“We’re going to take you down, Sid. Just as soon as Tim finishes.”
“Yeah? On what charge?”
“I don’t know yet. Maybe I’ll book you as a suspicious person. That’s always good for twenty-four hours.”
“You didn’t phone Wilbur Arnold last night?” Orcutt had turned from the filing cabinet. He had a manila folder and was leafing through the papers it held. “But you’ve done business with Arnold?”
“Sure. For years. On and off.”
“Know anyone named Guy Valliere?”
“Yeah. Met him on the boat.”
“You met him before that.”
“Did I?”
“In Havre.”
The spring in Graham’s swivel chair squeaked as he leaned back. He rolled the cigar between his lips, squinting against the smoke as he watched the special agent. When he indicated by his continued silence that he had no intention of making a reply, Orcutt said:
“We think Valliere had those bracelets. He sold them to you—cheap because we could confiscate them if we found them—and you took a chance on bringing them in.”
“There’s a lot of talk about bracelets,” Graham said dryly. “You searched my baggage on the pier; you searched me right down to the buff. You didn’t find any bracelets then and you haven’t found any here. I wasn’t in my apartment last night but I imagine you searched that too.”
“We did,” said Bacon.
Orcutt went on with his theory as though he had not heard Graham’s argument. “You radioed Harry Felton from the ship and he got a ‘special cutter’ pass so he could meet you. When you told him what you wanted he was willing to play but leery. He was afraid we might search him—and we did—so he planted those bracelets in Murdock’s case.”
He went on, giving details as he visualized them. He said Felton was delayed in getting the bracelets back, that it was obvious Felton planned to skip and that he hadn’t made it. “You were seen at the corner near Felton’s place,” he said.
“By whom?”
“By me,” said Murdock. “At around eight o’clock. You were in a black sedan parked so you could see Felton’s entrance.” He paused, thinking of the other man he had seen in the sedan but guessing as to his identity. “Lee Hammond was with you.”
“That I buy,” Graham said imperturbably. “Lee was with me. But not there. Not anywhere near there.”
“You saw me go into Felton’s place,” Murdock said. “And if you stayed parked another two minutes you saw someone come running out of that doorway.”
“Was it Valliere?” Bacon asked, an edge in his voice.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”
A flush crept slowly up Bacon’s neck. Keogh was already red-faced. He was muttering under his breath because he did not dare do the things he wanted to do in Bacon’s presence. His method was normally a direct and unimaginative one; he believed in using physical rather than mental pressure. Yet it must have been clear, even to him, that the interview was getting nowhere. Graham knew how he stood. He knew that as yet the authorities had no proof and until they could get some he was safe.
Bacon took a long-suffering breath and nodded to Keogh. “Get on that phone in the front office,” he said. “Call in and have a car and a couple of men sent over. When they get here I want you to take Sid in.”
Keogh opened the door, then stopped as Bacon spoke again.
“Leave that phone alone, Sid!”
Graham, who had his hand on the desk telephone, kept it there, eyes narrowing. “I’m calling a lawyer.”
“Not here, you’re not.”
“I know my rights.”
“Go ahead, Sergeant,” Bacon said. “Get on that other phone. If we have any trouble with Sid you can come back and break his arm.… If you don’t like it, Sid,” he added, “you can sue me.”
Graham sat where he was. He pulled his hand from the telephone and clamped down on his cigar, his jaw ridged.
“We’ll have a little session this afternoon, Sid,” Bacon went on. “You and Valliere and a lot of people. After that you can call your lawyer. Until then just take it easy and think about the story you’re going to tell me while we go see Wilbur Arnold. Hand me the phone. I’ll call him now.”
Murdock had been watching the proceedings with interest and now he opened his camera and twisted a bulb into his synchronized flash unit. Bacon gave him a speculative glance as he backed away with the telephone in his hand but when he made no protest Murdock said:
“I missed you down at the pier, Sid. I’ll take one now while I can. You want it that way or standing up?”
Graham glared, saying nothing at all. He was holding the pose, the cigar still clamped between his teeth when the flashbulb went off.
8
WILBUR ARNOLD still occupied the family home on Beacon Street, a district now largely given over to apartments, studios, and private schools, and when Lieutenant Bacon parked the police car in front of the brownstone building he spoke of the photograph Murdock had taken of Sidney Graham.
“As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “that’s your picture for the day. The camera stays in the car when we go in.”
“You’re just letting me come because you like me.”
“We’re taking you because you’re in this up to your neck and I’m not so sure you’re telling all you know.”
Murdock bowed as best he could from his sitting position. “I appreciate your trust,” he said with mock humility. “Is it all right if I take a picture to Mr. Arnold?”
Bacon eyed him suspiciously. “What picture?”
“This one,” Murdock said, and pulled from his case a print of the shot he had taken of Arnold and his wife on the pier.
Bacon mumbled something that was lost on Murdock as he got out of the car, and then he was following the lieutenant and Tim Orcutt up the stone steps to the heavy, handmade door. They waited while Bacon pressed the button in the stone pilaster, and presently a houseman admitted them to a foyer and a richly furnished, high-ceilinged hall which impressed even Bacon; at least he took off his hat at once and spoke with unaccustomed modulation when he stated his business.
The houseman nodded and said Mr. Arnold expected them. “This way, gentlemen,” he said, and ushered them into the library beyond the sweeping staircase.
Wilbur Arnold was seated at a Directoire desk which had been placed near the windows, and he rose to bow to his visitors, a slender, impeccably groomed man with a high, patrician forehead and thinning gray hair. He wore an oxford-gray suit with white piping on the vest, a stiff collar, a dark-blue tie.
“Good morning,” he said. “How are you, Mr. Murdock?”
“Good morning, sir,” Murdock said. “This is Lieutenant Bacon, and Mr. Orcutt of the customs department. I brought along a print of that picture I took yesterday,” he said when the introduction had been acknowledged.
Arnold inspected the picture, expressed his approval. While Bacon stood chafing at this talk which served only to delay his getting down to business, Arnold asked if he could get other copies of the picture.
“I’d be happy to pay you the usual fee.”
Murdock said he would be glad to make some extra prints and Arnold glanced at the others, indicating chairs with an elegant gesture before sitting down behind the desk.
Orcutt and Bacon took chairs close to the desk, and Murdock sat off to one side where he could observe them, though for the moment he was more interested in the room than anything else. For it occurred to him as Bacon began his preliminaries that there were very few rooms like this left, and very few men like Arnold to inhabit them. Like its owner, there was an old-world air about the library which, Murdock guessed, applied to the other rooms in the house as well.
Here the woodwork was dark, the furniture heavy-looking for the most part, and wearing a patina that could only come with age and fastidious care. The shelves were crowded with books, many of them in expensive bindings. There was no attempt to copy any particular pe
riod but even an amateur could tell that each piece of furniture was genuine and, with one or two exceptions, had probably never been out of the family. Yet for all its excellence, the feel of mustiness and age was depressing to Murdock, and he knew that with the passing of the present owner all this would go too. For Arnold was the last of his line, and to Murdock it seemed unlikely that Ginny Arnold would continue to live in the past as her husband had done.
Bacon, however, had apparently wasted little time on speculation. He had told the story of what had happened to Felton, and now he said: “We understand that Graham telephoned you some time after he left the pier yesterday.”
“Why—yes. As a matter of fact he did. How did you know?”
Bacon did not bother to answer this one. Instead he said: “Mind telling us why, Mr. Arnold?”
“Not at all.” Arnold donned a pair of shell-rimmed glasses and took a letter from the desk drawer. “He sent me this air mail from France about two weeks ago. As you can see, he had good reason to telephone me yesterday.”
Murdock had a chance to read the letter after Bacon and Orcutt had finished, and in substance it said that Graham had run into a proposition that was too good to pass up but that he needed money. He had ten thousand dollars of his own to contribute, but he needed twenty thousand more in cash to close a deal that should bring a minimum of two hundred thousand in the American market.
“You sent him twenty thousand on the strength of this?” Orcutt said. “Not even knowing what he was going to buy?”
Arnold pressed the tips of his fingers together and smiled at the customs man.
“I suppose it does sound foolhardy to you,” he said, “but you see I’ve done business with Sidney Graham before, and invariably it has been to my advantage.” He rose, slid back a panel in the wall and opened a safe hidden there. “Here, I’ll show you what I mean.”
He drew out a steel box, unlocked it, and removed two smaller boxes which, when opened, proved to be velvet lined. What Murdock saw then was a dazzling array of brooches, rings and pendants that to his limited knowledge seemed far more magnificent than anything he had ever seen in a jewelry store window.
Orcutt made a faint, whistling sound and stepped closer. “I thought you’d like them,” Arnold said. He reached back into the safe and took out two smaller cases. When he opened them Murdock saw that in one there were ten or a dozen unset diamonds, arranged according to size; in the other was a like number of emeralds, none enormous but all over two carats.
“I’m partial to emeralds,” Arnold said while his visitors continued to study his collection. “I’ve picked them up from time to time—as I did the diamonds—whenever the opportunity presented itself. Some I bought in this country, some in Europe, a few in the Orient years ago.”
He sat down and said: “The majority of the other pieces I bought on my own but some came from Sidney Graham. That sapphire brooch, for instance. That came from Sidney, as did that star-sapphire ring and the emerald pin. This ruby of mine”—he indicated the platinum-mounted stone on his little finger—“I got from him, and I assure you it will appraise for more than I paid for it.… Oh, Ginny, dear. Come in a moment, please.”
Murdock turned to find Ginny Arnold standing in the doorway. She gave him a faint smile as she stepped forward, dark eyes wide beneath long lashes as she glanced from face to face. She wore a plaid skirt and a pullover which did exciting things for her small but full-blown figure, and her black hair lay softly against the milk-white skin of her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know you had company.”
“That’s quite all right.” Arnold came round the desk to take her hand. “This is Lieutenant Bacon, and Mr. Orcutt—my wife. And you know Kent Murdock.… I want them to see your ring, dear. The dinner one.… There,” he said, lifting her hand to show off the emerald and diamond ring on her little finger. “That’s another I purchased from Graham. A lovely thing, isn’t it? I dare say I could pawn it for nearly what I paid for it. Will you excuse us a moment?”
He took his wife by the arm and walked with her to the door, asking if she would be home for lunch, as he continued into the hall with her. When he came back a minute or so later Orcutt eyed him thoughtfully and turned away from the collection.
“I suppose you have sales receipts on all of this,” he said.
“Not on everything.”
“Oh?”
“Most of those unset stones I picked up from private owners, just as I did the other pieces. But if you’re thinking about the sales tax I have receipts of everything I purchased since the tax was imposed, including the articles I got from Sidney Graham. Would you care to see them?”
Without waiting for a reply he opened another drawer and took out a leather-covered book which he opened for Orcutt’s inspection. While the special agent glanced over it Arnold sat down again.
“You seem surprised that I should do business with Sidney,” he said, speaking to the room at large, “but it has been my policy since I started collecting to buy wherever I could make a profitable deal so long as I was sure the pieces were worthwhile and legitimately come by.” He paused as Orcutt stepped back from the desk and sat down.
“I don’t know whether you gentlemen know it but Sidney Graham had an uncle who was a pawnbroker. Sidney worked there as a boy and that is how he got to know about jewelry, not so much gem stones in the beginning, but he did learn values and appraising. He read up on his subject, learned how to loupe a stone, and became acquainted with settings and precious metals. Eventually he did a bit of speculating on his own. He would pick up a piece here and there, always selling for a profit, and later, when he was in the nightclub business, he would often buy pieces from improvident entertainers and actors, sometimes selling them back to the same individual when he had money again.”
He examined one hand and said: “It was during the war that he really started to specialize, and if he had stayed away from race tracks and gambling he might have been a rich man today. He had a rather amazing knowledge in this field, you know, and he knew people with money—the speculators and black market operators, as well as those in the entertainment business who had money and, in those days, not much chance to spend it. They would sometimes commission him to find an important piece of jewelry for them, hoping they could buy it cheaper through Sidney than by going to, say, Cartier or Tiffany. In many cases he was able to make what you might call a double profit.”
He paused here, as though waiting for someone to ask him what he meant. Bacon played the straight man. “In what way, Mr. Arnold?”
“Well, it seems that too often people who come by their money easily lose, or spend it, just as easily. I know of several cases where Sidney sold important pieces to a man—or woman—and later bought the same piece back when the person became hard up at a fraction of the original cost.”
He smiled and said: “Graham’s trouble was that, like the foolish people who had to sell the things they had purchased earlier, he spent his own profits almost as fast as he made them. He never had enough cash when something big came along, and that was why he came to me from time to time. First because I was a customer of his, and later because there was a chance to make a profit. Perhaps I should add that I am something of an amateur expert myself.”
He waited, smiling, to see if anyone would contradict him. It was clear that he was enjoying himself and it occurred to Murdock that Wilbur Arnold had not had such an interested audience in some time. Now he continued in his polite, old-world way.
“Perhaps I should explain why,” he said. “You might call it a hobby, which it was originally, but it goes deeper than that. My family always had money but I am not a rich man as things go today. I have an adequate income, but like all those who have no special knowledge or ability in the business of making a living—I suppose you would call me a dilettante—I have a horror of losing what money I have, knowing as I do that I would have great difficulty in earning any more. One never knows what is going to h
appen to such things as stocks and bonds—or even to our currency for that matter—but through the ages people have invested in jewelry and precious stones. It is true that in a depression the price of such things also drops but always there is some real value which, you will admit, cannot be said of all things. In any case, it seemed to me that this would be a good hedge against inflation, providing one knew how to buy properly, so I began to study up on the subject many years ago, making mistakes now and then as I went along, but always learning.”
He rose and went to a section of the bookcase, indicating a row of volumes with one hand.
“I bought every worthwhile book I could find on the subject,” he said. “I subscribed to trade papers to keep up with technical progress and prices. I began to haunt the local jewelers where I had been a customer, and later I went to New York. I watched, listened, and remembered. I analyzed various precious stones under the X-ray, to learn their distinctive characteristics. I learned to distinguish the shadings of quality in the diamond, emerald, ruby and sapphire …”
He continued with his dissertation as he returned to his chair and now Murdock’s mind wandered and he began to think about the man in the light of things he had heard. The last of the boulevardiers, someone had called him, and everything in his background and training served to substantiate the statement.
In the first world war he had gone to Plattsburg, been commissioned a second lieutenant, and gone off to France. There had been stories that an unhappy love affair with a French girl was the reason that he remained for so long a bachelor. Some said that he married the girl and that his father had hustled off to settle the matter and bring his son back after the war; others less charitable said he never did marry the girl but that his father contributed to her support as a means of buying her off.
All this, of course, was gossip; all that Murdock knew for sure was that there had been an older sister and that when the mother died—she had continued to rule the children with the same unbending autocratic methods that her husband had used—the sister promptly married, took her share of the estate and went to live in Santa Barbara. Arnold, then in his middle thirties, had gone on living as he had before, patronizing the arts and appearing at the proper social functions, often in the company of some woman but seldom squiring the same woman twice in a row …
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