Episode 2.5

Introduction

Welcome to The Phosphene Catalogue no. # 15025
We see light where others see only darkness.

You will have seen our main feature on the cover of the Catalogue, Reader. Yes, it's true. You may not believe our listing this week, indeed I find it difficult enough to believe myself, despite the exacting efforts my colleagues and I have made to ensure the provenance of this item.

Much that once was has been lost, from the Library of Alexandria, to the plunders of war, to this year's theft of 119 Picassos in Avignon.

But occasionally, rarely, extraordinary circumstances may allow something wonderful to be found again.

Side A: Portrait of a Young Man

Lot No. 412. "Portrait of a Young Man", Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino. c. 1513. Oil on canvas, oak frame.

The painting shows signs of being painted on wooden board before being transferred to canvas, in line with many of the artist's paintings at this time.
Though we have no colour photographs of the painting prior to its theft in 1945, those that we do have confirm without any doubt:
This is either the lost Raphael, looted by the Nazis during the invasion of Poland, or it is a superhuman brushstroke-for-brushstroke copy.

The reader may decide for themselves, on a strictly first come first served basis, by making an appointment in The Manhattan Room, and accepting the covenants required to enter our highest security gallery.

Many readers have asked, over the years, for a tour of our vaults. I do not withhold details in my descriptions of them, where relevant to the lots, but public access is strictly forbidden.
There are rules one must adhere to when travelling the vaults. I thought I knew them. But I was wrong.

As you told me in my first week here, Morwenna, the first rule is that the map shows you where you need to go.
The iron-black ink on the heavy vellum twists and blurs into outlines of rooms and numbers and letters. It's not always in a language I can read, but after a little study, it's always pointed me where I needed.
But this time was different.

I took the Catalogue building's main stairway, walked past the basement galleries, and descended the iron spiral staircase into the first vault basement.
The hexagonal stacks of books that this room contained were new, but unsurprising, to me. The day before there was a large statue covered in a white dust sheet, but as is often the case with The Vaults, today was different.
I checked the map and noted that the item I sought was nearby. "Not long now" I read on the map, written just below the box showing the next vault along in elaborate illuminated script.
I was relieved to have such a short excursion, and pushed through the lightweight door to the next room.
I was surprised to find no storage boxes, no stacks, no shelves in this room. There were six doors, including the one I had just come through in this rectangular basement.
Some tree roots were pushing through the flaked plaster of the ceiling, and the air was filled with dust, making me cough.
I checked the map again, which showed the same text, "Not long now". I looked around the room, trying to orient myself.
In this larger-than-usual basement room, two walls held two doors, the others held just one, including the one I came in through.
I decided the placement of text on the map seemed to suggest I keep going in the same direction, and so made the near-fatal mistake of continuing through the single door in the opposite wall of the room.
Behind the door, I was surprised to find not another room, but a long corridor stretching ahead of me. So long, in fact, that my heavy electric torch did not reach the end of it.
This was not the way.
I unconsciously reached my hand behind me feeling for the door handle, but felt a sharp pain. My cry echoed down into the corridor ahead of me, coming back many seconds later changed, twisted, almost laughter-like.
I opened my hand, and saw a single pinprick of blood on my thumb. Where the door behind me had been, just moments ago, was a thick wall of dark red roses, one of their thorns had hurt me.

Seeing no other choice, I stepped down the uneven stone floor of this strange corridor.
I walked for a long time down that featureless corridor, was it minutes? Hours? Longer than it had any right to be, I decided.
The words "Not long now" came back to me, unbidden.
The air was cold and humid, but my mouth was dry. I had not come with any water (why should I have to!), and my thirst was a stark reminder of what should happen if I couldn't find my way out.
Such was my state of mind when the corridor finally ended in a single door. It looked fairly ordinary, if old; dark metal banding over simple planks of wood, with a brass plaque reading "NOT LONG NOW".
I was willing to try anything, so I turned the heavy metal ring and pushed it with my shoulder.
I half fell through as the door jammed then lurched open. To my relief, the room on the other side was a Catalogue basement, arranged in the same general layout as the rest - six shelves surrounding a central reading table, and an exit door beyond that.
I watched the door close behind me carefully and, satisfied that it showed no sign of transmutation, turned back to the room.
I immediately gasped and stepped back into the closed door - the room had completely changed in the time I had my back to it.
Gone were the 6 old shelves surrounding a table, the room was now entirely empty, save only for a large canvas under a very dusty sheet.
When my pounding heart had returned my wits to me, I pulled the door behind me open, to prove to myself that it still worked.
It did.
Feeling a little more confident, I walked to the painting and carefully removed the sheet, taking care so that it would not brush or snag the face of the painting as I did so.
Underneath was a Renaissance portrait of a young man in early 16th century southern Italian noble dress sitting confidently, with his left hand curled slightly towards his heart.
My curator instinct overcame my concern for a moment, and I looked for an artist's mark around the edge of the canvas.
What I found astonished me.

It was a lost Raphael!
Not only that, but as I confirmed with Warrick later, it's THE lost Raphael, down here, in our vaults!
This should not be here, I thought, I should not be here. I was overcome by a sudden need to get out of this maddening dungeon.
I threw the sheet back over the priceless artwork, and burst through the far door in the basement room.
I fled through many rooms of beautiful treasures, gilded Fabergé eggs, a painting that I swear was a Caravaggio underneath the dust sheet, and, so preposterous I laughed out loud as I nearly tripped over it, a completely clean porcelain urinal, turned on its edge with "R. Mutt" signed along the base.
I don't know how many pieces of lost artworks I weaved between, how many vault rooms I leapt through, some looked the same, though I couldn't have been going in circles, as each room had exactly one entrance and one exit.
I could have cried when I opened the final door and saw the black iron spiral staircase leading up to the basement and then to the foyer, but I didn't. I couldn't. To weep would be to lose sight of it, and I did not trust the building around me to stay put if I took my eyes off it.
But, I returned, safely, to my office, after all.
I'm sorry I rushed past you, Morwenna, I didn't mean to be rude.
I couldn't ask you this then, I will ask you now.

When I retraced my steps back through the vaults with Warrick in tow, I found, on the back of the Raphael, looted by the Nazis in 1945, a brown card label, twisted into one of the mountings.
On the curled card, written in pencil, were the words "For your collection.", in the same handwriting as the label I found on "Lithocarta", the stone star map.
Did you write this, Morwenna?
It's priceless, if genuine, Warrick told me - the Raphael.
Something you can't admit to having, something that can't be sold, but only stored.
"Stored by whom", I thought.
Did you steal the most valuable lost painting in the world, Morwenna? Or merely reclaim it. If so, why not return it?
If you steal from a thief, what does that make you?

Intermission

Side B: Casket of Wonders

Lot No. 9336. "Casket of Wonders", Embriachi Workshop, late 14C, a walnut box panelled in bone.

This might be the most exquisite jewellery box I have ever touched, Reader.
The base is just less than a foot wide, rectangular, and is a hair under 4" high.
Though the lid, main body and short lion-pawed feet have been carved from walnut, the outer sides are panelled in bone.
When opening the hinged lid, which moves smoothly and without play in the mechanism, one finds the interior lined with thick red velvet.
Our client informed us that the casket was made by the Embriachi Workshop, Venice. This provenance, however, has been questioned by my colleagues Warrick Blackwood and Esther Flint. Warrick claims the bone is whalebone, not the typical Venetian ivory, while Esther assures me that the iron hinges and metalwork are made from an ore found exclusively in northern Canada.
The reader may judge for themselves, of course: Call our office and ask Morwenna for an appointment in The Pentire Room.
In addition to the high quality of the geometric carving on the wooden lid, the engraved bone panels on the sides tell an intricate story.
Caskets like these would often be purchased and presented by the groom to his fiancée in the final weeks of formalities leading up to an aristocratic Venetian wedding.
Common designs include scenes of a happy couple spending their lives together in abstract, chaste, bliss.
But not this casket.
There is nothing abstract or left to the imagination in the design here.

Morwenna, if Sarah comes by asking for me, I'm not in.
Or I'm busy, or... something.
I had been unable to think or work properly since that taxi ride last week where she held my hand.
Look, I'm flattered, and it's a lovely IDEA (she's brilliant, and funny, and... beautiful), but I can't.
Not now.
Not with her.
We still fight all the time, over gallery space, or the timetable, even over PAINT. She thinks we're sharing everything - and we certainly are not. I keep telling her they are MY paints, she must buy her own.
Artists are always like this, in my experience. We make for bad romantic partners.
I'm just the same.
I've made so many mistakes...

Things came to a head this Sunday evening: We were working late at my Mulberry Street Gallery and she asked me, directly and simply, as though it were just another question of choosing wood for panelling, what she was to me.
What we were. Or could be.
"Artistic partners?" I said, after a moment. I knew what she meant, what she wanted, but I feigned ignorance and didn't meet her gaze.
"Just that?" she said smiling at me like she did in the taxi, nervous but hopeful.
I let her down as easily as I could, but she was furious. We shouted at each other for 15 minutes and then she left. I won't repeat the stupid argument to you, Morwenna. I don't regret what I said, but I'm not particularly proud of it either.
And that's that.
Her half of the gallery was cleared out by the time I arrived the next day.
She left the bloody paints.

The interior of "Casket of Wonders" is large enough for any jewellery up to an including a crown. Given the royal nature of the families that would have bought this kind of gift, it may once have held one.
Dimensions in inches or centimetres are all very well, but to get a feel for the size, I took off my wristwatch and placed it inside. I believe twelve could be presented within, and perhaps just as many necklaces or brooches without looking cluttered.
Satisfied, I put my watch back on, fastening the patent leather around my wrist as I must have done thousands of times before.
But it felt... different. The weight hung strangely under my suit jacket. I shook my wrist, attempting to dislodge whatever was snagged. But nothing was.
I was confused: The watch had changed since being put inside the Casket. I don't know what weight it was before, but in the hand it was not the same, either heavier or lighter, I couldn't tell, and was the metal always that pale gold?
I tried a few other objects that were on my table: A pencil, a fountain pen, some folded paper, a brochure with all of London's art gallery opening times on, 1974 edition (it's a bit out of date, but most are still correct) - all of these objects seemed unchanged and yet also changed by being stored in the Casket.

The final item I tried was the "Lucky Coin" that I have carried with me - against my direct wishes - since Warrick gave it me all those months ago.
Nobody has bought it, I can't think why.

Morwenna, now I come to think of it, I wonder if David Isaac made the coin as a joke at my expense, and Warrick is in on it? I'll have to have a word with them both.

I left "Lucky Coin" in the casket overnight, and woke up expecting it in my pocket, as the magic (or mild curse, perhaps) causes.
Or used to cause.
I was free of it! Rushing into The Catalogue that morning, I found it where I left it (for a change), on the soft, thick red velvet.
I don't know what this means, Reader.
But be careful what you store in "Casket of Wonders", it might return to you changed.

CREDITS