Before Duddington could speak, Mr. Podmore had thrust himself through the window opening upon the fire escape and started down.
“Upon my word!” said Duddington, amazed. “What the devil does the fellow mean?” He called to Podmore, who glanced back and waved his hand reassuringly; but he kept on down the iron stairs. Exasperated, and with a feeling that something was going forward of which he had no knowledge, Duddington fumed about the room for a space, then went to the telephone and called the office. “Send someone out into the courtyard and stop a man who is on his way down the fire escape. And bring him up here.”
He hung up the receiver and looked about; he tried closet doors and cabinets and drawers in tables; he looked into his bedroom; everything was neat, orderly, untouched.
“Somehow,” said Duddington, “I now think that fellow was coming out of this apartment when I saw him at the door.” There was a chest of drawers in his dressing room where he kept his shirts and such things; this was open, and the contents of the drawers were tossed as though by a hasty, searching hand.
“He’s been in this,” said Duddington. He stroked his chin and breathed heavily. “No doubt of that at all. But what’s the idea? Why, if he——”
There was a ring at the door bell; Duddington found the clerk standing there.
“I hurried out into the courtyard as soon as I got your call, Mr. Chalmers,” he said. “One of the porters who happened to be in the office went with me. But there was no one on the fire escape, and there was no one in the court.”
“No one at all?” said Duddington.
“No, sir. But the porter picked this up.” He held out the parcel of collars, the wrapping paper broken and the neatly typed list soiled and torn. “As it has your name upon it, I brought it up” And as Duddington took the parcel the clerk looked into the room and said: “Is anything wrong?”
“No,” said Duddington, “I think not. There was a visitor here, that’s all; and he took a somewhat unconventional way of leaving.”
“Someone you know?”
“No,” said Duddington. “A stranger.”
“We are careful not to permit people to get upon the private floors unless they are known,” said the clerk. “But apartment thieves are clever. Sometimes they manage it.”
“It’s all right, I think. I’ll make no complaint now,” said Duddington. “If I miss anything I’ll speak to the management.”
“Very well, sir.”
The clerk went away, and Duddington closed the door. He was about to place the parcel upon the table when he noticed the list with the single word written across the face of it in red ink: “Enclosure.” He removed the wrapper and put the collars upon a table; but there was nothing else. He carefully examined the torn paper; he separated the collars, handling each of them. But with no result.
“Stupid people!” said Duddington. “To make all that fuss about an enclosure and then forget to put it in.”
IV
IT WAS a few hours later. Duddington Pell Chalmers had a shower, and a doze in a big chair; then Turvy brought his lunch, a few biscuits, a pint of nicely cooled champagne, and a cigar. As he smoked the cigar Duddington looked at his watch.
“Haviz will be here shortly,” he said to Turvy. “Bring him right in.”
“Yes, sir,” said Turvy. “Immediately he comes.”
Duddington drew slowly at the cigar; it was a blend of tobaccos he’d carefully thought out for his own taste; suave, aromatic, full of sunlight and the cool drip of rain; there was a trace of the tilled earth, giving it the tang that made it perfect. He looked at the water color over his writing desk. Alma Rogers had a grateful touch; he’d always thought that; she’d worked at life until she’d separated an individual thing, a thing you’d remember as Rogers herself if you gave much thought to it. The fire, the air, the water that had gone to make her had gone into this picture. It was a way she had. Duddington believed it was a way every good painter had. If a man was merely a manufacturer of landscapes, or marines, or portraits, why, well enough. Sometimes things of that sort were attractive; you enjoyed looking at them. But make no mistake—they were only things of paint, canvas, labor, and money. The spirit of the maker was not in them.
But this wasn’t so of Rogers. She’d put her essence in to everything she’d done. Duddington felt she was as fully present in the little water color as she would have been had she stood beside him. A lane in Brittany; a narrow yellow way through a green country. She hadn’t bothered much with the hedge or with the break in it; but it was a hedge as truly as though it grew out of the ground, and the break was one you felt you could crawl through. And the cows! They were of white and brown paint; the drawing was swift and not too careful; but they had, you were quite sure, calved and given suck; they gave milk to women who brought clean bright pails; they were the daughters of great bulls!
“Damned fine talent,” said Duddington as he smoked and looked. “Quite wonderful.”
Haviz came in about three o’clock. He was a dark, middle-aged man with heavy black brows, and eyes of a peculiar burning quality; his face was long and thin; he had strong, grasping hands and his hair was shot with gray. He sat down and talked with Duddington; from among the drinks named for him he took brandy.
“Pretty heating tipple for the time of year,” said Duddington.
Haviz put down the empty glass and lighted a cigarette.
“When I’ve got to go talk with Custis, I feel I must have a bracer,” he said. “If there is anyone who takes it out of me he is the man.”
Duddington nodded his head.
“That’s about the way he acts on me,” he said. “He’s an infernal little elemental, with envy in all his doings and malice in all his words.”
Haviz sat silent for some time, his heavy brows drawn together.
“I know the way you have of thinking of him,” he said. “Your view is half humorous; he’s a sort of unborn thing to you—an imp, and scarcely responsible according to the usual code. But I’ve known him a long time; I have seen shades of his character which you have not. He’s dangerous.” And then with a sudden burst of passion that made Duddington open his eyes: “And God help the person who falls into his hands. He’s as pitiless as ice.”
Duddington pursed up his lips and blew out his cheeks; and he blinked his eyes rapidly.
“Well,” he said, “I don’t fancy him. I especially don’t care for him as a person who has the future of an art institution like the John Gregory Museum in his hands. That was a terrible mistake the old man made in his will—delegating such large powers to Custis; if he’d any foresight at all he’d have known such powers would be used to further private ambitions, to thwart enemies and promote ill feeling. For Custis laps such things up as a cat does milk. But, at the same time,” and Duddington smiled good-humouredly, “his administration has not been without its good points. The way he’s handled the cold-blooded Sheerness almost makes me forgive him everything else.”
Haviz drew deeply at his cigarette and exhaled the smoke in a cloud. He said the whole matter between Custis and Sheerness was one he’d never been able to quite understand—from the point of view of Sheerness, that was to say.
“I was speaking about that very thing only this morning” said Duddington.
Haviz threw up a quick sketch. The whole business career of Sheerness had been predatory; his dealings had been within the law, but ruthless. No man who dared stand in his way but eventually felt the weight of his blows; anyone who resisted him at once became the object of his unrelenting anger. And yet, there was Custis, who had humiliated him as perhaps no one had ever humiliated him before, and Sheerness forgave him and bestowed upon the institution he represented rich gifts. There were some, Haviz said, who thought Custis was merely ambitious in buying the painting The Syndic’s Daughter. The Gregory Museum, so their notions went, had no outstanding work by an old master, and so when the Hals canvas was put up for sale they thought Custis was eager to acquire it in order to enrich the institution
’s collection.
But, in Haviz’s mind, this belief struck far from the truth. He’d always felt Custis had some sort of an old score to settle with Sheerness; the two had had dealings together years before and had fallen out, and Custis had never failed to speak bitterly upon all occasions of his former patron. And so, when the Hals came along in the Paris sale, Custis, with the Gregory money behind him, saw in it an opportunity to give expression to his spite.
Duddington nodded.
“That is what happened. I feel sure of it.”
Haviz said Custis’s side of the situation was not hard to understand. But Sheerness and his attitude were different. Here was a man who had come to consider himself as being little short of omnipotent. Then this thing of the picture happened. For a little space he lost his balance; he cursed Custis and raged like a demon. Suddenly, however, he calmed down; in a month he’d made advances to the Gregory Museum; he visited it for the first time; he viewed the Hals and said that, while he regretted not having secured it, he could not help feeling that after all the museum’s acquisition of it might be best. He spoke pleasantly to Custis; he praised his enterprise; and everyone was amazed.
“I couldn’t credit it at first,” said Duddington. “It wasn’t until Sheerness made his first gift that I was fully persuaded.”
“That first gift was enough to persuade anyone; the Paulding collection of Roman medals!” Haviz twitched in his chair and gestured. “Sheerness had bought them up like snapping your fingers and had them sent directly to the Museum. I’m told he never even saw them. The damned arrogance of the man is appalling, isn’t it? The finest collection of ancient bronze impressions in America, and he buys and disposes of them as though they were so much groceries.”
“He’s brought the methods of his business into the art game,” said Duddington. “He cares no more, really, for the rare things he collects than I do for the type of engraving used in his common stock. But the things are rare; other people are anxious to have them; they attract notice to him; and so he spends his money for them. He hires art ferrets to go rummaging about; he has standing offers for great paintings. Since the war he has depleted, in an art sense, some of the oldest families and towns in Europe. There’s that lot of Florentine breviaries which the Gregory Museum got from him. Their like was never gotten together before; every monk who worked upon their illumination was a master; weeks must have sometimes been given to the perfecting of a single page.”
“I mentioned the matter of the gifts to MacQuarrie the other day,” said Haviz. “He took it quite calmly; he said it must be that Sheerness had made up his mind to distribute his art holdings before his death and not trust to making a will. I asked him what he drew from the fact that all the gifts had been made to the Gregory. But he only shook his head and said a man must begin somewhere, and he supposed the Gregory was simply lucky enough to come first to Sheerness’s mind.”
“That’s not the answer,” said Duddington. “No.”
“What do you think is?” asked Haviz. He sat back in his chair, his eyes fixed upon Duddington’s face. “What’s his motive?”
“I couldn’t say,” replied the fat young man. “But if anybody thinks Sheerness has forgiven Custis, they’re mistaken. He still hates him; and whatever he has in mind, whatever has caused him to act in this extraordinary way, has that feeling behind it.”
“Yes,” said Haviz. “He still hates Custis. I agree with you in that. He hates him as bitterly as ever.”
V
THE fine Georgian house built years before by John Gregory, and for many years occupied by him, stood in a street in the Murray Hill section. And this, by command set down in the old man’s will, was now the John Gregory Memorial Museum and housed his splendid art collection; also, in the words of the will, it was to be “open and free of access to the public forever.”
The splendid bronze doors were at the level of the sidewalk; inside there were eight broad marble steps lifting to the first floor, and with a magnificent balustrade of white stone in the middle. This entrance was lighted by two huge windows, one on each side of the doorway. To the left, as you gained the corridor, was the main picture gallery. On the right was a room given over to pottery, glass, and kindred arts; next this was the stairway leading to the second floor; behind this again was the room used for the handsome pieces of sculpture collected by the founder during his long life. At the left rear of the corridor were the offices of the museum; a wonderfully fashioned wrought-iron gate at the end of the corridor opened into a storeroom.
Down the full length of the building the walls were hung with exquisite rugs, with bits of armor, antique weapons, rare brasses, and bas-reliefs. The main picture gallery glowed with the color of the superb paintings for which John Gregory had paid out, possibly, three millions or more of dollars. Upon the back wall, so arranged that the light fell craftily upon it, was the famous painting of the Dutch master, Frans Hals, the most talked of and easily the most precious item in the museum. The prints, medals, coins, old ivory, wood carvings, etchings, work in gold and silver, were on the second floor; also the illuminated manuscripts, and rare bindings, and early Americana of various sorts in which the founder had been interested.
Duddington and Haviz passed down the corridor; as it was late there were few visitors in the place: the usual little knot, however, was gathered before the Hals.
“Speaking from a business point of view,” said Duddington, “a quarter of a million was well spent in that picture. It’s gained the institution wonderful publicity; people come to look at it because of the price, who’d never think of doing so for any other reason.”
They went into the office, and a girl seated at a desk arose.
“Good-afternoon, Mr. Chalmers,” she said. “How do you do, Mr. Haviz? Mr. Custis is engaged for a moment. I’ll speak to him when he’s through, if you’ll wait.”
A door opening from the office into the main gallery was open, and in this stood a second girl and a young man.
“How are you, Chalmers?” said the latter. He shook hands with Duddington. “Glad to see you.”
“Hello, Billy,” said the fat young man. “Still in town, eh? Well, you artist fellows do beat the deuce.”
Billy Gregory laughed.
“I’m gathering data for this job I’ve got out on the west coast,” he said. “I’ll have to be leaving in another month, so I thought it would be as well to do what I could in advance.”
“If I had known you were in town I’d have expected to see you at MacQuarrie’s this morning,” said Duddington.
“They had a showing of some good things, I believe,” said Billy Gregory, regretfully. “But, then, I suppose it makes no difference; I can never touch anything at a MacQuarrie sale, anyway; his patrons never have any trouble outbidding me. And, besides that,” with a smile, “I’m a painter first and a collector afterward, so I’m going to allow the auctions to slip for a while.”
“Glad to hear you say it,” said Duddington with much satisfaction. “You’ve got your name to make, Billy, so don’t bother with the other things.” He turned to the girl who had been speaking to Haviz. “How are you, Alma?”
She smiled at him; she had beautiful teeth and fine eyes; there was intelligence in every line of her face.
“I thought you were in the country, Duddy,” she said. “The last I heard of you, you were swimming and rowing and getting into a wonderful state of health.”
“So I was,” said Duddington. “I’ve been getting on amazingly; had lost six pounds at last report. But how is it you are not painting in your favorite Brittany lanes this summer?”
The young painter smiled.
“There’re a number of things,” she said, “but most of all there’s this commission of Billy’s. That’s a magnificent piece of luck. A mural! On the walls of a great new railroad terminal! ‘The Commerce of the West.’ What a subject for Billy! Nothing could suit him better.”
“Absolutely,” said Duddington, “Eh, Haviz?
”
“Just your sort of thing, Gregory,” said Haviz to the young man. “Just the thing suited to your bold strokes and big smashing effects. I shouldn’t wonder but it would be the making of you.”
“Well, anyway, I’m just brimming over with it,” said Billy Gregory. “All swoshing around. I’ve already ordered several barrels of brushes and a few hundred gallons of color.”
Alma Rogers put her hand on the young man’s arm; but she looked at Duddington and Haviz.
“When he says things like that, don’t listen to him,” she said. “It’s only a screen to hide what he really feels. He’s white and shaking with hope. I know it, for I’ve been watching him.”
“All right, Alma,” said young Gregory, soberly. “I’ll not deny it. Yes,” to Haviz, “I think you’re right when you say this is my sort of thing. I’ve wanted just such a chance; but my luck’s always been so rotten I couldn’t believe it’d ever come my way.”
“You mustn’t think of poor luck now, Billy,” said Alma. “You must put all such things out of your mind and consider your amazing opportunity. And never for a moment doubt yourself,” looking into his face. “Never.”
“No; that’s right, Bill” said Duddington. “Not for a moment. And sit tight. You’ll do it splendidly, old boy.”
“It’s come to be a kind of joke to speak of the big, outdoor, manlike thing,” said Alma. “But there is a good deal in it, for all. And Billy feels it so wonderfully. There’s a stir in his touch; and he’s full of drama. For all my New England pastorals, and my sleepy mountains of the south, and my lanes and cottages in France, Duddy, I’d love a thing like this if I were a man.”
“You could do it, too,” said Billy admiringly. “She’d take your breath away with it,” to the others.
“Keep to the smaller things, Alma,” said Duddington. “Keep your fire centered. I’d rather walk down a lane in Brittany with you than step about in the palace of a king.”
Alma laughed.
“Duddy,” she said, “you are the most loyal person in the world. When you like a thing you never change. But I see what you mean. Billy’s job is really one for a man.”
The Museum Murder Page 3