She switched off the flashlight and came out of the room. "You don't understand what I'm doing," she said.
"Certainly I do. You think Lassiter is the guy who hired Nick to forge that painting. So you're looking for evidence."
"But Pete, I know he's the man! I spent all day at the Parkway Museum, and I finally found a guard who remembered Nick copying a Van Gogh there, and Mr. Lassiter striking up an acquaintance with him. Aren't you proud of me?"
I took her arm and guided her back to one of the exhibit rooms. "You're wonderful," I said. "Compared to you, a bloodhound would look like a lost puppy. But you could have saved trouble by sitting home and figuring out why Lassiter invited you here tonight."
"I don't know what you mean."
"The guy's guilty and he's worried about us. He wants to know if we suspect him. So he asks us here to see if we'll sneak into his office and flash a light over his papers. I bet you wouldn't find anything worse than a bill for groceries."
"Oh, Pete! How can you figure that out from a plain little invitation?"
"Because there isn't any other reason for it. You're not an art collector, and I'm a dealer who can't do him any good."
She smiled up at me and waved her lashes like oriental fans. "I think you're sweet," she murmured. "I'll bet you just came here tonight to rescue me."
"Don't take it personally. The thing is, it upsets me to have the cops grill me about a murder."
"Sometimes I don't understand you a bit. Whenever I set the stage for romance, you talk about cops."
I stared at her. The elfin face with its halo of hair looked very sweet and solemn. I took a moment to analyze my feelings. There was a churning in my stomach and a champagne lightness in my head. Some guys might think those were signs of romance. I called them signs of fright and tiredness. That was the only sensible way to look at it. This was no ordinary girl,
giving me the wide-eyed treatment. This was the Van Rensselaer Vernon kid. She had half a dozen guys on the string, dangling like charms on a teen-ager's bracelet. All of them were better looking and had more dough than I did. Right now she was merely keeping her hand in, like a golfer putting on the living room rug.
"You'd better unset that stage," I said. "I don't like walkon parts."
"Has anybody asked you to walk off yet?"
"No. But the hero will be along pretty soon, and that will be my cue to exit smiling. If it's Sheldon I will exit scowling."
"You're the most maddening creature I ever met," she said angrily. "If you ever get murdered, there will certainly be a lot of suspects."
"I'm glad we're back on the sensible subject of murder. You shrugged off my previous remark. If I may repeat, it upsets me to have the cops grill me about a murder."
"Oh, piffle. Who's going to be murdered?"
I arranged a yawn. "I don't know who's going to be next," I said. "I'm talking about the last one."
That got home to her. She grabbed my arm, trembling. "You can't mean Nick's been killed!"
"It wasn't anybody you ever heard of. A guy named Mason Dawes, about two years ago." I told her about McCann's visit, that morning, and how I dug out the story on Mason Dawes.
"Why, it's fantastic!" she said. "A young artist just like Nick, and the same girl involved in both cases, and another length of blue-green silk. Everything ties up!"
"Yeah. McCann saw it too. He must have done the investigation on the Dawes case, or at least heard the details of it. That's why he turned so much heat on me last night, after Kay was almost killed with one of those hunks of silk."
"It opens up all kinds of things for us to explore."
"Correction. For the cops to explore."
"But Pete, did you happen to think that Nick might have been out of jail two years ago?"
"Was he?"
"He's been on parole several months longer than two years. And he was going to art school when that other man was killed. Isn't it likely that the police might try to connect him with that case?"
"They'd be foolish if they didn't try. And it wouldn't be healthy for Nick, if they can prove he knew Dawes and that Nick might be the guy who attacked Kay. Nick's an ex-convict. He's hotheaded. They could build up quite a case."
"That's why we have to go on working. Nick's in worse trouble than ever. And the police won't help him."
"I kind of like the guy," I said, "but I like you better. You're not going to take any more chances."
"We could at least talk to Kay Raymond."
"She cleared out this morning. I tried to see her. That leaves nobody for us to see but the cops. Now let's get out of here and—"
She set her soft chin until it looked as if you could use it to drive nails. "I'll leave when I'm ready," she said.
"I don't want you to give me any trouble."
"I won't," she said. "Trouble worries you too much. So I'll just go off about my own affairs."
"Now wait, Nancy—"
"I don't like waiting," she said, and turned and marched away.
I could have wrung her neck, except that the general idea was to keep people from doing just that.
14.
For a couple of minutes I tried to keep an eye on her but it didn't work. She went through the crowd like a bumblebee on a jag, pausing here to drop a gay word to somebody, darting
off, hovering, zipping away. You trailed her for a while and began to think there were four Nancys, and then all of a sudden there were none.
If I couldn't keep an eye on her, at least I could watch the guys who might cause her trouble. I checked the front entrance. The white-haired old man was still at his table, and near him die tame gorilla was on guard. If I hadn't had something better to do I might have coaxed him to talk, just to see if I could place where I had heard his voice before. He might be the guy who had beaten me up that time in Nick's studio. Lassiter might have been the man who directed things. But all that could wait.
I wandered through the crowd and finally saw Lassiter headed my way. His big square face broke into a smile that looked like a crack in cement. "Hello, Mr. Meadows," he said. "Glad you managed to come."
"It's a nice show you're putting on," I said. "Thanks for the invitation."
"Sorry to hear you had a little trouble getting in."
"Your guard was only doing his job."
"That's Joe Molo. He's been with me for years. Used to be a wrestler. With a lot of valuable paintings around, I need someone like him. As a matter of fact he has a heart of gold. He looks tough, but actually he's very gentle. Fond of kids and all that."
"Sure," I said. "On his day off he goes to the playground and gives kids rides up and down on his biceps." Probably I shouldn't have said that, but there was no use acting too stupid. That would make Lassiter nearly as suspicious as if I tried to sneak a set of his fingerprints.
Lassiter chuckled. It sounded like a truck backfiring. "All right," he said. "I won't overdo it. I wanted to see you before, but you were deep in talk with Miss Vernon. Have you taken a look around the exhibits?"
That looked like a good chance to tie him up for a while. "Only a sketchy look. How about you showing me around?"
"Delighted. I believe I told you some of these are a new shipment from abroad? Here is perhaps the prize of the lot. A rather nice Corot, yes?"
It was a landscape in the classic style, with a good play of light and nice harmony in the colors. I said it was very nice, and we moved on. During the next fifteen minutes he gave me a quick but thorough tour of the collection. We wound up finally in front of the painting which he had described over the phone as possibly a real Caravaggio.
"Now tell me frankly," he said, "what you think of the show."
I took a moment to sort out my thoughts. In a way I felt highly honored by his exhibit, because it had been put together for my benefit. It contained half a dozen hunks of art that raised questions in my mind. Lassiter knew I had at least a little reputation as an art detective. So it was logical to think he had deliberately put those tr
icky items in the show to see how I would react. He wanted to find out whether I was honest or a crook, and whether I was on his trail or not.
There were four different answers I could give him. I was honest but not on his trail. I was honest and trying to pin a crime on him. I was a crook but didn't know he was. I was a crook and I was trying to get something on him, but like all crooks I could be bought off. The second answer was suicidal. I didn't think I could get away with the first. The perfect answer was the third, but I wasn't sure of making that one stick either. Probably the safest answer was the fourth: I was a crook and had picked up his trail but I could be bought off.
I gave him a wise smile and said, "This is just between us dealers, isn't it?"
"Naturally."
"About that Corot you showed me first. As you say, maybe it's the prize of the exhibit. I wouldn't want to suggest it might be a Trouillebert."
"Trouillebert?" he said vaguely.
"You remember him. He and Corot were alive at the same time, and there's quite a resemblance in their work. Dealers were passing off Trouillebert landscapes as Corots even when the guys were alive."
"And you think that is a Trouillebert?"
"I said I wouldn't want to suggest it. What the hell, they've
both been dead a long time. It doesn't make any difference to them. And a collector will be happier with a Corot than a Trouillebert."
"A very mature way of looking at things," Lassiter said. "If there is any blame, perhaps it should rest on the original dealers?"
That was a booby-trapped question. "Why blame them?" I said. "It was probably hard to sell the guy's stuff under his own name, and so they put a tag on it that sold. You know collectors. All they want are big names. Dead, if possible. Even Michelangelo couldn't sell his stuff at one time."
"Wasn't he caught once, trying to pass off one of his statues as an antique?"
"Sure. A statue of a sleeping Cupid. He had a friend give it an aging treatment and bury it in a field, so it could be sold as a find from ancient Rome."
"Ah yes. I remember now. While we are talking about Italian art," he said, gesturing at the painting in front of us, "do you think I'm too hopeful that this is a real Caravaggio?"
It was a still-life, and even under the thick brown gallery tone you could see the striking contrasts of light and shadow. "Why kid around?" I said. "You know what you've got here. Of course it's a Caravaggio."
He chuckled. "How can you be so sure? X-ray eyes?"
"Just plain eyes. It isn't one of his well known paintings, but I happened to see it when I was in Italy."
"Your knowledge of art is very thorough."
Tve been around. How did you get it out? The Italian government still has that ban on the export of masterpieces, doesn't it?"
"I have an export permit. And it identifies this painting both by title and by Caravaggio's name."
That sounded like quite a trick, but I knew how it was done. You get a relatively unknown masterpiece and do a reverse job of restoration on it. You paint over the fine parts of the picture with the right kind of glue, and then after the glue hardens you repaint the picture with tempera. And your repaint job is
pretty bad. So the Italian customs examiner sees a very poor Caravaggio, and decides that Italy won't lose anything if the painting is exported. Later you wash off the tempera and glue and have your masterpiece again, with a nice legal clearance. As I studied the painting I saw exactly how it could have been changed from a fine still-life into a poor one.
"Any trouble getting off the glue and tempera?" I asked.
He let out a laugh that sounded like barrels rolling downstairs. Then he looked at me almost fondly, and said, "I think we can do business. Let's go in my office."
I followed him into the place. He switched on the light and closed the door and glanced at the papers on his desk. Perhaps he had left them in a carefully arranged pattern, and it was lucky that I had caught Nancy before she messed it up. He sat at his desk, motioned me to a chair, and fished an envelope out of his pocket. He unsealed it and pulled out a four-by-five-inch photo.
"What do you think of this?" he said, flipping it across the desk.
The photo showed a portrait hanging on a paneled wall. The portrait was of an old man, dressed in a shabby velvet jacket. A fishnet pattern of cracks covered the painting. "What do you want me to say?" I asked. "Dutch school. Seventeenth century. Who can tell anything from a black and white photo?"
"Does the old man look familiar to you in any way?"
"I wouldn't want to guess. Who do you want it to be?"
"I want it to be Rembrandt."
"Oh Lord! Not another Rembrandt self-portrait. How many have been discovered? Sixty?"
"All the more reason why there should be sixty-one."
"Where is the thing?"
"In the home of a fine old family in the Netherlands. Their genealogy goes back into the sixteenth century, so who is to say they haven't had the portrait all along? Naturally they need money."
"Naturally. How do you feel about the portrait?"
He shrugged. "With the right handling, there's a fortune in it. Besides, who can tell? It might even be a Rembrandt."
It might turn out to be a Rembrandt, and I might turn out to be irresistible to the next ten pretty girls I met. The chances were a million to one that it was by Maes or Lievens or Van den Eeckhout, or one of the many other imitators and pupils that Rembrandt had while he was alive. The portrait might have been planted years ago with the Dutch family, so it could be discovered in the right way and at the right time.
"How does it get handled right?" I said. "And where do I come in?"
"You have just received a letter from the Dutch family, enclosing this photo and asking what you think of the portrait, which has been in their family for centuries. They don't know you personally, but they got your name from a friend who knew you on the Allied Art Commission. They need money and hope the portrait may be worth something."
"I go over there and spot it as a Rembrandt self-portrait?"
"Exactly. You had a passport recently, so it could be renewed quickly. Perhaps you could sail next week."
"Not to be commercial," I said, "but I assume there's a little money involved in this?"
"Ah, money," he said, in the tone Romeo might have used to Juliet. "Two thousand dollars expenses for the trip. Twenty per cent of the sale price of the portrait, with a guarantee of twenty thousand dollars. How does that sound?"
It sounded as if Lassiter was a genius. He figured I was a crook and might cause him some trouble and that he had to buy me off. But he also wanted to make a profit on the blackmail payment. Not everybody can get away with discovering another Rembrandt self-portrait. A lot of the experts, for example, might not go for a discovery by Lassiter himself. They might let me get away with it. I had never been mixed up in any trick deals, and my work on the Allied Art Commission gave my opinions some authority.
"That's a pretty good offer," I said. "But before giving you an answer, I'd like to borrow that photo and study it under a mag-
nifying glass. I want to check it against known portraits of Rembrandt. I'd also have to check all the written sources, to see if the guy's appearance and his costume match whatever facts are on record about that period of Rembrandt's life. I'll take your word that the painting itself goes back to the seventeenth century."
"It does. And your other precautions are quite sensible. You may have the photo. By the way," he said, letting a grin slide over his lips, "you couldn't find the right town in the Netherlands or the right family without my help."
"Your precautions are sensible, too. While I'm checking up, I'll get the passport under way. What about the two thousand for expenses?"
"You'll get it when we sign an agreement on the terms I suggested. And I'll turn over to you the letter you'll claim to have received from the Dutch family. Our story is this. You received the letter and were very interested, but couldn't afford the trip. You came
to me for help, both to finance the trip and to sell the painting if it turned out to be valuable. Of course it's quite true that you don't have much money. I had your credit rating checked. You have a little more than eight hundred dollars in your bank account."
"Six hundred and twenty," I said. "The rent came due today."
"After we put this deal over, you can carry six hundred and twenty around for small change."
If I could stall him off for a few days, maybe the cops could take it from there. And meanwhile he might put the Accardi business on ice. "I'll let you know as soon as possible," I said.
"Good. I think we will both find this has been a profitable evening. In several ways, from my point of view. Besides our deal, I believe I have found a buyer for that Caravaggio."
I said curiously, "With the stuff you have here, don't you run the risk of burglars?"
"Burglars would run the risk of Joe Molo. And let me show you something." He took out a key and walked to the window. He put the key in a keyhole set in the window frame and turned
it. Two shutters slid from each side of the window frame and closed silently outside the open window. "Steel," he said, rapping on them to show me. "The man from whom I bought this house was deathly afraid of burglars. Every downstairs window has shutters like these. A switch controls an electric eye gadget on every window. If the circuit is broken, it rings an alarm. Would you like me to take you around the house? It's built like a fort."
"Thanks, not just now. I want to hunt up Miss Vernon. We had an argument just before I saw you, and I'd like to get out of the doghouse."
"Good luck," he said. "A charming girl. Perhaps a little . . . impulsive?"
That was a velvet warning. "She'll get over it."
He nodded pleasantly, and I left the office. I was feeling pretty good. I had both proved he was a crook and had fixed things so he wouldn't cause trouble for a few days. And I ought to be able to get Nancy out of the place now. She couldn't learn anything by snooping that I hadn't already learned. I stuck the photo in my coat pocket, and went looking for her. I weaved through the crowd for a couple of minutes, going from room to room, and then as I was crossing the main hallway a voice hailed me from the entrance. It was Joe Molo.
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