The Bernini Bust Read Online Free PDF Page A

slimebag.”
    Argyll raised an eyebrow.
    “Sorry. But you know what I mean. Supercilious, disdainful, mocking, dishonest. Wouldn’t you say those are national characteristics?”
    “Not really,” Argyll said, a host of English people fitting that description swarming into his mind.
    “Well, I do. Used to be chief leech, until Thanet came along. Since then he’s become an international parasite. Paris, Rome, London, New York, as they say on the perfume bottles. Devoted himself to searching out every overpriced fake in the world for my father’s collection, buying it and taking a hefty cut for his services.”
    Argyll felt aggrieved, and mentioned his Titian once more. He was beginning to develop a complex about it.
    “So we all make mistakes,” Jack said with no discernible interest. “Even a man of Langton’s huge talent couldn’t get a hundred per cent success rate. He must slip occasionally and buy something genuine.”
    On he went. “Mummy dearest,” he said, pointing at the petite, expertly dressed woman Argyll had encountered earlier that afternoon. She had arrived twenty minutes earlier. “She’s my stepmother, but she doesn’t like to be called that. On the make. Quite assiduous about it. She has a vague southern accent but in fact comes from Nebraska. Do you know where Nebraska is?”
    Argyll confessed he didn’t. Jack nodded as though this proved it.
    “Nor does anybody else. She hit the jackpot with my old man, and will stick with him until he croaks and she can get her hands on his money. Unless the museum gets it first.” He regarded the woman with apparent indulgence, then dismissed her abruptly from his mind and switched to another target.
    “David Barclay,” he said firmly, pointing to an excessively groomed personage talking to Anne Moresby. “His signature will be on your cheque - if you ever get it. My father’s lawyer and personal factotum, on permanent secondment from some law firm. The eminence grise of the family. Handsome little bastard, don’t you think? The sort that works out before going to the office. So many designer labels on him he resembles the advertising section of Vogue. Drop him in a sewage plant and shit would become fashionable. My father,” he went on in a loud stage-whisper, breathing a whisky fragrance into Argyll’s face from close range, “is a bit of a sucker for up-and-coming professional types. That’s why I’m such a disappointment to him. He can’t resist someone like Barclay. Nor can my beloved stepmother.”
    “I beg your pardon?” Argyll said, caught a little by surprise.
    “Little David is connected to my family most intimately,” Jack said, speaking ever more loudly. “All services, legal and otherwise, rendered with equal skill.”
    He sniggered, and Argyll regarded the lawyer with increased interest. He expressed surprise that the man kept his job.
    “Discretion is a wonderful thing. The trouble is, it’s not that easy to keep up. Even the best-kept secret is apt to leak out eventually. Given a helping hand, anyway. That’s why I’m here, in fact,” Jack went on elliptically. “I love firework displays, and are we going to have one tonight.”
    “Are we, indeed?” Argyll said, thinking that perhaps this party might turn out to be more fun than he’d anticipated. “You don’t seem to rate your father’s judgement of character very highly.”
    “Me? The grateful son, not respect one of the richest men in the world? I have the highest opinion of his judgement. After all, he spotted me immediately as a drunken, ill-disciplined bum who’d never make a go of anything. And I can assure you, he was right. I have never disappointed him in the slightest.”
    There were distinct signs by this stage that Jack was teetering on the brink of self-indulgence. The last thing Argyll wanted was a detailed account of life with father, so he caught di Souza’s eye as the Spaniard wafted past. He barely had time for introductions when there