Free Long Time Coming by Robert Goddard Page B

holding things back. Most things that mattered, I strongly suspected. Now I’d been donated my own secret, to share as and when I judged appropriate. The girl had to be related to Meridor. That was obvious. Maybe, if I could engineer a meeting with her, in Eldritch’s absence, I’d be able to find out more than he currently wanted me to know. Best of all, it paid him back for keeping me in the dark.
    ‘They’re Meridor’s all right,’ said Eldritch as we left the Picasso room. ‘No question about it.’
    ‘Are you going to tell me now how you went about stealing them?’
    ‘There’s more to learn first. Let’s take a look at the catalogue.’
    *
    We each perused a copy of the catalogue in the gift shop. The official version of the Picassos’ provenance was what he wanted to check. I watched him squinting at the page on the opposite side of the stack from me, flimsy old glasses perched on his nose. What we both read was that Jay Brownlow had acquired the paintings ‘
in the years immediately after the Second World War through dealers in Paris and Geneva
’. The dealers weren’t named. It was thin stuff. We went out on to the front steps, where Eldritch delivered his verdict in a conspiratorial whisper.
    ‘Brownlow bought the pictures from Geoffrey Cardale. I don’t doubt that for a moment. These dealers in Paris and Geneva the catalogue mentions would have been intermediaries, nothing more. It was crucial Cardale’s name shouldn’t appear on any documents.’
    ‘Because it was Cardale you delivered the pictures to on Meridor’s behalf.’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘But surely there was plenty to prove they belonged to Meridor. Before and therefore after the war.’
    ‘Ah, that’s where Cardale was undeniably clever.’
    ‘In what way?’
    ‘It’s a complicated story, Stephen.’ He looked at his watch. ‘And it’s going to have to wait a little longer.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because I’d like to call in at the Cardale Gallery before it closes. It’s time to find out who minds the shop there these days.’
    It looked no different from several other galleries in St James’s. A couple of Rodinesque figurines and a murky oil painting of a stag being set upon by hounds occupied the window. The external paintwork was maroon, with
G. Cardale Fine Art
proclaimed in gold lettering. Eldritch glanced up at the higher floors for a recollective moment, then said, ‘I suppose we should be grateful it’s still here,’ and led the way in.
    The interior would have benefited from better lighting – or cleaner pictures. Heavy-framed Napoleonic sea battles andGeorgian hunting scenes that might once have sparkled but did so no longer dominated the display. Pop Art had made no inroads here.
    As the jangling of the bell died away, a figure emerged from a room to the rear: a thick-set man of about forty, dressed in a tweed jacket, striped shirt, cravat and corduroy trousers that appeared to have been chosen for their match with the maroon frontage. He had the flushed, fleshy, floppy-haired look of a sporty public schoolboy sliding into sedentary middle age.
    ‘Can I help you?’ he asked, genially enough.
    ‘Mr Cardale?’ Eldritch countered.
    ‘Yes. That’s me.’
    ‘But not, I’d guess, Mr G. Cardale.’
    ‘No, no. He was my grandfather. Long gone, I’m afraid. I’m Simon Cardale.’
    ‘Some nice stuff you have here,’ I said in a sudden moment of sympathy for the fellow.
    ‘Thanks. Looking for anything in particular?’
    ‘We’ve just come from the Royal Academy,’ said Eldritch, cutting off any answer I might have given. ‘The Brownlow Collection. You’ve seen it?’
    ‘Yes. I took a look last week. Ravishing. Quite ravishing.’
    ‘But we can’t all afford … Picasso.’ Eldritch looked intently at him. ‘Can we?’
    ‘No.’ Cardale seemed unruffled by the question. ‘Indeed not.’
    ‘Which prompted me to think of a painter I used to admire who’s rather fallen out of fashion.’
    ‘Oh yes?