The Hogarth Conspiracy (28 page)

Now his plan was coming unstuck, and anger flickered beneath his impenetrable exterior. “We
have
to obtain this painting.”

“I know. I
do
know,” Oliver agreed emphatically, glancing over at the family photograph on his desk. His imminent dishonesty shamed him, but Lim Chang's discomfort hardly ranked alongside his own inherited responsibility to the secret of the royal bastard or the future security of his family. Besides, the Chinese man's record was far from impeccable; he had had many guilty dealings in his past, many ruthless deals. Would it be so unforgivable to cheat him to regain what was, after all, his own property?

Afraid that his intentions would show on his face, Oliver kept gazing at his family photograph. He had had no other means of finding the Hogarth, he told himself; he had been forced to use the Chinese dealer. And it had worked; the painting had been found. All that remained was to raise half a million pounds and the painting would be back in his possession. He needed Lim Chang to get the picture, and Lim Chang needed him to supply the funds. They needed each other, and both resented it.

Oliver vowed to himself that no matter what happened, Chang would not get the Hogarth. He didn't know how much the man knew about the history of the work, but to have the royal family in any way besmirched was intolerable. Or worse, if the surviving descendant was found and exposed … Oliver swallowed, barely able to contemplate such a catastrophe, but one thing was certain: he
could not
fail. All he had to do was somehow raise or borrow half a million pounds.

“I'll get the money,” he said at last, raising his head. “Did you see the Hogarth?”

“Yes,” Lim Chang replied. “And it's genuine. I would bet my life on it.”

“Do the people who have it … Do they know what they have?”

“No,” Lim Chang said curtly, “but they know it's valuable; nothing more than that.”

“So no other dealers have seen it?”

Lim Chang shook his head. “None.”

“Then we know what we have to do,” Oliver replied, standing up to indicate that the meeting was over.

He did not extend his hand; his conscience at least prevented that. Instead, he showed Lim Chang to the door and out into the Burlington Arcade. Deep in thought, Oliver was still staring ahead when his secretary interrupted him.

“You're about to have another visitor, sir.”

Surprised, he stared at her. “I made no appointments.”

“I know, but the gentleman said he wanted to talk to you about a Hogarth painting because you were one of the best dealers in English art in London. I told him that you were in a meeting, and he said he would call back in half an hour.” She glanced at her watch. “He should be here any time now.”

Taken aback, Oliver stared into the secretary's pretty face. “Did he give you a name?”

“Mr. Victor Ballam.”

The name caught Oliver off guard. So much so that for an instant he was uncertain how to react. Then he nodded and walked toward his office. He paused at the door, turning back to his secretary.

“
Victor Ballam?
”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see. Well, when he comes back, show him in, will you, and we'll have some coffee, please. Oh, and Margaret, don't disturb us and don't put through any calls while Mr. Ballam is here.”

Thirty-Six

B
ACK AT HIS DESK,
O
LIVER PICKED UP HIS PEN AND ROTATED IT IDLY,
thinking about his imminent visitor. A man who had come into the art world like a pistol shot, catching everyone off guard. A glamorous, attractive man with a quick mind, a connoisseur's taste, and a dealer's skill. Brave, occasionally reckless, but smart enough not to overreach himself too soon. Victor Ballam had had a background in advertising, and fellow dealers initially had sneered at his confidence, but his talent was soon obvious to all, attracting admiration and envy in equal measure. By the time Victor had worked in Dover Street for eighteen months, he had been poached by a gallery in Cork Street and feted for his unerring, almost uncanny predictions on the market.

He had been one of the few who had sensed the first struggles of Britart and spotted the growing appreciation of Russian and African painting. As cunning as a market trader, Victor allied his skill to a God-given instinct for art. The self-taught upstart outsider was viewed with awe as his fortunes rose faster than a helium balloon. No private view was complete without the dark-haired figure of Victor Ballam. No gallery opening was a success without his presence. And he wore his success well. Another man would have become arrogant, pompous; Victor did not. He defended what he believed in and stood his ground, but he was easy to deal with. Within another year he had become a partner in the Cork Street gallery. He was wanted and accepted, one of the few outsiders to have penetrated and impressed the art world.

But for all his predictive skills, thought Oliver, still twisting the pen in his fingers, Victor Ballam had not foreseen his own downfall. When he was charged with fraud, Oliver had been the only person to speak out in his defense. To no avail. When Victor was sentenced, his fallen star left a crater so deep that it buried him for years in Long Lartin.

“Sir Oliver?”

He looked up to see his secretary in the doorway.

“Mr. Ballam is here now.”

“Show him in, Margaret,” said Oliver, watching as the familiar figure entered the room. Familiar but different. Victor Ballam was older, of course, but his carefree charm had been tested and it was a noticeably more chary individual who sat down in the proffered seat. Waiting until Margaret had brought in the coffee and left the office, Oliver finally spoke.

“It's good to see you after so long, Victor.” He paused, his manners serving him well. “Are you working back in London?”

“Not in the gallery. That option's closed to me now. I'm doing some investigative work.”

“Indeed.” Oliver sipped his coffee. “In this area?”

Victor smiled, trying to ease the tension.

“I'm sorry to just turn up like this, Sir Oliver. It's good of you to see me. Most dealers would have shown me the door.”

“Most dealers were very jealous of you,” Oliver said honestly. “I always liked you.”

Unaccountably pleased, Victor smiled again. “I learned a lot from you.”

“Maybe, but I'm old school, while you were the bright new hope. I'm sorry; I shouldn't have used the past tense.”

Victor shrugged. “We both know I'm finished as a dealer. My reputation's ruined. Now I could uncover a new Van Gogh and everyone would swear I'd stolen it.” He paused. “But when I was in trouble, you spoke up for me. You didn't have to do that. I owe you.”

“You don't owe me anything.”

“Don't you want to know what happened?”

“No,” Oliver said simply, shaking his head. “If you didn't do it, no amount of my sympathy will make it hurt a jot less. If you did do it, then you've paid for it. Not just by your sentence but by being in the position you are in now.”

He wanted to say more but kept his counsel. He never believed that Victor would have deliberately dealt in fakes. It would have been too clumsy, too crude for him. And besides, why would he have threatened a career that was progressing so well? Other dealers might say that Victor Ballam had dealt in forgeries because he was greedy for the money, but Oliver had never believed that.
They
might have been greedy, but Victor? No; greed had never been one of his vices.

Instead, Oliver Peters had long believed that Victor had been stopped deliberately. But why? The answer was obvious. His ascent had been too fast, too glittering, for some of the art world grandees. He was too ripe for the age: photogenic, media-savvy, always the first to be called on for a sound bite when some sale hit the news. And he was incorruptible, brave enough to speak out about some of the less savory aspects of the art business. He made speeches. He made points. And he made enemies.

But there could be no murder, no dramatic disappearance. Victor Ballam had to be silenced by being disgraced. And what better fall from grace for the whiter-than-white dealer than to be exposed as a fraud? At his trial, people derided Victor's hypocrisy, his hubris, and he got three-plus years in jail. The art world could have tolerated his success, but his judgment of them? Never.

“I didn't believe that you did it,” Oliver said. “I want you to know that. I think you were set up.”

Victor nodded. “I know I was.”

“You know who did it?”

“No. Do you?”

“No; I would have told you.”

A moment passed between them.

“It was unjust.”

Oliver didn't miss a beat. “Many things are in life.”

Victor held his gaze. Among all the dealers, he had always sought Sir Oliver Peters's respect. And now, as he looked at him and saw the signs of illness, he felt a debt of honor he wanted to repay. If he
was
involved in anything dangerous, Victor wanted to protect him.

“I've been hired to investigate what happened to a call girl called Marian Miller. Just before her death she'd been traveling on Bernie Freeland's jet.”

Oliver leaned back in his seat, cautious. “You know I was also a passenger on that flight?”

“Yes. That's why I'm here. I'm talking to everyone who was involved. Did you know that Bernie Freeland was killed in New York?”

“Yes.”

“And that Kit Wilkes has been admitted to the hospital with a drug overdose?”

“I heard about that too. A tragedy,” Oliver said. “I have to be honest with you: I don't really socialize with Mr. Wilkes; we move in different circles. Of course I know of him as a dealer, but we've never worked together.”

Victor hesitated for an instant before continuing.

“One of the other girls who were on that flight is now missing. And another's been murdered in New York.”

Shaken, Oliver reached for his coffee cup and took a long drink. Victor could see the shock on his features, the twitch of a muscle in his left cheek.

“I'm sorry to have to tell you all this,” Victor went on, “and I'm relying on your discretion.”

“Yes, yes; that goes without saying.”

“It's unlikely to be coincidence that so many of the passengers are now dead.”

“Kit Wilkes is still alive.”

“Yes, but his condition's critical. Bernie Freeland's dead. Marian Miller's dead. And now Annette Dvorski's been murdered.”

“Good God.”

Victor held Oliver's glance. “I was surprised to hear that you'd been on that plane.”

“My scheduled flight was canceled and I wanted to get home, so Bernie Freeland offered me a lift. We'd all attended an auction in Hong Kong.”

“You, Bernie Freeland, Lim Chang, and Kit Wilkes?”

Oliver nodded, but he was uneasy, wondering what else Victor was going to say. Why he was in his office, talking about dead passengers. So many dead passengers.

“Apparently there was mention of a painting, a lost Hogarth,” Victor began. “Did Bernie Freeland talk to you about it?”

Oliver fielded the question.

“I was out of place, uncomfortable. As you say, there were call girls on the jet. Bernie Freeland was a brash character, and he lived in a way that was alien to me. Most of the time I was regretting accepting the lift and just wanted to get home.”

“But you two talked during the flight?”

“Bernie Freeland's drink was spiked,” Oliver replied, on the defensive. “He wasn't making much sense.”

“But he
did
mention the Hogarth, didn't he?”

Oliver winced.

“He did say something, but I dismissed it out of hand. All the paintings of
The Harlot's Progress
were destroyed by fire a long time ago.” Oliver laced his fingers together, almost as though to contain the cat's cradle of lies he had begun to spin. “You were in the art business, Victor; you know it runs on stories. There's always talk of a new Raphael, a suddenly discovered Michelangelo—usually that tiresome cherub he was supposed to have faked.”

“But
this
painting was special, important—and dangerous,” Victor said carefully, catching a brief flicker crossing Oliver Peters's face. He knew the story and suspected that the man facing him knew it too even if he wasn't about to admit it.

“Dangerous?”

“It's supposed to depict the Prince of Wales and Polly Gunnell, his whore who bore him a bastard son.”

“Oh, that old rumor,” Oliver said smoothly, flicking the words away with his hand. “A rumor isn't a fact.”

“Well, someone's taking it very seriously. I've already been threatened. Someone warned me off as soon as I got involved in this case.”

Oliver's mind was working overtime.
Who knew that the Hogarth was missing?
He had prayed that the fact would remain secret until he could recover the painting. His mistake—his bad luck—he had hoped would never be exposed.
But someone knew.
Someone had warned Victor Ballam. How long before they threatened him too? How long before someone came, sent from the royal advisers? How long before he was reprimanded, relieved of his position, demoted, his reputation and his family's security destabilized?