Chasing Vermeer

by Blue Balliett

  They hesitated at the door to the dining room, peering into deeper darkness. There weren’t as many windows here. Once in, they worked methodically, moving faster now. They pressed and knocked so hard on every panel that their arms were trembling and their knuckles raw.

  Calder turned, moving so quickly that Petra jumped back. “What?”

  No answer. Calder was running toward the stairs.

  Petra raced after him. “Calder! Wait up!”

  He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and walked up twelve steps, counting as he went. “What is it?” Petra’s voice was a squeak.

  “I think I’ve figured it out. Go back down.”

  “By myself?”

  “Hurry! Stay right under the twelfth step.” Calder was breathless but calm.

  Petra thought she could see figures crouched in every corner. If she disappeared like Frog, it would be all Calder’s fault.

  “Here?” Petra’s heart was pounding. It was painfully dark by the side of the staircase. Suddenly she remembered her thought in the bathtub: a rectangle inside a triangle. She was standing against a huge triangle.

  “One step farther.” Calder rushed down and crouched next to her. He ran his fingers over the surface of the wall. It was covered with small square panels, each about four inches wide.

  “A series of twelves,” Calder was muttering. “… six, seven, eight … here.”

  They tried rapping on the twelfth rectangle and then on the ones around it. There was clearly space behind this section of the wall.

  They leaned with all their strength against the carved oak. Nothing happened.

  “Let’s press more slowly. Maybe there’s a spring or a latch.” Petra started on the upper right and Calder on the upper left. They worked their way carefully down for several inches.

  They did this twice, each time trying to center the twelfth panel in a larger, imaginary rectangle. The third time, something gave.

  There was a splintery groan and a loud thump. The panel slid back into the wall, revealing a shallow storage area.

  Petra, trembling now, felt automatically for the flashlight and fumbled with the switch. Miraculously, it turned on.

  “Oh my God, Petra!”

  Leaning against the back wall, wrapped in a cloth covering, was a smallish rectangular shape.

  Calder took a shaky step backward. Handing the flashlight to him, Petra lifted out the object. The wrapping was velvet.

  Side by side, they sank down onto the floor. Petra began to unwind the fabric, turning the object first one way and then the other, yards of deep red falling in folds around her knees. She touched the corner of a frame. The wood was cool and smooth. She stopped moving.

  “You.” The word was barely a sound.

  Calder understood and carefully lifted the last layer of velvet.

  It was a moment they would remember with perfect clarity for the rest of their lives. The flashlight picked up an answering glimmer from the pearls, from the satiny hair ribbons, from the woman’s eyes: The image was finer and more delicate than either of them had imagined. Hot tears began running down Petra’s cheeks, blurring her vision of the woman’s familiar face.

  Hearing a stifled sob, Calder felt his eyes suddenly fill. At that moment, there were just the three of them in the world: the Lady, who was almost 350 years old, and the two children, who were almost twelve.

  “We’ll get you out of here,” Petra whispered, not trusting her voice.

  Calder, wiping his cheeks on the sleeve of his jacket, pointed to the strand of pearls lying on the table. “Count.”

  Petra did. She looked shyly at Calder, aware that they’d both been crying. “Ten? Oh I don’t believe it! The pearl earrings make twelve!”

  They gave each other a wobbly smile.

  “What made you see that?” Petra asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe she did.”

  Petra, still looking at the painting, nodded in silent understanding.

  There was a clearing of throats. They hadn’t thought about what to do if they actually found her.

  “Calder, it’s so cold out. Do you suppose it will hurt her? I could wrap her in my jacket.”

  “We’ll have to. It’d be worse to leave her. What if the thief decided to move her tomorrow? We’d never forgive ourselves.”

  As Calder held the flashlight, Petra rewrapped the painting carefully in the long strip of velvet, and then took off her sweater and tied it securely around the bundle. The wide frame made it an awkward size to carry.

  They walked across the dark entrance hall, both hardly feeling the tiles under their feet, and headed for one of the exits on the north side of the building.

  Scanning the edges of the door, they spotted the telltale red light of an alarm.

  “I’ll bet all of these main doors are wired,” Calder said. “We could try to get out through the basement, but that may be wired also. Or you could run from here and I could distract anyone who saw us.”

  “No. Let’s stick together.”

  “Maybe I should be carrying something, too, just in case someone is watching the building. It doesn’t matter if the police pick us up, right? In fact, that would be a relief.”

  Calder reached down and grabbed a DANGER: SLIPPERY WHEN WET sign that had been left by the door and padded it with a stack of university newspapers. He quickly pulled off his jacket, wrapped the papers and sign tightly in his sweatshirt, and put his jacket back on. He held the bundle in front of him as if it were fragile.

  “Convincing? Wait.” Calder reached into his pocket and pulled out a pentomino. “It’s Y for yes. We’re going to get her home.” He tapped it gently on Petra’s package.

  “Absolutely.” Petra was smiling now.

  “Ready?” Both took a deep and shaky breath.

  “On our marks —”

  “Get set —”

  “Go!”

  They opened the door and started running into the cold night air, the alarm screaming behind them.

  Petra and Calder raced toward the garden and playground behind the U. School. They looked back every few seconds. A man in a dark jacket appeared from around the Fifty-ninth Street side of the building. He was running in their direction.

  “Can you see who it is?” Petra’s voice was jagged.

  “Are you the police?” yelled Calder.

  There was no answer. Gasping for air, they paused for just a second, ready to hug a university policeman. At that moment the figure emerged from shadow and the moon caught the flat planes of his glasses, turning his eyes into pools of silver. He was moving directly toward them, and moving as if his life depended on it. He was not in uniform.

  “Run!” Calder panted. Both kids took off, zigzagging around trees and bushes.

  “HELP! HELP!” shrieked Petra. There was no one ahead of them. Where were the dog walkers, the students?

  The man was gaining on them. They could now hear his breathing. Petra leaped over a sand box and headed out of the playground. She heard a thud just behind her, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Calder falling over the edge of the climbing equipment.

  She stopped.

  Calder shouted, “Go! GO!” He was up again, but the man was mere seconds behind him now.

  Petra ran as she had never run before. She looked back to see Calder high on top of the slide, still clutching his bundle, the man standing below.

  She could hear Calder’s voice piercingly high with fright: “If you come any closer, I’ll put my knee through it. I will. Then you’ll be in big trouble.” She couldn’t understand the man’s growly reply. Calder’s voice drifted back: “You wouldn’t dare hurt me!” She felt a sharp flash of fear for Calder, and at the same moment a flood of admiration for his quick thinking and bravery.

  She was on Fifty-seventh Street now. She raced down the block to the Medici Restaurant, pulled open the heavy wooden door, and flung herself inside.

  Luckily, a member of the university police was just leaving. Petra panted out h
er story about Calder and a man in the playground. She decided not to say anything about the Lady. She didn’t want to waste time on questions. They hurried to the alleyway, and she jumped into the front seat of the policeman’s car. Minutes later, they pulled up next to the playground.

  The blue lights swept across a form on the ground. She heard the policeman grunt, then say, “Stay where you are, kid,” as he reached for his door handle. Leaving the painting on the front seat, Petra leaped out anyway.

  As they got closer to the slide, she saw that the lump was Calder’s sweatshirt on top of a flurry of newpapers, the papers he’d carried when they’d run from Delia Dell. “Oh yes! Calder got away!” Petra hopped up and down.

  The policeman knelt to look at the sweatshirt. “Looks like there’s blood on it,” he said.

  Horrified, Petra knelt, too. She saw drips of dark liquid on the gray hood.

  “Come on, kid — you shouldn’t be over here.” The policeman stood up. Then he shouted, “You! Stop right now! This is the police!”

  Petra looked up to see the man who had chased them duck out of the patrol car. Her bundle was tucked under his arm. He ran east on Fifty-eighth Street, toward the yards and fences that Petra knew could hide him.

  “That’s him! That’s the guy who was chasing us, and now he’s stolen the painting!”

  “He’s got what?”

  “Oh, please hurry!”

  The policeman, one hand on his holster, ran to the patrol car. “Assault suspect heading east on Fifty-eighth Street — carrying stolen item. Immediate help requested.”

  “Say it’s priceless, it’s the Vermeer!”

  Hesitating a moment, the policeman said gently, “Honey, they’ll be right here.”

  “I’m telling you the TRUTH!”

  Again, the policeman looked at her indulgently and shook his head. “What were you two doing out here alone at this hour, anyway?”

  Petra whispered, “You wouldn’t understand if I told you. Oh I hope Calder is all right!”

  Petra, crying now, could hardly give her friend’s address and telephone number. She had failed him and failed the Lady, and now Calder was hurt.

  As they headed for the police station, she said in a still-shaky voice, “If you’ve ever believed in anything, please believe me now.”

  Calder was reported as missing. His parents and Petra’s parents set off immediately to search the neighborhood with the police. The Pillays and Andalees were shocked and excited by Petra’s news, but there was no time for explanations. Calder’s disappearance was more than a little frightening.

  A neighbor stayed in the Pillays’ house in case Calder got back on his own. Down the street, Petra was left home with the younger kids, who were all asleep. Still dressed, she paced back and forth in her front hall. Where would Calder have gone? And how did he get away from that man who ran so fast?

  She sat down on the front stairs. What if the man hurt Calder in the playground and then dragged him off someplace? She tried not to picture it. Stay positive, she said to herself. Calder would never let that happen.

  She asked herself where she would leave the painting if she were the thief and were trying to escape from Hyde Park unnoticed. At least she could think about that.

  She imagined the Lady, wrapped in velvet under her sweater. Show me where you are, Petra thought. Please help me find you. Suddenly she felt, she knew, the Lady was close by. Could the thief have stuck her underneath someone’s porch? In a recycling bin, or a clump of bushes? No, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to endanger her. She thought of a garage, but they were usually locked. Then she had another idea.

  Petra grabbed a snow shovel from her front hall and headed out to the sidewalk. Her brothers and sisters wouldn’t wake up, and besides, this would only take a couple of minutes. She’d be careful.

  The Castiglione’s tree house was right next door. Their kids were grown, and it was rarely used anymore. Petra thought she’d just take a look and see if anyone had left prints beneath it in the snow. If so, she’d go back in and call the police.

  She shut the front door quietly behind her. There was a patrol car at the end of the block, moving in the opposite direction, the sound of the engine fading away. Silence. The moon was full and bright.

  Stepping into the Castiglione’s backyard, she held the snow shovel across her body like a weapon. And then she saw the boot prints ending in a trampled place under the tree. They were the size of a man’s feet.

  She stood for a moment, listening and looking up at the tree house. If those prints belonged to the thief, could he still be up there? It had been more than an hour since he’d grabbed the painting from the patrol car. Why would he sit up there in the cold, waiting for someone to find him?

  There was only one set of prints, but Petra knew from experience that it was possible to leave the tree house by inching along a big branch and dropping down on the high bank near the train tracks. He could have hidden the Lady and gotten on a train or a bus unnoticed.

  The tree house was a small structure with one glass window. It was more or less weatherproof, so it could work as a safe hiding place. She made a snowball and heaved it at the house. It thumped lightly on the side. She threw several more. If someone was in there, she hoped he’d look out and she could run.

  Nothing.

  “You up there!” she called in a shaky voice.

  No response.

  Petra had to do it. Propping the shovel against the tree, she began to climb.

  One foot, one hand, next foot, other hand … Petra counted as she climbed. As she grabbed the twelfth board, she tried to steady the pounding in her throat. She was now just under the trapdoor. She paused, breathing deeply and listening. Her pulse seemed to be whispering, twelve, twelve, twelve, twelve.

  She pushed gently on the trapdoor. No sound from inside. No big hand slammed it closed or jerked it open.

  She pushed harder. The door fell back with a thud.

  She stepped up onto the next rung and peered into the house.

  “Calder!” she gasped.

  He was lying on his side, curled into a U shape around the bundle. She shook him by the shoulder. She grabbed one hand and patted it and rubbed it. It was icy cold.

  “Oh, Calder! What happened to you?”

  His eyes opened and closed. “Knocked me off the slide … head hurts … but I followed him….”

  “That’s okay, don’t talk. We’re almost safe now — you, me, and the Lady,” Petra said soothingly. She took off her jacket, wrapped Calder in it, and started quickly down the ladder to get help.

  “You’ll never guess,” Calder muttered.

  Old Fred had been found dead on the train in the early hours of the morning, having suffered a massive heart attack. He was wearing boots that matched the prints around the base of the Castiglione’s tree house.

  Although Fred’s beard was gone and his glasses were different, Calder had recognized his voice. Fred had knocked him off the slide, and Calder had hit his head in the fall. He then pretended to be unconscious. When it looked like Fred was gone, Calder got to his feet. His head was pounding, he was dizzy, and there was no sign of Petra. He hoped with all his heart that she had gotten help before Fred caught up with her.

  Calder started for home, moving unsteadily through backyards. He was just resting in the bushes when Fred ran by carrying the Lady. Calder followed. Hiding behind bushes he watched Fred climb up to the Castiglione’s tree house with the painting. When he heard the loud crack of a tree branch and saw Fred scramble up onto the tracks, he felt there was no time to go get official help. He had to get the Lady down. Fred might be sending someone back within minutes to retrieve her.

  Calder staggered across the Castiglione’s backyard, tried to step carefully in Fred’s footprints so as not to leave a trail, and climbed the tree. When he reached the platform and saw that the painting was safe, he stopped to rest. That was when he passed out. Shortly after, Petra found him, possibly saving his life. He had
a nasty concussion, but recovered enough to have birthday cake the next day with his friend. Petra reminded him that they were now even. He had probably saved her life by distracting Old Fred while she ran with the painting.

  Fred Steadman’s name, it turned out, was Xavier Glitts. He was the leader of an international crime ring. The FBI discovered that Glitts had advanced degrees from the Sorbonne in Paris and from Princeton University. His nickname, in the world of art theft, was “Glitter Man.” He was famous for changing identities and for charming his way in and out of impossible situations.

  In addition to his New York home, he had an apartment in London, and one in Rome. All of his files on the theft of A Lady Writing turned up in a bank vault in Switzerland.

  Xavier Glitts had a customer who had wanted for many years to own this particular Vermeer masterpiece. The collector, a clever criminal himself, would pay Glitts sixty million dollars for her, but wanted a guarantee that the police would never trace the theft.

  Glitter Man had come up with what he’d thought was a brilliant plan. He would pose as an idealistic thief. He picked Hyde Park as the perfect community in which to hide, and the role of Zelda Segovia’s husband as a perfect disguise.

  Shortly after he and Zelda were married, they attended a fund-raising dinner at the University School. There he chatted with a young teacher named Isabel Hussey who had just been hired to teach at the school in the fall. Discovering that she had been trained as an art historian, he drew her into a discussion about Vermeer, pretending to be ignorant himself about the painter’s work. Ms. Hussey gave him all the ideas about attribution that went into the thief’s letters.

  At the University of Chicago’s archives, Xavier Glitts gained the trust of one of the research librarians, who told him about a secret compartment in Delia Dell Hall, a compartment that was supposedly under the main staircase. Glitts had explained to the librarian that he was documenting “secret storage places” in the greatest universities in the world, and claimed that he had heard of several at Oxford, at Harvard, at McGill, and at the University of Salamanca. The librarian at the University of Chicago was happy to tell him all she knew.