The First Mystery Novel

by Howard Mason

  “Good night, Doc,” said Ives. “Thanks for coming out.”

  Ives sat silently behind his desk when he was once more alone with Blaise. His normally calm intelligent features now seemed to reflect some difficult conflict.

  “I don’t like it,” he said at last, flatly and decisively.

  “Fake paintings, fake suicide,” suggested Blaise. After another moment of silence, he said, “Weldon’s suicide fits, doesn’t it?”

  “Custom-tailored. It fits all right; it wraps up everything. Still, I don’t like it.”

  “Don’t buy it.”

  “I’ve got to buy it. Who the hell am I not to like it? We run a business. An unsolved crime, that’s a loss; one we wrap up, that’s profit. End of the year if the losses outnumber the profits the boss starts looking for a new man to run the store. I go to my chief and I tell him all the evidence signifies that Paul Weldon killed Simon Edgerton for not just one very good motive, but two, then killed himself in a drunken riot of conscience. But then I tell him that evidence or no evidence, I don’t think so. Instead of one solved crime, I’ve got two unsolved murders. And he asks me why I don’t buy Paul Weldon’s suicide and I have to give him a platter of mumbo-jumbo about hunches and instinct. I’d be lucky if I wound up downtown chasing phony fortune-tellers.”

  “Yours is an interesting dilemma,” murmured Blaise.

  Ives nodded. “I like yours, too. How do you prove your stand on the Renoirs? Wait for Weldon to communicate with you from the spirit world?”

  “I’ve been thinking of that. My neck is pretty far out, especially with Edgerton writing the minority decision on the forgeries. He’s just about all the business I’ve got, and he’s bounced other dealers for just misspelling a word, let alone a juicy boner like mine.”

  Ives smiled genially. “Welcome to the glue factory.”

  “I take it,” said Blaise, “that the medical report on Weldon is suicide all the way.”

  “Everything. The wound, the burns, the time—the works.”

  “Any traces of a second party in the car?”

  Ives shook his head. “That damn pair of juvenile delinquents trampled the sand all around the car. Inside, no traces yet of any prints but Weldon’s. No prints but his on the gun. I’ve got a detail out with photos trying to establish where he spent the day and evening. There was one empty pint bottle in the car but he must have had a lot more than that to keep going for twelve hours.” As Blaise was about to speak, he said, “Save your breath. The bottle had his fingerprints exclusively.”

  “Tell me something,” said Blaise, eyeing the detective curiously. “It’s right, it fits, it works—why won’t you chime in with the others and wrap up the case?”

  Ives smiled but his eyes were glacially cold. “Some smart son-of-a-bitch is home now, maybe sipping a drink, preening himself, ready for a good night’s sleep. He’s fooled the world, he has. He’s riding high, nobody can touch him. Well, in a couple of months, maybe a couple of years, I’ll be standing by a little plate-glass window looking into a little room no bigger than this, watching for the puff of smoke that comes when they explode the cylinder of gas.”

  Blaise shivered. “Don’t ever let me cross you up, Lieutenant,” he said softly. “I think I like it better on your side.”

  “Go on home,” said Ives. “Get some sleep.”

  Chapter 25

  In the morning papers, delivered to his room with the coffee by a waiter who looked at him with fresh respect, Blaise found that Lieutenant Ives was tentatively accepting Paul Weldon’s suicide and guilt. He winced at the next paragraph which specifically handed him the credit for establishing the conspiracy to forge certain paintings by Auguste Renoir. Finding the same eulogy in almost the same words in the other paper, he discarded them both and also abandoned the coffee which until then had tasted very good indeed. He was dressing when Andrew Kullman phoned from downstairs, and Blaise invited him to come up.

  The producer shook hands gravely. “Have some coffee,” said Blaise. “It’s good and it’s hot. I lost my appetite reading the papers.”

  “Did you ever come right out and say the painting Nathan Ordmann bought from Astorg is a fake?” asked Kullman.

  “Never,” said Blaise. “I’m not that much of a fool, or maybe I am, but I didn’t say it.”

  “The police commandeered the painting, you know,” Kullman went on, “and according to Ordmann, because you said it was a fake.”

  “Ouch!”

  “Ordmann is a good friend of mine. A nice man. He knows nothing about paintings. He’s forming the collection as a gift for the museum up north. Since he knows nothing, he’s very sensitive.”

  “I’ve an idea,” said Blaise wistfully, “that this is not going to be one of my good days.”

  “I thought I’d tell you,” said Kullman. “Ordmann came to my house last night. He was sizzling, naturally, and blowing most of the steam your way. I told him I thought you were a smart, honest man.”

  “Naturally,” said Blaise, “that solved everything.”

  “He was all set to wake up his lawyers and file all kinds of suits then and there,” Kullman went on to say, “but around midnight we got the news about Paul Weldon and I persuaded him to hold off.” Blaise nodded. “So there you are,” said Kullman, in conclusion.

  “Just where would you say I am?” asked Blaise politely.

  “You’ve seen the painting, haven’t you?”

  “Went all over it. Edgerton, Grandi, Wesley Corum and I. It’s perfect. Today, Grandi is going to analyze some flecks of paint, check the age of the canvas and try some X-rays. I doubt if any of them make it seem less authentic. And the police are checking on how Astorg acquired it in France but that’s bound to be impeccable. Quite candidly, Mr. Kullman, now that poor Weldon is out of the running, I don’t think I’ve got a chance. The technical reports may help, but I doubt it. At any rate, even if I could convince a few people that the painting was a forgery, Astorg can bring dozens of experts to testify that it’s genuine.”

  Kullman nodded sympathetically. “Have you got any money?”

  “Some. Not much.”

  “For the time being, I’d put it in your wife’s name.”

  “No wife,” said Blaise.

  “I’ll speak to Ordmann again,” promised Kullman.

  “I tried to convince him that you were doing a great service for collectors, and that I believe in you.”

  “Thanks. Thanks a lot.” He took Kullman to the door. The phone was ringing and he rushed back to answer it.

  It was Cassy and the sound of her voice was suddenly an infinitely welcome and cheering note in the day’s gathering pressures.

  “I’m not allowed to see you or talk to you,” she announced cheerfully, “and the butler and the gateman have orders to shoot to kill—on sight, that is.”

  “Uncle has the wind up, has he?”

  “At breakfast, the nicest thing he called you was ‘a trouble-making sneak.’ Then he wanted to know how far things had gone with us. I told him I was with child and he almost bit through a Georgian candlestick worth several hundreds of dollars. Anyway, we have to meet secretly, in dark, secluded places.”

  “Well, that’s something,” said Blaise. “I think I may be in trouble, Cassy.”

  “I know,” was her sober reply. “I’m sorry, Ellis.”

  “Want to help me?”

  “Of course,” she said indignantly. “I love you, you big clod!” There was no immediate reply, and she said plaintively, “Aren’t you glad?”

  “Very glad, Cassy. I didn’t answer right away because I was so impressed.”

  She heaved a sigh of relief. “Good.” Then, briskly, she went on, “Well, that’s that. What do you want me to do?”

  “I’m not quite sure. I have the beginnings of an idea, and if I can swing it, I’ll need your h
elp. You think I ought to stay away from Casa Edgerton today?”

  “It would be prudent.”

  Blaise considered this. “To hell with prudence. I’ll be out after lunch. If I’m turned away at the front door, I’ll swim in from the ocean side.”

  “That’s my boy,” said Cass proudly. “I’ll try to square you with Uncle meanwhile, but don’t expect too much.”

  “Call waiting for you, Mr. Blaise,” said the hotel operator. “I’ll see you later,” he said, and hung up. The phone rang again at once. It was Lieutenant Ives, calling from Paul Weldon’s studio. Blaise dressed and retrieved the car, then drove down into Hollywood.

  In the studio, two men in plain clothes were methodically taking the room apart. One of them straightened up from sounding of the moulding at the floor and indicated the open bedroom door. Molly Dann, her mouth set in a sullen, suspicious line, was sitting on the bed and Lieutenant Ives was staring thoughtfully at Weldon’s secret cupboard in the night table which was yawning-wide open now.

  “I located this last night,” Ives told him. “To play safe, I’m having the boys outside try for a dividend.” He bent over the opening, sniffed and beckoned to Blaise to do likewise. “Paint, isn’t it?” asked Ives.

  “Sure. He had to use some extraordinary stuff and that’s probably where he kept it.”

  “There was this, too,” said Ives, exhibiting a narrow band of paper with the words “Inland Bank & Trust” poorly printed, and in a neat, clerical hand, “$1,000” written in pencil.

  “The girl says he told her he had some money.” Blaise turned to Molly, and she nodded listlessly. “That’s what he said. He wanted me to go away with him and he said he had money. More than I thought he had, that was what he said.” She shrugged her smooth bare shoulders. “I didn’t give a damn, but that’s what he said.” She looked at Blaise. “I guess you think I’m rough on boyfriends.” She laughed cynically. “A date with me is a short cut to Forest Lawn.”

  “I’m sorry, Molly,” Blaise told her sincerely.

  “He tells me”—she pointed to Ives—“that Paul left a will. I inherit all he had. How do you like that?”

  “I’m glad,” Blaise started to say, and then Ives cut in with, “Molly, did Weldon always work here in the studio?”

  “Mostly. Sometimes he sketched up in the hills, but generally he worked here.”

  “Did he ever keep you away? Were there times when he was secretive about what he was doing?”

  “I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully. “Once he told me he was going up to Carmel for a week, and not to count on posing, but later on somebody mentioned seeing him right here in town. I thought maybe he was having a fling he didn’t want me to know about. I didn’t care, so I never thought about it.”

  “You say he was frightened of Kenneth Lurie?” asked Ives. He look significantly across the girl at Blaise.

  She nodded emphatically. “No doubt about it. Lurie had some kind of an Indian sign on Paul. And yesterday, twice I looked out in the afternoon and spotted that thug he uses for a driver. He was watching my house. I figured they must be hunting for Paul.”

  “Thanks,” said Ives. “Thanks a lot, Molly.”

  She stood up, giving them a flash of her bare thighs, then tugged the dress down modestly. “Damn thing rides up on me,” she muttered.

  “It was a pleasure,” said Blaise gallantly.

  “Stop in,” said Molly. “We’ll talk about it.” She went out, both men looking after her provocative, rolling gait. She was wearing the comfortable Southern California minimum which heightened the effect.

  “Any time you’re ready,” said Ives.

  Blaise turned back to him sheepishly. “Sorry. Just daydreaming.”

  Ives sat down on the bed. “Hugh Norden should be about ready to creep out of hiding now. Weldon’s death—whatever it was—probably puts him in the clear. He’ll turn up now with some idiotic yarn—maybe even amnesia.”

  “He may be in the clear,” said Blaise, “but he undoubtedly touched off the explosion when he gave Simon that fake drawing.”

  Ives nodded. “Probably. I figure now that he was blackmailing somebody. Maybe it was Simon, or maybe Lurie or Astorg. Which of them, by the way, do you think commissioned the forgeries?”

  “My guess is Lurie. I think Astorg believed he was getting genuine Renoirs stolen from the Edgerton collection.”

  “It was a great break for them when Simon died. That eliminated one unreliable confederate. Now Weldon’s suicide just makes it perfect. They’re lucky. When people get that lucky—two in a row—I can’t help thinking, maybe they’re helping their luck along a little.”

  “Nicely put,” said Blaise. “Is there anything you can do about it?”

  “It’s just an idea I had,” said Ives.

  There was a quiet moment, broken by Blaise. “Those keys you found on Weldon, Lieutenant—the gallery key and the one to the vault—what’s become of them?”

  Ives tapped his breast pocket. “Why?”

  “If I had those keys,” said Blaise softly, “I could try an idea of my own.”

  “You’ve got a hell of a nerve!” Ives looked at him searchingly. “You realize what you’re saying?”

  Blaise sighed. “I know. Want to hear my idea?”

  “Edgerton’s sore at you, isn’t he?”

  “Barred me from the premises,” said Blaise candidly. “Not only that, your cop told Nathan Ordmann that it was I who branded his painting a fake, and he’s going to sue me. I may be left high and dry. With nothing,” he added temptingly, “but my idea.”

  “Must be one hell of an idea,” muttered Ives. He seemed prepared to listen, though, and Blaise took advantage of it.

  “I had the proof of the forgery in my hands once,” said Blaise, “and because I was a fat-headed, bigmouthed idiot, I lost it and I’m in trouble. The drawing Molly Dann gave me was the key to the whole thing. If I had a few more of those drawings, I could put the firm of Lurie and Astorg through a wringer.”

  “Sure,” said Ives promptly. “But you haven’t got them.”

  “True. That’s what makes mine such a good idea. If I had a few real drawings, not fakes but authentic drawings of the same period, our friends wouldn’t know the difference. It’s damn near impossible to tell them apart. They know I’ve had one of the forgeries, how would they be sure I didn’t get others? The thing is,” he went on carefully, “drawings like that are damn scarce. Edgerton has a few but it would take weeks to get them anywhere else.”

  “You think that somebody would go after the drawings?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “You could get killed monkeying around with a crazy stunt like that,” said Ives.

  “In a way,” said Blaise, “I’m fighting for my life.”

  Ives was thinking. “You couldn’t put this up to Edgerton, could you?”

  “Not a chance. Furthermore, the way it stands, I’m not sure I want to,” he said bluntly.

  Ives took a fresh package of cigarettes from an inside pocket and Blaise saw an envelope fall on the bed beside him. The contents gave off a metallic jingle but Ives ignored it elaborately. “Too damn risky,” he said. “I could get broken right the hell off the force for something like that. And you’d be taking a big chance.”

  Blaise smiled. “You’re right. Forget it.”

  Ives went to the door to consult the two men who were searching the studio, standing with his back turned. Blaise reached out for the envelope, saw the two keys, and put it in his pocket. Ives turned slowly. “Nothing doing so far,” he said. “No reason for you to stick around.”

  “I’ve got some things to do,” said Blaise. “I’ll be in touch with you later on.”

  “Do that,” said Ives sharply. “See that you do that.”

  Chapter 26

  The first hint of hi
s fall from grace came when Blaise nosed his car into the driveway only to have Edgerton’s gateman bar the way. “Nothing doing, Mr. Blaise,” said this functionary flatly. Even the dog at his side appeared to have been alerted. As Blaise leaned out the window of the car the animal growled and bared ugly teeth.

  “Down, Rover,” said Blaise, with little conviction. To the watchman he said, “I’m barred, eh?”

  The gateman nodded, eyeing Blaise with admiration. “You must have really given the old man a hot-foot,” he said. “He was all set to issue grenades and flamethrowers.”

  “Call him,” said Blaise. “Tell him I’m here.”

  The man’s eyes bulged. “After what he said?” He eyed the twenty-dollar bill in Blaise’s hand with unmistakable longing.

  “He hasn’t heard my side of the story,” said Blaise. “I’m entitled to a hearing. That’s the American way.” He spread the money in his hand so that not one but two twenties were visible.

  The watchman wilted. “Hell, everybody ought to be entitled to a trial.”

  Blaise parted with the money, taking some comfort from the fact that this was still some of what Edgerton had issued for expenses. The gateman went to the phone in his hut. Blaise couldn’t hear either end of the conversation, but he saw jerky convulsive motions of the watchman’s head. Then he leaned out of the hut, jerking his thumb up toward the house. “He’s waiting for you. Brother, is he waiting for you!”

  Blaise threaded his way up the driveway to the house, parked in the space between the gallery and the residence, fixed a confident smile where he thought it would stay put, then went bravely into the gallery.

  He emerged, in some twenty minutes, feeling like a man who has somehow survived an explosion that blasted him out of his clothes, leaving him naked to raging winds that blew hot and cold but seared at either extreme. He thought he knew what heights of execration this rancorous old man could attain but he had to admit, as he wobbled away from the library, that Edgerton had outdone himself. Not only were his revilements vicious and dazzling but they were larded with curses of Talmudic complexity and scope. To intensify Blaise’s discomfort, Miriam Wayne was present throughout, standing by the desk with an idly open book in her slim fingers. She appeared—though he had little interest in the phenomenon—more beautiful than he had ever seen her look before. She was in black, as if she had robed herself for the execution. She wore a blouse cut boldly low and there was a new freedom in the shape and movement of her body.