The Rembrandt Secret Read Online Free PDF Page B

his wheelchair over to his desk and clicking on the computer. Peering at the screen, he began to type, Marshall watching him. Samuel Hemmings might be well into his eighties, but he was computer fluent.
    ‘I’ve had bronchitis the last two weeks, flat out in bed. Missed a bloody lot,’ he muttered, sighing as a page came up on screen, with the details of the New York sale. ‘Jesus, it fetched a fortune!’
    ‘Which my father didn’t get.’
    Slowly Samuel turned in his chair, the front of his dressing gown falling open to reveal a V-necked jumper pulled over his striped pyjamas. ‘What are you talking about?’
    ‘Tobar Manners cheated him. My father was in trouble, so he went to Manners because he was a friend. Manners knew my father was desperate for money, but he said that the Rembrandt was by Ferdinand Bol.’
    Samuel’s fingers clacked on the keyboard, then hescooted his chair across the room again and pulled down a thick volume of photographs. Back at the desk, he flicked through dozens of pages, then withdrew an image of the Rembrandt. Screwing up his eyes, he then read what he had written on the page next to it.
    Supposed to be Ferdinand Bol. But no doubt Rembrandt.
Provenance suspect, but colouring and brushwork obviously the Master.

Owen has done it this time. He’s a dealer now. (1961)
    Then he looked at the painting again, peering at it with a magnifying glass. Outside in the hall, Mrs McKendrick was still denting the skirting board with the Hoover, and in the garden, beyond the window, a thrush was taking a dip in a lichen-encrusted bird bath. Patiently, Marshall waited for Samuel to speak.
    At first he had been surprised by the old man’s appearance; he seemed scruffier than usual and had lost weight, but within seconds he had proved that his mind was as astute as ever. Looking round as Samuel continued to read, Marshall noticed the elaborate carving along the picture rail, in places grey with dust, in others the wood bleached by sun. He had stared at the same carvings when he was a child, the day his father had brought him to meet the famous Samuel Hemmings. The historian had been much younger then, not weak in the legs, but scuttling like a child’s top around the haphazard terrain of his study. In amongst the books and papers he had secreted bottles ofcheap sweets, their incongruous primary colours at odds with the muted surroundings. Talking quickly and with animation, Samuel had only paused to take a handful of sweets, swallowing a couple and throwing the others in Marshall’s direction, Owen winking at his son as he did so.
    To another child, Samuel’s eccentricity might have been unnerving, but Marshall was entranced. He loved the crackle of energy, the stimulus of Samuel’s interest. His enthusiasm and honesty were a pleasant change from many of his father’s dealer acquaintances. And as time passed – and Marshall learned that Samuel Hemmings was a one-man iconoclast of the art world – his admiration grew. Those dealers who had been at the rapier end of Samuel’s tongue or pen might detest him, but his knowledge of art history – particularly the Dutch Masters – was formidable. Indeed that was how Samuel and Owen had first met.
    Soon after Owen opened the Zeigler Gallery, the rangy, bowed figure of Samuel Hemmings had visited. In his old-fashioned suit and battered patent evening shoes, he had looked almost comical, but his intelligence was phenomenal, and he was unusually generous with his knowledge. So when Owen, a relatively green dealer, asked Samuel to look at his paintings, he had been expecting a swift summation but, instead, received comprehensive and impressive opinions. Instead of being offended by the brutality of some of Samuel’s remarks, Owen had chosen to learn from the older man, and a friendship was born.
    But now, Samuel scooted his chair back to Marshall, scraping its wheel against a table leg as he did so. ‘It’s genuine. I said so at the time, and I was