The First Mystery Novel

by Howard Mason

  Ives was now listening intently. “So the dealer is double-crossed—is that it?”

  “Exactly. Simon gives him forged Renoirs—early examples, worth a fortune—supposedly lifted from his father’s collection. That’s the best guarantee of authenticity in the world today. The dealer either hands over cash and waits it out with the paintings, or, if he can invent a good enough background, quite conceivably can dispose of them at once. I can tell you this much, Lieutenant: if the drawing is a fair sample of the work, and the paintings were of the same quality, a million dollars might be hauled in painlessly and with a minimum of risk.”

  “That much, eh?” Ives expressed no special surprise. “I imagine a piece of that would look good to a man like Hugh Norden, eh?”

  “A rainbow,” said Blaise, “complete with pot of gold. Armed with that fake drawing, Norden was in the driver’s seat. He could prove the existence of these incredible forgeries and wreck the market for them. Simon may have bought the drawing from Norden, or”—he shrugged—“maybe he put up a fight.”

  “Norden was on the beach last night,” said Ives thoughtfully. At the quick look of surprise Blaise gave him, he added, “He parked his car in an empty driveway a block from the Edgerton place.”

  “Congratulations,” said Blaise. “Now all you have to do is catch him.”

  “And prove it.”

  “How did Simon go in and out of the gallery so readily after hours?” asked Blaise. “I understood the place was wired like a television studio.”

  “It was worked from inside,” Ives told him. “Simple, too. One of the windows was fixed so that the alarm switch held even if the window flew up and down all night.”

  “Enterprising boy. I didn’t think he would be that much inclined mechanically.”

  Ives stood up to go. “That’s an interesting yarn about the forgeries. Without the drawing, though, it isn’t much to go on.”

  “I can make some inquiries,” said Blaise. “I think I know the kind of paintings they’re likely to be. If any have changed hands recently, that might lead to something.”

  “All right,” said Ives reluctantly, and as Blaise smiled, he went on firmly. “I’m not swearing you in as a deputy. This isn’t a permit to strap on your Buck Rogers pistol and play games. Understand?”

  “Suppose I catch up to the guy that slugged me?” asked Blaise.

  Ives gave him a pitying look. “The next time, he’ll probably kill you. Stay home and keep your door locked.”

  Chapter 12

  The scene in the Edgerton library, when Blaise arrived the next day, resembled a council of war. Records and files were spread on the big desk and grouped around it were Edgerton himself, Wesley Corum, Miriam Wayne and Lieutenant Ives. Victor Grandi, as if aware that his lowly status did not entitle him to a seat, leaned against the index cabinets, watching the group with what seemed to be only thinly veiled amusement. Ives, whose seat was directly under a shocking black and yellow Juan Gris abstraction, looked uncomfortably out of place.

  “Come in, Blaise,” snapped Edgerton in greeting. “Close the door,” he yelled, as Blaise started in. He, at least, seemed very much his old self.

  As Blaise approached, Miriam rose as if to give him her chair but he waved her down and pulled up another.

  “Well, we counted the stock,” said Edgerton grimly. He didn’t say any more and none of the others wanted to add anything.

  “Bad?” asked Blaise.

  There was another moment of silence. Then Miriam Wayne said, “Nine paintings are missing.”

  “Including a Turner,” put in Corum.

  Blaise whistled, openly taken aback by this information.

  “The Turner,” went on Corum, “was a particularly fine example, one that I personally…”

  Edgerton interrupted him brutally. “Shut up, Wesley. Damn it, man, don’t start out with your lecture-slides and your pointer.”

  “What made you so sure,” asked Lieutenant Ives carefully, “that no paintings had been stolen?”

  Blaise returned his look uncomfortably. “I wish I knew. I told you what was in my mind, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes,” sneered Ives, “you told me.”

  “Stop bickering,” said Edgerton. “Ives, you’re supposed to know your own business. If you’re shaky enough to listen to outsiders, that’s your fault.”

  Under his lean, tanned face, Ives flushed hotly. “Thanks, Mr. Edgerton, I’ll bear it in mind.” Then, in his accustomed, mild manner, he asked, “Were all the paintings insured?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Edgerton. “I’m not going to file a claim and have the insurance company tell me the paintings were stolen by my son.”

  Another spell of silence fell over the group at the table, this one broken by Victor Grandi. Very quietly, almost in a whisper, he said, “The Turner was reproduced.” He smiled as Blaise whirled around in his chair. “I see that Mr. Blaise knows what I mean by that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “In other words,” said Grandi softly, “it is a pointless, witless, unprofitable theft. It cannot conceivably be sold.”

  “Why not?” asked Ives.

  “Because the painting was known to be in this collection. No dealer or collector would touch it,” said Blaise.

  “Exactly.” Grandi nodded his approval. “All the others, as well as most of our paintings, are unknown to the world at large. They might readily be sold by an influential dealer. The Turner, however, would lead to the immediate arrest of anyone who offered it for sale.”

  “That’s true,” said Edgerton. He seemed puzzled by this development. “Silly damn thing to steal—it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Perhaps in Europe,” ventured Corum. “Stolen paintings frequently find some market there. Traders anxious to convert black market or illicit currency.”

  “Even there,” said Grandi gently, “a painting known to be in the Edgerton collection would hardly be a desirable asset.”

  “That’s true,” said Edgerton.

  Ives pushed back his chair and Miriam handed him a sheet of paper. The strain of recent days, it seemed to Blaise, had told on her. Her naturally pale complexion seemed to have acquired a taut opalescent quality and her eyes were bright and alert.

  “This the missing lot?” asked Ives, and when she nodded, he folded the paper and put it away. Edgerton followed him out silently and Grandi waited in the doorway as if to allow them a good start. Then, as he went out, Blaise walked with him.

  Grandi seemed to take his company for granted, circling the library to the beach. “I understand, Mr. Blaise,” he said, with what was almost a roguish, sidelong glance, “that you had an interesting and fruitful day. I’m glad I didn’t underestimate you.”

  “I was lucky. Then I got careless. All told, I didn’t cover myself with glory. At least, it doesn’t smell like glory.”

  At the driveway, Grandi picked up a branch with which he made absent doodlings in the gravel. “I am a technician,” he said. “The component parts of paint itself, the age and quality of canvas, the subtle difference between two parts of the same canvas that may have been executed by master and pupil—those elements of painting are my specialty. I have worked in museums and for distinguished collectors. In my time, the most unerring instinct for the true and false in painting belongs to Lucas Edgerton.”

  “True enough. But yesterday he accepted as genuine a Renoir drawing that was certainly a forgery.”

  “Fascinating, isn’t it?” murmured Grandi. “What a pity that you no longer have the drawing!”

  “There isn’t very much I can prove without it,” said Blaise. Grandi paused in the path leading to his own shack and faced him with the encouraging smile of a teacher urging a backward pupil on with his lesson.

  “You know that this is basically an affair of forgery,” said Grandi lightly. “Then
you know a great deal.”

  “It seems to be now an affair of robbery.”

  “Of murder, too,” said Grandi promptly. “But the robbery, and the murder, are incidental. They are other voices in the fugue, but the main theme is one of forgery and everything will be resolved in that ending.”

  “You say that with great conviction,” said Blaise. “Why?”

  “Because I am an arbitrary and opinionated man,” said Grandi promptly. “Because Lucas Edgerton has a crushing effect on every ego but his own and I am glad of the chance to give mine an airing.” He turned and started up the walk. “Drop in whenever you’re in the mood for a lecture, Mr. Blaise.”

  Blaise went slowly back up the driveway, his eyes down on the road, so deep in thought that he walked into Cass Edgerton, who was planted in the middle of the drive watching his somnambulistic approach.

  “This is California,” she said reprovingly. “Very rough on pedestrians. You ought to watch where you’re going.”

  “If I knew whether I was coming or going,” said Blaise, “I would.”

  She fell into step with him. “I had a lamp burning in the window for you last night. Remember your promise as you sailed away to seek your fortune in the new world?”

  “I met a man with a hammer. Seems he was making a survey of the thickness of skulls prevailing among Eastern art dealers. The results won’t be published for quite a while yet but I think I’m out in front by inches.” Walking slowly to the house he related the events leading up to the blackout. “And as if having my skull creased wasn’t enough in itself, it also turns out that my bright, brave theory about Simon was the work of a congenital idiot, none other than your present correspondent.”

  “I know,” said Cassy soothingly. “Uncle Lucas told me about the paintings. He knew that Simon confided in me, but this time, I’m sorry to say, he didn’t.” She stopped in the driveway to look squarely at Blaise. “The night he died, when I called you, what made you so certain that Simon wasn’t in any trouble?”

  “That’s becoming my favorite question,” sighed Blaise. “In a nutshell, Cassy—which is one of the better ways of describing my head—I didn’t think he had stolen any paintings. Shows you how smart I am,” he added reflectively.

  “You said you’d been talking to him. Was it something he said?”

  “Something he said, or implied, or his attitude—I’m damned, Cassy, if I know now what it was. But I said it and I’m stuck with it. I got that feeling from Simon, and then, when I talked to Hugh Norden, it was intensified. I wouldn’t have told you he was in the clear that night if I didn’t believe it to the hilt. You know that.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Approaching the house, Blaise led her away from the library toward the beach front. “Were you here all day yesterday, Cassy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Last night, too?”

  “Waiting and waiting and waiting.”

  “Was Miriam here all the time?”

  “As far as I knew, never left the premises. They couldn’t go on with the inventory until this morning because the police were all over the gallery and the grounds. She spent all the time in her room, but she came down for dinner.”

  “Did Simon have any money of his own?” asked Blaise.

  “Just his allowance. He got ten thousand a year and some extra at Christmas and on his birthday. Thirteen or fourteen thousand all told.”

  “Seems ample,” said Blaise. “Why did he need money so badly, Cassy?”

  “He didn’t really need it,” she explained carefully. “You have to understand about Simon, and his relationship with Uncle Lucas, and all sorts of psychological mix-ups. Simon didn’t need money; he needed a sense of power. Gambling for very high stakes was one way of achieving it. Poor Simon, he was quite bad at it,” she finished sadly.

  “Where did he gamble?” asked Blaise.

  “Just about everywhere. On trips to Mexico and Nevada, here in town with some of the big shots in the oil and picture business.”

  “You’ve got money of your own, haven’t you, Cassy?”

  “Some.” Gravely, she added, “You’ll probably be given the details when you ask for my hand.”

  Blaise laughed. “I was thinking of you as a possible source of income for Simon.”

  “Oh, that. I’m a soft touch. Anyway, I didn’t need it.”

  “You don’t feel the lack of a sense of power?” asked Blaise.

  “I have my moments,” said Cassy loftily.

  “How much did Simon borrow?”

  “All told, quite a bit. We called my money ‘The Fresh-Air Fund for Needy Edgertons.’ The last couple of years Simon got most of it, so it must amount to quite a sum. He kept track of it, though. He’d even compute the interest once in a while and announce the total.”

  “Did he ever repay any?”

  “Simon?” Her eyebrows went up expressively. “I’m sure he meant well and some day, of course, he would have been in a position to give back the whole bundle. It didn’t matter. I was always glad to let him have it. If only to avoid the hair-raising scenes that went on with his father.”

  “To shield Simon, or his father?”

  She stopped again, her voice was troubled. “Until today I thought I knew. Remember, I told you that more than being fond of Simon we were a sort of united front?” Blaise nodded, and she went on. “That was true. We were children together in an atmosphere that didn’t have much time for us. I defended Simon and hated those who were hostile to him, not because what he did or what he thought was admirable. He conditioned me to believe in his excuses, or to invent fresh ones for him. If he liked something, I made myself like it. If he developed a hatred or a phobia, I pumped away until I had one just as strong. I raged at Uncle Lucas because of what he was doing to Simon.” Sadly, as if she was trying to recall something now dimly remembered, she finished with, “I never dreamed of raging at Simon. As I grew up, I think I knew the truth but I wouldn’t let it emerge.”

  “Did you tell him today?” asked Blaise.

  “He knew,” said Cassy. “He’s a smart old man.” She brightened now, as they came into the driveway. “Just you be as smart when you’re his age.”

  “I hope I have as pretty a niece.”

  “You did get hit on the head!” marveled Cassy.

  “It’s a good head, and none the worse for a few dents and grooves. It’s packed with interesting thoughts.”

  “About me?”

  “You come boiling to the surface now and then,” Blaise admitted. “There’s quite a cast of characters churning around up there, but you’ve got a compartment all to yourself. How much money did you say you had of your own, Cassy?”

  “I didn’t say. It’s quite a chunk. You’ll never have to work again.”

  “That’s what you think,” he said, looking off toward the library. Miriam Wayne was standing in the driveway between the two buildings. Walking from the house to the gallery she stopped at the sight of Blaise and the girl, and now she seemed to be waiting for him.

  “I’m going to work right now. Read an improving book for a spell, Cassy. When I’ve earned my pay I’ll seek you out.” He went up to the driveway, and as Miriam saw him coming alone, she walked through the library door, leaving it open for him.

  Blaise followed her in and closed the door. The curtains were drawn at all the windows in the gallery end of the huge room and the resultant gloom was faintly relieved by the one lighted lamp on Miriam Wayne’s desk. She stood against the row of cabinets, the pallor of her face set like a cameo in the dark, shadowy area that reached beyond.

  “Very dramatic setting,” said Blaise.

  “I’ve a headache,” was the low reply. “Do you mind a little less light?”

  “We can share our headaches.” He sat down near the desk in the little pool of light. “Mine dates back a
bit. I acquired it yesterday afternoon, shortly after I left here, as the result of a rude encounter with a person or persons unknown.” He could feel rather than see the reaction to this. “I went into this business,” he continued, “because it seemed like such a genteel, sedentary life. It’s a topsy-turvy world, isn’t it?”

  “You were attacked?” asked Miriam Wayne slowly. “Are you joking, Mr. Blaise?”

  “I thought you knew. It seemed to be common knowledge on the estate. I took it for granted that Lieutenant Ives must have conducted some inquiry.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “I’ll see that you get on our mailing list,” Blaise promised. “As a matter of fact, the next time I’m knocked cold you can have an exclusive.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Someone wanted that drawing—the beautiful forgery I showed you—and didn’t care whose head was in the way.” Irrelevantly, he added, “Make me a drink, will you, Miriam?”

  She started across the room to the cupboard that served as bar. “The problem,” mused Blaise, “is that quite a few people knew I had the drawing, and, of course, anyone here could have telephoned to a confederate on the outside. The drawing was all the proof I had. Without it, my theory of a great forgery ring goes all to pieces.” He waited for some comment from Miriam.

  “Ice?” she asked from the bar, in her constantly even voice.

  Blaise laughed. “Yes, thank you.”

  When she brought him the drink he looked up, then tilted the lamp so that it threw more light on her. “You’re a very beautiful girl, Miriam.”