The Modigliani Scandal - Ken Follett [47]
Peter followed Durand′s brisk steps across the hall to an old elevator. The cage came creaking and grumbling down, and they got in and ascended three flights.
They went into a small office at the back of the building where a portly, pink-faced man sat behind a desk. Durand spoke to the man in very rapid colloquial French which Peter could not follow. The portly man appeared to have made a suggestion: Durand seemed to be turning it down. Eventually he turned to Peter.
″I am afraid I must disappoint you,″ he said. ″We have a vacancy, but the job involves handling paintings, and we require references.″
″I can give you a telephone reference, if you don′t mind calling London;″ Peter blurted.
Durand smiled and shook his head. ″It would have to be someone we know, Monsieur Usher.″
″Charles Lampeth? He′s a well-known dealer, and—″
″Of course, we know Monsieur Lampeth. Will he vouch for you?″ the portly man cut in.
″He will certainly confirm that I am a painter, and an honest man. His gallery handled my pictures for a while.″
The man behind the desk smiled. ″In that case, I am sure we can give you a job. If you would return tomorrow morning by which time we will have called London—″
Durand said: ″The cost of the telephone call will have to be deducted from your wages.″
″Thatʹs all right,″ Peter replied.
The portly man nodded in dismissal. Durand said: ″I will show you out.″ He did not bother to hide his disapproval.
Peter went straight to a bar and ordered a very expensive double whisky. Giving Lampeth′s name had been a foolish impulse. Not that the dealer would refuse to vouch for him: guilty conscience ought to see to that. But it meant that Lampeth would know that Peter had been employed by Meunier′s in Paris around this time—and that knowledge could do fatal damage to the plan. It was unlikely; but it was an added risk.
Peter tossed off his whisky, cursed under his breath, and ordered another.
Peter started work the next day in the packing department. He worked under an elderly, bent Parisian who had devoted his life to taking care of pictures. They spent the morning uncrating newly arrived works, and the afternoon wrapping outgoing pictures in layers of cotton wool, polystyrene, cardboard and straw. Peter did the heavy work—withdrawing nails from wood, and lifting heavy frames—while the old man prepared soft beds for the pictures with as much care as if he were lining a cradle for a newborn child.
They had a big, four-wheeled dolly with pneumatic tires on hydraulic suspension: the aluminum gleamed, and the old man was proud of it. It was used to transport the pictures around the building. The two of them would gingerly lift a work onto its rack, then Peter would push it away, with the old man going ahead to open doors.
In a corner of the room where they did their packing was a small desk. Late on the first afternoon, while the old man was away at the lavatory, Peter went through all the drawers. They contained very little: the blank forms the old man filled up for each picture handled, a clutch of ballpoint pens, a few forgotten paper clips, and some empty cigarette packets.
They worked very slowly, and the man talked to Peter about his life, and the pictures. He disliked most of the modern painting, he said, apart from a few primitives and—surprisingly, Peter thought—the superrealists. His appreciation was untutored, but not naive: Peter found it refreshing. He liked the man instantly, and the prospect of deceiving him became unwelcome.
On their trips around the building Peter saw plenty of the official company letterhead on secretaries′ desks. Unfortunately, the secretaries were always around, and so was the old man. In addition, the letterhead was not enough.
It was not until the end of the second day that Peter set eyes on the thing he had come to steal.
Late in the afternoon, a picture arrived by Jan Rep, an elderly Dutch painter living in Paris, for whom Meunier′s were agents. Rep′s work attracted huge sums, and he painted very slowly. A telephone call notified the old man that the painting was