“How much are you hoping to raise?” Gary asked.
I shrugged. “Hopefully, somewhere north of twelve million. Every time I talk to the accountant, the number goes up. I’ll take your advice on what’s possible.”
Gary’s eyes bulged like he’d hit the jackpot. Well they might. Wetherby’s was earning ten per cent on anything we sold. I was going to have to sell extra paintings to pay the commission on the other paintings.
“Let me show you the Long Gallery. That’s really the motherlode.”
As we climbed the stairs, Gary explained buyers wanted to know the story behind a work.
“A good story can really sell for a premium,” he said.
“We have files and files of provenance in the library. Receipts, the lot.”
“Forgive me, William,” Gary said. “We need to create a bit of a buzz! Something to cause a stir. In the market.”
“Well, all the portraits of creepy children are dead relatives. They weren’t dead at the time, you understand, even though some of them look it. They’re very much dead now, I assure you. Half of them are in the family mausoleum, if anyone wants to check for… bone structure… or something?”
We summited the stairs, and I pushed open the doors to the Long Gallery.
Gary shook his head. “What I mean to say is, why are you selling these cherished pieces of your family history?”
“Oh, I see!” I pointed to the terrifying Holbein of Queen Elizabeth I. “Well, she’s notmyfamily history at all. She’s only a distant cousin. The three Holbeins and a lot of other old tat were bought by the ninth baron in the Victorian era. He’d massively extended the house and needed some artwork to really achieve the gothic horror aesthetic he was apparently going for.”
“I’m sorry, William, you misunderstand me,” Gary said. “Why are you selling them?”
I pointed to a portrait of a buxom and bewigged relative by Joshua Reynolds.
“Well, I haven’t been comfortable withthatpainting ever since my mother told me she walked in on my grandfather masturbating to it.”
Gary’s eyes lit up. “I like the sound of that story. Tell me that one.”
“There’s not much more to it. He was off his rocker by then.”
Gary’s pencil was scribbling away madly.
“Is this the sort of thing you want?” I asked.
“It’s wonderful colour. But tell me, William, why do you need to raise twelve million?”
That gave me pause. I tried to wave his enquiry away. “It’s the usual story. You know how it is.”
“Gambling debts?” he said with a slow, knowing nod.
“Well, no.”
“A dissolute lifestyle, then?”
“No. Not that either.”
“Are you being bled dry by mistresses?”
Why did an auctioneer need to know this? I shook my head.
“Blackmail?”
“What kinds of stories are you reading, man? It’s to pay a bloody tax bill.”
“Ah.” Gary smiled sympathetically. “Now thatisa common story. How much did HMRC get you for, out of interest?”
