The Revolving Door of Life by Alexander McCall Smith

Author:Alexander McCall Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2016-02-01T16:00:00+00:00

37. Problems of Ownership

Angus and Domenica listened intently as Matthew told them about the discovery of the paintings. When he finished, Domenica sat back, stared at Matthew as if in disbelief, and said, “Well, I’m astounded. That just doesn’t happen anymore.”

“Oh, but it does,” said Angus. “It happens far more often than you’d imagine. There was that Caravaggio discovered in Dublin in a Jesuit parlour. And the Michelangelo found behind a sofa in Buffalo.”

“A sofa!” exclaimed Domenica. “Shades of Lady Bracknell…”

“Those are the spectacular cases,” Matthew went on, “but there are lots of more modest discoveries. For instance, paintings that have been attributed to the wrong artist and are then found to be by somebody far more significant.”

“So finding a Vuillard in a hidden room is not unusual?” asked Angus.

“Unusual, but not impossible,” replied Matthew. “The question, though, is this: the paintings in question were in a concealed room in a house I bought. Are they mine?”

Angus thought it depended on whether Matthew had bought the house and its contents. “Did you buy the furniture? The bits and pieces? The curtains?”

“Some things were specifically mentioned,” said Matthew. “We bought those.”

“And nothing else?” probed Angus.

Matthew frowned. “That’s the problem. The Duke apologised for leaving a few items of furniture in various rooms. He said: ‘Please help yourself to anything we’ve left behind. If you can’t use it, Oxfam it.’ Those were his words.”

Angus reached a quick decision. “That’s it, then: if he said that you could have whatever was left behind, then it’s yours.” He looked to Domenica for support. “Wouldn’t you agree, Domenica?”

Domenica was not so sure. “Isn’t it a question of intention? Isn’t the test of whether somebody gives you something—or sells it to you, for that matter—whether they intend that ownership should pass?” She paused. “And in this case surely he couldn’t intend to pass ownership of something that he didn’t know was there.”

Matthew saw a flaw in that. “But then how can you own something if you don’t know it exists?”

“Quite easily,” said Angus. “If Domenica gives me a present to pass on to you—it being your birthday, shall we say—and I set out to deliver it to you, then, until I actually hand it over, you don’t know that you own whatever it is I have. Yet you do.”

“Do I?” asked Matthew. “Or do I have a right to take ownership of it sometime in the future?”

They were silent as they contemplated this refinement.

“I think you own it,” said Domenica. “But are we talking about the law here, or is it morality?”

“So,” said Matthew, “you’re going to ask whether the Duke has a moral right to the pictures?”

“Yes, actually I was,” said Domenica. “You may have a moral right to something you don’t know you have a moral right to—if I make myself sufficiently clear.” She looked at Matthew. “I know that you’re scrupulously honest, Matthew, and the last thing you would wish to do would be to deprive the Duke of something that would be his, if he just knew about it.

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