UNCLE GEORGE [Part 8 of 10]
By Richard Banks
At
nine we phone our offices declaring ourselves unfit for work and, at half past,
set-off for Swaffham intending to have brunch there and visit the gallery in
the early afternoon. We arrive well fed and watered but with a head full of
emotions that doesn’t know what to think. The gallery itself is a large grey
brick building that used to be someone’s country home. Inside there’s eight or
nine rooms with pictures and another two that doubles up as a museum. Of the
dozen or so people inside, eight are in the Jones Room gathered around ‘Meadow
at Twilight’. It’s the gallery’s main attraction and the room it’s in a shrine to the artist whose life is recorded
on large information panels on all four walls, along with photographs of his
other works to be found in collections around the world. A listing of the
painting’s previous owners ends with the information that it is now on
indefinite loan to the gallery by person or persons unnamed. Could this be the
Jones after whom the room is named? If so, this is a more than generous clue,
but of the many Jones in this world who would be thinking of Uncle George.
“Time to talk to the man in charge,”
says Ally. I agree, and we turn back to the reception desk where a studious
looking young lady, not long out of school, is easily persuaded to inform the
curator and owner of the gallery that George Jones’s nephew is downstairs and
wanting to speak to him. We hear him greet the news of our arrival with an
audible “oh” followed by a stunned
silence. What he says next we can’t hear, but on replacing the receiver of her
phone the young lady informs us that Mr Carew will see us upstairs on the first
floor. By the time we get there he is standing in the open doorway of his
office. He greets us politely and bids us enter. “So you’re George’s nephew,”
he says. I confirm that I am and that Ally is my fiancee. He declares that he
is delighted to meet us both and smiles
broadly, but there is a tension in his voice that suggests he is anything but
pleased.
“So sorry to hear about George,” he
says, allowing himself a few minutes to express his regrets. “We were friends
for many years. Did he ever mention me?”
I reply that I don’t think he did.
“No, I don’t suppose he would have.
Well let’s get down to the reason for your visit, the picture, Meadow at
Twilight. As you are only too well aware the owner of the picture, our
anonymous benefactor, was your uncle. Thanks to him this small provincial
gallery has been able to display one of the most evocative English landscape
pictures of the eighteenth century. Now, as the beneficiary of your uncle’s
will, it is yours and you are entitled to do whatever you will with it. If you
decide to take the picture from us you have every right to do so and, of
course, we will comply with all reasonable instructions from yourself. On the
other hand if you should choose to continue your uncle’s benevolence art lovers
throughout the county will be forever in your debt. Thanks to your uncle this
gallery has been able to display a wonderful work of art that would have been
far beyond its means to purchase and display. George could not have been more
proud of what he was able to do. Should you decide to continue his legacy he
would, had he have known, been equally proud of you, the son he never had.”
“But, Mr Carew, if my uncle wanted the
gallery to have his picture he could have gifted it to you in his will, but he
didn’t. How do you explain that? And, anyway, did you really know him that
well?”
Carew looks thoughtful, the smile
fading from his face. “Yes, I suppose we were an unlikely pair. Me, public
school educated and the younger son of an Earl, he a casual labourer, down on
his luck and fifteen years older than myself. We might never have met, but meet
we did in a public house called the Hare and Hounds. I can see from your face,
Mr Jones, that you know of that establishment and its reputation. What you
don’t know is that your uncle and myself were as close as any two people could
be for twenty years, our feelings for each
other made even more special by our mutual love of art. I was aware soon after
our first meeting that your uncle was not long out
of prison. There should be no secrets he said, no skeletons in cupboards that
might one day be discovered and erode the trust between us. When he realised
that it made no difference to the way I felt about him he told me of the
banknotes he had totalling over £70,000. The
Meadow at Twilight was coming up for auction and he wanted me to have it for
the gallery. It was a gift to be shared by myself, the gallery and the people
of
“But after his death you made no
attempt to contact his solicitors.”
“How could I? Once it became known that
an apparently penniless labourer was the owner of a valuable work of art both
the police and the Beales would have been at my door, the picture lost to the
gallery and me either dead or prosecuted for criminal conspiracy. No, the only
way this matter was ever going to be resolved was through a confidential
agreement between ourselves. And before you ask why I haven’t been in touch
with you the answer is that your uncle asked me not to. You see, he was by no
means certain what he wanted to happen after his death. On the one hand he
wanted me and the gallery to have the picture, for it to remain in
“Is it likely they will find out?”
Mr Carew expresses the opinion that
almost certainly they would, in fact he can guarantee it. There’s a hardening
in his expression and voice. His charm offensive is at an end, less effective
than he had hoped; he has now moved from carrot to stick.
“But if you tell the Beale’s what you
know you will be putting yourself at risk. My uncle may have deprived the
Beale’s of what was theirs but you took his money knowing full well how he came
by it.”
“But then I would deny all knowledge of
your uncle’s crime. I would say he won the money in a lottery.”
“And you think they would believe
that?”
“I can be very convincing, Mr Jones,
but if necessary, as a last resort, I would show them the letter notifying your
uncle of his win. You see, one of the advantages of noble blood is that there’s
always someone ready and able to help a chap out, or put him in touch with
someone who can. The old boys’ network, gold class, which is how I came by
this.” He unlocks a drawer in his desk and takes out a folder in which there is
a typewritten letter on headed paper. “Believe me, Mr Jones, this is as genuine
as any fake can be; the notepaper is that of the lottery concerned, in the
correct font and ink, bearing the signature of the Chief Executor who, if he
was alive today, would not know it from his own.”
He returns the letter to his desk and
relocks the drawer. “Well that should keep me safe, but as for yourself and
your charming fiancee who knows what misfortune might befall you. To buy them
off may well cost you most, if not all, of what they think the picture to be
worth.” He laughs. “Oh, don’t look so worried, Mr Jones, I’m not going to let
you walk away from here with nothing more than you came in with. George would,
I’m sure, have wanted you to have something, so here’s my first and only offer,
£72,000, the exact same sum your uncle gave me
all those years ago. Take it or leave it, Mr Jones but, if you take it, there
will be certain conditions you will have to sign-up to regarding your interest
in said picture.”
“You mean conditions leaving you one of
the most expensive pictures in the county.”
“That’s about it, Mr Jones, although
neither me or the picture will be staying in
“But that’s what my uncle wanted, why
he put-up the money to buy it.”
“Your uncle’s wishes are immaterial
now. He had his way for twenty years. What
happens now won’t be troubling him.”
I’m a sentence in to telling him what I
think of his offer when the heel of Ally’s shoe makes painful contact with my
ankle. Having staunched my flow of invective she now administers a gentle, but
firm rebuke.
“Phil, I don’t think you should be too
hasty in rejecting Mr Carew’s offer. After all that’s what your uncle gave him, and £72,000 will
come in very handy at this time. The picture is much more valuable of course,
but if it’s going to put us in danger I for one would rather we didn’t have it.
And anyway, you can only profit from the picture by selling it and, while Mr
Carew may be prepared to disregard your Uncle’s wishes, I doubt if you could do
the same. At least take a few days to think it over. Is that OK, Mr Carew?
We’re off to
Carew seems reassured and replies that
he will see us again at 2pm the following Saturday. Until then he will do
nothing to our disadvantage.
Ally is definitely up to something. As
Carew transfers his desk keys to a wall safe she gives me a look that tells me
her cosying up to Carew is not for real. She apologises for taking up so much
of his time. “I fear we have made you late for your 2pm.”
“My,” he begins to say, then he
realises that his diary is open on his desk and that he has only a few minutes
to get to a meeting in the town centre.
We get up to leave and Carew follows us
down to reception where Ally bids him a polite goodbye and departs to the loo
while informing me that she will see me back at the car. Carew and myself
continue on to the car park where he gets into a BMW and shoots off to his
meeting while I check my map for the journey back.
Ally’s trip to the loo is an unusually
long one and I’m beginning to think that something is amiss when she finally
appears looking rather pleased herself. “Drive!” she urges, in a way that
suggests I should do so quickly.
“In a hurry to get back?” I say
“We’re not going back. There’s stuff we
have to do here.”
“What in Swaffham?”
“No, of course not, just get out of
here. I’ll explain on the way.”
I pull out of the main entrance and
turn right as directed and then, before any other directions are issued turn
left into the first road without yellow lines. I stop and turn-off the engine.
“What are you up to?” I ask in what I
hope is coming across as my firm but patient, no nonsense voice.
“I’ve got it”
“Got what?”
“That fake letter about the lottery
win. The one that Carew was keeping back as a last resort to save himself.
“Yes, I know the one, I heard him too.
A fat lot of good that would have done us shut away in his desk.”
“Exactly, but now it’s not. I went back
to his office when that girl on reception wasn’t looking. Thought I would have
a go at picking the lock on his desk. Managed to do it once or twice at the Pru
I lost my keys. It worked then and it worked this time too which is why we need
to be getting back to Petherdale.”
“OK, calm down. How, exactly are we
going to turn this to our advantage?”
“By letting as many people as possible
know that your uncle once won a lottery and that he used the money to buy the
picture. That gets the Beale’s off our back, and the police too. And once we
inform your solicitor that the picture is part of your uncle’s estate there’s
nothing that Carew can do to keep it for himself. We need publicity, lots and
lots of publicity, so why don’t you speak to that newspaper man you met. We
also tell everyone we meet, have a big celebration at the Wheatsheaf. Put it on
Twitter and Facebook. We’ll cause a stir
that will go viral.”
“But how did we discover the letter,
and where? Everyone will be asking that, and why didn’t Uncle George mention
his win to anyone. We have to get this right, no mistakes. There’s no you
saying one thing and me another. We’ve got to agree on every last detail.”
“No problem. We’ll work it out on the
way back. Come on, get driving.”
(to be continued)
Copyright Richard Banks
Oh! It gets better, I get the picture...
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