Death of an Old Master

24

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.

Sir Rufus Fitch rose to his feet to salvage Johnston from the onslaught. ‘Objection, my lord, objection. My learned friend is practically accusing the witness of murder.’

‘Mr Pugh?’ The judge looked up from his notebook.

‘I was merely concerned with the question of motive, my lord. It is only proper that the jury should be acquainted with the facts, that there are, however unfortunate it may appear, a number of people who might have wished Montague dead.’

‘Objection overruled. You may carry on, Mr Pugh, but on more orthodox lines.’

‘No further questions, my lord.’

Charles Augustus Pugh sat down. Sir Rufus was on his feet again. ‘Mr Johnston,’ he began, ‘perhaps we could clear up the main point here, without all these pieces of interesting but irrelevant detail.’ Sir Rufus looked sternly at the jury as he spoke, as if he was reminding them of what their duty was. ‘Did you kill Christopher Montague?’

‘I did not.’

Just before the court resumed Powerscourt handed Pugh a cable from Corsica. It came from Captain Imperiali. As the jury filed in for the last session before the weekend, they were confronted by a most unusual sight. A pair of empty easels sat towards the front of the court, clearly visible to judge, jury and witnesses.

‘Terrible time I had getting the judge to agree to the bloody things,’ Pugh had said to Powerscourt, tucking into an enormous steak for his lunch. ‘Thank God my young colleague here had found a previous trial in 1884 when an easel was permitted in court. Even then the old bugger couldn’t see why we wanted two of them. I had to say that we had evidence of forgery directly pertaining to the case, that we proposed to demonstrate how one of the forgeries referred to in the Montague article was carried out. Sir Rufus was snorting like an old war horse. Didn’t seem able to come up with any relevant objections for once. Only hope the old bastard isn’t saving them up for the afternoon. Bloody judge made some crack about a most unorthodox defence. Well, he hasn’t seen anything yet!’ With that, Pugh laughed his enormous laugh and helped himself to a small glass of claret.

He began the afternoon with Jason Lockhart, the young man from Clarke’s Gallery who had been going to found the new magazine with Christopher Montague. Pugh established that the main argument of the article was that a number of the paintings in the de Courcy and Piper Venetian exhibition were fakes, and that some were recent forgeries. And that news of the article was quite widely known in the little world of the art dealers and picture restorers of Old Bond Street.

Sir Rufus raised an objection, claiming the article was irrelevant. Pugh was quick on the rebuttal.

‘It is our contention, my lord, that it may have been this article and the message within it that led directly to Montague’s death.’ Sir Rufus was overruled.

Powerscourt looked briefly behind him. Two rows to the rear, clearly placed where the judge and jury could see him, Orlando Blane was fiddling nervously with his tie. Imogen had bought him a most respectable new suit for the occasion.

Edmund de Courcy was recalled to the witness box. Charles Augustus Pugh collected a large sheaf of papers and rose to his feet.

‘You are Edmund de Courcy, joint proprietor of the de Courcy and Piper Gallery in Old Bond Street?’

‘I am.’ De Courcy was wary, very wary. He had seen what Pugh had done to Johnston that morning.

‘You are also the owner of de Courcy Hall in the county of Norfolk?’

‘I am.’ De Courcy was staring at the empty easels.

‘Tell me, Mr de Courcy, I presume you were aware of the article Christopher Montague was writing at the time of his death, an article which was going to say that many if not most of the paintings in your exhibition were forgeries or fakes?’

‘I was.’

Powerscourt looked at the jury. They were concentrating hard. Over to his right Horace Aloysius Buckley stood very straight in the dock.

‘Perhaps you could tell the court what impact this article would have had if it appeared. I presume it would have been bad for business?’

‘I fear it would have been bad,’ de Courcy began.

‘Worse than bad perhaps?’ Pugh cut in very quickly. ‘A disaster? A catastrophe?’

‘It would have been very bad for business,’ was as far as de Courcy would go.

‘And do you regard it as significant, Mr de Courcy, that all of Montague’s papers were removed from his desk so that nobody, from that day to this, has seen the actual text of the article? Would that have been good for business?’

‘It certainly worked to our advantage,’ admitted de Courcy. He seemed to be relying on a policy of saying as little as possible. He still stared, as if hypnotized, at the easels.

‘Tell me, Mr de Courcy . . .’ Pugh was at his most emollient. Powerscourt suspected he was going to bring the forgeries into play very soon. ‘Were any of the paintings in your exhibition fakes or forgeries or copies? Take your time. Remember you are under oath, Mr de Courcy.’

It’s like a fork with a knight in chess, Powerscourt realized. If you saved your castle, you would lose your bishop. If you saved your bishop, you would lose your castle. You were impaled. If de Courcy said yes, he would destroy his own reputation. If he said no, then the easels might do it for him. Powerscourt suddenly realized how sharp it had been of Pugh not to place the paintings on the easels immediately but to hold them up, like a time bomb, waiting to explode under the de Courcy and Piper Gallery.

‘To the best of our knowledge,’ de Courcy began, ‘all the paintings were genuine.’

‘You are sure of that? Quite sure, Mr de Courcy?’ Charles Augustus Pugh looked directly into de Courcy’s eyes. The court had gone very quiet. Even the newspapermen had stopped the incessant scribbling in their shorthand.

‘I am,’ said de Courcy, blinking rapidly.

‘My lord,’ said Pugh, turning to the judge, ‘I propose to bring on Exhibit C.’

Two court officials hurried from the room. Exhibit A was on a little table in front of the jury It comprised a length of piano wire similar to the one used to garrotte Christopher Montague. The prosecution believed it was important for the jury to see an approximation of the murder weapon. Exhibit B sat beside it. This was the Trinity College, Cambridge tie found in Jenkins’ room on the Banbury Road in Oxford.

The porters brought in a painting about three feet high and two and a half feet wide. It sat in a gold frame. They placed it reverentially on the easel nearest to the witness box. A rather saturnine Venetian nobleman, almost four hundred years old, had come to inspect the Central Criminal Court. His body was almost at right angles to the artist, clad in a blue doublet, with a dark blue cloak thrown across his shoulders. Round his neck was a chain of very fine gold. He gazed imperturbably at the jury The jury stared back. The judge put on a different pair of glasses and inspected the latest visitor to his courtroom. Behind Powerscourt the crowd were rising, leaning forward to find a better view.

Pugh let the excitement die down before he spoke. ‘Do you recognize this painting?’ he said to Edmund de Courcy.

‘I do,’ replied de Courcy. ‘It is the Portrait of a Man, by Titian.’

‘And,’ Pugh went on, ‘it appears in the catalogue of your exhibition of Venetian paintings as Item Number 34.’ Pugh had pulled the catalogue out of his sheaf of papers and was helpfully showing it to the members of the jury.

‘Would you be so kind,’ Pugh turned to the court officials once more, ‘as to bring in Exhibit D?’

There was an outbreak of whispering among the crowd. What was coming next? What rabbit was Charles Augustus Pugh about to bring forth now? The judge stared at them and raised his gavel. The whispering stopped.

Another painting about three feet high and two and a half feet wide, set in a gold frame, was placed on the next easel. The same Venetian, in the same doublet with the same cloak and the same chain around his neck stared out at the jury He had achieved the alchemists’ dream over the centuries, he had reproduced himself perfectly.

Edmund de Courcy went pale. Orlando Blane smiled quietly to himself. The public gallery made so much noise that the judge banged his gavel very loudly on his great desk.

‘Silence in court! Silence, I pray you! Any more of these unseemly interruptions and I shall clear the court! Mr Pugh!’

‘Do you recognize this painting?’ he said to de Courcy.

‘I do,’ came the answer. ‘It is the Portrait of a Man, by Titian.’

‘And which of the two paintings,’ said Pugh in a very firm voice, ‘is the real one?’

De Courcy looked at them both very carefully. He looked at Pugh as if pleading for mercy. Not quite the Judgement of Solomon, thought Powerscourt, staring at the drama unfolding in front of him, but a terrible question all the same. He wondered if Orlando Blane knew the answer. He wondered if Pugh knew the answer, some private mark on the frame perhaps which would remind him of the difference between the true and the fake.

It was obvious that Edmund de Courcy did not know the answer. He stared at the two easels like a schoolboy looking at an exam paper for which he has done no preparation at all.

‘I would not wish to hurry you, Mr de Courcy,’ said Pugh, sounding faintly exasperated with his witness, ‘but I repeat my question. Which is the real one?’

Still de Courcy did not speak. The two Venetian gentlemen were still inspecting the jury.

‘The one on the left,’ de Courcy whispered.

‘I’m not sure that the jury would have heard you, Mr de Courcy. Could you speak up for the court?’ said Pugh.

‘The one on the left,’ de Courcy replied in a louder voice. Fifty-fifty chance he’s right, Powerscourt said to himself.

‘Wrong,’ said Pugh firmly. ‘The one on the right is the original.’ He turned to the court officials once more. ‘Please remove the original painting and leave us with the forgery. The real Titian is far too valuable to be left here. And could you bring in Exhibit E on your way back?’

Another sea of whispers rustled across the public gallery. Was there a third Venetian gentleman waiting in the wings to destroy an art dealer’s reputation? A fourth? A fifth? Powerscourt realized just how brutal a courtroom could be. It’s exactly like a battle, he said to himself. Not everyone leaves the arena alive. Pugh’s artillery is cutting swathes through the enemy ranks. He felt a momentary pang of sympathy for Edmund de Courcy. They might be able to save the life of Horace Aloysius Buckley, gazing open-mouthed at the drama below him. But how many others might be destroyed in the process?

This time it was a drawing that was placed on the easel. The supply of Titians had momentarily run out. It was a society beauty who sat on the easel, perched on a seat in an imaginary landscape with a glorious sunset behind her. She was wearing a long flowing dress. Her small hands were folded in her lap. And on her head was a hat of the most expensive and exquisite feathers the London milliners of the late eighteenth century could provide.

‘Do you recognize this drawing?’ said Pugh.

De Courcy stared at it for some time. ‘It looks like a Reynolds, a Sir Joshua Reynolds,’ he said finally.

‘Why do you say it looks like a Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr de Courcy?’ Pugh’s interruption was lightning fast. ‘Do you think it’s not genuine?’

‘I’m not sure. I can’t be sure,’ said de Courcy.

‘Let me refresh your memory for you.’ Pugh was burrowing among his papers once more. ‘This is the final sketch for a Reynolds, called, I believe, Clarissa, Lady Lanchester. The painting was recently sold, Mr de Courcy, by your very own gallery, to a rich American called Lewis B. Black for a sum of over ten thousand pounds. Is that not so?’

‘Yes,’ mumbled de Courcy.

The newspapermen were scribbling furiously once more. One or two of the elderly ladies in the public gallery had taken their fans out and were trying to calm themselves down. God in heaven, thought Powerscourt, how many gallons of drink had Johnny Fitzgerald poured down the throats of those Old Bond Street porters? Had they opened the offices up for him at two o’clock in the morning and shown him the account books while London slept outside?

‘I put this to you, Mr de Courcy. You were quite right to be suspicious of the authenticity of this Reynolds. It is a forgery, pure and simple. What is more, gentlemen of the jury,’ Pugh was looking at them rather than at his witness, ‘the forgery and the fraudulent copy of the Titian we have just seen were created in your own house, Mr de Courcy, in de Courcy Hall in Norfolk. You were operating a Devil’s Kitchen of fakes and forgeries up there. Small wonder it was to your advantage when Christopher Montague was killed. Your own private fakery might have been exposed in the controversy. I put it to you, Mr de Courcy, that faking and forgery is a very profitable line of business. What takes the forger a few weeks or months to produce can be sold for tens of thousands of pounds. No wonder Christopher Montague’s article would have been, and I quote your own words back at you, very bad for business. That is the case, is it not?’

De Courcy’s reply was a mistake. ‘You can’t possibly prove a single word of that.’

Pugh swung round like a whiplash. He turned to face de Courcy. He stared at him. He raised his voice till it almost reached the street outside.

‘I beg your pardon, Mr de Courcy. I do beg your pardon. I most certainly can prove it. The man who forged and faked on your behalf is in this very courtroom this afternoon! Would you please rise, Mr Orlando Blane!’