If this was a true account of the sequence of events, it was plain that the unfortunate Mr Wright was blameless. The blackout and the robbery had to be seen as deliberately synchronised actions, and the thieves were responsible for both. Swarms of experts, it appeared, would have to investigate the college’s complicated electrical set-up before this aspect of the affair could be clarified.
The performance of Tamburlaine had naturally come to an abrupt close, with players and audience dispersing in a confused and indeed alarmed fashion. Torches of various sorts had been available, including the flares and smoky brands with which the rude soldiery had been disporting themselves. The headlights of parked cars and the more powerful beams from fire-engines had played their part. The Provost, with great address, had possessed himself of some loud-hailing apparatus used in the production, apologised to the audience, announced that no fresh danger was to be apprehended, and implored everybody to be calm. By the time we heard of the disappearance of the picture all the fuss was over. By midnight the audience had departed, and in college we had gone to bed – either that or were gossiping in our rooms over this untoward event.
Bedworth came in to see me at noon on the following day. He was predictably upset.
‘Duncan,’ he said, ‘I don’t like it. I don’t like it a bit.’
‘I’d suppose not.’
It’s going to cause a great deal of trouble.’
‘No doubt.’
‘I suppose you care a lot about what’s happened to that damned picture?’
‘Care about it?’ I had to consider this. Bedworth appeared to feel that my family connection with artistic matters must be a point involved. ‘Well, yes—I think I do, Cyril. I keep on telling myself that stolen works of art of great value are seldom destroyed. The thieves mayn’t be aesthetically inclined, but the mere vague notion of enormous monetary worth somehow inhibits them. Even if they’re cornered and find their enterprise no go they generally abandon the picture or whatever where it will be found by some fortunate dustman.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. A Golden Dustman.’ Bedworth, a devoted Dickensian, paused on this thought. ‘Meanwhile, it’s going to split the college.’
‘Split the college?’ I stared at Bedworth uncomprehendingly. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘I mean—’ Bedworth broke off, as if shying away from something too dreadful to contemplate. ‘Duncan, what are such things stolen for?’
‘Ransom, almost invariably. There’s a myth about mad collectors who will pay enormous sums for stolen masterpieces just for the pleasure of hiding them away in strongrooms and cellars. That’s poppycock, I believe. Ransom is almost always the idea. Insurance companies will sometimes play ball in a quiet way.’
‘You know the thing isn’t insured?’
‘No, I don’t.’ This news surprised me. ‘Surely the Provost wouldn’t miss a trick like that? I don’t know a more prudent man.’
‘Insuring that Piero – particularly under the conditions in which we’ve been showing it – would be enormously costly. Not in terms of college finances, of course. But it can’t be done. It would be totally ultra vires’
‘Good God, Cyril! Statutes again?’
‘Yes, of course. We don’t hold our pictures and so on in the interest of piety and learning. They merely conduce to our splendour, or whatever it’s called. We have to be very careful when expending even moderate sums on them.’
‘What utter nonsense!’ Quite suddenly, I was comically indignant. ‘There’s as much learning and piety in being able to look at—’
‘Yes, I know. I know you must take that view.’ Bedworth said this in a respectful tone, also comical. I was coming to have to reflect at times on what it must be like to bear a surname such as Wordsworth or Coleridge. ‘But there we are, Duncan. If we lose the Piero we lose the hell of a lot of money – in fact, about the largest windfall the college has ever had. And you know perfectly well how much it’s needed. Simply put, we send the Piero to Sotheby’s, and clear ourselves on the tower.’
‘Instead of which, we may have to shell out cash in some covert fashion for the picture’s recovery?’
‘I can’t imagine our doing that.’
‘Then we must just hope the police find the thing. Cyril, tell me what you mean about splitting the college.’
‘It’s writ large over the whole situation. There’s already a good deal of criticism of the Provost.’ Bedworth said this as if announcing Doomsday. ‘There’s a feeling he took too much upon himself about the confounded thing.’
‘But haven’t you told me that pictures and so on are something that the college has tacitly agreed to be entirely his concern? It wouldn’t be fair to go back on that.’
‘I agree with you absolutely. Only, in this case, there’s the sheer order of money involved. It can be argued it ought to have been a Governing Body matter from the start. Nothing should have been done except by order of the Governing Body. Nothing at all. Charles is being rather hot on that.’
‘Bother Charles!’
‘Well, yes. But Charles is a highly conscientious man. And he can’t be criticised for trying to ensure that we don’t play fast and loose with our own rules. The business of putting the thing on show in that common room, for instance. The Provost has no authority in common room matters. They’re entirely for the body of the fellows. The Provost enters common room only as a guest, even if he just hangs up his hat, let alone an enormously valuable picture. I don’t think that could be disputed. The Bye-Laws make it clear, even if the Statutes don’t.’
‘Cyril, what unutterable twaddle!’
‘Well, yes—but people have their point of view.’ Bedworth looked at me, unhappily. ‘I know it must all sound terribly parochial to you, Duncan. You’ve lived out in the world, and so on.’
‘A make-believe world, Cyril. Phantoms that strut upon the stage, as Johnson has it. And here’s a whack, I suppose, of vehement real life. What happens if a Provost is seriously criticised in a formal way?’
‘I don’t know. It hasn’t happened in my time.’
‘Nor will it, if you ask me. Of course that’s only a guess, and I dare say I don’t yet in the least understand the place. Still, hot air tends to rise and blow itself away. We just have to keep our cool.’ I was conscious of a certain impertinence in thus – and with an air of superior sagacity – essaying to calm down a Senior Tutor. He knew far more about the temper of our colleagues than I did. On the other hand, he had presumably dropped in on me, even if not quite consciously, in search of reassurance. To me, Cyril Bedworth would always be the raw and nervous youth I had first bumped into outside Tony Mumford’s rooms while terrifying young men were howling hideously in Surrey Quad. On that occasion, I was by a hair’s breadth less bewildered, already more at home in the college, than he was; and that far-away time was still faintly operative in our relationship. ‘Do you think anything falls to be done?’ I asked. ‘Right now, I mean.’
‘Nothing except fight off reporters and camera men. The picture has been so tremendously publicised, you know. All part of Edward’s plan, of course, eventually to get the best market for it.’
‘We may get that yet.’ I felt that the Provost’s having become ‘Edward’ again suggested a certain slackening of tension in Bedworth. And I wondered under what circumstances he had first nerved himself to address Edward Pococke in this familiar if prescriptive way. Between these two there must also linger the dim memory of a first encounter in untoward circumstances. Bedworth, just before making my acquaintance, had escaped being brained by a champagne bottle; the Provost hadn’t been so lucky – Bedworth’s brassie shot having found its billet – but his urbanity on the traumatic occasion had been unflawed: a circumstance constituting my own first vivid impression of him, and remaining with me still. And this quality, as it happened, I was to find sufficiently illustrated, once more, that afternoon.
I lunched frugally in my rooms. After Bedworth’s leaving me I had discovered that m
y degree of caring about the loss of the Piero was surprisingly intense. In fact I had got it mixed up with the death of Timbermill, and I found myself – a habit growing on me – muttering not particularly applicable scraps of Shakespeare. So quick bright things come to confusion ... In this frame of mind I hadn’t wanted to lunch in company, and at about two o’clock, I went out with the idea of a solitary walk round Long Field. There weren’t many people in the Great Quadrangle, but among those there were was the Provost. He might have been described as taking the air. Indefinably, too, he had the appearance of blessing it, of honouring vacancy with a benevolent regard, certainly of being comfortably, although sensitively, at home in his own house. The van of the security firm had departed, I suppose in a modified disgrace, but its place had been taken by two cars saying “Police’ in large letters, and by a third and grander car, not similarly distinguished or disfigured, which I had an intuition about as coming from Scotland Yard. What are called intensive investigations were doubtless going on.
The Provost, despite an absent and musing manner, spotted me at once and made a sign, a sign which I had remarked as characteristic of him and as combining summons and benediction in an economical gesture. I made my way to him, skirting the staging and scaffolding which nobody had yet turned up to dismantle. These objects too, although now holding unfortunate associations, he seemed willing to bless. Edward Pococke, in fact, was showing the flag. Like one of those Russian generals in War and Peace who murmur ‘Excellent’ and ‘Just so’ and ‘Convey my congratulations to the commander’ to aides dashing up with news of one or another unexpected tactical disaster, he was very adequately masking any sense of discomfiture which his part in the present posture of college affairs might have occasioned.
‘My dear Duncan,’ he said, ‘can I possibly prevail on you to take a turn with me round Long Field?’
‘Yes, indeed. It’s what I was thinking of myself.’ I fell into step beside the Provost. ‘I hope,’ I said at a venture, ‘that the fuzz haven’t been harassing you?’
“Not in the least.’ The Provost indicated with a smile how charming it had been of me to venture upon this juvenile expression to an older man. ‘And they have even ceased badgering that ill-named security guard. Some of our colleagues, however, may be described as harassing themselves. It is much to their credit, no doubt. They feel the thing keenly – as, indeed, you and I do. The Senior Tutor is perturbed.’
‘Yes, he came to see me this morning. Cyril is anxious that we should all pull together. At least I think his attitude may be expressed that way.’ It was easy, when talking to Edward Pococke, to fall into his own diplomatic patter. ‘How lovely the tower looks against that clear sky.’
‘Long may it continue so.’ The Provost came to a momentary halt, politely concurring in my sense that the tower rated for at least brief contemplation. ‘I recall, my dear Duncan, your father’s whimsically telling me that it was to the tower that we owed your first coming among us. He took a fancy to it, and interviewed me on the spot.’
‘And you talked about Dürer.’
‘He made me ashamed of my small knowledge of the subject. But he was informative in the most tactful way. He was also – if I may venture the recollection – well-seen in claret.’
These and a few similar amenities took us into Long Field. The straight path down to the river was almost deserted, there no longer being troops of young oarsmen making their blithe way to servitude in their galleys. We talked about the state of the trees on either hand, some of them over-mature but fortunately not yet afflicted by Dutch elm disease. Anxiety over this threat might have been the sole cloud on the Provost’s horizon. I wondered whether he was going to say anything at all about the fate of The Madonna of the Astrolabe. It had a better claim on our present attention than the art of Albrecht Durer.
‘It appears, Duncan, that the police, those who have appeared with so commendable a haste from London, hold elaborate dossiers on gangs of art-thieves. They assure me that such persons are being raided – if that is the term – at this moment.’ The Provost had made a businesslike transition in the blandest manner. ‘I hope they are on the right tack. Alternative possibilities must have occurred to you.’
‘I can’t say they have.’
‘Might not the theft, if it is to be called that, be a more domestic matter?’
‘An inside job?’ This new line occasioned a certain bewilderment in me.
‘For example,’ The Provost, who was carrying a walking- stick, delayed to poke at an abandoned cigarette carton with disapproval. ‘For example, may we not have to reckon with the sometimes disconcerting character of undergraduate humour?’
I hadn’t thought of this one—and didn’t know that I thought much of it now.
‘It wouldn’t have surprised me,’ the Provost said, pleasantly, ‘if those going into hall for breakfast this morning had found the Piero to have taken the place of some former college grandee on the line.’
‘But it hadn’t.’
‘That has to be admitted. It would have been a good joke in its way – although we should have had to treat it with some severity, no doubt.’
‘I suppose so.’ It was hard to believe that the Provost had seriously entertained this notion.
‘The Blessed Virgin may still be within the curtilage of the college, all the same. Consider how little we know about many of these young men and their backgrounds. They constitute a rapidly shifting population, almost like guests in a hotel.’
‘Are you suggesting, Provost, that one of our undergraduates may have taken the picture not as a joke but with the intention of actual theft?’
‘Perhaps not quite clearly to one effect or the other. We are not, after all, without our share of mixed-up kids.’ It was the Provost’s turn to dip into demotic speech. ‘It would be sad if there had to be some public exposure, even protection, of a boy who was merely in the grip of neurotic illness. If one of our junior members, for example, should be proved to have been a systematic pilferer, I should have my own way of dealing with the matter adequately. And it would certainly not include an appearance in a police court.’
‘Edward, a painting by Piero della Francesca can scarcely be described as an object liable to be pilfered. And if a young man has made off with it because out of his mind, what we confront is a very grim situation indeed. He may take it down to the boiler-room and stuff it into the furnace. But I don’t myself think that a demented undergraduate is a substantial probability.’
‘No more do I, my dear Duncan.’ The Provost allowed himself a faint surprise that he could be judged to think otherwise. ‘My point is simply that any one of a number of unlikely explanations may conceivably be the true one, and that therefore we ought to treat the affair with the greatest discretion. Circumspection should be our watchword.’
I received this in silence, and we pursued our walk along the river bank. There was no reason to be surprised by the Provost’s remarks. Circumspection, or plain wariness, was, after all, his habit all along the line, and nothing in the world would distress him more than any occasion of grave scandal erupting upon the college. But if I wasn’t myself surprised, I was at least irritated, since here was the familiar spectacle of Edward Pococke’s talk being not quite faithful to what he had in his head. Just what that was, I found myself unable to fathom. Perhaps I’d have tried to do so if we hadn’t, at this moment, come upon Burnside.
Our archivist was sitting on that seat, commemorating the loyal satisfaction of college servants at the coronation of Elizabeth II, on which Arnold Lempriere and I had sat just before his telling me of the momentous fact of our relationship. That had been almost a year ago, and within a fortnight the annual Gaudy would have come round again. I wondered how, in his traditional after-dinner speech on college events, the Provost would contrive to deal with the unfortunate loss we had sustained. I also wondered how Burnside felt about it.
But Burnside proved to know nothing of the matter. He had only just arrived fr
om the British Museum, and having characteristically not sought anybody’s conversation had not heard the sensational news.
‘It has been removed,’ the Provost told him with uncustomary abruptness when the subject turned up.
‘Removed, Edward?’ We were now sitting on either side of Burnside, and he glanced from one of us to the other in mild perplexity.
‘The picture, I am sorry to say, has been removed, quite without authority, from the common room in which it was on display.’
‘Dear me I Who has removed it, and for what purpose?’
That’s what we’d like to know,’ I said. ‘The police are now seeking answers to both these questions. The Piero was there last night and is there no longer. And the plain English for that is theft.’
‘Oh, dear me!’ The simple dismay that Burnside registered was oddly mingled with discreet amusement; he hadn’t failed to notice the impatience which had made me rudely call a spade a spade. ‘Its whereabouts are quite unknown?’
‘Totally so, my dear Christian.’ The Provost, who apparently felt that he had been a little short with his honorary archivist, was all benignity again. ‘We must pray to St Anthony, must we not? St Anthony of Padua, that is.’ This amplification was presumably for my benefit as one born in the darkness of a Calvinist faith.
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