The Valentine Estate

by Stanley Ellin

  ‘Argh.’

  Chris whirled, heedless of the stabbing pain in his knee, heedless of everything but the menacing sight in the doorway. Michael stood there aiming a monstrous-looking weapon squarely at him, and in Michael’s face was naked murder.

  ‘Now you’ve done it, you dirty spy,’ Michael said, and squeezed the trigger. There was a flickering red light at the muzzle of the weapon, a harsh, grating noise like the sound of a coffee grinder at work. ‘Zap!’ said Michael. ‘You’re disintegrated, you bloody earthling.’

  ‘You goddam fool,’ Chris said with an effort. He had braced himself so hard against the coming impact of the bullet that every muscle of his body ached with the strain. ‘Why don’t you grow up?’

  ‘What’s the matter, chum, rather have me use the real thing?’ Michael swung the grotesque toy back and forth on his finger by the trigger-guard. ‘Yob’s out to zap any earthling got to use the proper tool for the job, don’t he? And you don’t go mucking around the books this side of the room, see? This is show stuff, not reading stuff. The other side over there’s what you want. Those little ones.’

  Chris settled for one of the little ones.

  7

  He timed the noon hour trip to Warburton’s office next day so neatly that he overtook Beth going upstairs in the building. They found Warburton waiting for them in his room, along with Blackburn, the elderly clerk, and a colourless, rabbity little man, very shy in manner, who, surprisingly, turned out to be Eames, the private investigator assigned to help out on the project.

  ‘He’s done a good job in very little time,’ Warburton assured them. ‘I can always rely on Eames. He’s never let me down yet, and I’ve known him a long while.’

  ‘Since the old Spitfire days, sir.’ Eames seemed both pleased and embarrassed. ‘He was my C.O.,’ he told Chris. ‘You couldn’t ask a better.’

  It was Warburton’s turn to look embarrassed.

  ‘Well, well, there was good spirit in those days.’ He shuffled among the papers cluttering his desk, took his time lighting his pipe, then went back to the papers again. He was, Chris saw with a sinking heart, trying to delay the inevitable. Apparently a kindly soul despite that stiff-backed, military look, he couldn’t bring himself to say what had to be said.

  ‘Good news or bad?’ Chris asked bluntly.

  Warburton was openly relieved to be faced by the direct question.

  ‘I’m dreadfully sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s bad.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Every way possible. You see, there is no Valentine estate. Or, more specifically, death duties and monies owed by the estate absorb it entirely. And there is no will. Clive Valentine left none at all.’

  ‘Wait a second,’ Chris said. He became aware of Beth, in the chair beside him, fumbling for his hand with ice-cold fingers, and he took a hard reassuring grip on them. ‘You mean, no will has turned up so far. And from what we heard about the money Valentine had, and the collection of art –’

  ‘There is no money, Mr – ah – Sanders. And the collection of art is worth, if anything, very little.’ Warburton ran a finger down the sheet of paper before him. ‘Five hundred pounds, to be exact. That is the official valuation made for the estate by the Langland Gallery of Bruton Street.’ He nodded at Eames who sat unobtrusively against the wall, hat in lap, looking as if he would rather be anywhere else in the world but in this room. The perfect private eye, Chris thought, because you had to look twice to even notice he was there. ‘Eames covered this aspect of the matter. He’s the one to tell you about it.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Eames. He cleared his throat loudly before addressing Chris in a hoarse, declamatory voice. ‘I got on to this, sir, because of the subject, Katia Danska. Seems like there once was a highly valuable collection kept in the deceased’s house in Sunningdale up to ten years ago, and this lady was caretaker for it with the right to buy and sell pictures as she wanted. But commencing ten years ago and extending over a period of eight years, she sold all them works of fine art through the Langland Gallery. Mr Goodkind there, he says the stuff that’s left on the walls couldn’t be called fine art by a long stretch of the imagination. He says it wouldn’t fetch more than five hundred quid altogether. Very poor stuff, he says.’

  ‘Which means,’ Warburton explained, ‘that the assets of the estate now consist only of the house in Sunningdale and its furnishings along with some five acres of land around it. There’s also some rather obsolete printing and engraving equipment stored in a building here in London leased by the defunct Valentine Society and for which considerable rent is overdue. That rent and the death duties just about balance the books. In fact, whoever inherits the estate may have to lay out a few pounds to clear its accounts.’

  Chris tried to shake off the numbness gripping him.

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘let’s leave out the art collection. But what makes you so sure about the rest of it? Whoever you asked about it could easily be lying to keep people from claiming the estate, couldn’t he?’

  The elderly Blackburn firmly shook his head at this.

  ‘No, sir, if you don’t mind my putting in my oar. After I found no will on file anywhere, I went to the Chancery Division and to the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division, and between them that’s where all this information is from. They’re careful about the facts too, sir.’

  ‘Even so,’ Chris said. ‘How does the fact that there’s no will on file prove that Valentine didn’t leave one? All it means is that a will hasn’t turned up yet.’

  ‘Not in this case, sir. You see, Mr Valentine was taken to hospital very suddenly with a heart ailment, and while he was being examined by the doctor he said, making it very plain, that he had never drawn up any will and wanted a solicitor to be sent for at once. He was a bit too late though; when the solicitor arrived, Mr Valentine was already deceased. Mr Warburton has photostatic copies there of the depositions filed with Chancery by the doctor and the two Sisters attending the patient. So there never was any will. And there are no heirs on record, and not a sign of one has showed up.’

  Chris turned to Warburton.

  ‘What about Teodorescu and Gardenhire and Katia Danska? Didn’t any of them make themselves heard about the estate? The woman especially. She was living there in Valentine’s house. Did she just let herself be dispossessed? It’s hard to believe she would.’

  ‘On the face of it, yes,’ agreed Warburton. ‘I’ll let Eames tell you what he learned about that.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ said Eames. He cleared his throat even more violently this time. ‘The subject – meaning the woman, Katia Danska, spinster – departed from the premises June 5th of last year, a month after the demise of the late Valentine. She has not been seen in the area since that date.’

  ‘Disappeared?’ Chris said. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t all that mysterious-like, Mr Sanders. She just packed self and small dog into a cab that morning and was rode to the railway station where she boarded the London train. Trouble is,’ Eames’s tone changed from declamatory to plaintive, ‘I didn’t have half enough time to do a proper job on this here assignment, sir. Give me time, and I’m sure I can run the subject to ground for you. Distinctive sort of subject, according to the tradespeople around those parts. Old lady seemed to be a regular Tartar.’

  ‘No, that’s all right. What about the other two?’

  ‘Well, sir, Henry Gardenhire, who you said was a book designer, died of natural causes in St Clare’s Hospital last December, mostly of cirrhosis of the liver. This information was got through the Honorary Secretary of the Book Designers’ Guild, of which he was a most unpopular member. He was rarely seen sober in public, says the Secretary. And Anton Teodorescu is at present residing in London, as you said. His address is 4 Merivale Street which is in Chelsea.’

  ‘How’d you find that out?’ said Chris.

  ‘Looked in the telephone directory, sir,’ Eames said apologetically.

  It was a
curiously deflating revelation, Chris found. Still, when it came to deflating one, knocking him down and kicking the heart out of him, it wasn’t anywhere in the same class as the revelation about Clive Valentine’s non-existent estate and will. That one was a real killer in the most literal sense of the word.

  He squeezed Beth’s hand hard to indicate that all was not yet lost, and her return pressure said no, of course not, God help us.

  ‘We’d like to speak to you alone,’ he said to Warburton, and, after Blackburn and Eames had been dismissed from the room with appropriate thanks, he said, ‘You must know there’s more to all this than I told you yesterday. If I tell you the rest, will you stick to our agreement? I mean, give me a couple of days before you let the police know there’s someone running around using your identity? Will you hold off on that until Saturday?’

  Warburton thought it over, then nodded in grudging assent.

  ‘In for a penny, in for a pound, it seems. All right, Mr Monte, let’s have it your way. In return for making sense to me of what more and more appears to be a grisly practical joke, you have two days’ grace. And this time I would like the entire story, please. Without evasion and down to the last small detail.’

  That was how he got it, from the appearance of the impostor in Miami to the time, an hour before, when Chris Monte had walked out of 4 Merivale Street to make his way on foot to Sloane Square and from there by Tube to Temple Station. When it was told, Warburton sat slumped low in his chair for a long while, sucking thoughtfully at his empty pipe, abstractedly rumpling his hair and smoothing it again, digesting what he had heard with an expression that suggested it was far from digestible.

  ‘Damned if it doesn’t make less sense than ever now,’ he said at last. ‘A pack of wolves snapping at each other over a bone that doesn’t exist. Or is it possible this crew doesn’t know the estate is worthless? It must be. Yet, here’s information someone like Blackburn knew how to obtain.’

  ‘Because you asked him to,’ Beth pointed out. ‘But whoever told those others about the value of the estate must have sounded so sure about it that none of them saw any reason to investigate it. Don’t you see? They’ve been tricked just the way we were.’

  ‘But for what purpose?’ said Warburton. ‘Vengeance?’ He looked at Beth keenly. ‘You were Prendergast’s initial victim, Mrs Monte. Can you think of anyone at all who’d go to all the trouble of trying to strike at you through him?’

  ‘No,’ Beth said. ‘I’ve wondered about that, but I couldn’t think of anyone who would. And Chris – Mr Monte – is being hurt by all this far more than I am.’

  ‘Granted. But – and forgive me for putting it so bluntly – you were the one who directly involved him in it. The question is why did Prendergast choose you, in particular, for that role?’

  ‘Because,’ Beth said evenly, ‘I answered every one of his requirements. I was unmarried and very much alone in the world. I was in a desperate situation financially. I was a wide-eyed fool, too intimidated by him and too greedy anyhow to ask questions which I knew in my heart should be asked. From his point of view, it was perfect casting.’ Her voice suddenly broke. ‘Ask my husband about that. He can tell you how perfect. He has every right to.’

  Chris felt the growing tremor in the hand clutching his, saw the set of Beth’s clenched teeth, heard the hoarse drawing of breath in her constricted throat, and knew that the full realization of what had been done to them, what more was likely to be done to them very soon, had penetrated to the core now. She was fighting against hysteria, and losing.

  Warburton was also watching this with mounting alarm.

  ‘My dear girl,’ he pleaded. ‘I never meant – I give you my word –’

  Chris ruthlessly tightened his grip on her hand so hard that she gasped with pain.

  ‘Stop it,’ he told her sharply. ‘Where do you come off to talk like that? Did you hold a gun to my head and order me to marry you? This’ll be one hell of a marriage if you come apart any time someone happens to mention you did the proposing. How many marriages do you think there’d be if the woman didn’t do the proposing?’

  It steadied her. The tremor stopped, the rigidity of the jaw eased. She drew a series of long, shuddering breaths.

  ‘This is different,’ she said weakly. ‘You know it is. Oh, God, Chris, what have I gotten you into?’

  ‘Mrs Monte, that isn’t the question,’ Warburton said gently. He looked badly shaken himself, Chris saw; he was now being very much chaplain of the regiment, not colonel. ‘I’d say the only relevant question now is how to get out of it. And I hope you can persuade your husband to take my advice about that.’

  ‘What advice?’ Chris said.

  ‘For one thing, you should not under any conditions return to Merivale Street and that pair of criminals. It’s out of the question. It would be the height of folly. Surely, you know that without my saying it.’

  ‘Suppose I do. What do you suggest instead?’

  ‘Simply that you face the facts. You’ve been illegally deprived of your passport, papers, and money. You’ve been made part of a dangerous conspiracy against your will. Those are the indisputable facts. And what they dictate is that you let me go with you to the American consulate at once and explain your predicament to someone in authority there.’

  ‘And then what? You heard what I said about that girl turning me in for the Zucker murder, didn’t you? Let’s face the facts about that. She means to do it if I don’t play ball with her, and she will do it. What would you say her chances are of having me sent up for that killing? I’ll give you three choices. None at all, fair, or good. Go on. As an experienced lawyer, which would you pick?’

  Warburton looked acutely unhappy.

  ‘Mr Monte, I’m hardly familiar enough with American jurisprudence –’

  ‘You’re familiar enough with it to know that if I can’t bring in evidence to clear me which isn’t relevant to the crime, can’t produce one witness –’

  ‘What about Mrs Monte?’ Warburton protested. ‘Her story –’

  ‘No,’ Chris said flatly. ‘For one thing, Zucker’s murder took place before there was any Mrs Monte, and it’s that murder I’ll be on trial for. For another thing, none of that gang except Prendergast knows her. Do you think I’m going to stand her up there in the spotlight where they can all take potshots at her?’

  ‘Chris, don’t be stubborn,’ Beth said. ‘If there’s the least chance I can help –’

  ‘Not that way. The one thing that might help at all if I go on trial is a first-class lawyer, but then where the hell do I get the five thousand dollars he’d cost? No, the best line of action is to string along with Baby up to the last possible minute.’

  ‘Last possible minute for whom?’ Warburton demanded. ‘You know these people believe they’re playing for huge stakes. You admit they have no qualms about conniving at murder if it suits their ends.’ He turned to Beth. ‘Mrs Monte, my car is close by. If you’ll only make your husband listen to reason, I can have him at the consulate in fifteen minutes. Or a representative of the consulate can call on him at my apartment if he prefers.’

  She seemed torn by indecision, then shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she told Warburton. ‘What I’ve already persuaded my husband to do hasn’t worked out well enough for him to trust my advice. I don’t even trust it myself. I’ll leave the decision up to him.’

  She departed ahead of Chris at his insistence. At the door, she said, ‘Call me tomorrow as soon as you can. I’ll be waiting at the phone.’

  ‘I’ll call. Or be there.’

  ‘I know you will,’ Beth said, but her face, when he got a last glimpse of it through the closing door, was like death.

  He remained in the office another half-hour, sitting at the desk across from the resignedly patient Warburton, going page by page through the accumulation of documents Eames and Blackburn had gathered. Once bitten, twice shy. Maybe – just a prayerful maybe – some of these documents were fakes. May
be the enemy had gotten to Eames or Blackburn and planted this stuff.

  But the more he examined each photograph copy of a deposition, an appraisal, an inventory, the more he knew he was wasting time at this. He was only waving a long good-bye to a vanishing dream. If any documents ever were authentic, these were. There was no Valentine estate. Ten years ago, according to the records, there had been one – thirty-eight paintings whose value on the market added up to millions – but it was all gone now. And whatever was left of the money brought by the pictures was gone with Katia Danska. In the end, the old lady had been the smartest one in the whole gang. Now, while they were still digging furiously for gold that wasn’t there, she was in some far-off sunny villa, happily letting it trickle through her fingers, relishing the weight of it, the colour of it.

  The smartest one in the whole gang.

  The Man, Baby had said with awe. It had never dawned on her – on any of them – that it might be The Woman.

  But in that case who was the silvery-haired impostor who had showed up in Miami with the story of the Valentine estate?

  He sat lost in thought about this until Warburton said apologetically, ‘If you’re through with this material –’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He handed the papers to Warburton. ‘I guess that’s all there is to it then. I’ll try to get in touch with you tomorrow. Anyhow, one way or the other, you’ll be going to the police Saturday, won’t you?’

  ‘Saturday morning. You must see I have no choice about it.’ Warburton arranged and rearranged the papers before him. ‘You’re very much in love with your wife, aren’t you?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘Yes,’ Chris heard himself answer. ‘Very much.’

  So there it was. He had been wondering how he would answer that question if Beth ever asked it, but she never had. Now he didn’t have to wonder any more.

  ‘It’s easy to understand,’ Warburton said. ‘She is an unusually lovely girl. And extremely courageous in her own way. Letting you make the decision about how to handle this affair was an act of courage most women aren’t capable of. Especially, when she knows as well as I do how dangerous your decision may prove.’