Money from Holme (12 page)

Braunkopf led the way into his inner sanctum. It now contained nothing but a plain olive-wood table and two forbiddingly uncomfortable medieval chairs. The walls were bare. But in the middle of the room was a richly draped easel, on which stood a small picture, glowing under a discreet spotlight. Cheel walked up to it – principally because this seemed to be what Braunkopf expected him to do.

‘Good Lord!’ Cheel was really surprised. Here too was an early Italian work. But this time it was Venetian – and very delicious. St George’s horse contrived to be at once chunky and improbably curvilinear; St George himself – who seemed to be about twelve – was spearing a dragon that looked like a lavishly bejewelled starfish; the lady – behind whom was the most exquisite little town – was making a gesture of mild deprecation and surprise. ‘Montorfano?’ Cheel asked. ‘There’s something like it in the Martinengo at Brescia.’

‘Quirico da Murano, Mr Cheel.’ Braunkopf made this correction with a lofty courtesy. ‘Acquired from Cardinal Borgia. And this veek’s authentink Braunkopf. Always on this easel – yes? – the authentink Braunkopf painting of the veek. And in the vindow, the authentink Braunkopf sculpture of the veek.’

‘So the Michelangelo’s an authentic Braunkopf too?’

‘Puttikler so, Mr Cheel.’ Braunkopf made a large gesture towards one of the bone-jarring chairs. ‘Please take place,’ he said amiably. ‘A glass of dry Madeira, no?’ He touched a muted bell.

Cheel allowed himself to be provided with the refreshment suggested. There were some small, dry biscuits too. It was all very remote from the Sebastian Holme Private View: the crush, the urgent youthful pictures, the champagne. A slight uneasiness (unworthy of a general initiating a bold strategic conception) beset Cheel. Braunkopf continued to be a ridiculous person – but it wasn’t quite clear that Cheel had precisely taken the measure of him. Probably a direct attack would be best.

‘What I’ve come in about,’ Cheel said, ‘is Sebastian Holme.’

‘Holme?
Sebastian
Holme?’ Braunkopf appeared to make a slight effort of memory. ‘Ah, yes – but of course. A young man with so much of the promisings. So far as any of the moderns has promisings, no? You and I, my dear and goot Mr Cheel, have the understanding of the great classical traditions, yes? But Holme was goot. Yes, Holme was quite goot. And the little posthumous show here in the Da Vinci: that we can be arrogant of. We secured provisions for his wife in her aggrievement. Yes, we take the modest arrogance in that.’

‘No doubt.’ Cheel thought as poorly of these sentiments as he did of Braunkopf’s command of his Sovereign’s English. ‘I suppose you’ve heard that more Holmes have been turning up?’

‘More Holmes?’ Braunkopf looked mildly surprised. ‘More brothers? More aggrieved wives?’

‘You know very well I mean nothing of the sort. More of Sebastian Holme’s pictures. They weren’t destroyed in that revolution, or riot, or whatever it was. I mean, not all of them were. The stuff you printed in your catalogue was all my eye and Betty Martin.’

‘Betty Martin?’ This homely locution was beyond Braunkopf. ‘A mistress, yes?’

‘I mean that you pretty well made it up – or got somebody else to make it up. I have my ear to the ground, you know. And I’ve heard that a couple of the Wamba pictures have turned up. And there are others that
can
turn up. In fact I can probably lay my hands on them myself.’

‘This is very great nonsenses, Mr Cheel.’ Braunkopf made a careless gesture – but Cheel was encouraged to see that his eyes had a little narrowed in his puffy face. ‘It is the English jokings, I think. Ha-ha-ha, yes?’

‘You must know that his wife believes that the things survived? I’d be surprised to hear that she didn’t accuse you of sitting on them.’

‘Mrs Holme is an endeavouring person – a most puttikler endeavouring person. I was glad when our association termited.’

‘I can well believe it. But, you know, you can be a little trying yourself. This game of treating Holme as something inconsiderable in a dim past. Come off it, Braunkopf.’

‘Come off it?’ Braunkopf, who had seated himself on the second of the impossible chairs, rose and peered at the hard wooden surface thus revealed. ‘This is more jokings, yes? This is the japes, no?’

‘There’s no joking about it. Would you like to see No. 18?’

Braunkopf, who had sat down again, reached out and returned the stopper to the decanter of Madeira. He might have been indicating that no further refreshment would be provided in return for enigmatical talk of this character.

‘You know,’ Cheel went on, ‘that there was a printed catalogue of that exhibition in the Wamba Palace Hotel? In fact, you’ve no doubt seen a copy?’

‘Mrs Holme’s.’ Braunkopf nodded, perhaps a shade unwarily. ‘Natchally, I had it copied for myself.’

‘Very good. Have a look at No. 18, and you’ll find it’s called “Clouded Leopards Playing”. And the dimensions are given in inches. 39
3
/
8
by 21½. Slightly odd proportions – but Holme made a notable thing of them. And – as I say – the picture’s now in my car.’

‘Your
car, Mr Cheel?’ Braunkopf managed something of a come-back with this emphasis.

‘My car.’

‘In fack you already been selling one two more Holmes, yes?’

‘Ah – that is confidentials, my goot Mr Braunkopf.’

This witticism – surprisingly ill-bred in a man of Cheel’s polished manners – did not appear to disturb Braunkopf. Perhaps he was unaware of it. But at least he again took the stopper out of the decanter.

‘If you could sell one two more Holmes,’ he said almost musingly, ‘you could sell three four. But you could not sell ten twenty. That why you come here.’

‘Precisely.’ Cheel spoke as a candid man boldly laying his cards on the table.

‘It deserves the considerings.’ Braunkopf made an acquiescent gesture. ‘So bring in your leopards.’

With proper dignity, Cheel produced a key from his waistcoat pocket. ‘It’s on the back seat,’ he said. ‘One of your people can fetch it.’

‘But of course,’ Cheel said ten minutes later, ‘you have to consider the possibility of its being a forgery.’ He stepped back from ‘Clouded Leopards Playing’ as if a more synoptic view might assist his own mind to greater clarity on this point. ‘Particularly as I’m not able, at this stage, to say very much more. To a certain extent, I must consider myself under instructions. There are principals in the affair.’

‘The Da Vinci, Mr Cheel, always insists on the goot principles. It is a puttikler ethical concern.’

‘I mean persons for whom I am acting. The whole operation, of course, would have to be kept as confidential as possible. That would be in your interest, acting as my agent. If it became known that a large number of further Holmes were coming on the market, prices would drop at once.’

‘They will drop in any cases, Mr Cheel.’ Braunkopf shook his head despondently. ‘Holme was a vogue, yes? You must not have the expectings of high prices, if I handle this. Sales – perhaps. The big moneys – no.’

‘That remains to be examined.’ Cheel smiled indulgently at this primitive guile. ‘But there is, you know, the prior question which I’ve just mentioned. The paintings’ – he gestured towards the leopards – ‘may be forgeries. And this one for a start. Consider.’ He raised a hand as if to forestall some over-facile denial of this on Braunkopf’s part. ‘When an artist dies young, and his work is scarce and in great demand, there will always exist a strong motive–’

‘Nonsenses!’ Braunkopf, who had been peering into the canvas with a ferocious concentration uncharacteristic of him, pronounced this emphatically. ‘It is by Holme. It is No. 18. It is the “Clouded Leopards Playing”, without any doubtings at all.’

‘Mightn’t it be wise to have another opinion – confidentially, of course? There are one or two people who could make a fairly reliable expertise.’

‘I make my own expertises, my goot Mr Cheel. And this is an authentink Sebastian Holme.’

‘Very well. We have only to discuss terms, and it can become an authentic Braunkopf, as you like to say, as well.’

Braunkopf shook his head. He rose, walked over to the easel, and appeared sombrely to contemplate the authentic Braunkopf of the week. Quirico da Murano, he might have been reflecting, stood for a sort of higher reputability in the art-dealing world from which he would be reluctant to see the Da Vinci Gallery retreat upon the dubious courses proposed by this visitor. And Cheel once more felt misgivings. Was it possible, he wondered, that Braunkopf was as passing honest as Providence has made it possible for a picture dealer to be? What if the man were to pick up his telephone and call the police? Or what if he at once communicated to Hedda Holme the fact that her suspicions about the Wamba pictures appeared to have had substance after all? These were disturbing speculations. Cheel waited in some suspense.

‘Mrs Holme,’ Braunkopf said – so that Cheel jumped. ‘We are to make no divulgings to her, no?’

‘Definitely not.’ Cheel spoke with emphasis – and with relief. The crucial corner, he felt, had been turned. Braunkopf was coming in.

‘But she would hear of such dealings, no? Already she has those suspectings – and she has freunts, my goot Cheel, the great vorlt of art. Once twice we might keep a deal dark – but third fourth time the cat would be in the bag.’ Braunkopf nodded impressively. ‘The cat would be in the bag, and there would be a pretty kettle of hornets. You are suggesting the impossibles.’

‘You think she would claim the pictures? It’s conceivable, no doubt.’ Cheel advanced this in a judicial manner. ‘But she’d make no headway, you know. Possession is enormously important in such cases. The whole onus would be on her to make out a case. The pictures have been marketable commodities from the moment Holme finished painting them. And he was out there in Wamba and his wife was here in England. She just couldn’t prove a thing.’

‘But, Mr Cheel, there is the justices.’

‘The justices?’ Cheel was puzzled. ‘You mean judges and magistrates and so forth?’

‘The justices and the honesties and the avoiding of all defraudings.’ Braunkopf looked more sombre than ever, so that Cheel’s heart sank again. ‘You must not disremember the puttikler high ethical–’

‘Yes, yes – of course.’ Cheel was impatient and rash. ‘But I assure you the woman has no title to the things. There’s a document to prove it. Her case wouldn’t last a day.’

‘A document?’ Braunkopf’s eyes had narrowed. ‘That is better, yes – much better. The getting down to copper nails, no?’

‘Precisely so.’ This one had taken Cheel only a moment. ‘As I explained to you, my instructions don’t allow of my being very specific about the whole course of events that has brought the Wamba paintings, quite unharmed, to England. But this document is another matter. Sebastian Holme, you see, sold the lot. And I have the receipt he gave for the money.’

There was a pregnant silence. Braunkopf, who was still on his feet, employed them to transport him with an unnerving noiselessness two or three times up and down the room. He had a waddling motion, Cheel decided, that would make the fortune of a simple mechanical toy.

‘The plot sickens, my goot Cheel.’ Braunkopf had oscillated to a halt again. ‘To just what person, now, would Holme have sold all those pictures? Or perhaps’ – he spoke with distinguishable irony – ‘that is all confidentials too?’

‘Not at all.’ Cheel replied confidently. He was extemporizing now – which was of course hazardous and undesirable. He should have thought out this particular ground more carefully beforehand. It hadn’t occurred to him that Braunkopf, with the prospect of big money before him, would be quite so wary. But his own confidence had ceased to flicker. He had only to go straight ahead. ‘Not at all,’ he repeated. ‘Kabongo is the name. A wealthy citizen.’

‘Some puttikler person called Kabongo bought all those pictures?’

‘Just so. A supporter of Mbulu and the RIP, I gather. Holme, you remember, had some idea of arranging his work in an exhibition in honour of Ushirombo. Kabongo paid up simply to put a spoke in that wheel, as you might say. And then, of course, there was the false story of their all having been burnt in the hotel, and so on. It’s complicated and obscure – as Mrs Holme would find to her cost if she started an action.’

‘You met this Kabongo, Mr Cheel?’

‘No, no – nothing of the kind. In fact, Kabongo perished.’

‘Perished?’

‘When the Wamba State Ballet got a little out of hand. The company was very pro-Ushiombo, you know. To speak quite confidentially, the
prima ballerina
had been Ushirombo’s mistress. He’s a great favourer of the arts.’

‘And this perisher Kabongo, Mr Cheel, conveyed the paintings lawfully to another party?’

‘Well, that’s where the record turns obscure – and confidential, as I said. The point is that they passed out of Holme’s estate.’

‘It is a point, yes.’ Braunkopf considered. ‘And the moneys? Just what did Mr Kabongo pay?’

‘Two hundred pounds.’

‘Two hundert pounts!’ Over Braunkopf’s face there passed a fleeting expression of pain. Cheel was uncertain whether this was occasioned by the paucity of the sum named or the indifferent plausibility of his whole recital. And now Braunkopf was stretching out the crudely articulated chunk of dough that served him as a hand. ‘The receipt,’ he said. ‘It requires the careful inspectings, yes? This time, an expertise will be correk. By an authoritarian on handwriting, no?’

‘Oh, most certainly.’ Involuntarily, Cheel had backed away. ‘But I don’t carry the thing about with me, of course. It’s much too vital a document for that. Naturally, I’ve lodged it at my bank.’

‘We go there now.’ Braunkopf appeared to look round for his hat and coat. ‘At the Da Vinci, my goot Cheel, we strike while the iron is ripe. Always we cut the grass from under our feet damn-quick.’

‘The bank will be shut by now.’ This assertion, at least, was unchallengeable, and Cheel was thankful for it. The receipt for £200 given to Mr Kabongo did not, at present, exist – any more than Mr Kabongo, for that matter, had ever existed. But that didn’t signify in the least. He knew just where, within a few hours, he could have a little writing-paper printed with the apparent letter-head of the Wamba Palace Hotel. Moreover at one of those shops where moronic persons buy foreign stamps to stick in albums he could probably pick up something that would lend further verisimilitude to a document. And the late Sebastian Holme, fortunately, was available to sign anything of the sort at any time. ‘You must see it, of course,’ he said lightly. ‘And have it examined by an expert, side by side with known writing of Holme’s, if you think it desirable. Probably you’re right. Yes, I’ll drop in with it some time.’