The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini and other Strange Stories by Reggie Oliver Read Free Book Online

oil painting in an elaborate gilt frame, no more than eighteen inches by twelve. Age had encrusted the canvas with grime and a small wooden plaque on the frame proclaimed its title: IN ARCADIA .
    For all the dirt Jason could see that it was a good painting. The scene depicted was a woodland glade through which wound a serpentine path. To one side an old man in a brown tunic and sandals reclined, resting against a rock. A crook on the ground beside him indicated that he was a shepherd. He was staring intently at the other side of the path where stood a grey slab of stone on which something indecipherable had been written. The trees were restless and wild, and behind them a dark blue sky threatened by grey thunderclouds could be seen. The landscape, at once both idyllic and menacing, was clearly the work of a master.
    Turning the picture over he found a label on which in faint sepia ink had been written the words: Gaspr Poussin pinxit Roma Ao MDCLXXV . The inscription puzzled Jason. He knew Poussin to have been a famous painter, but he had a vague recollection that his Christian name was Nicolas, not the mysterious ‘Gaspr’. But it was old. The Roman numerals gave him the date 1675.
    A crack in the frame at the bottom and two broken lengths of wire attached to the back suggested that the painting had fallen off a wall and no-one had taken the small trouble to replace the wire and hang it up again.
    Suddenly Jason heard his name being called. He put the picture back where it had been hidden behind the engravings and left the room. When Mo asked him crossly where he had been Jason replied evasively that he had been rehearsing his lines.
    The first day went well. Most of the time Jason was filmed seated at a desk, chewing a quill pen and looking quizzically at the camera. He remembered his lines and made the most of his sly, sidelong glance. There was very little left for Jason to do on the second day except some shots of Walpole with a few extras showing them his cabinets of curios, expatiating on the delights of the Gothic and gossiping with dowagers.
    As he was driven to the hotel where he was to be put up that night Jason ought to have felt complete satisfaction, but the painting he had discovered kept clawing at his mind. It annoyed him that something of such artistic merit should have been left, dirty and discarded, in an upper room. Perhaps he ought to tell the owners about it, but this would mean having to admit that he had been snooping around. His slender knowledge of the upper classes told him that such an intrusion would be treated with scornful resentment. It was at that point that the notion of taking the painting for himself began to form in his mind. (The word ‘stealing’ was kept at bay.) Nobody might ever notice that it had gone, or care if they did notice.
    That was as far as his thinking went that night. He put the issue to the back of his mind and concentrated on enjoying the luxuries of his hotel. He would have liked to have spent some time making friends with the Director, but the Director was otherwise occupied. Jason had the unpleasant but fascinating experience of watching the Director make a long and affectionate mobile phone call to his wife and children in the bar, followed almost immediately by the successful seduction of Mo, with whom he soon disappeared for an early night. The actor-observer in Jason compelled him to watch, as, of course, did the prurient voyeur.
    The weather held the following morning, but there was a good deal of waiting around. The extras, who had arrived late by coach, had to be dressed and grouped and regimented. For all the authenticity of their costume, there was something insistently twentieth century about their appearance. Jason took care not to wander off too far, but his thoughts kept returning to the picture. His overnight bag was stowed in the dressing room at the Abbey and there was room in it for the picture.
    Everyone broke for an early lunch. The extras