The Rembrandt Secret (3 page)

4

Knocking over a folio of prints as he turned, Samuel Hemmings cursed under his breath. With an effort, he bent over in his wheelchair to pick up the sheaf of papers, slapping them back down on his desk, a mug of coffee slopping liquid over the rim as he did so. Unperturbed, Samuel wrapped his dressing gown tightly around him, the droplets of coffee dribbling down his front as he sipped at it. Outside, the winter garden shook its spindly fist at him. Leaves were banked on top of the net over the pond, whilst a stone cherub stood gloomy watch next to a U-shaped space under the far fence where the foxes had visited for decades.

Thoughtful, Samuel cleaned his reading glasses absentmindedly and stared into the sobering morning. He was, he thought irritably, tired. But then again, he was eighty-six and had an excuse for still being in his dressing gown at eleven o’clock. In the passage outside, he could hear the vacuum cleaner start up on the other side of his study door. Mrs McKendrick, his housekeeper, had been with him for over twenty years, but no matter how many times he told her, she would try and get into the study.
It needs tidying
, she would say, but Samuel liked the sheen of dust on the high bookshelves. Why remove it when he seldom needed those volumes? The books he
did
refer to were close at hand, used so often no dust had time to settle. As for the dust in his old sofa and easy chair, he liked that too. Found it comforting to settle himself amidst the flotsam of years.

The only thing Samuel missed was a dog. Since he had lived in the Sussex countryside – in the house which had sagged under neglect, and grown so out of fashion it had become fashionable again – there had always been a dog. Someone living, getting older with its master. Sleeping by the fire, steaming when they came in from a walk, or farting into old age, an animal had been as much a part of the house as the door knocker and entry sign – Samuel Hemmings, Art Historian.

Even though he had collected a batch of awards and letters after his name, Samuel liked to keep his identity simple. He could afford to, as can all illustrious people, knowing their reputations speak for them. Wincing as the vacuum started up again, Samuel turned to the papers on his desk. He was amused by the latest auction where a Mark Rothko was expected to reach a record price, and wondered what the picture would fetch in a hundred years. Would Rothko’s reputation increase? Or sink as so many had done before …

Having had no truck with the art world, Samuel had written numerous anarchic pieces on the absurdities of modern art and the gangster tactics of some dealers. Always outspoken, he had become even more so as he grew older. Courageous at seventy, he had become reckless as he turned eighty, and was hoping for martyrdom at ninety.

His thoughts were interrupted by the door opening behind him. Irritated, Samuel turned in his wheelchair, but his sparse eyebrows rose in pleasure when he saw who his visitor was.

‘Hello,’ Marshall said, moving over to the old man and taking a sheaf of papers off a nearby chair before sitting down. ‘I was passing by and—’

‘Liar. You’ve never
passed by
here in twenty years,’ Samuel retorted, looking intently at his visitor.

He was reminded – not for the first time – that Marshall Zeigler bore little resemblance to his father. Where Owen was patrician, Marshall was more heavily built, his thick hair as darkly brown as his eyes. On the street, a passer-by might have taken Owen for a diplomat, while his son looked like someone in the media. Even their voices were dissimilar, Owen’s elegant speech a world apart from Marshall’s deeper, cosmopolitan tone.

‘So,’ Samuel asked, ‘what really brought you here?’

‘My father.’

Samuel’s eyes fixed on Marshall. His sight was failing, his left eye milky with a cataract, but his right eye was brilliant, blue as a delphinium and missed nothing. ‘Is he all right?’

‘Not really. I saw him last night. He’s in debt, badly in debt.’

‘Your
father
?’

‘Yes. I’d have thought he was the last person to get into trouble like that …’

Hearing the vacuum cleaner start up outside the door, he paused while Mrs McKendrick banged it against the panelling, and waited until she’d worked her way along the hall.

‘It’s serious too. He sold the Rembrandt—’

‘
What!
When was this?’ Samuel asked urgently, scooting his wheelchair over to his desk and clicking on the computer. Peering at the screen, he began to type, Marshall watching him. Samuel Hemmings might be well into his eighties, but he was computer fluent.

‘I’ve had bronchitis the last two weeks, flat out in bed. Missed a bloody lot,’ he muttered, sighing as a page came up on screen, with the details of the New York sale. ‘Jesus, it fetched a fortune!’

‘Which my father didn’t get.’

Slowly Samuel turned in his chair, the front of his dressing gown falling open to reveal a V-necked jumper pulled over his striped pyjamas. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Tobar Manners cheated him. My father was in trouble, so he went to Manners because he was a friend. Manners knew my father was desperate for money, but he said that the Rembrandt was by Ferdinand Bol.’

Samuel’s fingers clacked on the keyboard, then he scooted his chair across the room again and pulled down a thick volume of photographs. Back at the desk, he flicked through dozens of pages, then withdrew an image of the Rembrandt. Screwing up his eyes, he then read what he had written on the page next to it.

Supposed to be Ferdinand Bol. But no doubt Rembrandt.
Provenance suspect, but colouring and brushwork obviously the Master.
Owen has done it this time. He’s a dealer now. (1961)

Then he looked at the painting again, peering at it with a magnifying glass. Outside in the hall, Mrs McKendrick was still denting the skirting board with the Hoover, and in the garden, beyond the window, a thrush was taking a dip in a lichen-encrusted bird bath. Patiently, Marshall waited for Samuel to speak.

At first he had been surprised by the old man’s appearance; he seemed scruffier than usual and had lost weight, but within seconds he had proved that his mind was as astute as ever. Looking round as Samuel continued to read, Marshall noticed the elaborate carving along the picture rail, in places grey with dust, in others the wood bleached by sun. He had stared at the same carvings when he was a child, the day his father had brought him to meet the famous Samuel Hemmings. The historian had been much younger then, not weak in the legs, but scuttling like a child’s top around the haphazard terrain of his study. In amongst the books and papers he had secreted bottles of cheap sweets, their incongruous primary colours at odds with the muted surroundings. Talking quickly and with animation, Samuel had only paused to take a handful of sweets, swallowing a couple and throwing the others in Marshall’s direction, Owen winking at his son as he did so.

To another child, Samuel’s eccentricity might have been unnerving, but Marshall was entranced. He loved the crackle of energy, the stimulus of Samuel’s interest. His enthusiasm and honesty were a pleasant change from many of his father’s dealer acquaintances. And as time passed – and Marshall learned that Samuel Hemmings was a one-man iconoclast of the art world – his admiration grew. Those dealers who had been at the rapier end of Samuel’s tongue or pen might detest him, but his knowledge of art history – particularly the Dutch Masters – was formidable. Indeed that was how Samuel and Owen had first met.

Soon after Owen opened the Zeigler Gallery, the rangy, bowed figure of Samuel Hemmings had visited. In his old-fashioned suit and battered patent evening shoes, he had looked almost comical, but his intelligence was phenomenal, and he was unusually generous with his knowledge. So when Owen, a relatively green dealer, asked Samuel to look at his paintings, he had been expecting a swift summation but, instead, received comprehensive and impressive opinions. Instead of being offended by the brutality of some of Samuel’s remarks, Owen had chosen to learn from the older man, and a friendship was born.

But now, Samuel scooted his chair back to Marshall, scraping its wheel against a table leg as he did so. ‘It’s genuine. I said so at the time, and I was right. How could Tobar Manners say otherwise?’

‘He told my father that he’d got it valued himself.’

‘By who?’

‘I don’t know. I doubt my father knows either …’

Samuel raised a meagre eyebrow, but he said nothing.

‘Manners said
he
was cheated,’ Marshall went on. ‘He said that
he
was paid for a work by Ferdinand Bol, not Rembrandt—’

‘Which meant he could give your father a lot less from the sale.’

‘Yes – and my father was relying on the Rembrandt to get him out of trouble.’

‘Why didn’t he come to me?’ Samuel asked, turning back to Marshall.

‘I think he was ashamed.’

‘Ashamed of what?’

‘Being a failure,’ Marshall said, his voice muted. ‘My father never said anything about being in debt. Not a word. I thought everything was going well, as always, but suddenly he said that we needed to talk, and then confessed that he was ruined. He said he’d been over-buying, that auction sales aren’t as good as they were, and collectors don’t have the same money to invest. My father’s got too many paintings and not enough customers.’

‘So what happened to his profits?’

Marshall shrugged. ‘Gone.’

‘
Gone?
’ Samuel turned back to the desk and grabbed the ledger. ‘It doesn’t sound like your father. None of this. He was never reckless.’

‘I know, but he’s in a mess now. He says he’s going to lose the gallery.’

‘I don’t believe that!’ Samuel replied. ‘That place is his life. He would never have gambled with it.’

‘He thought he could get himself out of debt without anyone knowing a thing about it if he sold the Rembrandt.’

Shaking his head, Samuel stared into the fire. A minute or two later, Mrs McKendrick came in with two cups of tea. In silence, she laid them down on the Long John in front of the hearth, then passed one cup to Samuel. Taking it, he sipped the tea absently, all the while thinking.

It was several minutes before he spoke again. ‘I can let your father have ten thousand pounds.’

‘Oh God, no,’ Marshall said, startled. ‘I wasn’t coming to you for money. I just wanted you to talk to Dad. He couldn’t and wouldn’t take money, but he’s very low, Samuel, and he listens to you.’

‘Not lately, or he wouldn’t be in this mess.’

Marshall nodded. ‘I’m worried about him. And I’d be less worried if you were in touch with him. I’m staying at the country house and he’s joining me at the weekend, but if you could ring him in the meantime … Just talk to him, calm him down. I can’t do it. I’m his son, he won’t listen to me.’

‘What about Tobar Manners?’

‘What can I tell you?’ Marshall said bitterly. ‘He says that he sold my father’s painting on, and that the purchaser said it was by Bol and therefore paid Manners for one of Rembrandt’s pupils. Manners is insisting that
he
was the one who was cheated.’

‘Liar. Always was and always will be,’ Samuel said coldly. ‘I can’t imagine why your father believed anything he said.’

‘They were friends.’

‘There are no friends in business,’ Samuel retorted sharply. ‘Your father panicked, that’s what happened. He wasn’t thinking clearly.’

‘So talk to him. Please,’ Marshall urged. ‘He needs to talk to someone he respects.’

Nodding, Samuel sipped at his tea, staring at the fire. The logs shifted and dropped, sparks flirting up the drowsy chimney in front of them.

‘Did your father ever tell you about his theory?’

‘Which theory?’ Marshall asked, finishing his tea and settling back into the armchair. The house was welcoming and outside the day was cold and uninviting. He felt suddenly like a boy again, listening to one of Samuel’s stories and waiting for the sudden flurry of sweets to come his way.

‘His theory about Rembrandt’s monkey.’

‘Rembrandt’s monkey? No.’

‘Perhaps he knew you wouldn’t be interested,’ Samuel said simply, glancing at Marshall and knowing that he had scored a direct hit. ‘You never
were
interested in the gallery, were you?’

‘No.’

‘It was a shame for your father, but then again, we can’t force our children into our shoes. It only gives them bad feet. Can even cripple them, or so I hear,’ Samuel continued. ‘Your father’s very proud of your work. You do know that, don’t you? He wonders how you managed to have such a talent for languages and translation.’

‘I’ve got a good memory and besides, my mother spoke three languages,’ Marshall said quietly. ‘I suppose I inherited it from her.’

‘But it takes more than just a skill to translate literature in another language. It takes passion and creativity.’

‘Which I could have put into the gallery and the art world?’ Marshall countered, reading the old man’s thoughts. ‘You’re being unusually obscure, Samuel, why don’t you just come out with what you’re thinking?’