Richard Jury: The Stargazey Part 23

"Did Michael McBride talk to you about this book he was writing?"

Noailles shook his head. "He didn't mention it, no."

"Would he have?"

"Would-?" Now the priest did laugh. "I'm not a mind reader, Superintendent."

"No, of course not. I'm asking if you think he felt that close to you, if you were on intimate enough terms, that he might've told you about something rather explosive, an expose of sorts, that he mightn't have mentioned to anyone else."

He thought this over, putting his hand against the window ledge, still holding the compa.s.s in his other hand. "Yes, I honestly think he would. Although he told me next to nothing about his private life, his wife, his daughter-I wasn't even aware he had a child. It just didn't come up, which might seem strange."

Jury told him, briefly, about Sophie's abduction. "Of course, none of this started until after McBride died."

"That's one of the worst stories I think I've ever heard, Superintendent."

Jury felt him to be sincere. He got up. "Thanks for seeing me, Father. I'll be in touch." He turned at the door and asked, "What did you and Michael McBride talk about?"

"G.o.d."

"For me, that's two dead ends in one day. Good-bye."

He breathed air made even colder by the rain, the storm having pa.s.sed over this particular place by now. He looked up at the night sky, at the barely visible stars, wondering again why he had come here. He hadn't expected the priest to be of much help. There was nothing new to see; nothing was going to reveal itself in the next lightning flash. The only answer he could give himself was that he felt a sense of attachment, as if something or someone were reaching out to claim him. He leaned against the stone pillar and listened to the storm already changing its random course and gathering strength elsewhere.

One alive, one dead. You sure they're not the same person?

Why did that bother him?

He stepped back from the entrance. The feeling, of the place having some claim on him, he had felt before in other places and circ.u.mstances just as strange. What it felt like was the undertow of homesickness. What was it, a sense of loss? Of what, he didn't know, only that it was something he missed.

Jury stood there in the silence, these feelings beginning to pa.s.s away like the rain. And oddly enough, painful as they were, he didn't want them to. I'm losing it, he thought; it was as if over a telephone line one heard the voice waver and get farther and farther away and finally fade out.

What he seemed to want was to get into the experience, inside it, but was kept-by what he preferred to think of as chance (the fall of the cards, the roll of the dice, the gamble) but what he feared was really his own cowardice-out.

28.

Simeon Pitt and Melrose Plant had been sitting in two of Boring's old cowhide club chairs, reading their papers, when Pitt drew Plant's attention to an item regarding the Fabricant Gallery's Siberian Snow paintings.

"Alleged paintings, I mean." Pitt directed this comment not at Melrose but at the article. "I can't imagine Sebastian Fabricant believes the stuff is art. Fabricant's always been a decent gallery. Dependable, you know, and not completely over-the-moon with their prices, either. And they've discovered more than one artist, like this Sloc.u.m. Strong influence of Turner there, but I expect that's obvious." Simeon Pitt adjusted his spectacles and shook his newspaper.

"Turner is her favorite painter."

"It's the light, the light. Listen to this, would you? Here's Jonathan Betts: 'The daring series on show at the Fabricant Gallery in Mayfair, Ralph Rees's Siberian Snow, is worth a visit, if you haven't already'-blah blah blah blah; get on with it, you idiot-'a group of paintings reminiscent of the minimalism of Robert Ryman or Newman's abstract expressionism.' What's he talking about-abstract expressionism? The man's hardly forty and in his dotage. It takes him so long to make a point he could have been a barrister." Pitt shook the paper again, as if he might loosen the print in so doing, and continued. " 'It takes considerable nerve for an artist to retain the pa.s.sionate blankness of a scene-' The what of a what?" Pitt stared at Melrose. "Have you ever been struck by 'pa.s.sionate blankness,' Mr. Plant?"

"Yes, once, but I soon recovered."

Pitt t.i.ttered and continued. " '-blankness of a scene and offer such nuances of color, such metonymy of line, such purity of s.p.a.ce.' " Pitt crackled the paper together in the middle. "If I didn't know the man had less humor in him than a bull around a red cape, I'd say he's writing all of this tongue-in-cheek. Fabricant must have friends at the paper."

"You people can be bought?"

"You're joking, of course. I've known a food critic the price of whose column was a decent meal, and a theater critic persuaded with a third-row-aisle seat."

"Ah." Melrose sighed. "How disappointing."

"Why? Do you need somebody to tell you what to like?"

Melrose smiled. "Oh, I've already someone to do that!" He spent a moment thinking about Agatha. "But you yourself, Mr. Pitt, are-or were-doing the same thing."

Pitt wobbled a reproving finger in Melrose's face. "Wrong. Wrong. I was telling you what I like. Long as I could pick up my check at week's end I didn't give a d.a.m.n what you liked. Where's that old waiter? I need a drink."

"Higgins? Right over there with Colonel Neame."

"Let's get him over here; I'd like a whisky. As I remember, you owe me one."

Melrose caught the waiter's eye and motioned him over. "I do indeed."

Pitt was smoothing out his paper. "I'm so deep into this bilgewater, I could be going down with the t.i.tanic." Pitt read silently, mouthing words, disturbed only by Higgins's creeping up between their chairs, unseen.

"Mr. Pitt, what will you have?"

"Whisky and soda."

When the old porter had slipped away like smoke, Pitt continued with his review. " 'One cannot conceive of any recent painting more daring than the flamboyant Siberian Snow.' Oh, for G.o.d's sake! Daring? Flamboyant?" Pitt dashed his paper to the floor.

Melrose rather envied Simeon Pitt. The man so enjoyed his own company. He seemed to be talking more to himself than to Melrose.

"Here's daring!" Pitt retrieved his paper. "Here's flamboyance, if that's what you're after!" Pitt was pointing a finger at Melrose as if the latter had challenged him to a flamboyance contest. The finger then took a dive to the bottom of the page. "The thief who cut this painting clean out of the frame and made off with it!"

Where had Melrose heard about this before?

"Here's an article on the Hermitage." Pitt waved the arts page. "Don't you remember? It created quite a stir last February, everybody was talking about it." He read: " '-the audacious theft of a recently acquired painting by Marc Chagall, Wingless, Wingless Angels, which has yet to be recovered. This is a double loss, as the painting was the only Chagall in the museum-' which is strange, isn't it, considering he's Russian for G.o.d's sake; don't they support their own artists?"

Oh, yes. Agatha. No wonder he hadn't remembered. It was so rare anything Agatha said would bear the fruit of further conversation. "Is this the Hermitage painting?"

Pitt nodded. He clearly enjoyed the theft of a painting more than he did the review of one. "This thief, they say, can appear and disappear like Higgins back there." He returned to the paper. "Goes by the name of Dana. Hmph! Is that a first name? Last name? Man? Woman?" Pitt shrugged. " 'Wanted in'-by G.o.d-'Argentina, Spain, Cyprus, and Cairo for grand larceny and a.s.sa.s.sination-' note they put the larceny first, ha. a.s.sa.s.sination's apparently his or her forte. Theft is a sideline." Pitt lowered the paper and heaved a sigh. "Wouldn't it be pleasant to be anonymous like that? Roving the world, picking up work locally as it comes your way for whoever'll pay the tariff? A few francs here, a few yen there, a couple of pesos, a hatful of rubles."

"Oh, I don't know. a.s.sa.s.sination, that could be a tricky business."

"Hm. Wonder how much you have to pay him. Or her. Be nifty to think it's a woman doing it. But she could only get in here on Ladies' Day!" Pitt laughed uproariously.

"How do they know it's this particular person? And as you said, it could be a woman? Dana's a pretty unis.e.x name, isn't it? There's Richard Henry Dana, the writer. There are several film actors, both women and men, whose first name is Dana."

Pitt grunted. "As to its being one person, it seems the crimes have his-or her-signature all over them." His eye fell on another piece. "Now here's something interesting. . . . Ah, thank you, sir!"

Melrose placed money on the silver tray from which the waiter had removed two whiskies and a syphon.

Young Higgins smiled his signature wintry smile, thanked Melrose, and drifted off.

Pitt returned to his plundering of the news and what he had been about to report before the porter's appearance. "Listen: All Souls Church, located in Oake Holyoake, Cornwall-' " He frowned. "Where the h.e.l.l's that? Never heard of it. Well, it's Cornwall, after all. That's so much another country I'm sure there are dozens of little places n.o.body's heard of. Anyway: "Holyoake was the scene early Sunday morning of a strange event. The body of a man dressed in a tuxedo was discovered by Miss Principia Soames when she appeared as she always does early on Sunday to tidy the church and see to the flowers. 'This church ain't used much between one Sunday and t'other, and so I expect he coulda laid here for days. Don't think I wasn't half scared, seeing him face down over there.' Here Miss Soames pointed toward the altar.

" 'All Souls is a small Tudor church,' the pastor, Reverend Brinsley, told us, going on to say it was almost derelict but that he did like to try to keep it up because 'All Souls does have one or two interesting features. Note that window over there; it could be a signed Tiffany-"'

Simeon Pitt laughed and coughed.

Melrose edged down in his wing chair. "Will they get round to the body again?"

Pitt held up his hand and read on: " '-and we've a fine example of 16th-century misericords [Pitt laughed again]. Mr. Bertram Missingham, Sheriff of Oake Holyoake-the t.i.tle is complimentary, there being no official police presence in the village-revealed: 'Crime in Oake Holyoake has never been lower in the time I've been sheriff, and that's going on to ten years now. We're a peaceful people round here, and we're twinned with a place of near the same name in south Germany called Holioke.' When asked his opinion of what had befallen the body in evening dress in the chancel, he announced that he was in no position to say. Miss Soames remarked, 'It's a job keeping drugs and such out of Oake Holyoake, but we done our best. He's a Londoner, must be mixed up with the Mafia. All I know is he drove in in his Beamer and dropped down dead.' "

Both of them, Pitt and Melrose, were laughing, both slumped in their chairs.

Melrose said, "I have a detective friend at New Scotland Yard. I think he should go to the place and investigate, don't you?"

Pitt was mopping a tear-filled eye with his handkerchief. "After he does that, he ought to investigate those paintings. Collusion, I'll bet."

"Oh?" Melrose said, to this opaque comment.

"Well, of course, Mr. Plant-" Pitt stopped; then his brow furrowed in deep thought. The way Simeon Pitt was eyeing him, Melrose might himself have been one of the parties to this conspiracy to-to what?

"Sandpaper, he said?"

"Rees's medium for painting? I think so, yes."

"You know-no! Not another word until I get a friend of mine in on this. Where's the telephone?" Pitt looked almost wildly around, as if all the phones that had been to hand had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from his grasp. "Higgins!" Pitt thumped the arm of the chair. The ancient waiter came as quickly as he could but not quickly enough. Pitt called to him to find a telephone and bring it.

"You bought one of those paintings."

"Guilty, yes."

"Could you get it?"

"You mean, have them take it down? Yes. I think Fabricant was going to take down the ones they'd sold and deliver mine here."

Higgins was back with the telephone, which he handed to Pitt, and then plugged the cord into the wall. Pitt rubbed his hands, punched in a number.

Melrose listened to one side of a cryptic conversation between Pitt and the person on the other end, someone named Jay. Pitt hung up, smiled that cat-and-cream smile, and said, "I might just go round and have a word with Fabricant."

29.

The gallery was not open on Monday to customers, but this did not apply to Scotland Yard. Opening and closing hours seldom did.

It was Sebastian, sleeves rolled up, who had seen Jury and his sergeant at the door and opened it. "You've caught us actually working. Sorry about that." He smiled broadly.

Jury returned the smile, "You've caught us at it too."

With that reply, Sebastian's smile became a rather uncertain cough, but he recovered. "I see. Well, but you chaps always are."

"Not always, sir, we do go on holiday sometimes," put in Wiggins, taking everything literally, as usual. "That's a nasty dry cough you've got there, sir."

Wiggins was introduced, and Wiggins was anxiety's antidote. More immediately, a dry cough's.

Sebastian visibly relaxed. It was difficult to throw up a defensive wall when Sergeant Wiggins was on the scene; he could dismantle it brick by brick with his concern and advice. "Don't take any of your over-the-counter medications; it's a waste of good money. Only thing for a really dry cough is lemon juice, honey, and ginger, strong as you can take it, with a little hot water to dissolve it all. But the less water, the better. Works every time." Wiggins's free advice was actually an invaluable ally-many nuggets of information had been mined belowstairs when Wiggins took a cup of tea with the kitchen staff during an investigation. Jury could do much the same thing by trying. But Wiggins could do it merely by breathing.

Sebastian led them down the hall to one of the display rooms, where Nicholas was hanging a large painting in a heavy gold-leaf frame. It was a traditional drover-with-flock-of-sheep thing, and Jury was surprised to see it in this gallery, which seemed to lean more to the avant-garde and the abstract.

Ralph Rees was in the next room, dismantling his Snow series. Having met the artist, Wiggins watched this with a deadly earnestness. One arm across his chest, his chin resting on the upright hand of the other arm, Wiggins prepared to take it all seriously. For once, though, this probably wasn't owing to the Wiggins sensibilities but to Jury's suggestion: "Don't laugh when you see them. Be dead serious."

This injunction rather surprised Wiggins, who would have found it impossible to laugh at anyone's brave attempt to paint, write, or play a musical instrument. The command was superfluous.

Now, Wiggins's somber appraisal of Ralph's Siberian Snow was all Jury could have hoped for. a.s.suredly, it was all Rees could hope for. Wiggins moved back, moved in close, moved even farther back, made a half-frame of fingers and thumb and looked at the white paintings that way, nodded and nodded his head, and made one or two throaty noises of approval. "Well, I must say, Mr. Rees, this is an interesting group. Extremely daring, isn't it?"

(Jury hoped he wouldn't fall into Plant's habit of calling it "this white lot.") When Ralph asked Wiggins, "In what way?"-a question that would have frightened the casual fraud straight off the premises-Wiggins answered, "To paint it the way it looks. Especially that one with the fallen branch-"

Jury was at a loss until he realized Wiggins was pointing to the canvas with the thin black line down in the corner. Branch?

But Ralph was merely nodding. "Everyone seems to see something different there, Sergeant."

Wiggins gave a condescending little laugh. "Some as can't tell chalk from cheese. Never mind them. When were you there?"

Jury, who had turned away to hide a smile, turned back, rather astonished. In all of his and Plant's talk about these paintings, it hadn't occurred to Jury that Ralph had been there. In Russia. It could as easily have been snow in Montana or the North Yorks.h.i.+re moors.

"Twice I was there, not in Siberia but in St. Petersburg. It's where I met the Fabricants."

Jury asked. "When were you there; that is, when last?"

Ralph calculated. "Um. Last spring. March, I think. We-Ilona-Seb-"

"Seb what?" asked Sebastian, who'd returned from the storerooms in back.

"I was just telling Mr. Jury that we'd gone to St. Petersburg. Ilona goes several times a year. Well, it's her home, isn't it?"

Sebastian agreed. "St. Petersburg's where she lives, really. In her heart, in her mind."

Jury wondered about this, given Michel Kuraukov's execution by the Cheka.

Wiggins, still thinking he'd found something in these paintings, nodded to them. "Did you paint all these when you were there?"

"Two of them I did. The others-well, I've been doing this over the last year. As you can imagine."