Death of an Old Master by David Dickinson Read Free Book Online

modestly adorned the walls. Sir Frederick was a great bear of a man with a huge moustache and a very
red face. Powerscourt remembered Lucy telling him that he took great time and trouble to curry favour with the rich and fashionable, presenting some of his own paintings to the Prince and Princess
of Wales. Powerscourt doubted if either of them would have known who Agamemnon or Archimedes, regular subjects in the Lambert oeuvre, actually were. Lambert had painted Archimedes sitting in an
enormous bath, designing siege engines for the battle of Syracuse while the warships surrounded the city. This incongruous vista was now hanging on the main staircase of the Waleses’ London
home at Marlborough House.
    ‘How very kind of you to see me at such short notice, Sir Frederick,’ said Powerscourt, feeling rather giddy as he looked at some Lambert incident from the Trojan Wars on the wall
above him.
    ‘Better have a glass of champagne, Powerscourt,’ Sir Frederick greeted him in expansive mood. ‘Lucky we’ve still got some at reasonable prices.’
    Powerscourt asked how the champagne had been in peril.
    Sir Frederick laughed. ‘It’s a very good story. The French Ambassador told it to me at a dinner last night at Lady Grosvenor’s. D’you know the Grosvenors,
Powerscourt?’
    Powerscourt felt relieved as he told the President that the Grosvenors, like so much of London society, were distant relatives of his wife’s.
    ‘It’s these Americans,’ Lambert went on, taking a gulp from his glass. ‘The millionaire Americans, the ones who own all the banks and all the railways and all the
shipping lines. One of them, fellow by the name of Graubman, was in Paris, buying sculptures and paintings and tapestries to take home to Westchester County or wherever he lives. They say he was
thinking of making the French Government an offer for the Louvre. Anyway, one of these French art dealers got him interested in fine champagne. Fellow asked where it came from. Art dealer takes out
a map and shows him. “Why,” says Graubman, “that’s a very tiny area. You could put the whole lot into a small corner of New Hampshire!” The French Ambassador says that
Graubman owns rather a large corner of New Hampshire. He thought he could make a new corner. In champagne. Buy up all the land and send up the price. The Ambassador says the millionaire took out a
notebook full of figures. He asked the art dealer how many bottles of champagne are sold every year. He asked how much they fetched. “Look here,” he says to the art dealer, “in my
country, once you control everything, you control all the prices. Once you’ve got all the steel, you can charge what you like for it. Why can’t we do the same with this champagne stuff?
I’m sure we could make it for less money once we’d got control. Can’t see why they need so many bubbles for a start. I reckon” – he was apparently scribbling furiously
at this point – “we could easily make a couple of million a year. Maybe more.”’
    Powerscourt smiled. ‘What stopped him, Sir Frederick?’ he asked.
    Lambert polished off his glass and poured himself a refill. ‘Numbers saved us all, Powerscourt. The American was all set to order a special train to take himself and his party to champagne
country when the art dealer told him that there were sixteen thousand separate owners to negotiate with. At first he didn’t seem too taken aback. He talked apparently of the number of small
steel manufacturers he had swallowed whole in his rise to fame and fortune. Then he shook his head. “Sixteen thousand of these French peasants,” he apparently said. “Some of them
must only own a single vine, if that. I bought out over three hundred steel makers all over America. But sixteen thousand is too many. And they’re French. Mind you, I’m sure it could be
done. Probably will be some day. It would just take a great amount of American enterprise and expertise. Integrated management,