Pandora (55 page)

‘The Raphael I once had was given to me,’ said Raymond huffily.

‘That cuts no ice if it was stolen from someone else in the first place. I’d get rid of it at once.’

‘What’s the subject?’ asked Raymond hoarsely.

‘Pandora’s Box. Hope, appearing out of an oak chest, is allegedly the most beautiful woman ever painted. Rainbow dress, rubies in her hair. Rumour has it that it was originally a panel painting with a motto in Latin, meaning: “Trouble lies below”.’ David was enjoying himself.

If Raymond hadn’t been so flustered, he might have wondered how David knew so much detail.

‘I’m not interested,’ he snapped.

‘I’m just telling you the
on dit
,’ said David soothingly. ‘If you hear of anyone who’s got a Raphael, let me know. I’ve got a buyer seriously interested. At least you would get some money back.’

Bleating with terror, desperate to find Jupiter, Raymond stumbled through the house. The prospective buyer must be Si or perhaps that dreadful hood Minsky Kraskov, or even Kevin Coley. As the church clock struck half past twelve, the splendour of a blaze of fireworks proclaiming ‘Happy Birthday, Emerald’ in huge green letters was totally lost on him. Oh, where the hell was Jupiter?

Anthea, still awaiting Zac in the Blue Tower, heard Raymond’s frantic cries of ‘Hopey, Hopey, where are you?’ from the bedroom below and dived under the bed. Fortunately he didn’t come up the stairs.

When she was sure he’d gone, Anthea, who had lost another kind of hope, crept downstairs. Zac was obviously not going to turn up. Perhaps he couldn’t help the delay, but she’d been so sure this afternoon. Wriggling into her cerulean dress, which was so tight-fitting she had trouble with the zip, she was just repairing her face when she realized she’d lost an earring. Grabbing the torch they used for powercuts, she ran back upstairs to the Blue Tower.

She daren’t draw attention to her presence by putting on a light. Her eyes went first to the floor, but the torch’s beam was wide enough to show up the cruellest gap in the world. Anthea gave a moan of terror, her heart plummeted, then started crashing against her ribs. The Raphael was gone. The beam flashed like a will-’o’-the-wisp into every corner. Nothing.

Could Zac have stolen it before she arrived? She hadn’t checked if it was in place when she was hiding up here earlier. Would he shop her, that she had let him into the room? How else would he have known the Raphael was there? Had he left any evidence?

Leaving the door containing the two-way mirror ajar, racing down the stairs, she collapsed onto her bed, wondering what to do. She felt terribly frightened. Raymond would never forgive her if he found out, and she wouldn’t be Lady Belvedon any more. She’d better pretend she’d come upstairs to freshen up, found the door open, gone upstairs and discovered the Raphael was missing.

‘Help, help,’ cried Anthea, rushing onto the landing, slap into Jupiter.

‘Whatever’s the matter?’

‘The Raphael’s gone.’

‘What the fuck?’ Jupiter barged into their bedroom and bounded up the stairs. ‘How the hell did this happen? When did you last see it?’

‘About ten days or a fortnight ago. I found the door ajar when I popped upstairs to freshen up just now.’

Being Jupiter, he had time to take in other pictures around the walls. His father had certainly been squirrelling. Outside, the flambeaux had sprung to life again; there was chattering on the terrace.

‘Why didn’t the alarm go off?’ he demanded.

‘I’ve no idea.’

Together they raced downstairs. Inside the cellar door, Jupiter found the alarm switched off and, swearing, switched on his mobile.

‘What are you doing?’ cried Anthea in horror.

‘Calling the police.’

‘Oh don’t do that, please, Jupiter!’ Her voice rose to a shriek. ‘It might be a joke, Sienna could have taken it or Jonathan after that stupid drawing, or Alizarin, you know how cross they were about Emerald getting the necklace and the Augustus John earlier.’ Anthea was trembling violently.

‘Let’s ask the family first,’ she begged, ‘they all know the code to the turret room, we don’t want a scandal!’

But Jupiter was already through.

‘I want to report the loss of an extremely valuable picture.’

At that moment Jonathan wandered in. He was drenched and there was mud on his trousers and shoes.

‘Lily was so pissed she fell in the pond. I’m not mixing that cocktail again.’

Anthea didn’t even notice Diggory lifting his leg on her new curtains.

‘The Raphael’s been stolen,’ she whispered.

All the laughter drained out of Jonathan’s face.

‘I don’t believe it, or, Christ, rather I do.’

‘Go and round everyone up,’ ordered Jupiter. ‘The police’ll be here in a few minutes.’

Gradually people in states of disarray were shepherded into the library.

‘An Old Master has gone missing from an upstairs room,’ Jupiter told them. ‘I’d like you all to stay in here.’

Raymond appeared utterly demented.

‘How could anyone have taken my lovely Raphael?’

Sienna was equally distraught.

‘It can’t have gone,’ she sobbed hysterically, ‘the Raphael was the last link with my mother.’

‘I was just telling your father earlier, Jupiter,’ said David smugly, ‘that the word on the street is that you had a looted Raphael here. Perhaps the owner’s taken matters into his own hands?’

‘
You
could have taken it!’ Raymond turned on him furiously. ‘You seem to know the picture bloody well. How did you know Hope had rubies in her hair?’

‘Dad,’ warned Jupiter.

Next moment Zac had erupted through the french windows. Suave and laid back no longer, he had turned into a snarling, maddened tiger, teeth bared, yellow eyes blazing.

‘Where’s the Raphael? Who’s taken it, for fuck’s sake?’

‘What’s it to do with you?’ asked Jupiter coldly.

‘It’s my picture, you asshole.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘That picture was on my great-grandfather’s wall in 1938. It was confiscated by the Nazis.’

‘So?’

‘I’ve got the documentation,’ yelled Zac. ‘Look, here’s a stat of the invoice dated the tenth of May 1931’ – he brandished it under Jupiter’s nose – ‘showing my great-grandfather bought the painting from an Austrian count, and the name of the Viennese gallery who brokered the deal. And here’s also the stat of the certificate showing the Nazis confiscated it in 1938.’

‘You have been a busy boy,’ drawled Jonathan. ‘Those could be faked, how do we know it’s the same picture?’

‘Like this.’ Zac slapped a copy of a faded black and white photograph on the table.

‘Can’t tell from that,’ snapped Jupiter.

‘How about this then?’ Zac brandished the photographs of the Raphael he’d had developed in Searston that afternoon, which were in full colour, and showed the Boucher on the right.

Anthea looked as though she was going to faint.

‘How did you get hold of those?’ gasped an appalled Raymond.

‘I had a tip-off. It’s in the room above your bedroom.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ spat Jonathan.

‘I didn’t want you lot to spirit it away.’

‘Who tipped you off?’ asked a quivering, white-faced Jupiter.

‘A journalist never reveals his sources,’ said Zac sarcastically. Then he went berserk, grabbing Jupiter by his lapels, shaking him like a rat. ‘What have you done with it, you bastard? My great-grandfather was clubbed to death for that picture.’

‘My daughter, o my ducats!’ said Jonathan mockingly.

‘Shut up,’ howled Zac. Throwing Jupiter against the wall, he leapt on Jonathan.

Emerald, who’d been huddled, frozen with horror, on the window seat, the rips in her beautiful dress concealed under Sophy’s purple pashmina, suddenly remembering Zac was a black belt, heard herself screaming, ‘Don’t hurt him!’

Zac, who was about to smash Jonathan’s face in, lowered his fist.

‘One of you’s nicked it,’ he snarled. ‘It’ll be an inside job to get the insurance.’

‘Rubbish!’ screamed Sienna. ‘You took it yourself.’

A sulphuric smell of fireworks was drifting in through the windows. Had the devil passed by?

Fortunately, a natural break occurred when Knightie banged on the door and excitedly announced the police were here.

‘They’ve sent that Detective Inspector Gablecross,’ she whispered to Anthea, ‘the hunky one that cracked Rannaldini’s murder in 1996. He catches everyone.’ Then, as Anthea turned even greener: ‘You’ll get your picture back, Lady B.’

The arrival of the police created a diversion, enabling Alizarin to feel his way in through a side door. Sophy noticed grass mowings on his shoes and mud down the back of his trousers; perhaps he had fallen over? He had also taken off his smoking jacket and put on a sweater. A moment later Si and Rosemary came in from the garden, followed by Somerford and Geraldine, who’d all ended up having a jolly party down at the boathouse.

‘Have we missed anything?’ asked Geraldine in excitement.

As Jupiter explained about the Raphael going missing, Sienna was watching Si. For a second he had looked elated, then, glancing across the library, he had clocked Zac’s demented, twitching, ashen face and his own for a second blackened terrifyingly. Then he pulled himself together.

Geraldine and Somerford meanwhile were going into raptures comparing Zac’s black and white photograph with his recent colour ones.

‘This is definitely the same picture, Inspector,’ purred Somerford. ‘It’s a historic painting: the Raphael Pandora. Been missing for centuries. If I’m not mistaken an American museum, the Abraham Lincoln, has the other half.’

‘What
are
you going on about?’ asked Jonathan crossly. ‘Our picture’s complete in itself.’

‘Pictures painted on panel in Raphael’s day were sometimes constructed in a similar way to pencil boxes,’ continued Somerford reprovingly. ‘Raphael would have painted the myth of Pandora on the lid, along with the jokey caption: “Malum infra latet”, or “Trouble lies below”. As indeed it did. Slotted into place this lid would have concealed the painting on the bottom of the box, which was a portrait of a lady who gave Raphael a lot of trouble.’

‘If my memory serves me right,’ chipped in Geraldine, not to be outdone, ‘the young woman in question was called Caterina and nicknamed La Smorfiosa – the Proud One. I’ve seen it at the Abraham Lincoln – a lovely portrait. La Smorfiosa was rumoured to be a beauty—’

‘Like yourself,’ chipped in David gallantly. ‘—who resisted Raphael’s advances.’ Geraldine smiled at him warmly.

‘At some time,’ suggested Somerford, ‘Pandora must have become separated from Caterina, her other half. Fascinating.’

‘Collectors and museums would give the world to get their hands on this picture, Inspector.’ Geraldine waved the colour photographs. ‘You must get it back.’

‘Well, he won’t if you both waste any more of his time rabbiting on about pencil boxes,’ exploded Sienna. ‘For Christ’s sake, let the Inspector do some detecting.’

‘Be quiet, Sienna,’ rapped out Jupiter, and proceeded to whisk Gablecross off on a tour of the house.

Jonathan meanwhile was counting heads.

Dora and Dicky had disappeared. There was no sign of Patience, Ian or Hanna. Apart from that, everyone else was present. Raymond had aged a thousand years. Anthea was shaking so violently Sophy ran upstairs and found her a cardigan. But as she came back into the library, Anthea was saying, ‘The Cartwrights have probably taken it, we know how poor they are. Patience could have pretended to be drunk, to give herself an excuse to be upstairs in bed while the fireworks were going off.’

‘We have
not
taken your rotten picture.’ Sophy hurled the cardigan in Anthea’s direction. ‘My mother, I’m afraid, has passed out, and my father’s been reading
Wisden
in the loo, he often disappears in there for hours on end. He has now gone to bed. Anyway, he wouldn’t know a Raphael from a rhinoceros. My family have never stolen anything in their lives,’ she added furiously.