Secret Archives of Sherlock Holmes, The, The (2 page)

Holmes, who had gone over to his bench, returned with his magnifying glass and, taking the picture over to the window, began examining it more closely under
the lens in the full daylight. When he had finished his scrutiny, he handed me the glass so that I could see the effect for myself. It was still difficult to see the painting clearly and, when I remarked on this, Holmes acted in what was to me at first a thoroughly irresponsible, not to say uncouth, manner. Picking up a piece of the white linen rag, he put it to his lips and, having wetted it with his saliva, wiped it across a section of the painting.

‘Holmes!’ I began, but before I could make any further protest, he had repeated this unseemly action before passing the picture to me.

‘Now look, Watson!’ he urged.

I looked and was amazed. The portion of the canvas he had treated in this displeasing manner had suddenly and unexpectedly cleared, much as a dirty window will become transparent when it is wiped over with a damp cloth, the discoloration vanishing to be replaced by a clear image of one of the figures which occupied the centre of the painting. It was that of a young woman with a fair complexion, her blonde hair braided on top of her head into an elaborate coronet. For a few seconds she smiled at me and then, as the saliva dried, the image faded and all I could see was a vague oval shape, obscured once again by the brown patina of dirt and old varnish.

Holmes burst out laughing.

‘My dear Watson!’ cried he. ‘If only you could see your face! It is a picture itself of bewilderment and disbelief.’

‘It is like a mirage, Holmes!’ I replied. ‘One second the picture is there; the next it has vanished. What causes it?’

‘It is quite simple. When saliva, which is incidentally a mild solvent, is applied to old varnish which has become opaque because of the layers of dirt, it acts as a temporary lens through which one can see the underlying paint.

‘However, once it has dried, the effect is lost and all that is left is a blurred smear. It is an old trick used by art dealers when confronted by a dirty canvas. Would you like to try it for yourself, Watson?’ he added, handing me the piece of rag. ‘The spittle can soon be wiped away with a little clean water.’

Much as I, as a doctor, disapproved of the unhygienic nature of Holmes’ method, I was fascinated by its effects and, choosing the face of the second figure which stood slightly to the rear of the first, I applied the cloth to my mouth and, having liberally moistened it, I dabbed it on to that section of the canvas. Once again, the miracle happened. The dirt disappeared and I caught a glimpse of a fresh-faced young woman, rather solemn of expression, wearing a servant’s white cap on top of her dark hair.

Such was my excitement that I might have gone on and treated the whole canvas had not Holmes, laughing at my enthusiasm, taken the cloth from my hand and, using the sponge with which he had removed the brown
paper backing, wiped over the two areas where we had cleaned the paint.

‘Enough is enough, my dear fellow!’ he chided humorously. ‘We must now finish our examination of the frame itself. I believe it will yield more clues.’

‘What clues?’ I asked. I could see nothing to suggest it held anything of interest. The frame was made of wood and, unlike the front of it which was gilded and heavily carved, it was undecorated apart from some traces of gold here and there along the edges where the gilding had spread on to the underside.

‘Use this,’ Holmes suggested, handing me the magnifying glass, but, even with its assistance, I could see nothing which by even the greatest stretch of the imagination could be called a clue, only the rough grain of the wood.

Holmes leaned over my shoulder and, jabbing a long finger, exclaimed impatiently, ‘Look here, my dear fellow! And here! And here!’

What he was pointing to were small nails driven into the inner edge of the frame at an angle to hold the canvas in position.

‘You mean the nails, Holmes?’ I asked.

‘Partly, Watson. You are almost there. What else do you see beside them?’

‘Ah!’ I cried, noticing for the first time that the wood close to some of them was freshly bruised, exposing a cleaner inner surface. ‘Someone has damaged the wood,
either when the nails were removed or hammered back into place.’

‘Suggesting?’ he prompted me.

‘That whoever forged the Constable first removed the nails and took out the original canvas so that the reverse side was uppermost and then tacked it back into position.’

‘And?’

‘Well, really, Holmes!’ I protested, beginning to find the game a little irksome. ‘What more is there to say?’

‘Only that whoever replaced the nails was not a skilled picture framer. Mrs Conk-Singleton, for example?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I agreed, a little disappointed at so simple an explanation. ‘Is that all?’

‘Not quite,’ he said, laughing. ‘There is one more clue. If you look at the underside of the upper part of the frame, you will see a small blob of dried glue with a fragment of paper adhering to it.’

And indeed there was. For as soon as I reapplied the lens to the area he suggested, I immediately saw a tiny brown globule, hard and shiny like crystallised syrup, in which an even smaller speck of white material was embedded.

I confess I could not grasp its significance and refrained from asking Holmes, who was bustling into his coat.

‘You are going out?’ I asked. ‘Where to?’

‘To Mr Cassell’s gallery, of course. Hurry up, Watson, and get ready.’

‘Oh, Holmes!’ I cried, deeply disappointed. ‘I have promised Thurston that I would meet him at the club at noon for luncheon and a game of billiards.
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It is far too late now to send him a telegram cancelling the arrangements.’

Holmes clapped me on the shoulder.

‘Never mind, my dear fellow! The inquiry is by no means finished. You shall join it again, I promise you, at some later stage. And I shall, of course, inform you of any developments which take place this morning.’

Holmes was as good as his word and, when later I returned to our lodgings, I found him already there, his business with Mr Cassell having been concluded.

And what he had to tell me was very interesting. On hearing the name Conk-Singleton, Mr Cassell had become quite excited and had told Holmes all he knew about that gentleman, who had something of a reputation in the art-dealing world. He was a retired banker with private but limited means who, having had an early success in buying a valuable but unrecognised painting for a small sum, had persuaded himself that he was an expert and had haunted the auctions bidding for unlikely paintings in the hope that he could repeat his good fortune and sell them on for a huge profit. Some of
the dealers, regarding it as a game, had deliberately bid against him, forcing up the value before withdrawing and leaving him to pay an inflated price for a worthless canvas which he could never hope to profit by. In the end, he died a bankrupt.

As for Mrs Conk-Singleton, Mr Cassell knew a little of her also. Much younger than her husband, she was a talented amateur artist who had had some professional training and, when money became short, had supplemented the family income by selling her work, usually landscapes, for small sums of money. After her accident, which had left her dreadfully disfigured, she had become a recluse, rarely setting foot outside her house in Bayswater.

‘And what about the painting?’ I asked eagerly.

‘Ah, that!’ Holmes replied with a twinkle. ‘Mr Cassell will have it cleaned by a professional with Mrs Conk-Singleton’s permission and will also inquire of her about a possible label which was once stuck on the back of the frame, leaving behind that tiny blob of dried glue. In the meantime, the whole affair is in the lap of the gods.’

‘So it could be an old master?’ I cried.

‘Oh, Watson, Watson! One of your endearing qualities is your habitual optimism, a trait you share with the late Mr Conk-Singleton – and look what happened to him! The painting is probably by an amateur and therefore worth very little. We must wait upon events.’

It was not until a fortnight later that these events reached their climax when Holmes received a telegram from Mr Cassell which read: ‘You are both invited to take tea tomorrow afternoon with Mrs Conk-Singleton at four o’clock in my gallery.’

The following day we presented ourselves on the hour and were admitted by Mr Cassell, the premises being closed as it was a Sunday, and were conducted through the gallery itself, hung with paintings, into our host’s private office. Holmes was in high spirits and I, too, was full of eager curiosity to meet Mrs Conk-Singleton and to see the painting cleaned and restored.

The office seemed a suitable setting for the dénouement for, like the gallery, its walls were lined with paintings, and furthermore it was furnished with rosewood cabinets on which stood exquisite
objets d’art
in marble and porcelain. It also contained for the occasion a small table laid with a lace cloth and a silver tea service, including a cake stand on which was set out a tempting display of little iced cakes. Four chairs had been drawn up to the table and Mrs Conk-Singleton sat on the one facing the doorway.

She was tall and thin and dressed entirely in black, as Mr Cassell had described her, including the thick black veil which covered her face.

Her sombre attire and her air of sadness cast a melancholy mood over the colour and glitter of the gilt-framed pictures and the beauty of the artefacts
which surrounded her, but her voice, when Mr Cassell introduced Holmes and myself, had a gentle sweetness about it which dispelled much of that gloom.

The painting, the reason for our invitation to the gallery that afternoon, was standing to the right of the table, displayed on an easel but covered with a black silk cloth so that, like Mrs Conk-Singleton’s features, it was completely hidden from view. I saw Holmes glance towards it from time to time and I myself snatched several sideways glimpses of it, but it was not until tea was finished and Mr Cassell had rearranged the chairs in a semicircle in front of it that he allowed us to see it.

It was clear that our host was hugely enjoying the situation for, when the moment came, he bowed towards us and, showing an unexpected theatrical side to his nature, announced like a magician about to perform his most amazing and difficult trick, ‘Madame! Messieurs! The painting!’

And with that, as if to a roll of drums, he whisked away the cloth and the painting was revealed.

What we saw was indeed like a magic transformation, for the picture we found ourselves gazing at was utterly changed from the original dirty brown canvas into an object of such beauty that I felt some sleight of hand must be responsible for it.

It was the interior of a lady’s chamber, lit by a brilliant shaft of sunlight which poured in through a window
on the left. In its radiance, the indistinct forms of the two women were transfigured, the first into a lady with corn-coloured hair, richly dressed in a gown of
pale-green
silk, decorated with lace and ruffles. Standing immediately behind her in the act of closing the clasp of a pearl necklace round the lady’s throat stood her maid, more modestly attired in a white cap with an apron over a plain blue gown. She was young and pretty, not long up from the country, I imagined, for she wore an anxious, intent expression as she adjusted the clasp as if she were unused to carrying out such a delicate and intimate task.

Against the rear wall stood a table covered with a cloth patterned with blue and green diamonds, a design echoed in the tiled floor, only this time in black and white. A pair of embroidered gloves lay on the table together with a glass vase containing three pink roses. The light and colour were dazzling and so caught up was I in the vivid details of the room and its inhabitants that I heard Mr Cassell’s voice as if in a dream.

‘A genuine old master!’ he was declaring. ‘In fact, a Jan Vermeer, the seventeenth-century Dutch painter who specialised in such interiors.
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Look at the light falling on the silk of the young lady’s skirt! And the
roses! They are superb! It is also an unusual subject matter. Vermeer generally included only one lady in his paintings, not two. An expert on his work, a Mr Claude van Heerden at the National Gallery, no less, has examined it and declared it authentic, a claim borne out by its provenance.’

‘Provenance?’ I inquired.

‘Its previous history – in this case the label which Mrs Conk-Singleton found on the back of the frame when she removed the canvas, the presence of which you, Mr Holmes, deduced from the small blob of glue still adhering to the frame. Fortunately, Mrs Conk-Singleton kept the label.’

Mr Cassell bowed to Holmes and the lady, acknowledging the part they had played.

‘The label,’ he continued, ‘was dated 1798 and bore the name Bardwell and the number 275. With a little research, I was able to establish that in 1797 Lord Bardwell died at the great age of ninety-two, leaving a houseful of furniture, paintings and other works of art. His only heir was a great-nephew who, anxious to benefit by his death as quickly as possible, sold the house and auctioned off its contents. Apparently, nobody recognised the value of the little canvas which, according to the inventories I was also able to consult, had been in the family from at least the end of the seventeenth century. However, by the time Lord Bardwell died, it was probably already discoloured
with dirt and therefore when it was catalogued as Lot 275, it was described merely as “An interior; Dutch School”. Later it found its way into another auction, still unrecognised for what it was, and was bought by Mr Conk-Singleton.

‘It was an extremely fortunate purchase,’ Mr Cassell continued, bowing again towards the lady, ‘for the painting is now worth a considerable sum of money.’

Mrs Conk-Singleton acknowledged the statement and the bow with an inclination of her veiled head. Speaking in a low, sweet voice, trembling a little with emotion, she replied, ‘I do not have the words to express my gratitude to all of you gentlemen for the work you have done in helping to discover the true identity of the painting. I leave the sale of the Vermeer in your hands, Mr Cassell, and offer my heartfelt thanks to all of you.’