3

When Isobel Sadler arrived in Michael’s office the next time it had been rearranged. There were now two desks instead of one, and, to make room for the second, several piles of books had been removed from the floor. Patrick Wood, in a bright red bow tie today, showed her upstairs. Inside the office, Michael was talking to a tall, thin, balding man who she guessed, from the similarity to Patrick, must be Michael’s partner, Gregory. They were introduced.

‘Let me have him back as soon as you can, Miss Sadler, please. He won’t tell me what all this is about—but … well, we get these mysteries from time to time. The best security is ignorance, I suppose. Good luck with the project, anyway, whatever it is.’ He smiled and went out.

Isobel Sadler looked around. On one desk stood a jug of coffee. Piles of books littered the other.

‘Booty from the London Library around the corner,’ said Michael, following her look. ‘I rather fancy that a lot of our work is going to be done in books. These are the standard reference works on iconography. Arnold Whittick’s Symbols, Signs and Meaning, Gilbert Cope’s Symbolism in the Bible and the Church, John Vinycomb’s Fictitious and Symbolic Creatures in Art, plus that stock over there. I asked a friend at the V and A and she gave me the titles—don’t worry, I didn’t say what I wanted them for.’ He pointed. ‘You can use that desk.’ Michael was again in his shirt sleeves. The same bright red braces, like fairground ribbons, slashed across his shirt. The room was already filled with the fug of tobacco smoke. His hair was chaotic and without his jacket he looked slimmer and younger.

Isobel Sadler looked over her shoulder to the wall. ‘Where’s the painting?’

‘Downstairs. I’m having it photographed properly, in full colour. Then we can put the real thing in our vault. If we have to travel around, as we will do if we get anywhere, it will be much easier to use photos than the picture itself.’

She took off her coat. Today she was wearing jeans and a sweater. Ready for work. She helped them both to coffee. ‘Any luck yesterday?’

Michael shook his head as he relit his cigar. ‘Our friend, the first figure, is holding, as you may recall, the clock in one hand with the eagle vase nearby. I looked up “clock”. Obviously it’s a symbol of time passing—but I can’t see how that helps. Apparently it’s also a symbol of temperance, that someone abstained from liquor or had a temperate nature. Again, I don’t see what use it is. He’s not Father Time, whose attributes are a scythe and an hour-glass. It could mean that the person holding the clock is a scientist—so I called the Royal Society. Unfortunately, they weren’t founded until 1662.’

He sat down and drank his coffee. ‘Not a good day at all, yesterday. I drew a blank on the picture, and lost a wager.’

She glanced at him sharply.

‘Who are we today?’ he asked, his mouth full of cigar. ‘Not Zelda or Rita. They wouldn’t be so disapproving. Victoria maybe, or Boadicea—you look ferocious enough.’

She smiled.

‘That’s better. It was a good wager—and harmless. Yesterday was the summer sale of Impressionist paintings in New York. We all had to guess how many pictures would sell for more than fifty million dollars. I said three but I was way out. One Van Gogh, three Renoirs, two Degas and a Monet. Amazing.’

‘What other bets—sorry, wagers—have you got on at the moment?’

‘Only two. The length of the longest traffic jam on the M25 this year. I have thirty-seven miles. And how many nations finally boycott the Olympic Games. I say twenty. As you know, seventeen already have.’

‘What are the odds on us reading the picture before my farm goes bust?’

Now he smiled. ‘Abloodypalling, and getting worse all the time we sit gassing about something else.’ He sat up. ‘Tell you what. I’ve been through all these books and drawn a blank. I was planning to have a dig in the National Fine Art Library. That’s part of the V and A—want to come? It might be a relief—I can’t smoke in there.’

Isobel Sadler was already on her feet. ‘The answer’s not here, as you say. Anything to get away from that filthy cloud. Let’s hope we don’t bump into Molyneux.’

They took a taxi to South Kensington. Michael was always rather overawed by the vast V & A building. To him it looked as though it had been designed by a mad Victorian architect who had adapted designs for either a railway station or an asylum. Bela Lugosi baroque, he called it. Walking through the sculpture gallery, they turned into a short corridor devoted to fakes and forgeries, past a beautiful golden screen, about fifteen feet high and showing the lives of the saints, then climbed some wide stone steps to the first floor, where the library was. They signed in. There was no sign of Molyneux.

Michael made for the subject index. There were eleven entries under ‘clock’ and he filled out a slip for each one. Then they sat at a desk waiting for the references to be brought to them. After some minutes an assistant carried over a pile of books and Michael divided them into two stacks. ‘You look through these,’ he said, pushing across one set. ‘I’ll take the others.’

For two hours they sat reading. Eventually, when Michael was beginning to miss a cigar, he said, ‘Any luck?’

‘I don’t think so,’ whispered Isobel Sadler. ‘The only halfway relevant thing I’ve found is that in many still-life paintings a clock has the same meaning as a candle—to indicate the passing of time, as you said. I’ve also found that several individuals in history used a candle as their symbol.’ Michael looked at her eagerly as she said this but Isobel Sadler shook her head. ‘Unfortunately, all of them—Bridget of Sweden, Sybil, Genevieve, Isabella d’Este—were women. We are looking for a man. What have you found?’

‘Zero. Zilch. Nix. Apparently the ancient Greeks confused their word for “time”, chronos, with their old god of agriculture, Cronus, who had a sickle for his attribute. That’s why Father Time carries a sickle. The Roman god of agriculture was Saturn—I suppose we might try him.’

Michael went back to the index to look up Saturn. This time there were fifteen references, and filling out the forms in itself took many minutes. When the books arrived they sat leafing through them for another hour, again with no luck. Michael sighed heavily. ‘This is hopeless.’ Just then a buzzer sounded—the library was closing. ‘A complete waste,’ he grumbled as they handed back the books at the main counter. ‘And we are another day behind Molyneux.’

As they descended the stairs by the tall screen, Michael turned to Isobel Sadler and said, ‘The men’s loo is just along here; do you mind waiting?’

She shook her head and while he was gone drifted into the long gallery, browsing through its sculptures, medieval tapestries and gilt objects. She looked out at the new Italian garden. Wet cypresses buckled in the wind like the tongues of enormous vipers.

When Michael returned, he could not at first find her. As he stepped further into the long gallery, however, he recognised her jeans and sweater. She was half hidden behind a statue.

‘Sorry to keep you,’ he said. ‘Getting a taxi in this weather will be as hard as gambling with Gabriel.’

Isobel Sadler didn’t move. It wasn’t that she was angry with him, though. She reached out with her left hand and grabbed Michael’s sleeve. ‘Look!’ she hissed. ‘Look at those.’

Perplexed, but shaken by her tone, Michael examined the statue she was standing near. It showed a male figure wearing a helmet with wings growing out of it. The figure also had wings on its heels. ‘I don’t see–’

‘Forget the helmet and the damned clock! Look at his tunic!’

Michael followed her gaze to the bronze tunic which the figure had slung about its shoulders. ‘You think there’s a similarity? I don’t see it.’

‘The motifs, the squiggly things … they’re the same as on the picture. Or as near as makes no difference.’

Now Michael saw what she was getting at. Scattered across the statue’s tunic was a galaxy of feathers, or petals, curly somethings that certainly did recall the motifs in Isobel Sadler’s painting. Quickly he searched the base of the statue for a title or an artist’s name. There was none and he cursed the museum’s administration for not being more helpful to visitors. Any other gallery, in Europe or America, would have had an identifying card prominently displayed.

‘Follow me,’ he cried. ‘The shop! The catalogue will be there.’ They hurried along the gallery, turned left into the medieval treasury, rushed by the stained glass and the bone carvings and came out into the entrance hall. The shop led off the hall.

‘Quick!’ said Isobel Sadler, pointing. ‘They’re closing.’

A woman was getting ready to put a cover over the cash register.

‘Look at all those books,’ Isobel Sadler whispered. ‘We’ll never find the right one in time.’

Michael thought fast, then ran to the woman by the cash register. ‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ he said in what he hoped would pass as an American accent. ‘I’m flying back to Boston first thing in the morning. I’d sure like to take a museum catalogue with me—you know, the big one. Could you help me please, before you close?’

The woman gave him a furious look and for a moment he thought she was going to refuse. But no, she stopped what she was doing, moved out from behind her counter and went to the shelves. She returned with a box containing three big red books. All she said was, ‘Thirty-five pounds, please.’

Michael winced, but the catalogue might save them a day. He reached for his wallet and laid seven five-pound notes on the counter.

‘Keep the receipt,’ said Isobel Sadler, as they walked back across the hall to the exit. ‘I’ll pay back half your expenses—once I have something to pay them with.’ She grinned. It was the first really relaxed grin he had seen her make.

The rain was slackening at last but it still took them nearly half an hour to find a taxi. When they did so, Michael was livid to find a sign behind the driver that insolently thanked him for not smoking. Isobel Sadler grinned again.

On the ride back to Mason’s Yard, Michael ripped the cellophane off the catalogue and flipped through it, searching for the statue. They saw everything except that—Indian miniatures, jewellery, costumes, old photographs. ‘Where is it?’ Michael gasped. He turned more pages, past German guns, Italian porcelain, Japanese lacquer.

‘There!’ shouted Isobel Sadler suddenly. ‘Turn back!’

He riffled back. She was right. There was a small, single-column photograph of the statue, in black and white. Underneath was written:

Mercury. North Italian. Anon. 15th century (?). Mercury was a very popular god and often appears in art. As the son of Jupiter he was a god in his own right—the god of commerce and the protector of shepherds. He was also a messenger, the patron of travellers and inventor of the lyre. In allegory he personified eloquence and reason, the qualities of a teacher.

‘A teacher,’ said Isobel Sadler. ‘Not a scientist but a teacher.’

‘Hold on,’ said Michael. ‘This is only six lines. There must be more about him in the books back at the office. This doesn’t even explain the design on his tunic.’

The taxi dropped them off by the archway leading into Mason’s Yard. Before going to the office Michael stepped into the Chequers, the pub just next to the arch, and emerged with a couple of Havanas. Seeing the look on Isobel Sadler’s face, he said, ‘Love me, love my cigars. Look, I’ve been a good boy all afternoon. I’ll be losing the habit if I’m not careful.’ He grinned and led the way into the Yard.

The gallery was closed—Gregory and Patrick had gone for the day. Michael opened the main door, deactivated the alarm and led Isobel Sadler upstairs. He found some glasses and a jug in a tiny kitchen at the very top of the building, and took them back down to the office. Isobel Sadler was already going through the reference book at the top of the pile on the desk which Michael had given her to use. He poured the Scotch and topped the glasses up with water. This time Isobel Sadler accepted. ‘It’s after six,’ she explained, smiling.

After a few minutes of reading solidly, she swallowed some whisky and said, ‘This is it, I think. What we’ve been looking at are not feathers or leaves or petals but upside-down flames. I’ll read it to you: “Upside-down flames may have one or more of three meanings. In his illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Botticelli dots the spheres of heaven with upside-down flames where they are intended to represent individual souls burning like stars in the crystal sphere of the firmament. Second, in the painting entitled The Virgin of the Book, in the Museo Poldi-Pezzoli in Milan, the same flames in a badger-like formation appear on the shoulder of the Virgin’s cloak. Here they radiate downwards from a star and must surely represent divine inspiration. It was, after all, tongues of fire which came down from heaven on the day of the Pentecost and sat upon each of the Apostles filling them with the Holy Ghost so that they began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

‘“Another use of the emblem in antiquity was as a characteristic of Mercury in his guise as guardian of secret knowledge. The inverted torch was in fact an early symbol of death, one of Mercury’s roles being to conduct souls to the underworld of Hades. But the badge, the upside-down flame, eventually came to symbolise all of Mercury’s functions, not just this gloomy one.”’

Isobel Sadler rested the book on the desk in front of her. She took another gulp of whisky. ‘Am I being defeatist, or does all that tell us what we already know, only more so?’

Michael sat back in his chair so that he wouldn’t blow smoke into her face. She had a point. He was tapping ash into the lacquered tray on his desk when he suddenly noticed a folder that hadn’t been there when they had left. He picked it up and opened it. Inside were the colour prints of the painting. He slid one across to Isobel Sadler and swallowed his whisky. Raw sand itched his veins. He gazed at the photograph as if for inspiration.

At length he said, ‘We’re obviously not reasoning like medievalists. Let’s try thinking out loud. We’ve been directed to this figure who, we find out, is three things: a guardian of secret knowledge, a teacher and a messenger, a conductor of souls into strange lands. As you say, we knew a lot of that already … therefore this is a kind of underlining. Why would it need underlining?’

Isobel Sadler was only half listening, still scanning the figures in the photograph in front of her. ‘What I find odd,’ she said, ‘is this man’s hairstyle. Why is it shaved so high … It doesn’t—well, it doesn’t look very Greek or Roman, does it? It’s hardly godlike; quite the opposite, in fact–’

‘That’s it! That’s it!’ Michael slapped the palm of his hand on the open book in front of him. ‘Well done! Why didn’t I think of it?’

He got up and went round to Isobel Sadler’s desk and stood behind her, so they could look at the photograph together. He held the bottle of whisky in one hand.

‘Look at the faces on the other figures … All of them are idealised, some are hidden, none of them is carefully painted or properly drawn. The detail is coarse or simply not there. Yet this face, this first face as we can now call it, is painted very carefully. Not just the hair, which, as you say, is very real-looking, but the eyes, the nose, the lips, the jawline. Strong dark eyebrows, a thick neck, a cleft in the chin. Remember the first day you came to the gallery? I remarked how well this face was painted and how weak the rest was? Damn—I should have put two and two together right away. There was a reason for it! The reason this head is much better than any of the others is because, unlike the others, this man actually existed. He must have been famous in his day. People would have recognised him, either because they knew him or because he had been painted in other pictures, pictures where he is identified. That’s it! You see! The identity of this man takes us to a place, where he lived, or taught, or preached, or died. That is where we start. He’s both a guardian of the secret and the messenger—the man who can conduct us to it.’

‘But how on earth can we find out who he is? He’s been dead for four hundred and fifty years. And where are we going to look to find a likeness for him? There must be thousands and thousands of pictures still in existence from that time. And what about the clock? We still haven’t explained that.’

‘The clock’s not a problem,’ shouted Michael, still excited and puffing huge folds of blue smoke into the room. Isobel Sadler pushed his hand with the cigar away from her. ‘It has nothing to do with Mercury, or this man, whoever he is. Dammit, again it’s obvious.’ He leaned forward, over Isobel Sadler’s shoulder, again catching a brief smell of the Willowherb on her hair. With the neck of the upturned whisky bottle he traced the nine figures in the picture. ‘Look at the composition as a whole … The people are arranged, very roughly, in a circle, a flat ring. Now think ahead. Say we do eventually find out who this character is, the one with the shaved head and the cleft in his chin. What then? Which way do we go, where is the next clue? Along the top or along the bottom? I’ll put it another way: do we go clockwise or anticlockwise? See? That’s what the clock means.’

Isobel Sadler was impressed. She twisted in her seat to look up at him. ‘Clever. I can see that nothing in this picture is going to be straightforward.’ She looked at her own watch.

‘Where did you decide to stay?’

‘With a friend, near Harrod’s. I shouldn’t be too late on my first night. It wouldn’t be polite.’

‘Tell you what, then. Since I’ve won my wager, let me claim my reward straight away. Let’s have a quick dinner together tonight. We can carry on trying to work this out over a bottle of something or other—and then I’ll drop you off. I live that way.’

‘Not the prettiest invitation I’ve ever had. But we might as well get it over with, I suppose. Is there somewhere I can wash my hands, please, and comb my hair?’

Michael showed her to a small bathroom at the top of the building, on the same floor as the kitchen. He put out the lights in his office and waited for her down in the main gallery. There was a fresh picture where the Gainsborough had been; the Australian collector who liked breakfast so much had taken it on approval. That meant he could have it at home on his walls for up to three months before deciding whether he wanted it. It was a nerve-racking way of doing business. The picture was worth about six months in overheads, which was fine if a sale went through. During that time, however, no one else was able to see the picture and fall in love with it. But Whiting & Wood Fine Art had no choice: everyone else operated that way.

When Isobel Sadler reappeared they both went out into the Yard, after Michael had set the gallery alarm. The rain had eased but the roads were still very wet. They threaded their way through the narrow streets of St James’s. ‘I love this part of London,’ said Michael, as they walked. He pointed to one gallery selling old master drawings, another selling coins, a third with a small watercolour in the window and yet another with an eighteenth-century French chest of drawers in red lacquer and gold on show. ‘There are more beautiful objects in these few streets than almost anywhere else in the world. Eggshell lacquer, ormolu, mahogany veneers, lapis lazuli, parcel-gilt, watered silk. Even the words are promiscuous. It’s like a museum and all for sale.’

He took her to Keating’s, a restaurant in a small mews behind the Ritz Hotel. It was an art-world favourite and Michael was known there; he didn’t have to book in advance.

‘Drink?’ he asked as they settled into their seats. ‘It’s very arty here—so they do all those fancy Venetian cocktails, you know, “Bellini”, “Tiziano”, “Tiepolo” and so on.’

She pushed her hair away from her eye. ‘I’ll have a Bellini.’

He ordered two.

She looked around her and he saw her eyebrows lift in wonder.

‘This place is called Keating’s in honour of that old rogue and forger, Tom Keating. Every picture on the walls here is a fake. Some are Tom’s but by no means all. It has become the practice in the art world that when a dealer finds himself landed with a forgery, or spots one and picks it up cheaply, it is given to this restaurant. Look,’ he added, and pointed, ‘that’s a “Raphael” over there, with a “Titian” next to it and a “Picasso” on the other side.’

Isobel Sadler’s gaze raked the room. There were a few pictures so famous that even she recognised them, ‘Have you donated anything,’ she said at length, ‘or do Whiting & Wood never get caught out?

Michael turned and pointed. ‘That one is ours. It’s a “Turner”.’ He shifted in his seat so as to face her again. ‘The grand old man is always supposed to have produced a number of erotic drawings and paintings—but Ruskin, the art critic, who was a great Turner fan, destroyed them after Turner’s death. They contradicted what he—Ruskin—thought a great artist should produce.

A waiter brought the Bellinis and two menus.

‘Some bright spark had the idea of “rediscovering” a few of the erotic Turners and brought them in to us. The style was quite good. The provenance was weak—but then you’d expect that. Sadly, the paper which the drawings were made on wasn’t itself produced until the 1860s. Turner, of course, died in 1851. It was a nice try. The drawings would have been very popular if the hoax had come off.’ He smiled. ‘Let’s order.’

After they had chosen, he said, ‘No more art chat for a bit. If we give our brains a rest we’re more likely to come up with a solution. Tell me about the farm. By the sound of it, you love it but find it hard—yes?’

She accepted a bread roll from a waiter. ‘Yes and no. I love the land—yes. The countryside, the fields, the Cotswolds. And I love horses—I was a very horsey schoolgirl.’ She brushed her hair away from her face. ‘But I don’t think I’m a natural farmer, not like my father was. He was a widower most of his life. My mother died having me so I never knew her. After he retired from the foreign service, he threw himself into farming, which I think he loved even more than diplomacy. If he had to get up in the middle of the night, even in the middle of a snowstorm, because a sheep was lambing, he loved it … it was all part of the adventure for him.’ She swallowed her drink. ‘That meant he was quite happy to get by, financially I mean. Farming was a way of life for Pa, not a means by which he could become a millionaire.’

‘You don’t see it like that?’

‘No. I suppose I’ve kept on the farm out of loyalty. And because Tom and his family depend on us.’

‘What would you rather be doing?’

The wine arrived before she could answer. Michael tasted it, a Volnay, and the waiter filled their glasses.

‘Don’t get me wrong; I don’t want to be a millionaire either. Not especially. But if I were to sell the farm tomorrow I would probably spend the money on a boat.’

‘What sort of boat?’

‘A big one.’ She laughed. ‘Well, a fairly big one. Big enough to live on.’ She drank some of her wine. ‘I’d like to live in the sun—Florida or California, maybe. Or Australia. Where people could charter my boat. Where not many people smoke.’

Michael pushed down the Havana in his top pocket, so that it no longer showed. ‘But you haven’t done it, so far?’

‘I’m stubborn. When I sell the farm—when, not if—I want it to be from a position of strength, as a going concern producing healthy profits, not because I have to. If I couldn’t do that I’d feel like a failure for the rest of my life and I wouldn’t be able to enjoy any boat I bought.’ She leaned back in her chair. ‘I’m talking too much. All this is such a change for me. A whole day away from the farm. I must be a bit disorientated and you are a stranger, Mr Whiting, after all … I’m being more honest than I’m used to being.’

Oddly, Michael was hurt by this remark. ‘I had hoped that we were about to get on to first-name terms,’ he said softly.

Just then the food arrived and she waited for it to be served before replying. After the waiter had gone, she said, ‘I’m not that easy with men, Mr Whiting—Michael—as perhaps you’ve noticed. I’ve not had very happy experiences. I’m sorry but I can’t help it.’

Michael could not pursue this, not for now. He smiled as warmly as he could. ‘My own experiences with women, in the last few months anyway, have been not so much unhappy as non-existent. If I’m not easy, it’s because I’m rusty.’

She let this go. ‘Tell me about Michael Whiting, and Whiting & Wood Fine Art. How did you become an art dealer?’

Since Michael had promised not to smoke until the end of dinner, he was nervously playing with his matches. ‘By accident, really. I should have been a musician. I went to a school which worshipped music in general and the local composer, Elgar, in particular. I was one of those people who was naturally good at music—I played the cello—and with that went an ability in maths, as it often does. I loved numbers. I loved them for their own sake and I knew—and still know—how many pieces of matter there are in the universe, how many grains of sand there are in a mile-long beach, how many drops of water pour over Niagara Falls every minute. The love of numbers, of course, led to an interest in probability—odds—and that led to an interest in gambling.’

‘Weren’t you a bit young?’

‘It was more an academic interest than a practical one. I became interested in gamblers and unusual wagers, as I told you.’ Michael tugged the hairs on his eyebrow. ‘There was a man called George Osbaldeston in the eighteenth century who was known as “The Squire”. He found it was boring to be an MP and much preferred his “matches”, as he called his wagers. There were women like Lady Archer and Lady Buckinghamshire, who played cards better than almost anyone, but still ruined themselves.

‘I began collecting prints of all these people and their doings—artists like Gillray, Hogarth, and so on. I began visiting antique shops and local auctions. I found loaded dice made in the seventeenth century and an eighteenth-century roulette table with a special mechanism underneath, so that the croupier could control the turning of the wheel. When I had saved up a bit more, I started collecting proper portraits—oil paintings—of the people, and etchings of the great gambling clubs that no longer exist—the Cocoa Tree, Almack’s, Goostree’s and Arthur’s. Without realising, I had quite a collection.

‘Then, when I was twenty-one, I went skiing. Nowadays my sister is a great skier—goes all over the world—but then it was my first time and I suppose I was clumsy. I fell. Worse, I fell in front of someone else whose ski sliced into my wrist—

Isobel winced.

‘The bones were all broken but on top of that the tendons were very badly cut. It took months to heal and by that time the place I had won at the Royal College of Music had, quite rightly, been given to someone else. I never played the cello again.

‘The only other thing I knew was the world of seventeenth—and eighteenth-century British sporting pictures. Through Elgar, I had become interested in Englishness.

‘So, with my left arm still not functioning properly, I applied to Sotheby’s. In those days you used to start on the front counter, receiving pictures brought in to be valued. In my very first week someone arrived with a large picture—I’ll never forget it—showing a man on horseback. They thought it might be worth a few hundred pounds, possibly five thousand if they were very lucky. Imagine how flabbergasted they were to find that it was a long-lost Guido Reni; and how astounded when it sold at auction, three months later, for one point eight million pounds. I was just as astounded, and, of course, that packed a million volts into my system. I’ve been wired ever since. My sister calls it Anopheles arte, the Bond Street Bug.’

‘Have you worked anywhere else than London?’

‘Oh yes. My break came when I was posted to Glasgow. It was in Glasgow that I acquired my taste for Scotch. Littlemill is nearby, so is Interleven and Auchentoshen.’

‘What bugs did you catch in Scotland?’

Michael grinned. ‘To cut the story short, in my first nine months in Glasgow I managed to discover not one but two lost masterpieces, a Canaletto and a Reynolds. That got me promoted to New York. I had three wonderful years in Manhattan but there simply aren’t any paintings in America waiting to be discovered. On one of my trips back to London for a board meeting I sat next to Greg Wood on the plane. He was a banker who had acted for Sotheby’s once or twice and had also got the bug. We got to know each other and, later on, when I said I was thinking of moving back to London, he asked whether, if he could raise the money, I would contemplate setting up shop with him. And that’s what happened. In the trade I’m told we are known as “Fish and Chip”—Whiting and Wood—but they can call us what they like. He’s brilliant with money and I’ve been lucky with pictures.’

‘Ed Ryan says you’ve made some major discoveries. Tell me.’

Michael shrugged and chewed some fish. ‘I suppose my biggest coup was a picture I spotted at a house sale in Hampshire. The family were originally French and had escaped here during the French Revolution. The picture was an equestrian portrait and was estimated at between fifteen hundred and two and a half thousand pounds. The bidding went up to six thousand five hundred—someone else probably had an idea it was more than it seemed. Anyway, I got it. Later, I was able to prove it was a Van Dyck painted here in Britain but taken to France in the eighteenth century. The end of the story is that I sold the picture to the Gilston Museum in Texas.’

‘For how much?’

‘I’m not sure I should tell you.’

‘Ed Ryan says two million.’

‘Halve it and you’d be closer. Greg’s job’s been easier since then.’

The food, and the wine, were finished.

‘Coffee?’ Michael asked.

She shook her head. ‘As I said, I shouldn’t be too late tonight. And you’re about to set fire to that horrible object. I’ve kept my part of the wager—so let’s go.’

While they waited for the bill to be brought Michael, undaunted, fished his Havana from his top pocket and lit up. Isobel covered her nose with a napkin. ‘You don’t know what you are missing,’ said Michael, grinning.

When the bill came, Michael handed his credit card to the waiter and they got up and went out, waiting by the front desk for the credit card to be cleared.

‘What’s that?’ asked Isobel as they waited.

He followed her gaze. ‘It’s a portrait of the owner—didn’t you recognise him? It’s not the best painting in the room, I agree—’

‘I didn’t ask who it was,’ she cut in tartly. ‘I asked what. That thing around his neck—what is it?’

‘I think it’s called a tastevin. It’s a silver dish or cup which the wine masters in France use. They hang them round their necks on ribbons, or chains, when they are elected to the wine masters’ society. It’s a sort of honour. Have you lost something?’

Isobel was bent almost double, dipping into her bag. She took out the photograph of the picture. ‘Look.’ She pointed to the figure. ‘He’s got something hanging round his neck too.’

‘You think Mercury was a master of wine, do you?’ Even as he said this Michael wanted to bite back the words.

‘No, don’t be stupid! He was a member of some order or something. There’s a coin or a medallion on the end of the chain—can you make out what’s on it?’

It was fashionably dark in the restaurant, so Michael took back his card, signed the form, and they moved out to the lobby where there was more light.

‘It’s not very clear, is it?’ said Isobel. ‘I suppose a four-hundred-and-fifty-year-old picture picks up its share of grime. It looks like a man with a spear or a long rod …’

‘The other thing, on the left, looks to me more like an animal. Cleaning the picture might help. Hold on! I’ve got it … it’s a dragon. Look, little puffs of steam or smoke coming from its nostrils–’

‘St George and the dragon!’ said Isobel.

‘He was a member of the Garter,’ breathed Michael. ‘Fanbloodytastic. Phebloodynomenal. At last, at last, at last! Dazzling, Inspector Sadler, and thank God for Keating’s.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Just after ten. If I drop you off now, what do you say if I pick you up in my car around ten in the morning?’

‘To do what?’

‘To get down to Windsor by the time the St George’s Chapel opens, that’s what. That’s where all the Garter ceremonies are held and that’s where the complete list of Garter members will be.’

‘But how will we know who our man is?’

‘We won’t, not exactly. But don’t forget, there are only ever twenty-four members of the Garter at any one time. To judge from the painting, our Mercury was about fifty in 1537. That should narrow the field down considerably.’

‘But that’s not enough. We need to narrow it down to just one.’

Michael steered Isobel out into the street. ‘You made the breakthrough tonight, Isobel. It took a gold-card brain to notice the pendant. But I have my uses too.’ He tapped his temple. ‘It’s not just cigar smoke up here, you know. You’re forgetting that there is in Britain such a thing as the National Portrait Gallery—with eight thousand pictures of famous Britons. Even if we get six possible names from Windsor, we can then go on to the NPG and see, from the portraits they have there, who our man is.’

They walked north and found a taxi waiting outside the Ritz. As Michael held the door for her, she grinned and pointed. “Thank you for not smoking,” she read out loud. Furious, Michael knocked the end off his Havana and followed her into the cab.

Isobel was staying in a small house in Montpelier Mews, near Brompton Oratory. Michael waited for her to be let in before he told the taxi to move off. He couldn’t quite see who her host was, if it was male or female. As the taxi twisted back to the Brompton Road, then down Sloane Avenue towards Justice Walk, where he lived, he noticed against his will the smell of Isobel’s shampoo, which lingered on in the back of the taxi. He was consumed with a sudden, and utterly useless, lust.