The Capitalist

by Peter Steiner

  They walked down the hall to the headmaster’s office, Mr. Smith making a squishing sound and leaving wet tracks on the stone floor with each step. Once in his office, the headmaster pointed to a chair and Dimitri sat down. “Please, Mr. Smith, may I offer you a drink?”

  “Yes, thank you,” said Dimitri. “Scotch.”

  The headmaster poured the drink and took a seat opposite the Russian. Dimitri withdrew a Barclays Bank draft from his inside pocket and handed it to the headmaster. It was for a hundred thousand pounds and was made out to Trinity School. The fund, as Dimitri explained, was to be named the Jeremy Gutentag Scholarship Fund in honor of one of the school’s most illustrious graduates.

  “I don’t quite know what to say,” said the astonished headmaster.

  “You knew Jeremy?” said Dimitri.

  “I did indeed,” said James Wyatt Cheswich.

  “And you personally taught him?” said Dimitri, wondering to himself whether stealing other people’s money had been part of the lesson.

  “I taught him literature. He was perhaps the most gifted student I have ever taught.”

  “He was very good student.”

  “He was indeed. His papers were brilliant analyses of various literary classics, and I believe any one of them could have been published in any of the leading literary journals. They were simply brilliant. I am very pleased that you are honoring Jeremy, but may I ask, Mr. Smith, how it is that you are endowing this scholarship in his name? This really is most astonishing.” Cheswich shook his head in wonderment.

  “Jeremy is my colleague,” said Dimitri, “who has helped make my company very successful. It is my company endowing the scholarship.” He pointed to the check that Mr. Cheswich continued to stare at.

  “That is extremely generous. I truly don’t know what to say.”

  “It is the least we can do. All people in my company are very proud of Jeremy.”

  “Well, we are very proud too, of Jeremy, and of the education we provided him. And are certainly grateful to you.”

  “Is big surprise, yes?”

  “It certainly is,” said the headmaster still shaking his head in wonder.

  “Will be surprise for Jeremy too. We want to have dinner to honor him, make a speech. Have a toast. Maybe you can tell me about Jeremy as young man. About his home, his family?”

  James Wyatt Cheswich rubbed his chin thoughtfully and paused as he tried to recollect the details. “His parents were shopkeepers, I think. From London, as I recall.”

  “Not from India, then?”

  “India?” He laughed. “Oh, dear, no. He spoke the King’s English, you know. I guess he still does.” He laughed again.

  “Yes,” said Dimitri, “the King’s English.”

  “No, not from India,” Cheswich continued, “although he looks the part, doesn’t he? No, his parents were shopkeepers. In London. I’m quite sure.”

  “And you have information on shop, what kind of shop, where it was?”

  “I will have to check for you,” said the headmaster.

  “Did he have scholarship to go to school here? Trinity was very expensive even then. No?”

  “Yes, it was. You know, I don’t recall whether he had a scholarship. I don’t think so. No, I’m quite sure he didn’t have a scholarship.”

  Now it was Dimitri’s turn to rub his chin. “Hmm. I think he said he had scholarship, because his parents were dead.”

  “No, I don’t think so. I think he was a full tuition student.”

  “I want to get information correct for presentation.”

  “Of course,” said the headmaster. “Let me check.” He went to a bank of filing cabinets and searched briefly. “Aha. Here we are.” He pulled his chair next to Dimitri’s so they could both look in the file. “Here, you see? A record of tuition payments.”

  “I am surprised. But his parents were already dead, yes? So who paid? Who we have to thank for his excellent education?”

  “Here’s the notation,” said Cheswich, pointing. “You see? Full payment, wire transfer.”

  “From Lahore,” said Dimitri.

  “Yes, I see.”

  “Oh, yes, he has uncle in Lahore,” Dimitri suddenly remembered.

  “That must be it.”

  “He definitely has uncle in Lahore,” said Dimitri. “He often says how grateful he is to his uncle. See here? Mohan Kapoor. In India after all.”

  “Um … Pakistan, Mr. Smith.”

  “What?”

  “Pakistan. Lahore is in Pakistan.”

  XLVII

  LOUIS HEARD FROM HAMILTON JONES. Larrimer insisted on seeing the paintings. “He wants to come here, to Saint-Léon?”

  “He does,” said Hamilton. “He’s flying me to Terre-de-Haut, and we’ll all fly from there to Tours and drive to you. How far is it?”

  “Forty kilometers.”

  “I have to say, Louis, I’m eager to see these paintings too, to see how good a painter you are.”

  “I’m as curious about that as you are.”

  “You better be damned good.”

  “When does he want to come?”

  “June fourteenth.”

  “Tell him the eighteenth,” said Louis. “And before I agree, he needs to present proof that he’s opened an escrow account for fifty million dollars. Does that seem too odd, Hamilton?”

  “It’s a little odd. But he knows you’re an eccentric, so he should buy it. At least as long as it’s in his own bank. Is that all right?”

  “Absolutely fine,” said Louis. “It just has to have my name on it. We just want to see the money move. He should send me evidence of the escrow account.”

  Nothing happened for several days, until suddenly the new account materialized online. A short while later five million dollars moved from one account to the new account. Then another five million, and another, until fifty million had been moved.

  “Now we know which are his accounts,” said Zaharia.

  “Why five million at a time?” Louis wondered.

  “Maybe he’s just being cautious,” said Zaharia. “Or maybe it wasn’t Larrimer who decided to do it that way at all. There’s something else, something more interesting going on at the same time, which could be the reason. The bank is loading money into Larrimer’s account from its own reserves.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “I don’t know. Let me watch it for a while and see if I can figure it out.”

  A few days later Louis got an envelope in the mail. Inside was a Charter Island National Bank statement for a numbered escrow account containing fifty million dollars.

  Louis had never exhibited his paintings. He had never had any desire to do so.

  “Well, you’re going to show them now,” said Pauline.

  “Yes,” he said. “But not as paintings. As bait.”

  “So Larrimer’s got to believe that they’re the masterpieces they resemble.”

  “Yes,” said Louis. “At least for a little while.”

  “Then you’re going to need them in fancy frames.”

  “I know. I’ve been getting them ready. Come see.” Louis had been visiting rummage sales and junk shops, and had managed to find a good number of large, old frames. They were mostly battered and chipped, and he had gotten them cheaply.

  Louis’s neighbor, Étienne Dubois, a cabinetmaker, mostly made doors and shutters and heavy kitchen tables. He squinted at the frames and at the canvases standing side by side. He took a small notebook from his pocket. “What about repair?”

  “Cut out the damaged parts where you can. Otherwise just a little cosmetic repair. Nothing too fine,” said Louis. “Nicks and cracks are good. These are supposed to be old frames on old canvases.”

  Étienne smelled intrigue; his eyes sparkled. He walked up and down looking at each frame, making notes as he did. Louis opened a bottle of Muscadet and poured two glasses. Étienne did a little figuring in his notebook. “Four hundred eighty euros,” he said.

  “If you get
them done by next Friday, I’ll make it six hundred,” said Louis. “And not a word to anyone.” He raised his glass, and Étienne raised his.

  “To art,” said Étienne. He loaded the frames and canvases in his truck and drove down the hill. He disassembled the frames, cut them to size and mitered new corners. After he had reassembled them, Etienne filled the worst chips and dulled the fill and finish. He mounted the canvases in the frames and drove them back up the hill.

  Louis’s Cézanne was now in an ebony frame with dented and worn gilt edges. One Picasso was in a silver frame that had once surrounded a mirror. A Derain was in a Rococo gilt frame. Each painting was in the frame that suited it best.

  “The frame on the Cézanne is almost too perfect,” said Pauline. She looked around the studio, admiring the paintings all over again. “What a difference a frame makes.”

  “It does, doesn’t it? You can put a frame on almost anything and elevate it into the realm of art. And in addition—in this case—the frame hides the stretcher. He won’t notice how new they are. Not right away, anyway; not until he turns a painting around.”

  “Will he do that?”

  “I think he probably will. He certainly should. He’s contemplating paying millions. He must know enough to look at the backs.”

  Pauline still had her reservations about Louis’s tightrope walk along the edge of illegality. But she could not deny that the paintings were exciting to look at. “And where are you going to show them? Where is Larrimer going to see them? It can’t be here. He’d know right away you made them. It has to be someplace more … imposing, someplace grand.”

  * * *

  Renard had not changed his opinion about Louis’s project. How could he? He had sworn to uphold the law, and here was Louis, his best friend, concocting a rather elaborate confidence game. The fact that it was being directed against a criminal, with the objective of recovering the money he had stolen and turning him over to the appropriate legal authorities, did nothing, in Renard’s opinion, to mitigate that larger fact of its illegality.

  “I understand that,” said Louis. “Your dilemma has a solution, though. All you have to do is be there to see that nothing illegal transpires. If it does, you can arrest the perpetrator. Whoever it might be.” He lifted his coffee cup to his lips.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Renard.

  “Excuse me?” said Louis. “If you think a crime is about to occur and you know where it will occur, isn’t it your duty to be there to make certain it does not occur?”

  Renard narrowed his eyes at Louis.

  A man opened the door and a gust of wind seemed to sweep him and his wife into the bar. “It’s raining!” they both said at the same time. Everyone turned to look as the first large drops splashed against the window. It had not rained for nearly two months. The hay had stopped growing and could not be cut. The wheat too appeared stunted. And the grape vines were covered with dust. But now it was raining.

  It was lunchtime, and most of the booths were full. Some people were already eating their lunch. And yet everyone got up and filed out to look, as though something miraculous were happening. Christoph cranked down the awning, and they all stood there looking at the rain in wonder as it hammered on the awning above them and filled the air with its sweet ozone smell. Even Louis got up to take it in.

  It came down hard enough that you could not see the fields above town, only the silver sheets of water slanting down. Small rivulets ran between the cobblestones. A car drove slowly across the square. The driver had his windows open and was smiling. He waved and everyone waved back. Then they went back inside.

  It is odd, but a moment like that, an unexpected moment, can sometimes change things in the most mysterious ways, things over which it should have no effect at all. “All right,” said Renard. He did not know why he suddenly agreed. “Where? Where are you going to show him the paintings? I’ll be there.”

  XLVIII

  IT WAS THE EIGHTEENTH, and it was raining again. A black limousine sped up the gravel drive. The driveway curved around two huge stone barns before the Beaumont château came into view, first its brick tower above the trees, then as the trees thinned out, the main building: three stories of brick and stone with a steep slate mansard roof, surrounded by broad stone terraces and a low balustrade. The main house had been built in the sixteenth century; the rear wing and the tower were more recent, but the whole ensemble—house, barns, garden—seemed perfectly harmonious, if a bit neglected. The car came to a stop by the front stairs.

  Nigel stepped out and opened the rear door for St. John. Hamilton Jones had ridden up front with Nigel. Nigel reached inside his jacket and adjusted the pistol in its holster. St. John stood looking at the building as though the house might reveal what kind of man lived there all by himself surrounded by a secret collection of unknown masterpieces. The three men climbed the stairs to the terrace and walked to the door. Nigel lifted the heavy iron knocker and let it drop.

  The door opened, and a man—St. John would have called him old—stood there with an expectant look on his face. He was not tall; he had blue eyes and a cloud of unruly white hair wafting about his head. He was dressed in baggy corduroy slacks and a sweater and battered leather boots.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Larrimer to see Mr. Morgon,” said Nigel.

  “Yes,” said Louis, stepping aside. “Please come in.”

  “Mr. Morgon is expecting us,” said Nigel.

  “I’m Louis Morgon.” Louis offered his hand to Larrimer, then to Nigel and Hamilton Jones. “Mr. Jones, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

  “Likewise,” said Hamilton Jones. “The pleasure is mine.” His English accent had gotten stronger again since they had last spoken. “What a lovely house you have.”

  In the 1970s, not long after moving to Saint-Léon, Louis had become acquainted with the Comte de Beaumont, the proprietor of a number of properties throughout France, including the château Louis was now pretending was his own. The occasion had been Louis’s interest in the French Resistance and his involvement in sorting out a long-unresolved and festering crime from the era of the Nazi occupation.

  For many French men and women, those years had been a time of extreme moral ambiguity and inconvenience, but not for Maurice de Beaumont. He and his wife, Alexandre, were heroes of the Resistance. They had put their lives and their entire wealth, happiness, and well-being at risk in order to fight against what they both knew to be evil. That fight had cost Alexandre her life.

  The count was more than ninety now and frail. He was not often in residence in Saint-Léon—he mostly stayed in Paris. When he was in Saint-Léon however, Louis made a point of visiting. Otherwise the two men carried on their friendship by correspondence. They had two things in common—their sense of moral clarity and their love of art.

  The moral aspect gave their relationship its solidity, but they talked and wrote mostly about art. The count had an extraordinary collection of paintings—Titian, Tintoretto, Ingres, including old family portraits by some of these masters. Louis always felt a surge of pleasure when he found a letter from Maurice in his mail.

  Hôtel Valmont, Paris

  June 3, 2009

  My dear Louis,

  What a delight it was—as it always is—to get your letter. Who writes letters anymore? Sometimes I imagine it is just we two, although I don’t see how that could be true. My grandchildren want me to e-mail or “text” (I understand that is now a verb), but I steadfastly resist their entreaties. They have no choice but to put up with my handwriting, which is starting to wobble.

  I have of course read in the newspapers about St. John Larrimer and all the devastation he has brought about. The sad news about Pauline’s brother was especially lamentable. You know that I loathe this sort of thing and admire your wanting to do something about it.

  I do not expect to be in Saint-Léon anytime soon, so I am unable to help you get the house ready for what you have in mind. I think, however, it shoul
d be in pretty good order. Ghislaine looks in once a week to tidy up; I’ll tell her to turn up the heat and get everything ready.

  Please get the key from Laurent. He will help you clear things away to make room for your paintings, which, by the way, I am eager to see. I am also eager to hear how this all comes out. Please be careful.

  Yours with admiration and friendship,

  Maurice

  “Follow me, please,” said Louis and closed the door. They passed into a tall corridor lined with portraits. Louis stopped halfway. “Tintoretto,” he said pointing. Hamilton Jones lifted his glasses and peered at the painting. “Yes, it is,” he said. “And a fine one.” St. John gave the painting a perfunctory glance.

  The corridor led into a large kitchen with an enormous fireplace. A long table in front of the fireplace was draped with a tablecloth and set with dessert plates and wineglasses.

  Louis poured wine in four glasses. It was a white Chinon, a rarity that Louis had recently discovered. The three visitors sat at the table while Louis sliced up a tarte tatin and slid pieces onto four plates.

  “You made this?” said St. John.

  “I did,” said Louis. “Do you like it?”

  “It’s very good,” said St. John and took another bite.

  “Very good,” said Nigel.

  “Excellent,” said Hamilton. The men ate in silence.

  “You’re American,” said St. John. “I wonder how an American comes to live in France.”

  “Well,” said Louis, “I could ask you the same thing.”

  St. John tried another tack. “How did you acquire your collection?”

  “Over time,” said Louis. Hamilton Jones had warned St. John that Louis Morgon’s long list of peculiarities included extreme reticence and a prickly secretiveness about his life and art collection. Morgon had agreed to show his collection to St. John, which was a near miracle. It was best just to sit and wait until he was ready. This was exactly the kind of negotiation—long, slow, and mostly silent—that St. John detested.