Giotto's Hand

Flavia began her researches into the life and times of Geoffrey Forster after an amiable lunch the next day with Argyll and Edward Byrnes at the dining club. Inspector Manstead, who never passed up an opportunity of either a free lunch or meeting a possibly important contact, came as well, and then decided to accompany her on her travels just to add a gloss of officialdom, as he put it, to her efforts.

Fortunately, London still retains its old local character for some of its trades. Many other occupations, which used to cluster together for protection, have long since been scattered to the winds: not many tailors still sew around Savile Row, journalists are too dispersed to fill the pubs of Fleet Street and complain about how they are unappreciated, and publishers have been cast to the winds, no longer making Covent Garden an interesting place to visit. Doctors do still dominate Harley Street, but are much too fine a bunch of people actually to talk to each other.

But enough art dealers do hang out in the area around Bond Street and St. James’s to give the place a particular character and, even though they might not like each other much, mutual interest and propinquity ensures that at least some show of professional solidarity remains. Thus, when Edward Byrnes made a face and telephoned Arthur Winterton for her, Winterton reluctantly made time to see Flavia.

One might think that the fact that both men were of advancing years, both had enjoyed as much success as they could reasonably desire, and both were quite unfairly wealthy, would have had a mellowing effect on them, blunting the competitive edge and allowing them to survey the art scene with the detachment that comes of total security. Not a bit of it. Both men had been profoundly jealous of each other for decades, and neither was going to give up now. Without the desire of Winterton to beat Byrnes, and without the fervent wish of Byrnes to trounce Winterton, both men might well have remained modest dealers of only limited prominence, rather than the two contesting giants of Bond Street.

For Argyll, who wanted little out of life except to be left in moderately affluent peace, watching how easily the veneer of urbanity was stripped off Byrnes by the mention of the word Winterton was a never-ending source of instruction. He had always assumed a couple of million in the bank would bring peace and contentment. It was a shock to realize that it did nothing of the sort. Winterton’s superior contacts on the American museum circuit could still make Byrnes incandescent with a jealousy of a very primitive variety. Byrnes’s knighthood, on the other hand, was quite capable of keeping Winterton awake until dawn if he should chance to think about it late at night.

He had, on occasion, mentioned his former employer’s Achilles heel to Flavia in the past and so she, as she walked into Winterton’s rival gallery three hundred yards up the street, was keenly looking for reasons to explain how such rivalry could be generated.

Certainly, style was important, she decided as they waited for the great man to appear. Whereas Byrnes’s gallery self-consciously cultivated the slightly old-fashioned, scholarly air, the high-quality faded look, Winterton had gone very much for the modern style in which everything was restored and interior designed to within an inch of its life. The difference was reflected in the men themselves, she realized as Winterton emerged; Byrnes had gone grey at least ten years previously and much of his hair had vanished, while Winterton had a full head of suspiciously black stuff despite his nearly sixty years. Byrnes, in a word, was expensively shabby in appearance, Winterton was expensively elegant. She had learnt—or rather Argyll had explained to her—that such things can indeed trigger conflict in a country like England which, despite its reputation, is more concerned with appearance than any other. The English may not dress well by continental standards, but the way they dress badly is of enormous importance.

Flavia and Inspector Manstead (himself a member of the cheap and dowdy tendency in couture) were whisked off into Winterton’s office and plied with tea and coffee.

Winterton sat himself behind his desk and placed the tips of his fingers together to indicate that he was taking the proceedings seriously and would, of course, do his best to help the police with their enquiries.

“Inspector Manstead and I are attempting to get some details about paintings which passed through the hands of the late Geoffrey Forster,” Flavia began. Winterton nodded to indicate that he was paying attention.

“To be frank, there is a question mark over the provenance of some of them.”

“You mean some were stolen?”

“Just so.”

Winterton nodded impatiently. “Yes, yes. I see. Might I ask what these paintings were? I do very much hope you are not going to ask me whether I knew about this?”