The Palace Guard (9 page)

The man’s color was ghastly. He leaned back against the sofa cushions as though his spine had given way, and sipped the drink Sarah brought him. After a minute or so, he made an effort to pull himself together.

“A curator from the Metropolitan, you say?”

“That’s right,” said Bittersohn. He mentioned a name. “Do you happen to know him?”

“Not personally, but the position would seem to place him as—ah—eminently reliable. I shall have to call a trustees’ meeting forthwith. Or dare I? In so delicate a situation, perhaps the less said the better. The public must be protected from this dreadful allegation. We must lose not a moment. We must each pledge ourselves to secrecy here and now, and we must refrain above all from calling in the police and thus alerting the malefactors. A private detective, that’s what we want! Someone of unexceptionable tact and discretion. Who was that chap my old friend Mrs. Forbot was telling me about, who performed so capably in the case of the bogus Bellini at the Cotman Club? Let me think.”

“Bittersohn?” Sarah prompted.

“That’s it. Why, it must have been you, Dr. Bittersohn. Well-met at Philippi, eh? Bravo! No wonder you interested yourself in the matter, and how right you were to call it to my attention in this private and discreet manner. I herewith place the situation in your hands. You will proceed with dispatch and, need I say, secrecy.

Old Anora Protheroe had once remarked, “Our lot aren’t much for looks, by and large, but we’re tough.” With the resilience of one who has been brought up on Emerson, oatmeal porridge, codfish cakes, and Boston baked beans, C. Edwald Palmerston bounded to his feet, shook hands all around with a special lingering pressure for Mrs. Sorpende, thanked Sarah for her hospitality, urged Bittersohn to spare no effort, and left.

Mariposa took the teacups out to the kitchen. Mrs. Sorpende went up to change from her elegant tea gown into an even more elegant dinner gown. Sarah opened the library windows to air out C. Edwald Palmerston.

“Well, Mr. Bittersohn, I hope you got what you wanted.”

He came over to help her with the windows. “I did. Tell you what, since you’ve been such a good kid I’ll take you out to see the nighthawks after dinner.”

“I’ve seen nighthawks, thank you.”

“Then come for the exercise. It will do you good.”

“Perhaps you’re right.”

In any event, Sarah went. Mr. Bittersohn’s idea of a quiet evening stroll was not what she’d been used to. He led her through the byways behind Park Square to a place she’d never been before. Dolph would have called it a dive and for all Sarah knew about such things he might well have been right. They were sitting in a booth listening to three elderly ladies perform with verve on the saxophone, the drums, and the double bass when they were joined by an acquaintance.

“Ah, my God, the beautiful Max and his adorable sweetheart!”

“Hi, Lydia,” said the beautiful Max. “Can we buy you a drink?”

“But of course.” Countess Ouspenska squeezed herself in beside Sarah. “I will sit with this little one so you can look at us both. In such a rotten light as here I am still passable. Double vodka please, Giovanni, from the bottle you didn’t water yet.”

Lydia got her drink, took a mighty swig, and gasped, “Peachy! Today I finish my genuine antique masterpiece and get a beautiful present from an old goat and now the magnificent Max buys me double vodka. Is life in the old bat yet, not?”

“I think you’re wonderful,” Sarah replied with all sincerity.

“Little darling, I love you madly!” Countess Ouspenska embraced her seatmate with Slavic fervor, transferring a good deal of pancake makeup to Sarah’s flawless cheek. “Listen, do you know what that old goat Palmerston does? He sends a basket of goodies so big”—she flung out her arms in a wild jangle of bracelets—“with a note in fond remembrance. Is the first time that old foxy-loxy ever puts anything in writing. Too bad he doesn’t sign it.” She took another gulp of her drink. “Anyway, this week I eat.”

“How nice for you.”

“You said it, babushka. Now I negotiate for sale of my wonderful icon and for one month I have it made in the shade. Is like song be like I hold your head up high somewhere is a bluejay of happiness.”

“What’s this about your icon, Lydia?” Bittersohn asked ever so casually.

The countess giggled. “Is my secret. Maybe you come to my studio without this pretty little watchdog and ask me again nice, eh?”

“Sounds like a great idea to me. How about another?”

“Unfortunately no. I have to stay bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Is important business appointment.” The countess stifled a hiccup with an aristocratic gesture and sorted out her scarves and necklaces. “I go now.”

“Can we drop you somewhere?”

“No, is better for security I go alone. Please case the joint to see is anybody follow.”

Bittersohn pulled his coat collar up around his face and tiptoed to the door. “Sst, Lydia!” His whisper carried easily over the saxophone, the drums, and the double bass. “The coast is clear.”

“Good. In my new business is necessary to take precautions. Was necessary in my old business, too.
Au revoir,
my little wood pigeon. You come and see me, too. I paint you as madonna and child in authentic Byzantine technique.”

Countess Ouspenska pulled one of her scarves far down over her face, put on a pair of dark glasses, and slithered out. Bittersohn came back to the booth and helped Sarah into her coat.

“Come on, we’ll follow her by stealth and cunning. She’d be heartbroken if we didn’t. Try to look furtive.”

They had no trouble keeping the countess in sight. She must have made a few more stops before she met them, for she was making almost as much leeway as headway although her general bearing was more or less in the direction of Charles and Beacon.

“I’ll bet she’s heading for that antique shop,” Sarah murmured.

“What antique shop?”

“The one where I saw your friend Bill Jones this afternoon.”

“Huh? Which shop was this?”

“The one with all the china dogs in the window. It’s run by Mr. Hayre, who gypped me so unmercifully on the Canton tea set.”

“What was Bill doing?”

“Whispering into Mr. Hayre’s ear about the paintings at the Madam’s.”

“How do you know?”

“I could tell by the way he was waving his hands around. That piano player of Mr. Fieringer’s was there, too.”

“Bernie? What the hell? Did they see you?”

“I think not. I was outside peeking through the window.”

“Why?”

“Masochism, I suppose. I always look in when I pass the store, to see if he has any of my things on sale for about sixty times what he paid me for them. Look, she is heading for Charles Street.”

Countess Ouspenska must have been revived by the exercise. She had got up steam and was progressing at a much faster rate. She managed to nip across Beacon just as the light changed, while the two who were following her had to wait till the traffic stopped. By the time they could go again, she was nowhere in sight.

“Damn, we’ve lost her,” muttered Bittersohn.

“No we haven’t.” Sarah took his hand and hustled him up a tiny alley and around a corner.

“Where are we?” he whispered.

“Behind Mr. Hayre’s antique shop, of course.”

“And what do we do now?”

“Lurk.”

S
ARAH’S HUNCH WAS A
good one. They’d been peering down the alley from behind the ashcans for barely ten minutes when they saw the countess emerge. She had a man with her. As the couple passed beneath one of the imitation gas lamps that help to give Charles Street its Old Boston atmosphere, the lurkers in the shadows could see he was Bernie the piano player. Perhaps Lydia had got paid for her icon. Anyway, either she or Bernie must be in funds for they hailed a taxi.

“Come on.” Bittersohn practically carried Sarah across to a rank where, luckily, another cab was idling. “Mind following that cabbie who just pulled out?” he said to the driver. “We were supposed to meet that couple who are riding with him but they must have got tired of waiting just as we came along. We’re all going to the same party and they forgot to give us the address.”

“Well, that’s life,” said the cabbie in a fine burst of philosophical originality. “I could pull up alongside and ask.”

“No, we’ll follow along and surprise them. It shouldn’t be too far. Somewhere around Brookline Village, I think. Anyway, we wouldn’t mind having a little time to ourselves, if you get what I mean.”

The driver must have got what he meant, for he turned up the volume on his radio and shut the opening in the heavy plastic that separated the front seat from the back. Bittersohn grinned and pulled Sarah close to him.

“Mind if we act natural?” he murmured.

“Is this what you naturally do with women in taxis?” she whispered back, not making any real attempt to pull away.

“We’re a guy and his date on our way to a party, remember?”

“Do you suppose we really are? On our way to a party, I mean? Where is Bernie taking the countess, do you suppose?” Sarah found it necessary to remind herself of the object of their mission. Being this close to Mr. Bittersohn might otherwise divert a young widow’s attention to matters she had no business thinking about.

“I guessed Brookline Village because that seems to be where it’s at these days, and that’s more or less where we’re heading, but don’t ask me why. Right now the only thing I like about this expedition is having you along, and I’m not sure I was smart to bring you. There are only two things Bernie can do by himself: play the piano and drink. Otherwise he waits for Nick Fieringer to lay it out for him. His hanging around that antique shop, which seems to be another place where it’s at, could mean that he’s running errands for Nick.”

“And what would that mean?”

“Mrs. Kelling, you were there when Nick tried to tout me off this Wilkins business on Sunday evening. I don’t know whether coming to me was his own idea or if somebody sent him. I expect he’d take a buck to do an errand. Nick has a million pals, but as far as making a living goes, he must be just about scraping by.”

“You don’t think he’d murder two guards as a favor to a friend?”

“Not Nick. He’s too fat and clumsy, for one thing.”

“Could he have told Bernie to do it?”

“How could Bernie have been up on the third floor pushing Joe Witherspoon over the balcony when he had to go directly to the Tintoretto Room as soon as he finished playing and have his hand held by somebody’s great-aunt the music lover?” Bittersohn absentmindedly closed his own hand more snugly around Sarah’s. “Furthermore, I can’t see Nick trusting Bernie to load Brown’s bottle. Bernie would have been too apt to drink up the murder weapon himself.”

“Mr. Fieringer would have been able to manage that business with the bottle easily enough, wouldn’t he? As for Witherspoon, well, he did like painted ladies.”

“Not Lydia Ouspenska’s kind, if that’s what you’re getting at. Anyway, your Cousin Brooks would surely have seen and remembered her. Lydia’s not just another face in the crowd, you know.”

“But what if she was already upstairs when Brooks came on duty and he never saw her? Mr. Fieringer could have let her in, couldn’t he? He probably has access to the museum during off-hours because of having to arrange things about the concerts, don’t you think? Then she could have dashed through the chapel and got out somehow while we were down among all that confusion in the courtyard. Brown could have seen her and done his robbery act to make it look as if he didn’t suspect her, and been killed because he actually did. Oh dear, I wish I hadn’t thought of that.”

Being in a strategic position to offer comfort, Bittersohn did. “Wait a minute, you can’t start playing favorites. I like old Lydia, too, but what you just said makes a certain amount of sense. You told me she did a perfect job on that icon. Being an artist yourself, you’d be a pretty fair judge. If she’s that good a copyist we can’t eliminate her as the person who faked the paintings. Bill says it’s all the work of one person and Lydia’s been around a long time. She may have branched out into icons because there’s nothing left over there worth copying.”

Sarah rubbed her cheek on the handsome gray worsted topcoat she was being clasped against. She’d never before been embraced by an attractive man in a taxicab. Alexander had always taken her on the subway and would have shied away from a public demonstration of affection in any case. It was too bad she couldn’t relax and enjoy the experience, but of course that wasn’t what she was here for.

“I suppose the countess might have been able to wangle a key to the museum out of Mr. Palmerston while they were having that love affair or whatever it was.”

“Would you run through that again slowly, please?”

“I told you she’d been on close terms with him at one time. Didn’t you understand what she was saying tonight about old foxy-loxy sending her caviar and whatnot in fond remembrance? She told me practically in so many words that day I went to her studio that they used to—you know.”

“How would I know?” said Bittersohn virtuously. “You mean people do those things with people they’re not married to?”

“Not in taxis.” Sarah straightened up and pulled her skirt down over her knees. Not knowing the customary procedure in this sort of situation she couldn’t be sure, but it did seem to her that things were getting a bit out of hand.

Bittersohn took the hint and loosened his grip, though only a little. “I should send my ears out to be laundered. If that’s the case, Lydia could easily have dropped a question here and there about which pictures were worth stealing, what times the guards were off duty, and other useful bits of information while his mind was, as one might say, otherwise occupied. And she could have pinched his keys while he had his pants off and made impressions on a cake of soap. She’d get a bang out of that.”

“I daresay she would,” Sarah had to agree.

“So now Palmerston’s chasing her again?”

“Well, no. Actually I was the one who sent the caviar.”

“What in hell for?”

“Because she had no money and not a bite to eat in the house except a few sandwiches left over from Mrs. Tawne’s tea party. Besides, I thought it might be interesting to see what happened.”