J. G. Ballard - The Lost Leonardo

The disappearance - or, to put it less euphemistically - the theft of the Crucifixion by Leonardo da Vinci from the Museum of the Louvre in Paris, discovered on the morning of April 19, 1965, caused a scandal of unprecedented proportions. A decade of major art thefts, such as those of Goya's Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery, London, and collections of impressionists from the homes of millionaires in the South of France and California, as well as the obviously inflated prices paid in the auction rooms of Bond Street and the Rue de Rivoli, might have been expected to accustom the general public to the loss of yet another over-publicized masterpiece, but in fact the news of its disappearance was received by the world with genuine consternation and outrage. From all over the globe thousands of telegrams poured in daily at the Quai d'Orsay and the Louvre, the French consulates at Bogota and Guatemala City were stoned, and the panache and finesse of press attaches at every embassy from Buenos Aires to Bangkok were strained to their not inconsiderable limits.

I myself reached Paris over twenty-four hours after what was being called 'the great Leonardo scandal' had taken place, and the atmosphere of bewilderment and indignation was palpable. All the way from Orly Airport the newspaper headlines on the kiosks blazoned the same story.

As the Continental Daily Mail put it succinctly: LEONARDO'S CRUCIFIXION STOLEN PS5 Million Masterpiece Vanishes from Louvre Official Paris, by all accounts, was in uproar. The hapless director of the Louvre had been recalled from a Unesco conference in Brasilia and was now on the carpet at the Elysee Palace, reporting personally to the President, the Deuxieme Bureau had been alerted, and at least three ministers without portfolio had been appointed, their political futures staked to the recovery of the painting. As the President himself had remarked at his press conference the previous afternoon, the theft of a Leonardo was an affair not only for France, but for the entire world, and in a passionate plea he enjoined everyone to help effect its speedy return (despite the emotionally charged atmosphere, cynical observers noticed that this was the first crisis of his career when the Great Man did not conclude his peroration with 'Vive La France').

My own feelings, despite my professional involvement with the fine arts - I was, and am, a director of Northeby's, the world-famous Bond Street auctioneers - by and large coincided with those of the general public. As the taxi passed the Tuileries Gardens I looked out at the crude half-tone illustrations of da Vinci's effulgent masterpiece reproduced in the newspapers, recalling the immense splendour of the painting, with its unparalleled composition and handling of chiaroscuro, its unsurpassed technique, which together had launched the High Renaissance and provided a beacon for the sculptors, painters and architects of the Baroque.

Despite the two million reproductions of the painting sold each year, not to mention the countless pastiches and inferior imitations, the subject matter of the painting still retained its majestic power. Completed two years after da Vinci's Virgin and St Anne, also in the Louvre, it was not only one of the few Leonardos to have survived intact the thousand eager hands of the retouchers of four centuries, but was the only painting by the master, apart from the dissolving and barely visible Last Supper, in which he handled a composition with a large landscape and a huge gallery of supporting figures.

It was this latter factor, perhaps, which gave the painting its terrifying, hallucinatory power. The enigmatic, almost ambivalent expression on the face of the dying Christ, the hooded serpentine eyes of the Madonna and Magdalene, these characteristic signatures of Leonardo became more than mere mannerisms when set against the huge spiral concourse of attendant figures that seemed to swirl up into the distant sky across the Place of Bones, transforming the whole image of the crucifixion into an apocalyptic vision of the resurrection and judgment of mankind. From this single canvas had come the great frescoes of Michelangelo and Raphael in the Sistine Chapel, the entire schools of Tintoretto and Veronese. That someone should have the audacity to steal it was a tragic comment on mankind's respect for its greatest monuments.

And yet, I wondered as we arrived at the offices of Galleries Normande et Cie in the Madeleine, had the painting really been stolen at all? Its size, some 15 feet by 18 feet, and weight - it had been transferred from the original canvas to an oak panel precluded a single fanatic or psychopath, and no gang of professional art thieves would waste their time stealing a painting for which there would be no market. Could it be, perhaps, that the French government was hoping to distract attention from some other impending event, though nothing less than the re-introduction of the monarchy and the coronation of the Bourbon Pretender in Notre Dame would have required such an elaborate smoke-screen.

At the first opportunity I raised my doubts with Georg de Stael, the director of Galleries Normande with whom I was staying during my visit. Ostensibly I had come to Paris to attend a conference that afternoon of art dealers and gallery directors who had also suffered from thefts of major works of art, but to any outsider our mood of elation and high spirits would have suggested some other motive. This, of course, would have been correct. Whenever a large stone is cast into the turbid waters of international art, people such as myself and Georg de Stael immediately take up our positions on the bank, watching for any unusual ripple or malodorous bubble. Without doubt the theft of the Leonardo would reveal a good deal more than the identity of some crackpot cat burglar. All the darker fish would now be swimming frantically for cover, and a salutary blow had been struck at the official establishment of senior museum curators and directors.

Such feelings of revenge obviously animated Georg as he moved with dapper, light-footed ease around his desk to greet me. His blue silk summer suit, well in advance of the season, glittered like his smooth brilliantined hair, his svelte rapacious features breaking into a smile of roguish charm.

'My dear Charles, I assure you, categorically, the confounded picture has actually gone - , Georg shot out three inches of elegant chalk-blue cuff and snapped his hands together '- puff! For once everyone is speaking the truth. What is even more remarkable, the painting was genuine.'

'I don't know whether I'm glad to hear that or not,' I admitted. 'But it's certainly more than you can say for most of the Louvre - and the National Gallery.'

'Agreed.' Georg straddled his desk, his patent leather shoes twinkling in the light. 'I had hoped that this catastrophe might induce the authorities to make a clean breast of some of their so-called treasures, in an attempt, as it were to dispel some of the magic surrounding the Leonardo. But they are in a complete fuddle.'

For a moment we both contemplated what such a sequence of admissions would do to the art markets of the world - the prices of anything even remotely genuine would soar - as well as to the popular image of Renaissance painting as something sacrosanct and unparalleled. However, this was not to gainsay the genius of the stolen Leonardo.

'Tell me, Georg,' I asked. 'Who stole it?' I assumed he knew.

For the first time in many years Georg seemed at a loss for an answer. He shrugged helplessly. 'My dear Charles, I just do not know. It's a complete mystery. Everyone is as baffled as you are.'

'In that case it must be an inside job.'

'Definitely not. The present crowd at the Louvre are beyond reproach.' He tapped the telephone. 'This morning I was speaking to some of our more dubious contacts - Antweiler in Messina and Kolenskya in Beirut - and they are both mystified. In fact they're convinced that either the whole thing is a put-up affair by the present regime, or else the Kremlin itself is involved.'

'The Kremlin?' I echoed incredulously. At the invocation of this name the atmosphere heightened, and for the next half an hour we spoke in whispers.

***

The conference that afternoon, at the Palais de Chaillot, offered no further clues. Chief Detective-Inspector Carnot, a massive gloomy man in a faded blue suit, took the chair, flanked by other agents of the Deuxieme Bureau. All of them looked tired and dispirited; by now they were having to check up on some dozen false alarms each hour. Behind them, like a hostile jury, sat a sober-faced group of investigators from Lloyds of London and Morgan Guaranty Trust of New York. By contrast, the two hundred dealers and agents sitting on the gilt chairs below the platform presented an animated scene, chattering away in a dozen languages and flying a score of speculative kites.

After a brief resum, delivered in a voice of sepulchral resignation, Inspector Carnot introduced a burly Dutchman next to him, Superintendent Jurgens of the Interpol bureau at The Hague, and then called on M. Auguste Pecard, assistant director of the Louvre, for a detailed description of the theft. This merely confirmed that the security arrangements at the Louvre were first-class and that it was absolutely impossible for the painting to have been stolen. I could see that Pecard was still not entirely convinced that it had gone.

'... the pressure panels in the floor surrounding the painting have not been disturbed, nor have the two infra-red beams across its face been broken. Gentlemen, I assure you it is impossible to remove the painting without first dismantling the bronze frame. This alone weighs eight hundred pounds and is bolted into the wall behind it. But the electric alarm circuit which flows through the bolts was not interrupted..

I was looking up at the two life-size photographs of the front and reverse faces of the painting fastened to the screens behind the dais. The latter showed the back of the oak panel with its six aluminium ribs, contact points for the circuit and a mass of chalked graffiti enscribed over the years by the museum laboratories. The photographs had been taken the last time the picture was removed for cleaning, and after a brief bout of questioning it transpired that this had been completed only two days before the theft.

At this news the atmosphere of the conference changed. The hundred private conversations ceased, coloured silk handkerchiefs were returned to their breast pockets.

I nudged Georg de Stael. 'So that explains it.' Obviously the painting had disappeared during its period in the laboratory, where the security arrangements would be less than fool-proof. 'It was not stolen from the gallery at all.'

The hubbub around us had re-started. Two hundred noses once again were lifted to scent the trail. So the painting had been stolen, and was somewhere at large in the world. The rewards to the discoverer, if not the Legion of Honour or a Knighthood, then at least complete freedom from all income tax and foreign exchange investigations, hovered like a spectre before us.

On the way back, however, Georg stared sombrely through the window of the taxi.

'The painting was stolen from the gallery,' he said to me pensively. 'I saw it there myself just twelve hours before it vanished.' He took my arm and held it tightly. 'We'll find it, Charles, for the glory of Northeby's and the Galleries Normande. But, my God, the man who stole it was a thief out of this world!'

So began the quest for the missing Leonardo. I returned to London the next morning, but Georg and I were in regular contact by telephone. Initially, like all the others on its trail, we merely listened, ears to the ground for an unfamiliar foot-fall. In the crowded auction rooms and galleries we waited for the indiscreet word, for the give-away clue. Business, of course, was buoyant; every museum and private owner with a third-rate Rubens or Raphael had now moved up a rung. With luck the renewed market activity would uncover some distant accomplice of the thief, or a previous substitute for the Leonardo - perhaps a pastiche Mona Lisa by one of Verrocchio's pupils - would be jettisoned by the thief and appear on one of the shadier markets. If the hunt for the vanished painting was conducted as loudly as ever in the outside world, within the trade all was quiet and watchful.

In fact, too quiet. By rights something should have materialized, some faint clue should have appeared on the fine filters of the galleries and auction rooms. But nothing was heard. As the wave of activity launched by the displaced Leonardo rolled past and business resumed its former tempo, inevitably the painting became just another on the list of lost masterpieces.

Only Georg de Stael seemed able to maintain his interest in the search. Now and then he would put through a call to London, requesting some obscure piece of information about an anonymous buyer of a Titian or Rembrandt in the late 18th century, or the history of some damaged copy by a pupil of Rubens or Raphael. He seemed particularly interested in works known to have been damaged and subsequently restored, information with which many private owners are naturally jealous of parting.

Consequently, when he called to see me in London some four months after the disappearance of the Leonardo, it was not in a purely jocular sense that I asked: 'Well, Georg, do you know who stole it yet?'

Unclipping a large briefcase, Georg smiled at me darkly. 'Would it surprise you if I said "yes"? As a matter of fact, I don't know, but I have an idea, a hypothesis, shall we say. I thought you might be interested to hear it.'

'Of course, Georg,' I said, adding reprovingly: 'So this is what you've been up to.'

He raised a thin forefinger to silence me. Below the veneer of easy charm I noticed a new mood of seriousness, a cutting of conversational corners.

'First, Charles, before you laugh me out of your office, let's say that I consider my theory completely fantastic and implausible, and yet - , he shrugged deprecatingly '- it seems to be the only one possible. To prove it I need your help.'

'Given before asked. But what is this theory? I can't wait to hear.'

He hesitated, apparently uncertain whether to expose his idea, and then began to empty the briefcase, taking out a series of looseleaf files which he placed in a row facing him along the desk. These contained what appeared to be photographic reproductions of a number of paintings, areas within them marked with white ink. Several of the photographs were enlargements of details, all of a high-faced, goatee-bearded man in mediaeval costume.

Georg inverted six of the larger plates so that I could see them. 'You recognize these, of course?'

I nodded. With the exception of one, Rubens' Pieta in the Hermitage Museum at Leningrad, I had seen the originals of them all within the previous five years. The others were the missing Leonardo Crucifixion, the Crucifixions by Veronese, Goya and Holbein, and that by Poussin, entitled The Place of Golgotha. All were in public museums the Louvre, San Stefano in Venice, the Prado and the Ryksmuseum, Amsterdam - and all were familiar, wellauthenticated masterworks, centrepieces, apart from the Poussin, of major national collections. 'It's reassuring to see them. I trust they're all in good hands. Or are they next on the mysterious thief's shopping list?'

Georg shook his head. 'No, I don't think he's very interested in these. Though he keeps a watching brief over them.' Again I noticed the marked change in Georg's manner, the reflective private humour. 'Do you notice anything else?'

I compared the photographs again. 'They're all crucifixions. Authentic, except perhaps in minor details. They were all easel paintings.' I shrugged.

'They all, at some time, have been stolen.' Georg moved quickly from right to left. 'The Poussin from the Chateau Loire collection in 1822, the Goya in 1806 from the Monte Cassino monastery, by Napoleon, the Veronese from the Prado in 1891, the Leonardo four months ago as we know, and the Holbein in 1943, looted for the Herman Goering collection.'

'Interesting,' I commented. 'But few masterworks haven't been stolen at some time. I hope this isn't a key point in your theory.'

'No, but in conjunction with another factor it gains insignificance. Now.' He handed the Leonardo reproduction to me. 'Anything unusual there?' When I shook my head at the familiar image he picked up another photograph of the missing painting. 'What about that one?'

The photographs had been taken from slightly different perspectives, but otherwise seemed identical. 'They are both of the original Crucifixion,' Georg explained, 'taken in the Louvre within a month of its disappearance.'

'I give up,' I admitted. 'They seem the same. No - wait a minute!' I pulled the table light nearer and bent over the plates, as Georg nodded. 'They're slightly different. What is going on?'

Quickly, figure by figure, I compared the photographs, within a few moments seized on the minute disparity. In almost every particular the pictures were identical, but one figure out of the score or more on the crowded field had been altered. On the left, where the procession wound its way up the hillside towards the three crosses, the face of one of the bystanders had been completely repainted. Although, in the centre of the painting, the Christ hung from the cross some hours after the crucifixion, by a sort of spatio-temporal perspective - a common device in all Renaissance painting for overcoming the static nature of the single canvas - the receding procession carried the action backwards through time, so that one followed the invisible presence of the Christ on his painful last ascent of Golgotha.

The figure whose face had been repainted formed part of the crowd on the lower slopes. A tall powerfully built man in a black robe, he had obviously been the subject of special care by Leonardo, who had invested him with the magnificent physique and serpentine grace usually reserved for his depiction of angels. Looking at the photograph in my left hand, the original unretouched version, I realized that Leonardo had indeed intended the figure to represent an angel of death, or rather, one of those agents of the unconscious, terrifying in their enigmatic calm, in their brooding ambivalence, who seem to preside in his paintings over all man's deepest fears and longings, like the grey-faced statues that stare down from the midnight cornices of the necropolis at Pompeii.

All this, so typical of Leonardo and his curious vision, seemed to be summed up by the face of this tall angelic figure. Turned almost in profile over the left shoulder, the face looked up towards the cross, a faint flicker of pity investing the grey saturnine features. A high forehead, slightly flared at the temples, rose above the handsome semitic nose and mouth. A trace of a smile, of compassionate resignation and understanding, hung about the lips, providing a solitary source of light which illuminated the remainder of the face partly obscured by the shadows of the thundering sky.

In the photograph on my right, however, all this had been altered completely. The whole character of this angelic figure had been replaced by a new conception. The superficial likeness remained, but the face had lost its expression of tragic compassion. The later artist had reversed its posture altogether, and the head was turned away from the cross and over the right shoulder towards the earthly city of Jerusalem whose spectral towers rose like a city of Miltonic hell in the blue dusk. While the other bystanders followed the ascending Christ as if helpless to assist him, the expression on the face of the black-robed figure was arrogant and critical, the tension of the averted neck muscles indicating that he had swung his head away almost in disgust from the spectacle before him.

'What is this?' I asked, pointing to the latter photograph. 'Some lost pupil's copy? I can't see why - '

Georg leaned forward and tapped the print. 'That is the original Leonardo. Don't you understand, Charles? The version on your left which you were admiring for so many minutes was superimposed by some unknown retoucher, only a few years after da Vinci's death.' He smiled at my scepticism. 'Believe me, it's true. The figure concerned is only a minor part of the composition, no one had seriously examined it before, as the rest of the painting is without doubt original. These additions were discovered five months ago shortly after the painting was removed for cleaning. The infra-red examination revealed the completely intact profile below.'

He passed two more photographs to me, both large-scale details of the head, in which the contrasts of characterization were even more obvious. 'As you can see from the brush-work in the shading, the retouching was done by a right-handed artist, whereas we know, of course, that da Vinci was left-handed.'

'Well...' I shrugged. 'It seems strange. But if what you say is correct, why on earth was such a small detail altered? The whole conception of the character is different.'

'An interesting question,' Georg said ambiguously. 'Incidentally, the figure is that of Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew.' He pointed to the man's feet. 'He's always conventionally represented by the crossed sandal-straps of the Essene Sect, to which Jesus himself may have belonged.'

I picked up the photographs again. 'The Wandering Jew,' I repeated softly. 'How curious. The man who taunted Christ to move faster and was condemned to rove the surface of the earth until the Second Coming. It's almost as if the retoucher were an apologist for him, superimposing this expression of tragic pity over Leonardo's representation. There's an idea for you, Georg. You know how courtiers and wealthy merchants who gathered at painters' studios were informally incorporated into their paintings - perhaps Ahasuerus would move around, posing as himself, driven by a sort of guilt compulsion, then later steal the paintings and revise them. Now there is a theory.'

I looked across at Georg, waiting for him to reply. He was nodding slowly, eyes watching mine in unspoken agreement, all trace of humour absent. 'Georg!' I exclaimed. 'Are you serious? Do you mean - '

He interrupted me gently but forcefully. 'Charles, just give me a few more minutes to explain. I warned you that my theory was fantastic.' Before I could protest he passed me another photograph. 'The Veronese Crucifixion. See anyone you recognize? On the bottom left.'

I raised the photograph to the light. 'You're right. The late Venetian treatment is different, far more pagan, but it's quite obvious. You know, Georg, it's a remarkable likeness.'

'Agreed. But it's not only the likeness. Look at the pose and characterization.'

Identified again by his black robes and crossed sandal-straps, the figure of Ahasuerus stood among the throng on the crowded canvas. The unusual feature was not so much that the pose was again that of the retouched Leonardo, with Ahasuerus now looking with an expression of deep compassion at the dying Christ - an altogether meaningless interpretation - but the remarkable likeness between the two faces, almost as if they had been painted from the same model. The beard was perhaps a little fuller, in the Venetian manner, but the planes of the face, the flaring of the temples, the handsome coarseness of the mouth and jaw, the wise resignation in the eyes, that of some well-travelled physician witnessing an act of barbaric beauty and power, all these were exactly echoed from the Leonardo.

I gestured helplessly. 'It's an amazing coincidence.'

Georg nodded. 'Another is that this painting, like the Leonardo, was stolen shortly after being extensively cleaned. When it was recovered in Florence two years later it was slightly damaged, and no further attempts were made to restore the painting.' Georg paused. 'Do you see my point, Charles?'

'More or less. I take it you suspect that if the Veronese were now cleaned a rather different version of Ahasuerus would be found. Veronese's original depiction.'

'Exactly. After all, the present treatment makes no sense. If you're still sceptical, look at these others.'

Standing up, we began to go through the remainder of the photographs. In each of the others, the Poussin, Holbein, Goya and Rubens, the same figure was to be found, the same dark saturnine face regarding the cross with an expression of compassionate understanding. In view of the very different styles of the artists, the degree of similarity was remarkable. In each, as well, the pose was meaningless, the characterization completely at odds with the legendary role of Ahasuerus.

By now the intensity of Georg's conviction was communicating itself to me physically. He drummed the desk with the palm of one hand. 'In each case, Charles, all six paintings were stolen shortly after they had been cleaned - even the Holbein was looted from the Herman Goering collection by some renegade SS after being repaired by concentration camp inmates. As you yourself said, it's almost as if the thief was unwilling for the world to see the true image of Ahasuerus's character exposed and deliberately painted in these apologies.'

'But Georg, you're making a large assumption there. Can you prove that in each case, apart from the Leonardo, there is an original version below the present one?'

'Not yet. Naturally galleries are reluctant to give anyone the opportunity to show that their works are not entirely genuine. I know all this is still hypothesis, but what other explanation can you find?'

Shaking my head, I went over to the window, letting the noise and movement of Bond Street cut through Georg's heady speculations. 'Are you seriously suggesting, Georg, that the black-robed figure of Ahasuerus is promenading somewhere on those pavements below us now, and that all through the centuries he's been stealing and retouching paintings that represent him spurning Jesus? The idea's ludicrous!'

'No more ludicrous than the theft of the painting. Everyone agrees it could not have been stolen by anyone bounded by the laws of the physical universe.'

For a moment we stared at each other across the desk. 'All right,' I temporized, not wishing to offend him. The intensity of his ide fixe had alarmed me. 'But isn't our best plan simply to sit back and wait for the Leonardo to turn up again?'

'Not necessarily. Most of the stolen paintings remained lost for ten or twenty years. Perhaps the effort of stepping outside the bounds of space and time exhausts him, or perhaps the sight of the original paintings terrifies him so - ' He broke off as I began to come forward towards him. 'Look, Charles, it is fantastic, but there's a slim chance it may be true. This is where I need your help. It's obvious this man must be a great patron of the arts, drawn by an irresistible compulsion, by unassuageable feelings of guilt, towards those artists painting crucifixions. We must begin to watch the sale rooms and galleries. That face, those black eyes and that haunted profile - sooner or later we'll see him, searching for another Crucifixion or Pieta. Cast your mind back, do you recognize that face?'

I looked down at the carpet, the image of the dark-eyed wanderer before me. Go quicker, he had taunted Jesus as he passed bearing the cross towards Golgotha, and Jesus had replied: I go, but thou shalt wait until I return. I was about to say 'no', but something restrained me, some reflex pause of recognition stirred through my mind. That handsome Levantine profile, in a different costume, of course, a smart dark-striped lounge suit, gold-topped cane and spats, bidding through an agent 'You have seen him?' Georg came over to me. 'Charles, I think I have too.'

I gestured him away. 'I'm not sure, Georg, but... I almost wonder.' Curiously it was the retouched portrait of Ahasuerus, rather than Leonardo's original, which seemed more real, closer to the face I felt sure I had actually seen. Suddenly I pivoted on my heel. 'Confound it, Georg, do you realize that if this incredible idea of yours is true this man must have spoken to Leonardo? To Michelangelo, and Titian and Rembrandt?'

Georg nodded. 'And someone else too,' he added pensively.

For the next month, after Georg's return to Paris, I spent less time in my office and more in the sale rooms, watching for that familiar profile which something convinced me I had seen before. But for this undeniable conviction I would have dismissed Georg's hypothesis as obsessive fantasy. I made a few tactful enquiries of my assistants, and to my annoyance two of them also vaguely remembered such a person. After this I found myself unable to drive George de Stael's fancies from my mind. No further news was heard of the missing Leonardo - the complete absence of any clues mystified the police and the art world alike.

Consequently, it was with an immense feeling of relief, as much as of excitement, that I received five weeks later the following telegram: CHARLES. COME IMMEDIATELY. I HAVE SEEN HIM. GEORGDE STAEL.

This time, as my taxi carried me from Orly Airport to the Madeleine, it was no idle amusement that made me watch the Tuileries Gardens for any sight of a tall man in a black slouch hat sneaking through the trees with a rolled-up canvas under his arm. Was Georg de Stael finally and irretrievably out of his mind, or had he in fact seen the phantom Ahasuerus?

When he greeted me at the doorway of Normande et Cie his handshake was as firm as ever, his face composed and relaxed. In his office he sat back and regarded me quizzically over the tips of his fingers, evidently so sure of himself that he could let his news bide its time.

'He's here, Charles,' he said at last. 'In Paris, staying at the Ritz. He's been attending the sales here of 19th and 20th century masters. With luck you'll see him this afternoon.'

For once my incredulity returned, but before I could stutter my objections Georg silenced me.

'He's just as we expected, Charles. Tall and powerfully built, with a kind of statuesque grace, the sort of man who moves easily among the rich and nobility. Leonardo and Holbein caught him exactly, that strange haunted intensity about his eyes, the wind of deserts and great ravines.'

'When did you first see him?'

'Yesterday afternoon. We had almost completed the 19th century sales when a small Van Gogh - an inferior copy by the painter of The Good Samaritan - came up. One of those painted during his last madness, full of turbulent spirals, the figures like tormented beasts. For some reason the Samaritan's face reminded me of Ahasuerus. Just then I looked up across the crowded auction room.' Georg sat forward. 'To my amazement there he was, sitting not three feet away in the front row of seats, staring me straight in the face. I could hardly take my eyes off him. As soon as the bidding started he came in hard, going up in two thousands of francs.'

'He took the painting?'

'No. Luckily I still had my wits about me. Obviously I had to be sure he was the right man. Previously his appearances have been solely as Ahasuerus, but few painters today are doing crucifixions in the bel canto style, and he may have tried to redress the balance of guilt by appearing in other roles, the Samaritan for example. He was left alone at 15,000 actually the reserve was only ten - so I leaned over and had the painting withdrawn. I was sure he would come back today if he was Ahasuerus, and I needed twenty-four hours to get hold of you and the police. Two of Carnot's men will be here this afternoon. I told them some vague story and they'll be unobtrusive. Anyway, naturally there was the devil's own row when this little Van Gogh was withdrawn. Everyone here thought I'd gone mad. Our dark-faced friend leapt up and demanded the reason, so I had to say that I suspected the authenticity of the painting and was protecting the reputation of the gallery, but if satisfied would put it up the next day.'

'Clever of you,' I commented.

Georg inclined his head. 'I thought so too. It was a neat trap. Immediately he launched into a passionate defence of the painting - normally a man with his obvious experience of sale rooms would have damned it out of hand bringing up all sorts of details about Vincent's third-rate pigments, the back of the canvas and so on. The back of the canvas, note, what the sitter would most remember about a painting. I said I was more or less convinced, and he promised to be back today. He left his address in case any difficulty came up.' Georg took a silver-embossed card from his pocket and read out: "'Count EnriqueDanilewicz, Villa d'Est, Cadaques, Costa Brava." Across the card was enscribed: 'Ritz Hotel, Paris.'

'Cadaques,' I repeated. 'Dali is nearby there, at Port Lligat. Another coincidence.'

'Perhaps more than, a coincidence. Guess what the Catalan master is at present executing for the new Cathedral of St Joseph at San Diego? One of his greatest commissions to date. Exactly! A crucifixion. Our friend Ahasuerus is once more doing his rounds.'

Georg pulled a leather-bound pad from his centre drawer. 'Now listen to this. I've been doing some research on the identity of the models for Ahasuerus - usually some petty princeling or merchant-king. The Leonardo is untraceable. He kept open house, beggars and goats wandered through his studio at will, anyone could have got in and posed. But the others were more select. The Ahasuerus in the Holbein was posed by a Sir Henry Daniels, a leading banker and friend of Henry VIII. In the Veronese by a member of the Council of Ten, none other than the Doge-to-be, Enri Danieli - we've both stayed in the hotel of that name in Venice. In the Rubens by Baron Henrik Nielson, Danish Ambassador to Amsterdam, and in the Goya by a certain Enrico Da Nella, financier and great patron of the Prado. While in the Poussin by the famous dilettante, Henri, Duc de Nile.'

Georg closed the note-book with a flourish. I said: 'It's certainly remarkable.'

'You don't exaggerate. Danilewicz, Daniels, Danieli, Da Nella, de Nile and Nielson. Alias Ahasuerus. You know, Charles, I'm a little frightened, but I think we have the missing Leonardo within our grasp.'

Nothing was more disappointing, therefore, than the failure of our quarry to appear that afternoon.

***

The transfer of the Van Gogh from the previous day's sales had fortunately given it a high lot number, after some three dozen 20th century paintings. As the bids for the Kandinskys and Legers came in, I sat on the podium behind Georg, surveying the elegant assembly below. In such an international gathering, of American connoisseurs, English press lords, French and Italian aristocracy, coloured by a generous sprinkling of ladies of the demi-monde, the presence of even the remarkable figure Georg had described would not have been over-conspicuous. However, as we moved steadily down the catalogue, and the flashing of the photographers' bulbs became more and more wearisome, I began to wonder whether he would appear at all. His seat in the front row remained reserved for him, and I waited impatiently for this fugitive through time and space to materialize and make his magnificent entry promptly as the Van Gogh was announced.

As it transpired, both the seat and the painting remained untaken. Put off by Georg's doubts as to its authenticity, the painting failed to reach its reserve, and as the last sales closed we were left alone on the podium, our bait untaken.

'He must have smelled a rat,' Georg whispered, after the attendants had confirmed that Count Danilewicz was not present in any of the other sale-rooms. A moment later a telephone call to the Ritz established that he had vacated his suite and left Paris for the south.

'No doubt he's expert at sidestepping such traps. What now?' I asked.

'Cadaques.'

'Georg! Are you insane?'

'Not at all. There's only a chance, but we must take it! Inspector Carnot will find a plane. I'll invent some fantasy to please him. Come on, Charles, I'm convinced we'll find the Leonardo in his villa.'

We arrived at Barcelona, Carnot in tow, with Superintendent Jurgens of Interpol to smooth our way through customs, and three hours later set off in a posse of police cars for Cadaques. The fast ride along that fantastic coast line, with its monstrous rocks like giant sleeping reptiles and the glazed light over the embalmed sea, reminiscent of all Dali's timeless beaches, was a fitting prelude to the final chapter. The air bled diamonds around us, sparkling off the immense spires of rock, the huge lunar ramparts suddenly giving way to placid bays of luminous water.

The Villa d'Est stood on a promontory a thousand feet above the town, its high walls and shuttered moorish windows glistening in the sunlight like white quartz. The great black doors, like the vaults of a cathedral, were sealed, and a continuous ringing of the bell brought no reply. At this a prolonged wrangle ensued between Jurgens and the local police, who were torn between their reluctance to offend an important local dignitary - Count Danilewicz had evidently founded a dozen scholarships for promising local artists - and their eagerness to partake in the discovery of the missing Leonardo.

Impatient of all this, Georg and I borrowed a car and chauffeur and set off for Port Lligat, promising the Inspector that we would return in time for the commercial airliner which was due to land at Barcelona from Paris some two hours later, presumably carrying Count Danilewicz. 'No doubt, however,' Georg remarked softly as we moved off, 'he travels by other transport.'

What excuse we would make to penetrate the private menage of Spain's most distinguished painter I had not decided, though the possibility of simultaneous one-man shows at Northeby's and Galleries Normande might have appeased him. As we drove down the final approach to the familiar tiered white villa by the water's edge, a large limousine was coming towards us, bearing away a recent guest.

Our two cars passed at a point where the effective width of the road was narrowed by a nexus of pot-holes, and for a moment the heavy saloons wallowed side by side in the dust like two groaning mastodons.

Suddenly, Georg clenched my elbow and pointed through the window.

'Charles! There he is!'

Lowering my window as the drivers cursed each other, I looked out into the dim cabin of the adjacent car. Sitting in the back seat, his head raised to the noise, was a huge Rasputin-like figure in a black pin-stripe suit, his white cuffs and gold tie-pin glinting in the shadows, gloved hands crossed in front of him over an ivory-handled cane. As we edged past I caught a glimpse of his great saturnine head, whose living features matched and corroborated exactly those which I had seen reproduced by so many hands upon so many canvases. The dark eyes glowed with an intense lustre, the black eyebrows rearing from his high forehead like wings, the sharp curve of the beard carrying the sweep of his strong jaw forward into the air like a spear.

Elegantly suited though he was, his whole presence radiated a tremendous restless energy, a powerful charisma that seemed to extend beyond the confines of the car. For a moment we exchanged glances, separated from each other by only two or three feet. He was staring beyond me, however, at some distant landmark, some invisible hill-crest forever silhouetted against the horizon, and I saw in his eyes that expression of irredeemable remorse, of almost hallucinatory despair, untouched by self-pity or any conceivable extenuation, that one imagines on the faces of the damned.

'Stop him!' Georg shouted into the noise. 'Charles, warn him!'

Our car edged upwards out of the final rut, and I shouted through the engine fumes: 'Ahasuerus! Ahasuerus!'

His wild eyes swung back, and he rose forward in his seat, a black arm on the window ledge, like some immense half-crippled angel about to take flight. Then the two cars surged apart, and we were separated from the limousine by a tornado of dust. Enchanted from the placid air, for ten minutes the squall seethed backwards and forwards across us.

By the time it subsided and we had managed to reverse, the great limousine had vanished.

They found the Leonardo in the Villa d'Est, propped against the wall in its great gilt frame in the dining-room. To everyone's surprise the house was found to be completely empty, though two manservants who had been given the day off testified that when they left it that morning it had been lavishly furnished as usual. However, as Georg de Stael remarked, no doubt the vanished tenant had his own means of transport.

The painting had suffered no damage, though the first cursory glance confirmed that a skilled hand had been at work on a small portion. The face of the black-robed figure once again looked upwards to the cross, a hint of hope, perhaps even of redemption, in its wistful gaze. The brush-work had dried, but Georg reported to me that the thin layer of varnish was still tacky.

On our feted and triumphant return to Paris, Georg and I recommended that in view of the hazards already suffered by the painting no further attempts should be made to clean or restore it, and with a grateful sigh the director and staff of the Louvre sealed it back into its wall. The painting may not be entirely by the hand of Leonardo da Vinci, but we feel that the few additions have earned their place.

No further news was heard of Count Danilewicz, but Georg recently told me that a Professor Henrico Daniella was reported to have been appointed director of the Museum of Pan-Christian Art at Santiago. His attempts to communicate with Professor Daniella had failed, but he gathered that the Museum was extremely anxious to build up a large collection of paintings of the Cross.