The First Mystery Novel

by Howard Mason

  Blaise kissed her, holding her tight. He could feel the tremor that coursed through her body. “You’re the best little confederate a second-story man ever had, Cassy.”

  “I’m scared,” she said, clinging to him.

  “So am I. Leave me alone now, Cassy, so I can shiver in private.” He took her by the shoulders, propelling her to the door. “Your job is lookout. Here.”

  Cassy gasped as he slipped something cold and shiny into her hand, and closed her fingers around the butt of a gun. “I got this for you on my way up here,” he whispered hoarsely. “Don’t use it unless you must, but then shoot straight and save the last bullet for yourself.” She gulped weakly and looked down. She was holding a glass gun full of jelly beans, but before she could talk, Blaise had the door open and eased her outside. She moved around to the side, from which point she could watch the house and the approaches to the gallery. Through the window she could see Blaise as he worked with a small electric torch in one hand, riffling through the large flat boxes in which the drawings, prints and etchings were stored. He worked neatly, replacing each drawer as he finished with it. Without access to the catalogue, which would have placed each item, he had to trust to time and luck.

  He had been alone inside for nearly an hour when Cassy saw Miriam Wayne emerge from the driveway door of the main house and, after looking around from the step, start for the gallery. She rapped desperately on the glass and, as Blaise’s head turned, pointed frantically to the door.

  He nodded, swiftly pushed back into place the drawer he was working on, then slid around to the other side of the cabinets. Cassy’s relief was instantly flooded by a new terror. If Miriam came into the gallery she would have to give the all-clear code signal on the burglar alarm immediately. Finding the alarm shut off, she would suspect an intruder and sound battle-stations at once. At the last moment, as Miriam had her key in the lock, Cassy threw her head back and screamed. It was a shattering, strident sound. She had her heart in it, and all the power of her healthy young lungs. The result was something suitable for air-raids and major fires. It froze Miriam Wayne at the door and it brought Blaise, heedless of the risk of exposure, out of hiding and over to the window. He could see Cassy, apparently alive and unharmed, then Miriam approaching warily from one side while a watchman came running from the other.

  “There was someone here,” sobbed Cassy. “A man. He was looking in the window. He ran off that way.” She pointed to the beach, and as the others looked that way, Blaise saw her gesture to him. It was an unmistakable signal to depart. He had three drawings, exactly suited to his purpose, and with these rolled up and tucked away, he eased himself out and circled the gallery to the beach. The watchman was supporting Cassy’s limp body now, which was her contribution toward stalling the manhunt, and Blaise blew her a kiss as he edged into the comforting obscurity of the dunes.

  Chapter 28

  Blaise was stretched luxuriously on the couch in his living room. He had a drink in his hand and, as Cassy saw him from the doorway, seemed to be disgustingly at ease.

  “How can you be so calm?” she asked, as she closed the door and came in. “I’m still weak in the knees.”

  Blaise jumped up, put his arm around her waist and steered her to the couch.

  “By the time I was pretending to faint,” she said feebly, “it was darn near the real thing.” She sat down, leaned back and closed her eyes for a moment. Blaise patted her hand. “You were swell, Cassy. Pluckiest little girl I ever saw.” He kissed her gently.

  “Shot and shell fell all around,” she pointed out, “but I never flinched.”

  “Not once.” He kissed her again.

  She smiled up at him. “Now you know the kind of a scream I can unleash in an emergency. I had to do something,” she went on earnestly. “Miriam would have noticed that the alarm was turned off. You would have been cornered.”

  “I figured that out while I was running,” said Blaise, “and I’m much obliged. I’m thinking about just how to reward you.”

  “Think hard,” said Cassy. Then her smile faded, and she sat up on the couch. Soberly and in detail, she described the scene between Edgerton and Victor Grandi in the gallery before his arrival.

  Blaise studied her as she finished this recital. “You feel disloyal, isn’t that it, Cassy?”

  “Who wouldn’t? Here I am, helping you set traps as if it was open season in the beaver country, and for all I know the prize catch may turn out to be my uncle. I know how you feel, and I don’t blame you, but I’m scared.”

  Blaise nodded. “I understand. The drawings are on the table, Cassy. Take them with you. I’ll try to think of something else.”

  She leaned against him, turning up her troubled face. “That’s no solution. You’re the one I started out to help.”

  “I don’t think,” Blaise said carefully, “that your uncle is interested in anything more criminal than the desire to have this investigation wrapped up just where it stands. When the smoke is all cleared away—if and when it is—I think he’ll regret it, but right now all he sees is a succession of scandals, to no purpose as far as his welfare is concerned, with the sacred name of Edgerton looming up in all of them. He’s not the most public-spirited man alive and I don’t think he cares much who gets trimmed, provided he doesn’t.”

  “That sounds like Uncle Lucas. You don’t think his doings are any darker than that?” she asked anxiously.

  “This time tomorrow,” said Blaise grandly, “your uncle will be bringing me my slippers, mixing me a drink, and offering to up your dowry by some splendid sum.”

  “Tomorrow night, eh? Do we have to wait until the check clears? If we don’t,” she rambled on contentedly, “we can have a police-station wedding, the kind every girl dreams about from childhood, with an arch formed by crossed night-sticks…”

  The telephone rang and Blaise jumped for it so eagerly that she knew it was something prearranged and expected. Blaise said, “Yes, Ives.” Then, after an instant, “Right away.” He put down the phone, smiling again, and said, “Sorry I interrupted your orange-blossom reverie, Cassy.”

  “You’re on your way?”

  “Ives is waiting for me.”

  “All right,” she said resignedly. “This is your last night for helling around in prowl cars, friend. Make the most of it. You’ll be a better art dealer if you stay home nights and study.” At the door, though, she clung to him apprehensively.

  “Be careful, Blaise,” she said softly. “Please be careful.”

  He tapped her under the chin with the rolled-up drawings in his right hand, and she tilted it obediently. “I’ll be right up on deck tomorrow,” he told her.

  “Nothing can stop me.” He kissed her and Cassy’s arms came up to hold him tight. He disengaged himself reluctantly. “Ives is waiting for me, Cassy.”

  “Let him wait. I’m a taxpayer.” But she let go and they went out together. Blaise went off alone, heading north to the motel where he had put Hugh Norden earlier in the day. The headlights of a car parked in the dark road nearby winked on and off, and Blaise pulled up behind it and got out. Ives was walking to meet him.

  “What’s in here?” asked the detective curiously, indicating the motel.

  “Your friend and mine—Hugh Norden.”

  “The hell you say!” It was the first time Blaise had seen the Lieutenant actually startled. He told Ives briefly how they had spotted the fugitive at lunch and of his anxiety to square himself.

  “I’ll square him,” muttered Ives. “I’ll put corners on him while I’m about it. And he damn well better still be here,” he added darkly.

  “He’s here,” said Blaise. He could see the lights burning back of the shades in Norden’s cubicle. “I located a couple of those drawings I mentioned,” he said casually. “With those, and if Norden really wants to be of some help, I think we can go places.”

  Ive
s took only a moment for reflection. “Let’s go inside,” he said. On the way, Blaise noticed that he unbuttoned his coat and reached under it to adjust the holster he was wearing.

  At the sight of Lieutenant Ives, Norden’s eyes all but revolved in their sockets. The detective pushed him back in roughly, then came in with Blaise and closed the door. A moment later, the landlady who was listening outside, heard a thump followed by a curious whimpering sound. Then there was conversation in an undertone which didn’t carry to her and she abandoned this in favor of the adjoining cabin, where a dapper old man and a flashy little blonde had registered as father and daughter.

  Chapter 29

  Jonas Astorg was resting, lying almost at full length on a couch in Kenneth Lurie’s chic drawing room. His eyes were closed, not in sleep but because all the lamps were brightly lit. Lurie was showing some pictures in the next room, an oval study, and Astorg half listened to the patter, the clichés of buyer and seller which followed each other like tracer bullets. He was in a strangely supine state. Having accepted the leadership of Kenneth Lurie, it was if he had relinquished responsibility and initiative. He was afraid of Lurie now. He knew that and it rendered him helpless. He was afraid to leave, afraid to stay, and, most of all, afraid to ask questions.

  He sat up on the couch as the voices came clearer and saw Lurie with his customer, a rawboned lady on whom all the arts of Nieman-Marcus had been lavished in vain. Astorg, scanning the bracelets on her arm, established the age and extent of her fortune as a forestry expert might establish the age and quality of a tree from the rings girdling its trunk.

  Lurie’s exquisite Regency house, stocked with modern treasure from the gallery, was not a home but an annex. It was in the smartest residential area of the state, just west of Beverly Hills. It was as if the planners, having shown in Beverly the best that free enterprise could produce, now went one step beyond. Here the lawns and shrubbery were cut and trimmed with the care and devotion a devout Moslem might lavish on the Beard of the Prophet. Tennis courts, swimming pools and even a private golf course dotted the landscape. It was a monument to block booking, capital gains and the generous deductions allowed oilmen for the depletion of capital assets.

  Lurie brought his customer into the drawing room. “Jonas!” he cried. “You’ll never guess what this wicked, wicked woman has done. She’s taking away our Sisley!”

  Astorg clasped his hands in horror. “No!” he cried in shattered disbelief. “She can’t!” The Sisley was a shabby landscape, probably a sketch for a painting, reluctantly accepted in trade. It had been kept, literally, in dead storage since neither partner was willing to exhibit it. Astorg now turned a look of piteous reproach on the triumphant customer. “I wanted that for my personal collection.”

  “So did I,” said Lurie mournfully. “She went straight to it,” he told Astorg. “Ignored all the things I wanted to sell. But,” he went on resignedly, “it’s going into a happy collection. Mrs. Parnell,” he informed Astorg solemnly, “has the largest collection of Marie Laurencin in Texas.”

  “I know,” said Astorg, while Mrs. Parnell twinkled with pleasure.

  Lurie was ready to take her away and Astorg bowed low over her hard, rugged hand. Her car was waiting in the street and Lurie took her to it, promising immediate delivery of the Sisley. His careful, fitted smile stayed on until she drove away, still waving back roguishly, then he allowed himself the luxury of a sneer and started back into the house.

  “Lurie!”

  The dealer stopped, turning slowly. Hugh Norden had materialized in the trees blocked by his customer’s car. He was about ten yards away, his right hand in the pocket of his loose gabardine coat.

  “Oh, it’s you,” said Lurie, after a repugnant stare. “What do you want?”

  “I’d like to talk to you,” said Norden politely.

  “What about?”

  “I’d like to show you a Renoir drawing,” was the reply. “An early one, about 1875.” As Lurie seemed to consider this, he added, “Like the one I gave Simon Edgerton.”

  Lurie nodded his head, as if this was altogether an unexpected development. “I’ll take you somewhere else, where we can talk. I’m not alone…”

  “Astorg,” said Norden, interrupting him. “I know. It’s all right with me, if it’s all right with you.”

  “Come in,” said Lurie quietly. Norden waited for him to go ahead, and with a puzzled shrug, Lurie led the way. On the doorstep, Norden said, “I’ve got a gun.” He said it quite simply and Lurie accepted it with an understanding nod. “This isn’t a stickup—you know that.” Lurie nodded again. “I just wanted you to know.”

  “Come on in,” the dealer said. “We’ll talk about it.”

  Norden followed him down the short hall, into the drawing room. “This is Hugh Norden, Jonas,” said Lurie, with an air of utter resignation. “He’d like to show us an early Renoir drawing.” When Astorg bounced upright on the couch, Lurie added, “By the way, he’s got a gun.”

  Norden said, “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Astorg.” Keeping his right hand in his pocket he reached under the baggy coat with his left. He drew out a sheet of paper rolled into a tube and tossed this to Astorg.

  Astorg’s fingers trembled as he unrolled the paper, but Lurie was steady and calm, not even troubling as yet to glance at the drawing.

  “The Renoir?” asked Lurie.

  “Or thereabouts,” replied Norden.

  Lurie moved around to look down over his colleague’s shoulder. “Close enough,” he said sadly. “How much?”

  “Ten thousand.”

  “For one drawing?” Lurie’s eyebrows went up.

  “For three.”

  Astorg spoke for the first time. “How many have you got?”

  “Three,” said Norden, with a smile, and at Astorg’s skeptical glance, added, “That’s the lot.”

  “I know this man,” said Lurie. “He’s honest. I vouch for him.”

  Norden made him a little bow. “Likewise, I’m sure.”

  “You’ve brought the other two?” asked Lurie hopefully.

  “They’re handy,” was the reply. After a moment, Norden asked, “How handy is the ten thousand?”

  Lurie looked at Astorg. “What do you think, Jonas?”

  Astorg pushed himself up, as if this took a lot of his strength. He stared at Norden, his eyes wide, his mouth a little slack. “Blackmailing devil,” he muttered suddenly and launched himself at Norden, his fingers curved into claws raking at the other man. Norden fell back quickly, his right hand whipping out with a gun. Lurie caught the old man’s shoulder, spun him around and pushed him back so that he staggered into the couch and sat down abruptly. Norden, watching as he sagged, slowly let his hand fall back into the pocket.

  Lurie smiled apologetically. “He’s not used to these transactions.” Astorg was sitting up stiffly on the edge of the sofa. “I’ll handle this for both of us,” went on Lurie quietly. “All right, Jonas?”

  The other nodded. He was back again in the oddly detached, semi-present mood, listening to the other two voices as if they were coming in faintly from far away. “You’ve got three drawings—that’s all?”

  “Three,” repeated Norden firmly.

  “I take it you don’t plan to spend the money right here in Southern California.”

  “I want to get away. A friend of mine is on a ship going out of San Pedro tomorrow morning. He’ll sign me on and that’s the end of me up here.”

  Lurie seemed to give grave assent to the wisdom of these proposals. Then, while Norden stiffened, he reached slowly into his breast pocket. A thin sheaf of currency was held flat in a black wallet. He ran his fingers over the edges of the bills and tossed them beside the drawing on the table. “There’s a couple of thousand. How do you want the rest?”

  “No checks.” Norden picked up the money. “Tonight, any time you say.”r />
  “Midnight?”

  “Fine. I’m at the Far West. It’s a motel out on the Highway. About eight miles down from the Edgerton place.”

  “I’ll find it,” said Lurie simply. As Norden started to edge out, he said, “By the way, you got these from poor Weldon, didn’t you?”

  “I picked him up one night about a month ago,” recited Norden calmly. “He was pretty far gone and I helped him home. After he was asleep I couldn’t resist taking a look around. Amazing!” he marveled. “There were the five drawings…” At Lurie’s sharp look, he added, “I only took four—and locked away in a closet a half-finished Renoir. Believe me,” he finished with his wolfish grin, “I had a new respect for Paul Weldon.”

  “An extraordinary talent,” murmured Lurie. “A very able man. A month ago, eh?”