The First Mystery Novel

by Howard Mason

  “I can kick it around,” she said, “but I didn’t come here for small talk. I came in to pump you.”

  “Pump away.”

  “Well, first off, how much of the Edgerton treasure are you peddling, to whom and for how much?”

  “Shouldn’t you ask your uncle that?”

  She laughed, with an edge of bitterness. “What? And be cut off without a shilling? In the summer of 1935, when I was nine years old, I asked him a question and I still treasure the grunt with which he replied. It’s upstairs, in my grunt box.”

  Blaise leaned forward and gently took the glass from her hand. “You don’t want to say all that. I’m just one of the hired hands. You’ll hate yourself in the morning.”

  She didn’t seem to resent this at all, but took a cigarette from the box on the desk and Blaise struck a match. “I pictured you in black broadcloth,” she said, “with a neat Vandyke and eyeglasses on a black silk ribbon.” She looked him up and down searchingly. “Art expert, my eye! With those shoulders?”

  “It’s mostly padding.”

  “And you’re handsome, in a mean, secretive sort of way. I expected to find a frustrated, elderly man I could wind around my little finger.”

  “Stay with it,” urged Blaise. “I’ve been wound around some little fingers that couldn’t compare with yours.”

  She started to smile, then Blaise saw that she was looking past him to the door. He turned as Simon Edgerton came in. Cass waved to him gaily. “Come in, Simon. This is Ellis Blaise right here in the chair and he’s just about to become putty in my hands.”

  Simon came in so warily that Blaise could feel his guard up. “Has she been drinking?” he asked Blaise.

  Cass answered first. “Not me. Not with old Carrie Nation Blaise on hand to snatch it away. I am already a better and finer woman for having known him.”

  “Don’t mind Cassy.” Simon ran his hand lightly over her hair. “She gets wound up on one highball and then she just has to run down her own way.” He put his hands on her waist and lifted her easily from the desk. “Come on. This man has to work. I’ll walk you up and down till you sober up.”

  Then Lucas Edgerton’s rasping voice cut in on them. “Simon!”

  He was standing in the doorway with a small, wiry dark man in work clothes. Edgerton came over to the desk with short, funny little steps as if he were literally hopping mad. The other man stayed in the open doorway, watching impassively.

  Edgerton confronted his son. The boy squirmed uneasily. “Simon, I told you never to set foot in here. Did you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Simon hastily. “It was just that I came in to pick up Cassy. We were just leaving, weren’t we, Mr. Blaise?” He was heavily relieved when Blaise nodded.

  Edgerton didn’t look to Blaise for confirmation or denial. He walked to the gallery end of the room and as he passed his son he said quietly, “Get out.”

  The other man stepped out of the doorway to let Simon pass. He betrayed no reaction at all to the ugly little scene between father and son and the others quite plainly took his presence for granted.

  Cass stood by the desk until Edgerton turned back at the sound of the closing door. She faced him defiantly.

  “I’ve got some work to do, Cassy,” said Edgerton. The rage was all out of his voice now, leaving it with a hollow, exhausted tone. He beckoned to the man in the doorway. “Come on in, Victor.”

  “The nice part about living here,” Cass said to Blaise, “is that you don’t have to leave home to go to the fights.”

  Edgerton moved down the gallery and as Cass went out he pressed a switch that turned on the overhead lights. In the glare of these he looked old and haggard. He reached out to make a minute adjustment in the position of a canvas and Blaise saw that his hand was trembling. The man he called Victor came up beside him and studied the painting, a fine Degas nude.

  “It requires only to be stretched, Mr. Edgerton,” he said. His voice was soft with a vague and indefinable Latin accent. “The canvas is in good condition. I have already examined it. It is a trifle loose.”

  Edgerton nodded. “This is Victor Grandi, Blaise.” He waited for Blaise to join them. Grandi extended a small, remarkably tough and muscular hand. “Mr. Edgerton has told me about you,” he said, in the same soft voice, oddly suited to his stained and shabby clothes.

  “Victor does all my restoring, cleaning, sees to the framing—damn good technician.”

  “Handyman,” said Grandi, showing even little teeth in an apologetic smile.

  “When you’ve had a chance to examine the paintings I want to sell,” continued Edgerton, “you should go over them with Victor, make sure everything is absolutely presentable.”

  Blaise nodded. “Good idea.”

  “You are a dealer, Mr. Blaise,” said Grandi. “You know that very often a dirty canvas hurts a fine painting. A bad frame, too.”

  “He knows. He’s been around,” said Edgerton impatiently. “All right, Victor.”

  Grandi showed no resentment or surprise at the abrupt dismissal. He lifted the Degas from the wall, tucked it carefully under his arm. “I am at your service, Mr. Blaise. My little shop is right here on the grounds. I hope you will come to see it.”

  When Grandi had gone, Edgerton started groping in the bulging pockets of his corduroy coat. “Came over to give you a lead on that Degas. About a year ago the Museum down here wrote me about it. Seems some benefactor wanted to buy it for them. Your kind of a public-spirited boob,” he said, the familiar mockery back in his voice. “You’ll hit it off fine.” He fished out a folded paper. “Here’s the letter.”

  Blaise took it. “Thanks. I’ll check on it.”

  Edgerton was already leaving as Blaise unfolded the letter. It was a polite inquiry made by the museum on behalf of Andrew Kullman, a motion-picture tycoon whom Blaise knew by reputation alone. It was a good introduction to Kullman, whether or not he was still interested in the Degas.

  Blaise picked up Cass Edgerton’s discarded highball, to return the glass to the bar, then stopped with the glass in hand. The little stack of index cards was gone. He made a quick search of the desk, the drawers and the nearby furniture. He was down on his hands and knees for a better view of the carpeted floor when Miriam Wayne came in. Blaise got up, dusted his palms and looked at her sheepishly. It was not, he decided, a time for beating around the bush. “You picked yourself one hell of a custodian for your precious files,” he told her. Her eyes narrowed as Blaise walked past her to the bar. “The Edgertons dropped in. There was assorted badinage, then harsh words and when the smoke cleared away, egg all over my face. The cards you selected for me vanished into thin air.” He raised the highball. “To Blaise of Scotland Yard.”

  “Was it Simon?” asked the girl.

  “The company included the squire himself, young Cassy, Simon and a handyman called Grandi. You pick one.”

  “Simon, I suppose,” she said reluctantly. “He was tearing down the road as I drove up.”

  “What accounts for his personal furor?” asked Blaise.

  “Guess,” said Miriam wearily. She poured a drink for herself. “Did Mr. Edgerton find Simon here?”

  Blaise nodded. “That set off the harsh words. By the way, can you assemble another set of the cards?”

  “Oh, yes. That’s no problem.”

  “So all that’s happened,” said Blaise philosophically, “is that the boy now knows what his father plans to sell. How much of what he’s stolen is represented there, by the way?”

  Miriam flushed. “I don’t know.” She turned the glass restlessly in her hands. “He’s in trouble, Mr. Blaise. Can you help him?”

  “How?” asked Blaise.

  “I don’t care about Simon,” she said, not altogether convincingly. “I’m worried about Mr. Edgerton. I don’t know if he can stand another of these shocks.”<
br />
  “Another?”

  She ignored his comment. “Will you?”

  “It’s not my line of work,” said Blaise.

  “No, I suppose not.” She put down her glass. “You’re staying for dinner?”

  When Blaise nodded, she started out. “I’ll make sure they know up at the house.”

  Blaise waited until she was at the door. “Where do you suppose Simon was headed in such a hurry, Miss Wayne?”

  She hesitated. “I think you’re right to want to stay out of a family quarrel.”

  “Okay,” said Blaise. “See you at dinner.”

  Chapter 4

  “I am worried,” said Jonas Astorg, “and when I worry I hate to worry alone. I share my problems with my associates. It makes me feel a lot better and it is an indication of my complete trust.” He laughed a little, shaking the ice in his highball.

  Kenneth Lurie was standing by the table, idly turning the drawings in a large folio laid open there. Lurie was a big man, well over six feet, and his dinner jacket, though extremely well-cut, seemed to be poured over him. His skin was dark, but it didn’t look tanned, and the hairline came down to give him only a short forehead for a man of his size. He was attractive, in a crude way, and his manner had confidence. “It’s a lot too soon to worry. A little precaution is all the situation calls for.”

  “I’ll be interested to hear your prescription,” said Astorg.

  Lurie walked to the open doors leading to the balcony and stepped out, turning to face the interior. He looked left to Blaise’s room. “Not home yet?”

  “He’s not the answer,” said Astorg.

  Lurie came back into the room. “He’s more or less got to be.”

  Astorg put his glass down with an impatient gesture. “You’ll think I’m joking—Blaise is honest.”

  Lurie seemed to dismiss this. “Everybody’s honest. I’m honest, too. There are points of departure.”

  “Well, if he’s got one,” said Astorg irritably, “his is somewhere off in space. You vegetate out here. You should keep in touch with people. I know Blaise a long time. He had a good job at VanGrand before the war. He was fired for telling a customer quite candidly what he thought of a Corot that VanGrand himself was selling.”

  “Did he stand to make anything on the Corot?” demanded Lurie.

  Astorg laughed. “Naturally. The customer was one Blaise brought in. That’s why he felt a responsibility.”

  Lurie went out again, looked at the dark windows of the bedroom, and closed the balcony doors when he came back. “Which way do you think Edgerton would turn if Blaise wasn’t available?”

  “What kind of a question is that?” asked Astorg.

  Lurie was pouring himself a drink. “Suppose Blaise got a better job, or didn’t care for this one? What the hell—a dynamic fellow like that, anything might happen.”

  “He used to do business with Ford Manson,” said Astorg slowly. “He might again. The quarrel was trifling.”

  “And have you done business with Manson?”

  Astorg smiled. “Ford Manson is an art dealer after my own heart.”

  Lurie touched his glass lightly with his own. “So in the last analysis, we’re worrying about nothing.”

  The phone rang and Astorg picked it up. “Wait a minute,” he said into the phone, and buried the mouthpiece in his lap. “Simon Edgerton. He wants to come up.” As Lurie slammed his glass down on the table, Astorg said, “I told him not to come here. He sounds agitated.”

  “Let him come up,” said Lurie, and while Astorg repeated these instructions he moved to the windows, drawing the heavy curtains. Astorg went to the door, and held it open a bit. In a moment there were footsteps in the hall and Astorg was ushering in Simon Edgerton. He looked bright-eyed, flushed with excitement.

  Lurie said, “Hello, Simon.”

  Simon was already explaining. “I know you told me to stay away, Mr. Astorg, but this is important.” His voice held a suppressed triumph. “I’ve got the list of what’s to be sold. Here.” He thumped the cards on the table, and added, “I took a chance, but it was worth it. By now I guess Blaise knows, but by now I don’t care.” He started to laugh and Astorg looked up sharply at Lurie who was thumbing rapidly through the cards.

  “Not one,” said Lurie, in an awed voice. “Not a single, solitary God-damned thing!”

  Simon leaned against the bar, weakly happy as though the Governor had just handed him a reprieve. “That’s right. Not one of our paintings.”

  Astorg nodded. “Our paintings,” he repeated, “is a felicitous phrase, Simon. Help yourself to a drink, my boy.”

  Simon poured one, quickly and heavily. “Luck,” he said.

  Astorg nodded and raised his glass. “That seems to be assured.”

  Simon drained the glass in feverish gulps. Lurie snapped the rubber band back around the cards and handed them to Simon. “Can you get into the gallery tonight?”

  “Later on—after midnight. There’s a window on the ocean side I can manipulate.”

  “What about the alarms?” asked Astorg.

  The boy laughed. “There’s a window I can manipulate.”

  “Return the cards,” said Lurie insistently, as Simon gave him a puzzled look. “Drop them down between two pieces of furniture, or back of something—a spot where they might have been overlooked.”

  “It won’t work,” said Simon. “He must know it was me or Cassy.”

  “How the hell do you know if he’s even missed them yet?” demanded Lurie.

  Young Edgerton shrugged. “Suppose he’s already told my father?”

  “I doubt it,” said Astorg. “I know Blaise. He’s a snooper. Besides, he’ll want to spare your father any unnecessary pain.”

  “And if he says anything,” added Lurie, “he’s admitting that he pulled a boner.”

  Simon smiled again. “Maybe. It’s worth a try.” He put his glass down. “God! I feel better.”

  “We are all much relieved, Simon,” said Astorg pleasantly.

  Lurie took him to the door. “Go out at the side. No use bumping into Blaise if he’s on the way in.” The boy nodded and Lurie closed and bolted the door after him. “Want a drink?” he asked Astorg.

  “No.” Astorg pointed to the chair opposite his own. “Sit down, Lurie. I want to tell you something.”

  Lurie sat down. “What’s so sinister?” he asked, lighting a cigarette. “We’re in the clear.”

  “Maybe.” Astorg leaned back in the chair. His voice was casual. “I haven’t told you this, Lurie, because I wanted first of all to find out where we stand on what Edgerton is going to sell right away. Nathan Ordmann came into my gallery a couple of weeks ago.” At Lurie’s sudden, questioning look he repeated, “Yes, Nathan Ordmann. He told me of a rare honor he’d had. It seems the curator of the San Francisco Museum brought Lucas Edgerton to his home to see his paintings.”

  Lurie said, “Jesus!”

  Astorg nodded. “Something like that flashed through my mind.”

  “What happened?” Lurie ground out his cigarette. His voice rose. “Jonas, what happened?”

  Astorg leaned forward. “Edgerton walked right past the Renoir. His only comment was that it was too early for his own taste.”

  Lurie looked at him for a moment in wide-eyed surprise, then laughed out loud. “Remember what I told you. Edgerton never knew just what the hell he had in those vaults.”

  Astorg shook his head. “I’ve dealt with him. Besides, nobody forgets a painting like that. Ordmann paid me sixty thousand dollars and thanked me for giving him a bargain.”

  Lurie seemed to be groping for an answer. “Edgerton is getting old. He draws blanks now and then. He’s always been a little nutty.”

  “About some things,” agreed Astorg. “Not about paintings.” He stood up slowly, looking down at Lu
rie. “It’s rare. Priceless. Granted that Edgerton has a lot of paintings, even a lot of Renoirs. How does he walk by this—his own. Even comments on it. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Maybe the comment is the answer. He doesn’t like the early paintings. He’s had this forty years and forgotten about it.”

  “I don’t know,” said Astorg slowly. “It bothers me.”

  “Serves you right,” said Lurie bitterly. “Our deal was that you would hold the paintings, or get them to Europe, but you finally decided that since Edgerton was such an old man and since he never looked at other collections it was worth taking a chance. You knew there might be trouble.”

  “I’ve paid out nearly a hundred thousand dollars,” said Astorg. “I had a chance to get back a little. Certainly I knew it was risky but the worst thing that could possibly happen did happen. And still there’s been no trouble.”

  “And that worries you?” said Lurie.

  Astorg nodded. His stare held Lurie’s gaze as in a vise. “Yes, my friend. That worries me very much.”

  Chapter 5

  Blaise was in the sun room of the main house, a spacious glassed-in loggia where drinks were customarily served before the evening meal. There was a vivid, blazing sunset at this hour, thanks to Daylight Saving Time, and Blaise admired this perfunctorily. Then he started for a stack of magazines on a table at the far end of the room and at this moment he saw Victor Grandi tramping along the beach down near the water’s edge. After some fumbling, Blaise found the catch on the sliding door, and as he stepped out into the bricked patio Grandi saw him and raised his cane in greeting. When Blaise came closer he saw that the other man was still in his stained, rumpled clothes.

  In a matter-of-fact tone Grandi said, “I do not dine with the family, Mr. Blaise. I have a kitchen in my shop, and in the village there is a superb Super Market.” He moved on slowly, taking it for granted that Blaise was falling in by his side. “You are familiar with the local Super Markets, Mr. Blaise?”

  “I’ve passed by,” said Blaise.

  Grandi’s small, fine hands made a gesture as if he were a gourmet just tasting a masterpiece. “Astonishing! Every conceivable thing under one faked Spanish roof. Caviar! Kleenex! Automobile tires! Endive is flown in daily by giant planes. I believe one can also purchase spare parts for the planes.”