The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures - Mike Ashley [14]
Holmes quickly scanned the formal letter dated 25 August inviting Messrs Simkins and Streeter to examine Rembrandt’s Nativity of Our Lord with a view to discussing possible restoration work. “You responded immediately, I presume,” Holmes suggested.
“Yes, indeed, Mr Holmes.” Simkins consulted a pocket diary. “We arranged for me to view the painting on Wednesday 10 September.”
“Had you done work for New College, before?”
“No, sir, we had not previously enjoyed that privilege.”
“Do you know who recommended you on this occasion?”
Simkins sat back in his chair, thumbs hooked into the pockets of his waistcoat. “Ah well, as to that, Mr Holmes, it might have been any one of a number of our satisfied clients. I’m proud to say that we are known to many connoisseurs, museum curators and inheritors of family collections. We have been of service to several of the nobility and gentry.”
“Including Lord Henley?” Holmes ventured.
“Why yes, sir. Only last year we executed an important commission for his lordship.”
“And Dr Giddings?”
“Him, too, sir. A wonderful connoisseur is Dr Giddings. He’s been good enough to instruct us on several occasions.”
“Were you acquainted with the Rembrandt before your visit to New College last month?”
“Only by reputation, sir.”
“You had never seen it before?” Holmes asked in some surprise.
“Never.”
“And you have been familiar with Dr Giddings’s collection for … how long?”
“More than twenty years, I would say.”
Holmes pondered that intelligence in silence for a few moments. “And what was your impression of the painting when you did see it?”
For the first time the ebullient Simkins gave evidence of some discomfiture. “Why, to be truthful, Sir, I suppose I was a little disappointed.”
“You thought it not a particularly good painting?”
The businessman’s bushy eyebrows met in a frown. “Oh, no, Mr Holmes, nothing of that sort. I would not want you to think that I meant to cast any doubt upon the quality of the masterpiece. It was just that … Well, I recall discussing that item many years ago with another client who had seen it in Holland and who waxed eloquent about it’s warm, glowing colours. What I saw in Oxford was a painting that had been sorely mishandled at some stage of its life. It had upon it a thick, old discoloured varnish. What with that and its gloomy situation in the chapel it was very hard to make out details of the brushwork.”
“So you concluded that it required a thorough cleaning and that you would only be able to comment upon the necessity of further restoration after that operation had been carried out.”
“That’s it precisely, Mr Holmes. We submitted an estimate for initial work. Naturally the warden and fellows needed time to consider our proposal. They responded,” here he referred once more to the bundle taken from the roll-top desk, “on 1 October and we arranged to collect the painting a week later, on the eighth.”
“But you did not do so?”
“No, on the morning of the eighth we received a telegram intimating that it was not, after all, convenient for us to call on that day and inviting us to make a new appointment.”
“You had no reason to doubt the authenticity of this telegram?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Tell me, Mr Simkins,” Holmes ventured, “as someone who knows the world of pictures, dealers and collectors better than most, how hard do you think it would be to dispose of such a celebrated painting?”
“Very hard, indeed, I would say.”
“But not impossible?”
Simkins pondered the question, head on one side. “There are collectors so obsessive that they are prepared to obtain by other means what they cannot fairly buy.”
“And are there not international gangs operating to satisfy the cravings of such collectors?”
“Sadly, that is the case,