‘I suppose so.’
‘Did he at any time attempt to take this Dutch picture, or any other picture, with him?’
‘No.’
‘Have you any idea who he was?’
‘No.’
‘Can you think of any thoroughly disgruntled ex-employee who might have dreamed this up?’
‘Only one, but it was not he in the hall.’
‘You dismissed the employee?’
‘Yes.’
‘On what grounds?’
The last thing Slade intended was to describe the Sassetta swindle.
‘Incompetence.’
‘Was he a genius with a computer?’
‘No. He could hardly use one. But a walking encyclopedia on Old Masters.’
Sir Sidney sighed. ‘I am sorry to be discouraging, but I don’t think the boys in blue are going to want to know about this. Nor the Crown Prosecution Service. Question of proof, you see. Your actor fellow can be a grey-haired Kentuckian with goatee, American accent and shabby coat one minute, and a crisply spoken ex-Guards officer in pinstripes the next. Whoever you might think you have traced, can you prove who it was? Did he leave fingerprints? A clear signature?’
‘An illegible scrawl.’
‘Precisely. He denies it all, and the police are nowhere. Your dismissed encyclopedia only has to say he does not know what you are talking about and . . . same thing. Not a shred of proof. And somewhere in the back there seems to be a computer wizard. I’m sorry.’
He rose and held out his hand. ‘If I were you, I would drop it.’
But Peregrine Slade had no intention of dropping anything. As he emerged into the cobbled yards of one of London’s four Inns of Court, a word Sir Sidney Avery had used stuck in his mind. Where had he seen or heard the word ‘actor’ before?
Back at his office he asked for the details of the original vendor of the Sassetta. And there it was: profession, actor. He engaged a team from London’s most discreet private investigation agency. There were two in the team, both ex-detective inspectors of the Metropolitan Police, and they were on double rate for quick results. They reported back in a week but brought little news.
‘We followed the suspect Evans for five days but he seems to lead an uneventful life. He is seeking work in a menial capacity. One of our younger colleagues got talking to him in a pub. He appeared completely ignorant of the affair of the Dutch picture.
‘He lives at his old address with a punk-style girlfriend, enough metal in her face to sink a cruiser, peroxide hair in spikes, hardly your computer-literate type.
‘As for the actor, he seems to have vaporized.’
‘This is the year 2000,’ protested Slade. ‘People cannot vaporize any more.’
‘That’s what we thought,’ said the gumshoe. ‘We can trace any bank account, any credit card, car document, driving licence, insurance policy, social security number – you name it, we can find the address of the owner. But not this one. He is so poor, he hasn’t got any.’
‘None?’
‘Oh, he collects Unemployment Benefit, or he used to, but not any more. And the address the Social Security people have for him is the same you gave us. He has an actor’s union Equity card; same address. As for the rest, everyone is computerized nowadays except this Mr Trumpington Gore. He has gone straight through some crack in the system and disappeared.’
‘The address I gave you. You went to it?’
‘Of course, sir. First port of call. We were men from the borough council, enquiring about arrears of council tax. He’s quit and gone. The bedsit has been taken over by a Pakistani minicab driver.’
And that, for Slade, was the end of a very expensive trail. He presumed that with £5,000 in his trousers the invisible actor had gone abroad, which would account for every detail the private investigators had, or more accurately had not, brought him.