The Blue Last

“I don’t recall the name. It faced the green… yes, and directly opposite a pub. The Owl, I think it’s called. I’m sure you could find the pub.” Simper, simper. “I told Theo about it. He was so amused. Both of us were.”

To think the painting’s fate-meaning Trueblood’s fate-lay in the hands of Agatha and that snake, Theo Wrenn Browne, was not to be borne. Melrose sat with his unlit cigarette, his fingers turning the lighter over and over, his mind in time with it-over and over: buy her silence, scare her witless, kill her where she sits. He rather favored the last of these (as it was the only surefire way of stopping her). The trouble was that Agatha never kept her word so he couldn’t really buy it; she would be holding the blackmail bag and could hit him for money whenever she felt like it. The only way he would have half a chance to shut her up was to convince her that this new painting she’d seen made no difference to anyone. “Oh, yes, I’ve just remembered. That painting. You needn’t bother telling Trueblood; he’s already seen it. He isn’t interested.”

She looked crestfallen, having been deprived of her bad news. “He isn’t?”

“He went over to Swinetown-”

“Swinton.”

“He went there yesterday afternoon. He doesn’t want it, anyway.”

Agatha was truly miffed. It was Marshall Trueblood who had made fools of both her and Theo Wrenn Browne at the trial, the one now known as the Chamberpot Caper. Melrose smiled just thinking about that. What a moment!

“Not only that,” continued Melrose, “a triptych did go missing from a chapel-where? I can’t recall-in 14- something, and for all we know that might have been it. Or one of them, I mean one of the panels, and wouldn’t that be a find!” Melrose then loaded on every scrap of information he had about “clumsy Tom” (which was what Masaccio was called by his friends), and was pleased with himself that he remembered so much. “St. Peter Healing the Sick with His Shadow is one of the marvelous frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel; you really should see it, Agatha, it’s quite magnificent.” Then he described, in lavish detail, the Tribute Money, “restored after that terrible fire in the 1770s and you can imagine what a job that must have been!” For even Agatha’s weasel imagination could operate on this level.

But wouldn’t, since her eyelids were fluttering and she was swaying on the sofa, eyes now shut against Masolino’s and Masaccio’s friendship and their painting together many of those frescoes. Melrose went on until he heard a hiccupy snore.

He went to the sofa and shouted “Agatha!” Scaring her awake was always so much fun.

Her eyes snapped open. “I have to be going. Good heavens, Melrose, how long have you kept me here with your nattering?” She gathered up purse and carry-all (which she had not had a chance to fill with his cook Martha’s confections), got up and tugged at her girdle.

“Going?” Thank the lord.

“I’m off!”

Bloody hell! he thought, as soon as she’d left. “Find my car keys, Ruthven!”

Swinton Barrow was twenty-five miles to the southwest of Long Piddleton and was a little like it, but on a larger scale. Swinton just had more of everything-larger village green, antique shops, bookstores.

At this moment Melrose was sizing up the antique shops on the other side of the green. He had slanted the car in between others outside of the sign of the Owl. He was looking across the green, which was a flat expanse of box hedges and benches, still with snow clinging to them, trapped in the hedges’ wiry surface. Frills of snow lined the backs of the benches. It was a pleasant, wintry scene. Jasperson’s was directly across from the pub, as Agatha had said (in one of her rare moments of accurate reportage).

A bell jangled as he opened the door on a large room that smelled of wood polish and money. Trueblood could spend a week here. C. Jasperson knew his stuff. In the middle of the room was a center table with a green marble top on a gilded pediment adorned with putti. To someone else, the piece would have been quite gorgeous, but Melrose couldn’t stand cherub adornments; he had a hard time to keep from kicking them. To his right was a Queen Anne mirrored bookcase he wouldn’t have minded having for Ardry End. Near it was an inlaid walnut writing table on which sat an ormolu tea caddy. Melrose loved to find things inside other things and was delighted to see three little tea caddies nesting inside the big one. He smiled and put the cover back on. Near these pieces was a work table, a porcelain plaque inlaid on its top, the interior mirrored. Vivian would like this. He appeared to be doing his Christmas shopping all over again. As he moved from piece to piece, his eyes traveled over the walls, looking for the painting-or plaque-Agatha had claimed to be like Trueblood’s. He didn’t see it until he’d stepped closer to a little alcove on his left, and there it was. For once Agatha was right. The painting was either of a saint or a monk and could have been a companion piece to Trueblood’s. That this painting too might be a section of Masaccio’s altarpiece was ludicrous.

“Hello.”

The soft voice made him jump. He turned and found himself face-to-face with the Platonic Idea of Grandmother. It was this pink-complexioned, sky blue-eyed, rousingly coral-lipsticked mouth that everyone wanted for a grandmother and nobody ever got. She smiled and looked, well, merry. “Could I help you?”

Melrose made a slight bow. “I’m interested in this. You know, a friend of mine told me he’d found one in Swinton very much like this. Are you Miss Eccleston?”

“Yes, I am. Amy Eccleston. Why, he was here very recently, about two weeks ago it must have been. He was quite taken by that panel. I believe both could be the side panels of a triptych or polyptych. Excuse me for a minute.” The telephone was ringing and she whisked herself away into another room. He spent the odd few minutes studying the so-called Masaccio (as she hadn’t yet called it) and trying to remember what Di Bada had told them about Vasari’s description of the Pisa polyptych in that church in Pisa. St. Jerome? St. Julian? St. Nicholas?

She was back. “I’m sorry. It’s been busy today.”

“Mr. Trueblood is under the impression his is an original Masaccio. Is that what you told him?”

“Oh, my goodness, no.” Her laugh was breathy. “But there’s a possibility it might be. Mr. Jasperson’s been trying to authenticate them. You’re familiar with Masaccio? A fifteenth-century painter of the Italian Renaissance-”

“And is Mr. Jasperson having some success in doing this? What’s the provenance?”

She shook her head. “We don’t know. I found them in a little old church in Tuscany. Of course, I didn’t guess at their value then, but when I brought them into the shop, well, Mr. Jasperson was more than a little astonished.”

“Because they were so valuable?”

“Because they were so divine.”

Turning to the panel, they breathed in a little divinity.

She said, “I’ll tell you what might be possible. Possibly, your friend mentioned that his might be a copy of a panel by Masaccio. On the other hand, they could be panels of the polyptych originally in a church in Pisa. The Santa Maria del Carmine. An altarpiece, most of which was recovered. Part, you see, is still missing.”

That little morsel wafted down as gently as the morning’s snow, as quietly and unobtrusively as a snowflake.

“Then this,” Melrose said innocently, “might be original?”

“I tremble to think.” Her blue eyes widened.

Melrose laughed. “I’m sure you do. Though if you believed it, the panel wouldn’t be selling for-” Melrose fingered the white tag-“two thousand pounds.” He dropped the tag and looked at her.

“No, of course it wouldn’t.”

“At auction how much might it fetch?”

“Oh, heavens, it would be priceless.”

In his mind’s eye, Melrose saw Trueblood clutching his picture, carrying it all over Tuscany. He smiled. “Priceless, I agree.”

In silence, they regarded the panel.

Melrose said, “Now, Miss Eccleston, here’s the thing: that friend of mine believes he possesses something utterly unique. He’s been to Florence to try to authenticate the work. It doesn’t surprise me your proprietor here