The Raphael Affair Read Online Free PDF Page A

company.
    ‘Wild geese,’ he replied to the greeting. ‘I’ve just been let out of jail.’
    Beckett suppressed a smirk.
    ‘No jokes, please,’ he continued, to head off the quip that the journalist was obviously on the verge of uttering. ‘I’m not resilient enough yet. I was wondering if you wanted a nice story.’
    ‘Is the Pope Catholic? Course I do. Depending on what it is. As long as you remember I can’t pay anything for it.’
    ‘I don’t want anything like that. To see it in print would be enough.’
    Argyll then retold the story of his discovery and the incursion of Sir Edward Byrnes, ending with his night in the cell. ‘My discovery. Pinched. Just like that. Could you write something so everyone knows what reallyhappened? Otherwise Byrnes will get all the credit as well as all the money.’
    ‘Nice story,’ commented Beckett, finishing off another whisky and moving straight on to a large grappa. ‘But the lead is the Raphael, not your being diddled. However, an expert hack like myself will be able to do it. Great discovery, famous artist, etc., etc. Then a bit of stuff about you further down, undermining the whole thing and making Byrnes out to be a proper toad. Easy.
    ‘You’ll forgive me, though, but I must check up on the story first. A few phone calls, here and there, that sort of thing. OK? Feel better? You don’t look as though you’ve been greatly enjoying the eternal city.’
    ‘I haven’t. The only good thing that’s happened so far has been having dinner with that policewoman last night…’
    ‘That does sound bad.’
    ‘Not at all. She’s very lovely. Remarkably lovely, in fact. As I’ve got to go back to London tomorrow, it doesn’t really matter, though.’
    As Beckett explained in a letter a few weeks later, it wasn’t really his fault, and he sent his original article to prove it. He had written the story as promised: revelation about a possible new Raphael, attributed to ‘museum sources’; a quotation of cautious optimism from Byrnes, a few comments from a couple of art historians, then some quite well-researched background about other remarkable discoveries in the past few years. From there on, Beckett had written about Argyll and had clearly and concisely got the message across. Young graduatestudent cheated by machinations of sly dealer. It didn’t actually say that, of course, but the general implication was crystal clear. It was a good article.
    Unfortunately, it was a bit too good. He had sent it off to the editor of his paper in New York and this man had been excited by it. So it had gone on the front page, left side, single column, instead of in the arts section as Beckett had expected. But it was a busy time of year. A summit meeting was in the offing, another bribery and corruption scandal had broken out among local politicians, the administration was indulging in another spate of Libya-bashing. The editor hadn’t wanted to run the story over on to an inside page. So he made it fit by cutting it down a bit, and had sliced off the bottom seven paragraphs. With these went all mention of Argyll.
    In every other respect, the article worked wonders, and stimulated enormous public interest. Over the next few months, all of Argyll’s predictions to Flavia about the Raphael came true. The story of the eighteenth-century fraud and its discovery captured the imagination. The New York Times colour supplement, and the arts supplement of the London Observer , duly carried lengthy accounts of the art-historical detective work which had led to the pot of gold. They, also, neglected to mention Argyll, but were otherwise solidly written. Byrnes’s sales campaign was well under way.
    Argyll indulged his sense of mild masochism by collecting the articles. All sorts of critics and historians invaded what he had previously considered to be his turf. The diligent research of others produced dozens of little fragments to complete his partial picture andshow the results of his