I was looking up at the two life-size photographs of the front and reverse faces of the painting fastened to the screens behind the dais. The latter showed the back of the oak panel with its six aluminium ribs, contact points for the circuit and a mass of chalked graffiti enscribed over the years by the museum laboratories. The photographs had been taken the last time the picture was removed for cleaning, and after a brief bout of questioning it transpired that this had been completed only two days before the theft.
At this news the atmosphere of the conference changed. The hundred private conversations ceased, coloured silk handkerchiefs were returned to their breast pockets.
I nudged Georg de Stael. 'So that explains it.' Obviously the painting had disappeared during its period in the laboratory, where the security arrangements would be less than fool-proof. 'It was not stolen from the gallery at all.'
The hubbub around us had re-started. Two hundred noses once again were lifted to scent the trail. So the painting had been stolen, and was somewhere at large in the world. The rewards to the discoverer, if not the Legion of Honour or a Knighthood, then at least complete freedom from all income tax and foreign exchange investigations, hovered like a spectre before us.
On the way back, however, Georg stared sombrely through the window of the taxi.
'The painting was stolen from the gallery,' he said to me pensively. 'I saw it there myself just twelve hours before it vanished.' He took my arm and held it tightly. 'We'll find it, Charles, for the glory of Northeby's and the Galleries Normande. But, my God, the man who stole it was a thief out of this world!'
So began the quest for the missing Leonardo. I returned to London the next morning, but Georg and I were in regular contact by telephone. Initially, like all the others on its trail, we merely listened, ears to the ground for an unfamiliar foot-fall. In the crowded auction rooms and galleries we waited for the indiscreet word, for the give-away clue. Business, of course, was buoyant; every museum and private owner with a third-rate Rubens or Raphael had now moved up a rung. With luck the renewed market activity would uncover some distant accomplice of the thief, or a previous substitute for the Leonardo - perhaps a pastiche Mona Lisa by one of Verrocchio's pupils - would be jettisoned by the thief and appear on one of the shadier markets. If the hunt for the vanished painting was conducted as loudly as ever in the outside world, within the trade all was quiet and watchful.
In fact, too quiet. By rights something should have materialized, some faint clue should have appeared on the fine filters of the galleries and auction rooms. But nothing was heard. As the wave of activity launched by the displaced Leonardo rolled past and business resumed its former tempo, inevitably the painting became just another on the list of lost masterpieces.
Only Georg de Stael seemed able to maintain his interest in the search. Now and then he would put through a call to London, requesting some obscure piece of information about an anonymous buyer of a Titian or Rembrandt in the late 18th century, or the history of some damaged copy by a pupil of Rubens or Raphael. He seemed particularly interested in works known to have been damaged and subsequently restored, information with which many private owners are naturally jealous of parting.
Consequently, when he called to see me in London some four months after the disappearance of the Leonardo, it was not in a purely jocular sense that I asked: 'Well, Georg, do you know who stole it yet?'
Unclipping a large briefcase, Georg smiled at me darkly. 'Would it surprise you if I said "yes"? As a matter of fact, I don't know, but I have an idea, a hypothesis, shall we say. I thought you might be interested to hear it.'
'Of course, Georg,' I said, adding reprovingly: 'So this is what you've been up to.'
He raised a thin forefinger to silence me. Below the veneer of easy charm I noticed a new mood of seriousness, a cutting of conversational corners.
'First, Charles, before you laugh me out of your office, let's say that I consider my theory completely fantastic and implausible, and yet - , he shrugged deprecatingly '- it seems to be the only one possible. To prove it I need your help.'
'Given before asked. But what is this theory? I can't wait to hear.'
He hesitated, apparently uncertain whether to expose his idea, and then began to empty the briefcase, taking out a series of looseleaf files which he placed in a row facing him along the desk. These contained what appeared to be photographic reproductions of a number of paintings, areas within them marked with white ink. Several of the photographs were enlargements of details, all of a high-faced, goatee-bearded man in mediaeval costume.
Georg inverted six of the larger plates so that I could see them. 'You recognize these, of course?'
I nodded. With the exception of one, Rubens' Pieta in the Hermitage Museum at Leningrad, I had seen the originals of them all within the previous five years. The others were the missing Leonardo Crucifixion, the Crucifixions by Veronese, Goya and Holbein, and that by Poussin, entitled The Place of Golgotha. All were in public museums the Louvre, San Stefano in Venice, the Prado and the Ryksmuseum, Amsterdam - and all were familiar, wellauthenticated masterworks, centrepieces, apart from the Poussin, of major national collections. 'It's reassuring to see them. I trust they're all in good hands. Or are they next on the mysterious thief's shopping list?'
Georg shook his head. 'No, I don't think he's very interested in these. Though he keeps a watching brief over them.' Again I noticed the marked change in Georg's manner, the reflective private humour. 'Do you notice anything else?'
I compared the photographs again. 'They're all crucifixions. Authentic, except perhaps in minor details. They were all easel paintings.' I shrugged.
'They all, at some time, have been stolen.' Georg moved quickly from right to left. 'The Poussin from the Chateau Loire collection in 1822, the Goya in 1806 from the Monte Cassino monastery, by Napoleon, the Veronese from the Prado in 1891, the Leonardo four months ago as we know, and the Holbein in 1943, looted for the Herman Goering collection.'
'Interesting,' I commented. 'But few masterworks haven't been stolen at some time. I hope this isn't a key point in your theory.'
'No, but in conjunction with another factor it gains insignificance. Now.' He handed the Leonardo reproduction to me. 'Anything unusual there?' When I shook my head at the familiar image he picked up another photograph of the missing painting. 'What about that one?'
The photographs had been taken from slightly different perspectives, but otherwise seemed identical. 'They are both of the original Crucifixion,' Georg explained, 'taken in the Louvre within a month of its disappearance.'
'I give up,' I admitted. 'They seem the same. No - wait a minute!' I pulled the table light nearer and bent over the plates, as Georg nodded. 'They're slightly different. What is going on?'
Quickly, figure by figure, I compared the photographs, within a few moments seized on the minute disparity. In almost every particular the pictures were identical, but one figure out of the score or more on the crowded field had been altered. On the left, where the procession wound its way up the hillside towards the three crosses, the face of one of the bystanders had been completely repainted. Although, in the centre of the painting, the Christ hung from the cross some hours after the crucifixion, by a sort of spatio-temporal perspective - a common device in all Renaissance painting for overcoming the static nature of the single canvas - the receding procession carried the action backwards through time, so that one followed the invisible presence of the Christ on his painful last ascent of Golgotha.
The figure whose face had been repainted formed part of the crowd on the lower slopes. A tall powerfully built man in a black robe, he had obviously been the subject of special care by Leonardo, who had invested him with the magnificent physique and serpentine grace usually reserved for his depiction of angels. Looking at the photograph in my left hand, the original unretouched version, I realized that Leonardo had indeed intended the figure to represent an angel of death, or rather, one of those agents of the unconscious, ter
rifying in their enigmatic calm, in their brooding ambivalence, who seem to preside in his paintings over all man's deepest fears and longings, like the grey-faced statues that stare down from the midnight cornices of the necropolis at Pompeii.
All this, so typical of Leonardo and his curious vision, seemed to be summed up by the face of this tall angelic figure. Turned almost in profile over the left shoulder, the face looked up towards the cross, a faint flicker of pity investing the grey saturnine features. A high forehead, slightly flared at the temples, rose above the handsome semitic nose and mouth. A trace of a smile, of compassionate resignation and understanding, hung about the lips, providing a solitary source of light which illuminated the remainder of the face partly obscured by the shadows of the thundering sky.
In the photograph on my right, however, all this had been altered completely. The whole character of this angelic figure had been replaced by a new conception. The superficial likeness remained, but the face had lost its expression of tragic compassion. The later artist had reversed its posture altogether, and the head was turned away from the cross and over the right shoulder towards the earthly city of Jerusalem whose spectral towers rose like a city of Miltonic hell in the blue dusk. While the other bystanders followed the ascending Christ as if helpless to assist him, the expression on the face of the black-robed figure was arrogant and critical, the tension of the averted neck muscles indicating that he had swung his head away almost in disgust from the spectacle before him.
'What is this?' I asked, pointing to the latter photograph. 'Some lost pupil's copy? I can't see why - '
Georg leaned forward and tapped the print. 'That is the original Leonardo. Don't you understand, Charles? The version on your left which you were admiring for so many minutes was superimposed by some unknown retoucher, only a few years after da Vinci's death.' He smiled at my scepticism. 'Believe me, it's true. The figure concerned is only a minor part of the composition, no one had seriously examined it before, as the rest of the painting is without doubt original. These additions were discovered five months ago shortly after the painting was removed for cleaning. The infra-red examination revealed the completely intact profile below.'
He passed two more photographs to me, both large-scale details of the head, in which the contrasts of characterization were even more obvious. 'As you can see from the brush-work in the shading, the retouching was done by a right-handed artist, whereas we know, of course, that da Vinci was left-handed.'
'Well...' I shrugged. 'It seems strange. But if what you say is correct, why on earth was such a small detail altered? The whole conception of the character is different.'
'An interesting question,' Georg said ambiguously. 'Incidentally, the figure is that of Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew.' He pointed to the man's feet. 'He's always conventionally represented by the crossed sandal-straps of the Essene Sect, to which Jesus himself may have belonged.'
I picked up the photographs again. 'The Wandering Jew,' I repeated softly. 'How curious. The man who taunted Christ to move faster and was condemned to rove the surface of the earth until the Second Coming. It's almost as if the retoucher were an apologist for him, superimposing this expression of tragic pity over Leonardo's representation. There's an idea for you, Georg. You know how courtiers and wealthy merchants who gathered at painters' studios were informally incorporated into their paintings - perhaps Ahasuerus would move around, posing as himself, driven by a sort of guilt compulsion, then later steal the paintings and revise them. Now there is a theory.'
I looked across at Georg, waiting for him to reply. He was nodding slowly, eyes watching mine in unspoken agreement, all trace of humour absent. 'Georg!' I exclaimed. 'Are you serious? Do you mean - '
He interrupted me gently but forcefully. 'Charles, just give me a few more minutes to explain. I warned you that my theory was fantastic.' Before I could protest he passed me another photograph. 'The Veronese Crucifixion. See anyone you recognize? On the bottom left.'
I raised the photograph to the light. 'You're right. The late Venetian treatment is different, far more pagan, but it's quite obvious. You know, Georg, it's a remarkable likeness.'
'Agreed. But it's not only the likeness. Look at the pose and characterization.'
Identified again by his black robes and crossed sandal-straps, the figure of Ahasuerus stood among the throng on the crowded canvas. The unusual feature was not so much that the pose was again that of the retouched Leonardo, with Ahasuerus now looking with an expression of deep compassion at the dying Christ - an altogether meaningless interpretation - but the remarkable likeness between the two faces, almost as if they had been painted from the same model. The beard was perhaps a little fuller, in the Venetian manner, but the planes of the face, the flaring of the temples, the handsome coarseness of the mouth and jaw, the wise resignation in the eyes, that of some well-travelled physician witnessing an act of barbaric beauty and power, all these were exactly echoed from the Leonardo.
I gestured helplessly. 'It's an amazing coincidence.'
Georg nodded. 'Another is that this painting, like the Leonardo, was stolen shortly after being extensively cleaned. When it was recovered in Florence two years later it was slightly damaged, and no further attempts were made to restore the painting.' Georg paused. 'Do you see my point, Charles?'
'More or less. I take it you suspect that if the Veronese were now cleaned a rather different version of Ahasuerus would be found. Veronese's original depiction.'
'Exactly. After all, the present treatment makes no sense. If you're still sceptical, look at these others.'
Standing up, we began to go through the remainder of the photographs. In each of the others, the Poussin, Holbein, Goya and Rubens, the same figure was to be found, the same dark saturnine face regarding the cross with an expression of compassionate understanding. In view of the very different styles of the artists, the degree of similarity was remarkable. In each, as well, the pose was meaningless, the characterization completely at odds with the legendary role of Ahasuerus.
By now the intensity of Georg's conviction was communicating itself to me physically. He drummed the desk with the palm of one hand. 'In each case, Charles, all six paintings were stolen shortly after they had been cleaned - even the Holbein was looted from the Herman Goering collection by some renegade SS after being repaired by concentration camp inmates. As you yourself said, it's almost as if the thief was unwilling for the world to see the true image of Ahasuerus's character exposed and deliberately painted in these apologies.'
'But Georg, you're making a large assumption there. Can you prove that in each case, apart from the Leonardo, there is an original version below the present one?'
'Not yet. Naturally galleries are reluctant to give anyone the opportunity to show that their works are not entirely genuine. I know all this is still hypothesis, but what other explanation can you find?'
Shaking my head, I went over to the window, letting the noise and movement of Bond Street cut through Georg's heady speculations. 'Are you seriously suggesting, Georg, that the black-robed figure of Ahasuerus is promenading somewhere on those pavements below us now, and that all through the centuries he's been stealing and retouching paintings that represent him spurning Jesus? The idea's ludicrous!'
'No more ludicrous than the theft of the painting. Everyone agrees it could not have been stolen by anyone bounded by the laws of the physical universe.'
For a moment we stared at each other across the desk. 'All right,' I temporized, not wishing to offend him. The intensity of his ide fixe had alarmed me. 'But isn't our best plan simply to sit back and wait for the Leonardo to turn up again?'
'Not necessarily. Most of the stolen paintings remained lost for ten or twenty years. Perhaps the effort of stepping outside the bounds of space and time exhausts him, or perhaps the sight of the original paintings terrifies him so - ' He broke off as I began to come forward towards him. 'Look, Charles, it is fantastic, but there's a slim chance it may be true. This is wher
e I need your help. It's obvious this man must be a great patron of the arts, drawn by an irresistible compulsion, by unassuageable feelings of guilt, towards those artists painting crucifixions. We must begin to watch the sale rooms and galleries. That face, those black eyes and that haunted profile - sooner or later we'll see him, searching for another Crucifixion or Pieta. Cast your mind back, do you recognize that face?'
I looked down at the carpet, the image of the dark-eyed wanderer before me. Go quicker, he had taunted Jesus as he passed bearing the cross towards Golgotha, and Jesus had replied: I go, but thou shalt wait until I return. I was about to say 'no', but something restrained me, some reflex pause of recognition stirred through my mind. That handsome Levantine profile, in a different costume, of course, a smart dark-striped lounge suit, gold-topped cane and spats, bidding through an agent 'You have seen him?' Georg came over to me. 'Charles, I think I have too.'
I gestured him away. 'I'm not sure, Georg, but... I almost wonder.' Curiously it was the retouched portrait of Ahasuerus, rather than Leonardo's original, which seemed more real, closer to the face I felt sure I had actually seen. Suddenly I pivoted on my heel. 'Confound it, Georg, do you realize that if this incredible idea of yours is true this man must have spoken to Leonardo? To Michelangelo, and Titian and Rembrandt?'
Georg nodded. 'And someone else too,' he added pensively.
For the next month, after Georg's return to Paris, I spent less time in my office and more in the sale rooms, watching for that familiar profile which something convinced me I had seen before. But for this undeniable conviction I would have dismissed Georg's hypothesis as obsessive fantasy. I made a few tactful enquiries of my assistants, and to my annoyance two of them also vaguely remembered such a person. After this I found myself unable to drive George de Stael's fancies from my mind. No further news was heard of the missing Leonardo - the complete absence of any clues mystified the police and the art world alike.
The Complete Short Stories: Volume 1 Page 83