Maria left the agency at four o’clock and drove into the West End. She found a parking space along New Bond Street and sat in a café across the road from Sotheby’s. She ordered tea and cake and glanced at her watch. It was four fifteen, and the statuette was due to be auctioned at five.
In the meantime she sipped her Darjeeling and nibbled at the Bakewell, wishing that the English were as competent at making the latter as they were the former.
Her mind drifted, and she found herself thinking about Charles and his predicament. How puritanical and petty-minded the English were when it came to affairs of the heart! Which was entirely the problem, she thought: the English did not count Charles’s predilections as an affair of the heart, but rather as a weakness of the flesh, and thus punishable by law. And yet they considered themselves a civilized people!
It was not long before her thoughts strayed from Charles to his client, Donald Langham.
A greater contrast to the conceited, self-absorbed Gideon Martin she could not imagine. Langham was self-effacing to the point of being almost self-erasing. She had known him for almost five years, though the term ‘known’ did not quite describe their acquaintance. They had met perhaps four or five times a year, exchanged pleasantries and occasional witticisms, but always it seemed that there was something holding Langham back, a diffident reserve, almost a shyness, that would not allow him to show his real self.
For a long time Maria had assumed he was married. She’d read some biographical information about him on the back of one of his earlier novels which stated that ‘Donald Langham is married and lives in London’, and Maria had been curious about what kind of person his wife might be. Langham himself was tall, thin and upright, with the bearing of the soldier he had been. He was good-looking in a quiet, English, pipe-smoking kind of way, and she had imagined his wife as around his age, early forties, elegant and attractive.
One day she had asked Charles about Mrs Langham.
‘Mrs Langham, my dear? There is no Mrs Langham.’
‘But I thought …’
‘Ah … Well, he was married, but Mrs Langham died during the war. I don’t know what happened. Donald never speaks about it.’
‘He is very … reserved, no?’
Charles had laughed. ‘Well, I suppose he is. I’ve never thought about him like that. I rather thought of him as having good manners and breeding – for a provincial grammar schoolboy, that is.’
‘Oh, you English! You are so obsessed with class!’
‘Guilty as charged, Maria. But why do you ask about Donald?’
‘Oh, I don’t know … But he is rather handsome, don’t you think?’
Charles had stared at her over his pince-nez. ‘I would agree, he is – in a very quiet, staid, English way.’
Maria liked Donald Langham; she liked the quiet reserve that came over as him being comfortable with himself, and which suggested that he had no need to impress others. She liked his habit of clenching his empty pipe between his teeth while absorbed in thought, and the way he absent-mindedly stroked the scar at his temple.
‘That scar,’ she had said to Charles just yesterday, ‘how did he get it? It would be ugly anywhere else on his face, but at his temple it rather suits him.’
Charles laughed. ‘That, my dear, irony of ironies, was thanks to a French bullet.’
‘A French bullet?’
He amended, ‘Well, a Vichy French bullet. He saw action in Madagascar. Not that he speaks of that, either. All he told me was that an inch to the left and the world would have been spared a dozen Sam Brooke novels. Which pretty well sums up Donald’s self-deprecating manner, don’t you think?’
She wondered if tomorrow, on the jaunt down to Sussex, she might get to know Donald Langham a little better.
She sipped her tea and pushed the half-eaten Bakewell – which was not baked very well – to one side and concentrated on the street beyond the window.
Fifteen minutes later an old Rolls Royce pulled up outside Sotheby’s and Monsieur Savagne alighted, the sight of so small a man stepping from so large a vehicle somewhat comical. He adjusted his cravat, arranged his thinning hair, then crossed the pavement and entered the building. Maria looked at her watch. It was four forty-five, and there was no sign yet of Gideon Martin.
Five minutes later the man himself, clutching a rolled copy of the Express in one hand and his swordstick in the other, stepped from a taxi cab and trotted into the auctioneer’s. She gave him a few minutes to ease his way to the front of the crowd – as he would not skulk at the back of the room, she thought – then paid the bill and left the café.
She dashed through a gap in the traffic, one hand holding her hat to her head as she did so, then hurried into the auction rooms. The sale was to be held in the main room, and the place was packed. As she eased her way through the throng at the door and stationed herself at the rear of the room next to a mock-marble pillar, she heard a medley of European voices – mainly French and Italian – and one or two American accents. To a man, everyone was dressed as if for a formal engagement. Maria had outfitted herself likewise in a body-hugging silk two-piece and a dainty little hat by Lilly Daché.
A Rembrandt miniature was on the easel next to the auctioneer’s podium. The auctioneer himself was scanning the gathering and indicating the bidder with a languid hand. ‘Three thousand four hundred to my right … I have three-five. Do I hear three-six? Thank you, sir. Three-six bid. Three-seven, Three-eight …’
She glanced at the catalogue. The Rembrandt was lot two; the Italian statuette was lot four.
She peered over the heads of those before her and caught sight of Gideon Martin. As she had suspected, he was near the front, leaning nonchalantly against a pillar to the right. She wondered if his entire life was a carefully thought out and staged event, each elegant pose designed for maximum theatrical effect.
She looked for M Savagne, but the little man was lost in the crowd.
The Rembrandt went for six thousand pounds, and the painting was taken from the easel by two buff-coated members of staff and replaced with a landscape by Sisley.
‘Lot three, an early piece by Alfred Sisley, very collectable. A considerable work by this fine English artist. Do I have a starter at one thousand? Thank you, sir. One thousand to my left. One thousand one hundred. One-two. One-three … Thank you, sir. One-four. One-five. Do I hear one-six …?’
Towards the front, Gideon Martin turned his profile to the crowd as if seeking their appreciation. His hooded eyes took in his surroundings and Maria slipped behind the pillar as his gaze swept her way. When she emerged, Martin’s attention was once again on the auctioneer. The Sisley had sold for three thousand and was being replaced by the statuette.
‘A fine example of eighteenth-century silverware …’ The auctioneer began his spiel. ‘Do I have a bid to start off proceedings at one thousand five hundred?’
Maria saw a big, silver-haired man raise his folded catalogue. ‘Thank you, sir,’ the auctioneer said.
Gideon Martin raised his swordstick.
‘One thousand six hundred.’
The catalogue went up.
‘One-seven,’ said the auctioneer.
Martin bid.
‘One-eight.’
The silver-haired gentleman bid and the auctioneer indicated him. ‘One-nine.’
This, Maria thought, is where I step in.
She raised her catalogue fractionally and the auctioneer’s eagle eye saw the movement. ‘I have two thousand at the back. Two thousand one hundred, anyone?’
The silver-haired man raised his catalogue.
‘Two thousand one hundred bid in the centre.’
Gideon Martin lifted his swordstick imperiously.
‘Two-two to my left.’
Maria waited to see if silver-hair would bid; he refrained. She raised her catalogue, her heart thumping in her chest.
‘Two-three.’
Martin gave a tight, angry nod.
‘Two-four.’
Maria bid.
‘Two-five.’ She was ready to duck behind the pillar should Martin turn in order to see who might be bidding against him, but his attention remained focused on the auctioneer. He hoisted his swordstick.
‘Two-six.’
Maria raised her catalogue.
‘I have two-seven at the back of the room … Two-eight …’
Maria kept her eyes on Martin lest he turn; he appeared irritated. She smiled as she considered his words at the party, to the effect that he had saved three thousand to spend on the statuette.
She wondered how much beyond that he would be prepared to bid. Her father had indicated that he was prepared to foot a bill of no more than three thousand five hundred: he had contacts in Paris museums who might be persuaded to show the piece and, over time, reimburse him the fee.
Martin bid again.
‘Two-nine …’ the auctioneer intoned.
She lifted her catalogue.
‘Three thousand. I have three thousand at the back. Do I hear … Thank you, sir. Three-one.’
Maria bid.
‘Three-two.’
Martin hesitated visibly, then lofted his swordstick almost angrily.
‘Three-three,’ said the auctioneer.
One more bid, Maria thought. She indicated three-four, and the auctioneer said, ‘Three-four at the back. Do I have three-five, sir?’
Martin’s gaze remained fixed on the statuette, his expression rigid. She could see that he was deliberating. Don’t do it, she urged. A trickle of perspiration coursed down the side of her neck.
Gideon Martin seemed to wait an age before he shook his head.
‘Three-four at the back. Do I hear three-five? No … Then, at three thousand and four hundred pounds, going once, going twice … Sold!’
Maria almost collapsed with relief. She gathered herself and slipped from the auction room, but not before appreciating the look of barely suppressed rage on Gideon Martin’s face.
She paid for the statuette and arranged for its delivery to her father’s house, considering it a job satisfactorily concluded. Voila! She had avenged herself for Martin’s buying the very watercolour she had intended for her father’s birthday present.
She returned to her apartment, made herself a bowl of minestrone soup, and ate it while listening to Radio France.
Later she tried to read a manuscript – a literary novel by one of the agency’s authors – but was unable to concentrate. She considered what she had planned with Donald Langham for tomorrow; she liked the way he had listened to her suggestions earlier today, and had quietly agreed to them. She could not imagine Gideon Martin being that fair-minded.
And thoughts of Martin made her ask herself if, perhaps, she did not feel a little guilty at the ruse she had played today?
Then she thought of his arrogance at the party the other evening, and she realized that she felt not the slightest prick of conscience at all.