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business.”
    Holmes dusted the proffered chair and sank down upon it. “I’m grateful to you for your time, Mr Simkins. There were just one or two details that Mr Spooner wanted me to check.”
    “Why then, fire away, Mr Holmes.”
    “When was it that you were invited by the warden and fellows of New College to carry out restoration work on their painting?”
    “Well, now, that would be about the end of August. I can give you the exact date if you’ll bear with me a moment.” He swivelled his chair until he was facing an open roll-top desk against the back wall. From one drawer he lifted a bundle of papers tied with string, undid the knot and began to leaf through the sheets. To the precise-minded Holmes it seemed that the exploration would occupy more than “a moment” but within seconds Simkins uttered a little cry of triumph and flourished a sheet of embossed notepaper. “There we are, Mr Holmes,” said he, laying it on the table before my friend.
    Holmes quickly scanned the formal letter dated 25 August inviting Messrs Simkins and Streeter to examine Rembrandt’s Nativity of Our Lord with a view to discussing possible restoration work. “You responded immediately, I presume,” Holmes suggested.
    “Yes, indeed, Mr Holmes.” Simkins consulted a pocket diary. “We arranged for me to view the painting on Wednesday 10 September.”
    “Had you done work for New College, before?”
    “No, sir, we had not previously enjoyed that privilege.”
    “Do you know who recommended you on this occasion?”
    Simkins sat back in his chair, thumbs hooked into the pockets of his waistcoat. “Ah well, as to that, Mr Holmes, it might have been any one of a number of our satisfied clients. I’m proud to say that we are known to many connoisseurs, museum curators and inheritors of family collections. We have been of service to several of the nobility and gentry.”
    “Including Lord Henley?” Holmes ventured.
    “Why yes, sir. Only last year we executed an important commission for his lordship.”
    “And Dr Giddings?”
    “Him, too, sir. A wonderful connoisseur is Dr Giddings. He’s been good enough to instruct us on several occasions.”
    “Were you acquainted with the Rembrandt before your visit to New College last month?”
    “Only by reputation, sir.”
    “You had never seen it before?” Holmes asked in some surprise.
    “Never.”
    “And you have been familiar with Dr Giddings’s collection for … how long?”
    “More than twenty years, I would say.”
    Holmes pondered that intelligence in silence for a few moments. “And what was your impression of the painting when you did see it?”
    For the first time the ebullient Simkins gave evidence of some discomfiture. “Why, to be truthful, Sir, I suppose I was a little disappointed.”
    “You thought it not a particularly good painting?”
    The businessman’s bushy eyebrows met in a frown. “Oh, no, Mr Holmes, nothing of that sort. I would not want you to think that I meant to cast any doubt upon the quality of the masterpiece. It was just that … Well, I recall discussing that item many years ago with another client who had seen it in Holland and who waxed eloquent about it’s warm, glowing colours. What I saw in Oxford was a painting that had been sorely mishandled at some stage of its life. It had upon it a thick, old discoloured varnish. What with that and its gloomy situation in the chapel it was very hard to make out details of the brushwork.”
    “So you concluded that it required a thorough cleaning and that you would only be able to comment upon the necessity of further restoration after that operation had been carried out.”
    “That’s it precisely, Mr Holmes. We submitted an estimate for initial work. Naturally the warden and fellows needed time to consider our proposal. They responded,” here he referred once more to the bundle taken from the roll-top desk, “on 1 October and we arranged to collect the painting a week later, on the