The Last Judgement

9

By the time Flavia’s dormant body was passing horizontally through Mulhouse, Argyll was coming to the end of a tumultuous evening. Not that anything notably dramatic had happened, but he had ended up in a somewhat shaky and uncertain state.

After he’d finished with Delorme, he had the problem of not having anything in particular to do. What, after all, can you do in Paris? If, that is, you’re not exactly in the right mood for relaxing. Somehow an evening all alone in a restaurant, however good, or watching a movie, however fascinating, did not appeal. And it was still raining, so long walks were out as well.

That left doing something about the picture under his bed. But what, exactly? There were two obvious lines of enquiry; one being to go and have a little conversation with this man Besson, who had caused all the trouble in the first place. Not that he was assuming that Besson had stolen the thing, but he was inclined to think that, at the very least, he had some explaining to do.

On the other hand, Besson was a bit of a danger. Somebody, after all, had informed this omnipresent man with the scar that the picture was to be found at Delorme’s. And who might that have been? He didn’t really want to have a chat with Besson and then find unpleasant characters with antisocial tendencies turning up on the doorstep an hour later. For Besson, he thought, he needed a bit more support. Like half a dozen burly French policemen on either side. Better still, leave it to them entirely.

That, of course, was another problem. The police had already arrested the man, hadn’t they? Or maybe not. Janet hadn’t mentioned it, and he should have, really, when Bottando made his enquiries. And he’d forgotten to ask Delorme how he knew all this anyway. Altogether, it was most curious.

Anyway, he reckoned that Besson had better go in the pending tray for a while. And that left the owner of the picture. Eighteen months ago in a private collection. Now under his bed, and had moved around a lot in the meantime.

That exhibition catalogue had only said the painting was in a private collection. A usual device, to indicate that the picture was not in a museum, without giving the name of the owner and telling thieves where to look. Another point to be noted, he thought to himself. The thief, whoever it was, hadn’t needed any help.

What good fortune, he thought as he left the hotel and hailed a taxi, that I am such a well-trained and conscientious researcher. In the library in Rome, he’d written down the name of the man who had organized the exhibition and now he remembered that he worked at the Petit Palais. It was cutting it fine: the chances of this Pierre Guynemer being there were slight and he should have telephoned. But he had just enough time, had nothing else to do, and felt like at least putting on a display of action.

For once, luck was on his side. While the woman on the admissions desk of the museum was far from happy about seeing him, it being nearly closing-time, and openly dismissive of his suggestion that perchance Monsieur Guynemer might be in the building, she did agree to make enquiries. Then he was sent off through the vast echoing exhibition rooms of the museum, into the back corridors where the staff offices were located and where he was accosted by a man who again asked what he wanted. This obstacle overcome, he went wandering down more corridors, peering at names on doors as he went, until he came to the right one. He knocked, a voice told him to come in, and that was that. Simple beyond belief.

So simple, in fact, that he hadn’t actually prepared himself for the possibility that he might find the man, and consequently didn’t know what he should say. Still, when in doubt, lie through your teeth. That was always the best policy.

So he concocted and simultaneously delivered a bizarre and none-too-convincing tale to explain what he was doing in this man’s office at nearly five o’clock on a Saturday evening. It was a logical tale in its way, but not very well expressed; Argyll believed that its style rather than its substance was the main reason for Guynemer’s slightly raised eyebrows and sceptical look.

Also, the trouble was that the curator was one of those people you take a liking to the moment you meet them, so Argyll felt bad about being duplicitous. He was a broad fellow, just the right side of overweight, comfortably ensconced in his desk chair, with an open face and cheerful expression. About Argyll’s age, give or take a year or so. Which meant that he was either very bright or very well connected. Or both, of course. Unlike most museum curators, unlike most people, in fact, he seemed perfectly unsurprised at the unexpected arrival and quite willing to countenance being disturbed. Generally, if a total stranger turns up on your doorstep spinning a yarn, you chuck them out, or at least mutter about being too busy. Not this one; he sat Argyll down and heard him out.

Argyll’s tale was something along the lines of his doing research into pre-Revolutionary neoclassicism, of his being on a brief and unexpected stopover in Paris until Monday afternoon, and wanting to take the opportunity to do something about these pictures by Jean Floret so that they could be included in a forthcoming monograph.

Guynemer nodded understandingly and, very irritatingly, launched into a monologue about the pictures and what he knew about them, mentioning, among other things, the article in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts and a host of other references which Argyll, for the sake of appearances, duly wrote down.

‘So,’ the Frenchman said when he finished, ‘could you tell me, Mr Argyll, why it is that you say you have never heard of the Gazette article when you’ve read my exhibition catalogue which refers to it several times? And how it is that you say you are in the fourth year of writing a book on neoclassicism and still know next to nothing about the subject?’

Damnation, Argyll thought. Must have said something wrong again.

‘Just stupid, I guess,’ he said abjectly, trying to look like a particularly slow student.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Guynemer with a brief smile, almost as if he felt apologetic for bringing up such a tasteless topic of conversation. ‘Why don’t you just tell me why you are really here? Nobody likes to be made a fool of, you know,’ he added a little reproachfully.

Oh, dear. Argyll hated the reasonable ones. Not that the man didn’t have good reason to feel a little annoyed. Telling lies is one thing; telling bad ones is quite another.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Full story?’

‘If you please.’

‘Very well. I’m not a researcher, I’m a dealer and at the moment I am providing a little practical assistance to the Italian art police. At the moment I have in my possession a painting by Floret entitled The Death of Socrates. This may have been stolen, no one seems sure. The buyer was certainly tortured to death soon after I brought it to Rome; another man interested in it was also murdered. What I need to know is where the picture came from, and whether it was stolen.’

‘Why don’t you ask the police in France?’

‘I have. That is, the Italians have. They don’t know.’

Guynemer looked sceptical.

‘It’s true. They don’t. It’s a long story, but as far as I can see they are as mystified as anyone else.’

‘So you come to me.’

‘That’s right. You organized this exhibition with the picture in it. If you won’t help, I don’t know how else to go about it.’

Appeal to the human side. Look pathetic and pleading, he thought. Guynemer considered the matter awhile, clearly wondering which was the least likely, Argyll’s first story or his second. Neither, in truth, was exactly straightforward.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said eventually. ‘I can’t give you the name. It’s confidential, after all, and you don’t exactly inspire confidence. But,’ he went on as Argyll’s face fell, ‘I can ring the owner. If he is willing, then I can put you together. I shall have to go and find out the details. I didn’t actually do that section of the exhibition myself. That was Besson’s part.’

‘What?’ said Argyll. ‘Did you say Besson?’

‘That’s right. Do you know him?’

‘His name wasn’t in the catalogue, was it?’

‘Yes. In small print at the back. A long story, but he left the project half-way through. Why do you ask?’

It seemed time to be open and honest about things; weaving tangled webs had got him nowhere, after all. But it might well turn out that Besson and Guynemer were bosom buddies and he would be thrown out on his ear in a matter of minutes if he were straightforward. In which case it would be a case of so near and yet...

‘Before I say, can I ask why he left?’

‘We decided that he was not suitable,’ Guynemer parried back. ‘A clash of personalities. Your turn.’

‘This picture, if it was stolen, subsequently turned up in Besson’s hands. I don’t know yet how it got there.’

‘Probably because he stole it,’ Guynemer said simply. ‘He’s that sort of person. That’s why he wasn’t suitable. When we found out. We hired him as an expert in tracking paintings down and getting their owners to lend them. Then we discovered that we were in effect helping to introduce a wolf into a sheep pen, so to speak. The police got wind of it and came to warn us. Once I saw the dossier on him—’

‘Ah.’

‘So, if I may take it one stage further for you, he would have known where this picture was, and may well have visited the house where it was kept. Draw any conclusions from that you want.’

‘Right. Did you not like him?’

The subject of Besson did nothing for Guynemer’s amiability. Clearly he had a lot to say, but decided against saying it. However, he indicated that they were not close.

‘But I think I should go and find out about your picture, do you not?’

And he disappeared for about five minutes, leaving Argyll to stew silently.

‘You’re in luck,’ he said when he returned.

‘It was stolen?’

‘That I couldn’t tell you. But I spoke to the owner’s assistant, and she is prepared to meet you to discuss the matter.’

‘Why couldn’t this woman just say?’

‘Possibly because she doesn’t know.’

‘Is that likely?’

Guynemer shrugged. ‘No more unlikely than anything you’ve told me. Ask yourself. She will meet you at Ma Bourgogne in the Place des Vosges at eight-thirty.’

‘And now can you tell me who is the possible owner?’

‘A man called Jean Rouxel.’

‘Do you know him?’

‘Of him. Of course. A very distinguished man. Old now, but immensely influential in his day. He’s just been awarded some prize. It was in all the papers a month or so ago.’

Research is the secret of the good dealer; this was the little motto that Argyll had adopted in the few years since he had taken up the business. It wasn’t necessarily true; at least, it was clear that he knew an awful lot about pictures he hadn’t managed to sell, while colleagues unloaded others so fast they wouldn’t have had time to find out about them even if they’d been so minded.

Clients were a different matter. However philistine some dealers may be — and many take a very jaundiced view indeed of the things they sell and the people they sell to — all believe that the more you know about a client the better. Not about the ones who wander in off the street, see something they like and buy; they don’t matter. It’s the private clients who deserve this treatment, the ones who, if you work out their tastes and inclinations properly, may come back again and again. Such people vary from the idiots who like to say loudly at dinner parties ‘My dealer tells me...’ right through to the serious, judicious collector who knows what he wants — ninety nine out of hundred collectors are men — and will buy if you provide it. The former type is lucrative, but no pleasure to deal with; a good relationship with the latter can be as enjoyable as it is profitable.

So Argyll set to work on Jean Rouxel, not in the hope, this time, of selling him anything, but merely to know what he was getting involved in. For this task he had to go to the Beaubourg, which houses the only library in Paris regularly open after six o’clock in the evening. Fortunately it was not raining; the place becomes strangely popular when it’s wet, and queues form outside the door.

Merely being in the place put him in a bad mood. Argyll liked to think of himself as a liberal sort, open to modern ideas and a fully paid-up believer in the notion that education was a good thing. The more people had it, the better the world would be. Stood to reason, although in the twentieth century the available evidence seemed to contradict the idea. Many academics he’d met didn’t help the argument, either.

Being on the fifth floor of the Pompidou Centre, however, made Argyll’s belief wobble. The building itself he loathed: all that dirty glass and peeling paintwork on pipes. Classical buildings can take grime; a bit of weathering even improves them sometimes. The high-tech look just seems battered, sad and miserable when it stops being squeaky-clean.

Then there was the library itself, a haven of popular learning. The trouble was that it was the intellectual equivalent of a fast-food outlet. It was the reverence Argyll missed. Just another consumer temple, offering information instead of clothes or food. Take your pick; Socrates or Chanel, Aristotle or Asterix, they all become of equal value in the Beaubourg.

Listen to me, he thought as eventually he made his way to a vacant plastic desk with a pile of reference books. Worse than my grandfather. I don’t know what’s coming over me.

But at least it had some of the books he needed, so he tried to take his mind off the surroundings, and concentrate instead on the reason he was there. Rouxel, he said to himself. Find out, then get out. He worked his way through the material to find out about Jean-Xavier-Marie Rouxel. From a good Catholic family, he thought to himself, with brilliant insight.

Born 1919, the French Who’s Who assured him, which made him around about seventy-four. No chicken he. Hobbies: tennis, collecting medieval manuscripts, time with his family, poetry and duck-breeding. So, a well-preserved all-rounder. Address: 19 Boulevard de la Saussaye, Neuilly-sur-Seine, and Château de la Jonquille in Normandy. A rich well-preserved all-rounder. Married Jeanne Marie de la Richemont-Maupense, 1945. Oh, ho, he thought, going up in the world, eh? Daughter of the aristocracy. Bet that helped the career. One daughter, born 1945, quick work. Wife dies 1950, daughter dies 1963. École Polytechnique, graduating 1944, in the middle of the war. Board member of Elf-Aquitaine, the French oil company. Then chairman of Banque du Nord. Then Axmund Frères stock-brokers; Services Financiers du Midi; Assurances Générales de Toulouse; no end to it. Still on the board of some. Deputy in the Assembly, 1958 to 1977. Minister of the Interior, 1967. A high-flyer, thought Argyll. Didn’t agree with him though. No more politics after that. Legion d’Honneur, 1947. Croix de Guerre, 1945. Hmm. High-ranking war-hero type. I wonder when he fitted that in. Must have joined up at the Liberation. Member of war-crimes tribunal 1945. Private practice for a few years thereafter before the leap into industry and politics. Then a list of clubs, publications, jobs held, honours given. Standard stuff. A model citizen. Even lends his pictures for exhibitions, although after this experience I doubt if he’ll do it again.

Other volumes fleshed out the picture but added few new facts. Rouxel was not a very successful politician, it seemed. He had been popular with colleagues but somehow or other had got up de Gaulle’s nose. He was given a trial run for only eighteen months in government then was chucked out and never succeeded in attracting attention again. Or maybe it was the other way round and he didn’t like high office; perhaps the pay wasn’t good enough or he was more of a backroom man than a fast-talking minister type. Whatever, he still did the odd job — committees here, advisory boards there, governing bodies all over the place. One of the great and the good, the old regulars who pop up time and again in every country, serving the public and keeping their well-manicured hands firmly, if discreetly, on the reins of power in the process. Doing well by doing good; reading between the lines, Rouxel did not come from a wealthy family. He had certainly made it now.

Unfair, thought Argyll as he left. Mere jealousy because you will never be asked to do anything like that. Or just because you’re in a bad mood from that library. Such were his thoughts as he marched boldly along the Rue de Francs-Bourgeois to his rendezvous with what he gloomily expected would been spinsterish, twittering type of personal assistant; the sort who was good at writing letters but not exactly a live wire. Didn’t even know if her employer had been burgled. He might well have to spend an entire evening doing his best to be charming and gallant to this woman and would get nothing useful out of it at all. Had he been consulted, he would have pleaded a previous engagement and held out to see Rouxel himself. But he was stuck with it now, he thought morosely as he rounded the corner at last into the Place des Vosges. Might as well get on with it.

So with scarcely a pause to admire the scenery — which showed what a bad mood he was getting into, it being his favourite bit of the city — he surveyed the crowd inside the restaurant. Little elderly lady, sitting on your own — where are you?

No luck. No such person. Typical. So incompetent she couldn’t even show up on time. He checked his watch.

‘M’sieur?’ said a waiter sliding up alongside. Odd about Parisian waiters, how much they can squeeze into one word. Their most simple greeting can exude so much contempt and loathing it can quite put you off your food, and inspire foreigners with terrors of cultural inferiority. In this case, what the waiter meant was ‘Listen, if you’re just a gawping tourist, clear off and stop blocking the way. If you want to sit down and eat, say so, but get a move on, we’re busy and I don’t have time to waste.’

Argyll explained he was meant to be meeting someone.

‘Is your name Argyll?’ said the waiter, with a passable stab at wrapping his tongue round the surname.

Argyll admitted it.

‘This way. I was asked to show you to madame’s table.’

Oh-ho. Must be a regular, he thought as he followed. Then his thoughts stopped in their tracks as the waiter pulled out a chair at a table opposite a woman sitting quietly smoking a cigarette.

Jeanne Armand was not little, she was not old, she was not spinsterish and, though technically she might have had nephews and nieces, she was not in the slightest bit auntie-ish either. And if Argyll spent the rest of the evening doing his best to be charming and gallant, his efforts were not forced; he couldn’t help it.

Some people are blessed — or cursed, depending on how you look at it — with being beautiful beyond the ordinary. Flavia, now, had very definite opinions on this. She was very attractive herself, even though she put little real effort into it. But not devastating in the way that can cut off conversation and reduce grown and articulate men to gibbering wrecks. She counted this as good fortune; people instinctively liked her because of her appearance, but they did not ruin her life because they could not take their eyes off her. Even in Italy, she could get people to listen to what she said. Except, of course, Fabriano, but this was a basic defect in his make-up.

Jeanne Armand, however, was one of those who makes even the well-balanced and mature type act a bit oddly. Women often make very sneering comments about male responses in this area, but it is most unfair. Many men are, for the most part, quite good at keeping control and conducting themselves with decorum in strained circumstances. But sometimes, in very exceptional cases, there is nothing to be done; it is as simple as that. A sort of hormonal autopilot takes over which causes hot flushes, trembling hands and a tendency to stare with all the intelligence and sophistication of a rabbit hypnotized by car headlights.

This woman, or more particularly her Raphael face, her beautiful brown hair, delicate hands, perfect figure, soft smile, green eyes, exquisitely chosen clothes — and so on, and so on — was one of those people who triggers such a reaction that the continuance of even moderately civilized behaviour is an almost superhuman triumph of the will, for which those who manage it should be complimented for their strength rather than criticized for their weakness. Somehow or other she managed to combine a gentle tranquillity with just a hint of wildness. Madonna and Magdalen all in one, gift-wrapped in Yves Saint-Laurent. Potent stuff.

The element that pushed him over the edge was that the woman spoke to him in English, having discerned instantly that his French, while serviceable, was hardly up to the Racine level of eloquence. It was the accent; the woman even sounded beautiful.

‘What?’ he said hazily after a while.

‘Would you like a drink?’

‘Oh. Yes. Gosh. Super.’

‘What would you like?’ she continued patiently. It may well be that she was used to this sort of thing.

By the time that Argyll’s pastis had been ordered, he had totally lost control of the proceedings. While he had complacently anticipated an evening of gentle probing, careful pumping and subtle interrogation on his part, instead he was the one who was probed, pumped and interrogated. And loved every minute of it.

Unusually for someone who much preferred to listen to others, he told her about life in Rome, and the difficulties of selling pictures, and his recent tangle with this painting.

‘Let me see the picture,’ she said. ‘Where is it?’

‘Ah. Didn’t have time to go and get it,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

She looked displeased with that, and being who she was, Argyll would have crawled on his hands and knees all the way to the hotel and back if it would have made her forgive him. A small, very small part of him was still conscious enough to be profoundly grateful that Flavia was several hundred miles away. He could almost visualize the look of lofty disdain on her face.

‘Could you describe it, then?’

He obliged.

‘That’s the one. It disappeared about three weeks ago.’

‘Why didn’t Monsieur Rouxel report it to the police?’

‘He did, initially. But then decided not to pursue the matter. It wasn’t insured, there was no hope of getting it back and there seemed little point in wasting everybody’s time. He decided to treat it as the cost of not locking his house up properly and forgot about it.’

‘Still—’

‘And now you’ve not only recovered it, you’ve found out whose it is and you’ve brought it back. Monsieur Rouxel will be so grateful...’

She smiled at him in the sort of fashion that melts pig-iron. He looked down his nose modestly, and felt a bit like St George after he has successfully sliced up a dragon or two.

‘That is, if you’re willing to let him have it back.’

‘Of course. Why not?’

‘You might insist on some form of remuneration for your time and effort.’

Well, he might. But in the interests of chivalry he was prepared to waive the matter.

‘So,’ she went on as he adopted the pose of someone with so much money that any reward would be a trivial matter, ‘tell me how you got hold of this painting.’

In great detail, he did. About Besson and Delorme and men with scars and train stations and Muller and Ellman and the police and libraries and museum curators. Nothing left out. She was fascinated, staring at him with wide-eyed attention all through the discourse.

‘So. Who did it? Who was responsible?’ she asked when he finished. ‘Who is on top of the police list at the moment?’

‘I haven’t a clue,’ he answered. ‘I’m hardly privy to their innermost thoughts. But from what I can gather no one is, really. There’s this man with the scar, of course. But as no one has a clue who he is, it seems unlikely they will catch him. Unless they’ve made progress in my absence, they don’t even know why Muller wanted the picture so badly. I mean, it belonged to his father, but so did many other things. And that’s no reason to steal it anyway. Do you have any idea?’

‘None,’ she said, shaking her head to give the word extra emphasis. ‘I mean, I remember the picture quite well now. It’s not exactly world-class, is it?’

‘No. But how long has Monsieur Rouxel had it?’

‘He got it when he was young. He said so, once. But where it came from I don’t know.’

They refilled their drinks and dropped the subject; there seemed little else to say on the matter really. Instead she turned her attention to Argyll. He retold all his little stories about the art business, his complete run of whimsy, jokes and scandal, and she looked properly shocked, impressed and amused in all the right places. Such eyes she had. Occasionally she would laugh outright, resting her hand on his arm in appreciation at well-delivered anecdotes. He told her about life in Rome, about clients, about selling pictures and buying them, about fakes and forgeries and smuggling.

The only thing about his life he didn’t mention all evening was Flavia.

‘And what about you?’ he said, returning to the really important question. ‘How long have you worked for Monsieur Rouxel?’

‘Several years. He’s my grandfather, you know.’

‘Oh, I see,’ he said.

‘I organize his life for him, and help with the running of some of the small companies he still owns.’

‘I thought he was a big-business type. Or a lawyer. Or a politician. Or something.’

‘All of the above. So he was. But since he retired he took on a couple of smaller operations. Stock-broking, mainly. More to keep himself active than anything else. That was going to be my speciality as well.’

‘Was?’

‘I began. Then Grandfather asked me to help him sort out his papers. You can imagine how many someone like him has accumulated over the years. Judicial papers, and business papers and political ones. And he didn’t want a stranger going through them. It was just meant to be for a short while, when he was ill and overburdened, but I’m still there. I finished organizing his archives years ago but he can’t do without me. I used to suggest he got someone more permanent, but he says always that nobody could ever be as efficient as me. Or as used to his ways.’

‘Do you like that?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said quickly. ‘Of course. He’s such a wonderful man. And he needs me. I’m his only family. His wife died young. Such a tragedy; it had been a brilliant match, and he’d loved her for years before they married. And my own mother died having me. So there’s no one else. And someone has to stop him over-extending himself. He can never say no. They keep on asking him to serve on committees and he always says yes. Except when I can intercept the mail and say no first.’

‘You do that?’

‘Privileges of a secretary,’ she said with a faint smile. ‘Yes. I open all his mail, after all. But sometimes they get through. There’s this international financial committee he’s on at the moment. Constant journeys and meetings. It exhausts him, and serves no purpose. But will he give it up and stop wasting his time? Oh no. He’s so kind and so helpful he’d never have a minute to himself if I didn’t stop people wasting his time.’

For the first time that evening, Argyll had a rival. It wasn’t just that Jeanne liked or respected her grandfather, she seemed to come close to hero-worship. Perhaps Rouxel deserved it. For her he was not only a perfect employer, he was also one of the greatest men alive. Overdoing it a bit, though, wasn’t she? Trying so hard to convince him. And what did she get in return? he wondered.

‘He was given the Croix de Guerre,’ Argyll said.

She smiled and shot him a little glance. ‘You’ve been doing your homework, I see. Yes. He was. For his work in the Resistance. He never talks about it, but I gather he was very nearly killed several times, and he dealt with all the internal squabbling. Somehow or other he emerged with his general faith in human nature intact. I don’t know how he did it really.’

‘You have a great admiration for him,’ he commented. ‘What happened to his political career?’

‘Some people’s failures are greater than their achievements. He was honest. Too honest. He wanted to clear out some of the time-servers and incompetents in the ministry. Not surprisingly, they fought back. He played clean, they played dirty, he lost. Simple as that. He learnt his lesson.’

‘Do you like him as well as admire him?’

‘Oh, yes. He is kind, generous and courageous, and has been very good to me. The sort of man who inspires affection and trust. How could I not like him? Everybody else does.’

‘Somebody must dislike him,’ Argyll commented.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Well,’ he said, a bit surprised by the sharp tone that crept into her voice. ‘He’s powerful and successful. Reading between the lines he’s still very influential. And that creates jealousy. No one like that is universally loved.’

‘I see. Perhaps you’re right. Certainly he’s always fought for things he thought were right. But I can honestly say I have never come across anyone who had a personal dislike of him. Universally loved, no. Universally respected, yes. I think you could claim that. That’s why he’ll be up there receiving the Europa prize in a couple of weeks.’

‘The what?’

‘Have you not heard of it?’

Argyll shook his head.

‘It’s a bit difficult to describe. It’s a sort of European Community Nobel prize for politics. Each government nominates one of its citizens and one person is chosen from the short list. It’s for a lifetime’s achievement. It’s only been awarded a few times; it really is an extraordinary honour.’

‘So what does it involve? I mean, is it just a question of turning up and collecting the cheque?’

She looked disapproving, as though he weren’t taking the honour seriously. ‘There’s a ceremony at the next meeting of the Council of Ministers. Monsieur Rouxel will be given the award, and then address every head of government in the community, and the Parliament. He’s been working on his speech for months. It’ll be a summary of his vision for the future and, believe me, it’s very good indeed. A sort of statement of his life’s principles. A summing-up of everything he believes in.’

‘Splendid. I shall look forward to reading it,’ he said politely but not entirely truthfully. There was a pause as each looked at the other wondering what to do next. Argyll resolved the situation by calling for the bill and paying it. Then he helped her on with her coat and they walked out into the night air.

‘It was very kind of you to see me...’ he began.

She moved closer and rested her hand on his arm, looking steadily into his eyes.

‘Why don’t we go to my apartment for a drink? It’s just down there,’ she said softly, pointing down a street to his left. That slightly wild look was back again.

One of the most popular types of picture of the late seventeenth century was the classical allegory, in which mythological subjects were used to illustrate moral issues. An enormously popular topic was entitled the Judgement of Hercules. It was painted dozens of times in the baroque era.

The subject is very simple: Hercules, the strong man of antiquity, dressed in a scanty lion-skin so that the viewer can both identify him and admire the painter’s skill at depicting the male torso, stands in the middle, listening to two women. Both are beautiful, but one is dressed in often quite severe clothes which cover most of her body, and frequently carries a sword. She may be shown with the finger of one hand raised as though making a not very appealing point. She is Virtue, sometimes personified as Athene, daughter of Zeus and defender of just causes.

On the other side, often lying languidly on the ground, and always semi-naked, is another figure. She may not be doing much of the talking, but she lies there tempting Hercules by her very presence. She is the easy life, sometimes Vice, occasionally Temptation, personified as Aphrodite, goddess of love. To the left, on the side where Athene stands, is a road, quite rocky and hilly, which leads to fame and fulfilment; on the side where Aphrodite lies is a gentle path, leading past all sorts of pleasure and going nowhere.

Hercules is listening to the women’s arguments, trying to make up his mind which one to choose. Generally his face would be that of the patron who paid for the picture, and he would be depicted at the very moment he plumps for the life of virtue. A handsome and decorous bit of flattery.

And to Argyll’s left, as this piece of art-historical trivia passed through his mind, lay the street which led back to his hotel, and to his right lay the road to Jeanne’s apartment.

Hercules at least had time to think about it, to weigh up the pros and cons, to ask supplementary questions and find out what he was letting himself in for. Argyll had to weigh Jeanne’s invitation, his attraction to her, his love of Flavia, all at the same time.

‘Well?’

‘I’m sorry. I was thinking.’

‘Does it need to be thought about?’

He sighed and touched her on the shoulder. ‘No, not really.’

And, like Hercules, he reluctantly trod the path of virtue.