by Harriet Hahn
“You don’t like them, then,” I said.
James gave me a warning look.
“I hate them. I want Tante to have two beautiful white angels with drooping wings, one on each side of the flower bowl.”
“I have an idea,” said Alfredo over coffee as he ordered brandy all around.
Miss Elena looked up, interested.
“I happen to know of just such a pair of angels,” he said. “I suggest we meet tomorrow at your boveda at, say, eleven o’clock. I’ll bring the angels and we can exchange them if you approve of what I bring. The ones I have in mind are beautifully made and I think they would do justice to Tante Elizabeth. No one said the statues she has now had to stay there forever.”
Miss Elena’s eyes widened as she thought this over. She looked down at James.
“I should love that above all else,” she said softly. “Should I do it?”
James looked up soulfully into her eyes and slowly nodded his head.
Miss Elena nodded back. Then with a great sigh, she looked at her watch.
“I must leave now,” she said. “I have had a wonderful day and I thank you all, especially this wonderful cat. You wouldn’t consider leaving him with me, I suppose. I should be devoted to him.”
“I’m sure he would be devoted to you,” I said, “but he belongs to a duchess in London who would be devastated if he were not returned.”
The captain came to tell us Miss Elena’s cab was ready.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at eleven in La Recoleta,” she said. She stumped off on her short legs, her little grey eyes dancing.
I paid the lunch bill, which was enormous, then Alberto, James and I left to find his car.
“Have you really got two angels?” I asked as we drove back to the center of town.
“Of course,” said Alberto. “They are part of a lot of paintings and sculpture we bought outright from an American who is going back to the states after many years. We do that sometimes. Rather than auctioning off these girls, I’ll sell them to you at a fair price and you can exchange them for the terra-cotta statues if Miss Elena puts in an appearance tomorrow. They are heavy so I’ll bring a handler along and a dolly.”
Alberto dropped us off at the hotel, and James and I each took a long nap; we were exhausted. We woke up briefly, ordered soup and salad from room service, watched CNN on television, and fell asleep again and did not waken till the next morning.
Alberto and two helpers arrived on schedule with a small van containing two lumpy objects wrapped in quilts. James and I got in front with Alberto and we were on our way to La Recoleta. Now that I knew what to look for I could see the walls at a distance. Massive brick to a height of about twenty feet. Above the top of the wall poked the tops of angels’ wings and the spires of especially elaborate sculptures.
We parked the van, unloaded it and put each lumpy object on a hand truck. They were not very large, but marble is very heavy. Each young man wheeled an object. James, Alberto and I walked sedately down the main street. Then James could stand it no longer and ran ahead to see if Miss Elena would be there. He returned grinning and we knew she had come. Then he disappeared, and as we turned the now familiar corner there he was, sitting next to Miss Elena, who was standing in front of her boveda dressed in another drab but expensive skirt and jacket. Her little grey eyes were sparkling.
“Good morning, James,” she said, patting him on the head. He purred.
“I am so glad you have come,” she said to us. “I was afraid you would just think it was all the to-do of a silly old woman.”
For just a moment I felt terrible pangs of guilt, but they passed immediately.
“Let’s look at what we’ve brought and see if you like them,” Alberto said and motioned to the two young men to remove the quilts.
There in the sunlight were two marble angels, their heads bowed in grief, their wings folded. They were charming, sweet and beautifully executed. The marble was smooth and white.
Miss Elena looked at them for a long time. She felt the smooth cold marble. She looked at the altar inside the glass door.
We all waited.
“They are perfect,” she said, and she began to cry. “Tante Elizabeth will love them,” she said at last.
Then she took out a handkerchief, blew her nose and wiped her eyes. She took the key out of her handbag and opened the door. She stepped inside and reached over the altar and picked up a terra-cotta and handed it to me. I put it very carefully on the ground. James inspected it carefully and nodded his head. Then she reached over for the other one and we repeated the performance. She stepped out and allowed the young men to lift one angel into position. There were a few changes of angle needed and then the second angel was put in place. Miss Elena stepped back and surveyed the result.
“Will your father be angry?” I asked.
“He never comes here,” she laughed. “He isn’t even going to be buried here. He is going to be ‘laid to rest,’ as they say, in his wife’s family boveda in the city of Mendosa where the vineyards are.”
She closed the door and locked it. We all stood looking at the effect. It was indeed a great deal more traditional. It was also more appropriate. I wrapped the terra-cottas, each in its own quilt, and carefully carried them back to the van.
James and Alberto strolled with Miss Elena.
I returned, leaving the young men to guard the van.
“Can we have a celebratory lunch?” I asked.
“I’m so sorry,” said Miss Elena. “I have an appointment at the church to plan a new social program and I absolutely must be there. I hope you understand and I also hope those ugly brown things are adequate compensation for those glorious angels.”
“I need only one thing from you, if I may,” I asked.
“What is it?”
“Will you write a note saying that these came from your family and that you have exchanged them for two marble sculptures, and sign it?”
She looked thoughtful for a minute, and I thought I had lost the provenance. Then she stopped, sat on a bench at the side of the boulevard under the cypress trees and produced a notebook from her handbag with sheets of paper in it with her name engraved. She wrote out what I had asked with a gold fountain pen. She tore off the sheet, dated it at the bottom and handed it to me.
“Can we take you somewhere?” I asked.
“No, I have my own car here,” she said. She didn’t get up. Instead she picked up James, who was standing beside her, and hugged him, putting her face next to his.
“I wish I could keep you forever,” she whispered in James’s ear.
Then she looked at both of us. “You know, because I met this cat and you two and finally did something of my own I’ve been wanting to do for years, my life has changed.” She smiled her nice smile, stood up, relinquishing James, and stomped off on her short legs, turning to wave as she went through the colonnaded entrance to the cemetery.
James and I floated on air all the way back to the hotel. I wrote Alberto a check for the two angels. They were not cheap, but the amount was as nothing compared to what the models would bring someday.
Then we came to earth and called British Airways. Did they have a first-class seat on the plane to London that evening? They did. I reserved it. One problem solved. The next one was harder, but I discovered that if I threw everything out of my soft suitcase it would hold the two models, each wrapped in underwear. I left behind my toilet kit, two books, a good suit and an extra pair of shoes. I would carry the suitcase myself and, on the plane, put it under the seat, not in the overhead bin, so it would not be pushed around.
We arranged to keep the room for the day and, leaving the precious statuettes in the bag in the room, went off to meet Alberto for a farewell luncheon at Las Nazarenas, where we ate lomo, the best beef in the world, and drank fine Argentine red wine.
“I wonder why Miss Elena was so adamant about not drinking Argentine wine?” I mused.
“She told us, not in so many wor
ds, but you remember her mother comes from a family of Mendosa vintners.”
“Of course,” I said. “What a strange family.”
James was chasing a piece of lomo around his plate.
“Thank you for finding her and working your magic on her,” I said, patting him on the head.
He gave me a stern look. He sat as straight as he could. He looked at me with great disapproval. For a moment I was very puzzled. Then I knew what he meant.
“James,” I said, abashed, “you are quite right. We broke all the rules. We seduced—well, you seduced—a poor, lonely middle-aged woman. Then we exchanged her very valuable models for a pair of ordinary marble angels.”
Alberto was laughing at us both.
“It’s a private affair, too complicated to explain, but I owe James an apology.”
James nodded his acceptance and then broke into a big grin.
There were some anxious minutes on the trip home, particularly during the long wait in the immigration line at Heathrow, but James was a saint and made not a sound or a move even when a man behind us kept kicking the carry-bag when I set it on the floor beside me.
We sailed through the nothing-to-declare line and were at last safe, home with our prizes. We took a cab to Baron’s Chambers where we parted.
“See you tonight?” I asked.
James nodded, winked, and was off to announce his return.
I brooded for all of ten seconds over the conning of Miss Elena. Then I put in a long-distance call to my client, old G. L. He was ecstatic. I gave him the total of all I had spent and he laughed. I asked him if I could have the statuettes photographed at the Huntingdown. He agreed at once. We arranged for insurance on the models while they were in my possession and agreed that as soon as the photographs were taken I would send them the safest, fastest way possible to him in New York. Old G. L. is a big fat man in his sixties, but from the sound of things he was capering around his library with his cordless phone in his hand as though he were a thirty-year-old who had won the million-dollar lottery. Perhaps for him, he had.
My next call was to Costain Cummings.
“This is absolutely paralyzing news,” said Costain, when I told him of my find. “I can only gasp when I think of the searching, poking and prying, not to mention the fabrication, that will go on now that it appears Roubiliac made a number of models. I look forward with unalloyed enthusiasm to your imminent appearance here.”
“I shall be there in about twenty minutes at the most,” I said, and hung up, took my suitcase with the models in it and caught a cab. In less than twenty minutes I was greeting Costain, who was standing at the door of the museum.
In his office I opened the suitcase and removed the precious models. They had survived the trip unmarked. I told him all my adventures, and we both were challenged by the idea that there might be a model for each marble Roubiliac had ever made. Costain signed a receipt for them and called the Photography Department, who sent the department head to pick them up.
Then we walked back through the museum, which was now open to the public. The collection consists mainly of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century objects—paintings, miniatures, sculptures, furniture, glass, porcelain and textiles. There are a few objects from much earlier periods but this part of the collection is not extensive. While the collection is not huge, it is of unusually high quality, and Costain and his staff do a particularly good job of displaying the material. Like most museums, this one has a museum shop with reproductions of some of the objects in the collection. Small sculptures, jewelry, porcelain, and so forth, as well as books on art, postcards, notepaper and all the other usual museum store items.
On our way out I stopped at the store for a moment. “You have unusually good reproductions in this shop,” I commented.
“Our Reproduction Department is the envy of museums everywhere,” said Costain proudly. “Mr. Samuel Wentworth, head of the department, is unusually skilled.”
“Good-bye,” I said at the door. “Call me as soon as you are through with the models. My client in New York is eager to get them.”
“Indeed, yes,” said Costain, “we will move with all speed possible commensurate with accuracy and care.”
That afternoon, flat twelve was almost overflowing with friends come by to welcome back the world travellers.
James, his gold earrings glinting, sat on the table. Peter Hightower sat in the big chair. Roger and Poppy sat on the sofa, and Shep and I sat on two of the straight chairs. We were all provided with drinks and a tray of assorted cheeses, a bowl of pretzels for Shep, and a plate of smoked salmon with brown bread. The company had listened to my tale of our adventures. When I explained how we had found Miss Elena and arranged the trade, James sat very still and gave me very disapproving looks.
“You more or less flimflammed the poor old dear, didn’t you?” said Poppy.
James nodded. He seemed to have totally ignored his part in the transaction.
“I wouldn’t worry, Poppy,” said Peter. “Miss Elena has all the money she could ever need and clearly she is a very much happier woman now she has something she thinks appropriate.”
“I understand,” said Poppy, “I really do. I guess I really feel sorry that she’s had such a limited life.”
Roger looked at Poppy and his eyes grew soft.
“Now for our news,” said Shep, when our story was told. “It has only been three days, but a lot has happened. First, Cats International has turned into a huge success, so we are moving it at the end of the month to the Haymarket Theater, and to top it off, Disney Productions has bought the movie rights for a juicy sum of money.”
“So here am I, in my first speculation, cleaning up,” said Roger happily.
Just then the doorbell sounded. I answered.
“It’s Ellen here,” said a familiar, reedy voice.
I reported the fact to my guests. Roger, Peter and Shep all shrugged.
“Come on up,” I said.
James hissed.
As I went down the hall to open the door, Roger was speaking to James.
“I want to give you a special present,” he was saying. “To thank you for making Cats International such a success. Without your special direction it would have been just an ordinary musical.”
James had assumed his shy, modest look.
As I let Ellen in, Roger had opened a jewel box in which lay a pair of topaz earrings. They exactly matched James’s golden eyes.
“Roger,” exclaimed Ellen, looking at the earrings. “They’re glorious.”
Ellen was right—they were glorious, and ingenious as well. In addition to a large topaz that hung from a stud, a small circle of topaz stones on a flexible gold chain was so arranged that it could encircle all of James’s ear and help support the weight of the large stone.
James yowled. Roger, ignoring Ellen, proceeded to remove a gold earring and install one of the new ones. James shook his head. The earring was secure. He hopped on the back of the chair and looked at himself in the mirror. He beamed. He purred. He jumped onto Roger’s lap and licked his face.
Ellen picked up the other one and put it on.
“They are really marvelous, Roger,” she said, looking at herself in the mirror.
James stopped licking Roger long enough to hiss at Ellen.
She looked at Roger in surprise. “You aren’t going to give these wonderful things to that cat, are you?” she asked.
“I already have,” laughed Roger.
Ellen stooped down and before he could properly protest, she had removed James’s earring.
“James, dear,” she said, “you’d love to lend them to me to wear to the Save the Children ball tomorrow, wouldn’t you? Princess Di is going to be there and Harry Kinyata is taking me.” She spoke as one speaks to someone totally insignificant to whom it is necessary to be polite.
James sat stunned. So did we all.
Ellen took off the earrings, put them in the box, snapped it shut, put it in her purse, turned a
nd left, letting a “Good-bye all” float over her shoulder as she walked out.
James dashed to the door in a rage but he was too late.
Roger looked very angry. He was speechless.
Shep laughed. “That girl will do anything, won’t she?”
“I’ll get them back,” said Roger.
“What a great bunch we are,” said Poppy. “First you and James flimflam an old lady and now this possession-haunted girl comes along and lifts a pair of expensive earrings.” Then she smiled. “They really are splendid,” she added to Roger. “Did you design them?”
Roger nodded.
“You have talent!” said Poppy, and her eyes were soft.
James was helpless with rage. He knocked the evening paper off the coffee table and proceeded to tear it to pieces. I tried to rescue at least part, as I had not had time to read it, but James only snarled and bared his teeth and slashed with his claws, so I left him alone.
“Want to join us for dinner?” I asked him a little later.
He shook his head and as we went out he walked upstairs, his tail flicking angrily back and forth.
I spent part of the next morning taking stock. The models were at Huntingdown being photographed. They did not need my attention. Two pieces of research were progressing nicely. James was back at work at Thwaites. The topaz earrings were still in Ellen’s hands, but I felt sure they would be returned in due time. I decided to stop in at Thwaites to see what was coming up. After looking at what was on show in the great room, I wandered up to the third floor to see Peter.
Marilyn, who usually greets me when I arrive, was standing comforting an older woman who was sitting in the chair Marilyn usually uses, sobbing into an already soaked handkerchief. James was sitting on Marilyn’s desk watching intently.
“I wish I knew how to help,” said Marilyn to the woman.
“I wish you did too,” said the woman between sobs. “It’s just that I am frightened all the time and I don’t know why. I feel a little safer here.” Her sobs subsided somewhat.
“Have you ever thought of seeing a psychiatrist?” Marilyn asked. “I think one might be able to help you.”