Death of a Delft Blue

‘Nonsense! Dr Anderson will cope. I will tell him to employ a temporary secretary.’

‘Oh, well, naturally, I’d love to stay here, especially if there’s nothing to stop us from gallivanting. We do propose to gallivant, I take it? — not all museums and art-galleries?’

‘We will Venice in Amsterdam, even if we also rijsttafel at the Bali restaurant there. We will cheese at Alkmaar. We will flower-market at Aalsmeer, seaside at Zandvoort and national costume at Bunschoten-Spakenburg or Staphorst. We will sheep and bird-watch on Texel, and you may swim there. We will yacht at Sneek, spice-bread at Deventer, labyrinth at Maastricht and walk, grotto, miniature-golf (and anything else you like) at Valkenburg.’

‘I didn’t say I didn’t want any museums and art-galleries.’

‘Very well. There are sixteen Rembrandts in the Mauritshuis at The Hague, and Delft and Leiden are museums in themselves, so we will visit all.’

‘You seem to know an awful lot about Holland.’

‘No, no, very little, in point of fact, and most of what I do know I gained at lunch-time from Professor Sweyn van Zestien, Professor Derde’s younger brother.’

‘Sweyn isn’t a Dutch name, is it?’

‘No. The professors had a Danish mother. I received much information about the van Zestien family tree from both the brothers. At present there are three branches, one might say. The Colwyn-Welches were fathered by Francis of that ilk, who married into the van Zestien family represented by the professors’ Aunt Binnen. She has three children, Opal, Ruby and Frank. After her husband’s death, and after the war, during which she served with the Resistance, Binnen returned to the family home in Amsterdam, where she lives with her two unmarried daughters.’

‘So that’s why Professor Sweyn is so interested in Amsterdam? — they are natives there.’

‘It seems so. The son, Frank, married a Scotswoman, Flora Beith, and lives in Scotland, where they own three hotels.’

‘Up with the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee!’

‘They have two children, Florian and Binnie, aged twenty-three and nineteen respectively. These, however, no longer live at home, but with their granduncle, Bernard van Zestien, father of Derde and Sweyn, and brother to Binnen.’

‘Couldn’t they thole home life in Caledonia stem and wild?’

‘I gathered, but only by putting some apparently unrelated scraps of information together (and most probably, in the process, making an error of one, or even minus one, in the simple addition sum of two plus two), that their parents had an eye to their future.’

‘Granduncle stinks of money, I suppose.’

‘Not only that, but he has lost the companionship of his sons, Derde and Sweyn, who prefer to live over here and who hold professorships in the Universities, respectively, of Groningen and Amsterdam.’

‘Oh, the children and he don’t live in Holland, then?’

‘No. The granduncle is a diamond merchant, with contacts, of course, in his native city, but it seems he has a house in North Norfolk and an office in Hatton Garden. I gather that he has an extensive fortune, as you suggest.’

‘Which, obviously, somebody will inherit.’

‘Exactly. He was a lonely man when his Danish wife, Ingeborg, died and his sons and daughter left home. The daughter’s name is Maarte and she married a wealthy Jew named Sigismund Rose. They have one son, Bernardo, named after his grandfather.’

‘For obvious reasons, no doubt.’

‘Cynicism run riot, dear Laura!’

‘Don’t you believe it! I know the way of the world. I say, though, the family’s a bit of a mixed bag, isn’t it? Dutch, Jewish, Danish, Scottish and with even English (or, possibly, Welsh) ingredients! Which do the professors seem to favour — their Dutch or their Danish forbears?’

‘It is impossible to say. They are cosmopolitans. Moreover, not only do they muster seven European languages between them, but Derde is an authority on the Aztecs of Mexico and Sweyn’s special subject is the rune-stones of Denmark.’

‘Rune-stones? Mostly magic! I’d like to meet him.’

‘Why, so you shall. We are bidden to dine with the van Zestiens in Amsterdam. It is to be a family party, I understand. Grandmother Binnen, her daughters, her grandchildren, Florian and Binnie, her great-nephew Bernardo all will be there.’

‘At the ancestral home?’

‘No. The celebration is to be held in a private room at an hotel in Nieuwe Doelenstraat.’

‘But do they really want me? After all,’ argued Laura, with unwonted modesty, ‘I’m only your general dogsbody and humble telephone operator.’

‘In return for their family history, complete with family tree, sketched (I regret to say) upon a hitherto unblemished tablecloth by Professor Sweyn, I returned their civility by recounting a short and, I trust, pithy account of my own circumstances and environment. They were charmed with my picture of you and your Amazonian exploits, and are determined to have speech with you.’

‘I see. Weren’t you brought up to tell the truth and not to embroider merely in order to disguise the poor quality of the material you were working on? Anyway, when do we attend this binge?’

‘The festivities are planned for the day after tomorrow. At my request — for the hotels are full at this time of