Money from Holme (11 page)

Cheel completed his transaction with a threepenny bit. What had prompted this expenditure was a scrawled poster that had caught his eye as he drove. It read:

USHIROMBO

FOR

LONDON

Cheel scanned the front page. Yes, the news from Wamba was given some prominence. The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations had invited Professor Ushirombo to pay a visit and he would almost certainly do so. The political stability of Wamba was now such that its Prime Minister could leave the government of the country with perfect confidence to his senior ministers. Informed circles in Wamba-Wamba inclined to the view that JUMBO – the terrorist organization of the fanatical ‘Emperor’ Mkaka – had virtually disintegrated. The standard of living was advancing rapidly. During his stay in London Professor Ushirombo would meet leading industrialists and discuss with them various plans for economic development. But it was also known that – as might be expected of one with his background in education – he was particularly anxious to arrange for cultural exchanges. The Wamba Male Choir was definitely coming to Britain. It was not impossible that the Wamba State Ballet might come as well.

Cheel read this with satisfaction. He was all for Ushirombo settling in as chief boss of the Wamba for keeps. But the paper, it seemed, had more to say. The column ended with:

Wamba-Wamba Diary. See p. 6.

Glancing at his watch, Cheel made to drive on. Then he remembered that he was now among those by whom others expect to be kept waiting. So he turned to p. 6. That was another thing about sitting in a car like this. The police jolly well knew to what class (or perhaps it should be called income-group) one belonged. There was no unmannerly intrusion of helmeted heads or talk about No Waiting. Here again England showed itself to be as sound as a bell.

Wamba-Wamba Diary ran to a couple of columns. The diarist was Our African Correspondent. He seemed to like the place very much. A sub-editor had emphasized its general jollity with appropriate captions. There was
Wamba Women Go Gay
, which was about a pilgrim from Detroit opening a Strip-Tease Club. There was
Urgent Penal Reform
, from which it appeared that Professor Ushirombo was building a large new prison. There was
Top Raphael for Wamba World Fair?
– announcing that the Professor had some thought of borrowing the Madonna di Foligno from the Pope. And there was
Nijinsky Eclipsed
, a stiffly statistical bit about just how high the male dancers of the Wamba State Ballet could leap vertically in the air – and this while continuing to wave their clubs and spears vigorously above their heads. Finally there was a paragraph about an Englishman called Wutherspoon who, although formerly a pillar of the old colonial order, had become a close personal friend of Professor Ushirombo. Wutherspoon, who had lately left Wamba for England and well-earned retirement, might be expected to be a mine of information about the new Member of the Commonwealth.

Cheel finished Wamba-Wamba Diary in a spirit of tolerant amusement. It was all to the good that the outlandish place should thus be going on the map, since it would give collectors (the most moronic of mortals) a muzzy sense that, in investing in a chunk of Wamba jungle as painted by Sebastian Holme, they were at the same time in on the ground floor of an expanding economy. The corpulent man, for instance – to whom he had owed what champagne he got at the Holme Exhibition – the corpulent man had a mind that would move in precisely that way.

But more corpulent men were needed
. Cheel stuffed away his newspaper and – before letting his car glide imperceptibly into rapid motion – soberly considered this problem. His present mission was tied up with it.

The governing fact, of course, was that things had been going remarkably well. Sebastian Holme was indeed painting like an angel – and, for that matter, like a demon into the bargain. There was something uncanny about the manner in which, in a dingy North London attic, he could conjure up before his inward eye the minute particularities of an exotic landscape, or the precise complementaries lurking in the shadow cast by some ebony savage. And the job had absorbed him from the first, and was continuing to absorb him. Contrary to Cheel’s expectations, Holme had been simply no trouble at all. It was true that he had at first considerably inconvenienced his discoverer by insisting on appropriating his living-quarters as he had. But now, of course, Cheel was able to do considerably better for himself. This was something that Holme might quite reasonably have felt as applying to himself too. Yet nothing of the sort had happened. The odd chap seemed perfectly content with the shabby attic. Indeed – so far as Cheel’s knowledge went – he hadn’t once ventured out of it. Although he had grown his beard again, he hadn’t again in any effective way become Gregory Holme, except in the matter of having written out and handed to Cheel a single cheque representing the balance of what had lain in Gregory’s account.

This was all beautifully as it should be. Initially, indeed, Cheel had viewed it with some alarm. Holme (although, when visited, occasionally sulky or rude) gave the effect of having disappeared as a person altogether. What inhabited Cheel’s former domain was no more than a preternaturally sensitive machine for turning stretches of canvas and tubes of paint into glowing evocations of things Cheel himself had never set eyes on. It was a set-up that appeared a little too good to be true, and at first Cheel had been apprehensively on his guard against the irruption, through this dedicated artist, of what might be called the diurnal man – the man, for instance, who had married Hedda, and who had enjoyed the favours of Professor Ushirombo’s lady after having locked up the Professor himself in a place of peculiar indignity. But for weeks there had been no sign of anything of the sort. Cheel’s anxieties had therefore abated. It looked as if money from Holme was just that.

It was the painter’s blameless industry, indeed, that was creating a problem for Cheel now. Holme’s first two re-creatings of Wamba pictures – ‘Mourning Dance with Torches’ and ‘Fishing Cats at Pool’ – had been achieved with astonishing speed. And Cheel had managed to sell them equally promptly: hence his present prosperity. It was clear that the Wamba catalogue, together with a colourful story about how just two or three of the pictures listed in it had been saved, would provide a perfectly respectable provenance for more than a score of further efforts on Holme’s part. And moreover – provided the things were unloaded quietly enough as they became available – there was no reason why the sort of prices that had been obtained by Braunkopf should not be maintained and even surpassed.

There was, however, a real problem. Cheel’s direct access either to individuals or to institutions likely to pay the right price for a Sebastian Holme was somewhat restricted – surprisingly so, he reflected, in the light of his acknowledged eminence as a critic. It was undeniable that the unfortunate misunderstanding over the Nicolaes de Staël still hung about the fringes of people’s minds. This was awkward in itself. So was the fact that he could point to no genuine connexion with Holme during what the world thought of as Holme’s lifetime. Although it was credible, therefore, that one or two of Holme’s supposedly destroyed pictures should have come his way, suspicion would almost certainly be aroused if it became known that he appeared to enjoy a corner in the things. Some years before, and purely as a matter of disinterested intellectual pursuit, he had made a rather careful study of the conditions and mechanics of the forger’s craft in the sphere of painting. It had been his conclusion that much the most tricky part of the business was the choosing of the channel or channels by which the products were fed into the market. Anything like a bottle-neck was dangerous; except in certain very special circumstances, the things should bear the appearance of coming from here, there and everywhere.

But there was something of a special circumstance in this case. A single dealer had lately exhibited and marketed almost the entire
oeuvre
of Sebastian Holme as it was known to exist. And these were all unchallengeable. if further pictures began quietly to appear, far the best person to find unquestioning purchasers for them would be the proprietor of the Da Vinci Gallery. That was why Cheel – thus impressively turned out in his very grand car – was on his way to see Hildebert Braunkopf now.

There were risks: Braunkopf’s association with Hedda Holme was one of these – and it was difficult to tell whether it was increased or lessened by the fact that Hedda so plainly didn’t trust him. There was a possible financial disadvantageousness; Braunkopf was avaricious (a trait Cheel detested) and might try to strike the same outrageous sort of bargain that he had struck with the artist’s supposed widow. There were also some uncomfortably large imponderables; for example, Cheel wasn’t quite sure just what degree of dishonesty (to put the matter with impossible crudeness) Braunkopf would regard as all in the day’s work. But of course he wasn’t going to trust Braunkopf with the truth – or not until he was very sure of his ground.

All in all, Mervyn Cheel felt very pleasantly on top of things. Gliding smoothly down Piccadilly, he took leisure to consider the amenities around him, and to plan the rest of the day for himself once Braunkopf had been disposed of. He might drive on to Savile Row, and amuse himself by charitably renewing relations with a tailor who had behaved rather tiresomely about a bill some years before. Then there was Burlington House; one could park with considerable
éclat
in the courtyard there, and while away an hour amid the absurdities on view at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition. The outrageous Rumbelow, he remembered, had more of his dotages on display. He owed Rumbelow something. Perhaps an inspection of his latest rubbish might prompt him to a fresh witticism or two which could be given currency as soon as the Holme enterprise had become so lucrative as to afford Cheel a safe and agreeable retreat on the continent. But that was for the future. At the moment, he need consider no more than a pleasant conclusion to what was going to prove, he felt, a thoroughly propitious day. He was now cruising past Green Park Station. The Ritz was on his right and the Berkeley on his left. His tastes, he reflected, although refined, were very simple, after all. At one or other of these modest places he could pick up a very tolerable evening meal.

As the Rolls drew up before the Da Vinci Gallery the door of that establishment opened, and its proprietor appeared, beaming. It was evident that some system obtained whereby he was instantly apprised of the advent of anything so promising. Braunkopf paused, however, in somewhat unflattering surprise when he became aware of the car’s occupant.

‘Ah,’ he exclaimed, ‘the goot–’ He checked himself. ‘Ah,’ he amended, ‘my dear Mr Cheel!’ He held out his pudgy hand. ‘Vot privileges, yes?’ He was peering into the interior of the vehicle. ‘There is a lady, no?’

‘A lady?’ Descending to the pavement, Cheel repeated this in surprise. ‘Certainly there isn’t a lady.’

‘No lady.’ Braunkopf seemed disappointed. ‘Sometimes, when there is sudden affluences, a lady is the explosion.’ He looked appraisingly at Cheel. ‘But, no, you have not the physicals for what I have in brain, yes? So there is some other explosion. Perhaps you have won on the Ponds.’

Cheel was wholly displeased by these remarks. It was mortifying to be considered in the light of a failed gigolo, and even more mortifying to be credited with the plebeian practice of filling up football coupons. He refrained, however, from comment, and took a quick look at the exterior of the Da Vinci instead. Its window had been relined with a richly sombre and indubitably ancient brocade. There was now a fine steel mesh against the inner surface of the glass. And this was a reasonable precaution. The only object visible in the window was a figure in greenish wax, about six inches high. Cheel had no difficulty in identifying it. The piece of sculpture for which it was a maquette was to be found perched above the tomb of the Duke of Nemours in the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo in Florence.

‘Is that really by Michelangelo?’ Cheel asked – and noted with satisfaction that he had managed to say something insulting to Braunkopf in his turn.

‘Most puttikler authentink
chef-d’oeuvre
of Buonarroti straight from Firenze, Mr Cheel.’

‘Straight from Florence? Well, well! Perhaps you picked it up in a little shop on the
Ponte
Vecchio
?’

‘The piece has been purchased by a representation of the Da Vinci Gallery.’ Braunkopf spoke with dignity. ‘Our special representation in Firenze made this purchasings private collection a nobleman resident in the city.’

‘I know some of these people, naturally. What’s your nobleman’s name?’

‘Medici,’ Braunkopf said firmly. ‘The Marchese Lorenzo di Medici. Or possibilities the Conte Cosimo di Medici. No doubtings, Mr Cheel, you know them both.’

‘Most interesting.’ Cheel flattered himself that he turned an urbane face to this impertinent nonsense. ‘And now, I think, I’ll come inside. I’ve something to talk about.’

‘Vot privileges!’ Braunkopf murmured once more. Although he was not on this occasion sporting a gardenia, his attire – Cheel, noticed – still struck an Edwardian note of sober richness and vulgarity nicely blended. ‘Vot a happiness!’ Braunkopf added for good measure, and led the way inside.

The Da Vinci itself was transformed. The plushy settees had been re-plushed, and were now keeping company with a number of French pieces which Cheel at a glance admitted to be genuine. There were pictures only sparely on the walls, and none of them was modern. The only modern picture in evidence, indeed, was an early Braque, and this appeared to be in rather careless use as a fire-screen. All the others were Italian, and few of their painters seemed to have lived beyond the threshold of the
quattrocento
. ‘Buonamico di Cristofano,
detto
Buffalmacco,’ Cheel read on the first label. ‘Giovanni da Santo Stefano a Ponte.’ ‘Gherardo di Jacopo Starnina.’ ‘Parri di Spinello Spinelli.’ A lot of the names seemed to be longer than the pictures they accompanied were broad, and the total effect was eminently decorous and impressively arcane. Braunkopf was now demonstrably after a stratum of collectors totally different from the people who buy things to impress each other with when hung in yachts tied up in Menton or Cannes. Probably – Cheel thought – not such quick money by a long way. In the long term, this more austere policy might pay off richly enough. Meanwhile, it seemed possible that Braunkopf was hazardously extending himself on the financial side. Which was very much all to the good.