The Last Judgement

Despite his love of trains, dislike of aircraft and acute shortage of money, Argyll had decided to fly to Paris. It showed how seriously he was taking this business, that he was willing to foist on to his Visa card a debt that he had little immediate ability to pay off. But that was what the horrid things were there for, and if the credit-card company was prepared to trust him, who was he to doubt their judgement?

However awful they were, aircraft were at least a little bit faster than trains; he was in Paris as expected by ten. From then, the disadvantages became clear, and what he had fondly hoped would be a quick day trip became rapidly bogged down in hitches. With a train, you turn up with your ticket and hop aboard. Sometimes you may have to stand, or camp out in the guard’s van, but generally you get on. Not so with planes. Considering that they increasingly resemble aerial cattle-trucks, the fuss made about tickets is extraordinary. In brief, every flight that evening for Rome was booked solid. Not a seat available. Sorry. Tomorrow lunch-time, fine.

Cursing airports, airlines and modern life, Argyll booked a seat, then tried to phone Flavia to tell her he would be delayed getting back. Not at home and, when he used up even more money to call the department, the obnoxious character who answered the phone informed him a little coolly that she was conducting an important interview and couldn’t be disturbed. Then he phoned the headquarters of the Paris Art Squad to announce his imminent arrival with the picture. But they didn’t know anything about it and, it being a weekend, there was no one around to ask. Nor were they prepared to find someone to ask. And no, he couldn’t deposit his picture. It was a police station, not a left-luggage depository. Come in on Monday, they said.

So back to the airline desk to change his reservation, and into Paris to find a hotel. At least here he had some luck in that the usual place he stayed at grudgingly admitted to having a spare room, and even more reluctantly allowed him to have it. He tucked the painting under the bed — not an inspired hiding-place, but it wasn’t the sort of hotel that had strong-rooms — then sat and wondered how to fill in the time. He tried Flavia again, but by this time she’d left. Wherever it was, she hadn’t gone home. It was one of those days.

Shortly after, he hit another hitch, when he went down to Jacques Delorme’s gallery to ask a few direct questions about the painting and its origins. He was less than happy with his colleague who, after all, had landed him in a not inconsiderable amount of trouble. Several choice phrases, carefully translated into French, had been lined up on the plane and Argyll was keen to go and deliver them before he forgot them. Nothing worse than moral indignation in the wrong gender. He didn’t want to deliver a fiery speech of outrage and have Delorme giggle because he’d fluffed a subjunctive. The French are fussy about that sort of thing, unlike the Italians who are much more easy-going about the beginner’s tendency to use the scatter-gun approach.

‘I have a bone to pick with you,’ Argyll said stonily as he walked in through the door, and Delorme greeted him cheerfully. First mistake. Something wrong with the dictionary of idiom. He’d have to write and complain. Evidently Delorme thought he was inviting him out for dinner.

‘What?’

‘That picture.’

‘What about it?’

‘Where did you get it from?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Because it may have been stolen, it may have been involved in a couple of murders and you certainly got me to smuggle it out of the country.’

‘Me?’ he said indignantly. ‘I didn’t get you to do anything of the sort. You offered. It was your idea.’

Well, true. Argyll reckoned he’d better gloss over that one. ‘Whatever,’ he said, ‘I’ve had to bring it back to give to the police. So I want to know where it came from. Just in case they ask me.’

‘Sorry. Can’t say. Frankly, I can’t remember.’

There is something about the word frankly, Argyll thought in passing. It’s a sort of verbal grunt which is an effective shorthand for ‘I’m about to tell a lie.’ A prefix signifying that the sentence that follows should be understood in the negative of its spoken meaning. Politicians use it a lot. ‘Frankly, the economy has never been in better shape,’ which means, ‘If there even is an economy this time next year I, for one, will be very surprised.’ Thus it was with Delorme. Frankly (to use the term in its proper sense), he could remember perfectly well, and Argyll hinted subtly that he knew this.

‘You liar,’ he said. ‘You have a picture in your gallery and you don’t know where it comes from? Of course you do.’

‘Don’t get upset,’ Delorme said in an irritatingly patronizing fashion. ‘It’s true. I don’t know. Now, I know it’s because I didn’t want to know—’

Argyll sighed. He should have known better. ‘Tell me the worst, then,’ he said. ‘What is it?’