by Howard Mason
“I just dropped in to borrow some poetry books,” said Blaise. “Mighty handy in the moonlight.”
“Blubberhead,” muttered Edgerton, as he went out. Miriam Wayne sighed her manifest relief. “I’m glad you finally let him have it, Lieutenant Ives. He was becoming unbearable.” Her nod of greeting to Blaise had been cool and devoid of any emotion or interest. “I’ll be in the gallery,” she said in leavetaking, “if you need me for anything at all.”
Blaise stood aside to let her pass. “Nice girl,” he said, when the door was closed.
“Is she?” was Ives’s polite response.
Blaise shrugged. “Isn’t she?”
“Nobody in this damned house levels with me,” said Ives angrily. As Blaise looked at him in injured innocence, he demanded, “What made you start checking up on her?”
“Oh, that. No special reason. Just curious.”
Ives replied with a skeptical grunt.
“If you found out about my inquiries,” Blaise continued, “then you must have been working the same street. Any luck?” he asked politely.
“I’ve got more than that on my mind right now,” said Ives impatiently, though Blaise felt that the subject was being changed arbitrarily. “Why was Paul Weldon so eager to see you today?”
“I don’t know. I found a message at the hotel, but no number or any way to call him.” He listened thoughtfully as Ives gave him a brief, trenchant outline of his new interest in the fugitive painter. “And it was you he was waiting for,” finished Ives.
“I’m sorry,” Blaise said honestly. “I’ve never spoken to Weldon, never saw him until last night. All I knew was what Molly Dann told me and I got the idea he was a sniveling sort of drunk without much backbone. What I saw last night just confirmed her diagnosis.”
“A lot of liquor and a little gun gives some types plenty of backbone. He lied to set up an alibi.” Ives seemed to be thinking hard. “There must be a reason why he wants to get to you. Want to help?”
“Sure.”
“Go back to your hotel.”
“Bait?” said Blaise plaintively. “Is that all I’m good for?” He nodded sadly. “All right. I take it you’ll be somewhere around, ready to pounce?”
“I’ll put somebody in the hotel, and a man in a car outside. If Weldon calls you and wants to meet somewhere make the date and my man will tail you.”
“Suppose I have to give Weldon my word of honor that I’ll come alone?”
“You’ll manage,” said Ives drily. “Get going.”
“Favor for favor,” said Blaise, “what did you find out about Miriam Wayne?”
“Not a hell of a lot,” said Ives candidly. “She met Edgerton in the New York Library, in the Art Department, apparently by chance. When he offered her a job she told him all her experience had been as a free-lance artist, as a cataloguer and secretary, and a hitch as a researcher for Dr. Wesley Corum. That’s all true, but she omitted some things. She’d worked for dealers in Paris and New York. Now she says that she wanted the job with Edgerton and she thought he’d be suspicious if he knew she had any background in the trade.”
“That’s perfectly true,” said Blaise.
“I know,” said Ives, “but I don’t like it. There’s very little about this affair that I do like. Corum vouched for her when she came to work. Now do you mean to say that he didn’t know she’d worked for dealers? If he didn’t, then she lied to him, too. Granted that she’s got a first-class motive for not telling Edgerton, what’s her reason for keeping her past from Corum?”
“A fair question,” said Blaise. “I don’t know the answer, but I’ll give you odds that our Miss Wayne will make it sound plausible.” He started out, “I’ll have a look on the beach for Cass, and then I’ll stake myself out in my room at the hotel. I’ll be delighted to lure Weldon out of hiding, but you seem to know how complicated the people and the motives are here. I doubt if Simon Edgerton died from anything as convenient as the jealous rage of a drunken painter.”
The detective nodded absently. “The people are complicated,” he agreed. “I’ve worked on a lot of murders. Solved quite a few, too. In the end, the motives are simple. Sex and money. That still covers a lot of territory,” he conceded apologetically, “but it shows you that Paul Weldon, with or without backbone, could finally do something even he wouldn’t believe he was capable of doing.”
“Fair enough,” said Blaise. “I’m on my way.”
He was halfway down the stairs, in fact, when the shrill clamor of the alarm bell stopped him. As he looked around, Ives appeared on the landing, starting down swiftly, and Jennings, the houseman, came running in from backstairs in his shirt-sleeves.
“What the hell is that?” demanded Ives, as they ran downstairs.
“It’s the fire-alarm, sir,” said Jennings.
The entire household seemed to be racing for the gallery now and Blaise, with Ives at his side, fell in with them. The doors were open and Miriam Wayne was outside, looking up at the roof as if searching there for signs of the blaze.
Edgerton came puffing up in a robe and slippers, leading the way inside. He had his keys out and made directly for the vault. He flung the door wide, then stepped back as Cassy blinked at him in the sudden light.
“False alarm,” she said, with a touch of hysterical laughter, “but I’m glad you came.”
* * * *
“I started past the desk to get him a drink,” Cassy was saying. “Until then, I hadn’t even been aware of his doodlings, but as I walked by, behind his chair, I looked down and there were all these Renoirs—more Renoirs than you could shake a stick at, a whole big page of little heads and figures.”
She was lying on the chaise in her own room, the pallor of fright departed, flushed and animated as she recounted the adventure. Ives had firmly cleared the room of everyone but himself and Blaise. Edgerton, finally assured that Cassy had suffered nothing more than a scare, left reluctantly. Miriam Wayne, on the other hand, had not come up at all when Blaise carried Cassy upstairs. Nor had she betrayed any of the shocked surprise exhibited by the others in Cassy’s first, immediate bulletin on Paul Weldon.
“I did my darnedest to avoid looking at what he was doing,” continued Cass, “and he went on mumbling in a faraway voice about wanting to get away. Then”—she shrugged wistfully—“then I engineered my big bone-head play. I got him to the window by pretending I heard a car, and snatched the top page of the drawings while his back was turned. It worked like a charm, except that he sensed something the minute he sat down again, and before you could say ‘Fantin-Latour’ he was waving a nasty-looking gun and the jig was up.”
“Would you know what kind of a gun, Miss Edgerton?”
Cass turned her head a trifle to look at Ives. “No. My hobbies are more ladylike.”
Ives drew his own service revolver. “As big as this? Or larger, or smaller?” he urged.
Cassy shrank from the display of ordnance. “Not quite that formidable.”
“Did Weldon say why he wanted to see me?” asked Blaise.
“No. After he’d been stewing for a few minutes I tried a hunch and mentioned Renoir. His head snapped right up, but then he got cautious. He had information, he said, and if it helped you he wanted you to help him.” She turned to Ives. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, but I’m afraid that’s the whole story of how one brave little girl broke up this ring of desperados single-handed.”
“You did fine, Cassy,” said Blaise.
“You said before that Weldon locked you in the vault at ten-forty,” said Ives. “Are you sure that was the exact time?”
She nodded. “When he backed me into the gallery, toward the vault, I knew instinctively what he was going to do. I remember seeing the clock while he was maneuvering me to the vault and thinking how long it might be before somebody came into the gallery. It was ten-forty,” she said firmly.
“On the nose.”
“The gate-man checked Weldon out,” said Ives with a troubled look, “at exactly eleven-five. He was on the place for twenty-five more minutes.”
“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” said Blaise. “You’d think he would cut and run.”
Ives stood up and beckoned to Blaise. “Come on. You’re still the head snake-charmer.”
“Who’ll read to me in the long, slow days of my convalescence?” asked Cassy plaintively.
Blaise bent over the chaise and kissed her lightly on the forehead while Lieutenant Ives moved delicately to the door.
“Stay put, Cassy,” urged Blaise.
“You think they’re out to get me?” she asked.
“I, for one, am.”
“Oh, you. I can handle you.”
Lieutenant Ives was shuffling his feet impatiently. When Blaise joined him and they went down together, he gave him a sidelong speculative glance. “Hit the jackpot, didn’t you?”
“Don’t be coarse, Lieutenant,” said Blaise loftily.
“I have to live on fifty-six hundred a year,” said Ives bitterly, “and if somebody downtown gives me a pound of tobacco on my birthday the reform element screams ‘graft.’”
“You do a useful work. You’ll retire some day with the plaudits of a grateful citizenry ringing in your ears.”
“The ringing in my ears I’ll guarantee,” said Ives, in the same grudging manner. In the driveway, as Blaise was about to get into his car, the detective held him back. “How do you like my hunch on Weldon now?”
“Much better. Molly Dann is basically a good-natured girl. If Weldon killed every man she slept with, he’d be too busy to paint.”
“Probably. But now he fits,” said Ives.
“Does he? If he’s capable of killing, why was he content to lock Cassy in the vault? He knew she’d be free in a couple of hours.”
“For one thing,” said Ives, “he was sober today. All he wanted was time for a getaway.”
“So he spends twenty-five minutes more on the place. Looking at pictures.”
“We don’t really know what he did. Maybe he waited for you to show up. He’s on the run, I know that; now I’ve got to know what’s driving him. By the way,” he added, “you were right all along about the forgeries, of course.”
“You’ll turn my head with such extravagant flattery,” said Blaise, smiling. His triumphant look dissolved, however, as Ives went on.
“Located one,” said the detective thoughtfully. “A San Francisco merchant named Nathan Ordmann bought one of the Renoirs your friend Astorg imported. I’ll have it here tonight.”
“Lieutenant, you astonish me,” said Blaise weakly. “I thought you were convinced I was the village idiot. I didn’t even think you were listening.”
“I’ve been reading some books,” Ives continued. “Can’t say I understood a hell of a lot, but one thing juts out all over: a really slick job isn’t just a matter of painting—it’s a big technical operation.”
“Just so,” nodded Blaise.
“Well, it starts me thinking about technicians.” He stepped away from the car. “My man Bonner has orders to stick to you and he knows how to rouse me out if Weldon does show up. I’m much obliged. If there’s trouble, stay out of it.”
Blaise watched him go down the driveway, turning in at Victor Grandi’s little house. By the time he drove past, Grandi was in the doorway, greeting Ives with a wide, cordial smile, beckoning him in as a valued and honored guest.
Chapter 23
Jonas Astorg was looking somewhat the worse for wear. His clothes were wrinkled and his fine, normally spotless haberdashery showed a good day’s wear. Unshaven, his face looked slack, and new lines of care seemed to have etched themselves around his prominent features.
“I’d leave town if I were you, Jonas,” said Kenneth Lurie quite casually. “Why call attention to yourself?”
Astorg shook his head stubbornly.
“Well, then,” said Lurie, “pull yourself together. You look as if you’re about to burst into tears.”
“You bastard!” said Astorg thickly. “You did this to me.”
Lurie hunched his shoulders in a pained expression of helplessness. “How was I to know? The boy outsmarted us.”
“I can imagine,” said Astorg bitterly.
“Think what you like,” said Lurie. “Do you want to blubber yourself to ruin or do you want to make a stand?”
Astorg looked down at the floor. “The police have been in touch with Nathan Ordmann. The Renoir is on its way,” he said dully.
Lurie chuckled. “Their troubles are just beginning.” He pulled up a chair and sat down facing Astorg so close that their knees all but touched. “Listen,” he said sharply. When Astorg looked up at him, he said, “As far as anybody—yes, anybody,” he repeated emphatically, “can say or prove, the painting you sold Ordmann is a Renoir. They can take it apart inch by inch, analyze each blob of paint separately. Think, man,” he went on urgently. “You accepted it as a Renoir, so did Wesley Corum, a great expert. Kullman damn near bought it, and he’s got a good eye. Lucas Edgerton, one of the greatest authorities in the world, saw the painting and took it for granted that it was genuine.”
“The eye is one thing; the laboratory another. I’ve been fooled, so has every dealer and expert in the world. The test comes when they turn the instruments on it.”
Lurie nodded. “I know.” He walked to the window of Astorg’s bedroom and glanced out into the balcony. Then he carefully closed the windows and took his seat again facing the old dealer.
“Are we going to run this out together?” he demanded.
“Of course. What else can we do?”
“No whining, wailing or recriminations?”
“I’m not an idealist. I can’t afford revenge.”
“Good. I’m going to tell you exactly how the Renoirs were made. I handle Paul Weldon, you know.”
With a bitter smile, Astorg said, “Yes, I know.”
“Some rancor is quite understandable,” Lurie said magnanimously. “At any rate, he is a talented man, in an extremely neurotic way. I got him a commission once to do a poster for a movie company—some foolish story along the lines of Camille, I think. He astonished me with a canvas amazingly like Renoir. His own work had overtones of Renoir, especially in the painting of flesh, but his drawing and composition is so fantastic, the affinity had not occurred to me.”
“You junked the poster, of course,” said Astorg.
“Of course. But first, however, I had him do some sketches—a few in oils—right before my eyes. He banged them out, one after another, like a stamping machine. It seems he lived in Paris and for a long time could not afford to study at any of the proper ateliers. He made up for it by copying all day, day after day, imitating the work of the great painters he loved. The one he loved the most, as it developed, was Auguste Renoir.”
“That much,” said Astorg irritably, “I could have filled in by guess-work. I still say, Lurie, that what you or I or Wesley Corum think means nothing. This painting is going to be subjected to every test in the laboratory.”
Lurie’s pleasure in the recital seemed undiminished. “You admit that on the surface it is foolproof?”
“Unquestionably.”
“Then listen to what’s underneath. The original canvas was a damaged still-life by Jean-Frederic Bazille.” His smile widened. “You see, Jonas, we didn’t stint on anything. We used a genuine Impressionist canvas. Not only that, we made sure it was one prepared just the way Renoir prepared his own. They can test until they run out of instruments—the canvas is 80 years old. Bazille prepared it in the last year of his life, and everything about it is consistent with Renoir in that period.” Astorg was sitting up straight now, and some of the glaze was peeling off his eyes.
“The Bazille pa
inting was stripped away,” continued Lurie, “but not the gesso—we left that intact, just as it had always been, in case the experts did get under the surface. Now, the painting. Weldon didn’t merely mix the paints—they were ground by hand to match every chemical component of the original colors. Furthermore, I bought him a projector and he worked from enlargements of sections taken from ten different Renoirs of the same period so that the exact pattern of the brush-work and its overlaps could be determined. Let the laboratories have it!” His voice went up triumphantly. “Let the whole damn United States Bureau of Standards have it. Ellis Blaise isn’t a fool. He isn’t going to say the Renoir is a forgery unless he can prove it. He can be snowed under with suits for libel and damages. You can ruin him. When he sees the painting he’s going to hem and haw, play it cagy, admit nothing.”
“You smart son-of-a-bitch!” said Astorg, more in admiration than in anger. He was obviously invigorated by Lurie’s recital.
“No recriminations,” warned the other.
“The Paris background is perfect,” mused Astorg. “If what you say is true…” his voice trailed off. “We’re in great shape,” he said, bitterly again. “Weldon is running around with God knows how many Renoir drawings, all probably done in Los Angeles high-school copybooks.”
“I doubt it,” said Lurie.
“Or else,” sneered Astorg, “he can sit down any time and paint some more Renoirs just to show the police how they’re done.”
“You’ve put your big finger,” said Lurie, “on the one undeniable soft spot in our little cabal. I do think, though,” he added, “that if I can reach our talented friend before the police locate him, he can be persuaded to go away.”
“For his health?” asked Astorg.
“For our health,” said Lurie, with a smile. He picked up his hat from the side table. “But you see that the situation is not without its bright spots, don’t you, Jonas?” Astorg didn’t immediately reply, and Lurie went on softly. “It would be so wrong to fly into a panic,” he said in his gently remonstrating voice. “An orgy of confession would serve no purpose at all.”
