Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

8 Kerry Greenwood
bought a big trunk of drawings and etchings for a few francs
because he thought it might contain some of the Hokusai screen
pictures popular in the nineties—that’s what he could see at the
top. They were an inspiration to the Impressionists, you know,
and I used to remount them as pictures and we could always
sell them. It was difficult, because they were printed on very
cheap paper. We hauled the trunk home to our atelier, which
was freezing, it was the middle of winter, so cold that ice was
forming on the inside of our windows, and we upturned it so that
all the prints and scrolls fell out onto the oilcloth. And Bennie
was unrolling them and sorting them while I was making coffee,
and I heard him say a very rude word.’
‘And she turned and saw me unrolling a full length red chalk
sketch of the Madonna, a study for a sculpture, perhaps. On
vellum so old that it cracked,’ said Mr. Abrahams’ rich voice
from the door. ‘And I said “Look, Julia,” and she looked, and
there were the initials in the corner, clear as the day Michelangelo
drew them, and she sat back on her heels and said, “First, some
coffee, and then we rejoice that God has not forgotten us.” But
I was so nervous that when the coffee came I spilled it, though
not on the Michelangelo drawing. Come, beautiful ladies, if you
have finished with the Renoir we can sit down, hmm?’ He led
the way into the library and they sat down again. Julia sipped
her sherry, smiling, and her male relatives exhaled a breath of
not-very-well-concealed relief.
‘Then what happened?’ asked Phryne, agog.
‘Oh, then we carried it together—such a journey, we were
terrified that something would happen to tear the miracle from
us—into the Ile de Cité to the Sotheby’s man; and the relief
when we laid it on his table and Bennie gave him the receipts
for the provenance—they had to check of course that the dead
count’s family had such a thing in their possession, but it was
clear title, inventory entries right back to the day they bought it
from Michelangelo’s estate. The dead man had no heirs, so we
weren’t taking anything away from anyone, such a great thing the
Lord did for us. And we didn’t have any money for a celebration