Page 57 of The Cellist

“You wouldn’t have an Artemisia lying around, would you?”

“A nice one, actually.”

“How much do you want for it?”

“Who’s paying?”

“Martin Landesmann.”

“Viktor was going to give me five,” said Sarah. “But if Saint Martin is picking up the tab, I think fifteen sounds about right.”

“Fifteen it is. But I’d feel better if we put some distance between my client and your gallery.”

“How?”

“By running the sale through an intermediary. It would have to be someone discreet. Someone utterly without morals or scruples. Do you happen to know anyone who matches that description?”

Smiling, Sarah reached for her phone and dialed Oliver Dimbleby.

He answered on the first ring, as though he were waiting next to the phone in anticipation of Sarah’s call. She asked whether he had a few minutes to spare to discuss a matter of some delicacy. Oliver replied that, where Sarah was concerned, he had all the time in the world.

“How about six o’clock?” she wondered.

Six was fine. But where? The bar at Wilton’s was a no-go zone. Bloody virus.

“Why don’t you pop over to Mason’s Yard? I’ll put a bottle of shampoo on ice.”

“Be still, my beating heart.”

“Steady on, Ollie.”

“Will Julian be joining us?”

“He’s sealed himself in a germ-free chamber. I don’t expect to see him again until next summer.”

“What about that boyfriend of yours? The one with the flashy Bentley and the made-up name?”

“Out of the country, I’m afraid.”

Which was music to Oliver’s ears. He arrived at Isherwood Fine Arts a few minutes after six and laid a sausage-like forefinger on the call button of the intercom.

“You’re late,” came the metallic reply. “Hurry, Ollie. The champagne’s getting warm.”

The buzzer howled, the deadbolts thumped. Oliver climbed the newly carpeted stairs to the office Sarah shared with Julian and, finding it deserted, rode the lift up to the gallery’s glorious glass-roofed exhibition room. Sarah, in a black suit and pumps, her blond hair falling across half her face, was removing the cork from a bottle of Bollinger Special Cuvée. Oliver was so entranced by the sight of her that it took him a moment to notice the frameless canvas propped upon Julian’s old baize-covered pedestal—The Lute Player, oil on canvas, approximately 152 by 134 centimeters, perhaps early Baroque, quite damaged and dirty.

Crestfallen, Oliver asked, “Is this the matter of some delicacy to which you were referring?”

Sarah handed him a flute of champagne and raised her own in salutation. “Cheers, Ollie.”

He returned the toast and then appraised the painting. “Where did you find her?”

“Where do you think?”

“Buried in Julian’s storeroom?”

She nodded.

“Current attribution?”