First Gravedigger (19 page)

“Hard to say. But I wouldn't be surprised if it set a record for the highest amount ever paid for a single chair. Interest has been even greater than I thought it'd be. Middle six figures, I'd guess.”

Nedda laughed softly and shook her head. “All that money. For a chair. A place to rest your butt.” The security guard stationed by the Duprée shot her a startled look and then looked away quickly.

I was equally startled. “You can't be serious. You don't really think the Duprée's just something to sit on, do you?”

She grimaced. “Please, no little lectures about artistic values. It's a lovely chair, of course. But can you look me in the eye and claim the
art
in that chair is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars?”

Her obtuseness so stunned me I could only come back with a cliché. “You can't put a monetary value on art.”

She laughed in delight. “Why, Earl, you do it every day of your life! And you do it by muddying the line between art and rarity. That's where the money is—in rarity. If only one urinal were left in the world it would be universally acclaimed as the most exquisite work of art known to western civilization.”

I was the one who'd come out of the slums but my well-bred wife could be as crude as they make them. “Don't knock it, kiddo,” I said. “It's what pays your bills.”

“You think I don't know that?” she grinned. “Earl, I don't think you're being very realistic. All I'm saying is the primary reason the Met wants that chair is to lord it over other American museums. The art is secondary.”

“You don't know what you're talking about,” I told her bluntly. “You have no understanding of this business and you shouldn't be so quick to pass judgment. Better leave business matters to me.”

The laugh disappeared from her face and her voice. “I know more about what goes on here than you think I do. And don't tell me to mind my own business. This
is
my business, remember?”

Pennsylvania crude. “I have work to do,” I said and left her standing there. It was a retreat, but the security guard was finding it harder and harder to pretend he wasn't listening.

My new secretary looked up as I went charging through the outer office. “Mrs. McAllister just called. She—”

“Get her back, will you?”

My new secretary was male. Quiet, deferential, efficient. A pleasant young man—June Murray had selected him. June herself had wrinkled her nose in distaste at the windowless cubicle that had been Hal Downing's office. She'd done some reassigning of space and ended up in a corner rm w rv vw.

Buzz, buzz. “Mrs. McAllister.”

“Peg?”

“Good news, Earl. The last two holdouts have settled. Now every one of those people Wightman bilked has been taken care of.”

So at last it was finished. That was one nightmare I could stop wrestling with. Then Peg gave me the bad news: the final tab came to four hundred ten thousand dollars. It could have been worse, I guess. But not much. Pins under his fingernails. Boiling oil.

“By the way,” Peg was saying, “isn't it about time for that crook to start paying you back? Have you gotten any money out of him yet?”

“Not until July,” I said hastily. “That was the agreement.”

“You should have gotten it in writing,” she grumbled and hung up.

Peg and I had almost come to blows when she learned I had no signed agreement with Wightman. I'd told her he'd refused outright to sign anything, that he was willing to go along with the repayment scheme only if I could guarantee we'd keep his name clean. We'd told his victims there'd been a “mistake” in the original evaluations. Lie upon lie upon lie. It had been all I could do to keep Peg from charging out to San Francisco herself to get the agreement down in black and white, all legal and proper. Things had been a bit cool between us for a few days after that. Peg was definitely becoming a nuisance.

But I'd just given myself another couple of months. I'd think of something by then.

I'd barely had a moment to revel in the good feeling of being free of Wightman's sucker list when June Murray came in with a scheme. She wanted me to let her set up a new department—to handle memorabilia.

“Shirley Temple drinking mugs at twenty-five dollars each?” I scoffed. “You're joking. Penny-ante stuff.”

“Not if it's handled in volume. Switching to volume dealing would take some reorganizing, but we could manage it without too much expense.”

“Oh June, no.”

“Wait—hear me out. Two years ago everyone was saying the memorabilia craze had already peaked, but it just wasn't true—it's stronger today than ever. Earl, it's not only the rich who have the urge to collect. There are a lot of people out there who can't afford to invest heavily in antiques but who are quite willing to plunk down a few dollars for an old country store sign or a Mickey Mouse pull toy. It's a good source of income, and we're not taking advantage of it.”

“Out of the question,” I said shortly. “Speer's doesn't deal in schlock. I'm surprised at you, June. We don't even handle art nouveau anymore.”

And that's another mistake
, her expression said. “At least promise me you'll think about it.”

“No,” I said, “I won't promise you I'll think about it. It's
junk
, June!”

“Of course it's junk. It's also money.”

“No. Absolutely not. Never.”

“Well, that sounds definite,” she said dryly.

“As definite as I can make it. No memorabilia.”

“You're a snob, Earl,” she said, but she smiled when she said it. “All right, if you've made up your mind. But do you really think it's wise to handle only those pieces that measure up to your personal standards of quality?”

“A Mickey Mouse pull toy is a better standard?”

“I didn't make myself clear. We can't deal only in items you like personally. That would be nice, but it's not very sound business. Earl, you need another source of income. If you're so dead set against memorabilia, then let's find something else. At least think about
that
.”

“Three weeks my new assistant has been on the job,” I told the ceiling. “And already she's telling me how to run the business.”

June didn't say anything for a moment. Then: “Well, I can't make you listen. All I can do is point to the figures. The Duprée chair is bailing you out this time, but then what?”

“Look, June, you don't understand. I've had unusual expenses—”

“You mean the four hundred thousand you had to pay out to those people Mr. Wightman cheated. Peg calls them ‘the greedy children.' I think it was magnanimous of you, Earl—not exposing Mr. Wightman, I mean. Exposure would ruin a man in our business. Any man. Even you.”

And that was June Murray's clever little way of letting me know she knew
why
I hadn't exposed Wightman. Subtle, huh? Her expression gave nothing away, but she'd made her point: the squeeze starts here. One damn thing finishes and another begins.

“All right, June,” I sighed. “Start looking for a new line we can carry. But not memorabilia, please.”

Her victory smile was dazzling. “I'll get on it right away. It's the right step to take, Earl. You'll see.”

“Sure.”

“And don't worry about it. I'll take care of everything.”

I'll bet you will
. “Good girl, June.”

She threw me an odd look and left.

First Peg pressuring me about Wightman, now June using her knowledge of my double-dealing to blackmail me into letting her encroach upon my authority. And another one at home giving me a hard time every time I turned around. I was beginning to wish Charlie Bates would come in and free me of all my women.

Wightman I wanted to save for myself.

My new secretary looked up from the phone. “It's the guard at the front entrance. He says a Lieutenant D'Elia wants to come in.”

I groaned to myself. “Tell him okay.” I couldn't very well refuse him admittance. “I'll be in the showroom.” Maybe I could avoid him that way.

Duprée Day was fast approaching. The security guards had been provided with the names of the dealers and museum representatives who were authorized to examine the chair. We were auctioning some other good pieces on the same day to take advantage of the enthusiasm generated by the Duprée.

When I got to the showroom I groaned again. There was Lieutenant D'Elia, scrutinizing the object of everybody's concern. Speer's had gotten a lot of good publicity because of that chair. (Even the morning paper had realized something unusual was going on; they'd printed a picture of the chair on the front page, bumping the usual photos of cute kids and puppies.) But I could have done without D'Elia's attention.

“Hello, Lieutenant. What do you think of it?” The friendly approach.

D'Elia dragged his eyes away from the chair. “Frankly, I don't know what to think of it. It's a pretty chair. The paper said the bidding would start at three hundred fifty thousand dollars. Is that right?”

“That's right,” I smiled. “That's only the starting point, of course. The very least I expect is five hundred thousand.”

He turned his gaze back to the Duprée. “Half a million dollars.” He thought about that a minute and then abruptly turned his back on the chair. “Why, Sommers? Why is one chair worth half a million dollars?”

“Because it's a rare work of art,” I said simply. “Art isn't confined to easel paintings, Lieutenant.” I picked up one of our brochures from a table. “Here, this will tell you something about Duprée. Unfortunately there isn't much of his work around. That's one reason this piece will go so high.”

“Half a million,” D'Elia muttered as he took the brochure. I didn't tell him I thought the final figure would probably be between six and seven hundred thousand. It might even reach eight.
Too high
, I told myself sharply. Mustn't indulge in wishful thinking.

“Will the chair end up in a museum?” D'Elia wanted to know.

“Almost certainly. Both the Metropolitan and the Louvre are determined to get it. But there might be a dark horse bidder.”

“Meaning?”

“I mean an agent in the employ of some eccentric individual collector whose greatest pleasure in life is outbidding museums.” I shuddered. “The Duprée could end up in a vault in Saudi Arabia.”

D'Elia looked as if he thought that might be a good place for it. “I wanted to ask you, Sommers. Have you heard from Wightman lately?”

I started to say no when the import of what he was asking hit me. “Why, Lieutenant! You mean you don't know everything that's going on here? What happened to your sources of information?”

He shrugged. “We know you went out to San Francisco in January. We know you talked to Wightman.”

“But you don't know why, or whether we've talked since.”
And it's bugging you
. “No, I haven't heard from him. I went out to suggest a business deal but we couldn't agree on terms. I've had no reason to talk to him since then. Why do you want to know?”

“Let's go to your office.”

I led the way. Inwardly I was exulting; promoting June had been the right move. Now that she had a vested interest in Speer's, she wasn't going to blab to the police or anybody else about everything that happened here.

When we were in my office D'Elia said, “All right, I'll tell you. It was Wightman who was my ear inside this place. He contacted me right after Amos Speer's murder. He was convinced you were responsible.”

It was
Wightman?
It wasn't June?

Double blow: “He thought
I
killed Speer?”

“He thought you engineered it. Hired someone to do it. Wightman had no evidence, of course. But somehow he'd found out about your, er, friendship with Mrs. Speer and anticipated your taking over the directorship of the business. That gave you a strong motive, of course.”

I was so stunned I couldn't think of a thing to say.

“You and Wightman never got along, did you?” D'Elia asked rhetorically. “It seemed clear to me that Wightman's accusation was motivated by spite. Rather waspish man, isn't he? But when everything he predicted would happen
did
happen—your marriage to Mrs. Speer, your taking over the business—well, then I began to take him more seriously.”

“You mean now you think I did hire someone to kill Speer?”

“I mean it's a possibility we have to consider.”

“Double talk. Lieutenant, I don't even know how to go about hiring a killer. What do you do, advertise for one? You're wrong, you're dead wrong. Why are you telling me about this now? Speer's been dead for over a year.”

“The Duprée chair. The last day Amos Speer ever spent in this gallery, he told his secretary he'd just found a genuine Duprée and then he said something rather strange. He said, ‘I've got Sommers now.' His secretary mentioned this odd association of ‘Duprée' and ‘Sommers' to Wightman. Wightman interpreted it to mean there was something fishy going on in connection with the chair, and somehow you were connected with it.”

“He would. That's Wightman to a T—always looking for dirt.” So June and Wightman were in cahoots even that far back. She hadn't gossiped to the police the way I'd thought, but she was still in that bastard Englishman's camp.

D'Elia said, “What did Speer mean, ‘I've got Sommers now'?”

“I have no idea. I don't even know he did say that. You got it third hand, remember. Lieutenant, you've got to understand about Wightman. He likes to make trouble. The man is just plain bad news.”

D'Elia was nodding his head. “That was the impression I got. Especially when no Duprée chair was offered for auction. Speer's secretary very conveniently didn't remember the conversation, so I more or less decided Wightman had made the whole story up. Then one morning a year later I open the newspaper and there's a picture of a Duprée chair on the front page. And the story says it's being offered for auction by none other than Speer Galleries. Why so long? Why did you wait a year before auctioning the chair?”