Death of an Old Master (34 page)

Run or stay? Johnny wormed his way deeper and deeper into the sodden earth. He heard the girl wondering what they would see when they reached the top. Five minutes now. Johnny wondered if he
should write a quick message and hand it over to them as they passed, his hand rising out of the undergrowth like the hand that came to take King Arthur’s sword in the lake at Avalon. He
wondered what it should say. Hello Forger perhaps. Hello Mrs Forger. Do you want to get out of here?

Three minutes. Johnny Fitzgerald was wriggling deeper into the earth. Then he heard the voice of salvation.

‘I’m afraid that’s as far as we can go today.’ The redhead was twenty paces behind them. The walking party turned round, reluctantly Johnny thought, and headed back
towards the house.

Johnny waited another fifteen minutes before he extricated himself from his earth. He noticed he had been sweating profusely in spite of the rain and the sodden ground. He patrolled the grounds
at very long range for the rest of the afternoon. No one, prisoner or captor, ventured out of the house.

Back in the hotel of the bored, looking out at the grey waves rolling up the beach, the seagulls squawking in unison fifty feet above the water, he composed his message to Powerscourt.

Charles Augustus Pugh’s office was a temple to the existence of files. Files single, files in bundles, files with red ribbon, files with black marched in perfect order
along a series of shelves that stretched up to the ceiling along three sides of the room. Two large windows looked out on to the perfectly manicured lawn of Gray’s Inn. At a large desk in the
centre, also festooned with files, Pugh sat with his feet up on the desk, puffing happily at a small cheroot. His exquisite dark blue jacket was hanging languidly from the back of the chair. Across
an equally exquisite waistcoat was a watch chain in very thin gold which he would finger from time to time. Pugh was about six feet tall with a Roman profile and a Roman nose that gave him a
powerful air in court.

‘What have we got then,’ he asked cheerfully, ‘to smite the Philistines with? They didn’t say very much at the committal hearing, lot of stuff about motive, couple of
witnesses who had seen him on the way to Montague’s flat and up the Banbury Road in Oxford. Can’t decide whether to call Buckley as a witness or not.’

‘There are any number of people who could have killed Montague,’ said Powerscourt. ‘My problem is that at the moment I don’t know which one of them did it. How long have
we got before the trial?’

‘Bloody postponements,’ said Pugh. ‘You’d think when people get sent up to the Central Criminal Court, the prosecution would have sorted things out properly. But no. Two
postponements in the past few days. Could be up there by the end of next week.’

‘Christ,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Right, Mr Pugh, here goes.’

‘List of suspects, then. Nothing like throwing mud in their eyes. Confuse the jury. Leave them thinking any conviction would be unsound.’

‘Number one,’ said Powerscourt, staring in amazement at the sheer number of the files. He wondered briefly if somewhere in a hot corner of the Egyptian temples some scribes had
lived, surrounded with roll upon roll of papyrus, details of the construction of pyramids perhaps, carefully drawn up lists of what the current ruler wanted to take with them before they were
incarcerated in their mausoleums in the sand.

‘Edmund de Courcy,’ he came back to the present, ‘possibly with the support of his partner William Alaric Piper, art dealers. Montague’s article was going to say that
most of the works in their exhibition of Venetian Paintings were fakes, and some were recent forgeries. That would have been very bad for business. De Courcy may have also tried to kill
me.’

He told Pugh the details of the flight down the hill from Aregno, the story of the Traitor’s Run. Pugh was writing with deceptive speed in a notebook in front of him.

‘Must be an interesting life, being an investigator, Powerscourt. Bloody sight more interesting than a monk’s life here with all these damned files, punctuated by occasional outings
in front of the judge.’

‘Number two,’ Powerscourt went on.

‘Pardon me a moment, pray,’ said Pugh. ‘You don’t know if there is any evidence that de Courcy or Piper was seen in Brompton Square?’

‘No,’ said Powerscourt sadly, ‘but de Courcy did employ a Corsican at his gallery. You’ll be amazed to hear that the man has recently gone home. Family bereavement, I
think. Corsicans go in for garrotting, as you know.’

Powerscourt noticed that Charles Augustus Pugh had just drawn the outline of the mountainous island on the page in front of him.

‘Pity he’s gone home,’ he said. ‘Don’t suppose the Corsican authorities would be very keen on sending him back to us. Tighter than those criminal families in the
East End, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Number two,’ Powerscourt went on, ‘Roderick Johnston, senior curator of Renaissance paintings at the National Gallery. There is a growing demand for people to authenticate
paintings, Americans wanting to be certain they’re taking a genuine Corregio back to Cincinnati, that sort of thing. Montague’s article would have confirmed that he, Montague, was now
the leading authority in Britain, if not in Europe, on the attribution of Italian paintings. End of the line for Johnston. The man’s been living above his means for years. Harridan of a wife,
keen to acquire pretty houses in the Cotswolds or grand villas in the hills above Florence. Johnston had a very strong motive for wanting Montague out of the way.’

‘What sorts of sums are we talking about?’ asked Pugh. ‘Quick fifty pounds in notes? Envelopes stuffed with five hundred in cash?’

Pugh’s voice was a rich deep bass. It sounded very quiet, here in his chambers. Powerscourt imagined it could be a potent weapon in the courtroom, rising to intimidate the opposition
witnesses, rising and falling as he made his final appeal to the jury.

‘Think thousands, Mr Pugh, maybe tens of thousands.’

Pugh whistled at the size of the sums.

‘Suppose you have an artist of the highest class,’ said Powerscourt, ‘a Derby winner of an artist. Let’s take Raphael. You are a dealer, Mr Pugh. This Raphael comes into
your possession. You have a rich American client, keen on building up the best collection in the United States. He has a very suspicious mind – he didn’t get all his millions in steel
or railroads by believing everything he’s told. You prove to me that it really is a Raphael, he says. If it’s real, remember, it might be worth seventy or eighty thousand pounds. If
it’s not real, it’s virtually worthless. Enter Roderick Johnston. Or enter Christopher Montague. You, the dealer, are at their mercy, unless you already have them on the payroll. Even
then, they can name their percentage of the final price. Could be ten or fifteen. I believe it has been known to go up to twenty-five for the authentication. But once you, the dealer, have it, you
have the sale.’

‘And they say,’ said Pugh, ‘that lawyers are overpaid. Perish the thought. And, presumably, once you are accepted as the best authenticator around, dealers will be queuing up
for your services? The money will just keep on rolling in?’

‘Exactly so,’ said Powerscourt.

Charles Augustus Pugh took his perfectly polished black boots off his desk.

‘Any more?’ he said. ‘I think we could make quite a lot of mud with those two. I just don’t know if it’s enough to get him off.’

‘There is,’ said Powerscourt. ‘There is one other candidate but I do not feel sufficiently confident to give you the details at this stage. It’s only a hunch.’

‘Would you be able to tell me in confidence? No notes in my book, no mention of it anywhere.’

Powerscourt told him. Pugh leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. ‘God in heaven, Powerscourt, ‘he said. ‘I can see perfectly clearly why you might think
that. God knows how you prove it.’

Orlando Blane and Imogen Foxe were eating their last supper. Orlando was so nervous that his hand shook as he tried to cut into the thick sausages their captors had provided.
Imogen kicked him under the table. First of all they talked about horses, horses that had won the Oaks or the Derby in happier times gone by. Imogen found the potato frightfully hard to swallow
– it was as if her body was refusing to do what she told it.

Imogen told him about the terrible war in South Africa, the endless sieges, beleaguered little communities of soldiers and civilians trying to eke out their rations before starvation finished
them off, the British relief expeditions forever delayed by the skill of the elusive Boers who never lost a battle. They simply got back on their horses and rode away into the veldt.

Tonight Orlando and Imogen were going to escape. For days now they had never altered their routine, Imogen walking in the morning while Orlando worked at his easel, the two of them walking in
the late afternoon, supper watched by their captors, then early to bed. That was particularly important in their minds. For four successive nights they had retired just as the guard came on his
final patrol shortly after nine o’clock.

Their plan was to wait a couple of hours after that until the guards too had gone to sleep. Then they were going to swing themselves out of the window on a rope improvised from the stout sheets
on the bed, and head for where they thought Cromer was. There must be trains, Imogen had said, early morning trains going south to Norwich. Once they reached Norwich they could head for London.
Then they would be safe. So intent were they on the immediate details of their flight that they had given no thought at all to what they would do when they arrived in the capital.

Back in the Long Gallery Orlando changed into the fresh clothes Imogen had brought him from Blandford. Imogen noted with pride that they fitted him like a glove. They packed one bag between
them. They peered anxiously into the wild night outside. Imogen began to make the rope of sheets that would lead them to freedom.

Johnny Fitzgerald had brought Powerscourt on a great loop of a ride that took them on to the long drive that led up to de Courcy Hall. ‘God help sailors on a night like
this,’ Johnny muttered to himself as the wind rose and turned into a storm. It was whistling through the trees, their upper branches bent into fantastic arabesques by the speed of its
passing. Ahead of them in the great woods at the back of the house they could hear cracks like pistol shots as branches were severed from the trunks that bore them.

‘Look, Francis,’ whispered Fitzgerald, ‘two hundred yards away you can see the stable block. I think we should leave the horses here in case they make a noise.’

They abandoned the horses and tiptoed forward, bent almost double into the wind. Snow was falling fast now, the stable block and house scarcely visible. Then they froze in their tracks. A bell
was ringing, not from the church two hundred yards to their left, but from inside the ghostly features of de Courcy Hall itself. They pressed forward.

‘What, in God’s name, is that bell for, Francis? It’s well after eleven at night,’ muttered Johnny, taking shelter behind a tree.

‘I doubt very much if it’s for evening prayers in this place, Johnny. Let’s get further forward. Sounds like a general alert to me. Place isn’t on fire, is it?’
whispered Powerscourt.

Fitzgerald led them forward at a rush to the walled garden. They could just see the side of the house. Lights had been turned on. There was a lot of confused shouting of orders. Then they saw a
party of four men, some with rifles, come running at the double from the front of the house and then turn left towards the woods that led to Cromer.

‘Where are the forger’s quarters, Johnny?’ whispered Powerscourt. ‘I think they must have tried to escape.’ He wondered suddenly what instructions the jailers had
in case of flight. Recapture, certainly. But an escaped forger might be able to tell the tale of his endeavours with brush and glaze, locked away in de Courcy Hall. That could be very embarrassing
for somebody in London. Would they rather he was dead? Like Christopher Montague? Powerscourt wondered macabrely if they had brought the garrotting wire with them, those men who had just rushed up
the hill, tucked into an inside pocket. Or would they shoot the forger dead, another shooting accident in Norfolk? So unfortunate, officer, he should never have been wandering about in the field of
fire.

Johnny Fitzgerald led him round to the back of the house. There were no lights on in the Long Gallery, only the snow driven in against the windows. Powerscourt thought you could see ten yards in
front of your face, no more.

‘Look, Francis.’ Fitzgerald was pointing to the end window. It was still half open. An improvised rope could just be seen, dangling to the ground, the white of the sheets almost
invisible in the swirling snow.

‘My God, Johnny,’ said Powerscourt. ‘The birds have flown. But what a night to choose. We’d better get after them.’

Powerscourt and Fitzgerald set off up the hill. Neither had any clear idea what to do if they encountered the guards. Powerscourt suddenly remembered what Lady Lucy had said to Fitzgerald before
he left for Norfolk: ‘Please check in the local guidebooks before you go, Johnny,’ she had said. ‘Make sure there aren’t strange local customs up there at this time of year.
Shooting strangers for instance. I’d hate to think there’s an East Anglian version of the Traitor’s Run.’

Now they were right in the middle of it.

The first stages of the escape had gone very well. Orlando shinned down the improvised rope and laughed when his feet touched the ground. Imogen had thrown down their bag and
shot down the sheets to join him. She put her finger to her lips. Hand in hand they set off up the hill, their bodies swaying together sometimes in the wind.