A Private View Read online

  The Duke brightened. ‘Groundless – exactly. Or probably groundless. At the time, I had doubts about my nephew, Miles. Since we sold up in Morayshire, you know his father has done little more than drift about, waiting for me to die. And Miles comes and stops with us quite a lot.’

  ‘Is that the Master of Kincrea?’ Judith had rather the air of turning over the pages of an invisible Who’s Who.

  ‘Yes, yes – young Miles. I’ve always thought the Scottish titles a bit of an affectation with people like ourselves.’ The Duke was politely impatient. ‘And Miles, you see, knows a lot about art. So we thought of him at once.’

  ‘I see.’ Judith, less familiar with this territory than her husband, was mildly disconcerted by such facility of intrafamilial suspicion.

  ‘And then there’s my sister Grace. She lives by herself in the East Gatehouse and insists on having keys to almost everything. It’s not possible to refuse her anything of that sort. Because, you know, she’s temperamental, and might do something really awkward if thwarted. You see?’

  ‘Yes – of course.’ Judith was a little doubtful about the wisdom of humouring Grace in just this way.

  ‘And Grace does sometimes – um – move things about oddly. It’s only a couple of years since she managed to abstract the church plate from the safe in our poor vicar’s vestry, and stow it away in a cupboard in a disused milking-parlour on the home farm. It was an eccentric thing to do – although no doubt her action had some basis in theological conviction. The habit would be less vexatious in a smaller building. But at Scamnum there are so many places where things can be stowed away. It’s one of my reasons for sometimes wishing I lived in a smaller house. Like this, for instance. So snug.’

  And the Duke lit his cigar. Appleby watched him thoughtfully. ‘The fact that the Stubbs has turned up in London seems to put Lady Grace’s type of activity out of account. And you’re sure about Miles?’

  ‘Pretty sure. The more I’ve thought about it, the more certain I’ve become that it couldn’t be any member of the family. The fact is, it was a theft with brains behind it. But you must judge of that for yourself. I’ll simply tell you how we’ve come to think it must have been done. Unless you feel there’s some action you should be taking first?’

  Appleby shook his head. ‘I did a little telephoning while you were finishing your coffee. And it’s likely that there will be one or two callers presently. But meanwhile, please carry on.’

  ‘First about the dates, then.’ The Duke of Horton put down his cigar and fished out a pocket diary. ‘Yes, here we are. On Sunday, the 14th of October, both the Vermeer and the Stubbs were safe and sound.’

  Appleby made a note. It took somebody like his present visitor, he was reflecting, to spend nearly three weeks quietly sitting on the theft of one of the world’s great pictures.

  ‘The Aquarium, of course, hangs in the picture gallery in the east wing. The place is like the strongroom of a bank nowadays. There are steel lattices that draw over the doors and windows – and even over the two Alfred Stevens’ fireplaces – at night. The key comes to me – or to my old butler, Bagot, if I’m away from Scamnum – and later it’s collected by the watchman when he comes on duty. We get along with one man going round at night.’

  ‘Reliable?’

  ‘Getting on in years, but absolutely trustworthy – my batman, as a matter of fact, in the Kaiser’s war.’

  ‘Does Lady Grace have a key to the picture gallery?’

  ‘No. It’s about the only place she doesn’t have the run of in that way. I really think you can quite count her out.’

  ‘I think so too.’

  ‘Well, now, on that Sunday Anne happened to have down a great nob in the art line – nice little German from Munich. We took him to one part of the house and another during the course of the afternoon – between parties, of course.’

  ‘Between parties of half-crowners?’

  ‘Exactly so. A party starts off every half-hour. But we’ve learnt to dodge about between them – make rather a game of it, as a matter of fact. Well, of course, we took this fellow to the picture gallery, and the Aquarium was there, safe enough. Chap went over every square inch of it, muttering about the technique, and the pintamenti, and things of that sort.’

  ‘What about the Stubbs?’

  ‘That doesn’t hang in the gallery, but in a small room opening off it, that we don’t show. I have a fancy for doing my accounts there on a Sunday morning, and it has half-a-dozen things like the Stubbs – things that I’m particularly fond of. So I happen to know that the Stubbs was safe that morning too. And now we move on to Wednesday.’ The Duke turned the page of his diary, with the effect of placidly enjoying his own efficiency. ‘On the Wednesday afternoon a chap called Morgan sought me out in a bit of a dither. Son of my present steward, and a descendant of the fellow holding Goldfish and Silverfish in the picture there. He’s one of the four people regularly employed in taking the half-a-crowners round. Having been brought up about the place he has a good command of the sort of patter they like. Well, he said he thought there was something wrong with the Vermeer. I went up to the gallery at once. It was a dull afternoon, and for a moment I couldn’t myself see that there was anything amiss. Then I tumbled to it. What was in the frame wasn’t the Vermeer at all. It was a colour print – the full-size one I authorized a couple of years ago. And the damned thing – beg pardon, m’dear – was almost indetectable. People had been gaping at it all day as the veritable masterpiece itself. Smart, eh?’

  Judith Appleby picked up her book again. ‘Particularly smart with a Vermeer. No knobbly impasto. Surface like enamel. But what about the Stubbs?’

  ‘They couldn’t play the same trick with that, because it has never been reproduced in any form. And, in fact, it had simply been taken out of its frame, and then off its stretcher.’

  ‘There’s something odd about that.’ Appleby got up and paced about the room. ‘And why wasn’t it missed earlier?’

  ‘I’ve explained that to you. Nobody goes into that little room, except myself on Sunday mornings, and somebody who cleans it on Fridays. The chap who shuts up for the night just glances in.’

  ‘What about that nightwatchman?’

  ‘He flicks on the lights and takes a glance around. But the Stubbs was rather tucked away behind a screen. And, of course, he can’t scrutinize every room in Scamnum. It would take him a week.’

  Appleby nodded. ‘It looks as if the Vermeer was taken by means of an elaborately prepared plan; and as if the Stubbs was a bit of an afterthought by somebody tolerably well acquainted with the habits of the household. It was the last point that made you uneasy, no doubt.’

  ‘Quite so. And that’s pretty well the whole story. But as you’re bound, my dear fellow, to have a lot of questions to ask, I’ll just take a little more of that brandy. My cousin Gervaise has a very good brandy – but, I assure you, nothing like this.’

  ‘I remember the picture gallery very well. It doesn’t offer any hiding-place?’

  ‘Nothing of the sort.’

  ‘But what about that little room opening off it?’

  ‘It’s no more than a cupboard. No possibility there either.’

  ‘Not behind that screen you spoke about?’

  ‘Dear me, no. And remember that lurking intruders are just what the watchman has in mind all the time. The local police set tremendous stress on it. They say nobody breaks into a big house who can just walk in and hide.’

  ‘Clearly they’re right. Do you make a count of the half-crowners as they come and go?’

  ‘We can’t manage that. One of them might very well lurk in the house overnight. But, as I’ve said, not in the picture gallery.’

  ‘About the Aquarium: was its stretcher found too?’

  ‘No. It had gone. And the colour print had simply been glued to the back of the frame.’

  ‘I see.’ Appleby turned to Judith. ‘What about taking a fair-sized painting like that off its stretcher and rol
ling it up?’

  ‘It could be done. But at some risk. Nobody would do it if they could possibly help it.’

  ‘I thought about its being got out of the picture gallery.’ The Duke nodded sagely. ‘And it could be done without rolling it up, simply by feeding it out of a window and having it caught by somebody down below. Because there is one window at the end that is like that – not lattice, just permanent upright bars.’

  ‘Then that’s how it took its departure.’ Appleby had sat down again. ‘Was anything suspicious noticed about any of the visitors during the two or three days when the thing may have happened? I’m afraid it’s rather a vague question.’

  ‘I’ve made inquiries about that.’ The Duke was again pleased with himself. ‘It seems that there was one fellow – he was on his own – who came a couple of days running. It was Morgan again who remembered him. He was lame and had to go around with a stick. Usually, you see, we ask people to leave any sticks or umbrellas behind them when they come in. But this chap, of course, was allowed to hobble round on his. That was what made Morgan notice him both times – the last party on Sunday afternoon, and then one of the first on Monday morning.’

  Appleby nodded. ‘It rather looks as if we’re hot on the scent. Was this chap actually seen to leave on Sunday, or to arrive on the following morning?’

  ‘I gather not. There are tremendous mobs, you know. And Morgan just noticed him each time in the course of his round.’

  ‘He sounds just the man we want. It’s particularly significant that he was lame.’

  ‘Is that so?’ The Duke was impressed. ‘Celebrated limping criminal who steals pictures and is known to the police?’

  ‘Not exactly that. Judith, what’s the size of the Aquarium?’

  ‘It’s one of the few big ones – big, that is, for Vermeer. You might call it five feet by four.’

  ‘Then we may be pretty sure that the colour print entered Scamnum Court done in a roll down that fellow’s trouser leg. He had to be lame, and hobble along with a stiff leg. It’s all clear enough, except how he got into the picture gallery, or managed to spend the night there. Not that there’s more than academic interest in that.’

  ‘But he might do it again.’ The Duke set down the stub of his cigar in alarm. ‘He might take the Rembrandt or the Gainsborough. Except, of course, that I’ve now put in a man to guard the place all night. But it’s a nasty feeling. Unknown secret passages in one’s own house – that sort of thing. But they weren’t a feature of Kent’s building.’

  Appleby shook his head. ‘I don’t think the thief found a secret passage. Have there been any changes in the picture gallery lately in the way of furniture and so on?’

  ‘It’s just as you remember it. Nothing in it at all, except rows of pictures on the walls, and bronzes and marbles in the niches, and a line of those shallow display cabinets, and a useless Louis Quatorze chair in each window. Oh, and there’s the Spanish chest that the nice old boy Leoni sent Anne.’

  ‘Who is Leoni?’

  ‘Good chap. Old Italian family.’ The Duke of Horton, whose own ancestors had appeared from nowhere in the time of Henry VIII, had a great respect for ancient lineage. ‘He was rather awkwardly placed here for a time during the war, and Anne sorted things out. Charming of him to send her this whopping great Spanish chest. Remembered all about Scamnum too. Asked particularly that the thing should stand in the picture gallery, under the Velasquez. Man with fine taste in that sort of thing.’

  ‘When did this chest arrive?’

  ‘About a month ago. Sent from Rome.’

  ‘And the Duchess wrote acknowledging it?’

  ‘Naturally, my dear fellow. She wrote off at once to Leoni, with inquiries about his family and that sort of thing. But she’s had no reply from him so far.’

  ‘Well, I’m blessed.’ Appleby regarded the Duke with astonishment. ‘You remember when the Duchess got up her performance of Hamlet at Scamnum?’

  ‘Never likely to forget it.’ The Duke turned to Judith. ‘Occasion of my meeting your husband for the first time. Shocking things happened – perfectly shocking. But I don’t see–’

  Appleby smiled. ‘I think the Duchess should now have a go at Cymbeline. It might teach her to distrust charming Italians anxious to have large chests deposited in particular apartments.’

  For a moment the Duke stared at Appleby open-mouthed. ‘I quite see what you mean. But dash it all, Leoni–’

  ‘He may know nothing about it. The Duchess has had no reply to her letter of thanks, and the address to which she wrote may well have been a fake one. This chest would hold a man comfortably?’

  ‘I suppose it would. But isn’t this a bit far-fetched, my dear chap? We know positively that the Spanish chest is rather a fine piece. It must be worth three or four hundred pounds. Would anybody–’

  ‘Your Vermeer is worth thirty or forty thousand even in the limited market of mad collectors. And the chest’s being valuable made you feel that your Italian friend had been extremely generous, and that made you the more certain to accept the suggestion that it should be placed in the picture gallery. So there it was, a ready-made hiding place. The lame fellow watched his chance on the Sunday afternoon and nipped inside it. Just like Iachimo, except that he wasn’t positively carried into position by sweating porters. Then he did his job in the small hours, dropped the Aquarium through the window bars to a confederate, took a prowl around and saw that he could safely take the Stubbs for luck, got into the chest again before opening time, and joined the first crowd being shown through in the morning. It could be done easily enough when the half-crowners were being harangued before a picture.’

  ‘But why was he lame the second time?’ It was Judith who asked the question. ‘He’d got rid of the rolled-up print. So there was no need of it.’

  ‘He was still the same chap who had been through the day before – and in the same clothes. If he was recognized, and spotted as walking normally, somebody might begin wondering why. It was all very well thought out.’

  ‘Decidedly so.’ The Duke looked slightly dazed. ‘And the astonishing thing is that you’ve solved the mystery while just sitting there. And, of course, recovered the Stubbs already. If you could just–’

  ‘I’m not without hopes. If the worst comes to the worst, we can work at the thing from the other end. Of course most of the people who will pay big money for stolen masterpieces live in America, and coming up with them would take time. So we must try to put our hands on the Aquarium while it remains in this country. For that, time is important. Tomorrow may be too late. But the Aquarium certainly isn’t very far away at this moment.’

  ‘Certainly?’ Judith looked quickly at her husband. ‘Isn’t that a bit of a guess?’

  ‘It’s a certainty founded on another certainty.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Simply this, my dear. You and I spent some time gazing at Vermeer’s Aquarium only this afternoon.’

  5

  ‘You and Lady Appleby saw the Aquarium?’ The Duke of Horton had jumped to his feet. His agitation was so great that he unconsciously helped himself to another cigar. ‘But you must know the Aquarium.’

  Appleby provided matches. ‘Of course we know it very well. Only, when we saw it, it wasn’t called the Aquarium, and it didn’t look like the Aquarium either. It was called, if I remember rightly, The Fifth and Sixth Days of Creation. Not that it looked like that, any more than it looked like a lot of small fish in a tank. It might just as well have been called Battle of the Bacteria, or Project for a New Satellite Town. But that’s a point of only the most superficial interest.’ Appleby turned to his wife. ‘Do you know, earlier this evening I was worried by a notion that Cadover, quite unwittingly, had said something extremely illuminating about the whole affair? Now I remember what it was. He said about Limbert’s death that suicide was the superficial picture, and that there might be something quite different beneath the surface. It was a quite brilliant sally by hi
s unconscious mind.’

  ‘It didn’t get me back my picture.’ The Duke was suddenly sunk in gloom. ‘And I wish I knew what you were talking about.’

  ‘And I could have bought it. I was offered it.’ Appleby allowed himself for the moment to be more charmed by the fantasy of the thing than was altogether considerate to his bewildered guest. ‘There was Judith’s little man Braunkopf expending all his arts in order to persuade me to buy Vermeer’s Aquarium for something round about two hundred guineas. Either to hang in this drawing-room as a background for Judith’s latest fawn, or to present to the Tate.’

  ‘Present the Aquarium to the Tate?’ Words almost failed the Duke.

  ‘Braunkopf assured me that by doing so I should earn the particular approbation of the royal family. He was still doing his best to close the deal when we turned round and saw that the Aquarium had been stolen.’

  ‘Stolen? But of course it had been stolen!’

  ‘Stolen all over again, sir. Or perhaps one should say restolen.’

  ‘I must say, my dear chap, that you seem in dashed good spirits about this… Thank you, m’dear.’ The Duke acknowledged Judith’s politic pouring out of a further supply of brandy. ‘I hope there’s something in it to be pleased about.’

  ‘I think there is.’ Appleby spoke soberly again. ‘You see thanks to the link provided by Limbert’s possession of the Stubbs, we already know much more about the fortunes of the Vermeer than we could reasonably have hoped for at this stage. It has been disguised as another picture. That would be technically possible, Judith?’

  ‘Certainly. It would be the best thing to do. Any competent painter would know how to put down a plain ground, which would protect the surface absolutely, and then paint anything that took his fancy. If the picture was then to be smuggled out of the country, a skin of fresh canvas would be put on the back, and the stretcher faked up a bit where necessary. The fraud would then defy all but the most expert examination. And it wouldn’t be likely to get that. Americans are constantly buying modern paintings and carting them out of Europe.’