Silence Observed (13 page)

“Would you care for a cigar?” Appleby enquired politely, when the coffee had appeared before them.

“No, thank you.” And Heffer accepted a cigarette. “After all,” he murmured ironically, “we mustn’t overdo things, must we? Even on an expense account footed by Her Majesty’s Government.”

“As you please. But I don’t know that you need really boggle at a cigar. Has it occurred to you that Her Majesty’s Government may soon feel obliged to foot a considerably larger bill on your behalf?”

Heffer set his coffee cup down carefully.

“Meaning?” he said.

“Oh, come!” Appleby smiled and made a slight gesture with his hands. “You’re not disputing, are you, that at this moment you are heading straight for a very substantial term of imprisonment?”

The mildness of this did have its effect. Heffer turned perceptibly pale. He stubbed out the cigarette, produced a cigarette case, and lit one of his own. It was only when this symbolical action had been achieved that he spoke.

“Do you commonly,” he asked, “accompany your hospitality with conversation of this kind?”

“Of course not.” Appleby spoke quite simply now. “I’ve just been hoping, you see, that a combination of privacy and shock tactics might induce a little wholesome frankness in your attitude to these mysterious events. I’d like to have your idea of why Trechmann was killed, and–”

“I have
no
idea of why Trechmann was killed.”

“You haven’t?” Appleby looked at Heffer curiously – but not at all as one who disbelieves. “That may be so. But at least you are aware of activities of Trechmann’s to which he didn’t – well, give much publicity.”

“I am nothing of the sort.”

“I confess to a slight scepticism on that point. As for Miss Oakes, either Gulliver told me what is not true yesterday, or you have told me what is not true today. Your accounts are irreconcilable.”

“Oh, impressions vary, you know – and memory is notoriously fallible.”

“That, if I may say so, is merely frivolous. You agree with Gulliver only on three material points: that the girl appeared, claimed the name of Astarte Oakes, and produced a picture. And these, as it happens, are the three points upon which irrefutable testimony exists. The girl presented herself, stated her business, and wrote her name – or wrote
a
name – in a book. The vital point, of course, is the nature of the picture. Only you and Gulliver saw it. But how many people heard of it?”

“You for a start, it seems.”

“Quite so. And for a finish, too. That appears to be what you are banking on, Heffer. Isn’t it rather a big risk?”

“I don’t understand you.”

“If I had to recount in a witness box what Gulliver told me about that picture, it might be suggested that my memory was at fault, or that my evidence was for some other reason quite inaccurate. But what if he told this story to other friends? You are simply gambling on the supposition that he did not.”

“I totally fail to comprehend you.”

“I don’t think so. Shall I give you my sketch of the situation?”

Heffer took a watch from his waistcoat pocket and consulted it.

“As you please,” he said in his most icy manner.

“Thank you. It may really save us time later. The picture was brought to you and you had a look at it. At once you went across to Gulliver, and he went back with you to your room. Neither of you had the slightest doubt that here was a Rembrandt – a painting of quite enormous value.”

“I tell you–”

“Very well, Heffer. For the moment let it be a Mason Chamberlin – or rather
not
a Mason Chamberlin, but something entirely unknown and insignificant. At least, you call in the young lady. She is shown into the presence of the Director and his assistant. I don’t think she had ever seen Gulliver before, but I am quite sure that she had seen you. No, don’t interrupt. You knew each other – but the girl had come in with no suspicion that here was your job and that she might run into you. So you were both a little disconcerted. Gulliver, as it happens, wasn’t really aware of all this, since the picture, whatever its authorship or merits, was continuing to absorb him. But the fact, I may say, somehow seeped through his narrative.”

Heffer’s eyes had narrowed on Appleby. They showed cold through a haze of cigarette smoke.

“Continue,” he said.

“This girl had given a false name and a false address – and for the purpose of getting an expert opinion on something that might be worth a fortune. She was naturally perturbed when she found herself identified by you. But you didn’t give her away. To begin with, that may have been pure chivalry. There was this fact, of course, that she was astoundingly beautiful.”

“She was as dim as a mouse.”

“She was astoundingly beautiful. But now she took both her astounding beauty and her astounding picture out of your gallery with the greatest celerity. You didn’t mind, because you knew where to find her – or at least to hunt for her. You set about the job next day – suddenly taking a chunk of a holiday due to you for the purpose.” Appleby paused for a moment. “Now, let us suppose that the Rembrandt was not, in fact, the legal property of this young person–”

“I consider that to be a derogatory and offensive expression.” Heffer had interrupted stonily. “She was a lady, and she had better be referred to with proper respect.”

Appleby stared. It was, for some reason, a long time since he had felt so surprised.

“This dim mouse?” he asked.

Heffer’s pale face was momentarily suffused with a flush.

“Yes,” he said – stonily still – “this dim mouse.”

“Very well. Suppose this girl was not the owner of the Rembrandt, and suppose that she wanted to make money out of it. This would be feasible only if certain circumstances obtained. The true proprietor must be ignorant or indifferent as to whether this canvas – perhaps thought of as without value – were still in his possession or not. He must never become aware of some big deal in the picture market which he might identify with this particular hitherto disregarded possession. Do I make myself clear?”

“Quite as clear as most romancers contrive to be. Go on.”

“Very well. I am inclined to conjecture that an incontestably and self-evidently genuine Rembrandt of the first order which had
no
provenance –
no
known previous history – could be put on the market easily enough. A story could be told about it when asked for, and nobody would bother very much. What would interest a purchaser would simply be the unhesitating endorsement of all the greatest authorities on the painter. So a Rembrandt out of the blue, so to speak, would be easy money. But suppose it couldn’t be brought forward quite out of the blue and with some simple and convenient fiction attached to it. Suppose there was one man who
had
seen it before, and who
could
provide it with a scrap of authentic provenance. And suppose that that man happened to occupy a professional position such that a great Rembrandt couldn’t possibly be publicly sold without his becoming aware of it, and inspecting it either in the original or in a reproduction. A Sir Gabriel Gulliver, in fact. How awkward that might be.”

“Awkward?” Heffer said.

“Oh, come.” Appleby paused and smiled. “I’m afraid, you know, that I’m always saying ‘Oh, come.’ But you do ask for it. For you can’t maintain that you’re not really following me.”

“Very true. I’m not so much following you as preceding you, Sir John. I feel rather like some tolerably mobile creature moving through a fantastic jungle, and hearing a somewhat out-of-condition elephant crashing along behind. A policemanly elephant, but one belonging to the best clubs. Go on going on.”

“Very well. I continue to crash. The question is: Ought something to be done about Gulliver? Ought Gulliver to be squared?”

Heffer gave another of the laughs that were just a shade too loud.

“The jungle becomes a bog,” he said. “And the elephant goes down with a plop. For a moment there is the tip of a trunk, and then only a few bubbles before all is still. You can’t imagine that anybody would seriously contemplate ‘squaring’, as you call it, the Director of the–”

“There might be differing views. There was something lurkingly vulnerable, something not quite stable, about Sir Gabriel Gulliver. Intelligence – or could it rather be intuition? – might bank upon that. And the brute order of money involved is a factor. One hears of £30,000, or £50,000, or $200,000 being bid for pretty well nothing at all – a canvas painted five years ago by a fellow with the output of a high-efficiency marine engine, or fifty years ago by somebody who went to tea with your grandmother.”

“Very true,” Heffer said. “We’ve found something to agree about at last.”

“And an Old Master of the first quality, provided it engages the interest of the right competitors, may fetch such a sum that a mere rake-off from the total would rate as a substantial private fortune.”

This time Heffer was silent.

“So we mustn’t laugh out of court the notion of squaring Gabriel Gulliver. One might indulge it. One might feel one had glimpsed some weakness in the man. One might go forward on that basis. And one might find, too late, that one had been all wrong.”

“Too late?” Heffer said. He was now as pale as a sheet.

“Just that. One might have burned one’s boats.”

“And then?”

“Well – something rather definitive might happen.”

“And
then
?” Heffer had stood up, like a man who is about to take his leave.

Appleby got up too, and led his guest from the room.

“To that one,” he said, “the answer can only come from you.”

“One would have to fight,” Heffer said. He spoke with a quiet, cold finality, which was yet oddly touching. “There would be nothing for it but that.”

Fair warning – Appleby thought, as he turned away from the door to which he had conducted his guest. I gave him fair warning. Did he give it to me too?

There is a good deal that I don’t believe about Jimmy Heffer – he told himself, making his way back through the club. The question is: Does my disbelief extend one point too far? I’d know a good deal more – probably a great deal more – if I could just contact the girl who called herself Astarte Oakes. And there can’t be all that many absolute Botticelli Venuses in England. Perhaps I’ll know her when I see her.

He turned into the little reading-room.
Silence is observed
. A voice, however, spoke to him at once.

“Hullo, Appleby. That was a most delightful dinner party last night.”

“We were so pleased that you were able to come.” As he made this conventional reply, Appleby saw that Carl Bendixson had lowered a newspaper and appeared to propose conversation.

“Shocking news about Gabriel Gulliver,” Bendixson said. “Only just heard it. Fellow told me as I came across the hall.”

“Yes,” Appleby said. “Shocking.”

“Shot in his own fastness! It seems incredible. And not thought to be a matter of robbery, I’m told. Have they caught the chap who did it?”

“Chap?” Appleby said.

“A madman, or I wouldn’t be surprised. I shall positively tremble the next time I get up on my little rostrum and bang my little hammer.” Bendixson laughed – not entirely easily. “Make a damned good target.”

“There will be a clear motive in your case.” Appleby appeared willing to talk nonsense. “A disgruntled bidder, who feels you failed to catch his nod – or that you caught it once too often.”

“Yes, yes.” Bendixson assumed the whimsical expression of one who indulges in meaningless self-depreciation. “I live by coaxing out of people more money than they mean to give. Nothing could be more impossibly debased. I knocked down a very indifferent Romney portrait this morning for you wouldn’t believe how much. And – do you know? – I positively caught the fellow on the canvas curling his aristocratic lip at me. I wish I auctioned fat cattle or the residual effects of bankrupt greengrocers.”

“No,” Appleby said. “You don’t. It wouldn’t be so lucrative. And it wouldn’t be such fun.”

“Too true.” And Bendixson sighed resignedly. “But talking of fun, isn’t Mary Wildsmith delightful? Gretta and I always adore the opportunity of meeting her.”

“Yes, quite delightful.” Appleby decided that he would give not more than a further two minutes to this twaddle. “But I don’t often see her on the stage,” he said – this merely because a sentence or two of further small talk must be found. “Judith said something about her being a good deal in France. I gathered that she is French on her mother’s side. No doubt that’s part of the charm.”

“No doubt. And, now you mention it, I believe she goes over occasionally to do character parts on their radio or television or something. Little Anglo-French comedies.”

“Ah, yes. I wonder whether she was by any chance a friend of Gulliver’s?” Appleby couldn’t have told why he asked this question. Perhaps it was just long habit in trying to link up one thing with another.

“Not that I know of.”

Bendixson gave what might have been called a well-informed laugh. “He had his favourites, or so one has been told. But I doubt whether Mary was one of them. But a chap she does know there is young Jimmy Heffer. Do you know him?”

“I’m beginning to.” Civility satisfied, Appleby was moving towards the door. Then he remembered something. “By the way,” he said, “there’s something with which you might help me. Would you describe yourself as good at eyes?”

Bendixson stared.

“At making them, you mean? What Shakespeare calls strange oeillades and most speaking looks?”

“No – at recognizing them.” Appleby had produced his pocket book, and from this he drew the scrap of paper which he had rescued from a Bloomsbury garbage bin. He handed it to Bendixson. “Can you place that?”

“Is this a new parlour game?” Bendixson was looking idly at the fragmentary eye. “Something to replace jigsaw puzzles?”

Appleby laughed.

“It’s detective investigation, as a matter of fact. Somebody tore up a colour print, and this scrap happens to survive. The problem is to identify the print.”

Bendixson looked mildly embarrassed. And this was clearly because the problem was so simple that nobody of moderate general cultivation ought to be held up by it.