“Miss Manning, I want you to assemble material on the Heyward Bain print purchases Simon has arranged in New York. Get me copies of everything about the Print Museum that has appeared in the press. As soon as they are awake over there, call New York and ask for press releases, lists of prints Bain wants or wanted, lists of prints bought, anything to do with his museum.”
Miss Manning took notes rapidly, bobbing her untidy gray head. When she’d completed them she looked up, her bright brown eyes shining, her head cocked. Miss Manning resembled a West Highland terrier, and she was also temperamentally rather like one. She was fanatically loyal to Rachel, and took umbrage at anyone who slighted or abused her employer.
“Please ask Accounts to give me a list of everything the gallery has sold to Bain, with receipts, profits, and so on—they will know what I need. And call the solicitors’ office, and see if Mr. Quincy can come to see me this afternoon, or if that is not possible, tomorrow afternoon.
“Please call a locksmith and the security people. I want all the locks changed today. We’ll pay a bonus to get it done quickly. The lower floors should be on one key or set of keys, and re-issued to the staff. The locks on my private floors should have three sets of keys only—one for me, one for the housekeeper, and one for you.”
Miss Manning’s head bobbed, and Rachel continued. “I want both the big safe in the basement and the small one in my closet either replaced or the combinations changed, whatever security thinks best. Have them go over the whole place, check everything.
“I am going out on an errand. I shall go straight to the hairdresser afterwards and be home for lunch at the usual time. If you should speak to Simon, do not mention any of this to him.”
Rachel pulled on her mink-lined boots, slipped into her mink coat and settled a mink turban over her tightly braided coronet before she walked the few blocks to Simon’s flat in Mount Street. Warmly dressed as she was, she shivered in the raw November air. Among her few extravagances were furs and cashmere. She suffered the cold more every year.
She let herself into the flat, and began her search.
The combination for his small safe was, predictably, his birth date, but it contained nothing but a few pieces of the less expensive jewelry she had given him for birthdays and Christmas presents in their early years. She dropped the cufflinks and tie bars into her alligator carryall. The room-sized bedroom closet was crammed with his clothes—suits and jackets and trousers on hangers, shelves of sweaters and shirts, boxes of shoes. The closet reeked of Simon’s scent, but she found nothing unusual.
The sitting room was modern, comfortable, and brightly lit, but held little of value. She searched the desk, but she discovered nothing of interest except cancelled checks and unpaid bills, testaments to Simon’s extravagance.
The entry area closet was locked. She selected a key from her ring and opened it. When the gallery had leased the flat, Rachel had obtained a set of keys. Simon had never noticed. He was too self-involved to pay much attention to what other people did.
She flipped through the magazines stacked on the shelves. Pornography. On the floor, a basket of sex toys. Some of the clothes hanging on the bar were women’s, including a nurse’s uniform. They were all in large sizes. A trunk-like box full of cosmetics, makeup, hairpieces, and wigs.
A padlocked metal file box caught her eye. She took it into the kitchen and wrenched it open with pliers she found in a drawer.
There they were: photocopies of her summary of The Record. She dropped them in her bag and opened a small file folder underneath the photocopies. It was empty except for two sheets of lined paper with “TO DO—LONDON” in capitals at the top. In Simon’s neat handwriting was a list of planned tasks and the dates by when he expected to complete them. “Make dentist appointment, March.” “See tailor, April.” Number six on the list was “Get rid of Rachel, June.”
“Get rid of Rachel,” indeed! Did the fool think he could wrest the gallery away from her? Or did he plan to murder her? Perhaps he did. Simon had no morals, but she had assumed that his sense of self-preservation would keep his behavior within reasonable bounds. She had been wrong.
She dropped the list in her bag and, using the telephone on the desk, dialed her private number. “Miss Manning? When the locksmith comes, please accompany him to the Mount Street flat. I want those locks changed as well. I shall leave the keys to the flat with the owner of the trattoria on the corner.”
Rachel put the empty metal box inside a plastic trash can liner and dropped the bag in a rubbish bin outside a construction site a few houses down the block. After she left the flat’s keys with the obliging owner of the trattoria, she hailed a taxi. It was Monday morning, and on Mondays at eleven she had a standing appointment with Jean Claude at his hairdressing salon in Jermyn Street.
At half past one, Rachel joined Miss Manning for lunch at a small table drawn up before the fire in the sitting room. Miss Manning reported on her morning’s activities while they ate. “The locks have been changed. The keys are on your desk. The security man says there’s no need to replace the safes, but you must choose new combinations. He recommended a few other minor security measures—bars on the first floor bathroom window and the ground floor powder room window, and a chain on the delivery door. I told him to proceed. He’s recoding the alarms. You have only to choose the new codes.”
“Were you able to get material on Bain and his museum?”
“Everything is on your desk with the accounts summary. Mr. Quincy can come this evening at six, if that’s all right?”
“Yes, fine. Since Simon will spend most of his time in New York in the future, he will no longer need the flat or the country house. I have decided to sell them. You may know whom to call. If not, ask Mr. Quincy’s office. The two cars Simon keeps in the country should also be sold, and the horses. Please ask someone in Quincy’s office how best to dispose of everything. Move as quickly as possible.
“Also, I want to reduce staff to the minimum. Leave a caretaker in charge of the house and garden, and arrange for someone to take care of the horses until they are sold, but everyone else should go immediately. We should release everyone on the payroll who does not work for the gallery or for me personally. Get Accounts to work out settlements.”
Rachel had declared war. She knew it would be vicious and bloody. She would do all she could to protect the name of the gallery, but secrets would emerge. Perhaps it was time, even past time, that the truth was revealed.
Fourteen
Monday
New York
Dinah scrambled to put together the portfolio of colored woodcuts and screenprints she planned to offer Bain. She wrote an essay explaining her choices and how they fit into the history of color printmaking in the United States, and she enclosed color photocopies of each of the images.
When she handed the package to the messenger who would deliver it to Bain, she knew she’d done a good job. Now all she had to do was to wait. That was the hardest part. Luckily, she was busy with the Rist exhibition.
Dinah jumped every time the telephone rang, hoping for a call from the Print Museum. When an envelope bearing the museum’s return address arrived, her heart stopped, but it was an invitation to the opening of the Print Museum for the first Sunday evening in January. That was something to look forward to, but it didn’t relieve her tension about the possible sale to the museum.
Dinah was also anxious about the Rist opening. Suppose no one—or just a few people—came? Coleman had promised to arrive early to support her during the first half hour or so, but Dinah wouldn’t relax until the gallery was crammed with people and she could see that they liked the prints. Maybe she’d sell some at the opening—maybe even a lot. She mentally crossed her fingers.
She was thrilled when she received a letter from Ellen Carswell, accepting the prints Dinah had offered for the museum, and enclosing a handsome check.
Bethany jumped up and down, shouting “Go girl!” and when Dinah called Coleman, her co
usin said, “I told you it would be okay. You’re good at what you do.”
But Dinah didn’t tell Jonathan. He’d only rant about Bain and the Print Museum, and she didn’t want to spoil the moment.
Fifteen
Monday evening
London
When her solicitor arrived, Rachel offered him a drink, and put a tray of nuts, olives, and cheese straws on the table near his chair. She sat opposite him in front of the fire, her back erect and her head held high.
“Mr. Quincy, I recently paid far too little for a Toulouse-Lautrec poster, and the gallery profited unduly from its sale. It was tantamount to cheating the client. I wish to reimburse the person from whom I bought it. The gallery will keep neither the profits nor a commission, and will absorb the auction commission on it as well as what we originally paid for it. I should like you to draw up an agreement that the woman who sold it to me will sign, accepting the money and indemnifying the gallery. Can you do that?”
“Of course, Mrs. Ransome. When do you want it?”
“Immediately. As soon as I can arrange an appointment with the owner, I shall fly to Paris. But that is not all. I want to dismiss Simon. How can I do it?”
Quincy shook his head. “Mrs. Ransome, that would be almost impossible. Our firm drew up the agreement under the terms you specified. The only grounds you have for severing the partnership are criminal activities. You must prove he has done something illegal.”
“I think I can, after I settle the Lautrec affair. Meanwhile, I may need cash. He has not deposited funds for works sold—the Lautrec, for instance—in the gallery account. I assume the money is in his personal account in the United States. There’s a great deal of money missing for his expenses in the United States, far more than I authorized. I shall have to pay the seller for the Lautrec out of funds set aside to buy art objects. Luckily, I keep a sizable amount in that account in case I have to act swiftly, but it will leave me short.”
“If necessary, our firm will be glad to arrange bridge financing,” he said.
“Thank you. I have already begun to liquidate assets used by Simon, which he said were necessary to generate sales—entertaining prospective clients, and so on. But selling everything will take time.”
“If you’re going to sever all connections with Simon, you should also change your will,” Quincy said.
“I agree. I shall leave everything to Harvard. It is what Professor Ransome originally intended. Can you revise my will as soon as possible?”
“Certainly. Now, tell me what proof you have of Simon’s criminal activities. If it’s ironclad, he forfeits everything. His twenty percent of the Ransome Gallery reverts to you. In any case, we can claim the money in his accounts in New York, but that, too, will take time.”
“It began with the Lautrec. Last summer Simon told me an American named Bain was starting a print museum in New York. Simon said the gallery could make a great deal of money selling Bain prints for the museum. He wished to start the print business—Ransome’s has never dealt in prints—and if he had an important print to offer Bain immediately, his success was assured.”
“You helped him obtain such a work?”
“Yes. I knew of the whereabouts of a rare Lautrec poster—I had mentioned it to him long ago—and he asked me to see if the owner would sell it. He said he had researched the market, and he told me what I should pay for it. I spoke to the owner by telephone, she agreed to sell it, and I sent a courier to pick it up. I later read Simon had sold it at auction for more than ten times the amount I had given the owner. Simon arranged to have someone else sell it in that person’s name, and Simon bought it for Bain and charged Bain a fee for bidding for him. I’m not entirely sure of the legalities, but, of course, everything he did was unethical.”
“I’m not certain that’s sufficient for our purposes. It will require—”
She interrupted him. “I am also certain he has stolen four Dürers from an English museum. But before I pursue this, I must settle with the woman who sold the Lautrec to me. I called Simon when I read the story about the Lautrec, and I pointed out that both the seller and the buyer had been cheated. He replied that the gallery had made huge profits, and as I was the one who had paid so little for the print, if anyone was guilty of unethical conduct, it was I. Of course, since no money has been deposited to the gallery accounts, the gallery hasn’t made any profit—but he was right. I had no idea of the value of the print, I know nothing about the print market, and I accepted what Simon said about its value. But I could never prove it, and I should not have been so naïve.”
Rachel sipped her sherry and continued. “I have brooded about the Lautrec for weeks. When I concluded that Simon had stolen the Dürers, I made up my mind: he has to go. His actions could ruin everything I have built. Nothing must touch the gallery, or in any way affect Professor Ransome’s reputation. His integrity was unquestioned throughout his life. It must remain unimpeachable.”
“Are you certain you can prove Simon has stolen art from a museum?”
Rachel understood his doubts. Art theft was notoriously difficult to prove. Once a work was removed from a museum, and had traded in the marketplace or had been bought by a secretive collector, it was difficult to tie the theft to an individual.
“Yes, you and I will prove the theft together, but first I must settle the Lautrec matter. If the former owner of the Lautrec learns what has occurred before I talk to her, she will take legal action against me and the gallery. She will seek publicity, and she will certainly get it. I cannot allow that to happen.”
Sixteen
Tuesday evening
New York
True to her promise to arrive early, Coleman, chic in a leopard-print tunic over black leggings and black boots, was one of the first at Dinah’s opening. A waiter handed her a glass of Perrier just as Marise Von Clemmer, exquisite in a turquoise long-sleeved wool dress and silver jewelry, appeared.
“Marise, so nice to see you,” Coleman said.
“I’m glad to see you, too. I have information for you: no one named Simon Fanshawe-Davies ever attended Harvard,” Marise said.
Coleman smiled. “So he really is a phony. It’s a relief to be sure. I’d hate to think I was so wrong about him. Someday I’ll have to go to press with the print issue of ArtSmart, and till now I haven’t had anything about Simon, much less Heyward Bain.”
“You now know everything I know about Simon. I also have a tidbit for you about Bain. A child prodigy named Heyward Bain worked with Professor William Laramie at MIT. Laramie’s still there. I cannot promise that the child prodigy grew up to be the art billionaire, but it seems probable.”
Coleman wrote Laramie’s name in her notebook. “I bet that baby genius is my mystery man. Thanks, Marise. I really appreciate your help.”
“I hope it is he. While we’re speaking of mysteries, what does Dinah know about Jonathan Hathaway’s first marriage?”
Coleman had questioned Dinah about Jonathan’s former marriage and divorce, but Dinah’d been so starry-eyed, she apparently hadn’t asked him anything about it, or if she had, Jonathan had ducked her questions. “As far as I know, absolutely nothing. Why?”
“Jonathan’s dreadful sister Alice is talking about Jonathan’s past, and Dinah shouldn’t hear the gossip from a stranger. I think you should decide what to tell her. Jonathan’s marriage and divorce were a scandal, widely known in Boston, but Boston is such a closed society, the news may not have traveled to New York.
“The woman’s name was Judy something. She was a secretary at the Harvard Business School and had a lover in every class for four or five years in a row. When she became frayed around the edges, she looked around for a husband and chose Jonathan—rich, nice-looking, and naïve—and cut him out of the MBA herd like a sheepdog. He was wild about her. He married Judy while he was still at the business school because he thought she was pregnant. She wasn’t, of course. Then, I guess she couldn’t help herself and fell into bed with another MBA, a
nd he caught her.”
“Was the divorce scandalous, too?” Coleman asked.
Marise shook her head. “No, Jonathan moved to New York, and the Hathaways paid Judy off. I think she lives in California. Alice said he told his mother that any future bride would be young and innocent as Princess Diana was, and if necessary, he’d lock her up in a tower to make sure she stayed that way. He made a joke of it, but Alice thought he was halfway serious.”
“Dinah fills the bill. Her nickname in college was Sleeping Beauty. She waited a long time for her prince. She said she’d know him when she saw him. She thought college boys were clumsy and crude. I agreed with her, but after we came to New York, I tried to persuade her to go out and have a little fun, and get to know some men as friends. But Jonathan was the first man she dated.”
Coleman had been worried when Dinah decided to marry Jonathan. Dinah was so inexperienced, she had so little basis for comparison. How could she be sure Jonathan was right for her? Coleman felt responsible because she’d introduced Jonathan to Dinah. He had a great reputation as an investment banker, and she’d been thrilled when he’d backed her, but Coleman hadn’t thought of him as a prospective date. He was too serious and too Wall Street for her—boring. But Dinah had come to the celebration dinner after the deal was finalized, and it had been love at first sight for both Dinah and Jonathan.
Coleman tried to check Jonathan out, but no one in New York seemed to know him. He’d been a loner after his move to New York until he met Dinah. Jonathan fit all of Dinah’s specifications—gentlemanly, thoughtful, mature, adoring. He’d seemed perfect for her until recently, when, if Zeke was right, they’d begun to quarrel over the gallery. They’d had a long courtship—nearly three years—so Dinah had had lots of time to get to know Jonathan. But maybe you never knew a person till you’d lived with him. And theirs had been an old-fashioned and proper courtship. No living together before marriage for Dinah and Jonathan.
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