Death of an Old Master (39 page)

‘Tell me, Chief Inspector,’ he went on, ‘what other evidence do you have that the defendant murdered Mr Jenkins?’

The Chief Inspector looked defiant. ‘There is the tie, the tie found in his room which had gone missing from Mr Buckley’s wardrobe.’

‘Ah the tie, Chief Inspector.’ Pugh had turned charming again. ‘Have you ever lost any ties? I certainly have. There are often times when one simply cannot find them. Is that
the case with you?’

‘I have on occasion lost some ties,’ admitted the Chief Inspector. ‘My wife usually finds them later on.’ There was a faint ripple of laughter around the court.

‘Indeed so, Chief Inspector, indeed so. We can all lose our ties. Let me ask you a further sartorial question, Chief Inspector. Do you have any ties with stains on them?’

Chief Inspector Wilson looked quickly round the court as if checking that his wife was not there. ‘I believe I may have one or two in such a condition,’ he said defensively.

‘Never mind,’ said Charles Augustus Pugh, smiling at the members of the jury, ‘I’m sure we all have a few ties with stains on them. Could you remind the jury what sort of
tie it was?’

‘It was the tie belonging to Trinity College, Cambridge, Mr Buckley’s old college,’ Wilson replied, feeling on firmer ground.

‘Trinity College, Oxford,’ said Pugh, with a slightly patronizing air, ‘is a very small college. But Trinity College, Cambridge is a very large college. Do you happen to know
how many new undergraduates it takes in every year?’

‘Objection, my lord.’ Sir Rufus was on his feet once more. ‘Unfair questioning of the witness.’

‘Mr Pugh?’ said the judge firmly.

‘I was just coming to the point, my lord, before my learned friend interrupted me.’

‘Objection overruled,’ said the judge. ‘Mr Pugh.’

‘Let me tell you the answer, Chief Inspector. About one hundred and fifty undergraduates go up to Trinity College, Cambridge every year. Fifteen hundred in ten years. And assuming that a
man will live for three score years and ten, that makes seven thousand five hundred people who could have been wearing that tie.’ Pugh paused briefly. ‘With or without a stain. Rather a
lot of suspects, wouldn’t you say, Chief Inspector?’

Pugh didn’t wait for the answer. He sat down and began looking through his papers.

‘No further questions.’

‘Damned good witness, that Dean of yours, Powerscourt.’ Pugh was pouring tea back in his chambers, the jacket draped once more across his chair, his own tie
removed.

‘Bloody well should have been,’ said Powerscourt. ‘The fellow was on the same staircase as me at Cambridge.’

Pugh glanced curiously at Powerscourt. He looked as if he was about to speak. But when he did it was to do with events on the following day.

‘Friday tomorrow, Powerscourt. This judge likes to get away early on Fridays. He’s got some huge pile in Hampshire. Needs to catch the five twenty from Waterloo. Tomorrow morning I
shall recall Johnston, the National Gallery fellow, then Edmund de Courcy I hope we can save the forger and all his works for the afternoon. I’ve had one of our people here speak to the
newspapers, warning them that there may be a sensation in court.’

What Charles Augustus Pugh did not say was that widespread coverage in the press would publicize his name. Publicity was no bad thing for up and coming young silks.

‘As yet,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I have had no reply from the Chief of Police in Calvi, but I sent him another wire saying that it was vital we heard any news he had as soon as
possible.’

Powerscourt set off from Pugh’s chambers to walk back to Markham Square. His route took him along the river, the dark waters of the Thames flowing swiftly towards the sea. Parties of gulls
circled round the shipping. When he reached Piccadilly he passed the offices of the Royal Academy, all lights extinguished now, where he had first met Sir Frederick Lambert weeks before. He
remembered the extraordinary classical paintings on the walls, the terrible coughing, the handkerchiefs covered with blood secreted away behind Lambert’s desk. He remembered his last visit to
the old man, the ruined hands forming and re-forming the stamps from his correspondence on the table in front of him, the nurse in her crisp white uniform waiting to terminate his interview. He
remembered his own promise to Lambert on that occasion, that he would find out who killed Christopher Montague before Sir Frederick died. Hang on, Sir Frederick, he whispered into the London
evening, hang on. We might be nearly there. Nearly, but not quite. Just hang on for a few days longer.

Roderick Johnston filled the witness box when Pugh recalled him on the Friday morning. He seemed to tower above the rest of the actors in the courtroom, the clerk of the court
taking notes in his place beneath the judge, Mr Justice Browne himself resplendent in his dark robes, gazing now at the jury, now at this giant witness come to his court, now at Charles Augustus
Pugh collecting his papers and rising to his feet.

Powerscourt was in the row behind Pugh, Pugh’s young second sorting through more files in front of him. Behind him the court was packed. Word must have leaked out that there might be a
sensation in court that day. At the back, pens poised over their deadly notebooks, were the gentlemen of the press, jackals come to entertain their readers with tales of vice and adultery, of
murders committed by an unknown hand. Murder trials were guaranteed to cheer up the British public, battered by yet further news of British defeats in South Africa. Five days before Lord Methuen
had been repulsed at Magersfontein, just a few miles from the besieged garrison at Kimberley.

‘You are Roderick Johnston, senior curator of Renaissance paintings at the National Gallery, currently residing at Number 3, River Terrace, Mortlake?’

Pugh’s voice was flat this morning.

‘I am,’ Johnston’s voice boomed out round the courtroom.

‘Could you tell us, Mr Johnston, how much you earn from your position at the gallery?’

‘Objection, my lord, objection.’ Sir Rufus Fitch was at his most indignant. ‘We are here trying the defendant for murder, not inquiring into the witness’s financial
situation.’

‘Mr Pugh?’ Powerscourt remembered Pugh telling him that the score so far in this case was one objection each. So far the judge was even-handed. Pugh had a bet with his junior that he
would lose heavily in the final score of objections.

Pugh smiled a slight smile at the judge, but his eyes roamed around the jury. ‘It is the contention of the defence, my lord, if we are allowed to present our evidence without interruption,
that the financial situation of the witness is indeed germane to this case. We propose to show that if the unfortunate Mr Montague had not been murdered, Mr Johnston would have lost a very great
deal of money. Mr Johnston was the last man to see Montague alive. We intend to show that he would have profited from Montague’s death. It would have saved him a fortune.’

‘I have to tell you, Mr Pugh,’ said the judge, with a slight air of menace in his voice, ‘that there had better be a sound basis for this line of questioning. For the present,
Sir Rufus, objection overruled.’

‘I was going to suggest, Mr Johnston,’ Pugh carried on, ‘that your income from the gallery alone is not enough to sustain your lifestyle, the expensive house by the river, the
frequent trips abroad. Perhaps we may take that as read?’

Johnston coloured slightly. ‘You may,’ he said grimly.

‘Please don’t misunderstand me, Mr Johnston,’ purred Pugh, ‘nobody here is suggesting that there is anything wrong with extra work giving a man a little extra income.
Heaven forbid. But perhaps you could tell the court what the main source of your extra-curricular income, as it were, is?’

‘I have written a couple of books,’ said Johnston defensively. ‘I also advise on exhibitions, that sort of thing.’

‘Come, come, Mr Johnston, the gentlemen of the jury are too sophisticated to believe that such funds would be sufficient for you to move house from a humble dwelling in North London to a
most desirable property in Mortlake looking out over the Thames.’ Pugh could see Sir Rufus Fitch beginning to rise to his feet. He hurried on. ‘But the details of your houses are not
our concern today,’ Pugh sensed Sir Rufus beginning to sink slowly back into his chair. ‘Perhaps you could tell us what you do in the way of attributing paintings. Before you do, may I
suggest to you and to the jury what is meant when we talk of the attribution of paintings?’

Sir Rufus Fitch was looking rather cross. He was telling himself that this was meant to be a murder trial not a tutorial at the National Gallery.

‘Suppose you are a rich American gentleman,’ said Pugh, looking carefully at the jury. ‘You have made millions from steel, or railways, or coal. You have magnificent houses in
Newport, Rhode Island and Fifth Avenue in New York.’

‘Could I suggest, Mr Pugh, that you come to the point.’ Mr Justice Browne sounded rather irritated. ‘One minute you are implicitly criticizing a man for the size of his house.
Now you are telling stories of American millionaires. Perhaps you could reach the point you wish to make?’

Two all, thought Powerscourt. Sir Rufus might not have intervened but that definitely counted against Pugh.

Pugh was unperturbed. ‘I am coming to the point, my lord.’ He smiled a deferential smile in the direction of the judge and carried on. ‘Many of these rich Americans come to
Europe to buy paintings. They are keen to establish their own collections of Old Masters. They go to the galleries here and in Paris and in Rome. But how do they know whether a painting is genuine
or not? How do they know whether they are buying the real thing or a forgery? This is how they find out. They, or their art dealers, go to an expert. They go to a man like Mr Johnston here for what
is called an attribution. If he certifies that the painting is by Titian, they are satisfied. They pay large sums of money for the Titian. Without the attribution the picture is worthless. Is that
a fair description, Mr Johnston?’

And Pugh turned another smile upon his witness.

‘By and large, I would say it was, yes.’

‘Tell me, Mr Johnston,’ Powerscourt sensed that Pugh was about to fire his heaviest artillery, ‘have you recently been involved in the attribution of a Raphael?’

Johnny Fitzgerald’s drinking sessions with the porters and the attendants of the galleries of Old Bond Street were now bearing fruit in the Central Criminal Court. Johnston turned pale.
There was a pause before he replied.

‘That is true.’

‘And did you say that this picture was genuine, Mr Johnston?’ Pugh was staring intently at his witness now.

‘I did,’ said Johnston, obviously wishing fervently that he was somewhere else.

‘Perhaps you could tell the court how much the Raphael was sold for?’

‘I believe the figure was eighty-five thousand pounds,’ said Johnston. There was a murmur of astonishment from the spectators. The newspapermen at the back were writing
furiously.

‘And, what, Mr Johnston, was your commission for pronouncing the work genuine?’

‘I am not sure of the exact figure,’ Johnston began.

‘I put it to you,’ said Pugh, ‘that your commission was twelve and a half per cent of the eighty-five thousand pounds. To translate it into hard cash, ten thousand six hundred
and twenty-five pounds, for looking at a painting and saying it is genuine.’

Ten thousand six hundred and twenty-five pounds was more money than the entire jury would earn in their lifetimes. They stared in amazement at a man who could command such sums.

‘I put this to you, Mr Johnston,’ Pugh could sense the judge getting restless again, ‘that had Christopher Montague lived, you would have lost your position as a leading
attributer. He would have replaced you. Your extra-curricular earnings, these fabulous sums for inspecting a few Old Masters, would have dried up. You would have lost your main source of income,
would you not?’

Pugh picked up a piece of paper from his desk. ‘I have here, my lord, a statement from the President of the Royal Academy. Sir Frederick Lambert has been very unwell. He is, at present,
being nursed round the clock in his home. This document only reached me very recently. I propose to see, Mr Johnston, whether you agree with it.

‘“Christopher Montague was on his way to becoming the foremost expert on Italian paintings in Britain, probably in Europe.”’ Pugh read the statement very slowly, as if
in respect to the dying man. ‘“His first book established him as a scholar of rare distinction. His second, which is about to come out, together with his article on the Venetian
exhibition, would have consolidated his position. The dealers would have flocked to him for attributions of their paintings. Other practitioners in the field,”’ Pugh paused to look
directly at Roderick Johnston, leaning heavily against the side of the witness box, ‘“would have been sidelined. That element of their income would have evaporated, more or less
instantly.”’

Powerscourt had drafted the statement with the President’s approval two days earlier. Charles Augustus Pugh saw no reason to refer to that.

‘So, Mr Johnston,’ said Pugh, pausing only to hand a copy of his document to the clerk of the court, ‘with Christopher Montague alive, you would have been finished. No more
little extras, what did we say the figure was, ten thousand six hundred and twenty-five pounds, for the attribution of a single painting?’

Johnston spluttered. ‘I cannot agree with that assessment – ’ he began.

Pugh cut in. ‘I would remind you, Mr Johnston,’ he said, ‘that we are dealing with the President of the Royal Academy here, not some twopenny ha’penny scribbler who
writes for the art magazines.’

Johnston said nothing.

‘I put it to you again, Mr Johnston. With Christopher Montague alive, you become poor. With Christopher Montague dead, you carry on becoming richer, year after year after year, is that not
so?’

Johnston said nothing, staring unhappily at the back of the court. Small boys, employed for a few pence as runners, were crouching down beside the newspapermen, waiting to rush their copy to the
presses.