‘Nope.’
‘Who would?’
‘Any senior executive, I suppose.’
‘Mortlake?’
‘Of course. Seb would be able to enquire for anything he wanted.’
‘Get up, Benny luv. We’re going to work.’
It took her ten minutes to log on to the Darcy database. She posed her query. The database asked for an identification of the enquirer.
Suzie had a list beside her. How exactly did Sebastian Mortlake identify himself? Did he use just ‘S’ or ‘Seb’ or the full Sebastian? Lower case, upper case or a mix? Was there a dot or a hyphen between first and second names, or nothing at all?
Each time Suzie tried a different format and got it wrong the Darcy database rejected her. She prayed there was not a maximum limit to the erroneous formats, followed by an alarm at Darcy that would close down the contact. Fortunately the IT expert who had set up the system had presumed that some of Darcy’s art freaks were so naïve about computers that they would possibly forget their own codes. The link stayed open.
At the fifteenth try she got it. The director of Old Masters was seb-mort: all lower case, first name shortened, hyphen, surname cut in half. The Darcy database accepted that seb-mort was on the line and asked for his password.
‘Most people use something close and dear to themselves,’ she had told Benny. ‘Wife’s name, pet dog’s name, borough where they live, a famous figure they admire.’
‘Seb is a bachelor, lives alone, no pets. He just lives for the world of pictures.’
They started with the Italian Renaissance, then the Dutch/Flemish school, then the Spanish Masters. At ten past four on a sunny spring morning Suzie got it. Mortlake was seb-mort and GOYA. The database asked what she wanted. She asked for the owner of storage item D 1601.
The comput
er in Knightsbridge scoured its memory and told her. Mr T. Gore, of 32 Cheshunt Gardens, White City, W.12. She obliterated all trace of her incursion and closed down. Then they grabbed three hours’ sleep.
It was only a mile and they puttered through the waking city on Benny’s scooter. The address turned out to be a shabby block of bedsitters and Mr T. Gore lived in the basement. He came to the door in his old Spanish bathrobe.
‘Mr Gore?’
‘I am he, sir.’
‘My name’s Benny Evans. This is my friend Suzie Day. I am . . . was with the House of Darcy. Are you the gentleman who offered a small old painting in a chipped gilt frame for sale about November last?’
Trumpington Gore looked worried.
‘Indeed I did. Nothing wrong I hope? It was sold at auction in January. Not a fake, I hope?’
‘Oh no, Mr Gore, it wasn’t a fake. Just the reverse. It’s chilly out here. Could we come in? I have something to show you.’
The hospitable Trumpy offered them both a share of his morning pot of tea. Since his windfall of more than £5,000 three months earlier he no longer needed to use the tea bags twice. While the two youngsters drank he read the page-long spread in the Sunday Times that Benny had brought with him. His jaw dropped.
‘Is that it?’ He pointed at the full-colour illustration of the Sassetta.
‘That’s it, Mr Gore. Your old painting in its brown hessian wrapping. Cleaned, restored and authenticated as a genuine and very rare Sassetta. Siena, about 1425.’
‘Two million pounds,’ breathed the actor. ‘Oh, calamity. If only I had known. If only Darcy had known.’
‘They did,’ said Benny. ‘At least they suspected. I was the valuer. I warned them. You have been swindled and I have been destroyed. By a man who cut a private deal with this art gallery.’
He began at the beginning, with a last group of hand-ins and a director impatient to get away for his Christmas break. When he had finished the actor stared at the picture of the Annunciation in the paper.
‘Two million pounds,’ he said quietly. ‘I could have lived comfortably for the rest of my life on that. Surely, the law—’
‘Is an ass,’ said Suzie. ‘The record will show that Darcy made a mistake, an error of judgement, and that Fanshawe acted on a hunch and came up a winner. It happens. There is no recourse in law.’