Ms Batterson, Art Finder

“When the board of trustees to this ancient and venerable institution, of which I’ve had the utmost pleasure and privilege to serve as director for nearly three decades, suggested your name to find our Raphael, I admit I laughed aloud, Ms Batterson,” said a man at the elderly stage of life but still vigorous in conversation, whose upper lip was decked by a trim silver mustachio.

He wore a splendid beige two-piece suit topped off with a black silk tie, and he unbuttoned his blazer as he settled into his tall leather chair.

“‘How is this — child — because, no offense intended, but you’re hardly in your twenties — who has, I’m told, a reputation for being an effective finder of lost art — but is (oh!) so green not only in the weighty matters of the art world, but also in the far more weighty matters of adulthood…

“How’s this very young woman going to ever find out and bring back a painting stolen over half a century ago?’ I remember asking the trustees, who insisted upon your hiring — and received no more satisfactory answer than: ‘John, we’ve already tried everything else.’ So I went along.

“But, by Jove, hearing that the Raphael in question has finally been found, I grant, Ms Batterson, that I was sorely — exquisitely — mistaken in doubting your capabilities.

“I owe both the board and you an apology, which I hope you will accept, along with the deepest gratitude. You have no idea how many inquiries, trips, reports, and investigations — and everything in between — my team and I have pursued over the years to gain any knowledge of the painting’s whereabouts.”

“I am twenty-four, sir” asserted the young woman, herself wearing black high-rise trousers and a black silk blouse. The flats she wore were also black. The only touch of color on her was a golden chain bracelet on her right wrist; from it swung a small bright cross.

“But no worries at all, Mr Grant, apology accepted.”

“I’m also terribly sorry for arriving late,” he added, taking in a deep breath. “I received word moments ago that the police have arrived at my villa outside the city. I have no idea why. My housemaid there texted me. I was trying to contact her, but she hasn’t picked up. I’ll try again after our meeting. I hope it was not another break-in! — It has happened before, you know. Close the door please, my dear.”

Coolly and happily, she stood up to close the door, and returned to settle herself into one of two polyester chairs across the museum director’s desk. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure it’s nothing. — And again, apology accepted, Mr Grant.

“And I have really enjoyed myself in finding the Raphael. To be sure, finding a long lost treasure is an invigorating experience, and I’m grateful for the opportunity.”

“Well, that is a source of invigoration we here have not been fortunate to experience ourselves… We will remunerate you handsomely, dear. You have restored to us indeed a treasure, a national treasure,” said Mr Grant, who assumed a contemplative air and slapped his hands on the desk.

“Now, if I may ask — because you may imagine my curiosity as to how you solved a sort of puzzle that has bewildered countless… How did you do it, Ms Batterson? How did you find it, and that so fast? I met you only a week ago.”

Ms Batterson lightly smiled, saying, “Sir, a magician never reveals her secrets.” — Mr Grant nodded in reply, glancing askance, unsure what to say.

She quickly added: “But fortunately, what I performed was the opposite of magic. I did nothing that no one else is not capable of… What would you say, sir, if I told you that it was simply, besides a deep love of art, a series of logical deductions that led me to the Raphael?”

“Oh, I’d be dumbfounded.”

“And what if I informed you that the Raphael has been in England this entire time?”

“Miss, you would absolutely embarrass me! Dare say I’d begin to question my very existence.”

“No need to be so hard on yourself, sir. I’m sure you and your team have done an excellent job in many ways. My mind is just peculiarly suited to making deductions within an art-historical context. To what extent exactly you’ll keenly understand when I’m done explaining how I found the painting.”

“Please do, miss. — So let me then ask you before you begin: Did you, from the moment we hired you, ever experience even the slightest confusion in your search?”

“Mr Grant, I’m afraid not.” — The museum director produced the first note of what would have been boisterous laughter before he checked himself, unwilling to lose his composure. Crossing his arms, he continued: “Quite interesting. Alright, Ms Batterson, now, we’ve brought you in. You’re briefed on what we’re looking for and the details pertaining thereto. How do you begin looking for our missing Raphael?”

“Naturally, I began by thinking about the circumstances of its last recorded sighting. The museum had lent it to the Louvre during the thirties, but once the war broke out against Germany, it could not be recovered. — Did you know that the painting appears in Madame Valland’s notes?”

“We have known that. She writes that Baron Von Behr selected it to be taken to Germany in nineteen-forty-three.”

“Right. And that’s the last we hear of the Raphael.”

“Did you therefore travel to Germany?”

“I did not—”

“Why didn’t you? We were taking on all your research costs and travel expenses.”

“I would have but for one consideration. Now, it’s not been uncommon for missing or stolen art to make a sudden public re-appearance because it had been gathering dust in the corner of an attic, among boxes of old trinkets, and somone, often a descendant of the original acquirer, bumped into it one late evening.”

“That has happened.”

“Yes, so I presumed that that could very well be the case. What if the Raphael was not hid in the thick vault of some mastermind thief, but rather, somehow, on the wall of someone’s humble home office, as it were?"

“Clever, Ms Batterson,” Mr Grant said, leaning back, crossing his arms, and sniffling all at once.

“I then made a list of private collections of all sizes here in the UK — and I started with the UK because that was, of course, the easiest country to start with (we live and work here, after all), according to public or online sources, and my e-mails to a couple of academics that I have befriended over the years as professional art detective.”

“Professional art detective? Aren’t you only twenty-four?”

“Do you remember hearing about an old man in Essex who discovered genuine Anglo-Saxon swords in his backyard?”

“I’m afraid I do not.”

“Well, that was in fact my neighbor. — Upon finding an odd wooden shard while tending to his geraniums, he came to consult my mother, an art-history teacher for a-levels. I could not help overhearing, and getting excited over it all, I conducted some quick but not unhelpful research, with which I spurred my neighbor to dig deep. Despite his reluctance to disturb his plants, he dug, and, eager to assist, so did I. It was not long before we unearthed over a dozen pieces of Anglo-Saxon sword hilts and blades. These now sit in the British Musuem. I was thirteen at the time, and I have been in this line of work ever since.”

“Very well. Then — after you had that list of private collections, you did what?” replied Mr Grant, not without a modicum of impatience that did not escape Ms Batterson’s notice.

“Then I tracked which of all these experienced any notable increase in their items. Thereafter, I cross-referenced these findings with a list of the collectors who experienced a notable growth in their wealth. This was done because, logically, the wealthier collectors are, the more art they can and will acquire.

“Lastly, I wanted to look at whether any of those listed could be characterized by two qualities that came to mind: Who had a penchant for the Old Italian Masters, and who was engaged in business with the Germans after the war.”

“This all sounds like a lot of work, dear. I presume you never tire? It is respectable,” interjected Mr Grant in a marked tone of irritation, the cause of which occurred to the young woman but she would not yet comment on it. He continued: “And it centered on the collectors in the UK only. You must have spent hours on end collecting the same information but in regards to American, French, Russian — Italian, even — private collections.”

“It would have taken me days, perhaps weeks, certainly,” responded Ms Batterson. “But I bumped into something definitive that precluded any further research, so definitive in fact that I asked the trustees to take a look at it.”

“And what — what was that, child?” asked Mr Grant sharply, but before she could answer, the cellphone set down on his right began to ring. Not hesitating a moment, he picked it up, saying, “Give me one moment. It is my villa housemaid.”

As the young woman waited, she observed his eyes widening every moment, and picked up on him murmuring: “The police are inside — taking them down?”

On a sudden the door to Mr Grant’s office was suddenly opened without the least warning. A man entered vigorously, attired in a navy-blue suit, and around his neck dangled a lanyard bearing his warrant card.

He strode in and stood to Ms Batterson’s right, followed in by a woman similar in habit. They bore every common marking of senior police officers. Mr Grant was visibly struck by their entrance, and immediately ended the call.

“Mr Grant, how are you?” said the first officer. “I’m DCI Whitman, and I’m here to inform you that you are under arrest. Please come with us, and I will detail the charges against you and your rights as we walk downstairs.”

Mr Grant was breathless the entire time and, as if increasingly resigned to whatever shape his fate would take, he rose from his seat. He then most meekly accompanied the police officers out of the office. Ms Batterson sat still for a few moments, admiring the room in which she sat.

It commanded a generous view of Cambridge, given that the office was on the fifth floor. Behind her was a sofa and a coffee table; on the walls around her hung posters of past Italian Renaissance exhibitions. Before her was the director’s desk and chair. The former was rather sparse, with his laptop, closed, sitting on one side, and on the other a bulky, fairly well-preserved Victorian tome.

Its surface, moreover, was a glass pane. Notably, a single, black-and-white picture lay underneath it. It beheld the image of an individual who seemed so like her late interlocutor, that she could have thought they were the same person. But, on closer inspection, they were not.

“That must be his father,” Ms Batterson whispered to herself.

This observation raised a mote of melancholy within her, which, as she made her way downstairs and outside the museum’s main edifice, weighed increasingly on her heart, and thence on her steps.

Instead of turning right on Baxton street, she made a left; instead of making a left of Riverton avenue, she took a right. Within the hour, she found herself entering a churchyard. Not stopping at its gates, she would betake herself deep into it. At length, she stood adjacent a headstone, in the middle of which was solemnly and singly engraved the name of “Mary Batterson.”

“Mum,” the young Ms Batterson called aloud, almost as if the person buried beneath the headstone could hear her. “My last case was a most interesting one. The more I think about it, the more it moves me.

“So — I traced a lost painting back to the director of the very museum that commissioned me to find that same painting. He knew where it was all along. In fact, it was on a wall of his country estate. The police found it. He kept it, I suppose, because it used to belong to his father, and it therefore bore some sentimental value for him. Otherwise, why would he keep it? — If I do my math correctly, it makes sense because he was a child when his father passed.”

She paused, handling the small sparkling cross attached to her bracelet with the fingers of her other hand.

“And how did his father obtain the painting himself?” she continued. “He was something of an art collector himself already, specializing in fifteenth and sixteenth century Italian engravings. — But he was also something of a commercial landlord. After the second World War, he took his business to Germany, and there built and leased many an office building. By the sixties, he was bringing in substantial profits, at the same time as his art collection grew. The records say as much.

“Now, at some point during this decade, the Raphael fell into his hands. I suspect that a German veteran, or one of his descendants, provided the painting to Mr Grant Sr as payment or collateral. Previously, this German veteran had pilfered the painting from Baron Von Behr’s stash in the Banz castle.

“This last part is speculation but it warranted letting the museum’s trustees know so someone could take a look at Mr Grant’s country estate, where his father in fact once lived. I did not think they would call the police, however.

“Well… the things we do to not lose the memory of our loved ones. I never take off your bracelet.”

Ms Batterson had hardly finished these last words when she felt a raindrop on her nose. — “Oh no! Alright, mum, I have to go or it’ll rain on me. I miss you!” she said as thunder began to rumble at distance. She would then journey back closer to the city in order to hail a cab home.