Death of an Elgin Marble Read online

  Other police forces across the Home Counties were conducting similar searches for thefts of works of art that were never solved. Powerscourt wondered if it would be like calling on the bereaved.

  Norfolk House was a late Georgian villa with great bay windows. An ancient gardener was sweeping busily in the front lawn that looked out over the river. Autumn leaves, the dead golds, the lifeless browns, the pale greens, the anaemic reds with the colours drained out of them always made Powerscourt think of death. Only a few months before these leaves had the sap of life in them. Now it was gone.

  He was shown into a large drawing room with a spectacular view of the Thames. A couple of barges, travelling towards the Port of London, hooted as they passed. An inquisitive seagull was perched on the patio outside the double doors into the garden. Its friends and relations were squawking noisily around the church spire.

  ‘Lord Powerscourt?’ said an old and tired-sounding voice, ‘how kind of you to come. My name is Alice Wilson. Won’t you sit down?’

  Mrs Wilson looked like the archetype of a perfect grandmother, white hair, a kindly face that looked as though she smiled a lot, hands with wrinkled skin like parchment and a dark blue dress that looked as though it had been a part of her wardrobe for years. A very faint trace of mothballs still hung in the air.

  ‘Mr Wilson is not at home this afternoon?’ said Powerscourt, and halfway through the sentence, looking at the old lady’s face, he knew he had made a mistake.

  ‘No, I’m afraid Mr Wilson is not at home this afternoon. Mr Wilson isn’t here any more, Lord Powerscourt. He’s in the cemetery behind the church now, between a man who won the Victoria Cross at Rorke’s Drift and the tomb of that American painter James McNeill Whistler. It’s turning green, whatever they put Whistler in, Lord Powerscourt, some kind of great box that’s going bad.’

  ‘Please forgive me,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I’m so sorry. I do apologize. I had no idea Mr Wilson has passed away. The records only refer to a Mr and Mrs Wilson.’

  ‘You weren’t to know my Horace had left us, were you, Lord Powerscourt. It was all quite sudden. Three months after the theft he was working in the back garden one morning. The heart attack must have caught him just outside the shed where he kept his tools. He was dead when the ambulance came, quite dead. I’ve often wondered if the robbery didn’t finish him off. He wasn’t that old, you know. He was only sixty-eight when he was taken from us. I thought we’d be able to watch the sunsets over the river together until we were seventy-five or eighty. Two old people with their memories and the view. Now that’s all gone. There’s just me.’

  Mrs Wilson paused and rang the bell for tea. ‘You’ll have some tea, Lord Powerscourt? My housekeeper makes the most delicious scones. I’ve brought down my diary that covered the period of the robbery. That might help. I understand there have been developments in the case. I’m not sure I want to know any details, I’d only worry, you see, but I’m happy to help in any way I can.’

  ‘Let me tell you what I know, Mrs Wilson, and perhaps we can take it from there.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I believe the painting was taken about eighteen months ago. The thieves took it from a wall in this room some time during the night of Thursday eighteenth of March.’

  Mrs Wilson poured tea and proffered a buttered scone. ‘That is correct. When we came down in the morning, it was gone. And, do you know, to this day we don’t know how the thieves got into the house. None of the doors and windows were forced, as far as we could tell. Our housekeeper – I’m still saying we, how stupid of me – lives in a cottage round the corner and her keys had not been touched.’

  ‘These scones are quite delicious,’ said Powerscourt, brushing a few crumbs off his waistcoat. ‘Please send my compliments to your housekeeper. The police records also say that they have no idea how entrance was effected. But perhaps you could tell me about the painting itself, Mrs Wilson. The police are good at writing down and recording many things but I don’t suppose any of the great auction houses would think of employing them to describe their offerings to the public.’

  Powerscourt suddenly remembered his suspicion on the way that it might be like talking to the bereaved. Mrs Wilson seemed to be as upset at the loss of the Turner as she was by the loss of Horace.

  ‘You’re obviously a man of the world, Lord Powerscourt. I’m sure you know what it must feel like to lose a painting that’s been in your family for a long time. It’s like losing a child in some ways. What was it like, our Turner? Well, it wasn’t one of those Sturm und Drang Turners, if you know what I mean, terrible storms at sea with the waves whipped into a shape like a corkscrew, helpless humans and frail boats hanging on for dear life. You know how they talk in the Bible about people being possessed by the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, that sort of thing? I’ve always thought Turner painted those awful seascapes in a frenzy, scarcely aware of what he was doing. But our picture, Mortlake Terrace, Summer’s Evening, was completely different. He painted it by the Thames in Mortlake, obviously, about a mile or so to the west on the other side of the river from where we are sitting now. There’s a fine house that belonged to a man called Moffatt, – the house is still there by the way – a peaceful view of the Thames looking towards Chiswick, a fraction of garden, an avenue of limes. It’s serene, it’s so beautiful it’s perfect. Horace used to say it changed slightly with the weather, looking less peaceful in a storm, but I never thought that. Turner painted a couple of pictures from more or less the same place. I believe the other one has been sold to a rich American in New York for a great deal of money. We wouldn’t have sold ours, you know, not ever, however much people offered.’

  Mrs Wilson sighed and then managed a wan smile. Turners can cross the Atlantic, Powerscourt said to himself. They go to New York, to Fricks or Carnegies or Mellons. Could Caryatids cross the Atlantic? Could they swim that far, weighed down with their girdle and all that marble? How would you send one to the New World? If you were a first-class passenger on a transatlantic liner, could you take one with you? Could she have her own cabin? Could you disguise her as a monstrous piece of luggage, stowed safely and securely in the hold until the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island welcomed the two of you on the other side?

  ‘Thank you so much for that, Mrs Wilson, I am touched by what you say. And are the police records right again when they say that you have not heard a word about your Turner since it was taken? Not even a whisper?’

  ‘That is right, Lord Powerscourt. The seagulls may know where it has gone, we certainly don’t. Every leading art dealer and every leading auction house here and abroad was contacted by the police. All promised to let Scotland Yard know the minute they heard of anything. They’ve heard nothing, nothing at all, not a word. It’s as if the painting has disappeared into thin air. It was never very big, mind you. It would be easy to hide.’

  Powerscourt looked at the rectangular gap above the fireplace. The picture hooks were still there. Surely a painting must have hung there until fairly recently, as the colour of the wall was different. He thought it better not to ask.

  ‘Can you remember the painting leaving your house at all? In the months before it was taken, I mean? Or any strange people coming to look at it?’

  Mrs Wilson opened a dark blue diary. ‘A man came from the insurance people in January,’ she said, turning pack the pages. ‘That was normal. What wasn’t usual was that a second insurance man, rather older than the usual and very well spoken, came a week later. Just to double check, he said. Maybe he liked paintings.’

  Mrs Wilson stopped and looked through her diary from the year before. ‘The only other thing I can think of happened the previous December. The tenth, it was, a Friday.’

  She looked up at Powerscourt as if expecting praise for the accuracy of her memories. ‘We both belonged, I still do, to a local club called the Chiswick Literary Society. They organize talks from visiting speakers, that sort of thing, and sometimes they broaden the subject to include t
he visual arts as well as the written word. Horace organized a meeting here so the members could look at the painting. He gave a little talk. Our housekeeper baked a couple of cakes for the gathering, her special chocolate and a fancy sponge she hadn’t made before. They went down very well.’

  ‘And had you seen all the visitors before, Mrs Wilson?’

  ‘Goodness me, you’re not suggesting that the thief disguised himself as a member of the Chiswick Literary Society to come and work out how to steal our Turner? That would be very wicked.’

  ‘Did you know them all?’

  ‘Sorry, Lord Powerscourt, I didn’t answer your question. I knew them all apart from maybe three or four I didn’t think I’d seen before. But they all seemed very respectable, proper Chiswick inhabitants if you know what I mean. I know you’re going to ask me if I can remember any of the strangers. I can’t. You see, I didn’t think it was important at the time.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t, Mrs Wilson, nobody could have expected you to remember that.’

  ‘You don’t think it’s my age, Lord Powerscourt? I forget things so much these days. I’m sure it must be because I’m getting old.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Powerscourt with a smile, ‘if anybody asked me who came to my house, even for chocolate and fancy sponge cake, six or eight months ago, I wouldn’t have a clue.’

  Powerscourt looked out across the Thames once more to the other side. He wondered what kind of easel Turner had carried to the spot where he painted the views. Maybe he only made sketches there and finished the works off in his studio. He looked again at the empty space on the walls, left as a reminder of what had been there before.

  ‘Mrs Wilson,’ he began, ‘it has been a great pleasure talking to you. Now I must leave you in peace. You must get in touch at once if anything occurs to you. Thank you so much.’

  ‘I’ve almost enjoyed it, Lord Powerscourt, thank you for being so patient. I don’t often have a proper conversation these days.’

  Powerscourt waved goodbye at the gate. A couple of horses from the brewery round the corner from Norfolk House were pulling a cart laden with beer barrels towards Hammersmith. As he walked back along the river he thought once more of Lord Rosebery’s trainobsessed butler. William Leith also had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the great transatlantic shipping lines like Cunard and the White Star and their French and German equivalents. He could tell you which one had the best cotton sheets, which one served the best food, the finest wines. He would also know how much luggage you could take. Looking back at Mrs Wilson’s house and the church of St Nicholas where her husband was buried, Powerscourt remembered Inspector Kingsley’s account of visiting a man he had helped convict serving his sentence in Wormwood Scrubs prison. He thought he too should begin a programme of visiting, not necessarily those in prison, but a mission to the unhappy and the bereaved. He could start with Mrs Alice Wilson in Norfolk House.

  The builders were late arriving at the Hellenic College outside Amersham. They were all Greek, fit, young and under thirty, led by a small, stocky man called Maximos who called on the Headmaster to make his apologies in person.

  ‘You were meant to be here five weeks ago,’ said the Head.

  ‘I know, I know, I’m so sorry, sir.’ Maximos reckoned that everybody else round here would call the Head ‘sir’. When in Rome or the Hellenic College, follow the local customs. ‘You know how it is, sir. We had to do that work for the cathedral down in Moscow Road. They wouldn’t let us go till it was finished. There was more damp there than anybody expected. I’ve brought extra workers to make up for it, mind you.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘We originally said we’d bring three. Now we’ve brought eight. I’m not saying we’ll catch up on the original timetable, but we’ll take less time than we said before. Is it still all right for us to sleep in the barns and the stables?’

  The Headmaster nodded. ‘I’ll arrange for a dining room to be set up for you over there. Just let me know when you want to eat.’

  The Headmaster did not say that he wished to keep these young men as far away as possible from the teenage girls in his charge, but they both knew what he meant.

  The girls of the Hellenic College looked out of the windows of their classrooms as the young men began their work, digging out the foundations for the new building. It was to be at the end of a long glade that led to the small Parthenon, built perfectly to scale at the end of the eighteenth century. When it grew dark the men worked on under great lights they had brought with them from London. When his men had gone to bed later that evening, Maximos took out the drawings for the project. He stared at the plans very carefully. Years before, Maximos had been taken to meet the members of his extended family in Italy and in all corners of the Greek world. He had only been twelve years old, but he still had vivid memories of his relations and the places he had seen. Looking at the architect’s work laid out on the table, he knew he had seen it somewhere before. But he was unable to recall exactly where. Rome? Sicily? Corinth? Athens? Olympia? He simply couldn’t remember.

  Detective Constable Peter Smithson was in his third year in the Metropolitan Police. He had been hand-picked by Inspector Kingsley to work as one of the extra members of the team investigating the disappearance of the Caryatid from the British Museum. Kingsley liked the fact that Smithson was obviously highly intelligent but didn’t flaunt it. And he understood money, he wasn’t frightened by it. Kingsley had encouraged the young man to go to evening classes in finance and accounting. So it was that Detective Constable Smithson, who looked more like an altar boy than a policeman with his blue eyes and curly light brown hair, reported early one morning to the freight offices of the Great Western Railway, hidden well away from the trains and the platforms of Isambard Kingdom Brunel at Paddington station.

  He was instructed to climb three sets of stairs and knock on a black door opposite the top. This was the entry point into the warren of attic rooms where the records were kept.

  ‘Keep going straight through this room and the one after, then turn left onto a little corridor. The room you want is at the end.’ The receptionist was an elderly man, bent almost double with back pain or lumbago. Smithson wondered if he had sustained his injuries in a life of lifting as a porter at the station. When he reached his destination there was nobody there at first. There were great ledgers, all with dates stamped on the front running right round the room from floor to ceiling. Even up there an ingenious system of boxes fixed to the joists provided yet more storage space. Looking out of the small grimy window Smithson saw a vast flotilla of forgotten or disused railway carriages. Some of them, he thought, must have been over fifty years old. You could almost trace the evolution of the differing styles and fashions in train comfort across the decades.

  ‘You the policeman?’

  An elderly receptionist was leaning heavily on a stout stick by the doorway.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say so? Freight records, that’s what you want to look at, isn’t it? The last five years start at the bottom shelf right by this door. Then they carry on towards the roof. Most recent entries in the ceiling, I’m afraid. We’re running out of space. Begin wherever you want.’

  ‘Thank you very much. I’m obliged to you, sir.’

  ‘Don’t come asking me for any help now. This isn’t my patch. Man who looks after it is off sick. He’s been off sick for months now. Don’t know if he’s ever coming back. Count yourself lucky in one area, mind you.’

  The young policeman took a quick look at his surroundings and found it hard to see where he might have struck it lucky.

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘You’ve just got the records of all the shipments in here. The actual receipts, invoices and all the rest of them are stored further up the corridor.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. The last time anyone counted them, there were thirty-eight cardboard boxes full of the stuff. And they’re not sorted by date. And that’s just t
he last three years. A very good morning to you.’

  Knightsbridge Barracks lies about three-quarters of a mile from Buckingham Palace. In the event of an armed insurrection or a serious disturbance at the palace, the First Life Guards or other branches of the Household Cavalry could be on the scene in a matter of minutes. But it was not their proximity to the throne that brought Lord Francis Powerscourt there this wet and windy afternoon. Nor was it their long and distinguished history, going back to the Restoration of Charles II. Inspector Kingsley’s researchers reported that, like Mrs Wilson of Norfolk House on the Thames, the Life Guards had been the victims of a robbery that was never solved and the treasure never recovered.

  ‘Colonel Erskine is waiting for you, sir! This way please, sir!’

  Boots echoed down the corridor. Powerscourt was shown into a small library with a view out over the park. Leather-bound books marched in regimental order across the shelves. Powerscourt wondered how long it was since anyone had actually read any of them.

  ‘My name is Erskine! Delighted to meet you, Lord Powerscourt!’

  Everything about the Colonel spoke of military perfection. His boots were so well polished that he could have shaved in them and trimmed his elegant moustache. His red jacket looked as though it had been cut by one of London’s more fashionable tailors. Under his arm he carried a swagger stick of polished black with a silver tip. He was standing at ease by the window, arms folded behind his back in the correct military stance.