Appleby turned to his wife. ‘Who on earth is old Moe Steptoe?’
‘A shocking old rascal with a junk shop in Chelsea. I’d be surprised if your people at Scotland Yard didn’t prove to have a line on him. He’s said to be quite a power in the inferior regions of the shady picture business.’
‘Which is why our respectable friend here would do no more than take a peep at his window.’ Appleby turned to Braunkopf. ‘Would you agree with my wife that the police are probably interested in this Moe Steptoe?’
‘That was the point, Sir John. The polices were there – behind Limbert and me.’
‘I see. And that, I suppose, was very unnerving for you all.’
‘It was unnervinks for old Moe. He was in a panic. And now I think I see that was why Limbert got the pictures.’
‘Got the pictures? I think we’d better have a more coherent account of this. To begin with, when did it happen?’
Braunkopf considered. ‘It was a Monday afternoon. Not last Monday, but the Monday before.’
‘In fact, Monday the 15th of October. And Limbert was looking at this man Steptoe’s window. And you, Mr Brown, came up with him and passed the time of day. Then you both went into the shop together. Is that right?’
‘Correk, Sir John. Limbert asked me to pack him up.’
‘To pack him up?’
‘To pack him up in the pargaining, if he saw what he wanted.’
‘And what did he want?’
Braunkopf looked surprised. ‘Why, Sir John, he wanted canvases, of course.’
‘You mean that this fellow Steptoe, as well as having a junk shop, sells artists’ materials – that he is, in fact, a colourman, and so forth?’
‘Nothinks of the kint, Sir John. The yunker painters often buy olt junk-shop oil paintings to paint on. They are less–’
‘What an idiot I’ve been!’ Appleby, staring in fascination at Braunkopf, reached for the brandy bottle himself. ‘A new, properly primed canvas is very expensive nowadays, so Limbert was looking for a few old pictures to serve instead. And you were helping him. And, for some reason, there were policemen in the offing. That’s clear enough. Now go on.’
‘There was nobodies in the shop, and so we poked about. Limbert saw nothink that was any goot to him. He was sometimes a very impatient yunk man. He shouted. And it was just as he shouted, Sir John, that the two plain-clothes polices came into the shop behind us. I recognized them at once.’
‘Did you indeed, Mr Brown. That is most interesting.’
‘I had been of assistings to them before.’ Braunkopf made this explanation with some dignity. ‘One was Inspector Cow–’
‘Gow – and the other would be Fox. They chase up certain kinds of stolen goods, and works of art among others. Go on, Mr Brown.’
‘Behind the shop there is a shed, where old Moe works. When Limbert got no replyings to that shout, he gave the door one pig kick and walked in. Moe was there. He turned round with a great chump. He was very furry.’
‘Steptoe turned with a jump and was in a great fury. Why?’
‘He was busy with his privates.’
‘What we call his private affairs, Mr Brown. And what were they, at that moment?’
‘He was standing before a pig canvas with a fresh white ground. As soon as Limbert saw that canvas, Sir John, he said: “Moe, I’ll take that one. It might do for what I have in mind.”’
‘Was there anything unusual about this?’
‘Nothink, Sir John – nothink at all. Moe can put down a fresh ground on an old canvas, and often passes the time that way. It adds a few shillinks to the price.’
‘I see. Well?’
‘“Not for sale,” Moe says – and it is then I see he is in a panic. And at that moment, before you could vink an eyelash, in comes Cow.’
‘And Fox?’
‘In come both these plain-clothes polices. Moe knows them very well. He palls.’
Appleby chuckled. ‘The same can’t be said of your story. Steptoe turns pale. Proceed.’
‘For a minute the polices jus stand, looking crim. And Limbert says: “Moe, you oh rascal, why shouldn’t it be for sale? I’ll give fifteen bob, and don’t talk nonsenses.” Moe says nothing for a pit. His chaw has dropped, and his eyes are pupping – pupping out of his head with panic. Limbert picks up the canvas – for the ground has some new quick-drying stuff – and pulls out fifteen shillinks. Then his eye falls on a small painting propped against a table leg. “What’s this?” he says – and takes a lonk look at it. “Nice junk-shop school of Stubbs, eh?” “You put that down,” Moe says. “It’s exposed for sale,” Limbert says. “And five bob’s the price of a nice junk-shop school of Stubbs.” “Nothink of the sort,” Moe cries. “What,” says Limbert; “you’re not claiming it as a real Stubbs, are you?” Moe gives a kind of wriggle. The two polices are still standing there, waiting to ask him questions about some burglarizings. Moe is embraced. Sir John, Lady Appleby, goot lort – I think I never seen a man so embraced before.’
Appleby nodded. ‘And this embarrassment is so powerful that Steptoe gives way?’
‘Jus that. “Of course it’s not a real Stubbs,” he says – and his voice has a kind of crack in it. “Who’d find a real Stubbs in a shop like mine?” “Then here’s your five bob,” Limbert says; and he pulls out a pount note and puts the silver back in his pocket. “So long, Moe. Mustn’t keep your customers waiting.” And out we go with both the little oil and the pig canvas. And Limbert isn’t satisfied with the canvas after all. “I’ll never paint anything on a bloody think that shape,” he says. “Brown, you can have it for the fifteen bob I gave olt Moe.” But of course, Sir John, I had no uses for a blank canvas. A blank canvas is no more attractings than a blank wall. No rooms wealthy cultivated patrons of peauty should have blank walls, Lady Appleby – no?’
The Duke of Horton, who had listened with profound, if somewhat bewildered attention to the broken narrative of the proprietor of the Da Vinci Gallery, finished his brandy and stood up. ‘Appleby, my dear fellow, hadn’t we better find this atrocious scoundrel Steptoe at once?’
‘He must certainly be dropped on tonight. But I think you had better leave it to the police. I assure you we’ll waste no time. Steptoe may have the Aquarium back in his possession now.’
‘Safe and sound? I don’t like this talk of the villain putting down a ground. I don’t understand it. Does it mean that this painter Limbert could actually paint a picture of his own on it, without knowing what was underneath?’
‘I think it does.’ It was Judith who answered. ‘All he would know was that he had an old seventeenth or eighteenth-century canvas to work on. And that’s common enough. Some paintings would need several levelling coats before a new ground was put down – either that, or a lot of the old picture surface removed with soda. But not a Vermeer. Almost nothing would show through. Certainly not enough to give him any hint of the underlying composition.’
‘So this fellow Limbert may have been a perfectly innocent party to the whole affair?’
‘We can’t be sure of that.’ It was now Appleby who spoke. ‘Limbert certainly knew he’d got a genuine Stubbs out of Steptoe. And although he had no means of tracing its owner, he must have had a strong suspicion that Steptoe had come by it wrongfully. There could be no other explanation of Steptoe’s relinquishing it as he did rather than risk attracting the attention of Gow and Fox. And that should have set him thinking about the big canvas. But he mayn’t have thought about it much. Indeed, if the account given me by Grace Brooks of Limbert’s encounter with a stranger on his own staircase was at all accurate, that stranger can only have been Steptoe, who had run Limbert to earth and was trying to get back the pictures. If Limbert had been unsuspecting about the canvas up till then, or not disposed to bother, it seems likely that his being pestered by Steptoe put him in a different mind. And within a few hours of that he was dead.’
6
Looking back upon the events of that night, Appleby
was to feel that he had gone rather light-heartedly to work at the task of recovering the Scamnum Court Vermeer. And that, he admitted, was wrong. For the Aquarium was not only extremely valuable; it was extremely beautiful as well. All the resources of Scotland Yard ought to have been organized to ensure its safe recovery. Nevertheless, Appleby attacked the business in terms of a one-man show. Perhaps he was influenced by what he heard about the fiasco of the large-scale operation at the Thomas Carlyle. More probably, it was simply a matter of self-confidence born of a long and successful career in controlling crime. Be this as it may, Appleby walked out of his own house, took a bus to Sloane Square, and presently found himself outside the junk shop of old Moe Steptoe. The place was in darkness. But this, of course, was to be expected. The time was close on ten o’clock.
Appleby walked past without pausing. The mean street was poorly lit. He could just distinguish a torn blind drawn partly down over an accumulation of broken and dusty lumber. Above, an almost illegible board appeared to intimate that Mr Steptoe was a dealer in curios and antiques. Appleby went round the block without meeting more than a stray cat; and this time he paused in Steptoe’s doorway to light his pipe. A notice hung askew behind the glass, announcing that the establishment was closed. And a more substantial view of its contents made it possible to wonder why it should ever open, so extremely improbable did it appear that any of the goods displayed should again become actual articles of commerce. There was a cardboard box full of hacked and blackened golf balls, and beside this was a tennis racket of nineteenth-century pattern, devoid of strings. There were saucepans with holes and jugs without handles; a pile of rotting canvas probably held itself out as being a carpet or rug; a shallow glass-topped box displayed a gruesome little cemetery of moths and butterflies mostly crumbled to dust. The only work of fine art on view was an oleographic reproduction of The Laughing Cavalier with a triangular tear over the nose. Presumably the recesses of the place, quite invisible to Appleby in the near darkness, would contain deposit upon deposit of the same dismal rubbish.
Appleby crossed the narrow street. It was probable that Steptoe lived either above his place of business or at the back. Here and there along the row of buildings there were lights in upper rooms, but over the junk shop there was only darkness. Appleby again walked to the end of the block, this time counting his paces. There was a narrow and unlighted lane at the back; he paced up this until he knew that he was at the rear of Steptoe’s premises. Braunkopf had spoken of a shed in which Steptoe worked. Producing and cautiously using a torch, Appleby decided that he could just see the sloping roof of this structure at the end of a small yard lying behind an eight-foot brick wall. As with the other buildings down the lane, there was access to the yard through double gates. There would just be room, probably, to back in a van for the purpose of delivering or removing goods. Appleby gave a shove, and concluded that this barrier was bolted on the inside. He poked about the lane, found an abandoned ashbin, upended it, scrambled to the top of the wall, and dropped down on the other side.
He paused, pleased at the success of this lawless proceeding. There was still nothing but darkness before and around him. Again he flashed on his torch. The shed occupied about half the yard; it had a door giving on the yard; but there must also be access to it direct from the shop, the back of which formed its farther wall. Appleby examined it carefully, but without much hope of getting in. The door of the shed was certainly locked and bolted; the window was secured by shutters and a substantial padlock. He moved round the shed and found the back entrance to the main business premises. This too was locked. Without hesitation, Appleby knocked – very loudly. He waited no more than ten seconds and then knocked again. The knock on the door in the dark. It was almost necessary to believe, he thought, that cavemen had doors, so obscure and primitive is the response stirred by that summons. There was nothing but silence, a murmur of distant traffic, the melancholy hoot of a single siren from some craft down the river. He knocked a third time. A light went on in Steptoe’s shop.
‘Who’s that?’ A surly voice spoke from the other side of the door.
‘Plain-clothes police.’
‘How am I to know that? You’re probably thieves. Go away.’
‘Open the door on the chain, and take my warrant card.’
‘I’ll do nothing of the sort. I’ve valuable property here – very valuable indeed – and you may be armed. It’s most unreasonable. If you were in uniform it would be another matter.’
‘Very well, Mr Steptoe. There’s something to be said for that. I’ll have a uniformed man front and back within five minutes. And I’ll be back with a search warrant in half-an-hour.’
‘A search warrant? I don’t believe you’re the police at all.’ Steptoe’s voice was contemptuous, but also discernibly alarmed. ‘No policeman would talk such rubbish. Where do you expect to get a search warrant at this time of night?’
‘I happen to be an Assistant Commissioner of Police. There won’t be any difficulty.’
There was a moment’s silence. Steptoe was taking stock of the situation. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’ll believe you.’ A bolt went back with a click. ‘But I warn you that I’m armed.’
‘Armed, Mr Steptoe? With something you have a licence for?’
‘I didn’t mean that.’ There was a sound of footsteps hastily retreating and presently advancing again. Another bolt went back, and then a key turned. The door swung open. Appleby found himself looking at the point of a rusty sabre, which Steptoe had clearly produced from stock. ‘Come in, then.’ Steptoe took a pace backwards, peered sharply at Appleby, and at once thrust his weapon into a battered umbrella stand. ‘Good evening, sir. I’m sorry to have been a bit doubtful. But I have to be very careful.’
Appleby understood that he had been recognized. ‘No doubt, Mr Steptoe – particularly with the very valuable property you keep here.’
‘That was only in a manner of speaking, sir.’ Steptoe looked alarmed. ‘One has to keep up public confidence with remarks of that sort. But the truth is that business is very poor at present – very poor, indeed. I was remarking on it to my friend Inspector Gow only the other day, sir. It’s having strict standards. Those that ask no questions about where second-hand goods come from get the trade every time. I’m afraid dishonesty is rife, sir – rife in the whole community, in spite of the wonderful efforts of the police. And probity has always been the motto of this firm. Or to be exact, sir, probity and service. But it makes life very hard.’
‘I understand, Mr Steptoe, that you are well known to certain branches of the police – as a martyr to high standards of business rectitude, no doubt.’
‘It’s kind of you to say so, sir – very kind indeed.’ Steptoe treated his visitor to an uncertain leer. Old Moe was not particularly old – nor indeed particularly anything else. His type was that conventionally described as nondescript. Unless – as seemed improbable – it was the inflexible honesty to which he laid claim, he was devoid of any outstanding characteristic whatever. Now he was moving backwards through the rear portion of his establishment. This mode of progress might have been intended as a mark of respect to an Assistant Commissioner, or as a residual caution in face of the possibility of physical assault – or it was perhaps adopted merely because the place was so crammed with every sort of hideous, useless, maimed, and degraded object that turning round was an operation of some difficulty. ‘Perhaps, sir, you would care to step upstairs to the office? We can have a comfortable talk there. And if there is any information I can give you–’
‘I’m hoping to get more than information out of you, Mr Steptoe. Lead the way.’
The staircase was narrow, rickety, and for the greater part appropriated to the purpose of a set of bookshelves. Appleby’s glance as he climbed was engaged by successive levels – in every sense – of literary activity. And here alone was there some evidence of a lurking instinct for order on the part of the proprietor – made manifest, however, upon somewhat uncertain prin
ciples. King Lear had been set beside Queen Victoria and her People and The Republic of Plato. A battered Divine Comedy was companioned by A Thousand Miles of Miracles in China, and next to this was Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Little Women had been paired with Great Expectations; In Tune with the Infinite with The Theory of Harmony; and Petrol Engines with Filled with the Spirit. Appleby had not done chuckling at this when he was ushered into what Steptoe chose to call his office.
The room had all the appearance of being bedroom and kitchen too – and bathroom whenever anything in the nature of ablution occurred to its owner. A littered desk, however, together with an ancient typewriter, a telephone, and a filing-cabinet, gave a sufficient suggestion of business activity. Old Moe, by the simple expedient of removing a frying-pan from one end of a battered horsehair sofa, accommodated his guest with a seat. ‘And now, sir, how can I help you? Inspector Gow will have told you that I am always ready to rally to the side of law and order – very ready, indeed. And if there is any information–’ Steptoe broke off short, and slapped his forehead dramatically with his fingers. ‘But first, sir, do you mind if I make a telephone call? A purely family matter. Your arrival put it quite out of my head. And it’s urgent, sir – a matter of illness.’
‘Go ahead, Mr Steptoe.’
Steptoe dialled a number. ‘Moe here,’ he said. ‘I’m anxious about Auntie Aggie…taken poorly again? Oh dear!’ Steptoe’s voice expressed extreme distress and concern. ‘It can be dangerous when they’re took that way – very dangerous indeed. You must have the doctor… I said you must have the doctor. See if he can arrange to get her away quick… Poor old soul – is that so? Ted would help – and perhaps Alfie… Sad – very sad. If only something would lie on what’s left of her stummik.’
And Steptoe put down the receiver. ‘Family responsibilities, sir. They weigh on me heavily, I’m bound to confess. Those sort of ties are not acknowledged of – not as they used to be. It makes it harder on the conscientious members. And as you’ll have gathered, I’m very fond of old Auntie Aggie.’
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