“The brushwork on the lace is very characteristic, and the glow of the candle through the fingers is handled in pure de la Tour fashion.”
The count looked at Pendergast curiously, a faint gleam of something indefinable in his eyes. After a long silence, he said very quietly and seriously, “You surprise me very much, Pendergast. I am truly impressed.” The jocular, familiar note had vanished from his voice. He paused, then continued. “Twenty years ago I found myself in a little financial embarrassment. I put that very painting up for sale at Sotheby’s. The day before the auction, Grove wrote a little piece in the Times calling it one of the Delobre fakes, done around the turn of the century. It was pulled from the auction, and despite my having the provenance in hand, I lost fifteen million dollars.”
Pendergast considered this. “And that’s what you talked about? His branding your de la Tour a forgery?”
“Yes, in the beginning. Then the conversation moved to Vilnius and his paintings. Grove reminded us of Vilnius’s first big show, in SoHo in the early eighties. At the time, Grove wrote a legendarily scathing review. Suffice to say, Vilnius’s career never recovered.”
“An odd topic of conversation.”
“Indeed. And then Grove brought up the subject of Lady Milbanke and the affair he’d had with her some years back.”
“I imagine this was quite a lively dinner party.”
“I have rarely seen its equal.”
“And how did Lady Milbanke react?”
“How would you expect a lady to react? The affair broke up her marriage. And then Grove treated her abominably, left her for a boy.”
“It sounds as if each of you had reason to be mortal enemies of Grove.”
Fosco sighed. “We were. We all hated him, including Frederick. I don’t know the man at all, but I understand that some years ago, when he was editor of Art and Style, he had the temerity to write something nasty about Grove. Grove had friends in high places, and the next thing Frederick knew he’d been fired. The poor fellow couldn’t find a job for years.”
“When did the dinner party break up?”
“After midnight.”
“Who left first?”
“I was the first to stand and announce my departure. I have always required a great deal of sleep. The others rose at the same time. Grove was most reluctant to see us go. He kept pressing after-dinner drinks on us, coffee. He was most anxious that we stay.”
“Do you know why?”
“He seemed frightened of being alone.”
“Do you recall his precise words?”
“To a certain extent.” Fosco broke out into a high-pitched, upper-class drawl that was startling in its realism. “My friends! You’re not going already? Why, it’s just midnight! Come, let’s toast our reconciliation and bid good riddance to my years of misguided pride. I have an excellent port that you must try, Fosco—and he plucked my sleeve—a Graham’s Tawny, 1972 vintage.” Fosco gave a sniff. “I was almost tempted to stay when I heard that.”
“Did you all leave together?”
“More or less. We said our good-byes and straggled out across the lawn.”
“And that was when? I’d like to know as precisely as possible, if you please.”
“Twelve twenty-five.” He looked at Pendergast for a moment and then said, “Mr. Pendergast, forgive me if I observe that, among all these questions, you haven’t asked the most important one of all.”
“And what question would that be, Count Fosco?”
“Why did Jeremy Grove ask us, his four mortal enemies, to be with him on the final night of his life?”
For a long time, Pendergast did not answer. He was carefully considering both the question and the man who had just posed it. Finally he said simply, “A good question. Consider it posed.”
“It was the very question Grove himself asked when he gathered us around his table at the beginning of the dinner party. He repeated what his invitation said: that he invited us to his house that night because we were the four people he had most wronged. He wished to make amends.”
“Do you have a copy of the invitation?”
With a smile, Fosco removed it from his shirt pocket and handed it over—a short, handwritten note.
“And he’d already begun to make amends. As with his reappraisal of Vilnius’s work.”
“A splendid review, don’t you think? I understand Vilnius has just landed Gallery 10 to show his work, and they’ve doubled his prices.”
“And Lady Milbanke? Jonathan Frederick? How did he make amends to them?”
“While Grove couldn’t put Lady Milbanke’s marriage back together, he did give her something in compensation. He passed her an exquisite emerald necklace across the table, more than enough to replace that dried-up old husk of a baron she lost. Forty carats of flawless Sri Lankan emeralds, worth a million dollars if a penny. She practically swooned. And Frederick? He was a long shot for the position of president of the Edsel Foundation, but Grove arranged the job for him.”
“Extraordinary. And what did he do for you?”