Page 35 of The Veteran

‘Then I think we shall have to do something about that, don’t you, Perry?’

‘If you say so, Miss Marina.’

‘Oh but I do, Perry, I do. Seven o’clock sharp, boy. And don’t be late. You know how I hate to be kept waiting when I have my little ticklers out.’

The phone went dead. His hands were trembling. She always frightened the daylights out of him, even with a voice down a phone line. But that, and what came later in the schoolroom, was the point.

JANUARY

‘My dear Perry, I am impressed and intrigued. Why such a sumptuous lunch, and so early in the year? Not that I am complaining.’

They were at Peregrine Slade’s club off St James’s Street. It was 4 January, a self-indulgent country was staggering back to work, Slade was the host and Reggie Fanshawe, proprietor of the Fanshawe Gallery in Pont Street, eyed with approval the Beychevelle Slade had ordered.

Slade smiled, shook his head and indicated that there were other lunchers a mite too close for absolute privacy. Fanshawe got the message.

‘Now I am even more intrigued. I must wait, consumed with curiosity, until the coffee?’

They took their coffee quite alone in the library upstairs. Slade explained succinctly that six weeks earlier a complete unknown had walked in off the street with an unutterably filthy old painting that he thought might have some value. By a fluke and pressure of overwork in the Old Masters department it had come under the gaze of only one man, a young but evidently very clever junior valuer.

He slipped the Evans report across to the gallery owner. Fanshawe read, put down his glass of Special Reserve port, lest he spill it, and said, ‘Good God.’ In case the Almighty had missed the appeal, he repeated it.

‘Clearly you must follow his suggestion.’

‘Not quite,’ said Slade. Carefully he explained what he had in mind.

Fanshawe’s coffee went cold and his port remained untouched.

‘There is apparently a duplicate letter. What will Seb Mortlake say?’

‘Incinerated. Seb left for the country the previous day.’

‘There’ll be a record on the computer.’

‘Not any more. I had an IT wiz come in yesterday. That part of the database has ceased to exist.’

‘Where is the painting now?’

‘Safe in my office. Under lock and key.’

‘Remind me, when is your next Old Masters sale?’

‘On the twenty-fourth.’

‘This young man. He’ll notice, he’ll protest to Seb Mortlake, who might even believe him.’

‘Not if he is in the north of Scotland. I have a favour up there that I can call in.’

‘But if the painting was not rejected and returned to owner, there would have to be a report and a valuation.’

‘There is.’

Slade drew another sheet from his pocket and gave it to Fanshawe. The gallery owner read the anodyne text, referring to a work, probably early Florentine, artist unknown, title unknown, no provenance. Valued at £6,000 to £8,000. He leaned back, raised his port glass in a toast and remarked, ‘Those beatings I gave you at school must have had some effect, Perry. You’re as straight as a sidewinder on speed. All right, you’re on.’

Two days later Trumpington Gore received a letter. It was from the House of Darcy on headed paper. There was no signature, but a stamp from the Old Masters department. It asked him to sign an enclosed form authorizing the auctioneers to proceed with the sale of his painting, which they valued at £6,000 to £8,000. There was a return-addressed envelope with stamp. Though he did not know it, the address would bring the letter, unopened, to Peregrine Slade’s desk.

He was ecstatic. With even £6,000 he could stagger on for another six months, which surely would include further acting work. Summer was a favoured time for film-making on outside locations. He signed the authority form and sent it back.

On the 20th of the month Peregrine Slade rang the director of Old Masters.

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