[Mark Twain Mysteries 05] - The Mysterious Strangler

by Peter J. Heck

  Capitano Rosalia snorted. “If you want to blame someone for Battista’s death. Signore Clemens, I suggest you look closer to home. If you hadn't stuck your nose into a delicate police investigation—”

  My employer flung his pipe down on the desk. “Why, you—”

  I could see that Mr. Clemens was ready to work himself up to a volcanic outburst, and I realized that was my cue to step forward. I raised my hands and said, “Gentlemen, aren’t we forgetting our purpose here? While you argue, there’s a murderer running loose. And unless you’ve forgotten. there’s a woman waiting downstairs—no doubt getting more worried by the minute. We need to tell her of Battista's fate, and to learn what she knows about the circumstances that led to his death. Are we going to snipe at each other, or shall we pull together to catch the monster who’s snuffed out two lives?”

  I found myself with both men looking at me in amazement. After a long moment in which I began to worry that I had overstepped myself, they both began to nod. At last.

  Mr. Clemens broke the silence. “Jesus. Wentworth, you’ve got more sense than either of us. Captain, my apologies— let’s put this squabbling behind us and get down to our business.”

  Capitano Rosalia bowed. “Signore Clemens, I agree. And Signore Cabot, I thank you for reminding us of our duty. Let us go fulfill it without further distractions.”

  They strode out the doorway side by side, leaving me standing openmouthed. After a moment. I followed them downstairs.

  26

  It seemed strange to be returning—yet again—to Cafe Diabelli. But everything had begun here, and so in a sense it was the logical place to end it. After pausing in the main room to place our witnesses for later retrieval, Mr. Clemens and I strode through the doors to the terrace. There sat Frank Stephens with his coterie of hangers-on. with a couple of bottles of wine open on the table and laughter in the air.

  It had occurred to me as we were riding in from Villa Viviani that we might arrive to find half our suspects missing, perhaps even out of town—after all. the police raid that had netted the stolen Raphael must by now be common knowledge. The parties to the conspiracy might already have taken flight. Then there would be no way to spring the trap. But luck was with us—or perhaps the conspirators were so arrogant that they thought, even now, that they could escape the consequences.

  Frank Stephens was the first to notice us. “Clemens!” he said, waving and beckoning. “What a pleasure to see you here! Come on over, join us—have a glass of wine.” I noticed that he did not include me in the invitation.

  Mr. Clemens and I stepped forward. “I appreciate the offer,” my employer said, “but I reckon I’ll pass on the wine so you can’t claim I’ve abused your hospitality. You aren't going to be so pleased to see me after you learn what I’m here for

  “What the devil are you talking about?” asked Stephens, still smiling. He picked up the bottle and a glass. “Come on—it isn’t everyone who gets the chance to buy a drink for Mark Twain, and I don’t mean to let it get past me.” Mr. Clemens strode over toward the table, stopping far enough back so he could take in the entire crowd in a glance. “I’m not here to cadge a drink from you, I’m here to expose a murderer—the man who killed Virginia Fleetwood. So put down the bottle. Stephens. I wouldn’t want you to drop it and spill all that wine after you hear what I’m about to say.”

  “Clemens, this is in poor taste,.” said Stephens, turning red and rising to his feet. “I’m surprised you’d think it amusing to suggest that I or one of my friends murdered my wife’s sister. No wonder your career has gone bust.”

  Mr. Clemens waved a hand. “Sit down. Stephens, I haven’t accused you yet—although I’m pretty sure you bear a share of responsibility for Virginia Fleetwood’s death. I don’t know what the law will do, but your friends have a right to know the story—the ones that weren’t in on the plot, that is.”

  “Plot?” Penelope Atwater lifted an elegant eyebrow. “Your imagination has come a long way since Tom Sawyer, but it’s not any more mature.”

  “I’ll consider that a compliment,” said Mr. Clemens. “But I want to finish my business and be gone—it leaves a bad taste in my mouth to bandy words with killers and thieves. What put me on the right track was figuring out that you stole that missing Raphael yourself—and why you did it.”

  “Be serious, man,” said Jonathan Wilson exasperatedly. “The theft was reported to the police instantly. The whole art world knows of it by now—there are telegraphs, you know. The thieves would have the devil’s time getting rid of it.”

  Stephens laughed. “Yes, are you sure you don’t work for the insurance people, Clemens? That’s the kind of nonsense I’d expect from them. Why, before I got the Raphael back, they were hinting that they wouldn’t cover my loss because I didn't have it properly guarded. What should I have done, had a squad of Pinkerton men search my dinner guests?”

  There were snickers from several of those at the table. But my employer shrugged and said. “My sympathies would be with you, there—if you weren’t trying to run a fraud.”

  “That’s twice you’ve accused me of that.” said Stephens, his face darkening. He put both hands on the table and leaned forward. “See here. I’ve been dealing in art. here in Florence and back in the States, for fifteen years, and there’s not a man alive who’ll say he got the worst of a deal with me.”

  “He’s right, Clemens.” said Jonathan Wilson. “Frank’s reputation is rock-solid; there are hundreds of collectors who’ll vouch for him. If all there is to this business is your word against his, you’re not going to make any headway.”

  “Point taken, Wilson.” said Mr. Clemens. “As long as it’s just my word against Stephens’s. I might as well go home and write my books. But in fact, I do have backing for what I say. Wentworth, would you like to bring in the lady?”

  “The lady? What nonsense is this, now?” Penelope Atwater raised her head and peered around like some watchful bird, but I was already on my way to fulfill Mr. Clemens’s instruction.

  I found Angela where we had left her, at a table in the front room of Diabelli's, drinking a glass of red wine. She looked up as I approached, and I said, “We’re ready for you, signora.”

  She drained her glass and stood. “Good,” she said. “I wait long enough for this.” I made a motion to indicate that she should lead the way, and together we went out to the terrace.

  Penelope Atwater was staring at us intently as we entered. As she saw the woman I was escorting, her nostrils contracted and she tossed her head and exclaimed. “Really! Have you taken to consulting Gypsies, Mr. Clemens?”

  Angela said something in Italian, a single staccato word I didn't understand. But Penelope Atwater did. She turned crimson, opened her mouth to say something, and evidently thought better of it. She lifted her chin as if raising it above a rising tide, and proceeded to act as if Angela were invisible.

  Mr. Clemens raised an eyebrow, but upon seeing Mrs. Atwater's response, he decided to let the unspoken remain unspoken. Instead he said, “Allow me to introduce Angela Battista: some of you know her, I believe.”

  “Oh. yes, I know her,” said Eddie Freeman. “Luigi Battista's wife, isn't she? Or perhaps not the wife—I don’t know if they were ever married.”

  “Are you a priest, that it is your business?” snapped Angela. her eyes flashing. I thought she was about to say more, but Mr. Clemens put his hand on her elbow and she turned to look at him instead.

  “Don’t let him bother you.” he said quietly. “If you start trading insults with this crowd, you’ll never get to the end of it. Just tell them what you told me last night, and that’ll be enough.”

  “I will tell what I saw. and what I know,” said Angela. She turned to face the group at the table. “Luigi, he is dead, and I come here to pay back the one who kills him.”

  There was general surprise at this revelation—the news of Battista’s death had not been made public before this. Of course, one person here knew it—the
one who had killed him. Mr. Clemens held up his hands and said. “Hold on, you’ll find out everything soon enough. Now, let the lady tell her story. Miss Angela—you were saying?”

  Angela put her hands on her hips and looked at her audience. “So,” she said. “It was how long ago?—three, four months, back before the winter comes. Luigi tells me a man asks him to paint a Raphael. Not a copy, but a new Raphael.”

  “Paint a new Raphael?” Sarah Woods laughed. “Impossible! The imposture would be obvious to any trained eye.”

  “I wish it were so simple,” said Jonathan Wilson, with a sigh. “I have told you this before, dear Sarah. Poor Raphael would have had to do nothing but paint, every day of his life, to produce even half the paintings he is credited with nowadays. There are three men I know of in Florence who can paint a Raphael good enough to deceive all but the most experienced eye.”

  “And Luigi was finest of them all,” said Angela, with obvious pride.

  “Yes, he was,” said Wilson, nodding gravely. “I fear the world lost a very talented artist when he decided that forgery paid better than honest work.”

  “I know Battista's work,” said Stephens matter-of-factly. “Everyone in the city knows it. I employed him on several occasions myself.”

  “Yes, so I understand.” said Mr. Clemens.

  “I know what you're getting at, and I deny it,” said Stephens. He shook his forefinger in the air. “It’s standard practice to make copies of masterworks. so if the original is lost, we can still get a hint of the artist's vision. Not to mention the training in technique that students get by doing the work. It's been done since painting was invented.”

  “You leave out the main reason it’s always been done,” said Mr. Clemens. ‘To make bushels of money, by selling the copy to some gullible buyer—and that's what you were going to do here, once word got out that the original was stolen “

  “I deny that.” said Stephens, glowering. “Yes, Battista could have produced a convincing Raphael pastiche, although I doubt he could have fooled anyone with my experience. His real forte was Botticelli, who’s easier to fake. There's more to it than the layman supposes. Besides, you can’t link me to this alleged forgery—Signora Angela. I was sorry to hear that Luigi had died. But do me the favor of answering one question: Did he ever say I was the man who asked him to paint this Raphael?”

  “Ciao, Signore Stephens,” the woman said, bowing her head slightly. “No. Luigi did not tell me who asked him to paint the Raphael. He did not even say whether the man was inglese or Italian.”

  Jonathan Wilson fanned himself with his hat. although the season was not yet warm—except perhaps by British standards. He looked at Mr. Clemens and said, “There’s a hole in your argument, old man. And here’s another. Only a fool would buy a painting at that price without knowing its provenance and authenticity.” he said. “That’s the first rule of collecting: Be sure of what you’re getting, because the market is full of counterfeits.”

  “Except the rules change when you think you’re buying a stolen painting.” said my employer. “Any reputable expert will turn you in if he sees the piece is stolen. And any expert who doesn’t care where the piece came from is corruptible—and therefore untrustworthy. So you can’t really be sure of what you’re getting. That’s what you were banking on. Stephens.”

  “That’s pure fiction, Clemens,” said Stephens, with a smirk. “Not bad. but then, that’s your stock in trade, isn’t it? Don’t try to sell Capitano Rosalia that story, though; he has a level head on his shoulders.”

  Mr. Clemens nodded. “Mostly he does, when he’s not following politicians' orders. Once we convinced him that the radicals didn’t steal the painting—a silly theory, but his bosses were peddling it, so he had to take it at face value—he looked at what had really happened that night. You’d told everybody that the painting was missing, but the only thing that had left the house was the frame it had been in. You had it dropped off in the cemetery to convince everybody the painting had gone with it. You hadn't counted on your sister-in-law catching your accomplice in the act—and certainly not on his luring her out to the cemetery with him.”

  Stephens picked up his glass and took a swig of Chianti before answering. “My accomplice?” he said, the smirk back on his lips. “Who is this accomplice, and why would I be going through all this hugger-mugger, to begin with?”

  “I've already answered that last question.” said Mr. Clemens. “For piles of money. The point of the swindle is that you can sell three or four copies of the same painting— maybe even more. Since the customers think they’re buying stolen goods, they won’t compare notes. And since you sell all the copies through middlemen, nobody can pin it on you if they ever do realize they’ve been swindled.”

  “You have an answer for everything,” said Stephens, still with a sneer on his lips. “Remind me again: Who was this accomplice of mine? Battista? Even Angela says she didn't hear Luigi mention my name.”

  “A very weak point in your argument,” said Mrs. Atwater. who had recovered her composure. “How do you know it wasn't some other Raphael he was hired to forge— assuming that woman didn’t concoct the entire scheme out of whole cloth?”

  “Battista was killed to keep him from talking to me.” said Mr. Clemens. “That’s a pretty good sign that there was substance to his allegations.”

  “You keep dodging the issue.” said Stephens, waving his glass, which was now empty. “Even if this ridiculous plot is real, you haven’t shown that I’m connected with it. What’s your evidence, Clemens? What’s your evidence? Not even an Italian court will convict a man on no evidence.”

  Mr. Clemens leaned his chin on his closed fist. “For a start, the police are holding two copies of that Raphael— make that at least two, they might have found some more by now—that were being offered for sale, both touted as the original. And that’s not counting the one they returned to you. You’re the only one who had the chance to get copies made.”

  “What do you mean?” said Stephens indignantly. “I barely had the painting two weeks before my party. Not even Battista could turn out a finished copy that fast, let alone two.”

  “You’ve missed a wrinkle, Clemens,” said Jonathan Wilson, his eyes gleaming. “I’ll wager that old don out in the hills ordered up those counterfeit Raphaels, from Battista or whomever else—and he had all the time in the world to get them made. Ten guineas says he took the best one and sold it to Stephens, then arranged to have it stolen back so he could sell all the copies as originals. I think Frank’s a victim of this hoax, not the perpetrator.”

  “On the face of it, that's plausible,” said Mr. Clemens. “But Rosalia’s going to have his experts evaluate that so-called original again. If it’s a fake—and I’ll bet you ten guineas it is—Stephens’s whole story falls apart. Odds are he knew it was a fake all along.”

  ‘That painting is genuine,” said Stephens, with considerable vehemence. But his face was pale.

  “Maybe it is,” said Mr. Clemens, shaking a finger. “But Angela says Battista had a whole stable of artists to turn out counterfeits for him. The stuff that wasn’t up to scratch, he sold in that shop of his—honestly labeled as fakes. But the best work was near impossible to tell from the originals, and a lot of it got sold as if it were.”

  “I’d credit that,” said Wilson. “Why, I’ve seen old masters in museums that I’m morally certain came out of his studio. Work good enough to fool even you, Frank.”

  “So Rosalia tells me,” said Mr. Clemens. “What do you want to bet that the work Battista considered too good to sell as pastiches or copies ended up in Stephens's hands— sold as original old masters?”

  “I have never in my life sold a fake,” roared Stephens, his face now red. “Anyone who claims otherwise is a liar, and I’ll tell him so to his face.”

  Bob Danvers lurched to his feet. I could tell that he’d taken on a fair amount of drink—pretty much his usual condition any time after luncheon. “Damn it, Clemens
, Frank’s taken good care of me while I’ve been over here. I won’t sit here and listen to a washed-up clown slang him. You back down from what you say, or I’ll shut you up.”

  “Show him. Bob,” said Eddie Freeman, reaching up to push his friend forward. He had a crooked grin on his face. I stared at him with disgust: any real friend would have done his best to calm Danvers down instead of inciting him. Danvers slouched forward, a menacing expression on his face. “I'll shut you up,” he repeated, his reddened eyes fixed on my employer.

  “Danvers. I'd stop right there if I were you,” I said, moving forward to interpose myself between him and Mr. Clemens. I didn’t want to fight him again; I was sick of fighting. On the other hand. I wasn't about to let him attack my employer.

  To my relief. Stephens put his hand on Danvers’ shoulder. “Come on. Bob.” he said in a quiet voice. “I appreciate your sticking up for me. but fighting Clemens isn’t going to help. Come on. old fellow, let it go.”

  “Oh. hell. I suppose you’re right.” said Danvers. Then he turned to Mr. Clemens. “You watch what you say. though, mister. I’m a reasonable fellow, but I won’t hear any more against Frank. You hear me?”

  “If you don’t want to hear it. put your fingers in your ears,” said my employer. “I’m here to tell you all: Frank Stephens may not have killed that girl himself, but her death is the direct result of what he did do: offer handfuls of money to a starving artist. It’s no surprise if a fellow who’s been living on beans goes a little crazy when he sees real money—and when he’s threatened with losing it all.”

  Stephens drew' himself erect. “This is ridiculous.” he said. “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”