Deceptions by Anna Porter (pride and prejudice read .txt) 📕

“I assume you are not getting divorced,” Attila said.

“We changed our minds.”

“Mademoiselle Audet told me that Mrs. Vaszary had not hired Magoci.”

“What else did she tell you?”

“That your offer was insufficient.”

“Insufficient,” Vaszary repeated in a whisper. “How?”

“I think she imagined that your painting would sell for enough money that you could afford to give her a much bigger slice of the proceeds. At least as much as you had agreed to pay Magoci to find the buyers and conduct the sale.” Attila was now close enough to the sofa to see Vaszary’s face, damp with perspiration, his shirt front wet and stuck to his chest.

“I had already paid a retainer. The rest was not due till the deal was concluded, and it has not been concluded.”

“I don’t think she cares about those details, and she didn’t get any part of the retainer.”

“We were going to pay him a percentage.”

“Mademoiselle Audet may not be willing to wait for her share.”

“I have nothing to give her now,” Vaszary said.

“You know Gyula Berkowitz?” Attila asked, changing tack. Vaszary’s face remained impassive, but Gizi looked scared.

“I don’t think I . . .” Gizi began before Vaszary squeezed her hand, then she stopped.

“We don’t know anyone by that name,” Vaszary said.

“That’s strange. He had a photograph of you in his apartment.”

“Me?” Gizi squawked.

“Both of you.”

The man who had been facing the painting in the murky room now turned and stood looking at Attila, then he walked over to the standing lamp near the sofa and turned on a light. He had a pale, narrow, doleful face with a pronounced brow. “Waclaw Lubomirski,” he said. “Et vous êtes?”

“Attila works for me,” Vaszary said in English. “He used to be a policeman and now he is my bodyguard. He is also a close friend of the appraiser, Helena Marsh. We were expecting her today.”

“In that case, we can conclude today,” Waclaw said. He didn’t offer to shake Attila’s hand. Perhaps he thought bodyguards were beneath him.

“Everything has gone wrong,” Gizella whined. “Everything.”

“You know Magoci was murdered,” Vaszary said to Lubomirski.

“I don’t see how that changes our arrangement,” Lubomirski said. “Magoci was dead more than three days ago and that’s when you told me to proceed with the payment, and I have moved the funds you required into your account in Canada.” He spoke almost perfect English.

“There was a delay with Miss Marsh’s report . . .”

“We have already discussed that as well. I accept your word for what she has already told you.”

“Miss Marsh,” Hilda said with a hint of a smile as Helena, Lucy the rottweiler, and another woman entered the room. Lucy was showing an unhealthy interest in the other woman’s bottom. “Lucy,” Hilda warned, and tried to pull the dog away from her quarry. The tall woman with the ruffled shirt and chocolate-coloured jacket slapped the dog’s snout with her matching purse.

Waclaw already had his hand stretched out as he bore down on the two women, his face expressing sheer delight. “Such an honour,” he said, pumping Helena’s hand. “Waclaw Lubomirski,” he announced. “And I have been wanting to meet you for so, so long, Miss Marsh. I hope we can entice you to come to Warsaw to see our collection. So many more works since you were last there and this one,” he indicated the painting he had been studying, “this one will, of course, be the new star of the museum. We plan a whole show around its acquisition. We will feature some of Artemisia Gentileschi’s other works. A great retrospective exhibition. We are contacting the galleries that have lent works to her show in London, and we plan to assemble the entire lifetime of Artemisia’s art. She is such a seminal figure in the baroque. Maybe as soon as next summer, and you would be an honoured guest with us, maybe we could persuade you to be a speaker at the opening of the exhibition itself . . .”

“There may be a problem,” Helena said, extricating her fingers from Waclaw’s grasp.

“No problem we can’t overcome, Miss Marsh,” Waclaw rushed on. “We understand if you have a conflict. If the timing does not entirely suit you, we could reschedule your lecture as part of our planned series of talks and a film about the baroque and that could be any time while the exhibition is open to the public.”

“That isn’t the problem,” Helena stopped Waclaw’s torrent of plans. “I came to tell the Vaszarys that the painting may not be by Artemisia Gentileschi, after all.” She approached the seated Vaszarys. “Good afternoon,” she said. “I assume you have reconciled your differences and the divorce is off? Hmm. I thought so.”

Iván Vaszary stood to greet Helena. He still seemed ill at ease, but it was as if he were relieved to hear Helena’s words about the painting. “It’s not by her?”

“It may not be,” Helena said. “I did warn Mrs. Vaszary that unless I tested the entire painting in laboratory conditions, we couldn’t be sure.”

“But you had tested the paints, and they were of her time,” Waclaw shouted.

“I haven’t introduced my colleague,” Helena said, ignoring Waclaw’s outburst. “Dottore Martinelli works at Arte Forense in Rome. She was kind enough to allow me to run the tests of the paints used in the Judith and Holofernes. And they are, indeed, of the right era. We couldn’t be sure that they were used by Artemisia Gentileschi, but these were certainly the kinds of paints she would have used.”

“Exactly!” Waclaw said, still confident. “And Vaszary showed me the provenance.”

“Provenances can be faked,” Andrea said. She had been standing next to Helena, but now she walked toward the painting. She stopped a couple of metres from it, stepped closer, then took out her scope and started examining the picture from top to bottom.

“I am sure you have heard or read about cases where forgers were able to produce provenances that convinced even the archivists at the Tate,” Helena said. “John Drewe