Title

  David Williams

  TREASURE

  IN OXFORD

  Contents

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Dedication

  This one for Bob and Joyce Haslam

  Chapter One

  ‘Move yourself, Marilyn, we’re late this morning,’ said Decimus Radout, giving the object of his address a friendly nudge on the bottom.

  Marilyn shot an archly appreciative glance backward, before tripping lightly through the opened front door, down the two steps and into the small and scruffy front garden of 16 Arcady Road in North Oxford. After a brief and customary enquiry into alternative spots, more a gesture to enduring instinct than to demonstrate any serious intent to change the habit of a lifetime, she then settled beside a long-suffering but surprisingly resilient rhododendron bush, sighed, and piddled all over the root.

  Dr Radout stayed framed in the doorway, but now averted his gaze from the indelicately placed Norwich terrier — in response to her reproachful stare.

  A good deal of the doctor’s slight, five foot eight inches was shrouded in a sombre, ancient Jaeger dressing gown, tied about the waist by a shredding cord that had once had tassles. High summer was an unsuitable time of year for so warm a garment, except it did for all seasons and more than satisfied the proprieties. The touch of cotton primrose pyjama showing at the neck and below — crinkled above one ankle but not evident at all above the other — was more appropriate to the season, as well as the wearer’s disposition and present air of light contentment.

  It is the end of June — the time when Oxford takes a short breather, when students and their instructors are for the most part pleased to quit the place and each other, when the colleges empty before the summer schools begin, when the university dourly contemplates and the city hopefully estimates the size of the tourist hordes shortly to descend upon both. But for now the bicycles have departed, while the motor coaches have scarcely arrived in strength. Blackwell’s and the other Broad Street bookshops have already increased the displays of guide books. The Commemoration Ball tents have been put away. The sound of pop music, live and recorded, will pierce the night air now with less frequency, and in less strident competition than during the recent term-end.

  But the sun stays high at noonday, and the evenings remain balmy. It seldom rains — more often of course than it did fifty years ago when the summers were hotter and drier, as those old enough to remember are always eager to attest. Even so, the walks in the college groves, through the meadows, along the river banks, across the parks, are decked in green, and full of blooms and rich with scents, and the drones of bees and the songs of birds — an idyllic prospect with people hardly intruding at all to spoil things: well, other people, that is.

  The peace that has descended has nowhere landed more softly than in Arcady Road. It is one of the succession of quiet, short, crossing avenues which, like ascending treads to a ladder, link the Banbury and the Woodstock Roads on their nearly parallel northern progresses, from their beginnings at wide St Giles above the city centre. Shaded Arcady is solid late Victorian, all red brick, dressed stone, and low street walls with copings un-skimped if sometimes a bit loose in places. It is also overgrown with mature ash and limes whose exposed roots make giant intaglio designs with irrupted paving stones under humpily parked motor-cars.

  Number 16 had been the home of Decimus Radout (Doctor of Fine Art, not Medicine) for longer than the recollections of any of his neighbours. When the Radout children had been growing up, the family had occupied the whole house. Decimus and his wife had later had the place converted into three flats, keeping the lower one for themselves. Now seventy-six years old, a widower for the last five, the doctor had stayed on here out of choice after retiring from his Fellowship of All Saints College. He still had his writing, still needed the museums and the libraries for his research and he still loved Oxford more than any other place on earth. Nowadays, he loved it even more during this summer time of quietude when half the residents of Arcady Road were away.

  It was not that the doctor courted solitude — only that he enjoyed change in human contact, and the next two days were to provide plenty of that. Tonight there was the Moneybuckle Dinner, followed tomorrow afternoon by the meeting of the Moneybuckle governors. Although he had been divested of all other official college and university appointments, Dr Radout was still the college’s nominated Moneybuckle governor, from which there was no retirement age. Although being one of the eight governors was an unpaid appointment, and one requiring little involvement, it was still a formal function that he cherished, and not because it was the only one he had left.

  Marilyn made a token effort at covering her traces with a brisk scrape of her back paws at the bare, baked earth, then tripped importantly up the steps and into the hall, glancing up at her master through eyes coyly fringed with the fairest of hairs — a beguiling feature of her breed.

  ‘Good girl.’ He was closing the street door, then stiffened as he caught sight of the crouched figure moving suddenly and quickly from behind a tree in the street.

  Head well down, the man rushed the open double gateway to Number 16, tripped on the central iron gate-stop, staggered toward the door, and righted himself in time to take the steps and push past the doctor into the outer hall.

  ‘Don’t think anyone saw me, Doctor.’ The tone was deep and Oxfordshire-accented.

  ‘At seven-fifteen one wouldn’t expect. Does it matter? Good morning, Mr Cormit.’

  If it had been a fellow academic, junior to the speaker — and almost everyone was nowadays — the appendage of ‘Mr’ would have been omitted. Since it was Ernest Cormit, retired staff sergeant in the regular Royal Air Force and sensitive about his social standing, Radout eschewed what the other might regard as a demeaning mode of address.

  ‘G’morning, Doctor. Didn’t want you coming to the shop, see? In case.’ He tapped at the large envelope in his hand, and nodded like a conspirator. ‘In case of being overheard,’ he shouted, debiting the doctor’s earlier blank look to deafness, not incomprehension — something Cormit did regularly. This usually irritated Radout. He was quite deaf, without being that deaf.

  Cormit kept a second-hand bookshop in a terraced house in Walton Street. He was in his mid-fifties, divorced, and lived above the shop — nominally alone, but the neighbours would have reported differently. Of medium height, with a sallow complexion, sharp features, and dark pomaded hair, he was wearing a brown seersucker suit, an RAF tie — and a handle-bar moustache meant to indicate that he had been an aviator, not a groundling member of the supply branch.

  ‘Marilyn takes in more than you’d guess, but she’s very circumspect,’ said Radout gravely, a twinkle in the lowered grey eyes. He shut the door, absently running one hand across his temple and above it, through the unparted shock of soft white hair.

  At the sound of her name, Marilyn wiggled her rear-end impatiently: breakfast was now overdue.

  Cormit gave a half-smile to the rejoinder about the animal, in case the old boy meant it: you couldn’t always tell with the professor sort, not at that age. ‘I was careful because we don’t want the collectors queueing up, do we, Doctor?’ he offered, still too loudly. ‘I sometimes think you do my reputation too much honour, Mr Cormit. And possibly even your own,’ the other added dryly. ‘First edition, is it?’ He eyed the brown envelope speculatively. He was a distinguished art historian, but his late collecting passion was for rare books — still a much cheaper indulgence than investing in pictures.

  ‘It’s not a book, Doctor.’

  Radout’s face evinced a lowered expectancy. ‘Why don’t you join me for a cup of coffee?’ He led the way through the open doorway to the lower flat, closed it behind them, then followed Marilyn down the passage and the stairs to the kitchen in the half-basement.

  ‘It’s your opinion I’m after, Doctor,’ Cormit continued when they were both seated at the table with mugs of coffee, while Marilyn scoffed cereal in milk from a bowl in the corner. ‘Your opinion on some pictures. Whether I should let them go for what I’ve been offered.’ He gave an embarrassed cough. ‘I’d expect to pay, of course. To pay,’ he repeated loudly, with accentuated lip movement.

  ‘No need to shout, I’m not deaf.’ Radout paused, then shrugged. ‘Well let’s see what you’ve got.’ The tone was noncommittal.

  He rarely authenticated works of art for commercial purposes. For someone of his standing to attribute a picture to a noted artist could multiply its value a thousand times or more. For a museum curator he was usually prepared to offer an objective opinion without reward, but he generally avoided providing attributions for dealers. Doing so for a fee put a price on his reputation; doing so for no fee did the same in a negative sense.

  The doctor took a pair of gold-rimmed half-spectacles from a case he had fished from his dressing-gown pocket. He doubted that whatever Cormit had come upon was likely to make or break reputations. Second-hand book dealers were not a normal source of lost old masters: this one was not even a very respected member of that trade, though one Radout had charitably tried to help in the past.

  Cormit had withdrawn three small folders from the envelope, opened each in turn and placed it on the table before his host.

  There were two sketches in pencil and one in oils. The pencil items were the same size — about four-and-a-half by seven inches, the viewer judged. The paper they were on was yellowed. The oil sketch was on card and an inch or so larger all round than the others. It was also mounted — narrowly on thick paper. It depicted the same easily identifiable subject as one of the pencil drawings — a bridge with a tower beyond. But for fear anyone should be in doubt, the artist, or someone, had scribbled ‘Oxford Bridge, June 10. 1821’ in the top left-hand corner of the pencilled version. On the second pencil drawing — of a different and wider landscape — in the same corner, the same hand had inscribed ‘Christ Church, Oxford, June 9. 1821’.

  Radout’s eyebrows had lifted slightly at first sight of the exhibits, but he made no comment, only grunted from time to time while he slowly examined all three. Then he turned them over to look at the backs.

  ‘There’s handwriting on the back of all of them,’ Cormit put in, nervously breaking the silence. His mouth gave an involuntary twitch.

  ‘Yes, I see that,’ replied Radout, studying the reverse of the oil sketch. The mount had in turn been pasted over with a sheet of light-grey paper. ‘This study of Oxford Bridge — it’s Magdalen Bridge of course — it has, “To David Lucas. Believe this better. Compare”, followed by what looks like . . .’ He stopped, squinting at the faded surface and moving it to catch a different aspect of the light.

  “October 20. 1830,” blurted Cormit, clearly unable to contain himself. ‘The pencil drawing of the bridge says, “Sent to David Lucas, August 5. 1830.” That’s nearly three months before.’

  Radout looked up at the speaker impassively to indicate he found that deduction less than astonishing, then returned his gaze to the picture.

  ‘The writing’s a bit faded,’ Cormit offered, massaging his hands anxiously.

  ‘Hmm. As you’d expect.’ Radout paused, then picked up the other pencil drawing. ‘This is a long view of Christ Church Cathedral across the Meadows. Much more characteristic,’ he added, almost to himself. Then he held it up to the light, as he had with the other, looking for a watermark in the paper.

  ‘How d’you mean, Doctor?’

  ‘He didn’t much care for drawing buildings in close-up,’ the other replied absently.

  ‘Who didn’t, Doctor?’

  There being no immediate response to this eager question, Cormit then volunteered. ‘On the back of the Christ Church drawing it says—’

  ‘ “Walked here early with John Fisher,” ’ Radout provided. ‘Very early. Yes.’ Now he spread the three sketches in front of him, facing upwards. ‘They’re very beautiful, Mr Cormit.’ He smiled.

  ‘But are they by . . . by John Constable? The dates fit.’

  ‘By John Constable, you say?’ The doctor affected half surprise. ‘Wasn’t that who you meant? Just now?’

  ‘Perhaps. I forget. You know Constable’s currently considered the most seminal English landscape painter of all?’ The comment was almost reproachful. ‘Fashion could change that, of course.’ He punctuated with a short grunt. ‘Well now, one is tempted to ask, does it matter if they’re by Constable? Will they give us more aesthetic pleasure if they are, d’you suppose?’ He was amused at the growing look of consternation on his visitor’s face. ‘But of course it matters to you, my dear Mr Cormit. If you own these beautiful studies. So. I should say I think they could be by Constable. Obviously we’re intended to think they are. There again . . .’ Now he was staring at the oil sketch, shaking his head.

  ‘Constable was in Oxford in June eighteen twenty-one,’ Cormit broke in. ‘After he’d done a tour of the Berkshire archdeaconary. With his friend Archdeacon Fisher. John Fisher. It was Constable’s only visit here. Ever,’ he said, almost in one breath.

  ‘Obviously you’ve read it up more recently than I have. In Leslie’s Life of Constable, perhaps?’ The doctor frowned. ‘As I recall, the only known artistic product of the visit is a pencilled sketch of University College.’

  ‘That’s right, Doctor. That’s in London. In the British Museum. I’ve been to see it. It’s dated on the front as well. June

  9. 1821. The day he did the drawing in Christ Church Meadows. The day before the other two.’

  ‘The day before the pencil drawing of Magdalen Bridge was done, certainly,’ Radout corrected. ‘The oil sketch of the bridge may have been painted on a different day. A succeeding day probably. Say June the eleventh? Assuming it was done from life.’ At the end, he seemed to be debating with himself.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Cormit warily. Nor did he understand: there had been no advance briefing on the point.

  ‘As I recall, there’s nothing in his letters to show he stayed on in Oxford after June the ninth?’

  ‘That’s right, Doctor. And nothing to show he didn’t either.’ He changed to a questioning expression. ‘Why couldn’t he have done the oil of the bridge on the tenth? The same day as the pencil drawing?’

  Radout was comparing the two treatments of the same subject as he replied, ‘Because of his utter artistic integrity, Mr Cormit. His commitment to reflect the perfections of nature. The effects of natural light as he saw them, when he saw them.’

  ‘So they couldn’t have been done the same day?’

  ‘Unlikely. Because they were quite evidently not done at quite the same time of day. The oil was made at early light, but in the way of things he would have done the pencil sketch first, then the oil, because he’d warmed to the subject. More coffee?’

  ‘No thanks, Doctor. There’s plenty of references in his letters to an Oxford Sketchbook. It was a small book. And the cover had a drawing on it. Of Oxford Bridge. It was lent to the Archdeacon later, then returned, but there’s nothing about it after that.’

  ‘Because it’s most likely to have been broken up?’

  ‘There’ve been no separate sketches either, Doctor. Not till now. Not that anyone knows about. Except the one at the British Museum, and that’s probably from a different book. It’s bigger than these.’

  ‘Because Constable called it his Oxford Sketchbook doesn’t mean it had nothing but sketches of Oxford in it. Except, I suppose, it suggests there’d be more than one.’ Radout poured himself more coffee from the electric percolator on the table. ‘If one knew how long he was here, one would have some guide to the extent of the work.’

  ‘But there are still the references to one sketch of Oxford Bridge, Doctor. And I’ve got two. I’ve only got to prove they were done by Constable.’

  ‘The painting will be easier to authenticate than the drawings. Certainly in terms of date,’ Radout offered carefully. ‘It would have been easier still if it had been painted on canvas. Paper is the very Devil to date.’ He frowned. ‘Do you want to tell me how you came by these sketches?’

  ‘A house clearance, Doctor. Semi-detached cottage off Iffley Road. After a death. I nearly didn’t bother. Except the bloke who got the clearance job from the estate agent, he usually offers me first choice of any books. He said there was a few good-looking old volumes. More than you’d expect from a hard-up spinster. Ninety-two she was. So I went and had a look. Took away a case of books. Paid cash. On the spot. The sketches were in the back of the family Bible. Tucked in, like. I always take a family Bible where offered. This time it paid off.’

  ‘You believe you have true ownership of the sketches?’

  The other’s eyes narrowed. ‘No doubt of that, Doctor. I know the law.’ But he had hesitated before replying.

  ‘Mm. And the dead spinster was?’

  ‘Selina Mary Smith. Used to be a primary school teacher. Her father was George Wesley Smith. Groom in private service. Born eighteen thirty-eight. In Northampton. Died in London. He married twice. Both times to Northampton girls. They were in domestic service as well. With the same family.’

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22