"What did this guy who telephoned say to you?"
"He said he was in his girl friend's apartment at the Ritten-house Arms and that he'd gotten back the painting of mine that was stolen and he'd give it to me if I came up. He said to use the stairs instead of the elevator and that the door would be
unlocked. So I walk in dumb as anything and look what's lying on the floor. How did that dame come through?"
"She's all right."
"Did she get a look so she could describe me to the cops?"
"She knew who you were. But she didn't tell the cops."
"Jeez," he said, "this is quite a deal, isn't it?"
"Yes. And all from the bottom of the deck."
"What happened after I left?"
I tried to study Nick's face. In the light seeping in from the street his face looked gaunt as a portrait by El Greco. I couldn't tell how far he could be trusted. It might be a good idea to run a home-made lie-detector test on him, and see if he was playing straight with me.
"Before we go into that," I said, "what's the story on that painting of yours? Why are people after it?"
"You don't know, huh?"
"How would I know?" I said carefully. "The first time I ever saw your work was at the Clothesline Art Exhibit. Nancy bought your stuff and asked me to give you a one-man show."
He seemed to brace himself. "I always liked fooling around with crayons and water color even in school," he said. "While I was doing time, we had a good Joe of a warden who gave me some oils and brushes and canvas. When I got out on parole I went to art school. I didn't have any way to make dough except in the ring, and I didn't make much. So I was just scraping along. About four months ago I was at the Parkway Museum, copying a Van Gogh they got of a woman and a baby. You know it?"
" 'Madame Roulin avec son bebe! He did it at Aries."
"That's the one. I always liked Van Gogh, see? The guy had drive. I guess I'd picked up a lot of his style, like the way you pick up some of a good fighter's style by working with him in the gym. So while I was doing the copy, just for practice, see, a man comes up and starts talking. He thinks I got Van Gogh's style down pretty good. He says he knows a guy who owns a Van Gogh and would like a copy made, so he can give it to a friend, and tells me to drop around if I'm interested."
"Who was he?"
"I'm not gonna tell yon."
"Okay," I said. "Go ahead."
"Well, I dropped in at his place and spent a few days doing a copy of this Van Gogh. Jeez, it was a beauty—the Van Gogh, I mean. Wheat fields in real hot sunlight. After I did the copy he paid me fifty bucks. But he said the copy wasn't good enough and would I try again. And he began showing me how to make it better, like grinding paints the way Van Gogh did and all that. I made two more copies. Each was better and he paid me each time. But they still didn't suit him. I started a fourth and it began looking real sharp and all of a sudden I realized it wasn't a copy at all. It was a forgery. It was getting to be too good. On top of that, the canvas and stretcher looked just like what Van Gogh had used."
I laid a little trap, and said, "So you walked out, huh?"
"No," Nick said, "I didn't. To start with, this guy I was working for had found out about me. How I had done time and was on parole and all that. He knew I had sneaked out of town for a couple fights, without an okay from the Board of Parole. He hinted he might turn me in, if I walked out on him."
"You were in a tough spot."
"I'm not making excuses. I could have walked out if I'd had the guts. But this guy also waved five hundred bucks in front of me. I wanted that dough. And he told me I was a dope not to play ball. He said Van Gogh hardly made a nickel out of painting while he was alive. He said maybe nobody would buy my stuff until after I starved to death. He said if a dealer ever did take me on, the dealer would get all the dough and I'd get peanuts. He said not to be a sucker. So I went ahead with it."
"You're not the first guy to fall for that line."
"Well, toward the end I took the thing back to my room so I could work steadily on the finishing touches. You know, putting in cracks with a needle and aging it with colored varnish and all that. Only the more I worked the more I got a funny tight feeling in my gut. Like in a fight when you're up against one of these cuties that jab and dance and that you can't hardly
touch. It got so bad one morning a few days ago that I picked up all the paint I could reach and threw it on the thing and sloshed it all over the canvas. It made me feel good. Like I had trapped the cutie in a corner and could get to him with hooks."
"I think I know the rest of it," I said. "The guy who hired you came around that night, and when he saw what you'd done there was quite a row. Afterward the landlady came up to squawk about the noise and to ask for the back rent, and you turned all the pictures over to her. Right?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"At that one-man show we gave for you, why did you run away?"
"Run away?" Nick said. "I thought I was chasing somebody. You and me are tangling on the floor, see? The lights go out. Right off I had the idea somebody was swiping the painting. So I break away fast and feel around the walls until I find the thing. And it's been cut off the stretcher. I figure whoever did it must be slipping away, so I barrel out to the street. I chase after one guy who looks suspicious and it's a bad guess. I head back for your place again and the lights are on and all of a sudden I think, jeez, they'll say I took it. So I beat it. What did happen to the painting? Did you ever find out?"
He had come across pretty well so I gave him the full story.
He thought about it a while, and said, "You don't know what angle this Kay Raymond is working on?"
"She might be working with the man who hired you. They want to do two things—get back the painting and get rid of you. They pull a frame, figuring they'll scare you out of town. But I get myself messed up in it, and you beat it. So they turn the frame around so it will fit me, and they get back the painting."
"There's one thing wrong with that," Nick said. "You didn't see that dame's face when I first found her. It was a real ripe purple. I don't think she was faking."
"Well, maybe not," I said, trying to make my voice sound cas-
ual. "But if she isn't working with your friend Lassiter, I don't know what her game is."
"Who did you say?"
"Ludwig Lassiter. The guy who hired you."
"Neva heard of him," Xick said.
"He's a famous dealer."
"You ought to be a cop," Nick growled. "Trying to catch a guy with trick remarks. I don't know this Lassiter and I'm not telling you who hired me."
"Why not?"
"You and that Vernon girl are out of it, now. You don't have the picture. Nobody but me knows I told you about the forged Van Gogh. So you're in the clear. That's where you're gonna stay."
I forced myself to say something I hadn't liked tliinking about. "Maybe it's not as easy as that. Nancy might like you more than you figure."
"She's not my type and I'm not hers," Nick said. "She got interested in me because I'm a lame pigeon. That's the way her mind works. She sees a guy that's not doing very good for himself and she wants to help. Well, let her work on you for a change."
"What do you mean, work on me?"
"What the hell," Nick said. "You're a lame pigeon, too."
"You're crazy," I said angrily. "There's nothing wrong with me.
"Don't give me that stuff. After I checked at my rooming house tonight I thought I'd get some facts about you. I phoned a couple of teachers I had in art school and asked them about you. Know what they said? You got no drive. You got no ambition. You're a pushover for any guy with a sob story who wants some stuff to paint with or who wants a one-man show. You're a sad case, bud. A one-man welcome mat."
"That's a lot of baloney. I—"
"I wouldn't let you and that Vernon kid stay mixed up in this for a million bucks. You're too soft. They'd chop you up for cat food."
He pulled open the door and took
a step toward the street. I said, "Wait a minute, Nick, you can't—"
"And don't come looking for me," Nick said. "I'm gonna be hiding out. And I got enough people to dodge without worrying about you."
He slipped outside and slammed the door. When I yanked it open and stepped out, he was already running around the corner.
12.
All the amateur detectives I've ever read about would have been filled with ideas at this point, and raring to test them out. Frankly, I was filled with peace and quiet, and raring to go to bed. If Nick had given me the full story and begged for help, maybe I'd have felt I ought to do something more. But he didn't want help. He wanted Nancy and me to stay out of trouble, and I agreed with him heartily. I went up to bed and had my first good night's sleep since the trouble began.
Nancy called me up early the next morning. I gave her a report on my talk with Nick.
"What are we going to do to help him?" she asked.
"The guy said he didn't want any help."
"Of course he'd say that, Pete. But that mustn't stop us."
"How much does it take to stop you? First, the guy doesn't want help. Second, he's hiding out and we don't know where to find him. Third, there isn't any way to help him."
"There is so a way. We can find out who hired Nick to forge that Van Gogh."
"How do we do that?"
"Locate the original Van Gogh. That might lead to the man who hired Nick."
"It could take months."
"We can go to the Parkway Museum and ask the guards if they remember Nick copying their Van Gogh, and if they remember the man who came up and talked to Nick."
"That was four months ago. Not much chance they'll remember."
She said tearfully, "You're just being difficult."
"If we did find who hired Nick, then what? Go to the guy and say don't you dare touch Nick?"
"Oh, I don't know what we could do! But I'm not going to sit around and maybe let Nick be killed or jailed."
"He isn't the only one who might get killed."
"If you're afraid," she said coldly, "I can always ask Sheldon."
If she wanted to play rough, I could play rough too. "Sure," I said, "call in the big game hunter. But maybe he'll think it's more fun to chase Nick than to chase anybody else. Nothing like a jolly old manhunt, what?"
"Don't you want to help me?" she said, turning on the charm. "Don't you even like me a little?"
"Sure I like you. I especially like you alive and breathing. I wouldn't want to find you with one of those blue-green scarves knotted around your throat. There's more to this thing than one forgery. Maybe it's a big racket. Otherwise they wouldn't be turning so much heat on Nick."
"Is that supposed to scare me, Pete?"
"It's supposed to bring you to your senses, if that isn't too long a haul."
A small sigh came over the wires. "If you change your mind," she said sadly, "I'll be at the Parkway Museum today asking questions." Then she hung up.
That didn't leave me in a very good humor. I spent the rest of the morning around the shop, getting in Miss Krim's way and giving the customers poor service. Now and then the phone rang and I rushed to answer it, hoping that it was Nancy. She didn't call, though. A little before noon I took another call. A voice that sounded like a truck in low gear asked for Mr. Meadows.
"Speaking," I said.
"How do you do," the voice growled. "This is Ludwig Lassiter."
I couldn't have been more startled if the phone had coiled and struck at me. My first reaction was to yank it away from my ear and stare at it. The man at the other end of the line said hello-hello-hello impatiently. I lifted the phone again and said, "Hello, Mr. Lassiter." My voice sounded like mice yelling for help.
"For a moment I thought we had been cut off," Lassiter said.
"Somebody was asking me a question. Sorry."
"Mr. Meadows, I've been thinking about you this morning."
If he was the man who had hired Nick, I wasn't going to say a penny for your thoughts. "Nice of you," I said. "Not that I'm worth much of your attention."
"What I was thinking was this. Here you are, a young dealer who is making a name for himself. Here I am, a dealer who already has a name. Perhaps we should get to know each other better."
"You're very flattering."
"It is possible that our paths might cross in a business way."
"I'm not quite in your class, Mr. Lassiter."
The phone rumbled with a noise that might have been a large laugh or a small earthquake. "We all have to start from the bottom," he said. "Now it happens that I am having a small exhibition tonight. Private, of course. But a number of leading collectors and prominent people will be there. I should like to have you attend."
A new day was dawning in the art world. A leading dealer was going to introduce his top customers to another dealer. That was like a banker handing you the combination to his vault. "Xice of you," I said, "but I have an engagement for tonight and—"
"I had hoped we could find a few minutes tonight for a talk."
"There's nothing I'd like better, but—"
"The paintings to be exhibited may interest you. I received a new shipment from Europe not long ago, including what may
be a real Caravaggio. And there are a number of rather good modems. Segonzac, Chagall, Yves Alix—"
"If I can cancel my engagement for tonight I'd like to be there. But I'm really not sure I can make it."
"If you can come, I will be delighted," he said. "In any case, I will put down your name, so that the guard at the door will have it on his list. Nine until midnight."
"You're very kind."
"Not at all," he said in a purring rumble. "It is merely that we may have interests in common. Good-by."
I hung up, and thought about those interests we might have in common. I wished I knew what they were. Of course the invitation might be on the level. Some fairly important people had attended my one-man show of Accardi's stuff, and the thing had been a sellout, and the riot had made the front pages. Las-siter might think I had developed a golden touch and that it was worth while to stake a claim on me.
On the other hand, if he was the guy back of all the recent trouble, there would be a lot of questions in his mind. Did I know about the forged Van Gogh? Did I connect him with the case? Was I going ahead with a private investigation? One way to get the answers was to invite me to the Lassiter Galleries, and see how I acted. If I went to his exhibition, he would watch me carefully. I might say or do something, quite innocently, that would make him think I was on his trail. The surest way to stay out of trouble was to stay out of the Lassiter Galleries. I was going to have an unbreakable engagement for the evening even if I had to arrange it by kicking a cop.
I looked up and saw a guy slouching in the office doorway. He was thin and gray and looked as if he were trying to get along without crutches. If I wanted to kick a cop I didn't have far to go. My visitor was Detective McCann.
"Hello, Meadows," he said. "Can I come in?"
"It looks like you are in."
"This is only a friendly visit. I kinda feel we got off on the wrong foot last night."
"You were doing your job," I said. "The only trouble was, you
were doing it on me, and I guess nobody likes that. Sit down and get the loaded questions off your chest."
He draped himself over a chair like an armful of old clothes. "You know what?" he said. "You can't load questions against a guy who has nothing to hide."
"Don't we all have things to hide?"
"I'm talking about things that rate a felony rap. Now let's start by saying that I got nothing against you or on you."
"Good. Let's end that way, too."
He took out his thick notebook and wet the end of a pencil and made a couple of notes. "When you came into Miss Raymond's apartment last night, you found her lying on the floor half-strangled."
"Go on."
"You didn't find anybody else there?"
&n
bsp; "Anybody else? You mean the burglar? I'd have mentioned it, wouldn't I?"
"You wouldn't care to give me a plain no without all the trimmings?"
"I was merely trying to explain that if I had seen anybody—"
"All right. Let's go on to the next. While you were on your way up to Miss Raymond's apartment, did you see anybody who might have come from there?"
I could answer that truthfully. "No, I didn't."
He smiled faintly and said, "Funny thing. Some guys have a lot of respect for the truth. When they give you a straight answer, yes or no, you can bank on what they say. When they give you one of those run-around answers, you can bet they're trying not to tell a direct lie. So far you've given me one run-around and one straight answer."
"Very clever," I said, feeling my face get hot. "You've figured out a nice way of calling people liars."
"All right," he said. "Be stubborn." He hauled something out of his pocket and flipped it on the desk. "Ever see him before?"
It was one of those full-face and profile photos from the Rogues' Gallery. "Of course I've seen him," I said. "That's Nick
Accardi. I gave his paintings a one-man show the night before last."
"Yeah. I read about it. Nick turned up and had a scrap with you and the lights went out and he made off with one of his paintings. Was Nick at that dame's apartment last night?"
"What makes you think he might have been there?"
"The night before last, you and Nick and trouble got together. Why not last night too?"
"That's a wild guess."
"It turned out good, Meadows. When I read about Nick in the paper I remembered he had done time. So I got out this photo and showed it around the Rittenhouse Arms today. Two of the staff seen him come in last night, and one of them seen him leave around the time Miss Raymond got the screams. None of the elevator operators remember taking him up or down."
"That leaves him a few floors away from Miss Raymond's apartment, doesn't it?"
"They got stairs, and Nick has legs."
"They also have a lot of other apartments."
"I stopped around to see Nick today," McCann said. "He wasn't in, and nobody knew when he might be back. For a kid on parole, he's being a little too hard to find."
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