by Joan Smith
“All right. We left half a pot of coffee. We might as well finish it."
I turned on the coffee, but we didn't get around to drinking it. There was no key in Victor's pockets, and just as Sean was offering to wield the vacuum while I washed my hair, Eleanor Strathroy landed in on us. She looked distinctly alarmed to see a strange man with me.
Eleanor is a black-eyed, black-haired, usually black-gowned and I suspected black-hearted little woman of extreme elegance. She must be in the vicinity of fifty, but she could pass for ten years younger, except for the eyes. The figure is well under control, the skin oiled to a youthful bloom, but the eyes lack the luster of youth. Her pupils are two sharp little pinpricks of black. One of her major concerns in life is guarding her face and figure. I usually met her with Victor and didn't think I'd be comfortable alone with her. As far as she was concerned, we two women were alone.
She hardly looked at Sean when I introduced him as a friend from the States. Friends who wore faded jeans and boots during a working day were invisible. The black dress she wore today was linen, severely tailored with a white, pointed collar. Joan Crawford would have looked right at home in it. She wore jet black earrings and beads and a Cartier tank watch.
“Would you like some coffee, Eleanor? I've just heated some up,” I offered.
“Slow poison,” she said, dismissing it with a wave of her hand. “Cassie, where have you been at this hour of the morning? Ronald dropped in on his way to the office and was worried sick when you weren't here. Since he called me, I've been phoning and phoning. I finally decided to come over and see if you were all right."
“I've only been gone an hour!”
“You didn't call yesterday. You said you'd keep in touch,” she accused.
“I said I'd let you know if I learned anything."
“You haven't heard from Victor then?” she asked, her eyes imploring me to give good news. I was suddenly taken with the idea that she intended to marry my uncle. I'd always thought of their relationship as a light, lascivious friendship, but she looked genuinely worried.
“No, I'm afraid not."
“He's dead. He must be dead,” she sighed, tears springing to her eyes as she rifled in her black Gucci bag for a handkerchief. I was surprised to see a plain old Kleenex clutched in her fingers when they came out.
I tried to calm her, though I was a basket of nerves myself. “There's no reason to think that, Eleanor. I spoke to Dr. Bitwell this morning. You know Dr. Bitwell, from the conservatory."
She frowned, shaking her head. “I don't believe I do."
“You met him here.” Her memory wasn't too good for old tweed jackets with patched elbows. A symphony conductor, an artist or an opera singer she would have recalled with ease. Bitwell was only known to a handful of experts, so she had forgotten him.
“Of course, Bitwell,” she said vaguely.
I revived her memory and related the story of Victor and the Stradivarius.
“That's shocking!” she exclaimed. “But if Etherington knew the thing was a Stradivarius, and stolen to boot, he must have known Victor would produce it in public at the first opportunity, so why..."
I explained that Etherington had checked this and been assured by my uncle that he didn't mean to produce the Strad immediately. “But Etherington's had plenty of time to leave the country by now,” I concluded, “and still no Victor."
As Sean had been totally ignored during our talk, I looked a question at him.
“It seems logical,” he said slowly. “On the other hand, he took payment in Canadian currency. You wouldn't think he'd run off to a foreign country with a case full of Canadian bills. It'd be a problem to get them exchanged. A bank might ask questions, and if he used the black market, he'd lose a good percentage. It would make more sense to deposit the money in a bank—or better, a couple of banks—and arrange a transfer, or travelers’ checks. That'd take a little while. I imagine all Etherington wanted was enough time to get that money into a more convenient form, but when Victor headed straight to Bitwell, he was afraid he wouldn't have time to do it."
Any lingering doubt that Sean was a dumb hick had to be forgotten. My doubts had come back when he offered to vacuum. He was quicker than Eleanor and me together to pick up on these fine points. I don't claim to be a financial genius, but Eleanor is no slouch.
“But surely in a country the size of Canada this Etherington could have hidden out somewhere,” she said doubtfully. “He certainly had no shortage of money."
“He wouldn't know whether Victor kept track of the serial numbers. He might have,” Sean suggested. Sean was rapidly rising from dumb hick to policeman. Or could it be all his detective reading that made him think of marked bills? “Even if the bills weren't marked, the serial numbers might have been listed."
“So complicated,” Eleanor mused.
“Of course another possibility is that Etherington was just a go-between for someone else. His instructions might have been to follow Victor and see where he went,” Sean explained.
“Or his instructions might have been to steal the violin back once he got the money,” I threw in. “Maybe it wasn't the plan for anyone else ever to see the violin, but my uncle got away from them somehow. Victor's no fool. He wouldn't meet Etherington in a dark alley at night. He'd arrange the sale for a public place, in daylight."
“How do you know the violin was stolen?” Eleanor asked, looking from Sean to me as she spoke.
“Dr. Bitwell recognized it. It was stolen from a Contessa near Cremona in Italy,” I explained.
Eleanor looked as though I'd just announced the end of the world. She struggled for breath, then shrieked, “Surely not Contessa Carpani's Stradivarius!"
Sean's head slued around so hard I thought he'd give himself a whiplash. “Do you know her?” he barked.
“I met her—oh, a couple of years ago! It was the summer I met Victor, but I didn't meet him at the Contessa's villa. I met him in Milan. My sister, Signora Crispi, is acquainted with the Contessa. We were invited to dinner at the Villa Carpani. I was sorry Victor had already left; he would have loved a chance to see the violin."
“This was when your husband was alive, was it?” Sean asked. “Since you said ‘we’ were invited."
“No, no, Harold has been dead longer. Ronald and I were visiting the Crispis. I believe I will have a cup of that coffee, Cassie. Black, no sugar.” I got it, and she took a sustaining sip while the color seeped back into her face.
“I suppose you told Victor all about the violin—the unusual ornamentation on the front. Grapes and leaves, inlaid in ebony,” Sean said.
He was fishing to see if Victor knew he was buying a stolen violin, but as he didn't look at me, he missed my glare.
“Did it have grapes on it? So long ago,” she said, waving her hand. “I really don't remember. I may have told him."
Sean's frustration was obvious, but no matter how many times be repeated the question, Eleanor couldn't remember describing the violin to Victor. She didn't know much about violins. She had only bothered to have a look at it because it was a Stradivarius. She liked famous names.
“Where did the contessa keep it?” he asked.
“In the music room at her villa. No particular precautions were taken. Of course the villa is full of treasures, and the house has an alarm system, to say nothing of the staff of servants. You'll find it was one of them who took it. It's odd Audrey didn't tell me of the Contessa's loss. When did it happen?"
“Around New Year's,” I told her.
“Who's Audrey, your sister?” Sean asked.
Eleanor sipped more coffee and nodded. A frown creased her well-tended brow but not for long. She reached and smoothed away its last traces with her fingers. “I was out of town at New Year's; that would explain my not hearing about the contessa's loss. Ron and I were skiing at Mont Tremblant. I must be running along to an appointment now. I just popped in to see that you're all right, Cassie."
“Time for me to be shoving o
ff, too,” Sean said. “I'll call you around noon, Cassie. Can I drop you somewhere, Mrs. Strathroy?"
I was glad to be rid of him, but a little surprised at his offer to give Eleanor a lift. Eleanor was more than shocked; she was offended. “I have my car,” she said haughtily. “Ronald will call you, dear.” She gave me a frosty peck on the cheek, and allowed Sean to hold the front door and lead her to the elevator. I had a feeling she wouldn't exchange a word with him all the way down, and that Sean would chat away despite her silence. He'd obviously gone with her to see what else he could discover about the Contessa Carpani. What he was trying to find out was whether Victor knew he was buying a stolen violin, or maybe whether he'd arranged to steal it himself. I knew Victor hadn't been in Italy around the New Year; he was playing a series of concerts in New York at the time.
My plan was to follow Sean, and as soon as the elevator door closed, I grabbed my purse and hurried out to take the next one down. If he took his car, he'd have to go to the service elevator, so I might follow him as he drove out, if I had the luck to catch a cab immediately. I waited impatiently, watching the numbers change as the elevator came up. It stopped at floor seventeen, the door opened, and a short man of swarthy complexion got out. With my nerves already jumping, I felt frightened by the way he stared at me, but he just brushed past without saying anything. The door was gliding shut behind me when I recognized him—or his suit. Surely that was the same rumpled blue polyester suit, shiny as plastic, and the same man inside it, who had been at the Casa Loma the day my uncle disappeared!
Panic grew inside me as the elevator went quietly down. I punched the button, and got out at floor fifteen, not knowing what I was going to do, but knowing I couldn't let this chance pass. I had to do something. I'd go back up to the seventeenth floor and at least spy on the man, see where he was going. Could he possibly be going anywhere else but to my apartment? I used the stairs, as the elevator had already left, and besides I wanted to sneak up quietly on the man in the blue suit.
The stairs were blocked off by the required fire-safe door. I opened the door an inch and peeked down the hall, toward Victor's apartment. The man was there all right, but it wasn't Victor's door he was at. It was Betty Friske's, and she was just letting him in.
A million questions spewed into my head, foremost among them the usual one—what should I do? What could I do? I could wait for the man to come out and follow him, or I could follow Sean if I moved fast. The little swarthy man was a peripheral figure in my mystery, so I opted to follow Sean and took the elevator from floor sixteen. I stood in front of the apartment building, looking up and down for the silver Monte Carlo. I didn't see it, but before long I spotted Sean on foot, dodging along at a fast clip but always making sure to stay behind another pedestrian. He was tailing somebody!
I fell in behind him, doing the same thing. Before long, I realized it was Eleanor he was following. Her black dress and his big hat made them easy to see. Now why in hell was he doing this? At times he did behave like a boy, playing detective. Eleanor trotted briskly along to the Hazelton Lanes Mall. When she went into a shop, Sean strolled along a bit and waited. I waited still farther behind him. Eleanor's “appointment” was just a shopping spree. She went from store to store for nearly an hour, and Sean dogged her every step. When she left, she went back to the parking garage at our apartment building, and Sean followed her.
I followed him by cab when his rented Monte Carlo nosed around the corner, hot on the trail of Eleanor's aged but still shiny Lincoln. She went to Ronald's office on Bay Street. I got out a block later and doubled back. I thought Sean would show up sooner or later, but I'd lost him. Maybe he spotted me following him. Since I wasn't the least interested in Eleanor's itinerary, I took a taxi home, as nervous as ever when the elevator door pulled open at floor seventeen. There was no little blue-suited man there waiting for me. Still with Betty Friske, getting his face bruised, no doubt.
If he was, they were being quiet about it. Not a sound came through the adjoining wall. A little later, Betty's door opened and she came out alone, dressed up for a day touring the stores or beauty parlors. The peacock blue suit looked hideous with her orange hair. She looked like a cheap actress or high class waitress. She didn't look as if she belonged in our building at all. What could the little man have to do with Betty? And more importantly, had he been with Sean at the Casa Loma, as I had first thought that day that now seemed so long ago?
Coincidence is known for its long arm, but it would have to be elastic for that man to happen to be at the Casa Loma around the time of my uncle's disappearance, standing right beside Sean, and now turn up snooping around next door, and for him not to be involved. Was he an associate of Sean's, and was Betty one of them as well? Sean had been quick to volunteer to talk to her. As I thought it over, it seemed less likely she and Sean could have fallen into each other's arms so easily with no former acquaintance.
Betty was a friend of my uncle's. She could have fingered him as a likely buyer for the stolen Strad if they were all working together. Was I nuts? I was fast heading in that direction with so much confusion.
I tried diligently to marshal facts, suspicions and suspects into rows on a piece of paper, but nothing matched. Sean's sitting on my tail was more than coincidence, but why did he lead me by the nose to discover things he'd be better off without my knowing? And there was still Etherington to consider. Was he Sean? I was suspicious that Sean, who remembered so many details, hadn't thought to ask what Etherington looked like. An Englishman was the only way Bitwell had described him. Anybody using an English accent would be taken for an Englishman at first acquaintance. Anybody could say he was from Dorset, just like anyone could say he was from North Platte.
I checked the atlas, and North Platte was there on the Platte River, just where Sean said it was. Not that that proved anything except that Sean had an atlas. I decided to phone Dr. Bitwell and get Etherington's description. It was Sean who had gotten his number, but Bitwell was in the Muskoka directory, and the operator gave me the number.
He hadn't arrived yet when I first called, but the second time, he answered. “Did you remember to call the police?” I asked him.
“Yes, I did. I gave them the information before I left Toronto. They were very grateful. Have you heard anything?”
I said no, and asked him about Etherington's appearance.
“Victor didn't say much about his looks. Only that he was an Englishman. He said he had a moustache, and wore tinted glasses—not sunglasses, but regular glasses with a little tint. He wondered later if they were a disguise, but he didn't seem to think so at first. Sorry I can't be of more help."
“Wait—don't hang up. Did he say anything about his size, or what he was wearing, his hair coloring, birthmarks?"
“Nothing like that, except he said the man was well-dressed, I believe. Yes, now I look back on it, he said something about an old school tie sort of English bloke. I don't know whether he meant it literally about the tie or just meant that type of Englishman."
A stereotype, a sort of broad caricature, to emphasize the nationality. That's what Etherington sounded like to me. I thanked Bitwell and hung up. The little swarthy man couldn't be Etherington. The first thing anyone would have mentioned about him was his size. He didn't wear a moustache, not that he couldn't have stuck one on for the occasion, but Sean actually wore one, and he did accents too. He might own a jacket that would lead Victor, the clothes horse, to call him well dressed. He'd kept it off his back if he owned one, but it was possible.
As I considered it, Sean's whole western persona was rather broadly drawn, more of a caricature than anything else. Easy to describe, like Etherington, and even easier to change. Just pull off the hat and boots and jeans, and cut the twang from his voice. I was sorry I hadn't stayed on his tail when he stopped at Bay Street. And why on earth was he doing that? This strange mixture of idiocy and wily intelligence baffled me. He should have shaved off the moustache if he was Etherington. And he ha
d led me to discover Etherington himself—curiouser and curiouser.
It wasn't quite noon yet, but when the phone peeled, I felt a sinking, sad and certain feeling it was Sean. It was a relief to hear Ronald's voice.
“I've just heard from Mom, Cassie,” he said.
“About Dr. Bitwell?"
“Yes, that's an unexpected turn! A Stradivarius violin. It's starting to sound like a vulgar melodrama.” The Strathroys would hate vulgar melodrama worse than they hated polyester.
“A stolen Stradivarius at that. Stolen from a neighbor of your sister, isn't that a coincidence?” I said. “Your mother knows the Contessa Carpani."
“The strangest thing of all is that Victor didn't recognize the violin,” he replied. There was a tinge of insinuation in his voice.
“How could he recognize something he'd never seen?"
“That cluster of grapes should have distinguished it. I'm sure Mom must have described the thing to him in detail. However, that's neither here nor there; I'm not suggesting your uncle is criminally involved. I called to see if you're free for lunch."
I had taken offense on my uncle's behalf, and said very curtly, “I already have plans, thanks anyway."
“With the American you went to the concert with?” he asked stiffly.
“That's the one."
“Have you been seeing a lot of him?” he asked. An edge of jealously was definitely creeping into his voice now, and I gave it a shove.
“Practically all of him."
“I beg your pardon?” A joke is wasted on the Strathroys, which is one of the things I find off-putting about them.
“A fair bit,” I translated. “He doesn't know anyone else in town."
“He didn't have any trouble picking you up. You'd think he'd have the common courtesy to leave you alone at a time like this.” He was trying to hide his jealousy beneath a veneer of concern, but the rebuke was intended for me all the same. I didn't even have the excuse of saying the Strathroys had abandoned me. They'd been hounding me incessantly.