Money from Holme

by Michael Innes

  But there was something of a special circumstance in this case. A single dealer had lately exhibited and marketed almost the entire oeuvre of Sebastian Holme as it was known to exist. And these were all unchallengeable. if further pictures began quietly to appear, far the best person to find unquestioning purchasers for them would be the proprietor of the Da Vinci Gallery. That was why Cheel – thus impressively turned out in his very grand car – was on his way to see Hildebert Braunkopf now.

  There were risks: Braunkopf’s association with Hedda Holme was one of these – and it was difficult to tell whether it was increased or lessened by the fact that Hedda so plainly didn’t trust him. There was a possible financial disadvantageousness; Braunkopf was avaricious (a trait Cheel detested) and might try to strike the same outrageous sort of bargain that he had struck with the artist’s supposed widow. There were also some uncomfortably large imponderables; for example, Cheel wasn’t quite sure just what degree of dishonesty (to put the matter with impossible crudeness) Braunkopf would regard as all in the day’s work. But of course he wasn’t going to trust Braunkopf with the truth – or not until he was very sure of his ground.

  All in all, Mervyn Cheel felt very pleasantly on top of things. Gliding smoothly down Piccadilly, he took leisure to consider the amenities around him, and to plan the rest of the day for himself once Braunkopf had been disposed of. He might drive on to Savile Row, and amuse himself by charitably renewing relations with a tailor who had behaved rather tiresomely about a bill some years before. Then there was Burlington House; one could park with considerable éclat in the courtyard there, and while away an hour amid the absurdities on view at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition. The outrageous Rumbelow, he remembered, had more of his dotages on display. He owed Rumbelow something. Perhaps an inspection of his latest rubbish might prompt him to a fresh witticism or two which could be given currency as soon as the Holme enterprise had become so lucrative as to afford Cheel a safe and agreeable retreat on the continent. But that was for the future. At the moment, he need consider no more than a pleasant conclusion to what was going to prove, he felt, a thoroughly propitious day. He was now cruising past Green Park Station. The Ritz was on his right and the Berkeley on his left. His tastes, he reflected, although refined, were very simple, after all. At one or other of these modest places he could pick up a very tolerable evening meal.

  14

  As the Rolls drew up before the Da Vinci Gallery the door of that establishment opened, and its proprietor appeared, beaming. It was evident that some system obtained whereby he was instantly apprised of the advent of anything so promising. Braunkopf paused, however, in somewhat unflattering surprise when he became aware of the car’s occupant.

  ‘Ah,’ he exclaimed, ‘the goot–’ He checked himself. ‘Ah,’ he amended, ‘my dear Mr Cheel!’ He held out his pudgy hand. ‘Vot privileges, yes?’ He was peering into the interior of the vehicle. ‘There is a lady, no?’

  ‘A lady?’ Descending to the pavement, Cheel repeated this in surprise. ‘Certainly there isn’t a lady.’

  ‘No lady.’ Braunkopf seemed disappointed. ‘Sometimes, when there is sudden affluences, a lady is the explosion.’ He looked appraisingly at Cheel. ‘But, no, you have not the physicals for what I have in brain, yes? So there is some other explosion. Perhaps you have won on the Ponds.’

  Cheel was wholly displeased by these remarks. It was mortifying to be considered in the light of a failed gigolo, and even more mortifying to be credited with the plebeian practice of filling up football coupons. He refrained, however, from comment, and took a quick look at the exterior of the Da Vinci instead. Its window had been relined with a richly sombre and indubitably ancient brocade. There was now a fine steel mesh against the inner surface of the glass. And this was a reasonable precaution. The only object visible in the window was a figure in greenish wax, about six inches high. Cheel had no difficulty in identifying it. The piece of sculpture for which it was a maquette was to be found perched above the tomb of the Duke of Nemours in the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo in Florence.

  ‘Is that really by Michelangelo?’ Cheel asked – and noted with satisfaction that he had managed to say something insulting to Braunkopf in his turn.

  ‘Most puttikler authentink chef-d’oeuvre of Buonarroti straight from Firenze, Mr Cheel.’

  ‘Straight from Florence? Well, well! Perhaps you picked it up in a little shop on the Ponte Vecchio?’

  ‘The piece has been purchased by a representation of the Da Vinci Gallery.’ Braunkopf spoke with dignity. ‘Our special representation in Firenze made this purchasings private collection a nobleman resident in the city.’

  ‘I know some of these people, naturally. What’s your nobleman’s name?’

  ‘Medici,’ Braunkopf said firmly. ‘The Marchese Lorenzo di Medici. Or possibilities the Conte Cosimo di Medici. No doubtings, Mr Cheel, you know them both.’

  ‘Most interesting.’ Cheel flattered himself that he turned an urbane face to this impertinent nonsense. ‘And now, I think, I’ll come inside. I’ve something to talk about.’

  ‘Vot privileges!’ Braunkopf murmured once more. Although he was not on this occasion sporting a gardenia, his attire – Cheel, noticed – still struck an Edwardian note of sober richness and vulgarity nicely blended. ‘Vot a happiness!’ Braunkopf added for good measure, and led the way inside.

  The Da Vinci itself was transformed. The plushy settees had been re-plushed, and were now keeping company with a number of French pieces which Cheel at a glance admitted to be genuine. There were pictures only sparely on the walls, and none of them was modern. The only modern picture in evidence, indeed, was an early Braque, and this appeared to be in rather careless use as a fire-screen. All the others were Italian, and few of their painters seemed to have lived beyond the threshold of the quattrocento. ‘Buonamico di Cristofano, detto Buffalmacco,’ Cheel read on the first label. ‘Giovanni da Santo Stefano a Ponte.’ ‘Gherardo di Jacopo Starnina.’ ‘Parri di Spinello Spinelli.’ A lot of the names seemed to be longer than the pictures they accompanied were broad, and the total effect was eminently decorous and impressively arcane. Braunkopf was now demonstrably after a stratum of collectors totally different from the people who buy things to impress each other with when hung in yachts tied up in Menton or Cannes. Probably – Cheel thought – not such quick money by a long way. In the long term, this more austere policy might pay off richly enough. Meanwhile, it seemed possible that Braunkopf was hazardously extending himself on the financial side. Which was very much all to the good.

  Braunkopf led the way into his inner sanctum. It now contained nothing but a plain olive-wood table and two forbiddingly uncomfortable medieval chairs. The walls were bare. But in the middle of the room was a richly draped easel, on which stood a small picture, glowing under a discreet spotlight. Cheel walked up to it – principally because this seemed to be what Braunkopf expected him to do.

  ‘Good Lord!’ Cheel was really surprised. Here too was an early Italian work. But this time it was Venetian – and very delicious. St George’s horse contrived to be at once chunky and improbably curvilinear; St George himself – who seemed to be about twelve – was spearing a dragon that looked like a lavishly bejewelled starfish; the lady – behind whom was the most exquisite little town – was making a gesture of mild deprecation and surprise. ‘Montorfano?’ Cheel asked. ‘There’s something like it in the Martinengo at Brescia.’

  ‘Quirico da Murano, Mr Cheel.’ Braunkopf made this correction with a lofty courtesy. ‘Acquired from Cardinal Borgia. And this veek’s authentink Braunkopf. Always on this easel – yes? – the authentink Braunkopf painting of the veek. And in the vindow, the authentink Braunkopf sculpture of the veek.’

  ‘So the Michelangelo’s an authentic Braunkopf too?’

  ‘Puttikler so, Mr Cheel.’ Braunkopf made a large gesture towards one of the bone-jarring chairs. ‘Please take place,’ he said amiably. ‘A glass of dry Madeira, no?’ He touched
a muted bell.

  Cheel allowed himself to be provided with the refreshment suggested. There were some small, dry biscuits too. It was all very remote from the Sebastian Holme Private View: the crush, the urgent youthful pictures, the champagne. A slight uneasiness (unworthy of a general initiating a bold strategic conception) beset Cheel. Braunkopf continued to be a ridiculous person – but it wasn’t quite clear that Cheel had precisely taken the measure of him. Probably a direct attack would be best.

  ‘What I’ve come in about,’ Cheel said, ‘is Sebastian Holme.’

  ‘Holme? Sebastian Holme?’ Braunkopf appeared to make a slight effort of memory. ‘Ah, yes – but of course. A young man with so much of the promisings. So far as any of the moderns has promisings, no? You and I, my dear and goot Mr Cheel, have the understanding of the great classical traditions, yes? But Holme was goot. Yes, Holme was quite goot. And the little posthumous show here in the Da Vinci: that we can be arrogant of. We secured provisions for his wife in her aggrievement. Yes, we take the modest arrogance in that.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Cheel thought as poorly of these sentiments as he did of Braunkopf’s command of his Sovereign’s English. ‘I suppose you’ve heard that more Holmes have been turning up?’

  ‘More Holmes?’ Braunkopf looked mildly surprised. ‘More brothers? More aggrieved wives?’

  ‘You know very well I mean nothing of the sort. More of Sebastian Holme’s pictures. They weren’t destroyed in that revolution, or riot, or whatever it was. I mean, not all of them were. The stuff you printed in your catalogue was all my eye and Betty Martin.’

  ‘Betty Martin?’ This homely locution was beyond Braunkopf. ‘A mistress, yes?’

  ‘I mean that you pretty well made it up – or got somebody else to make it up. I have my ear to the ground, you know. And I’ve heard that a couple of the Wamba pictures have turned up. And there are others that can turn up. In fact I can probably lay my hands on them myself.’

  ‘This is very great nonsenses, Mr Cheel.’ Braunkopf made a careless gesture – but Cheel was encouraged to see that his eyes had a little narrowed in his puffy face. ‘It is the English jokings, I think. Ha-ha-ha, yes?’

  ‘You must know that his wife believes that the things survived? I’d be surprised to hear that she didn’t accuse you of sitting on them.’

  ‘Mrs Holme is an endeavouring person – a most puttikler endeavouring person. I was glad when our association termited.’

  ‘I can well believe it. But, you know, you can be a little trying yourself. This game of treating Holme as something inconsiderable in a dim past. Come off it, Braunkopf.’

  ‘Come off it?’ Braunkopf, who had seated himself on the second of the impossible chairs, rose and peered at the hard wooden surface thus revealed. ‘This is more jokings, yes? This is the japes, no?’

  ‘There’s no joking about it. Would you like to see No. 18?’

  Braunkopf, who had sat down again, reached out and returned the stopper to the decanter of Madeira. He might have been indicating that no further refreshment would be provided in return for enigmatical talk of this character.

  ‘You know,’ Cheel went on, ‘that there was a printed catalogue of that exhibition in the Wamba Palace Hotel? In fact, you’ve no doubt seen a copy?’

  ‘Mrs Holme’s.’ Braunkopf nodded, perhaps a shade unwarily. ‘Natchally, I had it copied for myself.’

  ‘Very good. Have a look at No. 18, and you’ll find it’s called “Clouded Leopards Playing”. And the dimensions are given in inches. 393/8 by 21½. Slightly odd proportions – but Holme made a notable thing of them. And – as I say – the picture’s now in my car.’

  ‘Your car, Mr Cheel?’ Braunkopf managed something of a come-back with this emphasis.

  ‘My car.’

  ‘In fack you already been selling one two more Holmes, yes?’

  ‘Ah – that is confidentials, my goot Mr Braunkopf.’

  This witticism – surprisingly ill-bred in a man of Cheel’s polished manners – did not appear to disturb Braunkopf. Perhaps he was unaware of it. But at least he again took the stopper out of the decanter.

  ‘If you could sell one two more Holmes,’ he said almost musingly, ‘you could sell three four. But you could not sell ten twenty. That why you come here.’

  ‘Precisely.’ Cheel spoke as a candid man boldly laying his cards on the table.

  ‘It deserves the considerings.’ Braunkopf made an acquiescent gesture. ‘So bring in your leopards.’

  With proper dignity, Cheel produced a key from his waistcoat pocket. ‘It’s on the back seat,’ he said. ‘One of your people can fetch it.’

  15

  ‘But of course,’ Cheel said ten minutes later, ‘you have to consider the possibility of its being a forgery.’ He stepped back from ‘Clouded Leopards Playing’ as if a more synoptic view might assist his own mind to greater clarity on this point. ‘Particularly as I’m not able, at this stage, to say very much more. To a certain extent, I must consider myself under instructions. There are principals in the affair.’

  ‘The Da Vinci, Mr Cheel, always insists on the goot principles. It is a puttikler ethical concern.’

  ‘I mean persons for whom I am acting. The whole operation, of course, would have to be kept as confidential as possible. That would be in your interest, acting as my agent. If it became known that a large number of further Holmes were coming on the market, prices would drop at once.’

  ‘They will drop in any cases, Mr Cheel.’ Braunkopf shook his head despondently. ‘Holme was a vogue, yes? You must not have the expectings of high prices, if I handle this. Sales – perhaps. The big moneys – no.’

  ‘That remains to be examined.’ Cheel smiled indulgently at this primitive guile. ‘But there is, you know, the prior question which I’ve just mentioned. The paintings’ – he gestured towards the leopards – ‘may be forgeries. And this one for a start. Consider.’ He raised a hand as if to forestall some over-facile denial of this on Braunkopf’s part. ‘When an artist dies young, and his work is scarce and in great demand, there will always exist a strong motive–’

  ‘Nonsenses!’ Braunkopf, who had been peering into the canvas with a ferocious concentration uncharacteristic of him, pronounced this emphatically. ‘It is by Holme. It is No. 18. It is the “Clouded Leopards Playing”, without any doubtings at all.’

  ‘Mightn’t it be wise to have another opinion – confidentially, of course? There are one or two people who could make a fairly reliable expertise.’

  ‘I make my own expertises, my goot Mr Cheel. And this is an authentink Sebastian Holme.’

  ‘Very well. We have only to discuss terms, and it can become an authentic Braunkopf, as you like to say, as well.’

  Braunkopf shook his head. He rose, walked over to the easel, and appeared sombrely to contemplate the authentic Braunkopf of the week. Quirico da Murano, he might have been reflecting, stood for a sort of higher reputability in the art-dealing world from which he would be reluctant to see the Da Vinci Gallery retreat upon the dubious courses proposed by this visitor. And Cheel once more felt misgivings. Was it possible, he wondered, that Braunkopf was as passing honest as Providence has made it possible for a picture dealer to be? What if the man were to pick up his telephone and call the police? Or what if he at once communicated to Hedda Holme the fact that her suspicions about the Wamba pictures appeared to have had substance after all? These were disturbing speculations. Cheel waited in some suspense.

  ‘Mrs Holme,’ Braunkopf said – so that Cheel jumped. ‘We are to make no divulgings to her, no?’

  ‘Definitely not.’ Cheel spoke with emphasis – and with relief. The crucial corner, he felt, had been turned. Braunkopf was coming in.

  ‘But she would hear of such dealings, no? Already she has those suspectings – and she has freunts, my goot Cheel, the great vorlt of art. Once twice we might keep a deal dark – but third fourth time the cat would be in the bag.’ Braunkopf nodded impressively. ‘The cat would b
e in the bag, and there would be a pretty kettle of hornets. You are suggesting the impossibles.’

  ‘You think she would claim the pictures? It’s conceivable, no doubt.’ Cheel advanced this in a judicial manner. ‘But she’d make no headway, you know. Possession is enormously important in such cases. The whole onus would be on her to make out a case. The pictures have been marketable commodities from the moment Holme finished painting them. And he was out there in Wamba and his wife was here in England. She just couldn’t prove a thing.’

  ‘But, Mr Cheel, there is the justices.’

  ‘The justices?’ Cheel was puzzled. ‘You mean judges and magistrates and so forth?’

  ‘The justices and the honesties and the avoiding of all defraudings.’ Braunkopf looked more sombre than ever, so that Cheel’s heart sank again. ‘You must not disremember the puttikler high ethical–’

  ‘Yes, yes – of course.’ Cheel was impatient and rash. ‘But I assure you the woman has no title to the things. There’s a document to prove it. Her case wouldn’t last a day.’