by John Harris
Detto Banti’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Mamma mia.’ He grinned. ‘They’d pay well, wouldn’t they? Governments are never short of money. Only the Italian Government. You’d better come upstairs to the studio. We’re just looking at them now.’
The studio at the top of the stairs had a vast window facing north, and had obviously once been a bedroom. It had odd fragments of furniture in it, a large wooden manikin, drapes of cloth and a table so smeared with paint it was impossible to see the wood beneath. The whole floor was spotted with paint, too. Propped against the walls were the paintings, and in the centre was a large upright easel holding a single canvas about a metre square. It was being studied by an elderly man whose clothes hung from his fragile frame like curtains.
Detto Banti gestured at him. ‘This is Avvocato Tassinari,’ he said. ‘He’s the lawyer handling my brother’s estate. He’s here to see fair play.’ He shrugged. ‘Though I don’t know why he’s worrying. Bocco had no family and, as I’m his brother, the paintings are legally mine.’
Four
It didn’t take long to get down to business, and by evening Pugh was fully occupied.
Avvocato Tassinari, it appeared, came from Naples and was one of the hundreds of lawyers who lived in the city, most of them without ever practising. Though their parents had gone hungry to give them an education which would bring them a title – avvocato, ingeniere, dottore, professore – most of the time the titles were valueless because there wasn’t any work to go with them, and their owners largely lived in poverty. Avvocato Tassinari, it seemed, was one of the luckier ones and eked out a fragile existence on a legacy that had always been a pittance and was now even more so with inflation, but was occasionally boosted by the small fees that he picked up from such as Boccaccio Detto Banti.
He was skinny, beak-nosed and grey-faced, but carefully dressed. His white shirt had a darned but well-starched collar and, though his suit was pressed, its frayed cuffs betrayed its age. Despite his fragile appearance – he looked as if the slightest breath of wind would carry him away – his mind was alert and shrewd, and he was obviously not prepared to take the newly discovered Detto Bantis either at face value or on Marco Detto Banti’s word.
By this time, a column moving north had halted in the square outside to disgorge men who were clearly due to move to the front. Under the trees in front of the church, lorries were parked and khaki-clad figures, laden down with equipment, were beginning to line up. The windows round the square were crowded with watching people. Officers conferred with local officials. A man walked his dog between the vehicles, and the dog lifted its leg against a wheel. Girls had appeared in doorways, smiling and waving, watched by the soldiers with eyes full of lust.
Pugh turned from the window. The Ca’ di Leone was only half-full of furniture. ‘We had to sell it,’ Marco explained, pouring wine from a bottle. ‘Or burn it for firewood. Bocco was running out of cash. He always overspent and he hadn’t sold anything for years. A lot of it went soon after the war started.’
‘When did he die?’
‘Two days ago. He knew he was going. He had himself dressed and carried to the top of the stairs to say goodbye to his friends. There were only two of them. The rest had died or left the district. He had a great sense of the dramatic.’
‘And the funeral?’
‘Tomorrow. If the tedeschi don’t come.’
‘Are they going to come?’
‘You bet they are.’
‘Are you a Fascist?’
‘I hated the bastards. Another drink?’
Pugh held out his glass, his eyes on the painting on the easel.
‘From his vineyard,’ Marco said, holding up the bottle. ‘I looked after it, of course, not Bocco. At least, it won’t send you to sleep with your head in the soup. There’ll be soup. Enrichetta always provides something, even if it’s uneatable.’
‘Paid for how?’
‘We sell something. This place was full of junk, and the Americans love junk. Great ones for souvenirs. We had a dead German in the garden when they left. I sold the buttons off his tunic at a dollar a time.’
Pugh was staring at the picture, his nose pressed close to the canvas.
‘Is this really a Detto Banti?’ he said.
Marco appeared from behind the easel. ‘Of course it is!’
‘Are you sure?’ Avvocato Tassinari demanded.
‘What else would it be?’
‘How did it turn up?’
‘There are always unwanted paintings round an artist’s studio.’
‘These weren’t around,’ Tassinari said firmly. ‘They were in the cellar.’
Pugh frowned. ‘And if there were pictures,’ he asked, ‘why didn’t he sell them instead of the furniture?’
‘These were hidden. Otherwise, there were only sketches.’
‘Which you’ve sold?’
Marco grinned. ‘Bocco let me have the pick of anything he didn’t want.’
Avvocato Tassinari interrupted. ‘This is the estate of Boccaccio Detto Banti,’ he pointed out sharply. ‘I was his lawyer and I am his executor. There had better not be anything more which you had the pick of. As it is, I’m troubled by the absence of sketches to go with these paintings. He must have made preliminary drawings.’
‘Who wants pencil sketches?’
‘I do.’ There was a streak of iron in the frail old lawyer. ‘They have value and would be part of the estate, and I have to administer the estate.’
‘I don’t see the point,’ Marco said. ‘I’m his only relative.’
‘That’s something we must be sure of.’ The old lawyer jerked a hand at the painting on the easel. ‘Why are you so certain this is your brother’s work?’
Marco put down his glass. ‘Sergio de Castro, the dealer, knew his work and he never questioned its authenticity.’
‘Is he good, this chap De Castro?’ Pugh asked.
‘Best there is. Very important.’
‘Italy’s full of a thousand years of the rubbish of artists,’ old Tassinari said quietly. ‘There’s plenty of work for such as he.’
‘And if he says it’s a Detto Banti,’ Marco pointed out, ‘you can accept it without question.’
‘We ought to talk to him,’ Pugh said. ‘Find out if he knows anything of the provenance.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with the provenance,’ Marco said irritably.
‘Marco’ – the old lawyer spoke quietly but with a soft determination – ‘I’m not an art expert. Only an amateur. But I know a little about art and have studied its history and done a little detective work here and there. And as a lawyer who’s looked after your brother’s interests for a long time, I have to be sure. Twelve Detto Bantis turning up in the cellar here after he’s dead, when nobody had ever heard of them–’ He shrugged.
‘They must have been there for some time,’ Marco said.
‘Then why didn’t the old woman who looked after him know about them? She has a room in the basement, I believe.’
‘And she hardly ever went beyond it. Especially in the last years. She grew so bad on her legs.’
‘But you knew about them. Why didn’t you sell them to raise money?’
‘That’s just the point.’ Marco gestured with the wine bottle. ‘I didn’t know about them. I saw those boxes down there – the crates that had been used to send his work to Rome. I thought they were empty.’
Pugh took a sip of the wine and stared again at the canvas on the easel. It was a colourful scene, an allegorical painting of a peasant appealing for help with his arms outspread. Behind him there was a gaunt tree, stark and broken, its two main branches falling coincidentally behind the outstretched arms so that the man looked crucified. Around him soldiers and officials appeared to be jeering at his appeals for help.
‘It’s called The Christ of Calabria,’ Marco said.
Pugh’s eyes moved across the canvas, noting the light and shade and the way the shafts fell across the central figure. Then he scr
atched carefully with his fingernail at the scarlet slash of the signature ‘B. Detto Banti’. The painting had a heroic force, but Avvocato Tassinari studied it doubtfully.
‘It has the Detto Banti green,’ he said slowly. ‘His own special colour. I know nobody else had the secret of that green. He told me so. It died with him. And there’s that seated figure in the background there, something he always had in his paintings. Yet the red’s wrong and there are figures that Bocco would never have painted.’
‘He’d have painted anything at the end,’ Marco pointed out. ‘He settled for simplicity.’
‘When did he paint it?’ Pugh asked.
Marco had disappeared behind the easel and Pugh knew he was unobtrusively slipping a tot of brandy into his wine. He’d noticed him do it before.
‘Any time in the three years before he died.’ The voice came back firmly from behind the easel.
‘It’s a bit indifferent for a Detto Banti.’
There was a deep chuckle from behind the easel. ‘He was probably drunk.’
Pugh stared at the picture again. ‘But why?’ he asked.
‘Because he often was.’
‘Not that. Why paint it and then hide it?’
Marco shrugged. ‘It was dangerous. He must have painted it in his anti-Mussolini period. He went through one towards the end. Perhaps that’s why he never allowed it to be seen. Under the Fascists, for the sort of sentiment you see there you could be sent to prison.’
Pugh gestured at the other paintings propped up around the studio. In his dedicated way, Tassinari had made a list and they began to discuss them.
‘The Stolen Embrace,’ Tassinari said. ‘Washerwoman at a Stream. Funeral at Novara. That seems to be a scene from one of the battles of the Risorgimento. The character in the middle could well be Garibaldi. Self-portrait. It’s very like that famous photograph of Bocco that was always used. I think he copied it to save work.’
‘He was a bit sly at times,’ Marco agreed.
‘The March on Rome,’ Tassinari continued. ‘Perhaps that was painted to please Mussolini. I shouldn’t imagine it did, though. He looks too soulful and Mussolini never liked to be thought soulful. He liked to be thought of as a man of action. Meeting of Garibaldi and Vittorio Emmanuelo.’ He stared for a moment. ‘Well, it’s different from the popular one. Three Sisters. The one in the middle’s Xenia Anikina, his mistress. I suspect she posed for the others, too, and Bocco merely added a few touches to make them look different.’ Tassinari looked at his list again. ‘Still Life with Chessmen.’ He stared at the canvas. ‘That’s different. Bocco was always good with figures, and the figures in the other five aren’t his best. But he was never very interested in still life, yet that is good. I wonder why he painted it?’
‘Change of mood,’ Pugh said. ‘Fancied doing something different.’
‘The Detto Banti green is there in all of them.’
‘Almost,’ Pugh said, frowning, ‘as if he were trying to make certain nobody had any doubt about who painted them. “Look,” he’s saying. “This is Detto Banti colour, clear proof that I, Bocco Detto Banti, painted it.” But there isn’t much. Not in any of them. Just a touch.’
‘He grew lazy in his old age,’ Marco explained. ‘I don’t think he could be bothered to mix it up.’
Tassinari stared at the picture of the washerwomen. ‘It’s possible,’ he said. ‘It looks as if he were tired. The brushwork’s poor.’ His eye moved on. ‘Prince of Peace. Boy with Oranges. Sheep Returning to the Fold.’
‘Twelve of them,’ Pugh said. ‘Eleven totally without protest. So why hide them? A painter of Bocco Detto Banti’s standing doesn’t do a thing like that.’
Marco shrugged. ‘Perhaps he didn’t like the thought that when he died there’d be no more of him. Perhaps it was his way of making sure his fame didn’t die too soon.’
He sipped at his wine. ‘He was fighting a losing battle, of course. He was too pompous. A hundred years from now he’ll be lumped with all the others who used to be popular and now won’t fetch their weight in beans.’
Pugh stared again at the picture on the easel then he moved across the room and studied the others. ‘None of these are very good Detto Bantis.’
Marco shrugged. ‘They’re the best we’ve got and his name’s on them.’
As he swallowed what was left of his wine and left the room to find another bottle, Avvocato Tassinari stared at the canvas. ‘Marco was always a truffatore – a shyster,’ he said. ‘In a way, they both were. Bocco’s trouble was women, Marco’s drink. But he’s likeable enough, you understand, even if you can’t trust him. I’ve been listening to his comments for twenty-four hours now. I knew there was never much love lost between them.’ He studied the canvas, frowning. ‘Bocco was fashionable, and in his time and at his best he didn’t fall far short of brilliance.’
Pugh stared again at the painting on the easel. He’d seen plenty of Detto Bantis before the war and somehow this painting looked out of phase. It didn’t seem to have Bocco’s inherent pomposity – Marco was right about that, he had to admit.
As Marco returned with a fresh bottle, Pugh turned to him. ‘Let’s have it again,’ he said. ‘Where they came from, I mean.’
Marco smiled. ‘He had his studio here ever since he returned to Italy,’ he explained. ‘I worked for him. I had to.’ He gestured with his glass. ‘Because of this. But he became difficult and I left. But then he grew old and dotty and I came back to look after him. Italians believe in family. For seven years I was here, and when I knew he was going to die I started looking round the place for something that might reward me for my care and attention. When I found the canvasses in the cellar I couldn’t believe my luck.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about them before?’ Tassinari asked.
Marco grinned. ‘I thought they’d be claimed to pay his debts. He had a few.’
Pugh was studying Marco. ‘It’s a pity he didn’t make a will,’ he said.
‘Why should he? There’s only me. There are no children. When his first wife died childless, he married that model of his, Xenia Anikina, who’d been his mistress for years. But she was a lunatic and he soon kicked her out. She married a Frenchman just after World War I and was killed in a car crash outside Paris in 1922.’
Pugh indicated the canvasses round the room. ‘Assuming they’re genuine,’ he asked, ‘how much are they worth?’
‘In England, £10,000 each.’
Avvocato Tassinari pulled a face. ‘At the present rate of exchange that would be about right,’ he agreed. ‘Four million lire would not be very wrong. But they would have to be sold quickly. Their price won’t improve with age.’
Marco smiled. ‘I don’t mind,’ he said. ‘I’ll be glad to shuffle him off. I was always the little brother who couldn’t paint. In fact, I could paint rings round him.’
‘Did you sell much?’ Pugh asked.
Marco grinned and gestured with the bottle. ‘I never finished much,’ he admitted. ‘When I came back here Bocco was at the stage when he was glad of help, and when he was too busy, too bored or too drunk, I painted in things like the curtains and the sky for him. You know the green seat in the painting he did of the garden here? The well-known one – Italian Landscape with Figures. That was mine.’
Pugh’s eyes met the old lawyer’s. Then he glanced at the canvas again. Marco smiled.
‘You needn’t worry,’ he encouraged them. ‘These are solid parish church Bocco. And at four million lire each, it makes me a wealthy man, doesn’t it? I’ve been fighting off people who wanted to grab them ever since I discovered them. The first to arrive was Sansovino, the Mayor. He said they ought to be stored in the vaults of the Palazzo Municipale. For safety.’
‘Why weren’t they?’
Marco grinned. ‘Because Sansovino’s a crook. He was appointed by AMGOT, to take the place of the Fascist podesta. If I’d let him have them he’d have bolted with the lot. I’ve been expecting him to arrive with one of his
strong-arm boys to collect them ever since Bocco died. I’m glad I’ve got somebody here now with a gun and the military authority to make sure I keep them.’
‘What does this Sansovino look like?’ Pugh asked. ‘It might be as well to be able to recognise him.’
Marco pointed across the square. A large, fat man dressed like something out of a Hollywood film – dark shirt, white tie, pin-striped suit and spats – stood with his back to them on the steps of the Palazzo Municipale. Beyond him were three other men, all similarly dressed, and they were talking to an American officer, the fat man’s arms waving in good southern Italian gestures.
‘That’s him,’ Marco said. ‘The one in front. The officer’s taking hand-outs from him. I’ll be glad to see the paintings out of their reach, and their value in money in my pocket.’
‘They have to be sold first,’ Tassinari reminded him.
‘They’ll sell.’ Marco sounded confident. ‘When the Germans were here they bought everything he had. They loved them. Particularly the fleshy women he sometimes painted.’
‘These won’t be going to flesh-loving Germans. They would be sold in an international market where there would be shrewd buyers.’
‘They’ll still sell. There are plenty of idiots who like to have something to talk about during dinner and they’ll pay for the privilege of a story. A newly discovered Detto Banti? They’ll pay.’
Pugh had to admit Marco was probably right.
Marco finished off his glass at a gulp. ‘It would make him turn in his grave,’ he said, ‘to think his money was coming to me.’
As they talked they heard the local bus pulling up in the road outside. It was a battered vehicle running on gas and it had smooth tyres and was down at one side where a spring had gone. For a long time Vicinamontane hadn’t had a bus and only now, with the front line pushed to the north, had the Allies allowed it to start again. The passengers who descended were mostly townspeople, but among them was a young woman who headed straight for the Ca’ di Leone.
‘Someone from De Castro, I expect,’ Marco said. ‘Come about the pictures.’