The First Mystery Novel

by Howard Mason

  “Just so they don’t sell modern paintings,” said Blaise.

  “It will come,” said Grandi. “Someone in this great country will become impatient of the laborious methods by which artists produce paintings one by one. There will be an assembly line. Think of it, Mr. Blaise. A Cezanne will block out the canvas, arrange the composition; a moving belt will carry the painting to the next easel where a Manet will fill in the background; then a Renoir to do the figures and on to a Redon to paint in some flowers.”

  “Who signs it?” asked Blaise.

  Grandi shrugged. “General Motors.” He turned to look back at the house. “We can walk a little yet, if you like.”

  “Do you know the paintings I’m supposed to sell?” asked Blaise.

  “In a general way,” said Grandi, after a barely discernible pause. “I would like to see them, of course, as you select them for exhibition or sale.”

  “You will,” promised Blaise. He turned to look back at the house, but there were no signs of life in the sun room. He glanced at Victor Grandi, who seemed to be drinking in the beauty of nature through every pore, reacting spontaneously to everything, and he remembered his first impression, only a few hours ago, of a stolid, impassive man. He quickly selected and discarded various ways of bringing up what he wanted to discuss, but once again, with his singular omniscience, Grandi beat him to the punch. They were about two hundred yards up the beach, the light was going fast, and after a glance at the house, Grandi turned to walk back. “It is useless to concern yourself with extraneous matters, Mr. Blaise. Under that heading I would certainly include the relationship between Mr. Edgerton and his son.”

  “Why?” asked Blaise.

  “You can expedite the eruption of an infected area by lancing it,” said Grandi, “but you cannot otherwise arrest it. Matters have gone too far. There is a morbid area, but it will, of its own accord, come to a head.”

  “And cure of its own accord?”

  “Kill or cure,” said Grandi. “I believe that is the common phrase.” He looked up at the house and then said, “Good night, Mr. Blaise. I think the family is waiting for you.”

  “Good night,” said Blaise. He watched as the other man tramped down the beach, then turned thoughtfully back into the house.

  Edgerton was waiting for him with a tall, white-haired man. When Edgerton introduced him, he learned that this was Dr. Corum, a critic who, like Edgerton, had been a passionate and early advocate of modern painting, one of the few authorities Edgerton ever cited in conversation and writings without blistering and libelous contempt. Wesley Corum was in a dinner jacket and even Edgerton had made some concession to the dark by wearing a reasonably well-preserved blue suit. With it, however, he wore a hideous brown flannel shirt and an electric blue tie so far askew that it was in danger of sliding under his ear like a hangman’s knot.

  Edgerton was in a good mood now, as if he customarily bounded from pole to pole in the emotional scale, taking Corum’s comments on his clothes with great good humor. “Trouble with Corum,” he explained while he made a drink for Blaise, “is that he’s been on so God-damn many lecture platforms that now he has to change into a tuxedo every night at seven o’clock. It’s a conditioned reflex, like one of Dr. Pavlov’s dogs.”

  Corum smiled amiably, then rose to greet Miriam Wayne. He briefed her on the conversation while Edgerton busied himself again at the bar. “Lucas is of the opinion that I’m a creature of habit now and that this apparel”—he smoothed his pleated shirt—“is a uniform, like a fireman’s. Actually, I like dressing for dinner. I think women, too, like men to dress for dinner.”

  “Probably so does he,” said Miriam, as Edgerton gave her a glass. “And probably that’s why he doesn’t do it.”

  “Even the help talks back to me,” grinned Edgerton. “After I’ve spent a lifetime building up the toughest personality on the West Coast. Sad, ain’t it, Blaise?”

  “Who knows?” ventured Blaise. “You may still turn into one of those gruff, lovable old characters.”

  He got to his feet, as did the others, to greet Cass Edgerton. She was in a black linen dinner dress which left her shoulders bare, and the long, lustrous blonde hair was coiled in a knot. The change gave her a poised, cool beauty. She greeted Dr. Corum and Blaise and replied politely to Miriam Wayne’s murmured respects, after which the secretary withdrew to the far end of the loggia and the magazines.

  Edgerton looked at his watch impatiently. “Simon coming down, Cassy?”

  “I believe he’s gone into town,” she replied. Miriam Wayne, Blaise noticed, was looking over the top of her fashion book.

  Edgerton looked annoyed. “Town? What’s in town?”

  Cass shrugged her smooth bare shoulders. “Maybe freedom from fear.”

  The old man winced as if reacting to a sudden pain and Blaise saw instant regret in the girl’s expression. She reached out, as if to touch his hand. Then the houseman announced dinner. Edgerton, Dr. Corum and Miriam Wayne went in together, Blaise and Cassy following.

  “Just like one of the family, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “You may call me ‘Uncle Ellis.’”

  “I think I’ve got all the relatives I can handle right now,” she said, smiling, “but I’ll pencil you in for something.”

  She seated the little party with an experienced hostess’s ease. Blaise found himself on her right at the foot of the huge table.

  Edgerton, naturally, dominated the conversation. He teed off with an outburst against art schools, expressing the opinion that a man with guts enough to dynamite them all would ultimately be celebrated as the greatest patron of art since Lorenzo de’ Medici. This tirade lasted through the soup, after which he switched to the incompetents who ran the state and federal governments, nominating them as the most desirable targets for any left-over dynamite.

  “You’re old-fashioned, Lucas,” said Corum, with his customary good humor. “Actually, I think you mean well, and care about people.”

  “What people?” demanded Cass.

  Corum turned to her, as if to say something, but Edgerton cut him off. “Hell, Cassy’s right. I don’t care a hoot about people.” He leaned toward her, but without anger. “Only mistake you make, Cassy, is in calling me a reactionary for it. I’m a liberal, a real liberal. I say let people do as they damn please. Ain’t that being liberal?” he asked Blaise.

  “Depends on what the people want to do,” said Blaise.

  “Strike, for instance,” said Corum.

  “Then let ’em strike,” said Edgerton promptly. “If that’s what they want to do, fine. And if what I want to do is to bring in a few carloads of scabs, let that be fine, too.” He chuckled happily, “There, that’s liberal.”

  “You wouldn’t think he’d ever read a book, would you?” said Cass wearily. “Unfortunately, it was printed a couple of hundred years ago.”

  The argument ended as abruptly and arbitrarily as it had begun. Edgerton started a long, involved discussion of his print and book collection with Corum and Miriam Wayne, and they were soon deep in technicalities of editions, state of proofs, bindings and other fine points. They were still immersed in these technicalities when dinner ended and Edgerton led them back into the library. Cassy went into the sun room, where a television screen was glowing with animated cereal boxes. Blaise tagged along to the library, but Edgerton dismissed him after fixing an appointment for the next afternoon. He came back into the loggia, but Cass was nowhere in sight, and on the television screen something like crudely materialized ectoplasm was bubbling inanely. He poured himself some brandy, took a few minutes to drink it then wandered into the main hall for another look at the paintings. He was on the lower stairs, absorbing what was visible of the dizzying jumble of art, when the houseman, Jennings, came through on his way to the gallery with a fresh bucket of ice.

  Blaise made up his mind suddenly. “Oh, J
ennings.”

  The butler turned. “Yes, Mr. Blaise?”

  “I gave Mr. Simon a book this afternoon. He promised to leave it in his room for me.”

  Jennings turned to a side table to deposit his tray. “If you’ll tell me the title, sir, I’ll be glad to get it for you.”

  “I’ll get it. Which is his room?”

  “To the left,” said Jennings. “At the far end of the hall.”

  Blaise said, “Thanks,” and continued up the stairs. He examined the paintings until Jennings came through again with the empty tray, then moved up to the hall and down to the far left end.

  Simon’s room was a comfortable combination bedroom and study, one end paneled in light wood that made a nice background for the flat English desk. There were a large bed, two chairs and a tall chest, all the furniture being arranged to give the room a spacious and uncluttered look. It was a school of decorating of which Blaise generally approved, now more than ever since it all but eliminated hiding places. He made a thorough search of the room and its furnishings without learning more than that Simon Edgerton was an extremely well-dressed man. Dozens of shirts were laid out neatly in the drawers of the chest and rows of suits hung in the deep closets. Blaise frisked these quickly, still with no luck in his search for the vanished cards, then had one last look around in the room itself. Finally he moved back to the door, turned out the lights and stepped out into the hall. He heard a rustling sound then and turned to find Cass Edgerton watching him. She had been against the inside wall, out of sight when he emerged.

  “You are indeed becoming one of the family,” she said. “That used to be Simon’s room.”

  Blaise considered the situation. “I was searching it,” he told her. “I had no right to do any such thing. You want to whistle for your uncle or for the police?”

  “I don’t know you,” said Cass, “but I do know Simon. I don’t think I want to whistle for anybody.”

  Blaise took her arm. “Let’s go outside.”

  “I know just the spot,” said Cass, and led the way. She picked up a shawl in a closet downstairs and steered him out, away from the house to the bare frame of a cabana near the water’s edge. There was a stack of beach pillows and pads. Blaise knocked some off the top and carried them to a clean, dry hard spot. She sank down on one of the pads. “If this was just a ruse to get me out here, it’s not a bad idea at all.”

  Blaise sat down on one of the pillows. “It’s a great idea. I’m sorry I didn’t have it.”

  “You don’t find me irresistible here in the scented dark?” asked Cass politely.

  Blaise laughed. “You’re jumping a couple of chapters, Cassy. This one is about Simon.”

  “So it is. I caught you red-handed. I nearly forgot.” As Blaise fished out some cigarettes she reached out to him. “Give me one.”

  He gave her the cigarette, then a light. “Is Simon in any trouble, Cassy?”

  “Would you be searching his room if he wasn’t?”

  “You’re fond of him, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, of course.” Thoughtfully, she added, “More than that, I guess. The two of us have always been a sort of a united front…” She let the sentence trail off aimlessly.

  “Against his father?”

  “Not exactly. It sounds like that, doesn’t it? Actually, to keep from being trampled.” Her voice took on a faraway quality of recollection. “You know the Laird of Edgerton Manor pretty well—how would you like to be his son?”

  “Aside from the prospects,” said Blaise promptly, “not at all.”

  “I’ve lived here since I was a little girl,” said Cassy. “In many ways Uncle Lucas has been kind and generous. It didn’t matter so much to me that he liked children less than paintings of children. But it mattered a lot to Simon. I doubt if he thinks about it now, but when we were kids it mattered a great deal. Now, of course, he’s weak and sullen. It seems silly to say that he didn’t have any advantages—the son of Lucas Edgerton—but it’s true.”

  “I think I know what you mean,” said Blaise. “I’m not a trouble maker. I was searching Simon’s room because I’d like not to make any trouble.” He told her about the cards, recalling Simon’s anxiety about what was to be sold. When he was finished, Cass ground her cigarette carefully in the sand as if she wanted to be occupied with something that would keep her eyes averted.

  “What do you think he’s done?” she asked.

  “Probably stolen some paintings.” It was too dark to see her face in more than shadowy outline, but he didn’t think that she looked surprised. “It’s only in recent months that there has been any kind of a catalogue of the collection. Before that, apparently, it was just lying around in heaps. My guess is that Simon helped himself to a few paintings. With any luck it might have been years before they were missed. If he took things that weren’t too rare or notable, the chances are his father wouldn’t remember them at all. But now, with the sale coming up, I think Simon is rattled.” He waited for some comment and when she didn’t make it, he said, “How does that sound to you?”

  “Awful,” said Cass. “Mostly because I suppose it’s true.”

  “Maybe I’m all wrong. I haven’t a shred of evidence, you know,” he admitted. “Aren’t you accepting a harsh judgment of Simon rather too readily?”

  “It’s happened before,” said Cass. “I’m not surprised, except at his being such a fathead. About two years ago,” she continued, “a collector brought a Van Gogh drawing to Dr. Corum. It happened to be one he remembered from the collection—I don’t know how, there must be thousands of drawings by everybody—and not knowing much of the home life of the Edgertons at the time, he made a beeline here.” She shook her head as if to clear it of the painful memory. “It was Simon, of course. He’d sold it to some fly-by-night dealer.”

  “Remember his name?”

  “Norden. Hugh Norden. Why?”

  “If he’s been at it again,” said Blaise, “a dealer must be helping him. He couldn’t do it alone. Is Norden still around?”

  Cass shrugged. “If he is, I doubt if he has any nerve left. He’s a jittery type. He wasn’t prosecuted, but when Uncle Lucas finally finished with him he could barely walk out of the house.”

  “Does Simon have any other contacts with dealers or collectors?”

  Cass shook her head. “He doesn’t take much interest in art.” Ruefully, she added, “Except in the way you’ve indicated.”

  He tried a shot in the dark. “Ever hear him mention Jonas Astorg?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  “If I knew exactly what he sold, and to whom, I might be able to do something.”

  Cass was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Why don’t you ask Miriam Wayne?”

  “Is that feminine intuition?”

  “More or less,” she admitted. “I don’t like her, but I wouldn’t go by that alone.”

  “What else?” asked Blaise.

  “Just that she knows every little squiggle of a drawing in the collection and she’s got most of it under lock and key—her lock and her key.”

  “It may have happened before she came to work.”

  “Then why would he be burning up for a look at her damn catalogue cards?” demanded Cass. “If the paintings were gone before the catalogue was made he’d know the cards didn’t matter.”

  “True,” said Blaise thoughtfully. He stood up, then reached down to give Cass his hands. He pulled her up and for a moment she stood close to him. “You’re a smart girl, Cassy.”

  “You know,” she said, “I think that’s the first time anybody ever took me out to the beach at night to tell me that.”

  He smiled down at her. “Are you tempting me or teasing me?”

  “Which do you think would be the most fun?”

  Blaise took her arm and started back to the house. “Are you always
so candid, Cassy?”

  “Am I being spurned?” she asked, as they pushed through the heavy sand.

  “Just until I figure out whether you’re interested in me, or in what happens to Simon. I’d like to help him, Cassy, but the fact remains that I’m working for his father.”

  “What possible difference can it make if the Edgerton collection contains a few square feet more or less of canvas? It stopped being a collection years ago. Now it’s a mania. He doesn’t even own it any more. It owns him, and all of us. Many’s the night I’ve longed for nerve enough to get a bucket of kerosene and a box of matches and go to work on it.”

  “It would make quite a bonfire,” said Blaise, “and it would undoubtedly solve Simon’s problems.” He took her arm. “Hold your fire, Cassy—I’ll think of a tidier way out.”

  “Will you?” They were in the dark shadow of the gallery now and she stopped to look up at him searchingly.

  “It just means shifting my loyalty a few degrees. It’s all in the family.”

  “Softy,” murmured Cass. “A little moonlight and your moral fiber cracks wide open.”

  “Just as well,” said Blaise. “It was getting too tight for me.”

  He bent his head, but before their lips could meet a cold voice cut in between them. “I beg your pardon,” said Miriam Wayne. “Here are the keys for your car, Mr. Blaise.”

  Cass stepped back and Blaise took the keys the other girl extended. “Just what I wanted,” he said sheepishly.

  “You might have waited, Miriam,” said Cass. “It took me hours to get him worked up to that point. Now I’ll probably have to start from scratch.”

  “I’m sure you’ll manage very nicely,” said Miriam. “Good night.”

  “Good night, dear,” said Cass, as the other girl walked swiftly away. Blaise looked after her until she was lost in the shadows, then he heard a door slam viciously. “Miss Wayne is steaming,” Cass said cheerfully. “I can tell from the well-manicured sound of that voice.”