The Modigliani Scandal Read Online Free PDF Page A

gave the postcard in exchange. Lipsey sat down, set his sherry untouched on the desk and studied the card.
    A minute later he said: ″I take it you want us to find the picture.″
    ″Yes.″
    ″Hmm. Do you have your niece′s address in Paris?″
    ″No, but my sister—her mother—will know. I′ll get it for you. However, if I know Delia, she will probably have left Paris by now—in search of the Modiglianis. Unless it′s in Paris.″
    ″So—we are left with her friends there. And this picture. Is it possible that she got the scent, so to speak, of this great find somewhere near the café?″
    ″That′s very likely,″ said Lampeth. ″Good guessing. She′s an impulsive girl.″
    ″I imagined so from me—ah—style of the correspondence. Now, what are the chances that this will turn out to be a wild-goose chase?″
    Lampeth shrugged. ″There is always that possibility with searches for lost pictures. But don′t be misled by Delia′s style—sheʹs just won a First in Art History, and she is a shrewd twenty-five-year-old. If she would work for me I′d employ her, if only to keep her out of the hands of my competitors.″
    ″And the chances?ʺ
    ″Fifty-fifty. No, better—seventy-thirty. In her favor.″
    ″Good. Well, I have the right man for the job available at the moment. We can get on to it immediately.″
    Lampeth stood up, hesitated, and frowned, as if he did not quite know how to put what he was about to say. Lipsey waited patiently.
    ″Ah—it′s important that the girl should not know that I have initiated the inquiry, you realize?″
    ″Of course,″ Lipsey said smoothly. ″It goes without saying.ʺ
     
    The gallery was full of people chatting, clinking glasses, and dropping cigar ash on the carpet. The reception was to publicize a small collection of various German Expressionists which Lampeth had acquired in Denmark: he disliked the paintings, but they were a good buy. The people were clients, artists, critics, and art historians. Some had come simply to be seen at the Belgrave, to tell the world that this was the kind of circle they moved in; but they would buy, eventually, to prove that they did not come merely to be seen there. Most of the critics would write about the show, for they could not afford to ignore anything the Belgrave did. The artists came for the canapes and the wine—free food and drink, and some of them needed it. Perhaps the only people who were genuinely interested in the paintings were the art historians and a few serious collectors.
    Lampeth sighed, and looked furtively at his watch. It would be another hour before he could respectabiv leave. His wife had long ago given up attending gallery receptions. She said they were a bore, and she was right. Lampeth would like to be at home now, with a glass of port in one hand and a book in the other; sitting on his favorite chair—the old learner one, with the hard horsehair upholstery and the burn mark on the arm where he always put his pipe—with his wife opposite him and Siddons coming in to make up the fire for the last time.
    ″Wishing you were home, Charlie?″ The voice came from beside him and broke his daydream. ″Rather be sitting in front of the telly watching Barlow?″
    Lampeth forced a smile. He rarely watched television, and he resented being called Charlie by any but his oldest friends. The man he smiled at was not even a friend: he was the art critic of a weekly journal, perceptive enough about art, especially sculpture, but a terrible bore. ″Hello, Jack, glad you could come,″ Lampeth said. ″Actually, I am a bit tired for this sort of bash.″
    ″Know how you feel,″ the critic said. ″Hard day? Tough time knocking some poor painter′s price down a couple of hundred?″
    Lampeth forced another smile, but deigned to reply to the jocular insult. The journal was a left-wing one, he remembered, and it felt the need to be disapproving of anyone who actually made money out of culture.
    He saw Willow