The Bernini Bust. Iain Pears

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      Jonathan Argyll lay contentedly on a large slab of Carrara marble, soaking up the mid-morning sun, smoking a cigarette and considering the infinite variety of life. He was not a sun-worshipper – far from it – he was quite proud of his ultraviolet-free complexion, but needs must, despite the risk of wrinkles; his temporary colleagues looked upon his packet of cigarettes with all the approval of vampires presented with a clove of garlic and were prepared to cite innumerable Los Angeles County Clean Air Acts to force him into the open when his nerves required reassurance and sustenance.

      He didn’t mind really, although all that moral fervour in such a confined space occasionally made him feel claustrophobic. He would be at the Moresby Museum for only a few days and his stock of moral relativism would last. The when-in-Rome syndrome. A bit longer and he would no doubt be reduced to hanging round the toilets, blowing smoke into air-conditioning vents. But he could survive for a few days.

      So he was frequently to be found wandering down the highly expensive, mahogany-coated stairs, through the vast brass and glass doors and into the gentle warmth of California in early summer. And then on to his favourite slab where he performed the joint exercise of having his smoke, watching the world go by, and obscuring the letters which announced to the passerby – not that there were many, this being a part of the world where legs now served mainly a decorative function – that the Arthur M. Moresby Museum of Fine Art was located in the building behind him (9–5 weekdays, 10–4 weekends).

      Ahead of him lay what he had come to accept as an almost typical Los Angeles townscape. A broad swathe of luxuriously tended grass – kept going by water piped nearly a thousand miles and then sprinkled in a fine mist – separated the white concrete museum building and the adjacent administrative block from the street. Palm trees sprouted everywhere, doing little but sway in the light wind. Cars drove with painful slowness up and down the wide boulevard ahead. From his well-placed vantage point Argyll could see everything but, apart from himself, there was not another living person visible.

      Not that he was paying much attention to the street, the weather or even the palm trees. Life in general was much more on his mind, and beginning to get him down a bit. Success; that was what his presence on the lump of marble signified, and a very mixed blessing it was proving to be. He did his best to look on the bright side; he had, after all, just successfully unloaded a Titian for a client on to the museum behind him for an outrageous sum of money, of which he (or rather his employer) would collect 8.25 per cent. Better still, he had done almost nothing whatever to earn it. A man called Langton had turned up in Rome and said he wanted to buy. Simple as that. Apparently the Moresby considered itself a little short on sixteenth-century Venetian and wanted something by Titian to reinforce its credentials.

      Argyll, quick on his feet for about the first time in his professional life, asked for a grossly inflated sum to start off the bargaining. To his immense astonishment, this Langton man had squinted, nodded and said, ‘Fine. Cheap at the price.’ More money than sense, evidently, but who was Argyll to complain? Not even any haggling. Pleased though he was, he still felt slightly let down. People should bargain; it was only proper.

      The whole sale went through at such lightning speed he was left breathless. Within two days a contract had turned up. All the normal business of examining and testing and humming and hawing was dispensed with. However, one of the terms of the sale was that the picture should be delivered to the museum free of charge, and that Argyll should be on hand to witness the authentication process – provenance checking, scientific tests, and so on – with museum staff. If there was any dissatisfaction, he would have to take the thing back. More to the point, it was strict payment on delivery – or rather acceptance.

      As a point of principle he had protested about this, making vague complaints about honour and gentlemen and the like. No deal. The terms were invariable and set by the owner who, in forty years of collecting, had learnt not to trust an art dealer further than he could throw one. In his heart, Argyll sympathised. Besides, the important thing was to get his hands on the cheque. Essentially,