by Iain Pears
'For the bust?'
'I was more concerned about my father's murderer.'
'Oh. Yes. Well, I suppose you would be. The answer to both is the same, though. Something is coming together.'
'And who's the front runner?'
'Your stepmother and Barclay. I suppose that comes as no surprise to you.'
Moresby digested this along with the beer and nodded sagely. 'I wondered. I did wonder. Seems a wild gamble to take on.'
'Lot of money. People have done more for less.'
'But she would have been so rich even if he'd gone ahead with the bigger museum.'
'Not if she'd been divorced for adultery. And you're likely to be a witness for that.'
'She been asked about that?'
Argyll nodded. 'She denies it. But Morelli's lot have been digging away. There's considerable evidence she's having an affair. His little posse of searchers has tracked her going away for weekends, staying in hotels with someone else under assumed names. But how did you find out?'
'Easy to work out. She's the sort, it was obvious she was having an affair, and her servant at the beach house hinted at it. And I heard she was remarkably well informed about the workings of the museum. My father never told her anything, so it had to be Barclay. Add it all up . . .'
'Ah. I see.'
'And it won't be just my word against hers?'
'Seems not.'
'Doesn't look good for her, then?'
'No. But there's nothing solid enough, I gather. I don't know what the rules and regulations are here, but Morelli seems to want something unchallengeable. Reckons he'll soon have it, too.'
Moresby's interest brightened. 'Oh? How's that?'
'Streeter is telling everybody he has just recovered a tape. From a bug hidden in Thanet's office.'
'Oh yeah? And has he?'
Argyll smirked significantly. 'OK, so it's not such a good story. But we think it might smoke out the murderer, if you see what I mean.'
'The tape, or the news of it?'
'There's going to be a little gathering chez Streeter, this evening. At about nine,' he said, ignoring the remark. 'To listen to the tape he's got there.'
Moresby nodded thoughtfully and stood up. 'Hey,' he said quietly. 'I brought you a little present.'
Argyll loved presents; always had. It was almost worth getting sick for. He had the fondest memory of measles and mumps and all those childhood diseases. He was halfway through thanking his visitor when there was another knock on the door.
'Oh, hell,' he said. 'Come in, then.'
A mousy grey little man came in and nodded nervously. 'Mr. Argyll, sir? Perhaps you don't remember me?'
He walked towards the bed, holding out a card.
'Well, I'd better leave you,' said Moresby reluctantly, downing the last of his beer in one great swig.
'You don't have to go. Wait a bit.'
'No, it's OK. See you.'
And he left, quite abruptly. Argyll turned his attention to the stranger standing expectantly before him. He was a little annoyed. Moresby had forgotten to give him his present.
'My name's Ansty, sir,' the man said, sitting himself down. 'We met at the hospital.'
Argyll looked at him blankly, then consulted the visiting card. Josiah Ansty, attorney-at-law. Then he remembered.
'Oh, right. You're the one who got into a fight with the car rental man.'
Ansty nodded. 'Pig,' he said. 'Aggressive pig. He attacked me.'
'Well, anyway. What can I do for you?'
'It's more what I can do for you. I gather that you have several legal problems hanging over your head . . .'
'No, I don't.'
'Oh, but you must.'
'I don't. And if any turn up, I shall get on the plane and go back to Italy. If anyone wants to sue me, they'll have to find me first.'
Ansty looked properly shocked at this cavalier approach to the law. How was a man expected to earn a living with clients like that?
'How did you find me, anyway?' Argyll went on. 'I never called you.'
'Well, I happened to be listening to the police broadcasts when the first report of your accident came in. And the hospital gave me your address. So I thought . . .'
'You're a bit of a ghoul, aren't you? Is this how you find all your clients?'
'Some of them. It's no good waiting for people to come to you these days. You've got to get out there. So many people could launch suits, but don't even think of it.'
'Well, I have, and I still don't want to. Go away.'
'Surely
'No.'
'But the car maintenance . . .'
'It had nothing to do with maintenance. Someone loosened the brake cable. It was attempted murder. Not an accident.'
Ansty looked grieved as he saw a lucrative piece of business slipping away forever.
'Still,' he said, clutching at straws, 'you could always add a civil suit for damages, parallel to any criminal charges.'
'There's no one been arrested, yet,' Argyll pointed out. 'Who am I meant to sue? Besides, the car rental place says the insurance is perfectly adequate. And I don't want to sue anybody. Not even Anne Moresby; assuming that she was behind it all.'
'Is that what the police think?'
'It seems to be their current theory, yes.'
'In that case, sir, as a professional I must advise you to start drawing up a suit against her immediately. Otherwise the opportunity will be lost.'
'What are you talking about?'
'If I remember correctly, Mrs. Moresby has no personal money of her own; I remember the stories in the papers when they got married. She comes from a modest family. Any money she has will come from her husband's estate.'
He looked up at Argyll who was gazing at him with an exasperated expression on his face, evidently not grasping the point he was driving at. This, Ansty told himself, is why people need lawyers. Sooner or later, professional expertise shows its true worth. And this was a classic example.
'Is that not true, sir?'
Argyll shook his head. 'Probably. For all I know. So what?'
'In that case the chances of you winning any damages will be slight unless you launch a suit against her prior to charges being preferred.'
'I'm not with you.'
The lawyer laid it out, logical step by logical step, as though instructing an infant; or at the very least a first-year student in law school.
'I assume that the prosecution case will be to argue that she killed Moresby . . .'
'She didn't. Conspiracy to commit, or some such. But let it pass.'
'. . . That she was involved in the murder of Moresby,' he said pedantically, 'to gain control of his fortune. If convicted she will automatically be debarred from inheriting his estate under the law that criminals cannot benefit from their crimes. I can quote you . . .'
'Please don't bother,' Argyll said. 'I'm still not interested in suing anyone.'
He leant back on his pillow and thought about it all, though. And suddenly had a very nasty idea. So unpleasant, in fact, that he broke out in a cold sweat merely thinking about it. If something he was supposed to know was putting a gigantic inheritance like that at risk, he could see the urgency of getting rid of him. Didn't help him work out what it was he'd heard or seen, but still . . .
'Hold on, there,' he said. 'Tell me, are you busy today?'
Ansty looked at him sadly as he prepared to go, and in a sudden fit of honesty confessed that he hadn't been busy for several weeks. No cases and no clients at all, at this precise moment in time.
'Good,' said Argyll. 'I want you to stay here with me. Just hang around for a few hours, will you? We can have lunch sent up, if you want.'
Ansty settled himself down again. 'That's very hospitable of you,' he said. 'I'd be delighted.'
'I've never seen anyone eat so much in my life,' he complained four hours later when Flavia finally returned in the company of Morelli. 'The man was a walking food processor. Even you don't eat that much.'
Still, he couldn't really grumble, as he had not told the man why he so suddenly desired his company. And the latter part hadn't been so bad; sitting on the bed, drinking beer and having the rules of baseball explained was not such a bad way of passing the time. He'd never realised it was so complicated. Fascinating, really. He just couldn't understand why the players dressed in their underclothes, and Ansty was unable to enlighten him.
So when Flavia and Morelli arrived, they found Argyll and this middle-aged man in a grey suit sitting on the bed, laughing uproariously at a badly timed spitball (when tackled about this, Argyll had to confess he could not for the life of him remember what a spitball was, nor could he differentiate between a well-timed and a badly timed one) the room littered with empty cans of beer and plates, the curtains tightly drawn.
'No joke,' he said as he finished explaining. 'I've had the most awful day. The trouble was, I couldn't decide whether it was simple paranoia or not. But with murderers wandering around at will, it struck me that I was an easy target, if anyone had thoughts in that direction. I still don't know why they might, but the evidence seems to point that way. Of course, had I known you were with Barclay all the time, I would have been less concerned about the possibility of him leaping through the door, gun in hand.'
'Well, it's best to be certain about these things.'
'And we'll look after everything from now on,' Morelli said, with a little frown of anxiety. 'The trouble is, it doesn't really take our case any further. Evidence is evidence, and we still don't have it.'
'So you'll have to pin your hopes on this meeting, won't you? Have you seen everybody?'
Morelli nodded. 'They've all been told, as subtly as we could manage. Streeter will be working late, so he won't get back home till just before nine. We've been saying the tape is stored in his house. Very tempting.'
Argyll grinned. 'Good,' he said. 'I suppose you ought to have something to eat before we go. More sandwiches? Then we can go and lay the phantom bust.'
Morelli looked puzzled. 'What do you mean?' he asked.
'Didn't you tell him?'
Flavia looked sheepish. 'Sorry. I forgot. We've worked it all out, you see. I hope you don't mind.'
Morelli had the air of someone who did mind very much, and suggested that, seeing that this was Los Angeles and he was in the Los Angeles police and they were little more than tourists here on suffranee, perhaps they would try to keep him better informed.
'I did mean to tell you. But I only put the last few pieces together when I saw Barclay . . .'
'And?' Morelli prompted.
'Langton,' she said firmly. 'It's obvious. That's because of the case, you see. It was empty.'
'Empty?' Morelli said, thinking he was spending much too much time uttering one-word questions.
'Empty. It's in the basement of the museum. Weighs 120 pounds. Which is what the shipment label said it weighed when it contained the Bernini. Conclusion, it was always empty. There was no theft from Thanet's office. No bust was smuggled out of the country and, whatever was stolen from Alberghi's place in Bracciano, the haul did not include a bust of Pope Pius V by Bernini. In fact, I'm beginning to doubt Alberghi ever had it.'
'So what in God's name was all this about? Just a way of confusing us? If it was, it worked very well.'
'For that we'll have to ask Langton. All I know is that the whole thing was a fraud, and Langton was the only possible person who could have done it. D'you want to hear the reasoning?'
Another tray of sandwiches and beer arrived, which delayed her satisfying their curiosity for a few moments. Then, when the delivery boy had vanished and she had downed a pastrami sandwich, she recommenced.
'There were three characteristics to Moresby which made him a target in this. One, he was a collectomaniac, if that's the right word. Two, he did not like anyone getting the better of him, and three, he disliked paying taxes.'
'Everybody dislikes paying taxes,' Morelli put in, speaking from the heart.
'Anyway, in 1951 he bought a bust on the Italian black market from Hector di Souza. Paid a deposit, and that was that. It was never delivered. We know it was confiscated, maybe di Souza even told him that as well, but I doubt very much he believed it. After all, it was never heard of again; had it been taken into the Borghese collection it would have been easy to find out. He couldn't do anything about it without letting everyone know he was conspiring to smuggle works out of the country, so he had to forget about it.
'After that, Moresby was a little cautious about dealers, which is only sensible. Anyway, the next stage was the Frans Hals affair.'
Morelli frowned. Must have missed that; at least, he couldn't remember interviewing this Hals man.
'Everybody knew there was something wrong with the painting, but only one person, a junior curator called Collins, had the temerity to say so. He suggested it be investigated with more care, and implied that the price had been far too high. Uproar. The curator is out on his ear.
'If you think about it, this was very curious. On the whole - the Moresby may be an exception but I don't think so - museums don't like owning fakes. If anyone can prove an acquisition is a bit dicey, they should get a pat on the back. The curator in question was an expert on seventeenth-century Dutch painting. And, of course, he was a protege of Langton's.
'That the picture is a dud I don't doubt for a minute. That the whole business was an early attempt to nobble Thanet seems equally likely.'
Morelli, who'd been staring at the ceiling, nodding to himself and wondering whether she was ever going to produce any evidence, stirred into activity. 'How do you reach that conclusion?' he said as he leant forward, surveyed the sandwiches and selected another beer.
'It was not bought by Langton, so exposing it wouldn't hurt him. It would hurt Thanet, who OKed it, Barclay who paid out the money, and in turn could well lead to an investigation of Moresby himself. A full investigation would have revealed that, while the picture only cost 200,000 dollars, Moresby claimed on his tax form that he paid 3.2 million. Barclay gave me the figures. Further investigation would undoubtedly have shown up that over the years millions of dollars had been saved in taxes by the process. Moresby would have been in deep trouble and could only have got out of it by blaming Thanet and Barclay. Over zealous servants. You know the routine.'
'Didn't work, though,' Morelli pointed out.
'No. Thanet acted with more determination than anyone thought possible and booted the curator out fast. So Langton tries again.
Collins ends up as an intern at the Borghese and uncovers this document about the Bernini. Cogs click over. Langton has heard the story many times about Moresby being defrauded of a Bernini. It can't be hard for him to work out that Moresby might be very pleased indeed if he got hold of it.
'There are difficulties, not least the problem of getting hold of it and getting it out of the country. They decide on di Souza as the poor unfortunate who will have to take any blame for smuggling, so that the museum will be in the clear. That will satisfy Moresby's desire for vengeance and add to his temptation to get hold of the bust.
'So Langton goes to Bracciano to enquire but is thrown out. Collins tells him that old Alberghi has recently died, he phones Colonel Alberghi and finds out that no one has the faintest idea what is in the house. So Langton knows that if there is a Bernini there, he is the only person who is aware of the fact. So there is a robbery to get hold of it, and this comes up with nothing. No Bernini. A bit of a snag.
'But Langton isn't the sort of person to let a minor detail like this get in his way. He realises that if he came to the conclusion that there was a Bernini there, then so would anybody else. Langton hooks di Souza by buying some of his antiquities and then p
aying him to transport the case across the Atlantic; money is transferred under the normal scheme, with two million dollars, I suspect, making an unscheduled stop in Collins' bank account until it can be made to disappear properly.
'Langton is close not only to defrauding Moresby of a large amount of money, but also to gaining his thanks into the bargain and to ousting Thanet. The snag is to make sure that no one looks into the case. Having brought stuff for the museum before, he can be fairly certain the customs won't waste too much time over it. But just to be on the safe side, he delays picking the case up until he hears that Moresby is coming for his unscheduled visit. It was he, after all, who arranged for the case to be put in Thanet's office, partly opened, and suggested that there was no time to examine it. Then all he had to do was stick a sandwich over the camera lens and wait for everyone to start leaping to conclusions.'
Morelli wrinkled his nose with dissatisfaction. 'He didn't really expect anyone to believe that, did he?'
'But we did. The trick was to convince everyone that the bust was genuine after it supposedly vanished from Thanet's office. And for that he needed the active, if unknowing, collaboration of the Italian police. Me, in fact, damn him. He knows we'll investigate the robbery at Bracciano, and all we need to do is link that theft and the Bernini. That link was provided by Jonathan Argyll, who immediately rang me up to rabbit on about smuggling in such a way that we were bound to look into it. So I went to the Borghese and only an idiot could have missed the connection.'
Argyll looked up at this, somewhat surprised to hear himself described as a virtual accomplice in wholesale fraud.
'Langton bought that Titian very late on, after he had set up di Souza. Then he insisted that Argyll come to Los Angeles. That Titian scarcely fitted in at all with the museum's collection. It stuck out like a sore finger . . .'
'Thumb.'
'A sore thumb, amongst the other paintings in the building. If you assumed the museum had a coherent acquisitions policy, it made no sense at all. No more than the purchase of di Souza's sculpture made sense.
'It was bought simply to make sure Argyll was present when the issue of smuggling came up. His friendship with me and the art squad was no secret in the Italian art business, after all. The moment the bust vanished, Argyll rang me up, and I started following the trail so conveniently laid out for me.'