“Yes, there is. You kept yourselves very busy before he got here, seeing school friends and going to all sorts of interesting places. But the minute he arrives.…”
“We just thought we should be around if he does want to do anything,” said Sara. “After all, he is a visitor here.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” said Verna dryly. “I’ll wager he knows New York a lot better than you do. You not only want to spend time with him because he’s fun, but you’re dying to find out about the case that brought him here.”
“Is he here on a case?” asked Sara.
“Why, I assumed so. Isn’t he?”
“We don’t know,” said Andrew. “We tried to get him to tell us, but he wouldn’t.”
“Very sensible of him,” said Verna. “If he did, one way or another you’d try to get in on it, and I’m sure he’s had enough of that, just as I have.”
There was a polite knock at the door and Wyatt entered, followed by a sturdy young man in a corduroy suit, the man with the tawny beard that Sara and Andrew had seen with him just before he came down the gangplank.
“Good afternoon,” said Wyatt to Verna. “I hoped you’d still be here. May I present someone who’s been very anxious to meet you? Mark Russell, Verna Tillett.”
Verna acknowledged the introduction with a smile and Russell bowed, though he had difficulty tearing his eyes away from her long enough to do so.
“And these are the two young friends I told you about, Sara Wiggins and Andrew Tillett.”
“Hello,” said Russell. “I believe I saw you down at the dock.”
“That’s right,” said Sara.
“You came over on the Britannic with Peter?” said Verna.
“Yes, I did.”
“I thought at first that you might be British like the rest of us, but you’re American, aren’t you?”
“Yes. A New Yorker, home after four years abroad.”
“Travelling?”
“No, studying. Three years in Paris and one in London.”
“Mark’s an artist,” said Wyatt. “I think a very good one.”
“Where did you study in London? The Slade?”
“For a short while. But mostly with Walter Sickert.”
“That’s interesting. I know Sickert, was at his studio a few times.”
“I know. That’s where I saw you for the first time.”
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t remember it.”
“I doubt if you saw me. You were just leaving. I asked Sickert who you were and he told me. We agreed that you were one of the most attractive and interesting-looking women in London.”
“Sickert is a great flatterer, and I’m afraid you are, too.”
“That’s not true. One of his problems is that he’s too honest and has made a great many enemies. Later on, of course, I saw you several times at the theatre. I thought your performance in The Squire’s Daughter was one of the most moving I’ve ever seen.”
“He told me that before he found out I knew you,” said Wyatt. “When he discovered I did, he begged me to bring him here so he could meet you.”
“I’m very glad you did. Will you be staying here now?”
“Yes. I’ve taken a studio on Twenty-Third Street, near the Art Students League.”
“Perhaps Peter will take me there sometime. I’d like to see your paintings.”
“I can’t think of anything I’d like better. I brought quite a few things back from Europe with me, and as soon as they’re unpacked.…”
“Perhaps over the weekend,” said Wyatt. He turned to Sara and Andrew. “What have you two been up to?”
“We were over at the Gansvoort Market this morning,” said Sara. “It was fun. There were farmers there from Long Island, New Jersey, even Connecticut. It reminded us of Covent Garden in London.”
“It’s very much like that,” said Wyatt. “What are you doing this afternoon?”
“Nothing,” said Andrew.
“Mark and I are going up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Would you like to come with us?”
“Oh, yes,” said Sara. “We’ve been there several times, but we’d love to go again, especially with you and Mr. Russell.”
“How does that sound to you, Mark?”
“What?” said Russell vaguely, glancing up, then down again.
“I’ve invited Sara and Andrew to come up to the Met with us this afternoon, and I asked if that was agreeable to you.”
“Why, yes. Absolutely. Fine.”
“Oh, my sainted aunt! You’re not at it again, are you?”
“At what?” asked Verna.
“Sketching. He did it all the way over on the Britannic. We’d be in the smoking room talking—at least I’d be talking—and I’d suddenly realize he wasn’t listening. He’d have that sketch pad of his in his lap and he’d be doing a quick sketch of someone on the other side of the room.”
“That’s what he’s doing now,” said Sara. “I wasn’t sure at first because he was keeping the pad hidden, but … were you doing Verna?”
“Of course not,” said Russell, flushing. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
“Now, now,” said Wyatt. “We’re broadminded here and we’ll put up with a great deal, but not with a fib. Let’s see it.”
“But it isn’t a sketch. It’s just some notes for what might be one, and—”
“May I see it?” asked Verna quietly. “I have a reason for asking.”
“Why, yes. If you want to,” said Russell, handing her a small notebook. “As I said, it’s not even a sketch, but I couldn’t resist trying to get something down—”
He broke off as she studied it. Sara, Andrew and Wyatt had moved around behind her and looked at it over her shoulder.
“I said that he was good,” said Wyatt. “Do you agree?”
Verna nodded. And while Andrew did not consider himself an art expert, he could see why she did. With just a few lines on a sketch pad so small that it could be concealed in his hand, Russell had caught Verna; the proud and alert way she carried her head, the firmness of her chin, the warmth in her eyes and the hint of a smile in the corners of her mouth.
“I think it’s top-hole!” said Sara. “A slap-up job.”
“I agree,” said Verna. She looked up at Russell, whose face was now flushed, not with embarrassment, but with pleasure. “May I borrow this for a while?” she asked, holding up the notebook. “I’ll get it back to you tomorrow.”
“Of course. But why do you want it?”
“I’d like to show it to Ted Moss, our manager. He’s been after me to go to Sarony and have him take a photograph of me that he can use in the lobby of the theatre, in advertisements and so on. But while Sarony’s very good, everyone goes to him. I’d much rather have you do something—say a sketch to begin with and, if we have time, a portrait.”
“There’s nothing I’d like better!” said Russell, his face alight. “I work very fast. If you could give me, say, two or three sittings.…”
“That can easily be arranged,” said Verna. “But first let me talk to Moss. I’m afraid I have to go now,” she said, rising. “I hate being late for rehearsal.”
“Can we drop you?” asked Wyatt. “We’re going, too.”
“Thanks, but there’s no need for it. Though I could take a cab or even walk to the theatre, dear old Ted seems to feel that that’s infra dig and insists on having a carriage call for me and bring me back here. Goodbye,” she said, holding out her hand to Russell. “I’m delighted that Peter brought you here.”
“I had a feeling that it was going to be a very good day when I woke up this morning,” said Russell. “But I never dreamed it would be this splendid.”
With a smile and a wave, Verna left. It took Sara only a moment to put on her hat, and they followed Verna downstairs and out to Fifth Avenue in time to see her being helped by a blue-jacketed coachman into a maroon coach with yellow wheels. He closed the door, mounted to the box and sent a spanking pair of bays trotting smartly up
the avenue.
Wyatt started to signal to a hack but Sara and Andrew were able to persuade him to take one of the stage coaches that ran up Fifth Avenue. Drawn by two horses and with an open upper deck like the London buses, they were one of the best ways to see the city and, after the El, the young people’s favorite means of transportation. Sara and Andrew sat in the front seats on the right hand side near the sidewalk with Wyatt and Russell sitting behind them. Russell had forgotten how impressive the mansions that lined Fifth Avenue were and commented on them, on the new hotels that bordered the plaza at Fifty-Ninth Street and remarked that the parade of carriages that entered Central Park at that point reminded him of Rotten Row in Hyde Park.
They got off at Eighty-First Street and crossed over to the huge and imposing building with its red brick and granite facade. Russell and Wyatt agreed that they would not try to characterize its architecture, which was not Gothic, Renaissance or Byzantine though it contained some elements of all of them.
They went up the wide stone steps and into the large central hall. Here Russell took charge and led them to the painting galleries where he pointed out and talked about the works he admired most, some of which had just been acquired but which he knew about because he’d seen them abroad or in art magazines. He showed them Manet’s Boy with a Sword and Woman with a Parrot, the first two Manets ever to be bought by a museum. Though they spent some time in the Italian gallery, Russell’s greatest enthusiasm was for the Goyas, the Renoirs and the Delacroixs. Andrew was pleased that he admired one of his—Andrew’s—favorite paintings, Winslow Homer’s The Gulf Stream. And though he approved of one of Sara’s favorites, Rosa Bonheur’s The Horse Fair, she was a little upset by his reaction to the one she liked best of all, Pierre Cot’s The Storm, for he was unwilling to comment about it at first, and only when she pressed him did he say that he considered it a prime example of French academic art at its most insipid.
They had left the painting galleries and were on their way to the Greek and Roman collection when Russell saw a tall, scholarly-looking man walking toward the administrative offices.
“Ralph!” he called. “Ralph Holland!”
The man turned, peered at him through his pince-nez, then came over to them.
“But this is splendid, Mark! I didn’t know you were in New York. When did you get back?”
“Just yesterday. I’d like you to meet some friends of mine.” And he introduced Wyatt, Sara and Andrew to Holland who, it seemed, was the museum’s curator of sculpture and antiquities and an old friend of Russell’s. Holland was apparently very happy to meet them all, especially Wyatt, about whom he had heard from friends in London. He asked them what they thought of the museum and was pleased when Wyatt told him how much he liked it, comparing favorably with the British Museum.
“By the way,” said Russell, “I understand that your Etruscan statues have finally arrived.”
“Yes. They came in the day before yesterday and will be delivered here tomorrow morning.”
“When will you be showing them?” asked Wyatt.
“The public showing will not be until next week. But we’re having a private, unofficial viewing on Friday. You’ve probably read some of those ridiculous statements that there’s something questionable about them. Well, to settle the matter once and for all, I’ve asked Alec Bowen Mowbray to come and look at them then.”
“That should be interesting,” said Wyatt. “I know Mowbray. I consulted him several times on art questions in London.”
“Then perhaps you’d like to come to the viewing too—you, Mark and your two young friends.”
“I’d like that. We all would.”
“Good. See you on Friday at three o’clock, then.” And nodding to them, he went on toward his office.
“Who or what’s an Etruscan?” asked Sara.
“A people who lived north and west of Rome between one thousand and five hundred B.C.,” said Wyatt. Then, turning to Andrew, “Would our young scholar favor us with a well-known poem that concerns the Etruscans?”
“‘Lars Porsena of Clusium,’” said Andrew, striking a heroic attitude, “‘by the Nine Gods he swore that the great house of Tarquin should suffer wrong no more.’”
“I know that one,” said Sara. “It’s Horatius at the Bridge. I just didn’t know that there were Etruscans in it.”
“A very mysterious people,” said Wyatt. “They crop up in all sorts of unexpected places.”
“I really am anxious to see the statues,” said Russell. “It’s clever of George to have Mowbray look at them before they’re shown officially. If he passes them, that will shut everyone up, even the Italians.”
“Is he that much of an authority?” asked Andrew. “I always thought he was just an art dealer. I mean, he has a gallery in London, hasn’t he?”
“And in Paris, and he’s opened one here,” said Russell. “But one of the reasons he does so well is that he is an authority. If he says a painting is a Giotto, it is. And if he says a statue is School of Donatello, it is. But the best thing about him is that he’s becoming interested in contemporary art—and not just French painters, but. Americans, too.”
“Has he seen anything of yours?” asked Wyatt.
“No.”
“Well, perhaps we can do something about that.”
They stayed at the museum until closing time, then walked through the park to the Bethesda Fountain and along the Mall, where young children rode in small carts drawn by goats, a sight that had intrigued and delighted Sara and Andrew when they first arrived in New York. Early in the afternoon Wyatt had discovered that Verna was to be out for dinner that evening and, though he and Russell were going out to the theatre later to see John Drew and Ada Rehan in The Taming of the Shrew, he invited Sara and Andrew to have dinner with them first. Coming out of the park at Fifty-Ninth Street, he hailed a hack and told the driver to take them to Luchow’s on Fourteenth Street.
One of the many things that Sara and Andrew had found fascinating about New York was the fact that each part of the city had a different national character. The area around Mulberry Street, for instance, where they had had lunch with Sam Decker, was Italian. But just south of it, on the other side of Canal Street, was Chinatown, where the signs in the shops were written in fascinating ideographs, while to the east the area was almost entirely Jewish. The German section was in Yorkville, in the east Eighties, though the most famous German restaurant in New York was Luchow’s on Fourteenth Street.
Sara and Andrew had never been there before, but they found that it was just what they had imagined it would be: large and cavernous with boar and stag heads on the dark, oak-panelled walls. Large mirrors reflected the light of the ornate chandeliers and even the skylights were not of ordinary glass but had designs etched on them.
On Russell’s recommendation they had sauerbraten and red cabbage, with apple pancakes for dessert, and though they enjoyed the dinner, it was so much heavier than what they were used to, they were glad to have an opportunity to walk a bit afterward.
They thanked Wyatt and Russell for the afternoon and the dinner, told Russell they hoped they would see him again soon, and walked west on Fourteenth Street to Fifth Avenue and then down to the hotel.
Their friend, Jim McCann, was at the desk.
“Did either of you lose a quarter?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Andrew. “Where did you find it?”
“Here,” said McCann, taking it out of Sara’s ear.
They laughed as they always did when he did one of his tricks.
“Any messages?” asked Sara.
“Not for either of you or Miss Tillett, but there is one for Mr. Wyatt.”
“He won’t be back until quite late,” said Andrew.
“Maybe we should take it upstairs and put it in his room,” said Sara.
“No matter what time he gets back, there’ll be someone here,” said McCann. “But just as you like.” And taking an envelope out of Wyatt’s box, he gave i
t to Andrew.
“I wonder who it’s from?” said Sara as they started up the stairs.
“It could be anybody.”
“Not really. How many people know that he’s staying here at the Brevoort?”
“If the reporter who said he was coming to New York put that in his article—and he must have because the Times man knew it—then anyone who read the World would know it.”
“May I see the envelope?” asked Sara.
Andrew gave it to her, and they stopped under one of the gaslights in the corridor and examined it together. The envelope was ordinary and not very clean and the handwriting that addressed it to Mr. P. Wyatt was scratchy and irregular.
“It’s certainly not from Inspector Decker,” said Sara.
“Or from a university don. It’s from someone who doesn’t find writing easy and took great pains to make it legible.”
“It’s not sealed,” said Sara, turning it over.
“Let’s see,” said Andrew. Then, examining it, “I think it was sealed, but the paste wasn’t very good and when it dried it didn’t hold.”
“You know what I think? I think we should open it and read what’s in it.”
“Why?”
“Well, if it’s not important it’s not going to matter whether we read it or not. And if it is important, we know where to reach Peter. We can get him at the theatre.”
“I always did admire your logic. Somehow it always justifies what you want to do.”
“Does that mean you agree with me or not?”
“It means that I know better than to argue with you. Of course we’ll tell him that we read the note.”
“Of course,” said Sara opening the envelope and taking out the single sheet of paper that it contained. The message on it, in the same hand as the address, was quite short.
“If it’s worth a hundred bucks to you to find out who burned the investigation office and copped the file,” it said, “meet me at the fountain in Washington Square at midnight tonight. Be sure and bring the money.”
It was unsigned.
“Well,” said Sara, “I’d say it was important.”
“Why? Peter’s not interested in all that. He’s said so several times.”
The Case of the Etruscan Treasure (Andrew Tillet, Sara Wiggins & Inspector Wyatt Book 5) Page 3
