A Trace of Deceit

by Karen Odden

  There was none of that fierce misery here at the Gallery. Instead, the spacious foyer was redolent with roses, for a wealthy benefactress had donated the funds to maintain a welcoming bouquet on the ceramic pedestal in the center of the room. We climbed a flight of marble stairs, elegant as a tiered cake with royal icing. At the top, I led Mr. Hallam down the central hallway with its white, bearded busts stationed at regular intervals and then through two rooms of paintings. He began to trail behind me, slowing in front of a vivid pair of sixth-century Byzantine icons painted on wood and pausing at a Dutch interior by Vermeer that happened to be one of my favorites. He stood for several minutes before a dramatic seascape by Turner. I’d never liked being rushed past paintings myself, so I waited silently in the doorway. Finally he stepped away and followed me into the next room. There, one wall was occupied by a quartet of portraits, each of a different member of the House of Lords, originally painted in oils by Sir Edward Bleckle.

  I kept my voice low, so as not to be overheard by a small party of ladies nearby. “Look carefully at these four, Inspector. Do you see how one of these is different from the rest?”

  Hands behind his back, he approached each in turn, bending close to look intently at various parts of the canvas before he returned to where I stood. “I confess I don’t. The signature seems the same, both in shape and placement, as you say. Making allowances for differences in their features, the attitudes of the four men are almost exactly alike. I can’t see how the canvas is wrapped, of course, but the frames are similar, and they’re all the same size. What am I missing?”

  I stepped close to the wall, between the third and fourth paintings, so I could point. “Look here,” I said softly, gesturing to the background of the third. “Do you see how there is a subtle weight to the left side of the stroke? It’s easiest to see with the dark gray. And here, the paint is thickened at the fold of the red cloth on his arm?”

  He nodded.

  “Now, look here.”

  He turned to the fourth painting and examined the bit of canvas near the end of my finger. After looking back and forth between the two, he turned to me in some surprise. “I see it, now that you mention it. The brushstroke seems more even, and the paint isn’t piled on so much. But how did you—”

  “Now take a look at the other two and tell me which of these two isn’t original.”

  He examined the first two paintings, leaning toward them, his hands clasped behind his back. “These have brushstrokes that are weighted, as you say, to the left.” He came close to the fourth painting. “So you would say this is a forgery.”

  “It’s a very good reproduction,” I corrected him.

  “And the museum doesn’t know.”

  “They do, actually.”

  He looked at me, startled.

  “Lord Bridgewater commissioned it,” I said in an undertone, still mindful of the ladies hovering around a landscape on the next wall. “The original hangs in his house above a sideboard, I’m told. In the room where he takes breakfast.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Because Edwin made the copy,” I explained. “He signed it on the back, and Lord Bridgewater provided a letter to the effect that he’d authorized this reproduction.”

  His lips parted, and for once he seemed to be jolted out of his composure. “Well.” He turned back to the paintings and shook his head in disbelief. “He’s remarkably skilled.”

  “Yes.” I paused, and my voice flattened. “He was.”

  His glance carried an apology. After a moment, he murmured, “Why does the museum have the copy?”

  “The museum retains ownership of the original, though it is on loan to Lord Bridgewater for the duration of his life.” I felt a shadow of a smile cross my lips. “The museum was persuaded to accept the terms by a gift of five hundred pounds—for which no receipt was issued.”

  A look of understanding crossed his face. “An agreement among members of a certain class,” he said softly and turned back to the painting. “Well, if the man wants to gaze upon a complimentary likeness of his face every morning and is willing to pay for the pleasure”—he shrugged—“so be it.” He stepped back to survey the quartet and added wryly, “I must say they are all handsome men, gathered together like this. If you roamed London you might not find a group of four such men anywhere but here.”

  I stifled a laugh. “Perhaps Sir Bleckle took some liberties.”

  We left the museum, and as we reached the street, he said, “Now I can see why your brother was so successful as a copyist.” I sensed where this was leading, and when I didn’t reply, he added, “I should tell you, I read the notes from your brother’s case.”

  I felt myself squirm internally. I knew the gist of what they contained. Based on the testimony of the two Needham brothers and another witness, the judge found Edwin guilty of painting forgeries and providing them to Mr. Needham for sale in his gallery. Following his release from jail, Edwin told me his version of what had happened, which departed from the Needhams’ accounts in several salient ways. I hadn’t been sure how much of it to believe. And what did it matter, practically speaking? He had served his sentence, and now he was free.

  But he’s not. He’s gone.

  I heard the words as if someone had shouted them, and they drowned out whatever Mr. Hallam was saying. The pain they brought stopped my feet so abruptly that he was several yards ahead before he realized that I was no longer with him. Once again, I had the flattened, breathless feeling, and I stood stock-still on the pavement, gasping for air.

  A warm hand took my elbow, and I looked up to see Mr. Hallam’s eyes full of sympathy. “I’m sorry.” The breeze blew his hair across his forehead and he shook it back.

  “I’m all right,” I managed. “It’s just . . . I forget he’s gone, and then I remember, but . . .”

  “It’s as if you’d never known it before.” His tone told me he was speaking from his own experience.

  I nodded, and after a moment we continued on, rounding the corner. The air here was thick with the yeasty smell of a pub.

  “I’m sorry. What were you saying?” I asked.

  “That the report seemed incomplete to me,” Mr. Hallam said.

  “Why?”

  We separated to allow two men carrying boxes to pass.

  “Because the notes were very sparse,” he said. “And your brother bore all the fault for the forgeries, while the gallery bore none. That isn’t the way things usually happen.” A sideways glance. “It just made me wonder.”

  It was clearly an invitation.

  My steps halted again, and this time he stopped with me, turning so I could see his face. I searched those blue eyes for some sign of deception, a glimmer that betrayed he was saying this only to win my confidence. But I saw only a thoughtful curiosity.

  I walked on, and he fell into step. “According to Edwin, it began when he did some restoration work for Mr. Needham—cleaning paintings and repairing frames and so forth. Several times he made copies that he’d been told were legitimately commissioned by the owners. But some time after that, Mr. Needham let it slip that a few of them weren’t, and he made out that Edwin had known all along. Edwin understood he’d been lured in, and at first he refused to do any more work for them. But the Needhams threatened they’d tell the police what he’d done, and Edwin needed money because . . . well, by then my father wasn’t giving him anything. So sometimes, when a painting was sold to someone who seemed not to know much about art, Mr. Needham would ask the customer to leave the painting at the gallery, so it might be cleaned and boxed for travel. Then, he’d have Edwin make a copy, which Needham would pass off as the original. Edwin could finish a painting in three days, if he had to.”

  “Needham assumed the customer wouldn’t know the difference,” he supplied. “But someone did?”

  “No.” I dodged a man wheeling a sack barrow stacked with crates. “Mr. Needham couldn’t hang the same painting back on his wall, of course, so he’d send the ori
ginal to his brother’s gallery up north.”

  “So in effect they sold the same painting twice,” Mr. Hallam said.

  “Yes. But someone who’d bought a painting from the London gallery happened to be up in Oxford and saw the original. That’s how they were caught.”

  “Hm.” He sank his hands in the pockets of his coat and paused at the corner to let a carriage pass. “In the trial transcript, the Needhams claim that having gained their trust, Edwin illegally copied paintings after hours and then took the originals to the Oxford gallery on his own, collecting a fee for ‘finding’ the work. It sounds implausible to me that the brothers never compared their records.”

  “I know. Edwin says he tried to explain how they tricked him into making unlawful copies at first. But the judge only cared that he’d made others with full knowledge.”

  He frowned. “Surely Edwin knew he was taking a significant risk.”

  “Yes.” I sighed. “He was never very good at weighing risks.”

  We started across the street, avoiding a fresh pile of horse droppings that made me cover my nose and mouth until we were past.

  “Why didn’t he pursue his craft legitimately?” he asked. “Surely there was a way he could earn a living without—well, without skirting the law.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. The only thing I can say is perhaps he thought he was pursuing it legitimately. It was only later he realized he wasn’t, and by then . . .”

  He opened his mouth to ask yet another question, but I decided it was time to ask one of my own. “What about you, Mr. Hallam? Why did you become interested in people skirting the law?”

  He drew himself up and a grin curved his mouth. “Turnabout is fair play?”

  I returned his smile. “Was your father a policeman?”

  “Lord, no. He was a navy man. He probably would’ve liked to see me there, but I don’t like boats.”

  I thought of how he’d stood in front of the Turner painting. “You don’t?”

  “I get seasick and turn an ugly shade of green,” he said. “Nell says I look like an unhappy toad.” I couldn’t help my laugh.

  “But Father had a friend who was an inspector,” he continued, “and when I was young, I admired him a good deal. Rather the way a mere mortal might look upon Hercules.” He pulled a face, as if he were making a private joke with a younger version of himself. “His name was Michael Rafferty, and he used to come once a week or so for a nip of scotch with my father. He’d talk about his work, ask Father’s advice sometimes. Not in any official capacity, you understand. Just as you’d ask a friend you respected because he’s seen something of the world.”

  “Of course.”

  “When I was younger, I’d sit outside the door to listen, and when I was older, I was allowed to join them—though not for the scotch.” We sidestepped a boy on a bicycle. “Do you ever read the penny-dreadfuls, Miss Rowe?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Well, some of Mr. Rafferty’s accounts were even more sensational than those. Danger, deception, and the most peculiar people. His mother had been a storyteller, and he inherited the gift.” He directed me around a right-handed corner. “And then, one day—I couldn’t have been more than thirteen—he was working on an investigation that involved some documents in German. Both Nell and I had been tutored in it, so between us, we helped him translate the passages. Made me feel terribly important.”

  I smiled. “Naturally it would.”

  “From time to time, he brought other puzzling things we could help with.” He shrugged self-deprecatingly. “It may not sound like much, but it was enough to intrigue me.”

  “So you became a policeman because you like puzzles,” I said, as we stopped at a corner and waited for two hansom cabs to roll by.

  He didn’t answer at first; and when I looked up, I saw the humor had faded from his face.

  “Well,” he said. We crossed the street before he added, “Partly. But it was also because some of his stories showed me the injustice of things. It made me want to . . . to try to . . . well, to right the ship, as my father would say.”

  I was struck by the genuine feeling in his voice. “Do you believe that everything can be resolved like a puzzle, through the courts of law?”

  “I used to,” he said honestly. “But the truth is, not everything can. Not least because we—we policemen, I mean—fail sometimes. We’re not quick enough, or we come to the wrong conclusions. And sometimes the case is so peculiar that the law doesn’t address it yet. Watch yourself there.” He pointed to a gap in the pavement.

  I stepped over it. “Did you start at the Yard?”

  He shook his head. “No one does. I was in uniform in Lambeth first. Barely nineteen, overly serious, determined to prove myself—and I had no idea how little I knew.” His tone was wryly amused. “I’m sure people found me ridiculous.”

  Perhaps they had, I thought. But I doubt they would now.

  Indeed, despite his self-deprecation, it was becoming clear to me that the inspector felt things deeply and carried a good deal of responsibility on his shoulders. But I wasn’t about to share such an observation. Instead I looked up at the clock on a nearby church. “It’s nearly half past three. We don’t want to be late.”

  Chapter 6

  Just before four o’clock, Mr. Hallam and I found the address Felix had provided on a lovely street north of St. James’s Park. It was a three-story house, with five pale gray stone steps leading up to a painted black door upon which hung a shining brass knocker in the shape of an anchor.

  We waited on the pavement, and after a few moments a cab drew up and Felix dismounted. He nodded to us, climbed the steps, and tapped the knocker twice. A maid opened the door and ushered us inside. The foyer was painted tastefully, but the house was clearly in a state of upheaval. In the front hall were carpets, rolled, labeled, and ready for removal. Through an open door, I saw a room full of furniture draped in crisp white holland. Several flat wooden crates suitable for transporting paintings lay on the floor amid boxes the proper size for lamps and other valuables. Two men were arranging boards into place to make another crate, and a third stood by with a hammer.

  Only one painting still hung in the hallway. It showed a garden with a low fountain, painted in an unusual style, but one I’d seen recently, though I couldn’t remember where. The work looked vaguely unfinished, with the flowers suggested by bits of color rather than depicted as in life, and yet the sunlight seemed to glint as if a breeze were blowing across the scene. My curiosity drew me, and I examined the signature in the corner. P. Cézanne, with the letters all separated and the z an upright squiggle. My breath caught, for now I remembered where I’d seen his work. This artist was one of the group that had arranged an independent exhibit after being ostracized from the French Salon last spring. Mr. Poynter had shown us a few printed reproductions of their paintings along with the reviews that appeared in the papers. Some of the criticism had made me wince in sympathy for the artists. I remembered one phrase in particular: “This school will sicken or disgust every viewer.” But this painting had neither effect on me, and though Felix seemed wholly uninterested, I examined it until the maid returned. She strained to make herself heard over the intermittent banging of the carpenter’s hammer and led us through a pair of wooden doors.

  Here in the parlor, the furniture was still in place and uncovered. I imagined that aside from Mrs. Jesper’s bedroom, this was perhaps the sole refuge of the lady of the house. The tables were nearly empty of decorative objects, with only a few silver frames and a book or two. But the lamps shed a good light, and paintings still hung on the wall. There were four: two Dutch Old Masters, a still life, and a landscape. I moved closer to the Old Masters, so I could see them clearly; one was superior to the other. A Van Eyck? I peered at the signature and saw it was his, probably from his later period: an exquisite study of a young woman, her head half turned away, her hand curved around an apple in a way to suggest both innocence and absent
mindedness. The light brushing her cap and her cheek was painted so skillfully I felt a stab of envy.

  Felix materialized beside me. “It’s very fine, isn’t it? Perhaps one of the best in the collection. Her father acquired it years ago, before Celia was born.”

  We heard footsteps, and all three of us turned toward the door. A woman of about thirty years of age came through the door and closed it behind her to mute the noise of the workmen. She was slender and fine-boned, with plain features; her brown hair was drawn back from her forehead and fixed in a low chignon, and I thought I saw in her face the marks of sorrow and strain. She was still dressed in mourning, with her only ornament a pair of silver-and-jet earrings. Her hand on the knob, she paused to study Mr. Hallam and me. She held herself with an air of quiet dignity, competence, and intelligence. This was a woman who wouldn’t be easily ruffled, or surprised into betraying information she wished to keep to herself. As she came toward us, I saw she walked with a limp.

  “Hello, Felix,” she said, her voice low and musical. She extended her hand, and he inclined toward her, taking her hand in one of his and patting it with the other. “I received your note. Is something the matter?”

  “I’m afraid so, Celia,” he said heavily. But he turned and gestured toward us. “This is Miss Annabel Rowe. She is an artist herself, studying at the Slade.”

  “An artist,” she echoed warmly and turned toward me. I saw that although her other features might be plain, her eyes—hazel and fringed with dark lashes—were beautiful, wide and expressive. “It’s a pleasure,” she said with a gentle smile. “I wish I could paint, but I merely collect—or, rather, tend to my family’s collection.”

  “This is a brilliant Van Eyck,” I said, gesturing to it.

  A spark of pleasure and approval came into her eyes, and her smile deepened enough to put a faint dimple in her cheek. “Thank you. It is one of my favorites.”

  “And this is Inspector Matthew Hallam of Scotland Yard,” Felix added. She stiffened, and her smile slipped away, but she nodded civilly and gestured to the cluster of furniture in the middle of the room. I took a seat slightly apart, so I might observe the three of them. Felix hunched in an imposing leather chair, his shoulders rounded protectively toward Mrs. Jesper. Mr. Hallam sat in its match, with his spine straight and his demeanor subdued. Mrs. Jesper perched on the edge of an upholstered sofa that was supported by impossibly spindly legs, her quiet hands delicate as carved ivory against the deep black bombazine of her skirt. She turned to face Felix expectantly.