The Oldest Confession

by Richard Condon

  At four twenty-five, the telephone rang. Eve ran across the room and snatched it to her ear. It was the duchess.

  “Eve? This is Blanca.”

  “Blanca! Darling, where have you been? We’ve been imagining the most terrible things.” She began again to feel the need for absolution from Blanca, as Bourne felt it, with staining force.

  “Forgive me, my dear.”

  “We were at the funeral. We looked for you everywhere. Oh! Oh, Blanca!”

  “Yes. It is terrible.”

  “If there were only some way we could—”

  “I would like to see you.”

  “We’ve been desperate to see you. Jim must see you.”

  “May I come round?”

  “Yes. By all means. Or we’ll come to you. Whichever is best. Oh, Blanca. Forgive me for crying like this. It can’t help you. It can’t help Cayetano. Blanca, what are we going to do?”

  “I’ll be there at five-thirty, Eve, darling. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry for Cayetano any more.”

  The Cárcel de Carabancheles was the biggest jail in Spain and it suffered transient boarders only, in the outskirts of southwestern Madrid. In the warden’s office of the jail three four-men interrogation teams of police under Captain Isidro Galvan were assembled in an extraordinary session which included the Director of the Prado Museum, the Under-Secretary of the Foreign Office representing the Institute of Spanish Culture, the Superior Chief of Madrid Police, the chief of the Police Commissariat and, seen for the first time in their lives by eleven of the policemen assembled in the squads present, the Minister of Government himself and the Director-General of Security. Such an excess of seriousness made large, cold lumps seem to form in the stomachs of the men.

  The Minister spoke. In his face and his voice a considerable amount of strain was evident. It could have been that, for several days, the focus of government had been directed wholly upon him and upon his ministry. His talks stressed that, under any conditions, the painting known as “The Second of May” by Francisco Goya which was presently “missing” from the Prado, had to be recovered without fail and at the earliest instant.

  The Minister spoke from notes which had been well formed. First he understated the necessity of overtaking the painting because it needed no emphasis, every man in the room was a Spaniard. He filled in details of the background of Victoriano Muñoz, his family and his family fixation which had been long forgotten by most society. He advised them that Victoriano Muñoz had secured a transparency photograph in color from the Institute of Spanish Culture of the painting itself only two weeks before the disappearance of the Goya. He told them that through friends in the government—everyone in the room understood this thoroughly and did not judge it for in Spain nothing can be accomplished toward good or evil unless it is done through friends—Victoriano Muñoz had secured a license for his friend, purportedly a painter named Charles Smadja who was a famous French copyist and who had been authenticated within the past twenty-four hours as never having entered Spain at any time of his life, to work as a copyist in the Sala Goya of the Prado. All day-duty guards at the Prado had positively identified an equally well-known French copyist named Jean Marie Calbert as the man who had worked at copying in the Sala Goya entering and leaving the premises by use of the permit issued to Charles Smadja. The chief conserje at the hotel in which Jean Marie Calbert had resided in Madrid attested to having used his passkeys to examine the contents of an unused apartment on the top floor of the building, during the absence of Jean Marie Calbert from the hotel, and discovered a full-scale copy in progress of the Goya painting now missing together with projection equipment for viewing the color transparency. The hotel in which Jean Marie Calbert resided was and had been under lease to James Bourne for over three years. Two guards at the Prado had identified Bourne as having spent considerable time in the museum, particularly the Sala Goya prior to the disappearance of the Goya and on the day of its disappearance. The Federal Bureau of Investigation of the Government of the United States had identified Bourne’s fingerprints as being those of one Robert Evans Cryder last known at the time of his death in an automobile accident in London, England, when he had been a captain in the U. S. Army assigned to the Cryptography Section of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces. The Passport Division of the United States Government showed the passport in the name of James Bourne to have been a forgery inasmuch as neither the photograph nor the expiration date matched the Cryder data. Both prisoners had consorted with Victoriano Muñoz. All three were acquainted with and had been the guests of the Duchess de Dos Cortes, owner of the paintings by Velázquez, Zurbarán and El Greco found on the premises which had been occupied by the murdered man. In the statement by the duchess, as she had identified the paintings as having been hers she said—the Minister nodded at Captain Galvan who nodded at Augustin Termio who took out his notebook, opened it to a place held by a rubber band and, clearing his throat carefully first, began to read. He had never been in such exalted company in his life and he was scared to death.

  “Question: Can you identify these paintings, my duchess? Answer: They are paintings which hung—which should now be hanging—in the castillo at Dos Cortes. Question: Did not the duchess notice that they had been taken? Answer: Somehow a substitution has been made. Paintings which are identically like these painting are hanging at Dos Cortes at present. This is not like Dr. Muñoz. I am mystified. Question: Can the duchess clarify her last statement? Answer: Yes. You see, Dr. Muñoz has always been intensely interested in all Spanish paintings but he has said so many times that the only painting he would ever wish to possess for himself would be ‘The Second of May’ by Goya.” Augustin Termio snapped his notebook shut and stood at attention. Everyone else ignored him. The Minister asked for the statement by the porter in the Muñoz building to record a condition which had arisen after the Goya had disappeared, despite the fact that the men had been close friends before the disappearance of the painting. Captain Galvan nodded at Emilio de los Claros, a sergeant who had been in far more distinguished company than this and for a considerable period of years. He became the embodiment of crisp coolness, disdaining to address the Minister but reporting directly to his superior officer upward in a direct and dizzyingly altitudinous line.

  “Statement by Ignacio Flan-Torres de Francisco, building porter at number 6 Calle Amador de los Ríos.” The sergeant flipped open his book, giving the impression by so doing that he was a Black Belt in Judo, and read in a harsh, flat voice. “Oh, yes. That’s him all right. That is his picture all right.” The sergeant paused, looked up and stared hard at Captain Galvan. “He refers to a photograph of James Bourne, sir, known now as Roberto Eva Cryder.” The sergeant returned to his reading. “I tell you I was frightened of that man. He came five or six times a day to the building. Sometimes he appeared late at night or early in the morning. He would shake the whole place with his fists as he beat on the marqués’ door. He would curse in some foreign language and kick at the door, may his soul rest in peace. I have never seen such a violent type and I thought it was a lucky stroke that the marqués was away.”

  The Minister told them that Dr. Muñoz had been at Santiago de Compostela for four nights and three days visiting his confessor and spending most of his time praying at the cathedral.

  The Minister told them that beyond a doubt they were assigned to a case which called for the organization of evidence which would lead to the conviction of the person or persons who had murdered Dr. Victoriano Muñoz, the Marqués de Villalba; however, as had been indicated by his presence there and by the statements made, that a most vital concern in this work was the recovery of the Goya and that a clear connection had been established between the two cases. He did not wish to interfere with police routine, but evidence which had come to his attention indicated that the prisoner Jean Marie Calbert would be the most vulnerable because of reprisals against his wife, presently a resident of Paris, which could be brought to bear by the French public and Fre
nch justice and that he would appreciate it if they would begin the interrogation of Calbert as soon as he had recovered from the effects of the bludgeoning at the time of his arrest. He said that they had sufficient evidence against Bourne’s wife to arrest her but for the present he considered that she could be more useful to them while at large inasmuch as it was possible that she could direct them to the Goya.

  The Minister had become paler with inner tension as he talked. The Under-Secretary, whose brother was a doctor, diagnosed him as an actual or incipient ulcer man or a sphincter grinder. The eyes of the men staring at the Minister, as though they could see each word as it left his mouth, became larger and darker in their intensity. They were all clear on all present meanings. The man who found the Goya could jump four ranks. The man who found the Goya could be transferred to wherever his whims would like him to go, within reason. The man who found the Goya would have the protection of the highest figures in the government, and would be marked for all the better things. In short, the men of the teams were shaken with awe in having been called to the presence of a State Minister, the Director-General of Security, the Chief of the Commissariat of Police, the Superior Chief of all Madrid Police, an Under-Secretary of the Foreign Office and the Director of the Prado Museum, but they appreciated it very much and were eager to get on with their work.

  To curb the higher enthusiasms, Captain Galvan put the questions for all of them.

  “There are many, many methods of questioning prisoners, your excellency,” he said in a straightforward manner, “and I wish to assure your excellency on behalf of myself and my men that, as indicated by the information which you have so skillfully gathered and so fortunately provided us, one or the other of the prisoners, if not both, will undoubtedly reveal where the Goya will be found.”

  “Bear two things in mind, Captain Galvan,” the Minister said. “First, the prisoners must be in a condition, following your questioning, to stand public trial in approximately two weeks if that can be arranged and I am sure it can be. Second, they are foreign nationals who are principals in a case which will undoubtedly attract the attention of the foreign press.”

  “Yes, your excellency.”

  “Are there any more questions?”

  “No, your excellency.”

  “That will be all,” the Minister said, leaving the room followed by full entourage including all present but Captain Galvan and his teams.

  Both prisoners were reported as having fully regained consciousness and having eaten at two fifty-three ayem so Galvan and four of his young men decided to start in on Jean Marie first in a squad room which had windows at the ten-foot level. They sat around him in a semicircle, except Galvan who paced most of the time. A male stenographer worked in the corner of the room, behind Jean Marie.

  He had been provided with an armchair with the leather rubbed glossy but the benzedrine which he had been given in the coffee he had been served with the meal he had had when he came to, made him seem even more French than ever. He could not sit still and requested permission to pace about with Captain Galvan the way important businessmen sometimes conduct crucially important meetings while walking ten or so miles around a golf course. Galvan said he would be happy to have Jean Marie join him. He hoped silently that the prisoner had not been drugged too much because too much could make any of them begin bawling like a baby for no accountable reason and a benzedrine crying jag was almost impossible to stop.

  Pacing with a high step, as though he were dictating to his aide-de-camp, the Marshal Ney, Jean Marie began to unwind by talking. He used the word gentlemen frequently, almost as punctuation.

  “Let there be no mistake, gentlemen,” he said. “Whatever we have done which could be considered as illegal I am absolutely ready and willing to admit to you. You will say that such an offer on my part, gentlemen, is most generous but I reply that I have great respect for your organization, that I wish to conceal nothing, and that I wish to get all unpleasantness over with.”

  Jean Marie had no conception that he was being held for murder. He did not associate himself with the death of Dr. Muñoz. Somewhere in his disturbed, sensitive, shaken mind he believed that he was being questioned and held because he had dropped the corner of the painting by Goya in the Prado and had run; a misdemeanor.

  “When the confession is typed I will read it and if it is as I will tell you now I will sign it without delay,” he continued after a complete turn of the room with Captain Galvan while he allowed them to consider the magnanimity of his offer. “But one fact must stand absolutely clear and apart, gentlemen. I had absolutely nothing to do with the murder of Cayetano Jiminez or of that insane little insect Muñoz or that hotel fellow, what’s-his-name, Señor Elek.” As far as the listening police were concerned, cases were about to be cracked right and left but the listeners showed no expression. Captain Galvan stopped pacing in tandem with the prisoner and moved next to the stenographer as though to test the acoustics in that part of the room.

  “Neither I nor my friend Señor Bourne had anything whatsoever to do with those murders. Is that quite clear? If so we may proceed from there.”

  “That is entirely clear, Señor Calbert,” Captain Galvan said blandly and imperturbably. “Please proceed. Please tell us the entire experience with all of these masterful copies of masterful paintings from beginning to end.”

  “Ah, you have seen the copies then?”

  “Formidable, Señor.”

  “Thank you, thank you.”

  “We would like to hear all about them.”

  Jean Marie sat down in his chair, and pressed his hand to his forehead in order to help himself think better. “You see, gentlemen,” he told them, “some time ago, well over a year ago, my colleague and partner Señor Bourne came to me in Paris and began to talk to me about various methods by which we could substitute the copies of the paintings of masters for the original masterpieces.” He turned to the stenographer behind him. “Do I speak too fast for you?” he asked.

  “No, Señor,” answered the stenographer. “Please continue as you will.” He told them everything he knew most accurately but he was merely baffled when they pressed him about the Goya. The Goya was in the Prado. Had they not heard him say that he had seen the people staring at him and that he had dropped the corner of the painting and had fled the room? They could certainly believe that he hadn’t run off with their Goya. He was happy to see that he had convinced them after such a long night because, in his mind, that attempted but unsuccessful contretemps in the Prado was the reason why he was being held.

  Approximately four hours later at six o’clock that morning, Captain Galvan joined the relief team of two men and a stenographer in the room with Bourne. He nodded pleasantly as he came in but Bourne looked back blankly, fatigue showing in every excruciated muscle of his body.

  Bourne’s face was bruised on the forehead just under the hairline beside the left temple and his right cheekbone was split and badly swollen where the arresting officers had hit him. The stubble was longer and filthier, his eyes blearier, his hands dirtier. The elegance of the tailoring of his jacket and shapeless, soiled trousers seemed comical on his hulk. The jail clock he kept staring at mentioned six ten ayem or peeyem, he didn’t know which. It was a diffident kind of a clock. Time has very little authority in jails.

  “Anything new?” Captain Galvan asked his young men.

  “Nothing, sir. He says he will talk after he has been able to see his lawyer.”

  “These American criminals come complete with lawyers. It is a result of the cinema.”

  “Yes, captain.”

  “Who is his lawyer?”

  “He has asked permission to see the Duchess de Dos Cortes, captain. So that she may recommend a lawyer to him.”

  “He’ll have a crowded cell if he keeps these requests up,” the captain said.

  “Yes, captain.”

  “He’s good and tired, isn’t he, the poor fellow?”

  “Yes, captain.”

>   “Good. Read this to him.” He extended a typed copy of Jean Marie’s statement. “That should wake him up.” The young officer thanked the captain and settled down comfortably near Bourne’s left ear and began to read in a clear voice which was well under a shout. The captain lighted a cigar and sat down with his chair tilted against the whitewashed wall. “Termio, please!” he remonstrated from his place sixteen feet away. “Not so loud!”

  “Yes, captain.” Termio modulated and Bourne seemed to be listening carefully.

  “Would you care to initial that?” Galvan asked Bourne when the reading was over.

  “No. I mean, I cannot until I have been permitted to consult a lawyer.”

  “Where is the Goya?”

  “Ask me later.”

  “When?”

  “When you’re ready to make a deal.”

  “No deals.”

  “No Goya.”

  Captain Galvan motioned the two policemen out of the room. “That’s all. This man needs sleep.”

  “Yes, my captain,” Termio said and they vanished. Captain Galvan strode heavily to the nearest chair and pulled it by its back near Bourne while he talked easily. “What is this talk about deal, anyway? Perhaps I misunderstood your meaning, Señor Bourne.” He grinned with vintage cynicism.

  “I am very tired, captain,” Bourne said, “and I am not able to think clearly but my feeling is that after our innocence has been established, after the trial, that all we will owe you then will be a few relatively minor charges such as illegal entry, false papers and the theft of paintings which by now have already been returned to their owner, the duchess, and I think probably since you won’t burn so much to see justice done that you might send my wife and Calbert and me over the frontier in exchange for giving that Goya back to Spain and the people of Spain and that is what I had in mind when I used the word deal.” Bourne fought to focus. Each word he had managed to say had emerged from him, alone, as one unit, not as a part of sentences. There are people who learn to talk like that in Speech Defect classes and people also talk like that when they lie on the sand on the French coast after they have swum the Channel. Bourne fell asleep sitting up. The captain sighed and went out into the corridor. He called Augustin Termio who came running. The captain’s hand stopped him halfway. “You have fifteen minutes to get this man awake and keep him awake,” he said.