‘No.’
Reede turned towards the door, and I swore he looked at the keyhole. I froze.
‘It’s not particularly famous, but it’s a special painting,’ said Quick, and Reede turned back to her. Gradually, I edged my heart back down my throat.
‘Why is it so special?’ asked Lawrie.
‘I’ve done a little investigating,’ Reede went on before Quick could say anything more. ‘We know that Robles sold Women in the Wheatfield in Paris, around the time this photo was taken. A man called Harold Schloss sold it.’
‘I see,’ said Lawrie. Even through the keyhole, I could see that he looked visibly uncomfortable.
‘It went to New York for a while, and now hangs in Peggy Guggenheim’s house in Venice. I’ve seen Women in the Wheatfield myself,’ Reede went on, ‘and it has similar qualities to yours. Extraordinary in the flesh.’ He touched the edge of Lawrie’s painting. ‘Sometimes, I think he would have been a genius, had he carried on.’
‘Why?’
‘That’s not always easy to define. But you see, with most artists, you have one thing or the other – the visionary with sub--standard technical skills, or a short time frame of astonishing output that diminishes in quality, for one reason or another. These fellows have no training in composition, and most of them can’t therefore subvert it. Or, you have the excellent trained draftsman with no imagination, who will never paint the world anew. It’s actually quite hard to find someone who has it all. Picasso has it – you should see his early works. It’s subjective, of course, but I think Robles had it too. And I think your painting demonstrates his skills to a higher level than Women in the Wheatfield. Some say his scant works are political; others find them to be escapist tours de force. That is the quality they have – perpetually interpreted, yet always standing up to every iteration. Robles has lasted. You don’t get bored. You see new things. Moreover, on a basic aesthetic level, they wash gorgeously over the eye whilst never being twee.’
‘But you can’t prove this is a Robles,’ Quick said.
Reede narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Right at the moment, I can’t, Marjorie. But there are avenues. He painted other pictures. It’s a case of tracking them down and lining this up with them. Your mother is – recently deceased, I understand, Mr Scott?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I wonder – do you think she kept receipts?’
‘Receipts?’
‘Yes, of things she bought. Paintings, for example.’
‘She wasn’t the sort of woman who kept receipts, Mr Reede.’
‘Pity.’ Reede looked thoughtfully at the painting. ‘Anything you have regarding the purchase would be very useful. I ask about the provenance, not just in the instance of your wishing to sell the picture, or us perhaps to exhibit—-’
‘Exhibit?’ Quick said.
Reede blinked at her. ‘That’s right. I ask, Mr Scott, because this painting may be a legal matter.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Lawrie. I could hear the panic palpable in his voice.
Quick stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Perhaps there’s no need to get into that now, Mr Reede. It’s not really the Skelton’s approach, an exhibition for a single painting—-’
‘You’re probably aware of what happened in the thirties in Europe to valued works of art, Mr Scott,’ Reede interrupted. ‘A lot of them disappeared. The Nazis took them off gallery walls, removed them from private homes—-’
‘This painting wasn’t stolen,’ Lawrie said.
‘You sound so sure.’
‘I am. My mother wouldn’t have stolen anything.’
‘I’m not suggesting she did. But she could easily have purchased a stolen item. Robles was Spanish, working solely in Spain, as far as we know, although his paintings sold in Paris. Did your mother have any connection to Spain?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Well. Here’s one theory. Artworks moved around Europe quite freely in those days. Harold Schloss was a well--known Viennese art dealer specializing in early twentieth--century modern art. If he sold Women in the Wheatfield, he might have sold more of Robles’s work. Schloss had a Paris gallery, so it’s possible your painting was there around the same time.’
‘This painting went from Spain to Paris?’
‘Possibly. By this point Robles was back in Malaga, so maybe Harold Schloss visited him down there. Dealers will go anywhere to sniff out talent.’
‘This is all just conjecture, Mr Scott,’ Quick murmured. ‘Just an avenue—-’
‘Many of the gallerists in Paris were Jewish,’ Reede went on. ‘I don’t know about Schloss’s history, we’d have to find that out – but in ’42, when the Nazis had occupied Paris for a year, they closed a lot of the businesses down and sent the owners to be interned before they went onwards to – well, to the camps. Many paintings were never recovered. Others were hidden away, only to turn up in the strangest of places. Junk shops, for example. Suitcases. Old train tunnels. Flea markets.’
There was a silence. On the other side of the door, I was barely breathing.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Lawrie.
‘After the war, the Nazis who were captured claimed they’d burned the lot. Poppycock, of course. They stole too many to have destroyed them all. And they knew what they were doing. They knew that what they were taking was valuable, even as they claimed it didn’t fit the new aesthetic of the Reich.’
‘What do you think happened to Harold Schloss?’ Lawrie asked.
Reede looked annoyed. ‘I’ll be investigating that, as I said.’
‘This painting wasn’t stolen,’ Lawrie repeated.
‘There’s no way to be certain – at least at the moment. The first half of this century was a mess for the art market, and we’re still picking up the pieces. Art has always been used for purposes other than pleasure, be it for political leverage or a loaf of bread.’