Free A Family Affair by Michael Innes

nobleman discovering a Giulio Romano by accident among a lot of lumber?’
    ‘That is so, my goot Sir John. One develops the instinctuals, no? I had the instinctual this Nanna and Pippa belong some low-born wealthy person collector feelthy peectures now weeding out some few paintings perhaps buy others feelthier.’
    ‘It sounds a more likely story, I agree. But I’m surprised it didn’t make you a bit more wary. For you were caught out in the end, weren’t you? Despite this being here now’ – and Appleby pointed to the authentic Nanna and Pippa on their easel – ‘you were landed with a copy?’
    ‘Yes, Sir John. Just how I told the police, all authentink and above plank.’
    ‘But you didn’t remain altogether above board with them for long? You cooled off in your real wish to assist them, I think? And it was because you had yourself thought up something better?’
    ‘That is correck, Sir John.’ Braunkopf seemed not at all perturbed by these somewhat hostile questions. ‘I put on my thinking hat. And soon I stopped believing anybody had made proposings to themselves to sell this puttikler shocking picture at all.’
    ‘Ah!’ Appleby was now really interested. ‘You conjectured that it had simply been abstracted from the possession of its owner – conceivably without that owner’s knowledge – and brought to you, along with a plausible story, for the purpose of that expertise by Professor Sansbury, as I think it was?’
    ‘Correck, Sir John.’
    ‘It would then have been copied – again on the plausible story presented to you – before being restored to its normal location. And the copy was brought back to you – with the result that you were caught off your guard, and persuaded to part with a great deal of money for it?’
    ‘Twelve thousand pount, Sir John!’ There was the liveliest pathos in Braunkopf’s voice as he recalled this sum; he seemed quite to have forgotten that it was a mere trifle in the regard of such a solid institution as the Da Vinci Gallery.
    ‘Well, something has happened since then.’ Appleby again glanced at the authentic Nanna and Pippa. ‘I think you had better tell me just what.’
    ‘I was determined on destitution.’
    ‘That does seem one way of looking at it. You’d been uncommonly careless, if you ask me.’
    ‘It would only be justice, no?’ Braunkopf showed himself as having been perplexed by Appleby’s last remark. ‘I had a right to destitution.’
    ‘Oh, I see. You certainly had a right to restitution, if the criminals and the cash they had made off with could be traced. But it isn’t the cash you’ve ended up with. It’s the picture. Go on.’ Appleby paused invitingly. But Mr Braunkopf, although not to be described as normally an unready man, was reluctant to proceed. He replenished Appleby’s glass. He walked over to the easel, contemplated Nanna and Pippa fixedly, and contorted his features into what was evidently designed as an expression of deep moral reprobation. ‘Did you trace it and steal it?’ Appleby asked.
    ‘My goot Sir John!’ Braunkopf was even more shocked by this than by the flagitious spectacle on the canvas before him. ‘I recovered this piece my own property only by most puttikler ethical derangement.’
    ‘I’m not clear that it ever was your own property. You can’t make a valid purchase, you know, of something the other fellow doesn’t possess the right to sell. And it can’t be said you made much inquiry into the matter when it first came your way. But that’s by the by. I shall be most interested to hear about your ethical arrangement. Am I right in thinking that you began by consulting whatever knowledge you have of known collectors of blue pictures in this country?’
    ‘Exakly, Sir John. As Proprietor and Director this notable Da Vinci Gallery I make a puttikler study business deficiency. We file purchasers clients other goot freunds according to known special and particulous interests in whole