‘Not exactly.’
‘Can’t wait,’ said the duke. ‘Come on, lift the blanket.’
Hargreaves did so. The painting was indeed as the letter apparently from the Colbert had described it. Beautifully executed and precisely in the style of the early Renaissance of Florence and Siena.
The background was a medieval landscape of gentle hills with, in the distance, an ancient bell tower. In the foreground was the single living figure. It was a donkey, or Biblical ass, staring forlornly at the viewer.
Its organ hung limply towards the ground as if recently and thoroughly pulled.
In the middle ground was indeed a shallow valley with a track down the centre. On the track, emerging from the valley, was a small but perfectly identifiable Mercedes-Benz.
Hargreaves contemplated a point in space. Slade thought he might succumb at once to a fatal heart attack, then hoped he would, then feared that he might not.
Inside the Duke of Gateshead five centuries of breeding grappled for control. Finally the breeding won and he stalked from the room without a word.
An hour later the Hon. Peregrine Slade left the building on a more permanent basis.
EPILOGUE
The remainder of September was an eventful period.
In response to daily phone calls, the Sudbury newsagent had confirmed a second embossed letter awaited Mr McFee. Disguised as the ginger-whiskered Scot, Trumpy had gone up by train to collect it. The envelope contained a cheque from the House of Darcy for £265,000.
Using some beautifully crafted e-documents from Suzie, he opened an account with Barclays Bank in St Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands, one of Britain’s last no-tax havens. When the cheque was cleared and credited he went over for the day by air and opened another account in the name of Trumpington Gore with the Royal Bank of Canada, just down the street. Then he went to Barclays and transferred the lot from Mr Hamish McFee to Mr Gore down the road. The deputy manager at Barclays was surprised at the speed of the opening and closing of the Scotsman’s account, but made no demur.
From the Canadians, who did not give a damn about British mainland tax laws, Trumpy extracted two banker cheques.
One, for £13,250, went to Colley Burnside, who could contemplate a twilight to his life floating contentedly on a sea of vintage claret.
Trumpy withdrew £1,750 in cash for himself as ‘getting-by money’. The second cheque was for Benny Evans and Suzie Day jointly, in the sum of £150,000. With the balance of £100,000 the helpful Canadians were happy to create a long-term high-yield annuity fund capable of paying Trumpington Gore about £1,000 a month for the rest of his days.
Benny and Suzie married and returned to Benny’s native Lancashire, where he opened a small art gallery and she became a freelance computer programmer. Within a year she had grown out the peroxide, removed the facial metal and had twin boys.
Trumpy got home from the Channel Islands to find a letter from Eon Productions. It told him that Pierce Brosnan, with whom he had had a tiny role in Goldeneye, wished that he have a much larger part in the next Bond movie.
Someone tipped off Charlie Dawson, who, with the amused help of Professor Carpenter, secured the art-scandal scoop of the decade.
The police continue to search for Hamish McFee and Mr Yamamoto, but at Scotland Yard hopes are not high.
Marina sold her memoirs to the News of the World. Lady Eleanor Slade promptly had a lengthy conference with Fiona Shackleton, doyenne of London’s divorce lawyers. A settlement was agreed in which the Hon. Peregrine was allowed to keep his cuff-links.
He left London and was last heard of running a louche bar in Antigua. The Duke of Gateshead still has to buy his own drinks at White’s.