“Very well, go ahead,” Bobby said, not much impressed by these references to Mr. Groan’s staff, since he had good reason to believe that this consisted of Mr. Groan himself; his wife, as secretary and typist; and a very occasional hanger-on, engaged for some special purpose.
“It’s this way,” Groan continued. “Some of my chaps reported—my instructions always are to report everything, same as you said—as there was talk of Atts being disappeared and big money in it. More especial about the money part of it, money not being mentioned till then in any of the papers. Didn’t take long to trace it started with this Jasmine bloke. One of those artist blokes, he is, and him and Atts being in the same line I reckoned there was a fair chance he knew something. That’s the way I reasoned.”
“Quite so,” said Bobby. “But what was this talk you say was going on?”
“Well, there you are,” Groan said. “That’s what I couldn’t exactly get hold of. The idea seemed to be that Atts had got off with something or another worth real money, only what it was no one seemed to know, but real money was there, even if only a reward for getting it back. I even got to thinking if maybe some of the Soho boys hadn’t got hold of him, Atts I mean, and keeping him somewhere out of the way till he coughed up.”
“That’s not very likely, I think,” Bobby said.
“There’s things go on some places as no one ever knows of,” Groan pronounced darkly, and, as Bobby didn’t seem inclined to question this rather vague generalization, then continued: “No trouble to get to know where Jasmine hung out and I went along. Big attic. Top of an old house in Camden Town. The moment I saw him I knew what his trouble was—drugs. You couldn’t miss it. There wasn’t any answer when I knocked, so I tried the door. It wasn’t locked and I opened it, and he threw an old empty paint-pot at me. I said ‘Hold on, chum. What’s that for?’ and he said: ‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were real.’ Got the jim-jams bad he had. I picked up a cup and poured out a tot of brandy and told him to drink it. Believe it or not he downed it like cold tea. Brisked up wonderful. Do you know what it was?”
“You said brandy, didn’t you?” Bobby asked.
“And turpentine,” Groan told him. “And turpentine. I hadn’t noticed there was a dollop of turpentine in the cup I grabbed. The bloke must have an inside of cast-iron. It worked though. Might have killed him, but only bucked him up a treat. I never saw anything like it. Did you?”
“Not that I remember,” Bobby admitted. “It could easily have killed him. Good thing it didn’t.”
“Only bucked him up,” Groan repeated. “He lay down on a rickety old sofa and shut his eyes and asked in a friendly way, who the hell I was and what I wanted. I said I was an art dealer, and he said I was a liar, which I took hard, being particular as to the truth, except for professional purposes, as isn’t lying at all as you know, Mr. Owen, but like being an actor in the theatre. Actors aren’t liars.”
“No,” agreed Bobby. “Plato said poets were, didn’t he? An extreme view. I see you take the high philosophic line, Mr. Groan.”
“What’s that?” Groan asked suspiciously.
“Talking not prose, but metaphysics without knowing it,” Bobby answered. “Never mind. I only meant I like to stick to the truth, even against professional requirements. Go on.”
“Well, Mr. Owen,” Groan continued accordingly, “I got that worked up, and him lying there with his eyes shut like dead to the world as he ought to have been, I began to poke about, letting on I was interested in his paintings and might be buying if he was selling. I shouldn’t have been a bit surprised if I had found Atts’s dead body under the bed or fresh bloodstains covered up by the old bits of mat and lino on the floor. Like a nightmare it was, and me having to keep an eye on him all the time, in case of his turning violent again. Quite sudden he said he didn’t keep anything under the bed, except what he called the customary convenient domestic utensil, though he couldn’t ever have seen me looking, not with him lying the way he was. He said: ‘Ever seen a picture before, Mr. What’s-your-name?’ and I didn’t say anything, it being a silly question, because no one can help, even if it’s only the ones blokes draw on the pavement. I’ve often stopped to look. So then he began to turn nasty with me not answering and he said, ‘I’m getting tired of looking at you. You had better go.’ I said: ‘It was Mr. Atts told me about you and you having pictures to sell.’ Well, that brought him up sharp, like when you catch a bloke in bed where he didn’t ought to be and the lady with him.”
“Did Jasmine say anything?” Bobby asked.
“Not much. They never do when knowing they’re cornered. He said: ‘That’s it, is it?’ and he went to where was some flat bits of wood lying about. Something to do with his painting. He picked one up and chucked it at me, only I dodged, and to tell Johnny Atts, he said, he still had them and used them for firewood. Which he didn’t, a gas fire being in the fireplace. ‘Mahogany,’ he said, ‘only remember the dates,’ and what did he mean by that?”
“What dates?” Bobby asked, puzzled himself.
“Not a sign of them anywhere,” Groan declared. “Not a thing to eat in the whole place, except a kipper going mouldy in a cupboard and a bag of potatoes and some marg. What he was living on most like, all his money going on drugs.”
“If he told you to give Atts a message, he must have thought Atts was still alive and could be communicated with,” Bobby remarked.
“If he did, what made him look so queer when I said Atts?” asked Groan. “In my considered opinion, you can bet a penn’orth of peanuts Jasmine knows something and it isn’t nice, what he knows. What he said next was for me to get out quick or he would throw me down the stairs. Why, the way he was, he couldn’t have thrown a sick cat down the stairs. But when he grabbed a carving knife and looked like using it—that was different. Time to get out when drug addicts take to carving knives.”
“So it is,” agreed Bobby. “What did you do next?”
“Well, I thought it might be worth while finding out where he got his supplies from. Wasn’t too difficult. Very like you’ll remember a bloke, retired cat burglar because of hurting himself on a job so bad he can’t work that line any more and feels too old to start fresh on another, him being a specialist and hard for a specialist to change. Now he has a shop his missus runs and not doing too bad either, and he lets some of his old pals use it for meeting, only never having anything compromising on them, talk leaving no record.”
“You mean Monkey Baron?” Bobby asked.
“That’s right,” Groan agreed. “Monkey Baron. Supply centre. But never direct. My contact says Jasmine ran short of the stuff, and of money, too, and asked for tick, letting on if he told what he knew it would be thousands in his pocket. When they didn’t believe him he began about a reward he could have any minute he wanted, only he wouldn’t. Not much to make sense of.”
“No,” Bobby said. “Smoke, but where’s the fire, if any? Did you come to any conclusion?”
“Only for beginning to feel it’s getting too big for me to handle,” Groan admitted. “Not to mention these cocaine boys aren’t safe to get across. They wouldn’t dare do in one of the regulars but if you’re on your own like me—well, that’s different again. Beat you up one night so you’ll never be the same again.”
“Yes, I know,” Bobby said. “Not much to be done if you’re picked up one night half kicked to death.”
“Besides which,” Groan continued, “I haven’t the authority, same as you, and no good me trying to get any more information out of the Jasmine bloke now he’s turned nasty. Easy for you to bring him in and grill him till he sings. Fifty-fifty, Mr. Owen, same as I said before. I point the way where I’ve no power to go, but you have. All I ask is recognition of help rendered, and if there’s a reward going just what you think right.”
“Reward for what?” Bobby asked. “I don’t see where any reward can come in. Nothing missing that I’ve heard of except Atts himself, and I’m not sure there wouldn’t be more reward for
keeping him out of the way than for bringing him back. You know perfectly well police neither offer nor accept rewards. What other people do is their own concern, so long as they don’t try to compound a felony.”
That ended their interview, and so Bobby was able to reach home in time to settle down before his new television screen whereon several university dons were about to disport themselves in one of those parlour games that used to pass the time for the Victorians of a century ago, and that to-day perform the same service for the new Elizabethans. But if Bobby watched, his thoughts were elsewhere, puzzled and troubled as he was over the tale Groan had told, teased by a feeling that Groan had made at least one statement of which both he and Bobby himself had missed the significance, worrying his mind like a terrier with a bone in an attempt to drag out that significance—which perhaps, he supposed, was not there at all.
But now the parlour game had ended to tumultuous applause, the screen cleared for the next event, a cultured voice began to announce what it was to be, Bobby suggested that it was time for bed. Olive agreed, and it was early next morning, as Bobby was reluctantly admitting that the time had come to rise, if he meant to indulge in his usual morning run round the park, that suddenly enlightenment came.
“Mahogany,” he almost shouted. “Dates. Mahogany. Of course.”
“Have you,” Olive inquired coldly, “gone quite mad? And what about tea? You or me?”
“As soon as I’ve looked up when Rembrandt was born,” Bobby told her, scrambling into a dressing-gown and disappearing at a run.
“Husbands,” said Olive bitterly. “Husbands,” she repeated; as if that one word summed up all, and then, not having given up all hope of tea, and seeing that it still wanted ten minutes to getting up ‘D’ hour, snuggled down again in bed.
CHAPTER XVII
UNTHINKABLE
THAT MORNING BOBBY was early at his desk, eager to deal as quickly as possible with whatever paper work might be waiting for him. Not much, fortunately, on this occasion. Then followed a brief, informal conference. At this all available information or lack of it was considered, various theories were put forward, further lines of inquiry were decided on, and the deductions made by Bobby from Groan’s report, came under criticism as being far-fetched, as being irrelevant, all against a general background of dislike for so much art stuff and of a feeling that all this when-is-a-picture-not-a-picture had little to do with honest, solid down-to-the-ground police work.
Bobby agreed wholeheartedly, but pointed out that the art stuff was already there, the whole thing beginning as it did with a leading art critic failing to appear to deliver a lecture at which he had let it be known that he intended to make a sensational, art-world-shaking announcement.
Some of Bobby’s colleagues looked very much as if they would not greatly care if the whole art world were turned upside down, and Bobby put on his hat and started off to walk across the bridge to the South Bank Gallery—ten minutes’ walk, he calculated, twenty minutes or more by bus, and by taxi somewhere in between.
Arriving, he went first to the room where hung the small Rembrandt, round which centred, he was now more than ever persuaded, all these recent happenings. Another attendant was in the room and he, too, like Hyams, seemed inclined to linger near when he noticed the interest Bobby seemed to be displaying in that one picture. To him, hovering near, Bobby said:
“Mr. Hyams not here this morning?”
“He’s reported sick,” the man answered, though evidently both startled and even suspicious at one of the Gallery staff being known by name to a visitor. “Rang up to say so first thing.”
“Nothing serious, I hope?” Bobby said.
The attendant thought not, and Bobby went on to the Administrative Offices. He was expected, as he had phoned to announce his impending visit, and so was at once shown into Sir Walter Welton’s sanctum.
“Still worrying about this Atts business?” demanded Sir Walter, after offering, as usual, chair and cigarette, and speaking in a tone suggesting the Atts business was one causing him no worry at all and he didn’t see why it should to others. “Why not let him come back in his own good time? Not that I’m much interested. Atts and I had to agree to disagree and if he bore me a grudge for it—well, I’m sorry but not my fault. You know.”
“I’m afraid we have got to worry,” Bobby said. “In case it happens that he never comes back.” Sir Walter’s gesture seemed to abolish this possibility for ever. “There are one or two details on which I would like a little information if you could give it me. About your security arrangements I mean?”
“Security?” repeated Sir Walter. “Oh, adequate, I assure you, most adequate. We have fire extinguishers everywhere. Buckets of sand, too. Or is it water? No smoking ever allowed, in the public rooms, I mean, of course. Every precaution possible.”
“I wasn’t thinking of fire,” Bobby said. “I was thinking of theft, burglary.”
“Burglary? Theft?” Sir Walter again repeated. “Why, really, you know, hardly my province. I’ve no doubt our cashier has a safe to keep his money in. Not that there’s ever likely to be much in it. He brings me the cheques to sign and there’ll be one for cash to pay the weekly wage staff. The restaurant accounts are kept separately, I believe. You know. I understand they make a good profit. Nothing to do with us.”
“That wasn’t quite what I meant either,” Bobby said. “Some of the paintings here are of great monetary value. Would it be possible for access to the galleries to be made during the night and one or more of the pictures to be removed?”
“Good God,” almost shouted Sir Walter, “what an idea. Preposterous. Really, you know. Absolutely out of the question. Do you imagine no one would notice it if Titian’s ‘Madonna of the Tears’ vanished during the night?”
“A smaller picture perhaps,” Bobby suggested. “The ‘Madonna of the Tears’ is a considerable size, isn’t it? A smaller one perhaps, one about the size of the ‘Girl Peeling Apples’ for instance? And a copy substituted?”
“A copy?” repeated Sir Walter, stuttering his indignation. “Oh, really, Mr. Owen. Really. Are you seriously suggesting we of the South Bank Gallery can’t tell a copy from the original?”
“I’m sure you could if your attention were directed to it,” Bobby agreed. “Could you tell me where and how the keys are kept?”
“No, I can’t,” Sir Walter snapped. “I’m a curator of paintings, not of keys. Ask the chief attendant. His business.”
“There are three entrances to the Gallery, aren’t there? The great central doors facing the river used when the galleries are open to the public. The west door used at other times, and of course by the staff when arriving or leaving. And the south doors used chiefly for bringing in bulky material, when that’s expected. Generally kept locked. I think that is so, isn’t it?”
“Well, what if it is?”
“Only,” Bobby explained, “that if some unauthorized person got hold of the keys for a short time and had impressions made, access would be easy?”
“There’ll be bolts on all doors, I take it,” retorted Sir Walter, sulky now. “And we happen to employ a night-watchman, a most reliable man. You know, an old soldier. Served in my old regiment.”
“These galleries cover a good deal of ground,” Bobby observed. “One night-watchman can’t be everywhere. If he patrols the cellars, that alone would take at least an hour, and a lot can happen in an hour.”
“It would, I think, be better,” declared Sir Walter, and plainly now he was very angry indeed, “if you were to talk all this over with our chief attendant. A most trustworthy man. Very capable indeed. He has been here since he was a boy. We shall all be most sorry to see him go when he retires next year. He will be able to give you full information on these matters. They are more his province than mine. I am hardly concerned with them. And I don’t see what they have to do with Atts, if that’s what you’ve come about.”
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind letting him know I’m here and asking h
im to give me full information? Otherwise he might not be very co-operative, and I’m not anxious at the moment for stories to get round that police inquiries are being made here. The papers would splash it at once. I think so far no one but you yourself knows I am a policeman. When I went to his room near the central entrance a day or two ago, I think I noticed two or three bunches of keys hanging up behind his desk.”
“I’ll send a message if you like,” Sir Walter promised and could not prevent himself from adding: “Most unnecessary.”
“There’s another point on which you might be able to help me,” Bobby went on. “The ‘Girl Peeling Apples’ is catalogued as on a panel. Could you tell me what is the actual wood used?”
“I’m not a carpenter,” retorted Sir Walter. “What does it matter? It’s the quality of the painting that counts, not what it’s done on. Turner used a tin tray once. Rex Whistler used a cellar wall. I wish it had been one of our cellars. Anything will serve if it will take the paint. Any hard, smooth surface.”
“Such as mahogany?”
“Such as mahogany,” Sir Walter repeated. “Really, Mr. Owen, you force me to remind you that I am a very busy man.”
“I am sorry,” Bobby answered this protest, “but I must be sure of my ground before I go on.” He paused. He could not very well add that he was watching very carefully for any sign of reaction to this slow approach. So far he had seen none except a natural annoyance and impatience that might perhaps hide more. He took a note-book from his pocket. He continued: “I jotted down a few facts about mahogany. Rembrandt, too. Mahogany is first heard of about 1600, when it was being used in the West Indies for ship repair work. Nearly a century later it is again mentioned when we hear of it in England because of a complaint made by workmen that it was so hard it blunted their tools. Rembrandt was born in 1607 or thereabouts. He did the ‘Girl Peeling Apples’ when he was not much more than a boy, before 1625, since it is mentioned in a letter dated in April that year as being shown to a possible purchaser who is urged to buy it—‘though of little worth’—so as to encourage a promising and diligent apprentice. Then it is lost sight of till it is listed in a marriage settlement as part of the dowry of one of the Six family who is marrying the owner of the Chateau D’If near Pau. It is mentioned later in legal proceedings in some family dispute. Then it is lost sight of again after the Chateau D’If was burnt down and looted during the French Revolution. Finally it is discovered by you in the kitchen of a farm nearer Carcassonne than Pau and so smothered in dirt and soot you were only just in time to save it from being used for firewood. You bought it from the farmer, it is sold in America, and the purchaser leaves it in his will to these galleries.”
Triple Quest: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 12
