The Dorich House Mystery (The Ralph Chalmers Mysteries Book 3) Read online

  The Dorich House Mystery

  By

  P. J. Thurbin

  Copyright P. J. Thurbin 2013, All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters are a creation of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Any reference to historical characters or events is used in a fictitious way.

  This book is dedicated to my daughter Sally and to my son Andrew

  Acknowledgement

  Much appreciation as always to my wife and editor, Daisy, my greatest fan and harshest critic.

  Chapter 1

  Brigadier Willoughby Smythe and his wife Maude were awakened by the shrill clarion of a security alarm. Being an army man he was quickly out of bed, snatching up his heavy wool dressing gown he ran to the window. It was past midnight and he could see the blue flashing light on the wall of nearby Dorich House, the source of the ear splitting noise. It was not the first time that this had happened and he realised that it would probably not be the last. Grabbing his army service revolver from the drawer of his oak desk he ran down the sweeping staircase and out onto the graveled driveway. A full moon bathed the tall impressive house in a soft pale light but the sensation of gravel cutting into his feet reminded him of present danger. A shadowy figure ran from the house and into the apple orchard that separated the property from the parklands.Taking steady aim he fired off two shots. The sharp sound echoed in the still night air. He swore afterwards that he had ‘winged the bugger. “Aim low and bring the enemy down. He might have vital information so no point killing the swine outright,” he muttered to himself.

  Within minutes the police arrived, and by then Maude had managed to persuade him to come back into the house. He was shaking from the adrenalin rush and once again she recognized the man she had fallen in love with all those years ago.

  “Those damned University types. Setting up a bloody museum in a residential neighbourhood. The buggers should be horse whipped. Attracts all the thieves and riff- raff in the county. I read in the Times this morning that art theft is the fastest growing crime in Europe. And if you can believe it, it said that the world market for art forgery is worth three billion pounds a year. Those bloody foreigners can do what they like on their own turf but the buggers have obviously decided to make England their next target. That bloody Channel Tunnel was a ghastly mistake. They must have heard about the paintings in that damn museum and want to get their sticky hands on them.”

  “Never mind, dear.” She was about to correct him and say that the United Kingdom was part of Europe and that the University helped ordinary people and children from local schools to appreciate art but thought this was not the right moment. She took the revolver gently from his hand and quietly placed it back in the desk drawer. Living in an eight bedroom mansion on Kingston Hill with grounds backing onto Richmond Park and only 12 miles from central London had been idyllic for the first few years of her husband’s retirement, but since Kingston University had taken over the neighbouring Dorich House and turned it into a museum life had not been the same. Tourists, students, school children and the usual flow of academics and hangers-on coming and going with the slamming of car doors, the noise and shouting had ruined their oasis of calm.

  The police were called and the Brigadier and his wife made the usual statements about what had happened, omitting the bit about firing a few token shots at the miscreant. Maude was kind to the young police constable as he reminded her of the son that she had always wanted. Steadied with a dram of malt whiskey, the couple retired to bed and spent a restless night wondering if life would ever return to the tranquility that they treasured.

  ***

  Ralph Chalmers life had also changed dramatically in the past few months. Years of teaching at Kingston University as Professor of International Business had finally paled. His life style would be seen by most as ideal. He lived in an art deco apartment in leafy Surbiton, a well-established commuter town, close to the River Thames and drove a vintage Jaguar XJ6 that was his pride and joy, and when he could snatch the time he headed for the coast where he was in demand to crew on one of several offshore yachting races. Educated at Cambridge and with a string of publications to his name, he was well established in the academic world. In spite of the occasional dalliance and one or two serious encounters he was, much to his close friends’ disappointment, still unmarried, although at just under 6 feet and a fit 175 pounds he had no trouble attracting the fairer sex.

  But this year offered new opportunities to travel and an escape from the stifling routine of college life. He had been given a sabbatical from his teaching in order to develop links to wealthy industrialists and individuals around the world persuading them to make endowments to the University. He wanted to focus on investors in the art world as this would provide access to what his more Marxist leaning students would call ‘the fat cats of the corporate world’.The competition among Universities to attract those wealthy people was intense. Tonight he had been asked to attend a dinner at Dorich House. These events were one way in which the University established links to academics and influential people from the private and public sectors around the world.

  Ralph was not a lover of such events which he felt were a bit pretentious and bordered on elitism. Over his years in teaching he had seen colleagues who focused on making important contacts and supporting the party line rocket to the top, but that route had never appealed to him. For Ralph it had all been about education and working with students, but he realised that for the next year, at least, his focus would have to change. It was one of those idyllic October evenings. It was still warm enough to be reminiscent of the summer, but the cloying smell of damp leaves that had already fallen signaled the coming of winter and the inevitable dark nights that would soon follow. He eased his Jaguar onto the by-pass that circled Kingston and was soon cruising along well above the speed limit. With an open road and a willing car it was too much to resist. As he approached Kingston Hill and his destination a sharp bend in the road brought him back to reality. Turning carefully into the driveway of Dorich House, he slotted in between a chauffeured limousine sporting a white, red and blue Russian pendant with diplomatic plates and a ridiculously large white SUV. He had never understood why anyone living in the suburbs of London would want such a beast of a vehicle. Obviously tonight’s guests were well-heeled and he tried to control the unease that he always felt when meeting people who held powerful positions, a feeling that in spite of all his own successes in life he had never been able to suppress.

  Entering the entrance hall he could see that the other staff members had already arrived. He was greeted by two of the admin staff who had no doubt been paid overtime for their duties as receptionists. They gave him that obsequious smile that people reserve for senior management. It was going to take all his concentration to play the game that was expected of him tonight. Moving into the main hall he was offered a drink and welcomed effusively by the Vice Chancellor, Marcel Raveaux.

  “Well done, Ralph. It’s good to see you could make it. Let me introduce you to our honoured guests.”

  Ralph had always admired the VC for his ability to greet everyone as though they were a long lost relative. Being French obviously helped, and a privileged education at the Sorbonne in Paris had given him what used to be called Gallic charm and that sense of self- worth that some found smacked of arrogance.

  “Sergei Manovich, a senior member of Roskultural, from Moscow.” Ralph was struck by the bearing of the man. Tall, distinguished looking with a strong handshake that marked him out as a politician. “
Maria Daveskaya, art adviser at the Hermitage museum in St.Petersburg.” Ralph tried to avoid direct eye contact as Maria was devastatingly beautiful and he knew he would feel self conscious if he did; she was certainly nothing like the babushkas so often pictured on TV documentaries. He recognized that she was used to men being stunned by her beauty and for some perverse reason he didn’t want to show her that he was the same as all the rest. Being raised by puritanical minded parents has its drawbacks, Ralph mused. The VC glanced up and gave Ralph that conspiratorial smile that men use when pretty women are introduced. “Grant Richardson, one of our museum’s benefactors. Grant has kindly loaned us a number of paintings from his collection over the years. Grant was one of your contemporaries at Cambridge, I believe, and seems to have done well in spite of not being one of our graduates.” Everyone laughed at the VC’s attempt to put Kingston on a par with Cambridge as a seat of learning. Ralph had read in the papers about the lavish entertaining that Grant and his wife put on at their Cambridge home for investors from the art world. Obviously he must be the owner of that ostentatious SUV, Ralph thought to himself. “You will already know everyone else from the University,” the VC concluded as his arm swept in an arc around the room.

  The VC move easily among the guests and when he had assured himself that all were present and accounted for, raised his voice to be heard above the din to announce that it was time to go in to dinner.

  “I am sure we won’t want to be tardy, as the chef has prepared his own masterpiece for your dining pleasure,” he said to the room at large and led the way through to the dining hall. The honored guests smiled in anticipation and were obviously pleased that they had been included in such an exclusive affair. The VC had that knack for making people feel as though they were among friends. If only life were really like this, Ralph thought.

  Ralph glanced around at his University colleagues who had been pressed into service. He imagined that they were no more pleased to be there than he was. It was a job and they were at work even if it was 8 o’clock in the evening and they were about to enjoy a five star meal and some fine wines from the Dean’s cellar. They smiled just enough to show that they acknowledged his presence while being careful not to divulge any of their thoughts, a feature of the posturing style that Ralph found endemic in academic life.

  The Bursar, Archibald Myers was an unlikely ‘keeper of the purse’. Slightly scruffy at the edges, as Ralph’s secretary Janice had once described him, short and somewhat overweight. But his low key, over friendly, almost careless approach hid a darker side to his nature. Many a Dean had made that mistake and found their budgets and grants sliced to the margin. The Bursar and the VC had perfected the ‘good guy bad guy’ duet to a tee.

  Professor Sarah Winton, whom he knew as the new Head of Art History was petite and sharp-minded. Ralph had heard that she was married to a much older man who owned and ran a series of businesses through a holding company registered in the Bahamas. Ralph had approached him about the possibility of using his business as a live case for business students in order to demonstrate how a holding company operates, but he had received a blunt ‘no’ from Thomas Winton. Sarah also had a reputation for not suffering fools gladly. Ralph realised that she saw him as a novice when it came to art, which he certainly was, and wondered how she would react when asked to share her carefully nurtured group of contacts in the art world.

  Finally there was Cynthia Harper, Curator of the museum at Dorich House. She had the reputation of being a harridan who guarded her territory as though it was Fort Knox. She wore her hair tied tightly back in a bun and sported a tweed skirt, sensible shoes and a full length jacket. The horn-rimmed glasses completed her obvious attempt to look the part. He wondered if she practiced that no-nonsense look in front of a mirror. Was it all a cover for someone who was in fact a ‘raver’? He had seen her climbing into a yellow two-seater BMW sports car that did not fit with the image of a dowdy curator. Rumour had it that her brusque manner when dealing with her staff had led to a number of early retirements and complaints, all of which she seemed blissfully unaware.

  Dorich House was very much the jewel in the University’s crown. The University had been made custodian of the house and it’s collection of art in 1994. Some two years of restoration and ongoing works, contracted out to one of Thomas Winton’s firms, had resulted in its being fully restored. It had been recognized as an accredited museum since 2009. The original owners, Dora Gordine, a world renowned sculptor originally from Estonia, and her husband, The Honourable Richard Hare, had designed and set up their treasures in the art deco style house in the mid 1930’s. At one time he had worked for the Anglo Soviet Relations Division of the British Government and much of his private collection of paintings on exhibition at the museum had been acquired during his visits to Russia. He had also been Professor of Russian literature at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London. He had died in 1966 and his wife in 1991.

  Ralph was struck by the attempts made at the dinner to replicate a style that had been popular in the 1980’s at the headquarters of major corporations in London. He had heard that those luncheons and dinners held in small apartments in those Regency streets just off the Park were the site of many a shady deal.

  The meal was served in a small top floor room in the house just large enough to seat a few guests in an intimate art nouveau setting, with two waiters discretely hovering as the guests chatted away. The University, for all its professed liberalism and espousing of equality, had adopted this somewhat outdated and elitist style of entertaining. Compared to the conditions in the student refectory at the college it was like a scene from a 1930’s film, which Ralph thought was probably what it was meant to do. A set menu was the norm for this intimate style of dining: pumpkin soup with toasted hazel nut seeds followed by Dover Sole, boiled potatoes and spinach, and rounded off with a lemon sorbet followed by cheese and grapes had been deliberately chosen as a prelude to the purpose of the evening. Over coffee the VC began to explain why he had invited his guests from Russia to see the museum’s collections and meet some of his staff.

  “I must congratulate you, Cynthia, on having done such a marvelous job in arranging the museum. We’ve had quite a lot of visitors this year, and it shan’t be long before we are on the tourist map as a ‘must see’ attraction.”

  Cynthia blushed, and for once she seemed lost for words. Ralph wondered if the rumours that she had a crush on the VC might after all be true.

  “One of our concerns is over security. As some of you may be aware, there have been several attempted burglaries in the last 12 months. Maria, you were telling me that this has become a major concern in museums around the world.”

  Ralph admired Maria Daveskaya as she explained how the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg had been systematically looted of over 200 precious objects. “We put a list up on our website but the recovery rate is less than 15%.” Sergei Manovich came in as though he had been waiting for his queue.

  “One of our problems is that at the Hermitage they can only check the inventory every four years or so. As you know my organization, Roskultural is a governmental department whose job it is to protect Russia’s cultural heritage. When we find paintings and other art around the world that we believe has been stolen from us we go to great lengths to have it returned to Russia.”

  The guests listened as Sergei explained how works of art are stolen from museums.

  “Most of the thefts are inside jobs; thefts by curators, contractors, and dishonest staff. A lot of theft is not reported as the curators cannot work out which of the staff are dishonest and as you would say, ‘they do not want to rocks their boat’,” everyone laughed kindly at his use of the language.

  Cynthia leapt up to refute what she considered to be an attempt to throw doubt on the veracity of her staff.

  “It’s different here at Dorich House. We are very small compared to The Hermitage or even to the Victoria and Albert museum in London that has over 3 million items. An
d all my staff are honest and loyal.” Ralph smiled as he recalled some of the things that her staff said about her behind her back. But Sergei was not easily deterred from making his point.

  “I agree with you Vice Chancellor. It only takes one painting to be stolen. Recently five paintings, including a Picasso and a Matisse valued at about 25 million US dollars each were stolen from a Paris museum and are still missing. The collection here at Dorich House may not be quite so valuable, but they could still be worth a substantial amount in today’s market. Some of your paintings may be unsigned or recognized copies that are unattributed to a particular artist, but they could nevertheless be worth a lot of money.”

  Ralph had been mesmerized by the Bursar who seemed to be intent on draining the remaining drops of coffee from his cup and using his fat stubby finger to pick up the last vestiges of biscuit on his cheese plate. He was not quite licking his fingers, but he was getting pretty close. Perhaps it was part of his obsession to prevent waste. But he stopped his harvesting long enough to speak.

  “I hope that no one would be fool enough to steal one of our paintings, Mr. Manovich. They might be old, and some may be of Russian origin, but many of them are copies and unsigned. And from what I’ve heard it’s all about who did the painting rather than wanting it for its looks.”

  “Not quite so, I’m afraid.” Sarah obviously wanted to demonstrate her professional knowledge. “Often unsigned paintings are originals that were completed in the days before adding a mark or signature was seen as relevant. Wealthy patrons used to commission or buy paintings for their representation of a classical or religious event rather than for who had painted it. Good copies are also valuable when the originals are out of the collector’s price range. But there is always the issue of the authenticity of the signature on both originals and copies. There are a number of recent cases where the original painting has been stolen, a copy made and the signature forged. Then the copy is returned or sold back to the museum or private collector, passing it off as the original. The original is then sold to another collector. As Sergei pointed out a few minutes ago, most of these robberies have been inside jobs.”