Giotto's Hand

Flavia shook her head at the very idea. “No. But obviously we do need to know about Forster. Friends, associates, that sort of thing. We need some sort of idea how this might have happened. Did you know him well?”

Winterton shook his head. “Oh, no,” he said with clear relief. “Fortunately, our association was only very loose.”

“And your impressions?”

Winterton thought carefully. “He was a man utterly devoid of anything that might be termed the finer feelings. To him, the value of everything was in how much cash you could get for it. To use the old cliché, he knew the price of everything, the value of nothing. I know it is old-fashioned, I can think of no better way of describing him than to say he was a scoundrel and a fake. Geoffrey Forster was just the sort of person who would expect to buy stolen works of art.”

“But Mr. Winterton, you have a high reputation, I believe. Why would you go into business with someone of whom you had such a low opinion? Surely that could only have harmed your standing in the art world?”

Winterton frowned with annoyance at the question, probably because it was quite a good one. He waved his hand vaguely to indicate the passage of time and the vagueness of the art dealing business.

“A sign of the times,” he said with a sigh. “We must all try to make the best use of our assets, until the economy picks up. In my case, I had this large building which was rather under-used, so I rented out a couple of rooms at the top to people who want an impressive business address but can’t afford their own gallery. Forster is one of three; he very rarely used the place: that was one of the conditions of letting him have it in the first instance, to be frank.

“And once he did me a favour, which saved me some potential embarrassment. I must say, I didn’t like the man, but I owed him in return. You know how it is.”

“Aha. I see. Could you tell me what this favour was?”

“I don’t think that is at all relevant.”

Flavia smiled sweetly, and Manstead scowled threateningly. Between them, they managed to convey how pleased the police would be with an answer, and how much trouble they might cause if he kept quiet.

“Very well, then. It was about three years ago. I had undertaken to dispose of a painting for the executors of the estate of a Belgian collector who had recently died. A very distinguished man. Whose name I will not provide. Forster heard about it as I was arranging for it to go to Christie’s. He alerted me to the possibility that it was not all it seemed.”

“What did it seem?”

“It seemed to be a fine, but undocumented Florentine school painting of the mid-fifteenth century. Quite valuable, in its way, although, without any proof of identity, not in the first league. Which is why I was not proposing to try and find a private purchaser.”

“And what was it?”

“I could never prove it, of course.”

“But…”

“But it did appear to bear a superficial resemblance to a painting of St. Mary the Egyptian by Antonio Pollaiuolo which was stolen in 1976 from the Earl of Dunkeld’s Scottish house.”

“And so you instantly reported this to the police?”

Winterton smiled grimly. “Certainly not”

“Why not?”

“Because there was absolutely no proof one way or the other. I could not in good conscience undertake to sell the painting myself, of course. But to drag the name of a famous collector through the mire—for that is what would have happened—by calling in the police over a painting which might very well have been bought quite legitimately, seemed irresponsible. I did check, and there was no indication of how the painting had arrived in the collection.”

“So you walked away?” Manstead interrupted indignantly.

Winterton grimaced with slight pain at the vulgar way this was put.

“Where is the picture now?” the English policeman went on.

“I do not know.”

“I see. So, let’s get this straight. You were selling a hot picture, Forster takes one look at it and tells you it was stolen. You pull out in case someone notices it. And you didn’t for a moment consider you might have been doing anything wrong?”

Winterton raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Of course not. I knew the Pollaiuolo painting had been reported stolen, of course. On the other hand, I didn’t know it actually had been stolen.”

Manstead positively fulminated at this comment. “That seems like splitting hairs to me.”