Katherine Keenum (33 page)

“Well, these days, some of them hide out in old quarries near where we were this afternoon. Rob saw them as good material. He sold a three-part article in March, ‘The Underbelly of Babylon.’ He used a pseudonym to protect his cover and, as a matter of fact, disguised all the details to protect the guilty.”

“A prudent way to play with fire,” Edward said before he could stop himself. Winkham frowned. “Sorry. Go on.”

Winkie saw something sympathetic in Edward’s face. He went back to rolling the empty beer mug between his hands. “What troubled me last winter was the way Rob did favors for real criminals. Delivered packages, no questions asked; carried messages in code; redeemed pawned objects. He said as long as he didn’t know the details and didn’t take any money, he was safe. The trouble is, Rob is smart and thinks he’s smarter. He played some sort of double game and wound up having to carry a packet of stolen diamonds up to Brussels to square things. It scared me to know about it, but I thought at least he had learned his lesson.”

“Maybe he learned instead how easy it could be to pick up a few francs as a runner. Are you sure he hasn’t made other trips since then?”

“It wouldn’t be like him. He’d rather steal for himself than be the pawn in some other man’s game. He’ll hate you for knowing about him, by the way, if what you’re telling me is true.”

“I can see that.”

“If you ask me, the temptation at the Renicks’ house was to see if he could get away with it, to risk ruin on the brink of advancement.”

“Well, if it eases your mind, I don’t think he had any other valuables stashed away on his person. He said he didn’t.”

“Then he didn’t. But there! I’ve spent half my life believing Robbie Dolson, and he doesn’t always tell the truth. All the same, he’s the best friend I ever had. I want to believe him,” said Winkie, adding with a sigh, “if only for Emily’s sake.”

“The best thing you could do for Miss Dolson would be to get her out from under her brother’s thumb.”

“Marry her, you mean? That’s just what I couldn’t do even if she were still in Paris. I’ve nothing to offer her and won’t have for years; and when I do, she won’t have me. She never will. I could become head of Guy’s Hospital in London, and she’d still see me as Dolly’s shadow if she saw me at all.”

“Even if she were still in Paris—do you know she’s not?”

“Know it? As one scientific man to another, no, I don’t
know
anything about their whereabouts; but I can warrant you all the same that they’ve left for Berlin or Madrid by now. Venice, perhaps, even Algiers. Rob can’t nurture the illusion he’s invulnerable any more. I suppose you told the Renicks?”

“The footman already had.”

“Well, then, there you are. Rob’s a marked man, and he knows it. He’s gone somewhere to start building new illusions and taken Emily with him.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Impressions

E
dward returned to Cornelia on Friday. “I need your help,” he said.

“Anything—anything within reason, that is. I’m not nearly so foolhardy as people think.”

“You once climbed a three-story crane on the wharf to hang a lantern with us boys.”

“At night, too!” exclaimed Cornelia, clapping her hands as she leaned back against her cushions. “How does anyone ever survive the age of twelve? Promise me never, never to tell Marius, Jr., about his mother’s exploits.”

“They’ll have to tie me to an anthill first, word of honor,” said Edward. His grin faded. “I saw a friend of the Dolsons yesterday at Miss Pendergrast’s mission. He told me that Robert Dolson has been conniving with criminals lately in pursuit of a story. It’s made me come round to your opinion that Miss Palmer and her friends need to be warned, at least about what happened here—though the whole thing may be moot. Winkham is convinced that the Dolsons have left Paris for good.”

“All the more reason for Miss Dolson’s friends to know everything. I don’t see the difficulty.”

“No one loves the bearer of ill tidings, Nellie, and nobody loves the man who got a friend into trouble.”

Loves, he said. So that’s the rub, thought Cornelia. Oh, you silly men.

“Edward, darling, it’s easy. Let me tell Effie about the incident in the library. I’ve been on the point of doing so all week, but I’d promised not to blab. She’ll be the one to break it to the girls. All you have to do is back me up.”

When Effie arrived, she gave them the perfect opening: “Oh, my, you’ll never guess what that Mr. Dolson has done.”

*   *   *

If you don’t want your darling daughter to become conceited over being published or to waste her time on rubbishy cartoons
, Jeanette had written her parents on Thursday night,
you will be pleased with Mr. Dolson, but I could kill him. Maybe Emily, too. She didn’t come to class this week, and now I know why. Today, on the way over to Julian’s from M. Duran’s class, I picked up the latest issue of
Noggins
, expecting to see our piece on the organ grinder’s monkey—only Robbie has made a monkey out of me.

Timed to coincide with the buildup to the May opening of the annual state-sponsored art show, the Salon, the latest Peregrine Partout column breezily relayed artistic tittle-tattle, including a report on an open house at Carolus-Duran’s studio. According to the article, the painter primped, preened, pranced, and pandered. It was more disgustingly tongue-in-cheek than anything Jeanette had feared when she begged Robbie not to write in February. Worse, from her point of view, were two cartoon figures—M. Duran with an oversized head bowing down from the top of the page like an actor on a stage and a stringy dandy in a jauntily tilted top hat gazing up from the bottom margin.

“How vile,” said Amy, when Jeanette showed it to her. “The damnable thing is that if more than one hand can draw Ned Noggins, I suppose more than one can draw his chum Peregrine Partout. Did Robbie
promise
not to write about the open house?”

“In so many words.”

“In so many words? Rot! I’m sorry, Jeanette, but if you haven’t learned to make Robbie Dolson prick his finger and sign in blood, then you are a right ninny.”

“Why bother? He’d only cross the fingers of his other hand behind his back. Oh, Amy, what if Carolus sees this and thinks I had a part in it?”

“Why would he? There’s nothing to connect you to it. Hang on, whose initials are these? P.G.”

“Let me see that,” said Jeanette snatching the magazine back. “Why didn’t I notice?”

“Pascal Gobelard. Oh, lord, Robbie.”

“Bad?”

“Well, you can see he’s proficient in his own low way. He’s a Belgian hack who lived in London for a while and knows the Englishman’s every vulgar taste. If that’s the direction Robbie is taking the column, I’d consider myself well out of it.”

“You don’t have to pay Carolus’s fees, and Peregrine wasn’t your invention.”

*   *   *

When Sonja was shown the article and cartoons late that afternoon, she had a number of scathing imprecations for Robbie in particular and men in general. Then she added, “I offer you consolation: You come with me to the
vernissage
.”

Acceptance to the Salon carried with it a free pass for the entire month and the privilege of taking a guest to Varnishing Day, the eve of the official opening when exhibitors were allowed to make last-minute touch-ups to their work and varnish the surfaces for luster. It was a cross between the final dress rehearsal of a new play and a grand social reception.

“Aren’t you going?” Jeanette asked Amy.

“With Louise Steadman. As usual, the jury has accepted her submission.”

“A still life with kitchen pans, spoons, and a jug on white linen towels?”

“And a dead fish, rabbit, or fowl; don’t forget the carrion,” said Amy.

“Maybe she could paint Robbie’s head on a platter for me.”

“
Non
,” said Sonja, “this pleasure you reserve to yourself.”

Jeanette smiled slyly at Amy. “I could put in a wedge of cheese.”

“Stilton,” said Amy, “something moldy. Include the maggots.”

“I’d love to come with you, Sonja, if you really don’t need the ticket for someone else.”

“I want no one with me. That is why I ask you—you I can ignore.”

Jeanette laughed; but before she left, she let out her unhappiness again. “I can’t help thinking Emily knew this time. She was so withdrawn at the party.”

“There is no telling what that girl has had to know and put up with over the years,” said Amy. “We’ll give her another week and then rout her out.”

*   *   *

On Friday night, Effie came home with her news from the Poutery.

“He tried to steal from the Renicks with Emily right there?” exclaimed Jeanette. “He wouldn’t. Not even double-crossing Robbie Dolson could do a thing like that!” Or couldn’t he? Something shifty, watchful, and vulpine sometimes lurked in the back of his eyes. It had been there when he turned his back on her and Dr. Murer on the lower lawn. She had been puzzled as well as momentarily stung by that snub, but the rest of the afternoon had driven it from her mind. But here was another possibility. Had he come to the party already planning to betray his hosts?

Distress about Emily’s presence at the theft did not deter Jeanette and Amy from trying to find her. If anything, it spurred them on. “Poor lamb,” said Amy, “it sounds as if she was miserable.”

Edward had said nothing to either Cornelia or Effie about the laudanum; it was a topic he avoided, but he did tell them that Mr. Winkham thought the Dolsons would have bolted.

“That’s only a guess,” said Amy, when she heard. “They may be lying low nearby. If we can only find her, maybe this time Emily can be persuaded to set up on her own.”

The obvious first move was to get in touch with Winkie.

“Since I heard about . . . about what happened at the party,” he said, turning his hat in his hands, “I’ve tried to find Rob. Just as I feared, there’s no trace of him. If I learn anything, I’ll let you know. You do the same for me.”

Under his resignation, Jeanette saw a deeper gloom. “We’re worried about Emily, too,” she said, quietly.

He looked up and said cautiously, “About anything in particular?”

“No, nothing specific. I don’t know, Winkie; I just think she’s been carrying some great burden for a while now.”

“Oh, of that, I’m sure.”

“In my view,” said Amy, “if she’d only break away from Robbie, half her troubles would be solved.”

“No, Miss Richardson, they wouldn’t,” said Winkie, “and, anyway, she won’t. What other reality has she ever had but Rob? You can’t take away her world and expect her to thrive.”

Not contented with what Winkie had to say, Jeanette and Amy asked everyone else they could think of who might know something. They left notes with stationers and porters. Effie placed an advertisement in the personals column of Galignani’s English-language
Messenger
. On two successive Saturday nights, dressed in male attire, Sonja trawled the cafés where journalists, students, and satirists gathered; from time to time, she checked at the morgue. And then she declared, “Enough is enough,” and dropped all thought of the Dolsons.

By the end of April, Jeanette realized with a twinge of guilt that the Dolsons had receded from her mind, too. Only on the last Monday did the strangeness of setting up at Julian’s without Emily remind her of their disappearance. Meanwhile, there and in every atelier and studio in Paris, excitement had built to a near frenzy as May first approached and with it, the opening of the Salon.

*   *   *

On the morning of Varnishing Day, Jeanette, Sonja, Amy, and Miss Steadman took a tram to the Place de la Concorde and walked up the Champs-Élysées the rest of the way to the Palais de l’Industrie, where the exhibition was mounted. Green lawns put a pleasant distance between them and the stalled line of traffic on the macadamized middle of the avenue, but by the time they reached the exhibitors’ entrance, they were part of a jostling throng. Sonja, wretched in her anxiety, grew stiffer, brusquer, and, if possible, taller. Businesslike Miss Steadman was gearing up for a long day; Amy, as usual, took charge. Once they had handed over their tickets and passed through the magic portal, she said, “I think we’d better find the
B
s first.”

A dispassionately applied logic of the alphabet rather than any affinity of style, subject, or size grouped the painters into rooms by surname. The tightly packed walls of each room were a jumble; frame touched frame up to the sky of the high ceiling; but at least it was easy to know where to start looking for a particular painter. “Breton, Boulanger, Bouguereau, Borealska—not bad company, Sonja. People are sure to pause in the room.”

“They will look only at Bastien-Lepage,” said Sonja, in a constricted voice.

When they reached the right room, Amy followed Sonja’s gaze. “Oh, brava, Sonja!” she said, heartily. “Second line, and quite a good spot!”

She took her friend’s arm protectively, for Sonja stood rooted to the floor, in tears. With a mother’s ability to pick out her offspring in a crowd, Sonja had sorted through a hundred canvases in an instant to land on the faces brought forth by her own brush.
“J’ne pensais jamais, j’ne savais . . .”
I never thought; I didn’t know . . .

Jeanette felt a lump in her own throat. She watched as Sonja slowly crossed the room to stand in rapture under the Witkiewicz children’s faces. Sonja made no pretense of wanting to join the others when, after suitable plaudits, they made a quick tour of the rest of the room. Then, when they thought Sonja had been allowed enough time in her trance, they collected her and set out to find Miss Steadman’s picture.

Even a rapid passage through the building was stupefying. Thirty-six rooms, thousands of paintings and sculptures; drawings, etchings, and watercolors hung in the corridors; too much to take in, too much noise, too many people. But after the
B
s, the
D
s came quickly. Jeanette’s senses were not yet deadened when, with a leap of pleasure, she recognized M. Duran’s full-length
Portrait de Comtesse V——
hung centrally on the line.

“That means it’s up for a medal,” said Amy.

The foursome continued to route themselves as efficiently as they could toward the
S
s. Artists making last-minute changes had to be dodged. Fumes of solvents and varnish hung in the air. Jealousy, scorn, nerves. Bated breath, exhaled relief, excitement.

“My God, that’s gorgeous and the man to the life!” exclaimed Amy, when they finally reached their destination.

Jeanette, too, stopped dead in her tracks to meet the piercing gaze of Carolus-Duran. He sat leaning slightly to his right, dominating the room in a painter’s brown jacket and loose black cravat, with white ruffles at his collar and wrists; a triangle of dark hair and pointed beard boldly framed the face. It was John Sargent’s life-sized portrait—informal and commanding, respectful where the
Noggins
cartoon was nasty. Jeanette started toward it. “Steadman first,” whispered Amy.

Miss Steadman’s entry hung in a corner where, despite a small size of only eighteen by twenty-four inches, its pearly tone and unity stood out against larger humdrum landscapes and a fake Dutch genre scene nearby, even against a giant gladiatorial history painting around the corner. Best of all, it was hung on the line. “My first time ever!” exclaimed Miss Steadman, breaking into a broad smile, while Amy and Jeanette cheered and Sonja slapped her on the back. “Well, what’s next?”

“We’ll devise a sensible plan once we’ve let Jeanette worship at the altar of Carolus-Duran.”

“Tramp all the way back to
D
?” asked Miss Steadman.

“No, no! Come look at what she means,” said Jeanette.

A mon cher maître, Carolus-Duran
, Mr. Sargent had written across the top of the portrait, where he signed it.

“
Cher maître
, my grand-uncle’s foot,” said Amy. “He’s outmastered the master.”

*   *   *

They began to work their way back through the frantic, last-minute efforts, stopping along the way to talk to friends. Miss Steadman stayed behind with one group while Sonja headed off to the sculpture section with another, leaving Jeanette and Amy to ramble at will.