“I do indeed, Nuala. Her love for Hines was a delightful and somewhat wicked fantasy, and she enjoyed it and would not permit anything to come of it.”
“That’s true enough,” she sniffed, “though it’s a man’s way of putting it, isn’t it, now? Still you’re a man, and it’s all right for you to put it that way.”
“I miss a few of the emotional nuances?”
“Just a few of them! I’ll be getting your chocolate ice cream now. One or two scoops?”
“Three.”
She returned shortly. It looked to me as if there were four scoops of ice cream. I didn’t complain. Herself had brought on a very delicate half-scoop on her own plate.
“She was more than a flighty girl, Nuala. After all, she was older then than you are now.”
“Just barely, but how else would I know her emotions unless I was capable of the same feelings me-self?”
“You’re the one who should be the writer.”
“Haven’t I told you often, that I’m an accountant?” she said with a warning frown.
“Woman, you have!”
The frown vanished.
“Still and all,” she continued, “wasn’t he a pleasant memory in the back of her brain, though she had no illusions about him? And wasn’t your man wonderful that night at dinner?”
“Paddy Murray?”
“And himself telling her that he didn’t mind and that it was all right for her to have that memory?”
“Yeah, he seems to have been a pretty impressive guy.”
“Wouldn’t he have to have been?”
“Yep.”
The ice cream was delicious, probably because now I was fully out of my hangover.
“So there were lots of conspiracies going on at the same time; her daddy’s, the Rebels, Colonel Sweet, the prisoners, the Tribune, and maybe a lot of other amadons in town who were up to no good or waiting around for someone else to be up to no good. So what was the ‘Great Camp Douglas Conspiracy,’ the one that never was?”
“What was it, Nuala?”
The ice cream was disappearing at an alarming rate.
“Wasn’t it an accidental combination of all of them which took on a life of its own and ran out of control? Wasn’t it just what might happen in a city divided by the war, uncertain about the slaves, teeming with rumors, and desperately afraid? Why can’t your historian fellows see that?”
Explained that way and with such eloquence, it did seem like a reasonable explanation.
“Because none of them are as perceptive as you are, Nuala Anne McGrail.”
“Go ’long with ya!” she said, with a pleased smile.
Like I say, I had learned my lesson in Dublin.
“Well,” she continued, “I’m sure herself thinks it’s time the whole story be told. Otherwise, why would I be finding out about Camp Douglas? So you’ll have to write it up, won’t you, now? Maybe in one of your stories.”
“Her document is in the archives, Nuala Anne.”
“What good is it doing there?”
“A point well taken … . All right, I see the makings of a historical novel in this stuff. I’ve always wanted to write about the Civil War.”
“And we have to find the letter.”
“From your man in the White House?”
“The very same. A. Lincoln himself.”
“But doesn’t she say that she lost it?”
“Mislaid it. Now she knows where it is. She expects me to find it. She needs that to clear her father completely.”
“Nuala, they’re both in heaven … .”
“That doesn’t mean they’re not interested in seeing that the truth is told.”
That was a highly idiosyncratic theology, but who was I to argue?
“How are we to find it?”
“Keep looking for it.”
“All right,” I said to humor her. “I’ll keep looking for it.”
“Just like we looked for your man’s gold in them mountains.”
“Right.”
It was a very different story than that of Roger Casement’s gold, but I was not about to argue. Not in what once had been Letitia Walsh’s bedroom.
“Now do you want to know how it fits to our problem today?”
“I didn’t know that was the way you were thinking.”
“Sure, why else would I have dragged you over here on a hot night like this?”
She poured me a third cup of tea. She did not, however, offer me more ice cream.
“Och, this is too cold. I’ll go out and boil some more water.”
“Fine.”
She returned after turning on the electric teapot on her minuscule sink.
“Sit down, Dermot Michael. I want you sitting when I explain it to you.”
“Let me hear about it.”
“Well,” she said, drawing a deep breath, “won’t I tell you now?”
And she did, pausing in mid-narrative to bring in the fresh water for our tea. After ordering me to let it steep for a minute or two, she poured more tea for each of us and went on with her theory.
It was wild, mad, improbable—and probably accurate.
“Am I right or am I wrong, Dermot Michael Coyne?”
“It all figures, Nuala. Makes sense. But how do we ever prove it?”
“I want to become a temporary employee of Reliable Security. Then you and I can solve the mystery of a conspiracy that never was.”
“You want me to get us credentials as private detectives?”
“Well,” she said shyly, “wouldn’t it be nice if you did?”
Back to my Dermot the Spear Carrier guise.
“What about your job?”
“Didn’t they offer me a couple of days off to recover from me trauma?”
“OK,” I said, swallowing my male pride, “Tell me what we’re going to do.”
So she did.
It was a crazy solution to the art thefts.
Only it didn’t sound crazy when she explained it to me.
Not until she said, “Herself thinks it’s the right solution.”
“Who?”
“’Titia, naturally. She knows all about conspiracies that never were.”
I didn’t know whether Nuala was joking. I didn’t want to know.
11
MY FIRST stop the following morning was at the Art Institute. My goal was to check out one of Nuala’s prime assumptions, based on the notion that a remarkable woman, long since dead, had linked our mystery with her own. Several times as I walked down Michigan Avenue, I told myself that I was out of my frigging mind for believing that Letitia Walsh was pointing out a solution to our mystery.
However, spear carriers do what they are told to do.
I give the Art Institute (never, absolutely never, in Chicago called simply the “Institute” the way the University of Chicago is normally called the “University”) some money every year, as I do the Lyric Opera and the Symphony because I figure I should. I hang around over there occasionally, probably less than I should. You tend to take the really good places in your home city for granted because they’ll always be there.
I knew a man in the administration of the Art Institute who was happy to see me at 10:30.
“How are the preparations for the Monet show coming along, Edgar?” I began.
“Splendid, Dermot. It will be the biggest Monet exhibit ever. Probably the biggest there ever will be for a long time. We’re planning a lot of special events. I hope you’ll be able to attend some of them.”
“I will indeed.”
“You know that the young people have attributed a special meaning to the word ‘Monet’? I must say that it’s a remarkably erudite slang word.”
“I’ve heard some of the teens in our family use it. It’s not exactly a compliment, but I haven’t caught the allusion.”
“It means”—he grinned sheepishly—“that the person looks great from a distance, but when one comes close, one notices that the person is all mixed up and c
onfused.”
“It is remarkably erudite for adolescents.”
One of which I was not so long ago. Some in the family would say that my adolescence had ended only recently, if it had ended at all.
“We can only hope that the popularity of the word will attract them to the Art Institute for the exhibition. We will not be lacking for people, heaven knows. Yet we would love to attract young people. I’m sure that Monet would appeal to their romantic instincts.”
“As they do to mine.”
We were both dodging around the subject of the theft at the Armacost Gallery. He must have assumed that I had heard about it and was curious. Whether he knew about Cindy and Ms. McGrail was another matter. He didn’t seem to be the kind who watched a lot of television.
“We’ll be sure you get a brochure about all the events that our sponsors are free to attend.”
“Thank you.”
By the middle of August, I would be sick of Monet, and never want to see one of his canvases again.
As is generally known, the Irish like to approach matters indirectly and at the end of a conversation, over dessert, perhaps, or when one is saying good-bye at the end of the night or as one is walking out of a room. So I was uneasy about jumping into the reason for my visit directly. Genes or culture or both constrained me not to do it. Yet I had to.
“Were those canvases that were stolen from Armacost to be part of the exhibition?” I asked very cautiously.
If Edgar was surprised at my uncharacteristic bluntness, he did not show it. However, he answered me uneasily.
“Well, no, Dermot. Actually not. They did not offer them to us. That’s understandable. They might very well want to keep their canvases distinct for fear that they would be lost among so many others. After all, a Monet is a Monet, so even an early and somewhat dubious painting still may be worth millions. Moreover, they may attract potential buyers who are in Chicago for our exhibition.”
“I see … .”
“As you no doubt realize, Monet destroyed many of his canvases because they did not achieve his own standards of excellence. The existence of the two paintings over at the Armacost became known only recently.”
“You have not asked to exhibit their canvases?”
“No, Dermot, we have not.”
“And if they had offered them to you?”
He hesitated again.
“This is a very delicate area, Dermot.”
“So I understand.”
“It has never been the Art Institute’s policy to, ah, disparage the holdings of a commercial gallery, especially one in Chicago. Our worlds are rather different, you know. Moreover, the Armacosts have been very generous to us.”
“So I understand.”
“Moreover, we hardly are in the police business. If someone asks us about a piece of art, we would normally be very hesitant in offering an opinion.”
“I’m sure you would.”
“Nonetheless, in the present circumstances—”
“Which are a little different from ordinary circumstances.”
“You will not quote me?”
“Certainly not.”
“Or involve the Art Institute?”
“No way.”
“Well, let me show you the latest catalog from the Armacost.”
He rose from his desk, opened a file cabinet, and rummaged through it.
I watched the cars moving down Monroe Street towards the lake—a wondrous, shimmering light blue mirror. I was to meet herself at the Chicago Yacht Club at the foot of Monroe Street later for lunch.
Finally Edgar removed a catalog from the cabinet.
“Here we are, Dermot. You’ll note the Monet picture on the cover.”
“Yes, no water lilies.”
It was, in fact, a painting of a boat anchored in a body of water under marvelous thunderhead clouds.
“Sainte Adresse, I’d guess,” I continued, showing off just a bit. “It’s quite lovely, isn’t it?”
He opened a drawer in his desk, pulled out a color photograph, and shoved it across his desk.
I looked at it and compared it with the picture on the cover of the Armacost catalog.
“They certainly look similar, Edgar, though a lot of Monet’s paintings look like one another. The man loved to paint the same scenes.”
“Not that similar.”
“Ah?”
“He never actually repeated himself. There were minor variations. That’s natural, when you stop to think of it. He was a different man on a different day each time he painted the garden. Actually, it would have been very difficult for him to repeat himself.”
“I see.”
“We are quite confident of the provenance of the ones we will exhibit. The other is a beach scene from the same period. It is from the gallery of a private collector of unimpeachable integrity who would not have been fooled by an imitation. They have never been exhibited before.”
“ash!”
“Naturally, we do not intend to make any comparisons. There might have been some controversy with two versions of the same scene hanging in Chicago at the same time. But we assume that the Armacosts would remove their paintings from display. We certainly wouldn’t have created the controversy. Some of the art critics may have, to say nothing of the media.”
He spoke the last word with great distaste.
“The Armacost catalog would still be available?”
“Yes, indeed. I do not see how the controversy could have been avoided.”
“And these two”—I flicked open the cover of the catalog to look at their second painting—“are fakes.”
“Yes, Dermot. But very clever imitations, masterfully done by someone who had studied Monet very carefully and believed that the two paintings we will exhibit would never be seen in public. Doubtless he had seen the originals at some time and remembered very clearly what they were. More than likely, he managed to photograph them secretly.”
“Would the Armacosts have been able to detect the fraud?”
“Our experts here could have looked at the paintings and seen nothing wrong with them. If the Armacosts were wise, they would have brought in one or two of the world’s truly great Monet experts. I don’t think they would have been fooled. However, as I have said, it is a very, very ingenious copy. Imitations like these have a considerable value in and of themselves.”
“Insurance companies?”
“Unless they brought in the same one or two of the best men in the world, they would have insured as if these canvases were valid paintings by the master. We have no way of knowing.”
“How much would the imitations earn in the open marketplace?”
“Once they were known as imitations? Oh, perhaps a couple of hundred thousand dollars each.”
“And if they were thought to be authentic?”
“Millions. Indeed, at a Sotheby’s auction with Arab oil barons and wealthy Japanese collectors, perhaps tens of millions.”
“I see.”
“I beg you, Dermot, not to draw any conclusions from this. It is altogether likely that neither the Armacosts nor the thieves were aware of these facts. The imitator, if he is still alive and knows where his canvas is, might have read that the originals were to be exhibited and was afraid of being trapped. Anything might have happened.”
“Indeed.”
“None of this may have any relationship to the theft at all.”
“Was it known that your collector was permitting the exhibition of his canvases?”
“Indeed it was. It was big news in the art world because he was known to have ten Monet canvases. Pictures of some appeared in the European papers, most notably, the Sunday Times—of London, naturally.”
I didn’t think it was the Chicago Sun-Times, the remote descendant of ’Titia’s paper.
“No pictures of these two?”
“Not insofar as I am aware of it.”
“Yet, if the insurance company sees that your exhibit has almost exactly the same ca
nvases, they may be reluctant to pay out the claims of the Armacosts.”
“That is altogether possible. However, in the absence of the Armacost canvases, it would be difficult—if not impossible—to prove that they were not original. A world-class expert could confirm that ours were original, but he could not really make any judgments about those that had been stolen … . Incidentally, I assume that there was actually a theft. Did not a passing driver see the frames actually being carried out of the Armacost Gallery?”
“He certainly did.”
Which of course meant that he certainly claimed that he did.
I shook hands with Edgar, promised him my total confidence, and took my leave.
Before I had left the John Hancock Center for the Art Institute, I had called Reliable Security and asked them if I could talk to the head of the company.
“Casey,” said a flat cop’s voice at the other end of the connection.
“My name is Dermot Coyne …” I began.
“I know who you are Mr. Coyne,” he replied with a pleasant laugh. “I’m kind of a shirttail relative of the bishop for whom your brother works. I also know about our protection of your, ah, young woman.”
“We would like to meet with you, Mr. Casey. My, ah, young woman has some ideas about the art-gallery thefts.”
“Could we have breakfast tomorrow morning? Coffee shop of the Ritz-Carlton?”
“Fine. Er, I believe she would like to work for you on this case. Volunteer.”
“Indeed?” he chuckled. “I look forward to meeting her in person. She has a smooth television persona.”
“That’s only one of many.”
I then told him about how, in her detective persona, in Dublin and Galway she had solved the mystery of who had killed Michael Collins, the great Irish revolutionary leader.
“I certainly look forward to meeting her,” he said, duly impressed. “Eight o’clock too early?”
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