‘The friar I talked to in Padua said the paintings were Titian’s revenge, but he didn’t realise what they were really about. Masterson cracked the account by putting all the bits together, reconstructing the Padua series and linking it with the Marchesa’s portrait. Jolly clever of her, too.’
‘Come along, think,’ he said when she continued to look at him silently. ‘Titian would not have run off to Padua unless he’d done something daft. Violante’s brother wouldn’t have quashed proceedings against him if Titian hadn’t restored family honour. And Pietro Luzzi did vanish, with a ridiculous story invented about his death in battle.
‘“A man dies, and he disappears.” That’s St Anthony’s inscription, but it also told the literal truth about Luzzi. Can you imagine the impact of an article, backed by an intricate, almost personal confession, proving that Titian poisoned Pietro Luzzi because he had stabbed one friend and caused another to die of grief?’
‘Ah, I see,’ she said eventually with a huge sigh. ‘That is a relief. So all we have lost is a self-portrait by Pietro Luzzi?’
‘Bravo. The grand finale, of course, came when Louise Masterson saw the link,’ he went on. ‘When Kollmar gave his verdict over that picture in Milan, she said nothing. But the same evening, she went to Lorenzo’s party. She saw the portrait and that nose rang a bell, if noses can do that. She doesn’t know what it means, but she starts thinking hard. An interesting face, she tells Van Heteren, but not a nice one. One that needs to be examined. There must be some sort of connection between it and the picture of Kollmar’s they’d been talking about that morning, and she decides she is going to find out what it is. It is only after this that she announces she is going to work on Benedetti’s picture herself.
‘She needs to work fast when she hears the Marchesa’s picture is up for sale, and even faster when Bralle tells her Benedetti’s might go to the sale room as well. Someone else could also make the connection. So she starts running around. Milan, Padua, libraries in Venice. She begins frantically to rewrite the paper to add in the last bits of evidence she needs. Much to Van Heteren’s irritation, of course. Roberts, I suppose, can’t imagine anyone getting that excited over a mere picture. So when he tracks her movements he leaps fatally to the wrong conclusion. The rest you know.
‘Violante was stabbed by Pietro Luzzi because of jealousy, Titian killed the murderer and the powers that be covered it up. Miller stabs Masterson because of a different sort of jealousy, Van Heteren takes his slightly inaccurate revenge, and the powers that be cover it up once more. Nice parallel, don’t you think? History does repeat itself, it seems.’
‘And you expect me, and the rest of the world, to believe that?’
He shrugged once more. ‘Please yourself. But it’s the only explanation I can think of for why he chose such a strange way of painting those murals in Padua. Not that it matters. I, certainly, am not going to give it much publicity.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t like being laughed at, basically. If I could prove it, that would be one thing. But proof depends on a proper examination of the Marchesa’s portrait. Which, thanks to you, can’t be done any more. It’s gone for ever. There aren’t even any photographs; that agency didn’t have any. I was waiting until I took delivery. Masterson was going to take some, but Miller got to her first. And, of course, without that, the story falls to bits and becomes nothing more than supposition, guesswork and fantasy.
‘So,’ he concluded, ‘like Van Heteren, Titian will have to be left in peace, his reputation unsullied. Pity. I wouldn’t have minded having the picture, but I suppose settling for Benedetti’s Titian is a fair swap.’
He looked to see how she was taking what he considered to be a masterly exposition.
‘Well, I don’t know,’ she said, thrusting her hands into her pockets in a gesture of discomfort. ‘Are you sure you’re not just having a little joke at my expense?’
He gave her a whimsical glance which she considered decidedly ambiguous. ‘What’s that?’ he asked eventually.
Flavia was examining an envelope she’d found in her pocket and pulled out.
‘The snaps I took of the landing stage under Roberts’ house. The only real evidence against Van Heteren.’
He took them and studied them by the light of a lamppost. Then grinned at her, tore them in half and tossed them, piece by piece, into the canal, followed by the negatives. They watched them drift slowly off until they sank.
‘If you’re going to pervert the course of justice, do it properly, that’s what I always say. Damn lagoon is awash with evidence tonight, it seems,’ he said. He put his arm round her, thinking such a gesture might be excusable in the circumstances.
‘Ah, well. That tidies up the loose ends. Come on,’ he said, giving her a squeeze which, to his infinite pleasure, she returned. ‘I shall accompany you all the way back to your hotel room.’
He steered her round until she was pointing in entirely the wrong direction. ‘This way, I think.’
The Titian Committee
Iain Pears was born in 1955, educated at Wadham College, Oxford and won the Getty Scholarship to Yale University. He is the author of the bestsellers An Instance of the Fingerpost and The Dream of Scipio, as well as his acclaimed series of Jonathan Argyll art mysteries. He lives with his wife and son in Oxford.
An Instance of the Fingerpost
The Dream of Scipio
The Portrait
The Immaculate Deception
Death and Restoration
Giotto’s Hand
The Last Judgement
The Bernini Bust
The Raphael Affair