Louis scribbled frantically as the voice droned a list of ten pictures and galleries.
Finally the voice said: ?The total comes to more than half a million pounds. I?m not asking you to believe me. But you?ll have to check. Then, when you?ve published your story, we will tell you why we did it.?
?Just a minute—? The phone clicked in Louis?s ear, and he heard the dial tone. He put the receiver down.
He sat back and lit a cigarette while he wondered what to do about the call. It certainly could not be ignored. Louis was 99 percent sure the caller was a nutcase: but it was by following up the onepercenters that great exclusives were found.
He debated telling the news editor. If he did, he would probably be told to pass the tip to the art critic. Much better to make a start on the story first, if only to establish his own claim to it.
He looked up Claypole in the directory and dialed the number.
?Do you have a van Gogh called
?Just a moment, sir, and I will find out.?
Louis used the pause to light another cigarette.
?Hello? Yes, we do have that work.?
?Would you tell me the price??
?A hundred and six thousand guineas.?
?Thank you.?
Louis rang Crowforth & Co. and found that they did indeed have a Munch called
He began to think hard. The story was standing up. But it was not yet time to talk about the story.
He picked up the phone and dialed another number.
Professor Peder Schmidt hobbled into the bar on his crutch. He was a big, energetic man with blond hair and a red face. Despite a slight speech impediment and an atrocious German accent, he had been one of the best art lecturers at Oxford. Although Louis had studied English, he had attended all of Schmidt?s lectures for the pleasure of the man?s grasp of art history and his enthusiastic, iconoclastic theories. The two men had met outside the lecture theater, gone drinking together, and argued fiercely about the subject closest to their hearts.
Schmidt knew more about van Gogh than any other man alive.
He spotted Louis, waved, and came over.
?The spring on your bloody crutch still squeaks,? Louis said.
?Then you can oil it with whisky,? Schmidt replied. ?How are you, Louis? And what is all this secrecy about? ?
Louis ordered a large scotch for the professor. ?I was lucky to catch you in London.?
?You were. Next week I go to Berlin. Everything is hurry and chaos.?
?It was good of you to come.?
?It was indeed. Now what is this about??
?I want you to look at a picture.?
Schmidt downed his scotch. ?I hope it?s a good one.?
?That?s what I want you to tell me. Let?s go.?
They left the bar and walked toward Claypole?s. The shopping crowds on the West End sidewalks stared at the odd couple: the young man in his brown chalk-stripe suit and high-heeled shoes, and the tall cripple striding along beside him, wearing an open-necked blue shirt and a faded denim jacket. They went along Piccadilly and turned south to St. James?s. In between an exclusive hatter?s and a French restaurant were the leaded bow windows of Claypole?s.
They went in and walked the length of the small gallery. At the far end, under a spotlight of its own, they found
To Louis it was unmistakably a van Gogh. The heavy limbs and tired face of the peasant, the flat Dutch countryside, and the lowering sky were the trademarks. And there was the signature.
?Professor Schmidt! This is an unexpected pleasure.?
Louis turned to see a slight, elegant man with a graying Vandyke beard, wearing a black suit. Schmidt said: ?Hello, Claypole.?
Claypole stood beside them, looking at the picture. ?Something of a discovery, this one, you know,? he said. ?A wonderful picture, but quite new to the market.?
?Tell me, Claypole, where did you get it?? Schmidt asked.
?I?m not sure I should tell you. Professional secrets, you know.?
?You tell me where you got it and I will tell you what it is worth.?
?Oh, very well. It was a piece of good fortune, really. Chap called Renalle, from a minor agency in Nancy, was over here last week. Staying at the Hilton and disposing of quite a large collection from the estate of some industrialist or other. Anyway, he simply offered me the picture first.?
?And for this you are asking how much??
?One hundred and six thousand guineas. A fair price, I think.?
Schmidt grunted and leaned heavily on his crutch, gazing at the picture.
Claypole said: ?What do you think it?s worth??
Schmidt said: ?About a hundred pounds. It?s the best forgery I?ve ever seen.?
Louis?s editor was a short, beak-nosed man with a Northern accent who was fond of the word ?bugger.? He pulled at the end of his nose and said: ?So we know that all of the paintings were bought by the people who the anonymous caller said they were bought by. It seems likely that the prices he mentioned were right. We also know something he didn?t tell us: that they were all bought
Louis nodded. ?The caller also said something like: ?We will tell you why we did it.? So it sounds as if the caller was in fact Renalle.?
The editor frowned. ?I think it?s a stunt,? he said.
?That doesn?t alter the fact that a mammoth con had been put over on the London art fraternity.?
The editor looked up at Louis. ?Don?t worry. I?m not knocking the story,? he said. He thought for a moment. ?All right, this is how we?ll do it.? He turned to Eddie Mackintosh, the paper?s art critic. ?I want you to get hold of Disley at the National Gallery, or someone of equal standing. It has to be a body we can call Britain?s leading art expert. Get him to go around all these galleries with you and authenticate the pictures or declare them forgeries. Offer a consultancy fee if you think it?s wanted.
?Whatever you do, don?t tell these guys that their pictures are forgeries. If they find out they?ll have the police in. Once the Yard know about it, some hotshot crime man on a daily will get it and spoil it for us.
?Louis, I want you to go at it from the other end. You?ve got a story, whatever Eddie discovers—on major forgery is enough. Try and track down this Renalle. Find out which room he was in at the hotel, how many people were there, and so on. Okay.?
The tone was dismissive, and the two journalists left the editor?s office.
Louis gave the reception clerk ?5 for a look at the hotel register. There was no Renalle listed for any day the previous week. He double-checked. The only peculiarity was a Mr. Eric Clapton. He pointed the name out to the clerk.
?Yes, I remember. He had a beautiful French girl with him. Name something like Renault. I remember, because a taxi came with loads of heavy pictures for him. He was a good tipper, too.?
Louis made a note of the room number. ?When guests pay by check, do you keep a record of the bank the check is drawn on??
?Yes.?
Louis gave him two more fivers. ?Can you get me the address of this Clapton?s bank??
?Not immediately. Can you come back in half an hour??
?I?ll ring you from my office.?
He walked back to the office to kill the half-hour. When he rang the hotel, the clerk had the answer.
