“I’m sure,” Kek said sympathetically.
“But he wasn’t here. Of course,” Waldeck added, “if my father had handled things properly years ago, our money wouldn’t be tied up in Belgian francs now.” He dropped the matter as being unproductive at the moment. “As for your scheme, it does have one slight disadvantage that I see. It places me a bit more in your hands—toward the end, that is—than I really care to be.”
“That’s quite true,” Kek admitted, since it was perfectly true and both men were well aware of it. “Still,” he went on quietly, “there really isn’t any other way to do it. You quite obviously can’t be both here and there at the same time. And with that much money involved I very much doubt—and I’m quite serious about this—that you could trust anyone as much as you could me. If you really checked my credentials as thoroughly as you claim.”
His gray eyes hardened slightly as he continued.
“You are an intelligent man, M’sieu Waldeck. My scheme will work, and you know it. Should you try and work it on your own, with another partner, I should be quite upset, and I somehow doubt the success of the plan in that case. I know that throwing a wrench into the plan wouldn’t help me, but unfortunately, I have a bad habit. I don’t like my ideas stolen.”
Vries Waldeck was merely watching him without expression.
“Besides,” Huuygens said, relaxing, his smile robbing his previous statement of any threat of maliciousness, “if I were to cheat you, I could easily end up in jail for stealing. And among other things, that would most certainly affect my application for citizenship, which I consider important.” He shrugged. “On the other hand, if I didn’t cheat you, I end up with a million dollars with no trouble.”
Vries Waldeck studied the calm, strong face across from him for several minutes and then pushed himself to his feet with a sigh.
“Well, we shall certainly have to think about it,” he said slowly, softly, almost to himself. “Yes, we shall certainly have to think about it.” He moved toward the dining room, his face locked in a frown, and then suddenly realized he had left his guest behind. He turned instantly, his smile the automatic grimace of the host, his thoughts miles away.
“I’m sorry. Shall we eat?”
6
“Darling,” Lisa said with a faint frown, laying aside the script she had been reading, “would you please stop that incessant pacing? This script is bad enough without my trying to read it while you do an imitation of a tiger in a cage! You are going to wear out Willi’s nice carpet. And you are also making me very nervous. Please?”
“Yes, sweet,” Kek said absentmindedly. He glared resentfully at the telephone and resumed his marching up and down. Two days! Certainly there wasn’t anything in the scheme he had proposed to Waldeck that required two days to decide on! If the blond man was thinking of trying the scheme alone; if he was under the impression—
“Darling! You didn’t hear a word I said before, did you? You’re still pacing!”
“Sorry,” Kek said abruptly, and dropped into a chair within easy sight of the telephone, glaring through the doorway at the instrument as if its failure to ring were at least partially its own fault.
Lisa studied his black expression critically, one finger holding her place in the new script.
“And you know, darling,” she remarked thoughtfully, “you haven’t had that smug look lately.”
“Haven’t I? No, I expect I haven’t.” Kek started to come to his feet and then fell back into the chair again. His hand unconsciously found and lit a cigarette; he snapped the match in his hand and tossed it toward the ashtray. “Damn! Two days! Do you suppose—” He suddenly seemed to realize he had been voicing his thoughts aloud, and he cut the sentence off almost in mid-word.
“Do I suppose what, darling?” Lisa was looking at him wide-eyed.
“Nothing, Lisa. Nothing at all.”
Lisa bent down, setting the script aside altogether, laying it face down on the floor beside her with a grimace for its poor quality. She took a bonbon from the box beside her chair, unwrapped it, popped it into her mouth, and licked her fingers daintily. She chewed it appreciatively, swallowed, and then brought her attention back to the matter at hand.
“Do you mean, Do I suppose that M’sieu Vries Waldeck has decided that even the teensy-weensy dangers in your scheme were just too much for a nervous little man like him?” She considered a moment. “Though he really isn’t so little, is he?”
Kek stared, eyes wide. He discovered his mouth had fallen open and instantly closed it. It normally took a great deal to disturb the aplomb of the very self-assured Kek Huuygens, but his lovely but slightly scatterbrained Lisa had just done it, and seemingly without effort.
“What in the devil are you talking about?”
“Or,” Lisa continued, her voice slightly curious, as if she would seriously like to know, “do you mean, Do I suppose that M’sieu Waldeck felt the scheme was an excellent one—which I agree it is, and I congratulate you on it, darling—but he felt he could find someone who would work with him on it for far less than the million-dollar fee you asked?” She smiled at him proudly. “It really was a lot of money to ask for, darling, but I do think it was worth it.”
“Lisa!” Kek sat straighter in his chair. His voice took on a dangerous tone. “How in the devil did you—” He stopped abruptly. “Do you mind explaining what you’re talking about?”
Lisa slipped off her shoes and tucked her feet under her in the large easy chair, prepared for a lengthy conversation.
“My darling Kek Huuygens,” she said with a quiet, almost superior smile, “did you honestly believe I thought you were an art appraiser? I don’t know a great many art appraisers—to be truthful, I know only one—and he isn’t the least bit like you. I know if an author put one on the stage with me—one like you, I mean—I would insist on a complete rewrite!”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“I mean you’re nothing like a real art appraiser, darling. Not that you don’t know art, because I know you do, but the profession as a profession isn’t anywhere near as secretive as you make it. I have an uncle, you see, who is the one appraiser I know, and he works for The Hague Gallery, and he’s a little fat old man with rheumy eyes and an awfully big belly, and horribly pompous. He’s forever telling anyone who will listen about his discoveries; both the genuine paintings he uncovers—which he does with considerable aggressiveness, as if people were denying his word”—Lisa dropped her voice to an approximation of her uncle’s—“and the fakes he finds, which he tells us about with a good deal of glee.” Her voice had gone back up.
Despite himself, Kek had to smile. His Lisa never ceased to surprise.
“So you believe you have unmasked me as a non-art-appraiser simply because I’m neither rheumy-eyed, big-bellied, nor pompous?” He smiled at her. “Or simply because I’m not your uncle?”
“You’re pompous to a degree in your own way, darling,” Lisa said. She tilted her head to one side, considering him. “And I’m really quite pleased that you’re my husband and not my uncle. No; what really unmasked you was that my uncle dotes on publicity, and you shun it. And he travels very little and when he does he announces it weeks in advance, and you come and go with practically no notice, and keep it all very secret.”
“And on this extremely scientific basis, you have become convinced that my being an art appraiser has to be a pose.”
Lisa smiled at him. “That, and, of course, my conversation with M’sieu Vries Waldeck …”
“I see.” Kek’s smile had disappeared; there was a hardness in his gray eyes that Lisa had never seen before, but which she had long since suspected could appear. It was one of the things that made Kek so attractive to her. “But tell me something, Lisa: how does my failure to meet the rigid qualifications for art appraising as set forth by your odious uncle explain why you went to Vries Waldeck and inquired into my private affairs?”
“Because I was curious, of course,
darling.” Lisa’s tone rebuked him for being dense. “Incidentally, he took me to a lovely restaurant, the Chambord. They have a Green Room and a Blue Room—”
“I know the Chambord.”
“—and he had to take me there because his club, you see, is limited to men. Don’t ask me why.”
“Probably,” Kek suggested with a touch of honest asperity, “because there has to be at least one place in this world where a man can go to escape a woman’s curiosity. And just what did he tell you?”
“A thousand fascinating things about you, darling. And all about the scheme of yours, of course.”
“And just why did he tell you?”
“Because he wanted my opinion, of course. M’sieu Waldeck is a Walloon, and I’m Walloon on my father’s side, and we Walloons have a tendency to be quite knowledgeable where money is concerned. Or possibly, appreciative would be a better word.” She smiled at him pleasantly.
“I see. And just what was your opinion?”
“But I already told you, darling. I thought your scheme was simply wonderful.” She hesitated momentarily, a tiny frown crossing her pure brow. “Of course there were several things I thought might be improved. Little things,” she hastened to add. “Minor things, but still …”
“Oh?” Kek tried his best to invest his tone with scathing sarcasm but discovered, as so many had before him, that it is practically impossible with one syllable.
“Yes. And M’sieu Waldeck agreed with me. The question of safety boxes, for example. I thought that a safe at home would be much better. Once the money is paid and divided a safe-deposit box might be better, but at the beginning …” She allowed it to trail off.
“Anything else?”
“Yes; the question of an office. A needless expense, darling. And a secretary—I’m quite capable of typing a few letters—”
“In English?” Kek asked, now allowing his sarcasm full rein.
“But why would they have to be in English? They would only have to be translated when they got to Brussels. Actually, French would be much more logical.”
It was true. Kek bit his lip. “Go on.”
“That’s really all, darling. As I said, only very minor points. M’sieu Waldeck—” The telephone suddenly shrilled from the hallway. Lisa swung her stockinged feet to the floor, forestalling Kek from arising. “I’ll get it, darling.” She padded silently into the hall and picked up the telephone.
“Hello? Oh, hello, M’sieu Waldeck.” Her hand came up abruptly to hold an impatient Kek in place. “No; I’m sorry but he isn’t here at the moment. But I’ll be happy to give him your message. What? I’m quite sure it will be fine. He’ll be there at twelve sharp tomorrow. And M’sieu Waldeck—” There was a moment’s pause; she cupped the receiver and winked at Kek broadly. “—Vries, then—I want to thank you for a lovely time yesterday. The flowers on the table were particularly thoughtful. How you ever discovered roses were my favorite, I shall never know. Fortunately I’m not a curious woman, so I shall allow you your secret and not even attempt to find out.” She made a moue at Kek and then blew him a kiss. “Of course, M’sieu—I mean, Vries. Thank you again. I hope so, too. Good-bye …”
She hung up with an elfin grin and padded back into the living room, bending over Kek in his chair, and tenderly kissing his cheek.
“At his club, darling, lunch, tomorrow.” Her smile, Kek noted, had that touch of smugness she always seemed to criticize in him. “Just to settle the final details, M’sieu Waldeck explained. We’ll be sailing—first class, incidentally—on Saturday morning at ten o’clock, for your—our—adopted country.”
Kek stared at her. “Waldeck—Vries to you—said that?”
“No, darling,” Lisa said airily, and slipped down into the chair with him. Kek willingly slid over, accommodating her lush body but not so much as to not enjoy its soft contact. “I said that. I stopped downtown after lunch yesterday and arranged our passage on the Ile de France.”
Kew smiled at her. “You were that sure?”
She kissed his cheek. “Let’s say I had a feeling. Anyway, we sail from Le Havre at nine in the morning, which means we’ll either have to leave here the evening before and practically spend the night on trains, or else give up Willi’s apartment a day earlier and stay in a hotel there the night before …”
They actually sailed on the following Tuesday rather than on the Saturday; at noon sharp rather than at ten A.M.; from Rotterdam rather than from Le Havre; and on the S.S. Nieuw Amsterdam of the Holland Line rather than the Ile de France.
“You’re just changing everything about to try and prove your masculine superiority,” Lisa said with a pout. “You know perfectly well that my arrangements were excellent.”
“But, my sweet,” Kek explained. “The food! It’s much better on the Dutch ships. It’s true, you know.”
“Kek Huuygens! You’re about as Dutch as I am! Less, actually. At least my mother was Flemish!”
“Then you should be in complete agreement,” Kek said. “And also, of course, I happen to have a dinner engagement on Monday in The Hague. Not”—he added with a twinkle in his eye—“with your fat uncle, the rheumy-eyed but noted art appraiser of the gallery there.”
“Nor with a woman, I hope.” It was said dangerously.
“No, sweet. Actually, with an old friend—male, I assure you—from Switzerland.”
“His name?”
“I forget,” Kek said, and smiled.
Lisa clenched her jaw. “Am I invited?”
“You are not, my sweet.” Kek’s smile turned tender. “I insist on having some secrets from my wife. I consider it essential to a successful marriage. Fortunately, I heard you telling our mentor, M’sieu Waldeck, that you are not the curious type, so I don’t even have to worry about that.”
“Kek Huuygens, don’t be cute!” Lisa clamped her mouth closed on her next words, bringing out her best histrionic talent, but it echoed hollowly at best. “You know, darling, at times you can be difficult,” she said, forcing her voice to be even, but the true state of her emotions was demonstrated by the violence with which she attacked the last of her packing.
“Thank you, dear,” Kek said gratefully.
He made it sound as if he had managed, after the four months of their marriage, to finally eke a compliment from his wife.
The first evening out of Rotterdam, well past the Hook of Holland and out into the choppy waters of the North Sea, did much to convince Lisa that at least one part of Kek’s alleged excuse for choosing the Nieuw Amsterdam was true. The food was exceptional, the wine superb, and Lisa—whose metabolism permitted her healthy Walloon appetite to be satisfied without changing her lovely figure—did full justice to the menu. They had a Dutch gin after their meal, and the waiter, overjoyed with the obvious appreciation of the cuisine, brought out the head chef to share in the glory. This worthy’s delight in meeting and pleasing the famous Mlle. Lisa Nieuport, whom he had once had the pleasure of seeing on the stage of the Odéon in Amsterdam, seemed to augur well for their culinary care throughout the journey.
Nor was the head chef (or the waiter) alone in his admiration. The captain, a man who hated the ritual of his evening roundtable and distrusted all those changing faces that partook of it, made a point of inviting M’sieu Huuygens and his beauteous wife to his table twice—each time seating Lisa to his left and Kek beside some Holland Line director’s wife, usually at the foot of the table, if roundtables can be said to have feet. All in all, it was everything that a traveling lady could desire.
Lisa also soon discovered that on the smaller Nieuw Amsterdam—smaller, that is, than the originally proposed Ile de France—her reputation made her much more of an attraction, even to the average passenger. Each morning after a delightful breakfast in their cabin, she held court in the main lounge, while Kek either played shuffleboard on the enclosed Promenade Deck, or read, or explored the ship in the company of one of the engineers. In the afternoon Lisa and Kek usually played bridge, almost
always with a young couple they had met aboard and admired—Peter and Emy Van der Mol, newlyweds from Eindhoven on their way to Florida in the United States for their honeymoon. Their evenings were also frequently spent in company with the Van der Mols, although the ship’s officers usually joined them to share Lisa and Emy for dancing purposes.
Despite the lateness of the season and their curving course across the North Atlantic, the trip was most pleasant. The sea remained unusually calm for November in those latitudes, and the sun marched across the brilliant blue of a cloudless sky. Only those brave souls who ventured to the upper boat decks, above the protected Promenade level, discovered the biting sting of the arctic air. Lisa found herself quite happy that Kek had changed their sailing plans, and even the incident of the meerschaum pipe failed to disturb her for any length of time. Or at least failed to serve as a point of argument for very long.
It was on the third day at sea that Kek appeared at the bridge table in the lounge sporting a new and deeply curved meerschaum pipe. Lisa had been waiting for the Van der Mols and Kek, sitting alone at the table, idly shuffling a new deck of cards as she waited. She looked up at his approach and then frowned incredulously.
“What in the world is that?”
“What in the world is what, sweet?”
“That hideous thing in your mouth that—incidentally—makes your speech practically unintelligible, darling.”
“Hideous?” Kek removed the pipe from his mouth in order to allow the full force of his righteous indignation to be projected. “It’s the best pipe they had in the entire ship’s stores. If I told you what it cost, your Walloonian sense of values would appreciate it, if only for that! It has a little silver cap hinged to the bowl,” he went on, and touched it with his forefinger to demonstrate, “that makes it much safer on deck than cigarettes. Less ash blowing about, to get into people’s eyes, or to burn up the ship …”
Whirligig Page 10