Restrike

by Reba White Williams

  “Yes, it was folly, but understandable. Never mind, I am sure they will be returned. But not unmarked, I fear,” Rachel said in a quiet aside to Quincy. “I suspect the new ‘owner’ will have stamped them.”

  Mrs. Ketcham returned with a large suitcase, a pair of gray suede gloves, and a tapestry carryall. She donned the gloves, put the folio in the suitcase, and set the suitcase by the door. She opened the tapestry bag. “The ledger and the pictures are in here. Here is the latest picture.” She handed a Polaroid to Rachel, who held it out to Quincy.

  He stared at it. “It’s you and me. Where was it taken? The window above the door?”

  “Yes. Mrs. Ketcham took the photograph before she opened the door. It is part of the security system she and I devised for the Baldorean. Mrs. Ketcham keeps a guest list with all the names of those who visit here, the dates, how long they are here, what they asked to see. Each guest must sign a register. But as it is easy to use a false name and produce false identification, she also photographs visitors.

  “We shall look at the photos of everyone who was here in the last year,” she said, accepting a small stack of Polaroids from Mrs. Ketcham and running quickly through them. “Thank you. Yes, here is Simon,” she said to Quincy, passing a photo to him. “Disguised, but clearly recognizable if you know what to look for.” The bearded figure in the photograph wore horn-rimmed glasses, and long dark hair partly obscured his face.

  Quincy shook his head. “I’d never have known that was Simon. In fact, I don’t recognize him even now that you’ve identified him,” he said.

  They looked at the name written on the back of the photo: “Ravenscroft” in Mrs. Ketcham’s writing. “I took the name from the register, of course,” she said.

  “The shape of that long boney head is unmistakable,” Rachel said.

  “Well, I suppose the use of the name Ravenscroft settles it. Very few people know that was your name,” Quincy said.

  “I noticed the name when he signed the register, but I didn’t recognize him,” Mrs. Ketcham said. “He wore jeans, an American sort of pullover, and a cap. He spoke with an American accent. I only saw Simon twice, and his clothes were so splendid, one hardly noticed anything else, except his fair hair, his beautiful teeth, and his Oxbridge accent.”

  Rachel turned the pages of the guest register. “I am sure he did not expect anyone to notice for a long time that the Dürers were missing. He tried to implicate me by using my name: he signed the register ‘R. Ravenscroft.’ Is there anything else can you tell us, Mrs. Ketcham? He did ask to see the Dürers?”

  “He did, and no one has asked to see them since he was here. He,” she spoke softly now, and nodded toward the old man, “said he’d checked them when he put the portfolio away. I photographed ‘Ravenscroft’s’ car and the registration plate, as I always do.” Mrs. Ketcham handed another Polaroid to Rachel.

  “It is a rental car—look at the plates. Perhaps he rented it at Heathrow—it is the logical place. He may have rented it in his own name, even charged it to the gallery. He would have been confident no one would check. That should be easy to determine,” Rachel said. She turned to Quincy. “Will you handle whatever needs to be done to prosecute him? Get in touch with the authorities? And Lord Gresham? Someone will have to call this man Bain. Will you do that as well?”

  “Certainly. I think we should start back to London now, don’t you? We have quite a lot to do.”

  Twenty-Six

  Monday

  New York

  Jonathan’s first call of the day was to the Hathaway law firm in New York. He spoke to one of the young lawyers assigned to look after his family’s interests, and outlined the facts as he knew them: the deaths of Jimmy La Grange and Chick O’Reilly; the notes Coleman had found in Chick’s office; the possibility that Chick’s murder might have been related to his investigation for ArtSmart, a magazine owned and run by his wife’s cousin. He added that Jimmy La Grange might be connected to a possible art fraud involving a Rembrandt print bought for the Print Museum. “What should we do? Tell the police? And if so, which police?”

  “As I understand it, you have no proof that this Rembrandt is not what it’s supposed to be?” the lawyer said.

  “No, we’re trying to get more information, but we don’t have anything yet.”

  “I’m not sure you have anything that will interest the police, and they might resent your interference. I think you should talk to Robert Mondelli, an attorney who specializes in art crime. Why don’t I telephone him, and tell him who you are, and that you’ll be calling him?”

  “I don’t understand why I should talk to this Mondelli. Explain how he can help us.”

  “He can evaluate what you and your wife and her cousin have discovered and tell you the likely police response to your information. He’ll know what you’d need to build a stronger case, and he can help find missing information, if that’s what you want. He can be your liaison with the police—find out what they’re doing, what they think. And he’ll be able to provide the three of you with protection around any legal issue, should that become necessary. The situation sounds as if it could get nasty. I’d advise you to try to avoid becoming directly—or publicly—involved.”

  “I agree with that. Okay, call Mondelli, and tell him I’ll be in touch later today or tomorrow.”

  It was time for Jonathan’s daily call on the researcher working on the Bain question. She was a bespectacled waif-like little creature, and one of the best fact-finders he’d ever met. When he walked into the library, she looked up and smiled. “I was just going to phone you. I’ve checked everywhere, done everything I can think of, but this is all I can find. It’s not much.” She handed him a flimsy piece of paper covered in faded print.

  “What does it say?” he asked, squinting at it.

  “It’s a copy made from microfilm of an article in an education magazine about child prodigies who studied at MIT about thirty years ago. One of the children mentioned is a Heyward Bain. I can’t be sure this is your man, but the age is right and it’s an uncommon name. The professor cited in the article is a Dr. William Laramie. He’s still at MIT, and probably worth talking to.”

  “Great! You may have uncovered the only thing in print about Bain.” Jonathan rushed off, resolving to send the researcher flowers and to write Human Resources a note about her good work.

  A few minutes later, he spoke to a Hathaway lawyer in Boston, explaining that he wanted an appointment with Laramie today. “Make up a reason if you have to. I don’t care what you say, but don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. We’ll pay for his time. Call me back as soon as it’s arranged.”

  Jonathan leaned back in his chair and smiled. At last, a clue to Heyward Bain’s past. Jonathan was certain that Bain and his activities lay at the heart of everything wrong that had happened in the print world since October. Even his marital problems began with Dinah’s attitude towards Bain. If he could unmask Bain, all of the other pieces of the puzzle would fall into place, and Dinah would come home and be herself again.

  The phone rang, and Jonathan grabbed it. “Yes?”

  “You have an appointment with Professor Laramie at four o’clock this afternoon, Mr. Hathaway. No excuse was necessary, nor any compensation. Laramie is a garrulous chap. He’ll talk your ear off. The Hathaway name is well known in Boston. He sounded flattered that you want to meet with him.”

  Dinah, digging away in the little library in the apartment on Cornelia Street, had learned that many of Rembrandt’s plates survived, and Rembrandt restrikes had been published as early as 1785, a hundred years or so after the artist’s death. The quality of the impressions was poor.

  In 1957, a Rembrandt expert, W. R. Valentiner—not Valentine, as she’d thought—had examined all of the surviving plates he could locate, but the plates that interested Dinah weren’t among them. A 1983 article by Walter Strauss declared that only about a third of Rembrandt’s plates had been accounted for.

  Finally, in a piece written
by Dr. Jane Parker, chief curator at the Harnett College Museum in Myrtle, Virginia, Dinah struck gold. Parker described the discovery of a group of previously lost plates by Rembrandt, including not only the plate Sleeping Kitten, but also Shells and Winter Landscape, the other two Rembrandt prints on Simon’s list. The plates, a recent legacy to the Harnett, were in excellent condition.

  Dinah phoned Coleman to bring her up to date. “Do you think I should call the Harnett and ask if the plate is where it should be?”

  “We’ll go there,” Coleman decided. “I’m afraid we won’t learn anything if we try to do it by phone. If the plate is missing, they might not admit it. I’ll call Dr. Parker, and we’ll fly down tomorrow, if she’ll see us. I’ll make the plane reservations and call you back as soon as we’re set.”

  When Dinah went downstairs to the gallery, Bethany gave her a message from Jonathan: he’d gone to Boston, and would phone her tonight, but probably not until eight or later. Good. Maybe she and Coleman could have dinner without Jonathan turning up and scaring them half to death. She was still furious with him. She needed more time to cool off.

  Twenty-Seven

  Monday afternoon

  Zeke and Bethany peered through the window of the Spy Shop on West Fourth Street. The space was small, and the glass cabinets were crammed with unfamiliar-looking equipment. A short gray-haired man, red-faced and fat, stood behind the counter, looking at catalogs.

  A bell rang when Zeke opened the door, and they could see themselves on a television set on the wall. Zeke thought the security seemed excessive, until he looked at the price tags. Wow. Expensive.

  “We’re interested in checking an office for listening devices,” he said to the fat man, who wore a “My name is Pete” tag.

  “I can do that for you,” Pete said. “My minimum fee is twenty-five hundred dollars.”

  “We were thinkin’ of doin’ it ourselves,” Bethany said.

  “Who d’ya think is bugging you? The Feds or the state?”

  “Uh—private,” Zeke said.

  Pete shook his head. “I wouldn’t advise doing it yourself. To get the job done right, you need a pro.”

  “Can we rent equipment?” Bethany asked.

  “No, ma’am, we don’t rent. The equipment’s valuable, and people would ruin it.”

  “How much is the cheapest device?” Zeke asked.

  “The best one is seven fifty. It vibrates so you can tell when someone you’re talking to is wearing a wire without him knowing it.”

  “I just want to check an office,” Zeke repeated.

  “We got something here for five hundred,” Pete said. He took an instrument that looked like a cell phone out of the case. “It don’t vibrate—lights up when you get near a bug. It’ll do okay, but I don’t advise it.”

  “I’ll take it,” Zeke said, and pulled out his wallet. He could hardly wait to get out of the place. The Spy Shop was hot and claustrophobic, and Pete reeked of alcohol. Maybe being a spy or spy detector drove a person to drink. Zeke was pretty sure today’s spying would be a one-time thing, thank goodness.

  Twenty-Eight

  Monday afternoon

  Boston

  Jonathan, seething, sat in a chair by Laramie’s cluttered desk. Laramie was a talker, and while he talked, he chain-smoked. The window was closed, and the air was nearly unbreathable. Jonathan had rarely been so uncomfortable. Worse, he couldn’t get the man to focus on Heyward Bain. Laramie had told him in great detail a lot about child prodigies, but nothing about Bain. Finally, Jonathan interrupted, speaking loudly. Laramie was forced to either shut up, or shout.

  “That’s fascinating, Dr. Laramie, but I have to get back to New York,” Jonathan said, looking at his watch. “I want to hear about Heyward Bain. He was a student of yours, wasn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes, he certainly was.” Laramie lit another cigarette, and stared at the papers on his desk. Now that the topic that interested Jonathan had been broached, the man had nothing to say.

  “What can you tell me about him?” Jonathan asked.

  “He was one of the most brilliant kids I’ve ever encountered, but he didn’t remain in the program long.” Laramie stared at his cigarette, tapping it against the side of the overflowing ashtray on his desk.

  Getting information out of Laramie was like pulling teeth. “Why was that?”

  “As you see, I’m a smoker, and Heyward Bain was phobic on the topic of smoking. He said he couldn’t stay around anyone who smoked the way I did.”

  “Oh, I see,” Jonathan said. He could identify with that. He was suffocating after less than an hour in Laramie’s company. Now he knew why Laramie was so unforthcoming about Bain: his addiction to tobacco had cost MIT a promising student. “What else can you tell me about him?”

  “None of us knew what his real name was. He might have been an orphan—at least, when he came here, he didn’t come with his parents, or any relative. He’s white, as you probably know, but he lived with an African American couple. The man drove him here every day, and I exchanged a few words with him. I saw the woman from a distance. The man told someone they’d been living in Washington—”

  Jonathan leaned forward. Maybe this was it. Washington was a cesspool. The roots of almost everything wrong in the USA were in Washington. “Washington, DC?”

  “Yes, but I never believed it. Bain had an English accent, but when I asked about it, he said he’d had an English tutor. The black driver came from the deep South. The way he spoke was unmistakable.”

  Jonathan leaned back, frowning. “Didn’t Bain have to fill in applications of some kind? Didn’t they tell you anything?” Surely a student at MIT had left a paper trail.

  Laramie shook his head and took another drag on his cigarette. Ash fell on his chest, and sparks added two burn marks to the old ones on his ancient gray sweater. “I thought he might be a mafia child or something of the kind, given the total blackout on his family. But then I learned that his application came in through Daniel Winthrop.”

  Jonathan eyes widened. “Daniel Winthrop?” Daniel Winthrop, one of the most prominent men in Boston, and one of the city’s greatest philanthropists, attached to all the city’s great institutions as a trustee or advisor. Revered by all who knew him. Could Winthrop, like Dinah, have been deceived by Bain?

  “Exactly. Winthrop’s name was all Admissions needed, especially after seeing Bain’s test scores—they ran off the charts. If there were applications or other papers with the facts in them, I never saw them.” Laramie put out his cigarette and emptied the ashtray in the wastebasket by his desk. “After he left we never heard any more about him, but someone said Bain turned up in New York recently. Is that right?”

  Jonathan was staring at the wastebasket, hoping it wouldn’t catch fire. He forced his attention back to Laramie. “Yes. He’s supposed to be extremely well off. Do you know where his money came from?”

  Laramie nodded. “Oh, yes, he was already rich when he got here. Inherited wealth, and by the time he was twelve, he’d invented a number of anti-smoking devices—super-sensitive smoke detectors, anti-nicotine chemicals to put in gum or lozenges to help people quit smoking. An ashtray that sucked up smoke. Filters that clean the air. I’m telling you, he was obsessed with smoking, or rather not smoking. He’d already donated millions to groups working to strengthen the anti-smoking laws. In fact, I was told one of the reasons he lived in such secrecy was threats from smokers’ rights groups, and there was a rumor Big Tobacco had him on a hit list. Guards accompanied him everywhere.”

  “Are you kidding? That sounds fantastic.” Everything about Bain sounded like a fairy tale. Could Laramie be jerking his chain?

  Laramie lit another cigarette. “Not so fantastic. Did you see that film The Insider about Jeffrey Wigand, a former Brown & Williamson employee? He tried to go on TV and expose some of the stuff his employers were doing. According to the film, the tobacco people pulled out all the stops to get Wigand, and people I talked to said they’d do worse
to get Bain. I’m surprised he’s surfaced.”

  Jonathan frowned. “Did he ever explain why he was so anti-tobacco?”

  Laramie shook his head. “He wouldn’t talk about his inventions or about why he hated smoking, but when he told me why he was leaving the program, he said his grandfather and mother had both died of lung cancer.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Monday evening

  New York

  The Mexican Garden was warm, dark, and at this early hour, deserted. The room smelled of coriander and chilis, onions and garlic. Dinah’s mouth watered. “What’ll we have?” she said, looking at the menu.

  “Lots of comforting fat and cholesterol,” Coleman said. “How about cheese enchiladas and bean burritos, with some greasy nachos while we wait?”

  “Sounds good. Me, too. I’ll have a frozen margarita with salt,” she said to the hovering waiter.

  “Make mine a Diet Pepsi,” Coleman said.

  “Well,” Dinah began, and at the same time Coleman said, “Dinah, I—” They both laughed. “You go first,” Dinah said.

  Coleman took a deep breath. “I’ve kept secrets from you, and I feel really bad about it. The first one has to do with the magazine. A few months ago I became convinced one of the writers was selling my ideas to the Artful Californian.”

  Dinah’s eyes widened. “No! I can’t believe it. All your staff love you and ArtSmart.”

  The waiter brought their drinks, the nachos, chips, and salsa. Coleman gulped her Diet Pepsi. “I didn’t want to believe it, either, but there was no other explanation. So I asked Zeke to help me figure out who it was. We’d narrowed it down to Chick, although it seemed impossible, and then Chick was killed. I guess I’ll never know now if he did it.”