The Bilbao Looking Glass

by Charlotte MacLeod

  Aunt Appie was enjoying herself, at any rate. She had one of Miffy’s awful cocktails in her hand and was sipping at it with every appearance of relish as she entertained a cluster of her chums with a groan-by-groan replay of Uncle Samuel’s final illness. She’d be regaled in turn with cozy details about how other members of the old guard had expired in agony or wasted silently away as the case might have been. She’d be showered with invitations to this, that, and the other thing; and nobody would be crushed to learn her niece Sarah was too busy to accompany her.

  Sarah only hoped Appie was bearing in mind the fact that they had no car to provide taxi service. She knew how Cousin Lionel would feel about using up costly gasoline ferrying his mother around to her routs and revels; and Sarah wasn’t about to let Max get roped into driving Appie.

  Between being a dumping-ground for the whole Kelling tribe’s problems and a seeing-eye dog for his mother, Alexander had wound up having time for everybody except his wife. That wasn’t going to happen with the next man she married. Anyway, Max didn’t show any particular inclination to become a universal father-figure. She thought about what Max wanted and blushed, since after all she’d led a sheltered life in some respects.

  “Been out in the sun, Sarah?”

  For a moment, Sarah couldn’t place this tall man with the weather-beaten face and the sun-bleached hair. Then she decided he must be a Larrington. Hadn’t somebody mentioned a while ago that one of the twins had got divorced? Would that be Fren or Don? Anyway, this ought to be Fren because Don always wore his Porcellian tie even, rumor had it, in the shower.

  “Hello, Fren,” she replied, taking a chance on getting it right. “No, I haven’t been at Ireson’s long enough for sunning. It must be windburn from all the hot air that’s blowing around in here. Why aren’t you out on your boat?”

  “She’s having her bottom scraped.”

  “Sounds painful. I hope she’s not minding too much.”

  “I am. My God, Sarah, do you know what it costs to maintain a boat these days?”

  “No, and don’t tell me. I know far too well what other things cost.”

  “Oh, right. Alex left you strapped, didn’t he? Must have been quite a jolt. Understand you’ve been running a boarding house or some damn thing to keep body and soul together. You’ll drop that, of course, now that you’ve got your hands on Walter’s money.”

  “Why should I? It’s fun and it pays the taxes.”

  “But Jesus, why a boarding house? Bunch of God-knows-whats all over the place.”

  “They’re hardly a bunch of God-knows-whats,” Sarah informed him rather snappishly. “I have Cousin Brooks and his wife, old Mrs. Gates from Chestnut Hill, an accountant who works for Cousin Percy, and one of Mrs. LaValliere’s granddaughters.”

  Fren shrugged. “Miffy got it wrong then, as usual. She told me you had a houseful of Jews from Lynn or Chelsea.”

  “Just one, and he’s from Saugus.” Sarah was not about to let Fren Larrington see how furious she was. “That’s Max Bittersohn over there by the door. The intelligent-looking one.”

  Max, in a light blazer jacket and well-pressed flannels, did make an agreeable contrast to the hairy bare legs and dirty Topsiders around him. Other women were noticing, too. Sarah was not surprised to see the expressions on their faces, though it was a bit of an eye-opener to observe who some of the women were.

  Max must be used to mass adulation by now. At any rate, he was wearing the polite, fixed smile that told Sarah he was bored already and wondering how he’d let himself get sucked into coming. So was she. While Fren maundered on about jib booms and backstays, Sarah stood wondering how soon they could decently make their escape. She’d just about decided it would be inhumane to keep Max there one moment longer when Alice B. whizzed in with a trayful of something hot and no doubt exotic.

  She always moves as though she’d been wound up and set going, Sarah thought. She herself could just about remember when Alice B., as in Toklas, had come to live with Miffy. One or two of the literati among the group had tried calling Miffy Gertrude, as in Stein, but that hadn’t ever worked. Miffy was Miffy and that was that.

  Nobody really knew or very much cared what precise relationship existed between Miffy and Alice B. So-called Boston marriages between women of independent means who either didn’t like men or couldn’t get men to like them had been common enough long before their time. Miffy’d always gone in for cropped hair and egomania, while Alice B. took naturally to arty clothes and fancy cooking, at which latter she was in fact extremely good. Aunt Appie was already taking large bites out of whatever Alice B. had concocted this time and exclaiming, “Supermella gorgeous!”

  But Max wouldn’t agree, Sarah realized as soon as she’d got one of the things herself and bitten through, puff pastry into a filling of chopped clams and whipped cream. Max hated shellfish and shied away from rich foods of any sort. She must warn him. Alice B. would throw a public fit if he were to take one taste and leave the rest uneaten. When Bradley Rovedock came in and Fren turned to complain to him about the exorbitant cost of bottom-scraping, she grabbed the chance to slip away and cross the room.

  She was sorry not to have a word with Bradley, whom she’d always liked, but there was no time to lose. Alice B. was now in among the women surrounding Max, dispensing her clam tarts, twitching her sharp little nose this way and that, sniffing out whatever might be going on for eager speculation and early repetition.

  Alice B. never forgot a face, a name, or an indiscretion. Though she’d wait for the most awkward possible moment to share what she’d learned or deduced, she was never stingy about passing it on. Nor did it ever occur to her that she might have heard or guessed wrong. It was no doubt Alice B. and not Miffy who’d come up with the houseful of God-knew-whats from Lynn. When she got face-to-face with Max, she turned up her round, black birds’ eyes and gave him a long, thoughtful stare. Then she crowed.

  “I know you. You’re the Bittersohn boy. Whatever happened to that girl you were living with? Becky, was it? Or Bertha?”

  Sarah noticed Max’s jawbones tighten, but he answered calmly enough. “Her name was Barbara. The last I heard, she was in Switzerland.”

  “What was she doing there?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  This was a bit much. Sarah had to step in.

  “I’ll bet you don’t know what time it is, either,” she said. “Come on, Max. You promised to have me back at the house by six o’clock.”

  “Why?” Alice B. demanded.

  Sarah ignored her. Max set down his barely touched drink.

  “Is your aunt coming with us?”

  “I expect she’d like to stay on for a while. You’ll see that she gets a ride when she’s ready, won’t you, Alice B.? Thanks for the clam tart. It was delicious.”

  “Your friend Mr. Bittersohn didn’t get one.”

  Alice B. was still blocking the way with her depleted tray. Sarah took one of the few remaining pastries and slipped neatly around her.

  “He can eat it on the way. I really do have to rush. Say goodbye to Miffy for me.”

  They got out of the house and into the car without speaking another word to each other. After they’d driven away from the village, Sarah opened her window and threw the tart into the bushes.

  “The skunks will enjoy it,” she observed. Even to herself, her voice sounded as if she were slowly strangling.

  “All right, I know what you’re thinking,” Max snarled back.

  “It’s just that I’d rather have heard it from you than from Alice B. Not that it’s any of my business, of course.”

  “Don’t be so damned polite! I’d have told you months ago if I’d thought it mattered to us. I haven’t seen Barbara in twelve years, for God’s sake.”

  “And how—” No, she couldn’t ask him that.

  She didn’t have to. Max knew, as always. He pulled off the road and stopped the car.

  “We might as well have it out right now, Sarah, and g
et it over with. Okay, in my business I’m bound to meet a few bored rich women who think they’ve hired a stud instead of an investigator. Since you want to know, they haven’t. I don’t screw around with my clients or my clients’ wives. That’s not how I operate. The same thing goes for my suspects because I’m not a damn fool. That’s not to say I’ve been any plaster saint like your darling Alexander.”

  “Let’s leave Alexander out of this, Max. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

  “The hell I don’t. What kind of an earful do you think that woman’s giving your crowd back there about me right now?”

  “I couldn’t possibly care less about the crowd back there.”

  “Your aunt’s among them, isn’t she?”

  “Aunt Appie never believes anything bad about anybody.”

  “In a pig’s eye she doesn’t. I suppose you don’t, either. Go ahead, tell me you’re not wondering what the hell you’ve got yourself into.”

  “I haven’t got myself into anything.”

  “That’s right. You haven’t, have you?”

  “Max, it’s not on account of you. I’ve explained over and over. It’s—all right, tell me about this Barbara if it will make you feel better. Who was she?”

  “A graduate student I met at B.U. while I was finishing my doctorate. She was taking a master’s in art history so we naturally kept bumping into each other.”

  “Then it was some time ago.”

  “I told you that.”

  “Oh, stop being an idiot. Exactly how old were you?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “Wasn’t that awfully young to be finishing your doctorate?”

  “I’d been working my ass off, if you want to know. I had to have that degree.”

  “You’d already started your business then?”

  “Yes, in a small way. That was how Barbara and I got together. She had a part-time job in one of the galleries on Newbury Street and a little apartment over it that she shared with another student. I happened to do some work for the gallery and she’d invite me up for a drink when she saw me there. One thing sort of led to another.”

  Max was not enjoying this. “Anyway, after a while her roommate moved out and I moved in. I’d got my doctorate by then and was able to work full-time. I made enough to pay the rent and buy the groceries, so Barbara quit her job, which paid peanuts anyway, and started helping me. She’d line up appointments, send out bills, keep track of expenses, do a little research, take a lot of the details off my hands so that I could take on more assignments. She was bright, she had the right sort of training and some contacts from the gallery. And she was crazy about me. Boy, was she crazy about me.”

  His lips twisted. “So there we were, tripping hand in hand down life’s highway with me wondering when I’d be able to scrape together a couple of extra bucks for the license and Barbara telling me it didn’t matter because ours was the true union of soul and spirit and how about dinner at the Ritz because we couldn’t afford to get married.”

  “I must say that solution wouldn’t have occurred to me,” Sarah remarked because she had to give him a moment’s relief somehow.

  “What was I supposed to do?” he snapped back. “That was the way she wanted it, and I was in no position to do anything else at the time. Anyway, things went along fairly well for a while. With Barbara carrying part of the load, I managed to land a few decent assignments. Then I got my once-in-a-lifetime chance. I got wind of this very personable man-about-town type who whiled away his idle hours contacting rich collectors and persuading them to donate their spare works of art to museums and colleges so they could claim big tax deductions. He got a small percentage for acting as go-between.”

  “But Max, that’s perfectly legitimate, isn’t it? I know Cousin Percy gave a Bierstadt to the Worcester museum, and nobody minded except Cousin Mabel.”

  “Yes, but I expect the Bierstadt your cousin gave was the Bierstadt the museum got. The way this other guy handled the deal, the donors would claim deductions for the full value of the originals but the donees would find out sooner or later they’d been landed with fakes. That created some very embarrassing situations. The original owners were afraid of getting tagged for conspiracy to defraud the government even though they’d acted in perfectly good faith. The museums were naturally teed off at not getting what they’d been led to expect, but didn’t dare squawk too loudly for fear of being made to look like fools and antagonizing other potential donors.”

  “I see. This man was having the paintings copied, palming off the copy with the provenance of the original attached to it, and then keeping the original for his own purposes. Sounds familiar.”

  “Yes, it’s an old trick but it still works if you work it right. This man was a master. So I decided to take on the case as a gamble, hoping to get back my expenses from some of the people who’d been defrauded and figuring it would be the right sort of advertising for me if I could pull it off. I spent a lot of time and money I couldn’t afford chasing down leads and piling up evidence, with Barbara right in there pitching every step of the way. She even bought us a second-hand safe to store the evidence in.”

  He fell silent again. “And then what?” Sarah prodded.

  “And then, just as I was ready to spring my trap, Barbara opened the safe, took out the evidence, and handed it to my man as a wedding present. They spent their honeymoon in Zurich. At least I assume they did. That was on the postmark of the envelope she mailed back to me, containing the key to the empty safe.”

  “Oh, Max! What did you do?”

  “What could I do? Cursed myself for a jerk and went back to the nickel-and-dime stuff so I could pay up some of my back bills. Since then, I haven’t had a roommate. Satisfied?”

  He reached over to the ignition key, and started the motor.

  Chapter 4

  THEY MIGHT HAVE WORKED out the situation between them if Appie Kelling had stayed at the party half an hour longer. Max had got a fire going to stave off the evening chill. Sarah had fixed two drinkable whiskies and the simple cheese-and-cracker snack Max liked best. They were just settling themselves to talk it over when Appie blew in.

  “Yoo-hoo, kiddies. Are you there? Ah, a driftwood fire, how delightful! And look what I’ve brought.”

  What she’d brought stepped forward somewhat diffidently. “Hello, Sarah. Forgive me for crashing the party. I didn’t get a chance to speak to you at Miffy’s, so when Appie invited me in, I couldn’t resist.”

  “Bradley, how nice. It has been ages.”

  Sarah’s greeting was a shade warmer than it might have been if she hadn’t been so annoyed by his being dragged in at such a time, and if Max hadn’t been looking so thunderous. Anyway, like it or not, she was about to have that chat with Bradley Rovedock she’d missed at Miffy’s.

  Bradley was just about Alexander’s age. They’d fished, sailed, gone crabbing together as boys, and kept up an agreeable acquaintance though not a close friendship forever after. Bradley’d been one of the few who’d bothered to talk with young Sarah at those sticky gatherings where she’d always felt so out of place. The occasional day cruises on his yacht Perdita had been glittering highlights of her summers at Ireson’s.

  “I’ve been wanting to see you, Sarah. I hadn’t known about Alex and Caro. I’ve just got back, you see.”

  He didn’t say any more about that, but simply took the hand she held out to him. “You’re doing all right now, though? You look quite lovely, if I may say so.”

  “Thank you, Bradley. You’re looking well, too.” Bradley always did, of course. “Have you met my tenant, Max Bittersohn? He’s taken my carriage house for the summer.”

  Why did she have to say that? Couldn’t she simply have introduced Max as himself? He’d stood up to shake hands with Bradley, but Sarah could tell he was having to strain to act civil. Well, why shouldn’t he? She wasn’t having any picnic either.

  How could she have known she was innocently leading Max t
o the slaughter at Miffy’s? It wasn’t him Alice B. had deliberately been trying to embarrass; Alice B. wouldn’t give a rap for the Bittersohn boy. It was Sarah she’d been out to get, as he might have had sense enough to realize. Not that Sarah cared about Max’s having lived with another woman before he’d met her. Why should she? She herself had been living with another man, hadn’t she?

  But that had been different. All right, she was jealous. Jealous of that female freebooter who’d been making love to young Max Bittersohn in an apartment over an art gallery while demure little Sarah Kelling sat minding her manners and being ignored at Miffy Tergoyne’s awful parties. Jealous of that Barbara who’d done as she liked and taken what she wanted and didn’t mind whether or not she wrecked the life of the man she’d pretended to be crazy about. And landed Sarah Kelling years later with yet another mess to straighten out. Damn Barbara!

  And damn Max for not having let her know before that he’d been made a fool of by a woman on the take. He knew how Alexander had suffered in silence all those years for having committed the same sort of mistake, and how Sarah had been made miserable too because Alexander had thought it his duty to protect her from the awful truth. And damn Aunt Appie for—no, it wasn’t fair to damn Appie Kelling for being Appie. Damn Sarah herself for being so gutless and witless that she couldn’t think of a civil way to make these two nice people go away so she could give Max Bittersohn the straightening out he damn well needed.

  At least Appie was so full of her visit among her cronies that there was no need for Sarah to attempt making conversation. Appie kept appealing to Bradley when she couldn’t remember the details, which was most of the time. He filled her in as best he could with that agreeably offhand manner Sarah remembered so well, as if it weren’t a bore for him but a courtesy to which Appie was naturally entitled and which he was happy to accord.

  Sarah, who at least knew the people they were talking about, managed to put in a comment often enough not to seem rude. Max hardly uttered a word. When Appie started pressing Bradley to stay and take potluck with them, Sarah wasn’t surprised to see Max get up and set his empty glass on the mantel with a controlled force that suggested he’d rather have hurled it into the fireplace.