make a valid purchase, you know, of something the other fellow doesn’t possess the right to sell. And it can’t be said you made much inquiry into the matter when it first came your way. But that’s by the by. I shall be most interested to hear about your ethical arrangement. Am I right in thinking that you began by consulting whatever knowledge you have of known collectors of blue pictures in this country?’
/>   ‘Exakly, Sir John. As Proprietor and Director this notable Da Vinci Gallery I make a puttikler study business deficiency. We file purchasers clients other goot freunds according to known special and particulous interests in whole voonderble vorlt of art.’ Mr Braunkopf, as he touched this cherished and sublime expression, looked regretfully at the empty half-bottle on his desk; he had erred in hospitality (he must have been feeling) in treating so particularly good a friend as Sir John Appleby to so meagre a symposium. ‘And natchly, Sir John, there is a blue file. There has to be a blue file, Sir John.’ Mr Braunkopf paused for a moment, as if dimly feeling that this contention ought to be substantiated. ‘All the colours in the spectrum – no? – must go to the composings the glorious sunlightings that voonderble vorlt. So I vork through them all.’

  ‘All the collectors of dirty pictures?’

  ‘High class, only.’ Mr Braunkopf sounded his reproachful note. ‘Nothink to do with pornography, no? Pornography is for middle-class persons; nobles gentry and all stimultaneous Da Vinci clients have refined interest in erotica.’

  ‘I think we can cut out all that.’ It certainly seemed to Appleby that it would be fruitless to pursue Braunkopf’s singularly confused morality and sociology. ‘You drew up a short list, I imagine, of persons whose tastes in this direction were backed by fairly substantial means. It was a most rational proceeding. But how did you subsequently contrive contacting them?’

  ‘Bargains, Sir John.’ Braunkopf beamed at the innocence of the question that had been directed at him. ‘I take a portfolio with some six ten top-class drawings regrettables. And I offer these regrettables at low figure suitable persons. Then I achieve conversion.’

  ‘I rather doubt that.’

  ‘I achieve conversion on various art topics. Relaxed conversion, Sir John, puttikler appropriate between established collector and reputacious dealer. Then I lead the conversion round to security, a most puttikler important topic collectors of regrettables. On account insurance, Sir John. One regrettable in a collection of respectables is easy to insure. But too many not, yes?’

  ‘So I should imagine. So you got these people to discuss security, and thefts, and so forth. No doubt you represented yourself as having connections which might make you more effective in recovering pictures, were a robbery ever to occur, than are the police. And credit where credit is due, Braunkopf. You’d make a very good job of that sort of talk.’

  ‘My goot Sir John, that is great kindnesses in you.’ Braunkopf seemed genuinely moved by the tribute thus paid to him. ‘And so, you see, I come to the owner this high-class regrettable.’ He gave Nanna and Pippa a wave. ‘It was my goot patron Mr Praxiteles. My late goot patron Mr Praxiteles.’

  ‘I find it hard to believe in the existence of a man with such a name. And do you mean he’s dead?’

  ‘Mr Praxiteles, Sir John, is a most wealthy and high reputacious shipowner. And not defunk. Not that at all.’ Somewhat surprisingly, the ghost of a grin hovered on the dignified features of Mr Braunkopf. ‘Just no lonker a goot patron the Da Vinci Gallery.’

  ‘I see.’ Appleby glanced rather grimly at the Da Vinci’s proprietor. ‘This fellow Praxiteles was the owner of the Giulio Romano, and he was foolish enough to disclose the fact to you – with the further information that it had been stolen, or at least made away with for a time?’

  ‘Exackly, Sir John. Removed from his collection by unknown depradatious persons, who left a note that only some jokings was intended, and that soon the Nanna and Pippa turn up again.’

  ‘It has already struck me that that might be the way of it. So your precious Mr Polyclitus–’

  ‘Praxiteles, Sir John.’

  ‘Praxiteles decided to keep mum for a little, and just hope the picture would come back, rather than risk embarrassing publicity? Then, sure enough, his faith in human nature was rewarded, and back it did come.’

  ‘After I had bought it, my goot Sir John.’ Braunkopf made this point urgently.

  ‘Not exactly that, as a matter of fact. When the authentic picture came to you here, you were proposing to act merely as an agent. You bought the copy – and no doubt after the original had been returned to Praxiteles. And now we come to the final act in your disreputable comedy, Braunkopf. You got the original out of Praxiteles, and here it is. Are you prepared to tell me just what persuasion you used? Not, I imagine, another cheque for £12,000.’

  ‘No, my goot Sir John, not that.’ Braunkopf produced this in a judicial tone, as if here had been one of the courses of action which he had envisaged, but which he had turned down for another equally reasonable. ‘Not exackly that.’

  ‘Not that at all, I rather suspect.’

  ‘Sir John, I was entirely fred.’

  ‘You were entirely what?’

  ‘I was entirely fred and open with Mr Praxiteles. I spilled him the whole peas.’ Braunkopf made a virtuous gesture. ‘Nothink was concealed from him, account high ethical standing the Da Vinci Gallery.’

  ‘In particular, I think, you didn’t conceal from him that you had placed the matter of the fraudulent sale of the copy to you in the hands of the police?’

  ‘Correk.’

  ‘And that you would now have to tell the police of Praxiteles’ ownership of the original?’

  ‘Natchly, Sir John. A citizen must give the police all assistings–’

  ‘Quite so. But you didn’t fail to point out to this reputable ship-owner that the result would be a great deal of embarrassing publicity?’

  ‘It was not the necessities, Sir John. Mr Praxiteles is most intellectuous smart person.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. And you proposed a deal to him. He was to let you have the original, and you would let him have the copy?’

  ‘Correk. Praxiteles is not a true lover, Sir John, of the voonderble–’

  ‘He just liked Nanna and Pippa, and was prepared to put up with the copy, and let you blackmail him–’

  ‘My goot Sir John!’

  ‘And let you blackmail him out of a good many thousands of pounds’ worth of property, for the sake of preventing this ridiculous and unsavoury business from being made public. You were on pretty strong ground with him, I can see. But at least you’ve lost a customer.’ Appleby paused briefly, and then pointed to Giulio’s picture. ‘Why is it still here? Why haven’t you sold it by this time to some other Mr Praxiteles?’

  ‘It was the destitution that was important, no? Now I have the destitution, and there is no need to be precipitatious. The market for regrettables is very delicate one, Sir John – puttikler for high-class ethical concern. This prestigious chef-d’oeuvre Giulio Romano problesome shipped to United States of America.’

  ‘I see. Nanna and Pippa are waiting to be rolled up and sent across the Atlantic inside the exhaust pipe of a car?’ Appleby looked again at the painting. ‘Or perhaps you’ll get some poor devil of an art student to overpaint it with an English rural scene – in stuff that will come away again under a sponge?’

  ‘Not a rural scene, my goot Sir John.’ Braunkopf was suddenly indulgent before this inexpertness. ‘It is necessitous to follow the main lines of the existential composition, yes?’ He paused meditatively. ‘Perhaps a “Christ in the House of Mary and Martha”, no?’

  ‘I don’t think I need trouble you further at the moment. Except with a small piece of advice.’

  ‘Yes, my goot Sir John?’ Braunkopf – an intelligent man, who knew when he was in a spot – spoke with a resigned meekness.

  ‘No Mary and Martha at the moment. And no anything else. Put this thing back in your strongroom and leave it there. I can make no promises. But the extent to which my heart bleeds for Mr Praxiteles is a very moderate one. Not, you know, that it bleeds any more for you. And now, good afternoon to you. And thank you for the champagne.’

  ‘It is always the privileges, Sir John.’ Mr Braunkopf was all esteem, and indeed affection. ‘You will make my complimentings to my goot freund and patron Lady Abbleby, yes?’

&nbs
p; ‘I suppose so, Braunkopf.’ It was not the first time that Appleby had felt defeated by the resilience of the proprietor of the Da Vinci Gallery. ‘In fact, yes – I will.’

  ‘And to my equal goot freunds the yunk Abblebys, yes? Reminding them this present prestigious manifestation strikly contemporary art at most modersome prices–’

  Appleby picked up his hat – his London bowler hat – and fled.

  7

  Walking back to his club through the filtered London sunshine, Appleby reviewed his accumulated material. There was rather a lot of it – almost what might be called an embarras de richesse. Five distinct frauds had swum within his ken.

  Lord Cockayne had been robbed of a small picture by an unknown hand. It might have been entirely valueless. But if this fraud was in fact connected with the others, then the general pattern suggested that it was something worth a lot of money. How could the thief have known this? Here was a first question to which there was no answer at present.

  Sir Thomas Carrington had almost certainly been the fortunate owner of an authentic specimen of equine portraiture by George Stubbs. Since Stubbs had happened to paint horses, dogs, curricles, phaetons, barouches, chaises, and the like, whether with or without their squirearchal owners and their wives, with an exquisiteness never achieved by any other painter, Sir Thomas must be supposed to have suffered a very considerable monetary loss indeed.

  Mr Meatyard, affably conducted by Sir Joshua Reynolds round his studio, had been sold, so to speak, a pictorial pup. What it had cost him was unknown, but had certainly been as much as a cleverly calculating rogue had thought it useful to ask.

  Lord Cockayne’s noble friend Lord Canadine had been the victim of the simplest of these stratagems. He had merely suffered the theft of what he regarded as a garden ornament, but which in fact might be vulgarly described as in a different price bracket altogether.

  And Mr Praxiteles – with whom the series closed at present – had been deprived for a brief space of a work of art by Giulio Romano: this in order that Mr Braunkopf might be defrauded of £12,000. Mr Braunkopf had then, in effect, defrauded Mr Praxiteles of a like sum. So Mr Praxiteles, and not the designed victim Mr Braunkopf, had here eventually ended up as the loser.