She stepped across the hall and gathered her nerve to knock on the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
London hesitated before the door to the Schoenberg suite, remembering the scornful glare she’d gotten from its inhabitant just a little while ago. Cyrus Bannister had always been an aloof, superior personality, but his demeanor had been even worse since yesterday’s visit to the Rijksmuseum.
Apparently, he hadn’t been any more agreeable with Hoofdinspecteur Braam. She remembered the inspector’s words.
“He was not especially cooperative. In fact, I am pretty sure there is something he is not telling me.”
As she stood there, Sir Reggie let out an impatient little yap.
“You’re right,” London said to her dog. “I’ve got to be brave.”
She knocked on the door and was only mildly surprised when Audrey Bolton opened it. Although at first Audrey and Cyrus had struck London as an unlikely couple, they seemed to be pretty inseparable.
“Oh, London,” Audrey said, looking startled to see her. “Uh, how can I help you?”
“I was hoping to talk with Cyrus,” London said.
A sort of deer-in-the-headlights look came over Audrey, as if she didn’t know what to say. Even her unruly curly hair seemed to leap out in all directions with alarm.
“I—I’ll see if he’s available,” Audrey stammered.
She turned and called across the living area toward a wall of folding doors that had been pulled shut to close off the bedroom area of the suite.
“Cyrus, someone would like a word with you.”
“Is it London Rose?” Cyrus called from the other side of the door.
“Yes.”
“Tell her to go away.”
Audrey looked flustered.
She said to London, “He’s still angry about you reporting him to the police.”
London stifled a sigh.
“Audrey, I didn’t report him to anybody. We already talked about this. I simply told the police the truth—that he and the murder victim had an argument. If I hadn’t said that much, someone else surely would have. It did happen in a public place, after all.”
Audrey stood frozen with indecision. Earlier, she’d seemed to share in Cyrus’s indignation, but now she appeared to be thinking everything through again.
Finally, she whispered to London, “Let me talk to him.”
Audrey walked over to the folding doors and pushed them partly open. She disappeared into the other area, pulling the doors shut behind her. London could hear Audrey and Cyrus talking. Although she couldn’t make out what they were saying, it sounded like Audrey was trying to be persuasive.
As she waited, London also looked around the suite, which she hadn’t been in before. Unlike Bob’s matching space, everything here was neat and orderly. The décor was strong and simple, with colorful abstract paintings on the walls along with a stern portrait of the composer Arnold Schoenberg.
Sir Reggie let out a discontented little whine, apparently in response to the odd sounds in the suite. The music playing was a dissonant string quartet with no melody that London could pick out.
By Schoenberg, of course, London realized.
“I know how you feel Sir Reggie,” London murmured. “It wouldn’t be the kind of thing I’d pick out for casual listening. But it seems to suit Cyrus, and maybe Audrey as well.”
She wondered about the kind of “thing” Audrey was clearly having with Cyrus. Although Audrey herself had a prickly personality, London had gotten to like her. In fact, they’d wound up working together as a team to solve the murder back in Bamberg.
On one hand, it seemed nice that Audrey had found a little romance in her life.
On the other hand …
What if Cyrus is actually a murderer?
While London was considering that question, Audrey reopened the folding doors.
“Come on in,” she said to London.
London and Sir Reggie followed her into the bedroom.
On the far side of a big, neatly made-up bed, Cyrus was sitting in an easy chair with a book in his lap. The book appeared to be a biography of Vincent van Gogh.
“So do you still think I’m a murderer?” Cyrus growled to London.
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” London said. “What matters is what the police think. And right now, they’re as suspicious of me as they are of you. Maybe more so.”
“That’s too bad,” Cyrus said unsympathetically. “I don’t know what you expect me to do about it.”
“Well, maybe you should just tell me the truth,” London said.
“About what?”
“About whatever it is you didn’t tell the Hoofdinspecteur this morning.”
“I told him everything I know.”
“He doesn’t think so,” London said. “And frankly, neither do I.”
Cyrus shrugged and squirmed a little in his chair.
“I didn’t like the murder victim,” he said. “I had a little spat with him. I’m sure that’s not a crime.”
“There was more to it than that,” London said.
“Like what?”
London thought for a moment, mentally trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together.
Finally, she said, “You were awfully interested in that Van Gogh painting we saw just before we went to the Night Watch Gallery and you got into that argument with Meneer Dekker. The painting of the tulips.”
“It’s a masterpiece,” Cyrus said with another shrug. “Naturally I was interested.”
“Not just interested,” London said. “Really, really curious. Worried, even. You wouldn’t tell me why at the time. I think you should tell me now.”
Cyrus grunted and rolled his eyes.
“This is ridiculous,” he grumbled.
Audrey was standing nearby watching and listening anxiously.
“I think you should tell her, Cyrus,” she said. “Tell her what you told me.”
Cyrus grumbled and shuffled his feet on the floor. Then he glanced up at Audrey, who was beginning to look a little impatient with him.
For a long moment, he seemed to be debating silently.
Then, to London’s surprise, Cyrus leaned forward in his chair and spoke directly to her.
“Do you remember what that docent, Helga, said about the Van Gogh paintings they had on exhibit in the Rijksmuseum?”
London thought back to Helga’s little lecture.
“Helga admitted that the museum didn’t have many Van Gogh paintings,” London replied. “But she said the ones they did have showed his development as an artist. His early paintings were muted and realistic with subtle brushstrokes. His later paintings were bold and colorful, with thick layers of paint. She said sometimes he even squeezed paint directly of its tube onto the canvas.”
“Exactly,” Cyrus said with a nod. “Now, I happen to know a great deal about Van Gogh’s work. Tulips is a very early painting of his. And when you look at it, you can see how consistent it is with his early work. The painting is detailed and subtle, done with restraint and careful brush strokes. Except …”
Cyrus paused and stroked his chin.
“Go on and tell her, Cyrus,” Audrey said.
Cyrus crossed his arms and continued, “There was one petal on one tulip that looked weirdly out of place. It was painted more boldly than the rest, and the paint was very thick. That petal alone looked like something from Van Gogh’s later work. He hadn’t even developed that style of painting when he did the Tulips.”
“But how is that possible?” London asked.
“That’s exactly what I wondered,” Cyrus said. “Then the docent took us through the Gallery of Honor and into the Night Watch Gallery, and that’s when we met that awful man.”
“You mean the murder victim,” London said.
“That’s right, Pier Dekker. When he started boasting about cracking Rembrandt’s secrets—the hidden feather on the guardsman’s helmet, for example—I sensed there was something reall
y wrong with the man. He was a mere technician, but he considered himself more than that—a true artist. And right then and there I wondered—had he tampered with the Van Gogh, just for his own pleasure, just so he could gloat about it? If so, how many other of the Rijksmuseum’s masterpieces had he casually toyed with?”
Cyrus shook his head slowly.
“The possibility positively alarmed me. But I didn’t dare confront him about it at the time. I only told him what I felt—that a technician like himself had no business thinking of himself as an artist.”
London’s brain clicked away as she tried to make sense of what she was hearing. She simply couldn’t connect all the dots. What could that single peculiar tulip petal on a Van Gogh painting possibly have to do with Pier Dekker’s death?
Cyrus took a deep breath and continued.
“I didn’t even know the man had been killed until the next morning, when that police chief interrogated me.”
London asked, “Did you tell him about the Van Gogh painting?”
“Why should I?” Cyrus said. “I didn’t even know what to make of it myself. And I certainly had no reason to think it had anything to do with the man’s murder.”
Audrey put her hand on Cyrus’s shoulder and spoke to London.
She said, “Cyrus didn’t tell me about the Van Gogh painting until this morning, after he’d talked to the police chief. I could tell he was really bothered about it. So I told him we should go back to the museum to have another look.”
“And that’s what we did,” Cyrus said. “We went straight to the Van Gogh exhibit and looked again at the Tulips and …”
Cyrus’s voice trailed off for a moment.
“It looked perfectly normal. The petal that looked peculiar yesterday looked exactly like it ought to look—painted with subtle, careful brushstrokes, nothing bold about it at all.”
“What do you think happened?” London asked.
“How should I know?” Cyrus said, his voice rising with exasperation. “For all I know, I only imagined the difference from the very start. Maybe it was a trick of the light. Maybe my eyes were fooling me.”
“You don’t really think that,” Audrey said.
“I don’t know what to think,” Cyrus said. “All I know is that I want nothing more to do with this whole business. I want to forget it ever happened.”
“But if the police still suspect you—” London began.
Audrey interrupted, “Cyrus has an alibi for the time of the murder. He and I were taking a walk through Amsterdam. That’s what I told the police.”
Cyrus chuckled sardonically and patted Audrey’s hand.
“I don’t think the police chief took our alibi very seriously, Audrey,” he said.
London could understand why they wouldn’t. Audrey sounded like someone who would willingly lie for Cyrus’s sake. For all London really knew, that was exactly what she was doing.
Cyrus got up from his chair.
“And now if you don’t mind, London,” he said. “I’m heartily sick of answering everybody’s questions. I hope you and your little dog will be so kind as to be on your way.”
London could tell that there was no point in pushing the issue. She and Sir Reggie left the stateroom. As they walked down the passageway, London looked at her watch and saw that the hours were slipping by. But at long last, at least she was free from obstacles and interruptions.
“Come on, boy,” she said to Sir Reggie. “We can finally go ashore and get to work.”
To her relief, no one stopped her for questions or complaints and she and Reggie made their way off the boat and onto the shore. But as they walked alongside the canal nearest the riverboat’s dock, London came to a stop.
Sir Reggie looked up at her with an inquisitive “yap,” as if to ask, “What now?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied. “The truth is, I haven’t had a moment to think things through ever since I got called back aboard a while ago.”
Then something floating in the water caught her eye.
CHAPTER THIRTY
When London stepped to the edge of the walkway to see what was floating in the canal, she was disappointed. The object that had caught her attention was just a paper cup. She couldn’t imagine why she had even been drawn to take a closer look. A floating cup didn’t seem to offer any clues to a murder investigation.
So she was still left with the unanswered question of where to go now that she was finally off the ship.
Mulling it over, she said to Sir Reggie, “You know, when I went ashore this morning, I had no idea I’d wind up in some smoky coffeeshop or meeting with a couple of sex workers. I’d planned to go straight to the crime scene and see if there was anything there the police might have missed. Maybe that’s what we should do right now. Come on, it’s not a long walk.”
Sir Reggie barked with approval.
But then London stopped in her tracks.
As she turned to look back along the water, she glimpsed an odd movement among the pedestrians behind her, as though someone had hastily stepped behind several others. But then no one seemed to be behaving strangely, so the turned her attention back to that floating cup she had just noticed.
It was still there.
It took another moment for London to realize what was bothering her about that cup.
It’s not drifting with a current.
The cup she’d observed last night before she’d found the body had been moving along in flowing water.
She asked Sir Reggie, “Do you think some of Amsterdam’s canals have currents, and others don’t?”
Sir Reggie let out an indecisive grumble.
“That doesn’t quite make sense, does it?” London agreed. “These are canals, not creeks or rivers. There’s no reason for any of them to flow anywhere.”
As London and Sir Reggie continued on their way, London tried to persuade herself that the two floating cups—one drifting, one motionless—couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the murder.
And yet …
“I just can’t shake off the feeling that it matters somehow,” she told Sir Reggie. “Maybe I need to talk to someone who knows a lot more about the canals than I do.”
Sir Reggie whined as if asking who such a person might be.
“I know just who we should talk to!” London said, remembering someone who had said he knew these canals “Like the back of my hand.”
She got out her cellphone and found the number to call for water taxis.
When she got a dispatcher on the line, she asked for a boat to come to her current location.
Then she added, “But I want a certain pilot and a certain boat. The boat is called the Jonge Gouda and the pilot’s name is …”
London paused as she tried to remember the man’s name.
The dispatcher replied in a cheerful voice, “Oh, you mean Kapitein Claes Stoepker. He’s very popular with tourists, much in demand. And it looks like he’s not far from where you are at the moment. I will send him to you.”
As she and Sir Reggie stood waiting on the bank, London wondered, What do I expect him to tell me exactly?
Soon the charming little boat painted with a bright red hull and a yellow prow to look like a block of gouda cheese appeared. The smiling, red-bearded pilot waved his nautical cap as he pulled the boat against the stone embankment.
“Hello, there!” he said in English. “You are the American woman I met yesterday, eh? And your name is London—like the city.”
London smiled.
“That’s right,” she said. “London Rose.”
He chuckled and added, “I never forget a passenger’s face or name!”
No wonder he’s so popular with tourists, London thought as she picked up Sir Reggie and climbed into the boat with him.
Kapitein Claes peered at Sir Reggie curiously.
“I do not remember this fine fellow from yesterday,” he said. “Perhaps you would like to introduce us, Mevrouw Rose.”
London
laughed and said, “I’d like you to meet Sir Reggie, Kapitein Claes.”
“Welcome aboard,” Claes said, scratching Sir Reggie on the head.
Claes took his place at the wheel and London and Sir Reggie sat close to him. As he started up the purring engine and pulled away from the embankment, London again noticed some odd activity among the people nearby. She fancied she saw a figure darting away. She figured if someone actually was following her, she had a pretty good idea who it might be. In any case, he must have been flummoxed by her taking off in a boat.
“So where would you like to go?” the pilot asked.
“I want to stop at a place in De Wallen near the Oude Kerk. It’s a little dock where rowboats are tied up.”
“It is not very far away,” Claes said.
Then something seemed to dawn on him.
“Wait a minute. I am familiar with that dock. That is where the body was found last night, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right,” London said with a prickle of anxiety.
“An American woman found the body in a docked rowboat—that was you, was it?”
“Yes, that was me,” London said.
She was worried now that the kapitein might not want to help her.
“Why do you want to go back there?” Claes asked.
London decided to tell him the truth without mentioning the unpleasant fact that she was a murder suspect.
“I’m trying to help the police find the killer.”
“Are you, now?” Claes said with an enthusiastic twinkle in his eye. “Well, consider me to be at your service. It is not very often that an Amsterdam taxi pilot gets a chance to help solve a murder case. How can I help you?”
“I was wondering,” London said, “what you could tell me about currents in the Amsterdam canals. Last night, shortly before I found the body, I saw a plastic cup in the canal. It seemed to be floating with a current. But just a few minutes ago, before you picked me up, I saw another plastic cup, and it was motionless.”
“How very observant of you,” Claes said. “I believe I can explain. Perhaps you have also observed that Amsterdam’s canals are remarkably clean—cleaner than they have ever been in the city’s history. You won’t find much trash in them, anyway. That is because the trash is regularly flushed out, so to speak.”
Misfortune (and Gouda) Page 20
