Acacia Lane

9

Acacia Lane

    “That’s it,” said Peter.

    We stood at the head of tiny Acacia Lane, looking at the hanging sign a little way along it to our right. “Art on Acacia” was what it said, all right. The sign itself was charming, a stylised bunch of mimosa blooms in a yellow that was just off lemon, on a white background. Extremely professional-looking.

    After a moment Marie-Louise voiced my thought. “Per’aps he paints the sign, also.”

    “Only if he’s still alive, though I must say that’s seeming more and more likely,” her son returned on a dry note.

    “Yes,” Lalla agreed. “I—I don’t think you’d better go in, Cassie—nor you, Alex. What if that horrible man’s there and he recognises you? He might go for you with a knife again."

    “Er—I think he was shocked out of his wits when he realised that I knew that the so-called Broderick Anson from England was also Tony Brownloe from Adelaide,” I admitted.

    “Sans doute, but his reaction is to attack you,” said Marie-Louise swiftly. “You must go further along this street, my dears, where there is no chance he sees you. That other little gallery that we passed looked nice: have a look in there, hein? Help us to find some nice pictures for a house that is nearly a hundred years old and that is decorated in a simple but traditional style, okay?”

    “Um, the sitting-room’s got dark green leather sofas and dark wood panelling,” added Lalla, looking at us uncertainly. “And the breakfast room’s white and yellow—actually, it’s got a lovely pattern of yellow flowers, very like that sign, on its curtains and the little sofa and the dining chairs—they’ve all got white frames and natural cane backs. We use it more as an extra sitting-room during the day, really.”

    “That sounds lovely,” replied Cassie, smiling at her.

    “Yes,” she agreed in a relieved voice. “We love it. The passage is very dark because of all the panelling, but Peter thinks if we can find a couple of nice pictures they could have their own little lights.”

    “Yes, of course,” I agreed. “Fine; we’ll look, shall we, Cassie?”

    She agreed thankfully, and I took her arm—manfully ignoring the blush—and led her off.

    The Sales joined us about twenty minutes later, as we were looking dubiously at a series of coloured lithographs of native Australian flora, or such was the claim.

    “They date from about 1895,” the gallery assistant was saying as they came in. “You don’t often see the original lithographs on the market. By Edward Minchen.”

    Peter eyed them drily. “Cannibalised from The Flowering Plants and Ferns of New South Wales.”

    “Not by us sir, I do assure you! We acquired them from a deceased estate.”—I avoided Peter’s eye: standard art and antiques dealers’ Lie Number One.—“They’d been very well cared for: we were lucky to get them. We had them reframed, we have a very reliable framer.”

    “They’re very pretty,” Cassie allowed. “What do you think, Lalla? Look, these two yellow ones might suit your breakfast room.”

    “They’re lovely! I think they’d be just right in there! What do you think, Peter?”

    “Mm… May l look more closely?”

    “Of course, sir.”

    Before he could choose one Peter had picked one out for himself. He took it over to the front window and looked at with the benefit of the natural light.

    “I’d like to see it out of the frame before I make up my mind,” he said, returning it.

    “Uh—I don’t think… Well, I’ll ask the manager,” the assistant replied limply. He disappeared into the back regions.

    “Peter, isn’t that going a bit far?” ventured Lalla.

    “In the light of recent experience, darling? I wouldn’t say so,” he returned with his customary mildness.

    “I’d say they look all right—would they be chromolithographs at that period? But I don’t really know enough about the technique to judge,” I admitted.

    The assistant returned with the manager, a plump fellow of about fifty, rather too smartly dressed in a light-coloured checked tweed jacket complete with a yellow waistcoat and a yellow-spotted navy bowtie with a white-collared blue shirt.

    He sized up the company in an instant. I was in the grey suit I’d worn on the plane, with a Burberry over my arm, in view of the Melbourne weather, Peter was crashingly conservative in navy-blue English tailoring, Lalla was stunning in a loose black coat open over a black and white jersey-knit dress that shrieked “Rue de la paix” and which she’d earlier confided had been chosen for her by Marie-Louise, the little Frenchwoman herself was in a soft blue-grey tweed suit, the jacket over a simple piece of silk which toned exactly, the lapel sporting one spray of diamonds and sapphires, and Cassie was delicious in Mrs Crozier’s cream gabardine trenchcoat, a thin-knit apricot sweater and dark brown slacks from the same source, plus a pair of beautiful brown shoes ditto, and a tan handbag which Lalla had insisted on lending her this morning. Hermès.

    That would be no problem, sir—take it out of the frame, Francis!—and we were here for the Cup, were we? Of course!

    I think everyone was relieved when the lithograph got the nod. However, the general atmosphere deteriorated somewhat when, as Francis retreated to the back room cradling it tenderly in order to replace the backing, Lalla squeaked: “You know what those flowers are, don’t you? Acacias!” and collapsed in giggles. Promptly Cassie joined her.

    The unfortunate manager tried to smile, and said to Peter: “Of course, sir, it is technically an acacia, Acacia binervata, though its common name is two-veined hickory.”

    Cassie fumbled for a handkerchief,

    “Have mine,” I said kindly.

    “Thanks!” she gasped, blowing her nose and mopping her eyes. “Oh, dear! –I can’t say I’ve ever heard the name, I wouldn’t call it common,” she added dubiously.

    “I believe the plant’s endemic in eastern Australia,” said the manager weakly.

    “Oh, well, perhaps we don’t get it in SA!” she replied cheerfully. “The other yellow one’s lovely, too. What is it?”

    The other yellow one was a “hop goodenia”. Certain persons had to swallow hard at this point.

    Peter ended up agreeing to buy both of the yellow ones the girls liked and a really lovely study of a red flower, rather fortunately all present except me being able to agree that of course it was a waratah, the state flower of New South Wales. Lalla explained with a beaming smile that it would be just right for their sitting-room, with its dark panelled wainscoting, dark green leather sofas and Peter’s lovely Persian rugs. Brightening immensely at this last item, so much so that it gave rise to the speculation was he not only the manager but the owner, the fellow agreed that it would suit the room perfectly.

    The question of price, however, had yet to be resolved. Peter won that round, too, though by this time I don’t think any of us imagined he wouldn’t. Five hundred Australian dollars each, when he’d recently seen the whole set of volumes for sale for a thousand?

    Marie-Louise at this point ejaculated something very French.

    “Comme tu dis, Maman,” he agreed, his eyes twinkling. “There are, I think, just under thirty colour illustrations in the complete set.”

    “Twenty-eight, sir, and although we haven’t managed to source the entire set, you never know when others may become available!”

    “Mm. If I picked up the whole set of volumes that’d mean I’d paid just under thirty-six dollars per illustration—discounting the text, which I gather has considerable significance in Australian botanical circles. I realise you have overheads, and your wooden frames are really tasteful—perhaps you could let me know the name of your framer?—but even so, I’m afraid not. Let’s say a hundred.”

    That didn’t go down too well, but they eventually settled on a hundred and fifty Australian each.

    We then adjourned to a nice little restaurant that Marie-Louise had spotted earlier.

    It was quite nice, to my relief. Table service, which I’d now realised was unusual here in smaller eating establishments. The food displayed Greek, Italian and Asian influences, but we managed to avoid too much garlic, chilli, or soy sauce, and settled for the char-grilled lamb cutlets with a potato and fetta purée that called itself skordalia and could have done with rather more olive oil, in my opinion, plus a salad that included black Spanish olives, baby spinach, small red beet leaves, some torn cos leaves, cherry tomatoes, a dark green herb that Lalla thought was Vietnamese mint, she’d had it before, and bean sprouts. With the chef’s special dressing, a compound of olive oil, pomegranate syrup and lemon juice. Not too unpalatable, and at least they’d spared us the endemic balsamic vinegar.

    Marie-Louise thought that after all the alcohol we’d had yesterday we should drink spring water, so we drank spring water. And we would not refer to that ’orrid man until we had had our nice lunch, d’ac?

    When we are at the coffee stage, with the girls giving in and having baklava with it, Peter was allowed to give his report.

    “Shall I start at the beginning?”

    “Don’t tease, Peter,” said his wife placidly.

    Eyes twinkling, he stopped teasing. “Art on Acacia’s front window was adorned by a very professional sign saying ‘Welcome to Melbourne Cup Week’, plus three pleasant equestrian paintings. All modern works. The style of one seemed familiar, but I’m a bit out of touch these days. I asked the assistant: two were by Australians, both women who are coming artists in the field, the other, the one that seemed familiar, by Charles Church, a British painter. Do you know his work, Alex?”

    “Very well, in fact he’s done one of my winners for me. Um… I doubt if that’d be a fake, Peter: it’s quite on the cards he could be out here for the Cup.”

    “I see. Well, the other two were certainly genuine, the fellow reeled off potted biographies of both artists. I found their stuff a bit merry and bright, personally, but I should say it’d sell well.”

    “And inside?”

    “There are two rooms. Quite a selection of modern Australian works in the front room, none to touch the two in the window, however. I asked if they had anything rather more traditional and we were directed to the back room. Which is where we found a Munnings, an Adrian Jones—”

    “What?” I said involuntarily.

    “Uh-huh. Plus two large Australian works. One was by an artist called Septimus Power. Don’t know him? –No, well, he was a war artist during the First World War, and also known for his horse paintings—not racehorses, largely heavy teams ploughing or hauling loads through the Australian bush. Did very well with them from about the Twenties up until his death in the Fifties, but they continued to sell well for some time after that. This was a pair dragging logs. The style reminded me forcibly of your descriptions of those fake Edwardian things: fairly loose, but definitely representational; but then, it wasn’t uncommon at the time.”

    “Ri-ight. Well, class it as iffy?” I suggested.

    “Definitely!” Lalla agreed eagerly. “Go on, Peter, tell him about the other big one.”

    “Yes. Attributed to Frank Mahony. A chap came out of the office and saw us and another couple looking at it and bustled over to us. From a deceased estate,”—he looked wry—“and sadly no provenance other than that the man who inherited it from a great-aunt had no idea when or how she’d acquired it. Given that it was about a metre wide I couldn’t imagine any great-aunt having it hanging over her mantelpiece; however. Mahony was evidently a prolific illustrator from about 1880; he died in 1819. He produced quite a few oils but never had a huge success. However, there’s an excellent thing by him in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, a wonderfully vivid study called Rounding up a Straggler: a stockman on his horse, whip raised, catching up with a bull that’s made a dash for freedom. The horse is a dark brown, the bull’s white with a dark head: it’s full of life and movement, beautifully executed. We looked at it in the gallery for a long time, didn’t we, Lalla?”

    “Yes; we loved it!” she agreed.

    “Mm. The other couple who were looking at the one in Art on Acacia said it reminded them of a very famous Australian work by Tom Roberts: A Break Away, which depicts a stockman trying to turn back a stampeding flock of sheep in clouds of dust.”

    “Ooh! That’s in the art gallery in Adelaide!” gasped Cassie. “Um, it’s very stirring, but the man on the horse is quite small in proportion to the dust and the dry landscape.”

    “I see. Just the same movement, then. Er—artistic movement, Cassie,” he said kindly, as she looked puzzled. “Australian Impressionism, according to the fellow from Art on Acacia.”

    “And what did this provenance-less work, possibly by Frank Mahony, depict?” I asked.

    Peter replied neutrally: “Two horses: one making a dash for freedom, the other being ridden by a stockman in pursuit of it.”

    “Help!” gasped Cassie.

    “Quite,” he agreed.

    “We thought it very good,” Marie-Louise admitted, “but after your story, Alex, we would not ’ave taken any bets.”

    “Very wise. –What about the supposed Munnings and Adrian Jones, Peter?” I asked.

    Peter and Lalla exchanged glances and he admitted: “I had a strong feeling that it might not be safe to show too much interest in them, given that when the chap appeared from his office we got a glimpse of another man sitting at a desk in there, and if he wasn’t your Andrews-Brownloe I’m a Dutchman in his clogs.”

    Cassie gasped and clapped her hand to her mouth.

    “I think you said his hair was naturally fair, Alex?” said Marie-Louise.

    “Yes, but it was a light chestnut in Byron Bay.”

    “Ah. He has gone back to blond, then.”

    “Yes,” Peter agreed. “Unmistakably the man in the photo you showed us.”

    “I must say, I nearly passed out: I suppose I hadn’t really expected to see him,” Lalla admitted. “So Peter told the man we were interested in classic Australian art.”

    “Mm,” he agreed. “He was asking thirty thousand for the possible Mahony. I’ve no idea how that would compare with today’s prices for the real thing, I’m afraid.”

    Lalla smiled. “The man who’d seen the famous one by Tom Roberts said that if it had been by him they could’ve asked thirty million, and the gallery man looked quite sick!”

    Cassie giggled delightedly.

    “I’d say he was undoubtedly in on it,” Peter noted.

    “Moi aussi,” his mother agreed. “We tell him we meet friends for lunch but we come back for another look. I think per’aps if Peter and Lalla concentrate on the Australian paintings and I sheck out the English ones, that is best.”

    “Yes: look interested but ignorant, Maman, and be very, very French,” he agreed.

    Frankly, the thought of that tiny woman, energetic and forceful though she was, getting anywhere near Andrews and his bloody knife gave me the horrors.

    Marie-Louise was looking at my expression. “I shall be very convincing, Alex. I have much experience with shopping in Paris; the vendeuses at the maisons, they are like the hungry crocodiles, you know!”

    Cassie swallowed. “Do you mean the big fashion houses?”

    “But of course, my dear. I shall be most undecided, which will make the man eager to persuade me, and draw attention to my handbag in the most natural way, which will reassure him that I can afford any silly price he asks, you know?”

    “Is it an expensive one?” she asked innocently.

    Calmly the little Frenchwoman replied: “Bien sûr. Also Lalla’s and the one she lends to you, my dear. Yours and mine, they are from Hermès; I think you may per’aps have heard of the line, they are Birkin bags.”

    “Um, no,” she said, blushing.

    “Well, they are a classic line of that house, exquisitely made, you understand, but still far too expensive. Peter buys this one for me, though I tell him not to.”

    “Yes, and you bought the other two for Lalla, you little fraud!” he said with a laugh. “We’ll be fine, Cassie: we’re so obviously foreigners here for the Cup that they won’t suspect a thing!”

    Cassie and I went back to the other gallery, after looking in the window of a bookstore and discovering that it was advertising only glossy best-sellers and glossier coffee-table books.

    “If I keep the house on, a couple of these might be nice,” I said, taking another look at the botanical prints. “I like this one: I think it’d go rather well with that painting of the two ponies, in the front hall.”

    “The one that’s a—” She broke off: the manager had come up to our sides and was listening avidly. “Um, yes, the shades would tone, wouldn’t they? It’s really pretty, Alex!”

    “We feel it’s one of the best from that set,” the man said smoothly.

    “Yes, well, same price as the ones my friend bought earlier?”

    He was thinking of three hundred, but I wasn’t, so he gave in, also divulging the name and contact details of the framer and offering me his own card. Paul Petrovich, Petrovich Gallery. Right, so he was the owner.

    And if I was interested in Australian art of that period, perhaps I might care to see— He guided us further back into the shop. They had quite a selection of lithographs, and some original linocuts by women artists, some not bad, but none particularly appealing. No? Did I care for the Australian Impressionists? Of course—deprecating laugh—they had nothing of the stature of Streeton or Tom Roberts, but some of the minor painters of that period could be quite charming, and although of course a Streeton could go for millions, there was not such a demand these days for his contemporaries.

    We looked numbly at an array of about a dozen works, all very similar, a lot of yellowish dust and dirt, a few hazy shapes of gums, some cattle, a cowboy on a brown horse, also rather hazy—er, no, a stockman—more gums, less hazy but not terribly convincing, too pastel to my eye, though I had seen some white trunks in South Australia, rather too much greyish sky…

    “Er, no, I wasn’t think of landscapes, really,” I said weakly, wondering just who might have painted this lot.

    They had some rather delightful domestic scenes: he thought they would appeal to the young lady.

    “That’s pretty,” Cassie managed weakly as he led us up to a good-sized depiction of two white-clad women in basket chairs, in a garden under a tree. It was very well composed, if a bit of a cliché, the lowest branches of the tree softly framing the scene at the top left. And unmistakeably in the same style as that of the two women in white at Trethewin.

    “We were lucky to get it,” Mr Petrovich said on a complacent note. “It came from the same deceased estate as your botanical print. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to identify the artist. We think it may be by a woman artist who was active in South Australia at about that period: just post-Federation. That would be Edwardian to you, sir, of course.”

    Cassie had got her second wind. “Yes,” she said: “before the First World War. The dresses were so pretty then, weren’t they? I always think when I see a picture from back then, what happened to all the people in it? Like, take these ladies: did their husbands or brothers or even their sons die in the War, at Gallipoli, maybe? It makes you sad, really.”

    Hah, hah: Mr Petrovich obviously didn’t know now whether to press on and give us the hard sell, or give it up before he alienated the client disastrously!

    “They may not have been affected at all,” I said smoothly. “They look like young women to me: their sons certainly wouldn’t have been old enough to fight. Just enjoy it for what it is: a happy summer scene. I think it’s very soothing.”

    She picked up my cue, thank goodness, and changed tack. “Yes, you’re right… It is very pretty. You know that picture in one of your spare rooms? It’d go really well with that, wouldn’t it?”

    “I suppose it would,” I agreed in the tones of one just discovering the fact. “I’ve been so busy since I bought the place that I haven’t really had time to check out all the bedrooms properly. Well, yes, one could make this style a feature of the bedrooms.”

    “Oh, yes! That’s a lovely idea!”

    “Mm. It’s a pity it has no real provenance,” I added.

    “Well, the old lady who owned it was ninety-two, sir. I think there’s no doubt of its period,” Petrovich offered.

    “Oh, yes? And when did she die?”

    “Uh—five years back, I believe.”

    Ninety-two in 2005, then. “She’d have been born in 1913,” I said.

    “Ooh!” squeaked Cassie. “One of these ladies could have been her mother!”

    Petrovich beamed upon her. “Extremely likely, yes. Handed down in the family. She never had children of her own, and so it came to the great-nephew in the end.”

    “Of course!” she agreed eagerly. “It’s quite romantic, really, isn’t it, Alex?”

    “Very. We-ell… What are you asking for it, Mr Petrovich?”

    He was asking fifteen thousand. Oh, yes? Precisely what poor Merv Walton had paid. Hmm. Australian dollars? If it was halfway genuine that wasn’t enough. If it had had provenance, he could have asked twice as much. But that sort of price for a very pleasant post-Impressionist study which would look delightful on the wall of any pretty room… I could see exactly how Diana Walton had fallen for theirs.

    “I suppose it’s a lot of money…” said Cassie dubiously.

    Petrovich’s eyes flickered over the Birkin bag slung casually over her forearm.

    “But it is lovely,” she went on. “—I tell you what, Alex, you could redo that awful tartan bedroom and put it in there!”

    “Ugh, yes: I’d forgotten about that room,” I returned. “I’m afraid I opened the door, winced, and shut it again.”

    “You would!” she agreed, shuddering. “So, what do you think?” –Very bright-eyed.

    “Er, well, I suppose if I was like Peter I’d ask to see the back of it,” I said on a feeble note. “But I’m afraid it wouldn’t mean a thing to me.”

    “We examined it thoroughly, of course, sir,” oiled Petrovich at his most unctuous.—If he was in on the fraud, and with every passing minute I became more and more convinced he was, I’d really enjoy taking him down.—“I can assure you that the canvas is of an appropriate age. No dealers’ labels, of course, as it was always in the one family.”

    “Well, that sounds all right,” I acknowledged, smiling.

    And the transaction was duly completed, Petrovich, having accepted my Diners’ Club card, then asking where I would like the two works to be sent.

    I hesitated. The longer they were out of my sight the more chance there’d be of Petrovich and Andrews getting together and working out that we weren’t the innocents we’d appeared to be, especially after our references to the pictures back at the house, though we’d refrained from mentioning the word “Trethewin”. But come to think of it, Cassie had admitted she was from South Australia when we were discussing the acacias. If they did suspect us the fakes would disappear and there’d be no evidence against the bastards.

    Cassie took my arm cosily—I very nearly jumped. “Couldn’t we take them with us, Alex?” she asked in melting tones. “Ring Dylan: he could bring the limo round.”

    Dylan was the driver who’d collected us from the airport. At the moment he was comfortably ensconced in a pub two streets away, having assured us that he’d only have one beer with his lunch.

    “Good idea, my dear!” I replied—she twitched, serve her right: that imitation of a bimbo cajoling the rich boyfriend had been horribly spot-on! “Would it be too much trouble to parcel them up for us right away, Mr Petrovich?”

    No trouble at all!

    So we did that, and let Dylan drive us back in splendour to the pub. Where we collapsed onto some pleasantly padded fake captains’ chairs—the whole place was done out in a style that would have suited those Edwardian forgeries to a T, buttoned ersatz leather everywhere, wainscoting, small green-shaded brass lamps, larger fake Tiffany lampshades, that sort of thing.

    “I’m shaking like a leaf!” Cassie admitted with a weak laugh.

    “Me, too. Thank God Lalla lent you that bag, I think it was the clincher.”

    “That and your suit, Alex.”

    “Yeah: Armani, is it?” put in the egregious Dylan.

    Well, yes, one wouldn’t wear Savile Row on the plane. “That’s right,” I said feebly.

    “So didja buy somethink nice?” he asked kindly.

    We looked at each other and laughed weakly.

    “Very nice, Dylan,” she said.

    “Good-oh. Fancy a drink?”

    “On me,” I said firmly. “I don’t know about you, Cassie, but I’m having a double cognac. And we’ve yet to see if the Sales make it back safely.”

    “I can collect them Alex, no worries,” said Dylan quickly.

    “Uh—yes, of course; thanks, Dylan.” I looked at my watch. “Give it another fifteen minutes, I think. Meanwhile, is that two brandies, Cassie?”

    She nodded weakly. “Yes, please, Alex.”

    “And whatever you fancy, Dylan,” I added, handing over the readies.

    “Um, just a Coke, thanks. This is miles too much.”

    “Well, uh, get some crisps or something, if you like.”

    “Righto!” He went happily off to the bar, and we just sat back limply.

    After a few moments she croaked: “What’ll happen if they do get spotted?”

    I was trying not to think of that. “My bet is, bloody Brownloe-Andrews will scarper.”

    “Just so long as he doesn’t go for them with a knife. Well, he ran away from Trethewin and he tried to run away up at Byron, didn’t he?” she recalled in relief.

    “Exactly. And Hawkes Investigators have discovered that he made a habit of running away throughout his earlier history. He got out of Australia and went to Britain after he’d successfully conned a woman into going into business with him and making him co-signatory of the bank account into which she put her entire fortune. Her father had left her pretty well off in terms of cash and she also took out a large mortgage on the house which he’d left her.”

    “Um, yes, but if they both had to sign…”

    “Er—no. I’m afraid that’s precisely the point, Cassie. Either of them could sign cheques and draw on the funds.”

    “Ooh, heck!”

    “Mm. I presume it was the proceeds from that which went into the house he sold me. I found out after the event that he’d got a local painter and decorator to do it up to look reasonable: covering up the worst of the mould, etcetera. A bargain. Lovely old family home, claimed to have been inherited from a distant cousin. Whether the really decent country clothes he used to wear had been paid for—or who had paid for them—is anybody’s guess.”

    “Ugh. More ladies?”

    I shrugged. “I’d say so.”

    And, Dylan coming back at that moment with the drinks plus, how kind, three bags of something artificial, bright yellow, and horribly curled, we dropped the subject.

    The so-called cognac would not have rated one star but it was very distinctly over-proof: phew! I’ve seldom been more grateful to Mother Nature for having provided us with fire to allow us to invent the wonderful process of distillation.

    “Voilà!” said little Marie-Louise with a triumphant laugh, setting an oblong paper-wrapped package on the bar table. “Study for ‘Moving up for the Start’, by Sir Alfred Munnings!”

    “What?” gasped Cassie.

    “You’re joking,” I croaked. “They sold it to you as a Munnings?”

    “Yes, for I am a most ignorant French person, and my son, he does not know equestrian art at all!”

    I gulped. That might work. Either that or Andrews and his pals would vanish without a trace overnight.

    “He had several goes at the topic, I believe,” murmured Peter. “There are studies floating around, I think.”

    “More like nailed up in collections with the owners hanging on tight to them and licking their lips over the price of The Red Prince Mare,” I said limply.

    “Nevertheless, the thing is not impossible,” he returned blandly.

    “Er—well, no,” I conceded. “Well done, Marie-Louise!”

    “Thank you, Alex,” she replied happily. “And now I think we have a drink, non?”

    Very much oui. And even though Cassie and I had already had a drink, make that a triple drink, we had another.

    “So, back to the flat?” suggested Dylan cheerfully.

    Peter’s eyes met mine.

    “Er—no. Do you know where the, uh, central police station is, Dylan?” I asked.

    “Um, yeah, ’course,” he replied numbly. “Anythink wrong?”

    “Everything, I hope,” I replied, getting up.

    “Eh?”

    “Never mind, Dylan, it’d be safer for you if you didn’t know,” said Lalla kindly.

    “Heck. All right, then,” our driver allowed.

    And we went.

    … “Art fraud?” echoed the uniformed and armed man on duty at the desk.

    “Yes,” Peter and I replied firmly.

    “Crikey. Well, uh, dunno if… Well, hang on.”

    We hung on…

    It was a fair indicator of things to come. It was nearly five o’clock by the time we were led into the presence of one, Inspector Cray, and one, Senior Sergeant Brangwyn. Cray was a thin, grey man of about fifty with the tired expression of one who’d seen it all. Brangwyn was around forty: burly, dark-haired, tanned, flattened-nosed and square-jawed, and obviously not prepared to believe a word said to him by any member of the public.

    The whole saga had to be gone through. The arson and fraud at Trethewin, the discovery of the fakes there, the abortive episode up at Byron—there was a loud sniff from Brangwyn and I realised with a thud of dismay that of course it was a different force: these were the Victorian police, and that had been in New South Wales… Hell. The rôle of Hawkes Investigators had to be explained, the rôle of Fifi had to be skated over… Andrews’s masquerade in Britain as Broderick Anson had to be clarified. The coincidence of the fakes bought by the Waltons was received with blankness by Cray and outright disbelief by Brangwyn. The encounters at Art on Acacia and the Petrovich Gallery, which Peter and I had naïvely assumed had already been made clear, had to be gone over again. And again.

    At that point I balked and said: “Look, Inspector, the ladies have had a stressful day. Could we possibly have some coffee?”

    “And if possible,” burst out Marie-Louise, clearly unable to contain herself, “could that man stop treating us like suspects!”

    Oops.

    “Ask someone to rustle up some coffee, wouldja, Senior Sergeant?” said Cray smoothly.

    The big man lumbered to his feet. “Righto.” He directed a bitter glare at Marie-Louise and went out.

    Silence reigned.

    “Don’t retract, Marie-Louise, dead silence is a standard tactic of the interrogator,” I sighed.

    She made a rude noise. “Do not worry, Alex, mon chou! I do not retract!” –The French R’s terrible—though not deliberate, I was pretty sure.

    “Ever,” murmured Peter.

    “Can we look at the ones at the flat?” asked Cray, apparently unmoved.

    Peter was just agreeing that he could when the man’s phone rang. He answered it without excusing himself. “Cray.” He waited while the phone said something. “Good. Okay, we’ll wait for you. Thanks, Lexie.” He hung up.

    “That’s the expert from the National Gallery of Victoria who deals with this period. She’s coming over,” he said unemotionally.

    “But does she know English painters?” asked Marie-Louise in dismayed tones.

    “I was wondering that,” I agreed.

    Cray’s cold grey glance just flickered over me. “Yes, she does, Mrs Sale. This isn’t the first time people have claimed that they’ve been sold a fake.”

    “Claimed! Mon Dieu!” She said something agitated to her son in French.

    He replied soothingly and Lalla added anxiously: “Never mind, Marie-Louise. It’s their horrid job. They get used to people lying to them, I think.”

    “It’s a different force, Marie-Louise,” I murmured. “These are the—” I broke off. “Does one say ‘Victorian’, in Australia?” I asked generally. “It strikes the ear as odd.”

    “Um, Victoria Police, I think, Alex,” muttered Cassie in agonised tones.

    “Really? A nominal adjective, then. How interesting.”

    “Ah!” spotted Marie-Louise. “Comme on dirait ‘le Code Napoléon’, n’est-ce pas? That is very interesting, Alex. I did not think the usage was frequent in English.”

    “In England,” murmured her son, “we don’t think the usage is frequent in French, Maman. In fact most English speakers would refute strongly the notion that French can have any adjectives of whatever sort that don’t inflect.”

    “Mais… C’est dingue, ça!”

    He was agreeing smoothly, when mercifully—although Cray’s face had remained expressionless throughout—the door opened and a uniformed policewoman brought in the coffee.

    “Ooh, Arnott’s Scotch Fingers!” spotted Lalla, looking at the plate of biscuits. “Yummy! Thank you very much!”

    The policewoman blinked. “No worries,” she muttered, glancing nervously at Cray.

    He remained poker-face, and she hurried out.

    It was of course horrible coffee, instant, and in spite of Lalla’s enthusiasm the biscuits were dry as tinder and did not in any way relate to Scottish shortbread, which I supposed was the derivation of the name. No, well, calling them short anything would have risked laying the makers open to a lawsuit: they were capable of holding flour and sugar together, but that was about it. Nevertheless we ate and drank thankfully, even the scowling Brangwyn, taking up his place at his superior’s side again, indulging in the biscuits. Only Cray confined himself to coffee.

    “We will need to see the examples at the flat,” Cray resumed, setting his mug down.

    “Yes, of course,” Peter agreed. “This post-Impressionist one possibly attributable to a woman artist from South Australia is very like one of the ones at the flat.”

    “Will the lady who’s coming know the one by Robert Bevan in the Art Gallery of South Australia?” asked Cassie anxiously.

    “Round 1920, is it? –Yes,” said Cray flatly.

    “Oh, good,” she replied, trying to smile.

    “Now, let’s go over what happened at this Petrovich Gallery,” he said blandly.

    Oh, God. We went over it. By the time we’d finished Cassie and Lalla were both looking glazed and Marie-Louise was frowning horribly.

    “Yes,” the bloody man said. “Which were the two yellow ones you liked, again, Mrs Sale?”

    “Moi? Mais non, c’était ma belle-fille!” cried the little Frenchwoman.

    “Er—it’s Lady Sale, Inspector,” I murmured. “Sir Peter’s mother is Mrs Sale.”

    “Technically,” said Lalla, coming to. “Don’t worry: we try not to use the silly titles in Australia, Inspector Cray. I liked the lithograph, I think Peter said they’re chromolithographs, of an acacia that’s supposed to have a common name of two-veined hickory. I always thought hickory was something else; isn’t it American?”

    “And the other yellow flower picture?” he asked, unmoved.

    “Um, well, it’s got a silly name. Hop goodenia. Um, we left them in the car, we didn’t think they were, um, relevant. Um, we bought the one of a waratah, too.”

    “We bought one, too,” said Cassie in a small voice.

    His attention switched to her, ouch! “Yes, Miss Forrest?”

    “It’s not yellow, though. More orange. Large Christmas bells.”

    “Where is it?”

    “In the car, of course,” she said weakly.

    “Shall I get them?” asked Brangwyn.

    “Yeah; thanks.”

    He lumbered out again.

    Silence fell.

    I looked helplessly at Peter. He shrugged slightly.

    Cray remained unmoved…

    By the time Lexie from the National Gallery of Victoria turned up it was nearly seven and we were all feeling very fed up.

    I had expected something scholarly, stooped, and grey-haired. With a bun and spectacles. Lexie was nothing like that. She was in her mid-thirties, a thin, tanned, energetic woman with short mid-brown hair and eager hazel eyes. She was accompanied by a much older man. His age certainly approximated more nearly to  my mental picture of an art expert, but nothing much else about him did. He was grey-haired, yes, but there was very little of it, shaven to short bristles, and he was wiry, fit-looking, and very tanned. And in fact gave the impression of being a bit of a tough. Lexie was respectable in fawn whipcord trousers and a thin-knit olive jumper, but he was in tired jeans, an ageing anorak which he removed in the warmth of Cray’s office, and a sagging grey-blue cardigan-sweater over a brown and white checked shirt—not very artistic.

    “Sorry it took so long!” Lexie gasped. “I thought I’d better bring Pete, and the traffic was even worse than usual, it’s the tourists here for the racing!”

    “And also your trams, which take up so much room on the roads, I think!” put in Marie-Louise on a tart note.

    “Yeah. They’re good, though,” she returned, unphased. “Gidday: Lexie Hamilton,” she added, sticking out her hand.

    “’Ow do you do, Ms Hamilton? I am Marie-Louise Sale,” the little Frenchwoman returned calmly, shaking. “My daughter-in-law Lalla, Lady Sale; my son, Sir Peter; and our friends Cassie, Miss Forrest, and Alex, Mr Cartwright.”

    Boy, was that telling them!”

    Lexie Hamilton just grinned at us all and said: “Gidday. So you’ve tracked down some of old Hal Andrews’ stuff, have you? This is Pete Goodwin, he’s the expert on that cunning bugger.”

    “Something like that,” said the older fellow drily. “Thought the cops had tracked the lot down back in the 1970s, actually.”

    “Apparently not,” said Cray drily.

    “No, we get that, Jack,” returned Lexie with her cheerful grin. “You gonna give us a decko, then?”

    “These are the things we purchased today from two galleries in South Yarra,” said Peter. “Please, see what you think.”

    They thought at first glance that the botanical prints were blameless—thank goodness: Cassie would have been terribly disappointed if the Christmas bells turned out to be a fake: she beamed at the experts.

    The others were immediately declared “Typical flamin’ so-called Heys, eh, Pete?” by Lexie, and he agreed: “Too right.” That was far from it, though. They then settled down to a close examination…

    Finally Peter said: “Look, I’m sorry, but we’ve had a couple of long days and the ladies are just about dead on their feet. If you could just give us a receipt, Inspector, we’ll leave these things with you. Come over to the flat whenever you like: we’ll be there for the rest of Cup Week. I’ll have to phone the owner before you touch his three: I think they’re probably alarmed.”

    “Yeah, let them go, for Chrissakes, Jack,” Lexie agreed. “That is, if you ever want to get them to stand up in court. And don’t say subpoenas, there’s a good bloke, paperwork isn’t gonna loosen their tongues if you’ve got up their noses,” she ended colourfully.

    I managed not to laugh, but it was a close-run thing, the more so as Cassie and Lalla had both clapped their hands over their mouths.

    “We have to be sure which end the scam’s going on,” Cray replied, unemotional as ever. He wrote busily and handed over the receipts, but then said: “I will need you to sign depositions, Sir Peter.”

    Peter got up. “Later. We’re not running away. Come along, Lalla, darling.”

    Marie-Louise was already on her feet. “Yes, take Peter’s arm, mon chéri. Cassie, my dear, you must take Alex’s arm—c’est ça!” she said happily as I picked up my cue.

    “We’ll need to look at the ones at Trethewin, too, Mr Cartwright,” Cray warned, still expressionless.

    Cassie gripped my arm fiercely, ow! “You can’t have the ponies!” she gasped.

    “This the one of Soldier and Sailor in the park at Catton Hall?” said Pete Goodwin. “Yeah,” he said as I nodded. “Shouldn’t think we’ll need it. The cops have got one in storage here. The owner didn’t want it back after the trial.”

    “I see. Well, in that case please don’t try subpoenaing mine, Inspector,” I said pleasantly.

    “We may need it,” he returned stolidly.

    “That would be sad.”

    His nostrils were actually seen to flicker with annoyance. I could hear Cassie swallow. I smiled a little.

    Marie-Louise was at the door. “Please don’t get up, Mr Brangwyn,” she said to the large side-kick, who showed no signs of moving. He jumped. “I am quite capable to open a door.” She did so. “Do not be deceived, Mr Cray. The English manner, it is deceptive. Alex and Peter, they are not soft mens. Good evening.” With which she exited in good order.

    Hurriedly we followed her.

    I did manage not to laugh until we reached the pavement, but it was a close-run thing. “Marie-Louise, you were superb!” I gasped.

    “Thank you, Alex. I really feel, you know, that it is too mush!”

    “Yes, wonderful, Maman. A slight deterioration in the matter of English plurals apart,” murmured Peter.

    Fortunately at that moment Dylan surfaced. “Did it go okay? You were ages!”

    “Dylan!” cried Lalla. “You must be starving, you poor thing!”

    He looked smugly gratified. “Nah, I’m oke, Lalla. I’m used to it. –Hey, they lemme park with all the cop cars! There’s a paddy-waggon an’ everythink!”

    “So they should! Honestly, they’re terrible! You’d better come home for tea with us, there’s a great big pot of soup, there’ll be stacks to go round!”

    So the venture to Acacia Lane ended with all five of us plus Dylan sitting round the big table in the Waltons’ roomy modern kitchen recruiting our forces with Marie-Louise Sale’s miraculous “Potage Paysanne”. Just diced mixed vegetables with a good stock, was it, Marie-Louise? That or ambrosia: yes!

Next chapter:

https://deadringers-trethewin.blogspot.com/2025/07/aftershocks.html