Under the Hammer

by John Mortimer

  ‘I gave it to the head of Old Masters at Klinsky’s.’ Sarah was proud of the fact.

  ‘A girlfriend of mine, as a matter of fact,’ Nick confided in her. ‘She didn’t appreciate it, I’m afraid to say.’

  ‘She didn’t?’ Sarah was amazed.

  ‘Oh, she finds fault with everything,’ he smiled, disarming her completely, ‘particularly with me. Miss Napper, I’d like to talk to you about something.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ She looked nervous, but Nick leaned even further over the counter in the most reassuring manner. ‘I’d love you to paint another one. Specially for me. But not a word to Maggie Perowne. As I say, I don’t think she understands your work.’

  While Sarah was being expertly charmed by Nick Roper, the picture she’d brought into Klinsky’s was being studied by an even greater expert than Ben on the later painters of the Italian Renaissance. Sir Hugo Mint, author, among other works, of Bronzino and the Mannerist Tradition, was white-haired, ramrod straight, pink-faced and could have been a retired general but for his fluttering fingers and caressing voice. He fitted an eyeglass carefully into his right eye and brought it very close to the slate. ‘My dear Ben, where did this emerge from? This extraordinary catch?’

  ‘A Miss Napper brought it in. Her solicitor told us it was left to her by a picture restorer called Peter Pomfret. She worked in his shop. I don’t know what else she did for him.’

  ‘Where did he get it?’

  ‘Found it in the back of a junk shop in Rome. That’s the story. Well, Hugo, what do you reckon?’

  ‘In his Lives of the Painters Vasari wrote that the Allegory with Venus and Cupid was painted by Bronzino for the King of France ...’ Hugo started as though giving a lecture and, when Ben told him that even he knew that, produced a note he’d made on a card pinched from the Garrick Club. ‘But do you know that in a copy of the 1550 edition of Vasari, the one in the Vatican Library, there’s a handwritten note in the margin, possibly by Monsignor Giorgio, which says ... Let me read it to you: “Some say Bronzino executed another, similar, allegory in which Venus is depicted in the embrace of Time. This second picture, however, cannot be found.” So that’s your picture, Ben. Turned up after all these years. Couldn’t you manage a smile?’

  But Ben still looked doubtful. ‘I suppose if you wanted to forge a picture it might be sensible to try one that’s been recorded as lost.’

  ‘How many forgers know about that note in Vasari?’

  ‘You know it.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting I’d be party to any sort of dishonesty?’

  ‘Well,’ Ben considered the matter carefully, ‘you tell the customer exactly what he wants to hear. And all the auction houses love an expert who’ll say the picture’s right, so they keep on paying you profusely.’

  Sir Hugo looked shocked, but then quite tenderly forgiving. ‘You do say the most terrible things, don’t you? Rough trade! That’s what’s always made you so attractive.’

  As they walked out of Klinsky’s, through galleries packed with the stuff of future sales, Sir Hugo took a trip down memory lane. ‘I remember so well, Ben, when you had your first job at the National Gallery. Office boy, tea-maker, general dogsbody. But such a charmer. Such a little Glasgow ragazzo!’

  Ben also remembered when the far younger Hugo Mint took him on a trip to Italy to meet the great Bernard Berenson, king of all the art experts. Ben had resisted Hugo’s advances in every albergo and pensione on the way.

  ‘So sad!’ Hugo lifted a fluttering hand and touched Ben’s cheek, ‘You’ve lost all those ravishing looks.’

  ‘At moments like this’ – Ben said as he moved briskly out of reach – ‘I’m profoundly grateful that I have.’

  ‘That’s the old Ben!’ Hugo wasn’t in the least offended. ‘You always come out with such delectably wicked remarks. What on earth is that?’ Hugo’s roving eye lit on a glass case containing a very small pair of sequinned shorts.

  ‘Kylie Minogue’s hot pants,’ Ben said mournfully, it’s our latest art treasure. Forget the Tuscan Mannerists, Hugo. You’d better become the world’s greatest living authority on Tom Jones’s Y-fronts.’

  ‘Oh, golly!’ Sir Hugo looked severely shaken. ‘Whatever would Berenson have said about that?’

  Maggie Perowne drew the line at two hours of clinging to Ben’s back, so they travelled to the West Country in her small white Opel, which Ben said was like a slow death in a sardine tin. At last they drove past the ivory-covered lodge and up the long, winding drive to Saltery Hall. Despite various notices announcing that it was open to the public, the porticoed house had a neglected look, the terraces were unweeded and the grey stone of the building had a greenish tinge, as though it had been sunk, for a century or two, beneath the sea. There were a few cars, and no coaches, on the gravel sweep round a waterless fountain, and no one answered the door when they pulled a creaking bell. They pushed their way in and found an elderly gentleman in a tweed suit, with thin grey hair brushed over a pink skull, and watching eyes. He didn’t so much bark at them as yap, like a small and angry dog. ‘Who are you? Are you members of the public?’ He moved closer to them, as though he might give them an angry nip. Maggie explained they were from Klinsky’s auction house and had an appointment with Lord Saltery.

  ‘Have you, by God? Then you’re in luck. I’m Saltery. Now state your business.’

  ‘We asked if we might look through your picture records. Would that be all right?’

  ‘All right if you’re prepared to pay.’

  ‘Oh, yes. We’ll pay.’

  To root about in my house? All right, then. I took you for members of the public. You’ve no idea the amount of lavatories the public require – and teas. That’s what they come for it seems. To drink tea and go to the lavatory.’

  ‘I suppose the records might be in the library?’

  ‘Oh, you think so, do you? This way then.’

  He led them slowly across the hall and up a broad staircase, talking all the way. ‘And the public comes in here to notice my things. Damn cheek, really! I remember my grandfather had some fellow to stay, probably one who wrote books, and this fellow said, “That’s a very fine Chippendale whatsit you’ve got, Saltery.” And my grandfather said – it was only Saturday morning and this fellow had come for the weekend – “I see that you and I are never going to agree. There’s an 11.15 train back to London and I’ll thank you to be on it.” Damned cheek of a fellow to notice another fellow’s things!’ He paused for breath. ‘Just as bad as noticing the food when you get asked out to dinner!’

  Now they were walking down a long gallery, past a number of routine family portraits and what Ben thought to be a distinctly dubious Constable. Lord Saltery’s high-pitched, staccato commentary continued uninterrupted. ‘Not too many things to notice nowadays, though. Terrible gamblers, the Salterys. My old father gambled away a lot of the pictures. My brother and I tried to gamble them back. Not much luck, I’m afraid. There used to be a man looked after the books and pictures. My brother had to get rid of him when he got into Queer Street. All the papers are in a bit of a mess now, I’m afraid you’ll find.’

  Ben felt unaccountably happy. He and Maggie were together, far from London, far from that old Etonian yahoo on whom Maggie seemed determined to waste so much of her young life. It was already late in the afternoon. They could stop for dinner at some quiet hotel, with a fire in the dining-room and only two other guests, perhaps two other lovers. After the claret and the brandy, Maggie wouldn’t want to drive back to London. This dream of the future, in which he already half believed, was shattered when old Saltery pulled open a door and announced, ‘This is the library. Root about in here if you want to.’ Ben looked into a long room at the end of which a shaft of late sunlight, heavy with dust, lit up a young man working at a desk who stood up and turned round smiling – and Ben saw the very old-Etonian yahoo he hoped they had left behind.

  ‘I thought,’ Ben said to Lord Saltery, ‘you tried to keep day-trippers
away from here.’ And, to Maggie who was silent, ‘You might have warned me about the rendezvous at Saltery.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ Maggie said, and the owner of Saltery Hall started a laborious explanation, ‘This is not a day-tripper. This is my cousin Sylvia Roper’s boy. Been here to help sort things out. Do you know each other? Nick Roper ...’ But when he saw Nick kiss Maggie, he ended lamely, ‘I see you know each other.’

  ‘When you said it’d been in the family, I thought I’d come down and help you out,’ Nick explained to Maggie when she released herself from him. ‘No luck, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You’ve been doing our job for us?’ Ben was puzzled. ‘Gone through the accounts, list of pictures, all that sort of thing?’

  ‘There are a lot of missing papers,’ Nick explained. ‘Distinct lack of order and method at Saltery Hall. And, I’m afraid, no mention of a Bronzino. But if you two think the picture’s right, I’m sure you can convince the world of it.’

  ‘Darling Nick’ – Maggie was looking at Nick in a way which made Ben feel distinctly queasy – ‘you’re such a wonderful optimist!’

  Maggie and Ben didn’t have dinner alone together in front of a fire in a small country hotel. Maggie drove him into Blandford and they said goodbye in the station car park. Maggie said, ‘you know, I’ve never met Nick’s mother. You don’t mind going back on the train?’

  ‘Probably less of an ordeal than meeting Nick’s mother.’ Ben minded very much, but he could find nothing to talk about except business, ‘If the Salterys ever had a Bronzino, there must be some record.’

  ‘Perhaps someone didn’t like it?’ Maggie suggested.

  ‘Some wife? It’s not everyone what wants to see an old man with his hands on a young woman’s breast,’ Ben agreed.

  ‘I bet old Father Time enjoyed it, though. It made him feel young.’

  They heard a train approaching. Ben opened the car door. He turned to her for a last word. ‘He might have enjoyed it. But it didn’t turn back the clock.’

  He went. They hadn’t even kissed.

  Sarah Napper, hard at work on restoring a Victorian seascape, heard the shop door ping and didn’t get up to answer its summons. Moments later, her workroom door opened and Ben Glazier came in. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘to interrupt your work.’

  ‘You didn’t bring that Miss Perowne with you this time, did you? You didn’t bring that Miss Perowne who doesn’t think I can paint? At least, not to her satisfaction.’

  Ben was looking round the room. Pinned on the top of Sarah’s easel was a postcard of the Allegory with Venus and Cupid. He said, ‘I thought you didn’t know that picture?’

  ‘I went to see it at the National after you talked about it. And I spent out on a postcard. Anything wrong with that?’

  ‘Of course not. No law against buying a postcard.

  Your solicitor told us Peter Pomfret left you the picture. He was a restorer.’ He moved to the paint table and, finding a bottle that interested him, picked it up.

  ‘Peter Pomfret didn’t restore pictures! I did all the work that came in. He understood how much he owed me.’

  ‘I’m sure he did.’ Ben took the cork out of the bottle and smelt it. ‘Walnut oil! Were you thinking of making a salad?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Didn’t Bronzino use walnut oil for mixing his colours?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’re the great art expert.’

  He had crossed to a bookshelf and looked at the titles of some paint-stained art books lying on their sides. ‘You’ve got quite a library.’ He pulled a big book out, turned the pages. ‘Were you married to Mr Pomfret?’

  ‘Do you always ask all these questions when anyone wants you to sell a picture?’

  ‘That depends on the picture.’

  ‘We were married,’ she told him, ‘as much as anyone can be.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know much about that.’ He looked down at the book in his hands. ‘Van Meegeren. You’ve got a book on the great faker of Vermeers. Are you interested in forgery?’

  ‘I don’t know why you call them forgeries. They’re just beautiful pictures. That’s what they are. They give pleasure. Like the one I brought you gave pleasure to Peter.’

  ‘Really? I thought you found it at the back of an old cupboard. Hadn’t he hidden it away?’

  Sarah ignored his question and said as though to herself, ‘Sometimes I thought he loved that picture more than he loved me.’ Then she looked at him and protested,

  ‘No one realizes the work that goes into these things. Your Miss Perowne doesn’t know what a marvel it is to paint like an Old Master.’ Her voice rose in anger, ‘Could Miss Maggie Perowne do that? Could she?’

  Ben shut the book, put it back on the shelf and said quietly, ‘You mean, you can paint an alleged Bronzino?’

  ‘Alleged Bronzino.’ She laughed. ‘I never said anything about Bronzino. I never even mentioned the name! It was you people that said that. You and that girl I gave my picture to. Did I ever say anything about Bronzino? Did I ever say a word about him?’

  ‘Come to think of it, Mrs Pomfret ...’

  ‘You don’t have to call me that.’

  ‘Come to think of it, I don’t believe you ever did,’ Ben had to admit.

  ‘So what did you come here for?’

  ‘We’ll need your permission to have it examined scientifically.’ It was time, he thought, to give up speculating and get down to business.

  ‘Examined? Why? Is it ill or something?’

  ‘Possibly. We want to take X-rays. Infra-red. Ultraviolet light. We want to test the paint. Try and date the slate. Can we?’

  ‘I’m sorry, no.’ Sarah was determined.

  ‘What?’

  ‘No! You can’t do all that to my picture. If you think it’s a Bronzino, sell it as one. That’s up to you. If you don’t – if you think it’s a forgery, as you call it, – it’s still a beautiful picture. Isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s beautiful,’ Ben had to admit. ‘But is it good, as well? Isn’t that the point?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s the point at all. The point is, was it painted by a very clever person and does it give you pleasure?’ She picked up her brush, a gesture of dismissal. ‘Now, I’d better get on with my work. In case I’m not going to be rich after all.’

  Whether or not she was going to be rich, Sarah Napper told herself, she had certainly become popular. Half an hour after Ben had left her, she got her bicycle out and pedalled off to a lunch date. It was only a short journey to the Bistro Lautrec in Kensington Park Road with its blown-up posters of La Goulue and Aristide Bruant, its parrot, its snooty French waiters and canned Edith Piaf regretting nothing. And there, Nick Roper, who was usually late for everything, was waiting for her with an eager smile and a bottle of champagne. When they had ordered, steak tartare and chips for him and a salade Niçoise for her, Nick raised his glass to her and said, ‘Here’s to the great new picture you’re painting for me.’

  ‘I hardly ever had this before.’ Sarah drank and screwed up her nose, it sort of tickles, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, and to all the great pictures you’ve already painted!’ Nick drank the toast.

  ‘Peter Pomfret gave me champagne once, when we first met. That was yonks ago, and not at our wedding.’ She laughed a little, in fact, we never had one.’

  ‘Oh, talking about Peter Pomfret.’

  ‘We don’t have to,’ Sarah assured him.

  ‘And the Bronzino you put into Klinsky’s.’

  ‘I’ve never said it was a Bronzino! Never, at all!’ Sarah was determined to make herself clear. ‘That’s just what your girlfriend thinks it is.’

  ‘She has her doubts,’ Nick admitted. ‘And she slipped up rather badly lately over a Raphael. But I went down to the house of an old relative of mine called Spoofy Saltery. Lucky enough to find a record in the library.’ Now he had his wallet on the table and was taking a carefully folded sheet of paper out of it. He star
ted to read: ‘8th January 1756. Bought by Selway (the then Marquis’s agent in Rome). Painting of Venus naked with Time. Work of a Florentine, Agnolo di Cosimo, known as Bronzino.’

  Sarah looked at him for a long time before she asked, ‘Are you sure it was that picture?’

  ‘I found something else.’ Now another, smaller, whiter paper came out of his wallet. ‘I brought it with me. A loose page in the library account book, 1963. The Bronzino Allegory was sent to Peter Pomfret for cleaning. I couldn’t find a trace of it having been sent back.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘The picture was sent to Pomfret by an efficient fellow called Gilkes, who worked at Saltery. Then Gilkes lost his job and I guess Pomfret hung on to the picture,’ Nick explained as though to a child. ‘I suppose they simply didn’t notice it was gone in the chaos of Saltery Hall. I’m afraid to say, this little bit of paper makes your legal claim to a Bronzino decidedly iffy.’

  Sarah emptied her glass and asked, ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘That you stick to your story,’ Nick told her. ‘You say that Pomfret picked the picture up in Rome, where it might have been sold any time since 1756! And I say nothing at all about this little bit of paper. Provided ...’

  ‘Provided what?’

  ‘You and I come to some reasonable agreement about the proceeds of the sale.’ Nick smiled charmingly and Sarah seemed to think it over. Then she shook her head. ‘It’s no good, I’m afraid. No good at all.’

  ‘Why not, Sarah? By the way, your glass looks depressingly empty.’

  He lifted the bottle but she put her hand over her glass. ‘Because I know exactly who painted that picture your girlfriend’s so worried about.’

  ‘Who?’

  She was almost laughing again, but there was no mistaking her answer which came clearly and proud, ‘Me!’

  After what he felt justified in regarding as a successful bit of business over the Raphael portrait, Roy Deracott gave a party by courtesy of his ancient Japanese customer. The walls of his gallery were glowing with Pre-Raphaelites, some of which were indisputably right. The space between them was filled with critics, dealers, punters and very few painters. They were eating mini samosas and drinking a fizzy liquid which Nick Roper called, with considerable distaste, ‘in the manner of méthode champenoise or school or Spanish-style fizz’. Under a pale Sir Lancelot and a consumptive Guinevere kissing in a wood beside his tethered horse, Ben told Maggie about his conversation with Sarah Napper.