Prelude to Terror (3 page)

“Colin! Good to see you. Glad you decided to come. What do you think of it all?”

“Very impressive.” If it weren’t for the pictures in this lower gallery, Raeburn with his pink-cheeked girls, Turner with the Thames on fire, some lesser English School landscapes with billows of green elms and summer skies, the place would look like a funeral parlour.

Carfield paid a long moment’s attention to Grant’s light grey summer-weight suit, then eyed the pale blue shirt and dark red tie. “There will be a lot of the media here. The
Times
and the
Post,
a couple of magazines. TV reporters too—some girl for the eleven o’clock news. I think you should handle them.”

“They’ll need more than one drink apiece.”

Carfield didn’t seem to hear that. “We’ll let Seldov deal with the old ladies. I’ll be with Mr. Schofeld.”

“Of course,” Grant murmured. Carfield looked at him sharply. “When is he due?”

“At six. You’ll stay until the end?”

That’s an order, thought Grant. He smiled, hid a sudden attack of depression, and repeated, “Of course.”

Carfield nodded his approval, and even extended some of it to the light grey suit. It was of excellent worsted material and well cut. Probably belonged to Grant’s more affluent days in Washington. “Could be worse,” he observed, and looked round at the progress of his preparations. “But where’s Seldov?”

“Upstairs. Judging the lights.”

“In the Dali room?” Carfield’s voice rose slightly. “I want them left exactly as we decided this morning.” He was already half-way to the staircase.

At least, thought Grant, we’ll all have some peace down here for the next ten minutes or so. He walked over to the small group of staff members, gathered together in the frozen huddle of waiting. “Who’s for tennis?” he asked, and raised a smile from four of them, polite disapproval from two. (Future Carfields?) That was the trouble around here: everyone so damned polite, all customer-trained. Didn’t anyone look at the far end of the gallery and see a Rembrandt, a possible Velazquez, a definite Rubens on the wall outside Maurice Schofeld’s most private office, and feel something beyond a price tag and an impressive name? Now come on, he told himself: some of them must, or why spend their lives here? Never underestimate a man because he dresses like an undertaker.

He felt the pull to the Velazquez, unauthenticated or not, and drifted towards the end wall for the rest of the waiting time.

* * *

There was a scattering of prompt arrivals, a slight clotting of the stream by half-past five. These were the wise ones, able to examine the Dali drawings before the explosion of visitors made viewing impossible. To be seen, however, was perhaps as important as to see. Most of them followed the guard’s directions and trooped upstairs. But there were always some who would decide they’d do that when they were good and ready, fortified by a glass of champagne which was to be served on the ground floor. One of Carfield’s useless precautions to keep the Dali room unsloshed, thought Grant as he waited glassless (staff rules) for a member of the media to materialise at his elbow with Miss Haskins. Rather than scan the passing strangers like one of the private detectives who were wandering around, he concentrated on the Turner, a partially finished work—a study for a larger canvas—and tantalising in its unfulfilled dream. Several guests drifted past him. One stopped.

He glanced sideways and saw a woman, beautiful enough to change his glance into a stare. Something stirred in a deep memory, couldn’t come to the surface. Perhaps this was just the typical face, with high cheekbones and clearly outlined chin, that he had seen a hundred times on the covers of fashion magazines. If he could only glimpse her hair, he might place her, but her head was entirely covered by a grey-green turban, neat, not bulky, more like, an inspiration from the Great Gatsby’s twenties than anything from India. Amber earrings emphasised the strange colour of her eyes, almost a golden brown. Her lips smiled. Softly she said as she turned back to admire the painting, “You don’t remember me, Mr. Grant?” Softly, and yet with a precise clarity, nothing slurred or flattened.

The voice was the key. Quickly his private computer recalled the facts: Arizona—spring of 1974—visit to Victor Basset, multi-millionaire—fabulous art collection—lunch on a terrace—a girl with golden hair, a face and figure to match its splendour, large round sunglasses leaving eyes an enigma—girl? Woman, rather, no more than thirty, indispensable apparently, quite efficient, obviously trusted by Basset to keep his correspondence and guests in good order. Trust old man Basset in turn, all six hundred million dollars’ worth of him, to make sure his superior secretary had beauty as well as brains. Westerbrook, Lois Westerbrook, that was the name. That was her voice. So he could say, about to shake hands, “Miss Wester—”

“No! Not that. We don’t know each other.” She was pointing at the Turner picture, seemingly absorbed by its flaring colours. His hand, half-raised, dropped back to his side. He felt awkward and stiff, and more than annoyed. “I’m here in New York as Jane Smith.”

“That’s original.”

“On business for—well, you know for whom I am talking. Let’s not mention his name. And keep our voices well down. You’ll show me some pictures and we’ll seem to be discussing them.”

“Why?” he asked bluntly.

“Stop looking at me. Look at the Turner.
Please
,” she added, glancing briefly at him with such an enchanting smile that her commands seemed more like pleading. “We didn’t want anyone to know we were contacting you, so I couldn’t be sent to your apartment. What I have to tell you couldn’t be said over a telephone. It’s too long, too involved. Too private. Could you meet me later tonight—my hotel? We can have supper in my room.”

“Aren’t you nervous about anyone knowing I am contacting you?” he asked lightly.

“You don’t have to advertise your visit.” She left that where it fell. More gently. “Time for you to move us towards the Constables and show me what to admire in them. Please.” Again, that appeal in her smile.

“I don’t get it—” he began, as they left the Turner for greener pastures.

She said, for anyone to hear, “Now, this isn’t by Constable, is it?” She stopped before an eighteenth-century bucolic scene. Her voice dropped once more. “I’ll give you my hotel and room number, if you
are
interested. It’s about a job—an assignment that our friend in Arizona thinks you could carry out for him. With discretion and good judgment. That’s what he needs. Also with a knowledge of art. Two weeks in Vienna, expenses paid, first-class all the way, and a fee of five thousand dollars.” She walked on to the next picture on view. “Interested?”

He recovered himself and followed her. “Just what is this assignment?”

“It’s completely legal.”

He wasn’t questioning Basset’s integrity. “Five thousand is a hell of a lot of money.”

“To him? You’d charge a stiff fee anyway, wouldn’t you? As I said, he needs someone with judgment. And discretion. It’s a business deal that has got to be kept quiet meanwhile. Meanwhile,” she repeated.

As he stood in silence beside her, she added, “It’s your turn to do some talking.” She laughed as though they had been exchanging a small joke.

“When does he want me to leave?”

“At the end of this month. Could you manage that?”

He nodded. The Gallery closed for the summer vacation in mid-July. He was free until after Labour Day. But he still couldn’t quite believe this conversation.

She sensed his doubts. “If you come to see me tonight, we can really talk and you can ask a hundred questions.”

“If I don’t turn up?”

“I’ll have to make contact with the next art expert on our list. You were the first on it. Our friend’s own choice. Flattered? You should be.”

Yes, he was flattered. “Astonished, too. I didn’t even get to first base with him.” Grant’s visit to Arizona, pleasant as it was, had been a failure in the art of persuasion. Victor Basset’s enormous and first-rate collection of pictures was not for exhibition, kept safely in storage. (Where was storage space for a collection as large as that? The ranch near Prescott was not big enough to house any except a few of Basset’s own special favourites.)

“Oh, he agreed with your ideas more than you think. Do you know Basset Hill?”

It was one of the millionaire’s houses, only fifteen miles outside Washington, a vast mansion in spreading grounds, seldom used since Basset had settled in Arizona for his health. “I’ve seen it.” Who hadn’t, if they had been driving around the Virginia border? “From the outside.” Like everyone else. Even abandoned, except for an army of caretakers, it was an impossible place.

“You should see it from the inside now. All redecorated, reshaped where necessary, heating and humidity just at the right setting for the preservation of pictures.”

“He’s taking them out of storage?” Grant was startled, unbelieving.

“And not for himself.”

“For whom?” he asked quickly.

“For the public.”

He couldn’t believe it. “When I met him three years ago he wouldn’t even consider—”

“He was considering his own plans.”

“You mean he already had the idea for a museum?”

“And was working on it.”

“Why didn’t he mention it?”

“How do you think he made his fortune? By talking about future projects?”

“Why did he agree to see me?”

“He had read your book. He wanted to probe your ideas.”

“I hope they passed muster,” Grant said bitingly. He was annoyed, and showing it.

“You
did,” she was quick to say. “Or I wouldn’t be here right now.” Something distracted her: she had been keeping an unobtrusive watch. “I’ll explain more tonight. Will you come?” She put out her hand. “Ten o’clock.” Her handshake was brief, but she left a small card in his palm as she added, clear-voiced once more, “I mustn’t monopolise you. Thank you. Goodbye.” She moved away just as Miss Haskins reached him, with a pretty little morsel in gypsy costume loitering behind her.

Miss Haskins, sibilants hissing, had time to whisper, “TV girl. Eleven o’clock news. Don’t let her sweet blue eyes deceive you.” Then she turned to say, “Ah, Miss Wenslas, this is Mr. Colin Grant, our adviser on exhibitions.” And with that he was left, as he slipped Lois Westerbrook’s card into his pocket, to the spiky questions of a bright young woman, socially conscious, who was fascinated by the cost of all this hoop-la. Obviously that was to be her lead-in tonight.

He admitted he didn’t know, and (with a shared smile) that he couldn’t care less. He branched into a description of other Dali parties, other places, other times. “In the thirties—before you and I were born—” (that always shocked the young) “—the girls arrived with sausages pinned on to their hair, and watches used as earrings. Dali himself appeared in a diver’s suit, with two Afghan hounds straining at their leashes.”

“Oh, come on, now—”

“It happened. In London.”

“Afghan hounds?”

“Perhaps wolfhounds. Never could get them straight.”

“Don’t tell me they ate the sausages.”

“Too busy being tangled by leashes and microphone wires. Dali was to give a speech, you see. In French, of course.”

“Did he?” She still was the unbeliever.

“Once he could get his diver’s helmet unstuck. It took a strong handyman with a wrench to unscrew it.”

She laughed then, and said, “You tell a good story, Mr. Grant.”

“And true. Read his memoirs.”

“Dali’s?” She hadn’t heard of them. “Does he write?”

“Better than he talks. He has a strong Catalan accent.”

She looked at him. “Well—” she began doubtfully. “Nice meeting you, anyway.”

“Hope I was of some use.”

She hesitated. “Were you serious?”

“I’m always serious about artists.”

“Even when they are showmen?”

“Aren’t they all, nowadays?”

“I suppose they have to sell.”

“They eat, like other human beings.”

“You know,” she said, brightening, “that could make a very good lead-in.” She waved a hand and was off, heading straight for Max Seldov. Double-checking? Grant wondered with amusement. Seldov could help in that very nicely: he had been one of Dali’s audience on that very hot afternoon in London’s Burlington Gallery.

Then there was the
Times
man to see—he at least had read Dali’s memoirs and could quote by the yard. Then the
Post.
Then a couple of critics from the magazines—they thought the champagne was an inadequate
brut,
and where was Maurice Schofeld himself? That was their lead, obviously, for next week’s articles. By the time the last guest had gone, and Miss Haskins was picking up a few cigarette stubs and counting the burns on the carpet (Carfield had banned ashtrays in the non-smoker’s belief that their elimination would bolster the printed signs respectfully requesting abstinence), and the iron gratings were about to clang into place over windows and door, Grant had time to begin thinking of his own plans. It was nine o’clock, the night guards arriving.

Seldov caught him for a moment, out on the pavement. “Pure hell today, but tomorrow—it will be wonderful. Right? By the way, that young TV girl... She’s pretty good. She had done her homework.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Knew all about Dali in the Burlington Gallery. Restores your faith in the young, doesn’t it?” And Seldov, with three teenagers at the worrisome age waiting for him (or were they?) in Larchmont, gave Grant a clap on the shoulder to send him on his way down Madison, and went off in search of his car.

Grant could at last examine the card in his pocket. Lois Westerbrook’s writing was as clear as her voice. The Albany Hotel. Naturally. Expenses first-class, she had said. Five thousand dollars—one third of his yearly retainer at Schofeld’s for his part-time appearances there—and two weeks of work. Work? In Vienna? Pure pleasure.

The Albany, on Park Avenue, was only eight blocks south. Easy walking distance. He decided on a quick hamburger, and let’s cut out the supper idea. If he turned up at Lois Westerbrook’s—
if,
he repeated—it would be business all the way. Like her inducement of first-class expenses. Perhaps he was being suspicious. Basset’s offer, coming just at this time, was what really astounded him. Nice things like that just didn’t happen to him. Not recently, anyway. Or was his luck changing again? Let’s face it, that talk about the Basset Hill Museum, brief as it had been, had caught his interest. Dreams, he thought, and put them aside along with his rising hopes.