The Color of Night

CHAPTER 48

The rain roared outside. Corsier stood at the windows and looked across at the Connaught Hotel through the downpour and the dull afternoon light. He saw the windows that he thought were in the suite from which he would identify Schrade’s voice and then watch the explosion. The afternoon was so dark, the street lamps had come on and the street below was glistening with rain and glitter from the lamps, the rain running along the curbs like liquid light.

“All right all right all right,” Carrington Knight chirruped, hustling back into the viewing room with a bottle of champagne and two tall, thin glasses.

Corsier turned around, his heart slamming against his ribs. Knight, dressed in black, was wearing a Tyrian purple necktie and a simpering smile that had a hint of collusion about it. He set the champagne and the two glasses on the library table on a Victorian silver tray. Then he grinned at Corsier, a gray ferret’s grin, and opened his hands to Corsier, inviting him to proceed.

Corsier turned to the table and began undoing the first of two leather carrying cases he had had made in France when this moment was only a glorious anticipation in his mind’s eye. He had ordered the cases the same day he’d bought the frames, measuring them right there and then. They were lined with a chocolate velvet that complemented the leather cases. He knew Knight would notice this. He knew Knight would appreciate it.

Asking Knight to hold the leather case, Corsier reached inside and slowly withdrew the first frame, face up, turning it so that Knight could see it upright from the other side of the table. It was the drawing of the two reclining women.

Corsier’s eyes were fixed on Knight’s face. Knight’s mouth was slack. His eyes darted all over the picture, tonguelike, tasting every line, every stroke of the pencil, every blush of lilac, the slanted glance, the proud pudenda, his eyes greedy and glittering.

“Ohhhh… hhhhhh… Claude! Oh! My! God!”

Corsier let him revel.

“Schiele! Can you believe this?? Look at this…”

Knight raised his round black eyeglasses, resting them on his forehead, and stepped back. He shook his head. He came forward, picked up the heavy frame, and took it to the countertop, where he leaned it against the bookshelves.

Even Corsier’s breast thrilled. In the special lighting in which Carrington placed the drawing, the very soul of Egon Schiele burst into view. The goddamn thing looked-authentic!

Knight whirled around. “The other one!” he said quickly.

They went through the same procedures to remove the second drawing from its leather case, and Knight immediately marched it over to the countertop and leaned it against the bookcases beside the other.

He put one arm across his stomach, rested the elbow of the other on top of its wrist, and put his chin in his hand as he studied them both. He stepped forward, leaned in close, his eyes vacuuming the surface of first one drawing and then the other. He reached up and lowered his eyeglasses to the bridge of his small nose and stepped back, pacing from side to side in front of the pictures, viewing them from different angles. He struck a pose, one leg stretched in front of the other, arms crossed, shaking his head slowly as he marveled, a silver lock of hair falling down over his forehead.

“Well,” he said finally, raising his eyebrows and turning to Corsier with a look of theatrical amazement, “these are really quite beautiful. Convincing. I certainly have no hesitation to bring Wolf into this. The things just look like Schiele. I mean, it’s a hell of a thing to discover Schieles, for God’s sake, isn’t it?”

“I could hardly believe my eyes,” Corsier said.

He decided to grow serious instead of joyous. Knight had always to be tempered. If he were morose or skeptical, one had to pick him up. If he were ebullient, one had to portray studious sagacity. Knight appreciated a certain amount of tension, a certain equilibre.

“To be honest, Carrington, I find I’m a bit humbled by this discovery,” Corsier said. He walked around to join his flamboyant associate. “Can you imagine these things hanging in obscurity for something like eighty years? Can you imagine how easily they might have disappeared?” He put his hands behind his back, a big, studious bear of a man, and stood before the drawings. “This hausfrau brings them in the back of her Volvo, and she knows nothing of what she has.”

Knight said nothing. He turned and stepped to the table, uncorked the champagne, and filled the two flutes. He handed one to Corsier, and the two men faced each other.

“To Schiele.”

They clinked their glasses and drank, then simultaneously turned to the drawings. They looked at them.

“They haven’t names?” Knight asked.

“Not that I know.” Corsier stroked his goatee.

“They must.”

“What do you suggest?”

“This one,” Knight said, gesturing with his glass to the two girls, “should be Two Lovers Reclining.” He was emphatic. He stepped to the second drawing. “God, I love the way he’s done the bottom of the buttocks here. And the reflection of that dark pudenda.” He was pensive. “This one should be Model Regarding Herself in a Mirror.” He raised his eyebrows quizzically.

“Oh, I wouldn’t change either name,” Corsier said. “They are perfect. Schielean titles.”

“Then there we have it.” Knight drank. “You’ll need to prepare a statement of provenance. You’ve got to get them from Schiele’s studio to here.”

“Easily.”

“I’ll need a letter from a lawyer stating that he is representing an anonymous owner and that the drawings, ‘the Property of a Gentleman,’ can be legally represented by him.”

“Yes,” Corsier said. “Here is the name of the barrister who will issue the letter.” He handed Knight a card. “If by some off chance Schrade should balk at the proposition of anonymity, you may tell him that he is welcome to contact this man. He will keep my identity completely secure and at the same time be able to allay any doubts Schrade may have about provenance. I urge you to give the barrister’s name only as a last resort.”

“I doubt this will be necessary,” Knight said, glancing at the card and putting it aside. “Schrade has bought anonymously from me before. Never was a problem.”

“That would be the best possible situation.”

“Now”-Knight continued looking at the drawings as he spoke-“it seems to me that the energy of discovery can best be sustained if I call Schrade immediately, announce the discovery, and urge him to act quickly. This is a momentous event, after all, and he can’t expect me to linger with these. He will get first look, but he will not have a lot of time.” He turned to Corsier. “When do you place them?”

“As you mentioned before, early. I’m going to think… 1911. His sister Gertrude was still posing nude for him then. I rather think the mirror one looks like Gertrude in the mouth and the eyes.”

“Damned if I don’t agree with you, Claude. Exactly.”

They stood, regarding the drawings.

“When did you say you were going to call Schrade?” Corsier asked.

“Tomorrow.”