The Art of Intrigue

by P A Latter

  ‘Barrington. Call me Barry. And you’re Julia, yes?’

  ‘That’s right. I’m Acting Curator. I’ll give you the grand tour.’

  The customary route that the team followed for VIP guests began with the temporary exhibition, circled through the upstairs rooms - library, dining room, drawing room and bedroom - and finished with the main gallery and heart of the collection. That day, she reversed the order and showed Ferrers into the larger ground floor room, so the first significant work he saw was Emma Seckfield as Artemis.

  ‘That is a rather impressive young lady.’ He looked back at Julia as if making an appraising comparison.

  She bristled inwardly, but told herself one caught more flies with honey than vinegar. The same principle should apply to whales. She would need to work on the bait. She noted Ferrers wore a flashy ring and matching tie pin and a watch claiming to be a Rolex.

  ‘The Seckfield portrait is very appealing. It’s also the most valuable work we have,’ She said.

  ‘Beauty and money. Always a winner.’

  ‘The black market sales value would be significantly lower than at open auction, but it would still be a substantial figure.’ Julia couldn’t imagine why she had just said that.

  ‘I don’t suppose any of these are for sale?’

  ‘The entire collection has been kept intact since it came into the possession of the charitable trust. Although no-one would notice it for quite a while if we sold off a few of the lesser works that are in storage.’ Her mouth was running away with her. Perhaps it was because he looked like a crook - it was sending her thoughts in strange directions.

  ‘As I’m sure you know, Julia, the art market retains a bit of a buccaneering spirit. We still appreciate free enterprise.’

  ‘And you are an enterprising man?’ Julia caught herself playing with her hair and linked her hands together to stop fidgeting.

  She pointed out a few other pictures with the most relevance to the Seckfield family or unusual artistic merit, then led Ferrers upstairs. ‘We have a few more pictures in the rooms open to the public on this floor, but these rooms are mostly to illustrate their family life and display other possessions.

  ‘I dabble in antiquities as well as paintings. Not in a big way, though. Mostly personal items like watches and jewellery. Not furniture.’

  ‘Unfortunately the family jewels were sold before Fathon House museum was established. You can see an elegant pearl set in the painting of Aemilia Seckfield, on display when we go down to the temporary exhibit gallery.’

  When they reached the Specials room, Julia was surprised that Ferrers walked straight to the Seckfield portrait, without being distracted by the Assassin.

  ‘Pretty enough, but she looks like she wouldn’t say boo to a goose. A daughter of the one in the main gallery, did you say?’

  ‘That’s right. It’s a shame it wasn’t painted by George Romney as well, but they possibly couldn’t have afforded his rates by that time. Emma was painted before Romney became such a successful society portraitist.’

  ‘This one looks like it has a history.’ Ferrers had, inevitably, noticed the Assassin.

  ‘He certainly had a history.’ Julia stopped in confusion. ‘I mean… everyone does, don’t they? Sadly, we know little about the subject or the artist.’ What had she been about to say? It had slipped out of her head as soon as she had started to speak.

  ‘But the work is valuable? I see you have a special security camera on it.’

  ‘That’s more to stop people touching it. Visitors seem to find the frame irresistible. Some wood carving seems to want to be stroked.’

  ‘Your other security arrangements are quite subtle.’

  Julia nodded in agreement, not wholly certain what she was agreeing with - or to. ‘I hope you found our collection interesting, Mr Ferrers.’

  ‘Julia, please call me Barry. I’d like us to be friends.’

  ‘We always need more Friends here at Fathon House.’

  He appeared to catch but ignore her hint. ‘Yes, I most certainly enjoyed our little tour. I am extremely grateful for you giving me so much of your valuable time.’

  ‘It was my pleasure. I hope you might like to explore some of the works in greater depth, sometime.’

  ‘I certainly would.’ Ferrers departed with a two-hand shake that threatened to draw Julia into an embrace.

  ~

  ‘Penny, he winked at me. He actually winked. It was like a throwback to the 70’s.’

  ‘You don’t remember the 70’s, Julia. If you’re trying to court him as a donor, you’ll have to use every resource you have, including feminine wiles and put up with it.’

  ‘I can’t think what came over me. I flirted, just to encourage him to support the museum. It’s not me.’ Saying it out loud, the words hit her. If it wasn’t her, who was it?

  Sam walked into the kitchen where Julia and Penny were sitting ‘Who was the VIP? He looked like a right dodgy geezer.’ She feigned an Eastenders accent, then peered at Julia and reverted to the privately-schooled RP she usually tried to hide. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  Julia tried to smile. ‘No ghosts here.’ She turned to Penny. ‘Could you switch off the alarm on the motion sensor for a moment, for me. I thought I saw something caught on the frame - a thread or cobweb, maybe - when I was taking our visitor around.’

  It was true that she had noticed something catch the light at the bottom corner of the painting, but she wasn’t ready to admit to herself - and certainly not to anyone else - that she actually wanted to touch the painting in a superstitious attempt to return the Assassin’s spirit to its home. She had felt odd all morning and if this dispelled that feeling, it would be sufficient for her needs without thinking too closely about the significance.

  There was no-one in the Specials gallery when she walked in and approached the Assassin. As she leant in to carefully tease out the fine thread caught in the frame, she realised it was a strand of her own hair. It must have been trapped when she had blocked the painting from falling, the previous evening and the bare skin of her cheek had brushed against the surface of the picture.

  The Assassin looked down at her with dead eyes and she let a finger rest briefly against the oil paint. She touched the faint, sketchily depicted fruit in the shadowy corner but, for a second, Julia could clearly see it was a pomegranate cut open to reveal seeds glistening as red and wet as the blood on the Assassin’s thumb.

  There was a small snake curled around the fruit, poised to strike. How could she have missed these details before?

  She heard steps and jumped back guiltily, but the visitors entering the gallery were talking to each other and had not yet turned to look at the paintings.

  Julia nearly tripped over her own feet - as if her centre of gravity had relocated - and she hurried back to the office to re-set the alarm.

  Annoyingly, she couldn’t remember exactly what she had said to Ferrers, only half an hour earlier, but she felt deeply uncomfortable about something.

  Sam said he looked dodgy and no professional dealer would say antiquities when he meant antiques. That was it. He had talked about free enterprise in art dealing. Was he referring to the black market? Had she just given a personal guided tour to a fence?

  Her guilt was compounded as she remembered another incident from earlier that morning. That, at least, was something she could rectify. She used her lunch break to walk down to the coffee shop and hand over a £10 note to a bemused barista.

  Imogen was manning the reception desk when Julia returned. ‘I know why you moved the motion sensor camera, Julia, and it is ensuring the visitors keep their distance. But since you went out, every time I glance at the monitor now, I see that damned Assassin … I swear he’s leering at me.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s a trick of the light. His expression does seem to change.’

  In the grainy image from the security camera, the pomegranate and snake could not be seen, of course. When Julia returned to the Spec
ials gallery, there was the faintest suggestion of them. Were they another trick of the light?

  Chapter 10

  Ferrers’s visit continued to run through her mind for days. She couldn’t dislodge the feeling that she had been behaving oddly. But blaming it on the Assassin was the stress of the job carrying her into fantasy. Everyone had off-days, but they didn’t need to invoke the supernatural to account for it.

  A week later, something happened that redirected her thoughts entirely.

  It was late Tuesday morning and she was at her desk in the tiny curator’s office when she heard Anya, the volunteer on duty that day at the reception desk, call through to Penny in the outer office. She sounded agitated.

  'Could you take a quick look in the main gallery, please? Something looks a bit odd on the monitor.’

  The desk, with the cash till, was supposed to be manned at all times, so Penny duly abandoned her work and walked quickly through to the gallery. Scarcely a moment later, she was at Julia’s door.

  ‘Sam hasn’t taken the Emma Seckfield to the workshop for cleaning, has she?’

  ‘No. It was cleaned - I think - two years ago. She wouldn’t take it down without checking with me.’ It took a second for the implication to register. ‘You mean it’s gone?’

  Penny nodded. ‘There’s a sign where it was hanging that says “Removed for cleaning”, but it doesn’t look like one of ours.’

  ‘Oh God. Lock the front door. Apologise to any visitors who want to leave. Tell them the door’s stuck, or something. I’ll run up to the workshop and double check with Sam.’

  ‘Will do. I think there are just a couple of groups here, both upstairs. So we should be OK for a bit.’

  Julia took the stairs two at a time, but her recently neglected exercise regime was only partly to blame for her panting by the time she reached the second floor. A glance around the small workshop was sufficient to determine that the painting wasn’t there.

  ‘Hi Julia, what’s the panic?’

  ‘Emma Seckfield - the Romney portrait. It’s gone. In broad daylight.’

  ‘Have you called the police yet?’ Sam pulled her phone out of a pocket.

  ‘No. I didn’t want to raise a false alarm and came up here to check first. But it’s just possible the thief is still in the building. Dial 999 now.’

  Their protocol for suspected theft had rarely been implemented in all the years Julia had been volunteering. Each time it had been a false alarm - when a painting or artefact had been moved and another member of the team had leapt to the worst conclusion, before checking.

  Vigilance was to be applauded and the police had never criticised the knee-jerk reaction. However, Julia had been responsible for one of the mistaken call-outs, in her early days, and remained embarrassed by it. That incident, combined with their sustained theft-free period, had lulled Julia into complacency.

  The protocol dictated that no-one should be challenged before the police arrived. If anyone made a justifiable plea for needing to leave, the senior staff member on duty would explain about a suspected crime and request the individual’s contact details as a possible witness, before letting them go. This would give the game away about the “jammed” door, but hopefully the police would have turned up by that time.

  That day, the “broad daylight” was overcast and drizzling, which had kept tourists away, so there were very few visitors in the house when Anya raised the alarm. They all remained strolling around the first floor, oblivious to the drama downstairs, until the police siren must have led one of them to a window and curiosity brought them back to the ground floor when they saw the uniformed officers enter the museum.

  Julia had used the few minutes between Sam’s 999 call and the police arrival to phone Hugh. She dreaded what she had to tell him, but it had to be done.

  … ‘They knew which one was worth stealing. Why didn’t the motion sensor trigger?’ He said.

  ‘Hugh, I’ll never forgive myself. I’d moved it to protect the Assassin. People kept trying to touch it. It seemed a better use for the alarm.’ She hated how defensive she sounded.

  ‘You left the Romney portrait, the most valuable work in the collection, unprotected?’

  ‘I know. You can’t make me feel worse than I do already. Look, I have to go. The police are here.’

  ‘Julia - call me back as soon as you can. I can’t drop everything and come over right now.’

  ‘I understand. And I am so sorry.’

  The police quickly ascertained that none of the visitors could have the painting secreted about their person, took their details and ushered them out of the museum, relocking the door behind them. Fathon House would be closed to the public for the rest of the day.

  The officers asked all the obvious questions and made a cursory search while they waited for their specialist colleagues to take down the “Removed for cleaning” sign, dust for fingerprints and examine anything and everything that might help identify the thief. The search revealed the frame, from which the portrait had been cut, in a waste bin in the Gents. The back of the frame carried the security tag which would have activated the alarm at the front door.

  Anya had already identified the most likely culprit as a lone visitor who had arrived at the museum fairly soon after opening and gone straight into the main gallery. She hadn’t paid him any attention after taking his entrance fee, but thought he had left without visiting the other rooms.

  She could provide a general description - he was bundled up in a bulky raincoat, which he could have used to cover the picture between the gallery and the loos. Brown hair and bearded. His height - about average - was about the only thing that couldn’t be altered by simple disguise. His appearance on the security cameras confirmed her recollection of his movements but was, of course, even more indistinct than Anya’s description.

  Julia felt so bad about having relocated the motion sensor that she was certain the police would read the guilt on her face and arrest her on the spot. But she resolved not to mention that she was responsible for downgrading the security protecting the stolen piece, until she had spoken again to Hugh.

  When the police had finished, she sent everyone home, although Penny and Sam made half-hearted protests to stay and continue with their work.

  Julia stared at the gap where the portrait had hung for long minutes before returning to the curator’s office. Then she stared at the phone. She picked up and replaced the handset three times. She got up again, went to the kitchen and boiled the kettle, before returning to her desk without making a drink.

  Eventually, she made the call. ‘Hugh. You asked me to ring back.’

  ‘Yes I did. Did you say you had disconnected the security system? When? Why? And why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘It was about two weeks ago. All the gallery volunteers have been complaining that they were spending the whole time stopping visitors from trying to touch the Assassin. Somehow it just draws people in. I thought the motion sensor alarm was a practical solution.’

  ‘It’s a shame you didn’t talk to me. I could have authorised the spend for a second system.’

  ‘I know there’s no spare cash. I was trying to manage things myself. To be independent. I feel so stupid.’

  ‘It’s really… unfortunate. Do the police have any ideas about the thief? Did they say if they recognised the - what’s the word - the M.O.?’

  ‘No. There’s never been a theft from the collection - even an attempted break in - in all the time I’ve been at Fathon House. I was so stupidly complacent.’

  ‘Stop agonising. It’s happened and we have to deal with it. Have there been any dodgy characters around? Unlikely tourists making return visits?’

  ‘Nothing like that. But… I hardly like to say it. One of MJL’s clients came in. He said he was an art dealer. He was a bit flash - you know what I mean? But I can’t imagine he would walk in and steal a painting off the gallery wall.’

  ‘I know some art dealers who are willing to turn a blind eye to d
odgy provenance or ownership paperwork. You think he could have seen the opportunity and lined someone up for the job? That’s a pretty strong accusation.’

  ‘I know. And I don’t have any evidence at all, which is why I didn’t say anything to the police. Hugh, what am I going to do? I’ll resign immediately, of course.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing. I don’t have the time to babysit the museum and we don’t have anyone else. The board will have to decide if they want you to stay on, but you can’t quit now. For one thing, it could make you look complicit in the crime.’

  ‘Oh God. This is just hideous.’

  ‘Calm down. Listen to me. You are not responsible for theft. You’ve been having a tough time and you did what you thought was sensible.’

  Julia sniffed inarticulately.

  ‘How about this: I’ll try to clear some time tomorrow and we’ll go to visit MJL together and ask them if they know anything about this dodgy client.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re helping me, Hugh. I don’t deserve it.’

  ‘Maybe I still want to get my leg over, after all.’

  The absurdity forced Julia to a giggle. ‘You’re being ridiculous.’

  'That’s better. It isn’t the end of the world, you know. We have insurance that will cover the financial loss. Nobody’s died. Sorry - poor choice of words. Nobody else has died.’

  Julia’s giggle took on an edge of hysteria. I mustn’t say it, she thought. I mustn’t even think it. Nobody else has died yet.

  ~

  Hugh was as good as his word and picked Julia up at the museum the next day. It was raining again and Hugh wrapped his arm around her to hold an umbrella over them both, as they hurried down the road together.

  He told her he had called ahead, so all three of the MJL partners would be there to meet them. She had a sudden thought as they reached the door. She stopped him opening it, with her hand over his.

  ‘Hugh, I haven’t told them yet that I was planning to resign, to go for the curatorship. In view of … what’s happened, I’d like to go back to my job here - if they still want me.’