The Modigliani Scandal Read Free Page B

dropped it in an ashtray. The old man lit his pipe again, and Dee stood up.
    ″Thank you very much for talking to me,″ she said.
    ″Mmm.″ Half of the man′s mind was still in the past. ″I hope it helps you with your thesis,″ he said.
    ʺIt certainly has,″ she said. On impulse she bent over the man′s chair and kissed his bald head. ″You′ve been kind.″
    His eyes twinkled. ″It′s a long time since a pretty girl kissed me,″ he said.
    ″Of all the things you′ve told me, that′s the only one I disbelieve,″ replied Dee. She smiled at him again, and went out through the door.
    She controlled her jubilation as she walked along the street. What a break! And before she had even started the new term! She was bursting to tell someone about it. Then she remembered—Mike had gone: flown to London for a couple of days. Who could she tell?
    On impulse, she bought a postcard at a café. She sat down with a glass of wine to write it. The picture showed the café itself, and a view of the street she was in.
    She sipped her vin ordinaire and wondered whom to write to. She ought to let the family know her results, too. Her mother would be pleased, in her vague kind of way, but she really wanted her daughter to be a member of the dying polite society of ballgoers and dressage-riders. She would not appreciate the triumph of a first-class degree. Who would?
    Then she realized who would be most delighted for her.
    She wrote:
Dear Uncle Charles,
Believe it or not, I got a First! ! ! Even more incredibly, I am now on the track of a lost Modigliani! ! !
Love,
D.
    She bought a stamp for the card and posted it on her way back to Mike′s apartment.

II
    THE GLAMOUR HAD GONE out of life, Charles Lampeth reflected as he relaxed in his Queen Anne dining chair. This place, the house of his friend, had once seen the kind of parties and balls which now happened only in high-budget historical movies. At least two Prime Ministers had dined in this very room, with its long oak table and matching paneled walls. But the room, the house, and their owner, Lord Cardwell, belonged to a dying race.
    Lampeth selected a cigar from the box proffered by the butler, and allowed the servant to light it. A sip of remarkably old brandy completed his sense of well-being. The food had been splendid, the wives of the two men had retired in the old-fashioned way, and now they would talk.
    The butler lit Cardwell′s cigar and glided out. The two men puffed contentedly for a while. They had been friends for too long for silence to be an embarrassment between them. Eventually Cardwell spoke.
    ″How is the art market?″ he said.
    Lampeth gave a satisfied smile. ″Booming, as it has been for years,″ he said.
    ″I′ve never understood the economics of it,″ Cardwell replied. ″Why is it so buoyant?″
    ″It′s complex, as you would expect,″ Lampeth replied. ″I suppose it started when the Americans became art-conscious, just before the Second World War. It′s the old supply-and-demand mechanism: the prices of the Old Masters went through the roof.
    ″There weren′t enough Old Masters to go around, so people started turning to the moderns.″
    Cardwell interrupted: ″And that′s where you came in.″
    Lampeth nodded, and sipped appreciatively at his brandy. ″When I opened my first gallery, just after the war, it was a struggle to sell anything painted after 1900. But we persisted. A few people liked them, prices rose gradually, and then the investors moved in. That was when the Impressionists went through the roof.″
    ″A lot of people made a pile,″ Cardwell commented.
    ″Fewer than you think,″ said Lampeth. He loosened his bow tie under his double chin. ″It′s rather like buying shares or backing horses. Bet on a near-certainty, and you find everyone else has backed it, so the odds are low. If you want a blue-chip share, you pay a high price for it, so your gain when you sell is marginal.
    ″So with paintings: buy a