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“Eighty thousand pounds,” I said quietly.

“It reminds me of a picture of his in the Metropolitan,” he said, as he studied the reproduction in the catalog.

I was impressed, and told Travers that the Vuillard in New York had been painted within a month of the one he so admired.

He nodded. “And the small nude?”

“Forty-seven thousand,” I told him.

“Mrs. Hensell, the wife of his dealer and Vuillard’s second mistress, if I’m not mistaken. The French are always so much more civilized about these things than we are. But my favorite painting in this exhibition,” he continued, “compares surely with the finest of his work.” He turned to face the large oil of a young girl playing a piano, her mother bending to turn a page of the score.

“Magnificent,” he said. “Dare I ask how much?”

“Three hundred and seventy thousand pounds,” I said, wondering if such a price tag put it out of Travers’s bracket.

“What a super party, Edward,” said a voice from behind my shoulder.

“Percy!” I cried, turning round. “I thought you said you wouldn’t be able to make it.”

“Yes, I did, old fellow, but I decided I couldn’t sit at home alone all the time, so I’ve come to drown my sorrows in champagne.”

“Quite right too,” I said. “Sorry to hear about Diana,” I added as Percy moved on. When I turned back to continue my conversation with Patrick Travers, he was nowhere to be seen. I searched around the room and spotted him standing in the far corner of the gallery chatting to my wife, a glass of champagne in his hand. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder green dress that I considered a little too modern. Travers’s eyes seemed to be glued to a spot a few inches below the shoulders. I would have thought nothing of it had he spoken to anyone else that evening.

The next occasion on which I saw Travers was about a week later on returning from the bank with some petty cash. Once again he was standing in front of the Vuillard oil of mother and daughter at the piano.

“Good morning, Patrick,” I said as I joined him.

“I can’t seem to get that picture out of my mind,” he declared, as he continued to stare at the two figures.

“Understandably.”

“I don’t suppose you would allow me to live with them for a week or two until I can finally make up my mind? Naturally I would be quite happy to leave a deposit.”

“Of course,” I said. “I would require a bank reference as well, and the deposit would be twenty-five thousand pounds.”

He agreed to both requests without hesitation, so I asked him where he would like the picture delivered. He handed me a card that revealed his address in Eaton Square. The following morning his bankers confirmed that £370,000 would not be a problem for their client.

Within twenty-four hours the Vuillard had been taken to his home and hung in the dining room on the ground floor. He phoned in the afternoon to thank me, and asked if Caroline and I would care to join him for dinner; he wanted, he said, a second opinion on how the painting looked.

With £370,000 at stake I didn’t feel it was an invitation I could reasonably turn down, and in any case Caroline seemed eager to accept, explaining that she was interested to see what his house was like.

We dined with Travers the following Thursday. We turned out to be the only guests, and I remember being surprised that there wasn’t a Mrs. Travers or at least a resident girlfriend. He was a thoughtful host and the meal he had arranged was superb. However, I considered at the time that he seemed a little too solicitous toward Caroline, although she certainly gave the impression of enjoying his undivided attention. At one point I began to wonder if either of them would have noticed if I had disappeared into thin air.

When we left Eaton Square that night Travers told me that he had almost made up his mind about the picture, which made me feel the evening had served at least some purpose.

Six days later the painting was returned to the gallery with a note attached explaining that he no longer cared for it. Travers did not elaborate on his reasons, but simply