Giotto's Hand

At about the same time that Flavia’s plane was squeaking to a halt at Heathrow, Argyll’s time and labour was being redirected from late nineteenth-century English plumbing into areas where he could more reasonably claim some sort of expertise. This was the doing of Manstead who, being conscientious, rang the Norfolk police to tell them that such was the international interest in Forster that a very high-ranking expert from Italy was flying in especially to offer assistance.

So he exaggerated a little, and alarmed the local police quite considerably. Their response was to go round and collect Argyll. Not that they thought for a moment he was perfect, but he did answer a practical need: which was to put a stop to any form of interference from London. Forster’s death may have had something to do with paintings. They didn’t know much about the workings of the art market so, if they weren’t careful, they would have to hand over large chunks of the case to Manstead who, desperate as he was for a bit of publicity, might well claim whatever credit was going should the case be solved satisfactorily. Consequently, they had to bone up on things artistic as quickly as possible, and try and tie that end of the case up to avoid being burdened with Manstead’s help.

But people knowledgeable about old masters are a little difficult to get hold of in the countryside at short notice. So they decided they would have to make use of the only one readily to hand, and get him to give Forster’s papers a quick look over: if there was reference to something dodgy in there, Argyll might spot it for them.

So he was taken back to the house and allowed to wander around under the discreet and watchful eye of Constable Hanson. The house was bigger than it appeared from the outside, with a roof space that had been converted at some stage into a long, low room that had evidently functioned as Forster’s office. At one end were all the trappings of the modern art dealer—the books, the telephones, the fax machines and the filing cabinets. At the other end were those bits of his stock in trade that were not hanging on the walls of the dining room, hallway or sitting room downstairs. In a comer was the stairwell which began with the board whose wobbly state may well have precipitated Forster’s fall. Argyll trod carefully as he went up and down.

Then he went through Forster’s stock of paintings methodically, rapidly and with a combination of mounting disapproval and superior disdain. Nasty, crude stuff; all of it shoddy and most of it ugly. The prices listed were outrageous. He himself was no success as a dealer, he knew, but at least he liked the stuff he couldn’t unload on to others. This was the sort of tat only a real cynic would deal in, not someone with much of an eye. And not someone like Giotto—a person who’d stolen an example of work by almost every master of the Renaissance would hardly deal in stuff like that. On the other hand, he thought, thinking along the same lines as Flavia with Manstead, what better disguise than to have everybody associate you with the second rate, the tawdry and the ugly? Who, seeing this stuff, would ever dream…?

Then he turned his attention to the contents of the filing cabinet, although these were not at all interesting. Inventories and the rudimentary accounts that art dealers make out for themselves and the taxman are generally little more than one small column of fanciful numbers which end in an equally fanciful total at the bottom. Even Argyll, who had little talent in mathematics, could manage, although he generally sought the help of Flavia.

“What do you mean?” she’d said the first time she’d helped him out, “where are your expenses?”

“Didn’t really have any,” he replied.

“We went on holiday, didn’t we? You went to a museum during the holiday?”

“Yes. So?”

“ ‘Item: one research trip.’ How much do you reckon? Three million lire? Now, the car. You delivered a picture in it once. So, maintenance, petrol and depreciation. Let’s say another million.”

“But…”

“Oh, use your imagination, Jonathan,” she had said crossly, and proceeded to go through the entire form, adding a nought here, subtracting one there until, by the end, his little business as an art dealer had unaccountably swung from a small profit into a sudden and alarming loss. For the next six months, he’d been convinced that any day a taxman would come knocking on the door. Just needing a little clarification, Dottore Argyll.

The point was that Geoffrey Forster’s accounts made his own modest efforts look like something produced in a primary school. Figures all over the place, and Argyll was damned if he could make any sense of it at all. After about three hours of work, the only conclusion he’d come to was that the police had picked on the wrong man if they wanted help from him. He was as bad an accountant as he was a plumber.