by Barbara Paul
“Oh, I’m sorry. Mrs. Sommers, of course. In my mind I still associate you with Amos Speer. I’ll have to stop doing that.”
“Yes, you will,” Nedda said without inflection.
I finished the martini and put down the glass. Fidgety.
“Speer, Sommers. Names are interesting,” D’Elia was saying. “Take your first name, Mrs. Sommers. I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone named Nedda before. Was your father’s name Edward?”
“My father’s name was Philip,” Nedda said. “Both my parents were opera freaks. I was named after the heroine of Pagliacci.”
The look of sudden pleasure on D’Elia’s face surprised me; I’d momentarily forgotten he was Italian. “Oh, that Nedda!” he said with a grin. “That’s great—an operatic name.”
“Not so great,” Nedda said dryly. “You know the opera? That Nedda is faithless, she’s cruel, and she’s not very bright.” She gave the Lieutenant her cold smile. “I don’t like being named after someone who’s not very bright.”
For the first time since I’d met him, D’Elia looked at a loss. But he made a fast recovery. “Names are an important part of first impressions,” he said, “and first impressions go a long way. For instance, when Mr. Sommers walked through that door just now, I had to remind myself he’s no longer an employee of Speer Galleries but its director. I actually had to remind myself.”
“Imagine that,” Nedda said with an edge of sarcasm.
“Funny how an idea gets planted in your head and you can’t get it out.”
Enough cat and mouse. “Lieutenant,” I said, “is there something you want here?”
“Officially, no. Personally, I’m interested in what happens to Speer Galleries. How do you like your new position, Mr. Sommers?”
“I like it. Why?”
“Oh, I just thought one of the branch managers would end up as permanent director. Someone with administrative experience, you see. But of course the board had its reasons—I’m sure you’re the best man for the job. Do you know what they were?”
I stared at him. “Do I know what what were?”
“What the board’s reasons for selecting you were.”
“I was informed only that I was the new director. The board didn’t explain its reasoning processes to me.”
“But surely you must have some idea?”
It was Lieutenant D’Elia who was saying it, but it was a Lieutenant Columbo trick, pure and simple. And Columbo’s suspects all tripped themselves up by talking too much, by offering too much detail. “I don’t know,” I said.
“Now, Mr. Sommers, you’re being modest—”
“I can tell you,” Nedda interrupted. “The branch managers in London and Rome and Munich all hold their positions because of their knowledge of the European market. They’re most valuable right where they are. The only branch manager we even considered was the man running the San Francisco gallery. But we decided he’d be Peter Principled beyond his capabilities if we put him in charge. Earl was the only logical choice.”
“Process of elimination, I see,” D’Elia nodded, meaning So they worked their way down to you. The board had appointed me director because Nedda had instructed them to. I got the feeling D’Elia knew that and wanted me to know he knew it. Then he fired a real bullet: “Did the board offer you the position before or after you and Mrs. Speer decided to marry?”
Mrs. Sommers, damn you. “I don’t see that that’s any of your business.”
“As long as we have an unsolved murder on our books, Mr. Sommers, I can make it my business if I want to.”
Nedda made a sound of contempt. “Meaning you can get away with murder, Lieutenant?”
“Well, I won’t press the point—I can see it’s a sore spot.” My refusal to answer had been answer enough. “Tell me, Mr. Sommers, do you anticipate any special problems in running the galleries?”
“No. Why should I?”
“I was just wondering if it would be difficult to replace Mr. Wightman.”
Nedda’s head jerked up. “What’s that? Replace Wightman?”
“No, it won’t be any trouble at all,” I said. “How did you know about that? It happened only this morning.”
Nedda: “What happened only this morning?”
D’Elia answered her. “Mr. Wightman resigned.”
She looked at me. “Earl?”
“That’s right, he resigned. How did you find out so quickly, Lieutenant?”
D’Elia spread his hands. “Well now, Mr. Sommers, you can’t expect me to disclose all my little secrets. Our sources of information are good only so long as we protect them. But Wightman’s departure will leave a big hole, won’t it?”
“Not for long. Quite a few porcelain experts are available.”
“Glad to hear it. I hope you find a good one. Well, I’ve taken up enough of your time. Goodbye, Mrs. Sommers, and again, best wishes.”
Nedda looked him straight in the eye and did not say thank you.
I showed the Lieutenant out and came back to face an angry-looking Nedda. “Earl, why did that man come here?”
I sank down into my leather chair. “I think,” I said slowly, “I think he wanted me to know he’s keeping an eye on me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You mean he thinks you had something to do with Amos’s death?”
“Don’t see how he could,” I mused, thinking it was time to make this a team effort. “You and I both had alibis.”
“Alibis! God, that’s suspicious-sounding in itself.”
“I didn’t invent the word,” I said irritably. “How did he find out so fast about Wightman? Somebody at the gallery must be reporting to him. A spy. A spy at Speer’s. Terrific.”
“Or else the place is bugged,” Nedda said almost casually.
Bugged. I hadn’t thought of that. That took the bloom off the rose, all right—the idea of that cop listening in to everything I said …
“Earl, did Wightman resign? Or did you fire him?”
“He resigned,” I said, seeing a chance to spread a little butter. “I was planning to fire him, you know. But I decided you were right. He was too good an agent to let go just because he was a horse’s ass.”
“Why did he quit?”
“He decided to go into business for himself. He’s setting up shop in San Francisco. Leonard Wightman is now a competitor.”
Nedda was silent for a long time. Then: “Where’d he get the money?”
“What?”
“The money to start his own business. Where’d he get it? Amos once told me it was still possible to start on a shoestring when he opened his first gallery. But he said the nature of the business had changed so much in forty years that nobody could hope to make a go of it now without at least a year’s operating expenses already in the bank before the doors ever opened. Now that’s not something you just save up for, no matter how good your salary is. Somebody has to be bankrolling him.”
Maybe not, I thought with a surge of excitement. I knew another way it could have been done.
The next day I called Triangle Inquiry Consultants and arranged to have my office checked for bugs. They came after hours that night and swept both my office and June Murray’s, nothing.
I put June to work in the file room. Every negative report Wightman ever turned in, I told her, dating back to the day he first came to Speer’s. I wanted the name and address of every owner of every piece of porcelain Wightman had turned down as unworthy of display at Speer Galleries. If I could do it with furniture, he could do it with porcelain.
The list June eventually compiled ran close to three hundred names. That’s a lot of porcelain. I felt that same surge of excitement as when it first occurred to me Wightman might have been screwing Speer the same way I had been. I’d get the bastard yet. I called Triangle and asked for Valentine.
He caught on fast. “You suspect some irregularity,” he said when I told him what I wanted him to do. “He reports the porcelain is worthless and then buys it for himself
, is that it?”
“I think that’s what’s happened,” I said.
“Have you confronted Mr. Wightman with your suspicions?”
“Wightman is no longer with us. He’s gone into business for himself.”
Again he caught on. “And that takes money. I see. Mr. Sommers, I’ll need to know whether you intend to prosecute or not. Do I interview these people and find out what happened to their porcelain for your knowledge alone? Or do I go after evidence you can take to court?”
“Go after evidence,” I said grimly. “I’m going to prosecute.”
“Assuming Mr. Wightman is indeed guilty,” Valentine said cautiously. “I’ll be by this afternoon to pick up the list of names.”
I hung up and leaned back in my William and Mary chair and allowed myself the luxury of an exultation that just might be premature. But I thought not. Sending Wightman to jail would be much more satisfying than firing him could ever have been. Good thing I hadn’t given him the San Francisco branch—from the manager’s office he’d have been able to rob us blind.
The phone buzzed. “Robin Coulter says the Queen Annes are here,” June told me.
“Good girl,” I said and dropped the receiver into the cradle. I hurried down to where the chairs were being unpacked. Robin had bought a perfect set of twelve—a real find. If they were as good as she said they were.
Robin was in the packing room, needlessly overseeing the two workmen doing the uncrating. She was excited and full of electricity, her bedroom eyes giving both workmen ideas they shouldn’t be having. One of the chairs was already uncrated; I went over for a look.
Everybody likes Queen Anne style; it’s graceful and easy to identify. This Philadelphia-made Queen Anne chair had been well cared for during the approximately two hundred fifty years of its life. What a beauty. The cabriole front legs, the S-curved back posts—everything molded into perfect unity of form. Those who laugh at the notion that furniture can be art should have seen that chair. And there were eleven more like it.
Robin was hunkered down, running a hand over one curved walnut front leg. “Isn’t this a lovely patina, Earl?”
“It is indeed,” I agreed enthusiastically. Everything about the chair was lovely. Queen Anne style takes its beauty from the fluidity of its line rather than from tacked-on ornamentation. Robin’s chair had finely embroidered seat upholstery, but all the rest of the chair’s appeal lay in its subtly controlled curves. Shortened arms, to allow for the voluminous dress of the day. Vase-shaped splat in a back slightly curved to fit the human body. But what really tickled my fancy about Queen Anne style was the crest rail—the top rail of the curved frame forming the back. The Queen Anne crest rail had a little dip in it, a smaller curve to fit the nape of the neck.
That little dip didn’t last long in the American versions of Queen Anne—the fact that Robin’s chair had it helped date the set from the first half of the eighteenth century. But in the English Queen Anne chairs that were the original models for their American cousins, the small scoop in the crest rail had had a very practical purpose behind it. The early 1700s were the time of those enormous, heavy, powdered wigs that added a couple of feet to a woman’s height. The little dip in the top of the chair back was to allow the ladies to rest the weight of their wigs on the chair for a while. A chair designed to accommodate a hairstyle. Marvelous.
Robin had made a good buy. I toyed with the idea of postponing the display of the set so I could take one of the chairs home with me for a while. But Nedda had started making unfunny little jokes about our having to move out soon to make room for all the chairs.
“Congratulations, Robin,” I told her. “You’ve pulled off something of a coup. We’ll display them immediately.”
“I know Sotheby’s is interested,” she said with a pleased smile.
“I’ll bet they are,” I laughed. “No, we’ll deal with the museums on this one. I’ll start the wheels rolling.”
Then I gave her a congratulatory little hug, which she slipped out of a lot faster than she needed to.
Wightman’s high-handed departure caused me trouble—just as he’d meant it to. It took me a full month to find a replacement and even then I’d had to settle for a second-stringer whose expertise was nothing to write home about. But I could always fire him as soon as I found someone better.
By the time I’d put my new porcelain “expert” to work, Valentine had a report for me.
“I’m sorry this is taking so long, Mr. Sommers,” said the ever-courteous detective as he sat down across the cherry-wood table from me. “I’ve run into a number of snags. But you were right about Mr. Wightman. He was buying porcelain for himself.”
“I knew it,” I breathed.
“I’m only halfway through the list of names you gave me,” Valentine said. “I’ve contacted a hundred forty of them. Of that number, thirty-seven said Mr. Wightman told them Speer’s was not interested in what they had to sell and then called back a week later and offered to buy the porcelain himself. That was his pattern—first a no, then wait a week for them to feel the full weight of their disappointment, then a yes. The amounts he paid ranged from one hundred dollars to eight hundred dollars.”
“Are these people willing to testify?”
“Direct testimony may not be necessary. Thirty of the thirty-seven have signed statements—they’re in this folder.”
“Why wouldn’t the other seven sign?”
“General reluctance to sign anything of a legal nature—afraid they’d cause trouble for themselves. That’s one of the snags I mentioned. The other is trying to trace people who’ve moved out of the Pittsburgh area. But thirty statements, Mr. Sommers—that’s enough to go to court with. One or two examples of under-the-table deals can be explained away. But thirty—well, that establishes a pattern of intent to defraud. You’ll want to consult your attorney, but I’m sure he’ll tell you you have enough evidence to start legal proceedings. I don’t think you’ll need to contact the rest of the people on this list.”
“All of them,” I said stubbornly. “I want to know exactly how much that bastard cheated us out of.”
Valentine gave me a look that said It’s your money but answered, “Certainly, if you wish. Would you like weekly reports from now on?”
I told him that would be fine. When he’d left, I had June photocopy the thirty statements Valentine had brought in and deliver them to Peg McAllister.
It took Peg exactly ten minutes. She came bursting into my office, her eyes big and her mouth open. “What are you going to do, Earl?”
“Prosecute,” I said calmly. “There’ll be more evidence to come, but I want you to get started on it.”
She sank down on a chair and moaned. “That’s absolutely the worst thing you could do. You’ve been in this business long enough to know you don’t advertise a thing like this. A dealer’s livelihood depends upon his reputation. When one of your agents indulges in a little duplicity, you just get rid of him as quickly and quietly as possible.”
“A little duplicity! That asshole has been stealing from us steadily for ten years. You want him to get away with it?”
“Earl, you’re letting your dislike of the man override your better judgment. Stop and think. Once you bring this out in the open, everyone who’s ever had any dealings with Wightman is going to start having second thoughts. We may be on the wrong end of a few lawsuits ourselves. You’ve already had this detective out talking to people—just asking questions is enough to start them wondering. What do you suppose they’re thinking about now? They’re thinking about how much they can gouge out of Speer Galleries, that’s what they’re thinking about.”
“We’re not liable for what Wightman did on his own.”
“The hell we aren’t. We sent him—he was accepted by those people as our agent, acting for us. We can prosecute Wightman if we want to, but the people he cheated can sue the pants off us.”
Damn. This wasn’t going to be as tidy as I thought. “All right, mak
e a legal-type suggestion.”
“Get hold of Wightman. Tell him what you’ve got on him. Offer to buy the porcelain for exactly what he paid for it. Then make reparation to the people he cheated and go on and sell the stuff for what it’s really worth.”
“Oh, hell, Peg, you don’t think he still has the porcelain, do you? Where do you think he got the money to go into business for himself?”
She nodded, accepting it. “Then give him the chance to make reparation himself. Anything to keep Speer’s name clean. And call off that damned detective!”
Peg kept on in the same vein for another ten or fifteen minutes. Finally I told her I’d have to think about it and shooed her out. Damn. Damn, damn, damn! This wasn’t going the way I wanted at all. I finally had the goods on that horse-faced Englishman and I couldn’t do a blooming thing about it. If we could intimidate him into paying a fair price for the porcelain he’d finagled—well, that might do it. He’d go bankrupt trying to come up with all that money at once. But what did we have to threaten him with? Wightman might be willing to gamble that we’d never risk prosecuting him.
Buzz, buzz. “A Mr. Bates on line one,” June said.
“Who?”
“Charles Bates. He says he’s an old buddy of yours.”
Charlie Bates. I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry.
“Are you there?” June asked.
“I’ll take it.” I pressed the button numbered one. “Charlie?”
“Hey, Earl, old buddy!” came that nauseatingly familiar voice. “Long time no see! Hey, you really hit it big, didn’t you, buddy?”
My breath was short. “How are you, Charlie?”
“Couldn’t be better.” He laughed. “Bet you never thought you’d hear that!”
“I’ve been wondering where you were, Charlie.”
An even bigger laugh. “Yeah, I bet! Hey, buddy, I wanna talk to you. Can you get away?”
“Now?”
“No time like the present.”
“Well, I have an appointment—”
“Cancel it. Meet me in an hour. By the yaks.”
“Where?”
“By the yaks, the yaks. You know—the yaks in the zoo? Where we met that other time? Remember?”