Текст книги "The Blue Hammer"

Автор книги: Ross MacDonald

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

^chapter

14

I drove Betty Jo along the deserted waterfront to the Chantry house. It was dark and silent. The parking area was empty. The party was over.

Perhaps not entirely over. I could hear a faint sound, the sound of a woman moaning in pain or pleasure, which ended abruptly as we approached the front door. Betty Jo turned to me.

“Who was that?”

“It could have been Mrs. Chantry. But women all sound the same under certain circumstances.”

She let out her breath, making a small impatient angry noise, and knocked on the door. A light went on above it.

After what seemed a long wait, the door was opened and Rico looked out at us. Lipstick was smeared on one side of his mouth. He saw me looking at it, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It dragged the red smear down across his chin. His black eyes were unfriendly.

“What do you want?”

“We have a couple of questions to ask Mrs. Chantry,” I said.

“She’s in bed asleep.”

“You better wake her up.”

“I can’t do that. She’s had a big day. A big day and a big night.” The lipstick smear on Rico’s face touched his words with comic lewdness.

“Ask her if she’ll see us. We’re investigating a murder, as you possibly know.”

“Mr. Archer and Miss Siddon,” Betty Jo said.

“I know who you are.”

Rico let us into the long front room and turned on the light. With his dark bald-eagle head jutting out of his long brown dressing gown, he looked like some kind of wild medieval monk. There was stale smoke in the deserted room. Through it I could almost hear the remembered buzzing hum of party conversation. Empty and half-empty glasses stood on most of the horizontal surfaces, including the keyboard of the grand piano. Except for the paintings on the walls—quiet windows into a more orderly world, which even murder didn’t seem to have changed—the room was like a visible hangover.

I moved around the room inspecting the portraits and trying in an amateurish way to tell if the same hand had painted the Biemeyers’ picture. I couldn’t tell, and neither, she said, could Betty Jo.

But I found that the murder of Grimes, and the possible murder of Whitmore, had after all subtly changed the portraits or my perceptions of them. Their eyes seemed to regard me with suspicion and a kind of fearful resignation. Some looked at me like prisoners, some like jurors, and some like quiet animals in a cage. I wondered which, if any, reflected the mind of the man who had painted them.

“Did you know Chantry, Betty Jo?”

“Not really. He was before my time. Actually I did see him once.”

“When?”

“Right here in this room. My father, who was a writer, brought me to meet him. It was a very special occasion. He hardly saw anybody, you know. All he did was work.”

“How did he strike you?”

She considered the question. “He was very remote and shy, as shy as I was. He held me on his knee but he didn’t really want to. He got rid of me as soon as he could, I think. And that suited me. Either he didn’t like little girls at all, or he liked them too much.”

“Did you really think that at the time?”

“I believe I did. Little girls are quite aware of such things, at least I was.”

“How old were you?”

“I must have been four or five.”

“How old are you now?”

“I’m not saying.” She said it with a slightly defensive smile.

“Under thirty?”

“Barely. It was roughly twenty-five years ago, if that’s what you’re getting at. Chantry disappeared soon after I visited him. I often seem to have that effect on men.”

“Not on me.”

A little color invaded her cheeks and made her prettier. “Just don’t try to hold me on your knee. You could disappear.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“Don’t mention it. Seriously,” she added, “it gives me a funny feeling to be in this same room prying into Richard Chantry’s life. It makes me wonder if certain things aren’t fated. Do you think they are?”

“Of course. By the place and the time and the family you’re born into. Those are the things that fate most people.”

“I’m sorry I asked. I don’t really like my family. I don’t like the place and time too well, either.”

“So react against them.”

“Is that what you do?”

“I try.”

Betty Jo’s eyes shifted to a point behind me. Mrs. Chantry had quietly entered the room. Her hair was brushed, her face looked newly washed. She was wearing a white robe that molded her figure from neck to knee and swept the floor.

“I do wish you’d find another place to react, Mr. Archer. And by all means another time. It’s dreadfully late.” She gave me a long-suffering smile, which hardened when she turned to Betty Jo. “What is this all about, dear?”

The younger woman was embarrassed. Her mouth moved, trying to find the right words.

I got out my black-and-white photograph of the stolen painting. “Do you mind taking a look at this, Mrs. Chantry? It’s a photograph of the Biemeyers’ picture.”

“I have nothing to add to what I told you earlier. I’m sure it’s a fake. I’m familiar with all of my husband’s paintings, I believe, and this isn’t one of them.”

“Look at it anyway, will you?”

“I’ve already seen the painting itself, as I told you.”

“Did you recognize the model who sat for it?”

Her eyes met mine in an instant of shared knowledge. She had recognized the model.

“No,” she said.

“Will you take a look at this photo and try again?”

“I don’t see the point.”

“Try anyway, Mrs. Chantry. It may be important.”

“Not to me.”

“You can’t be sure,” I said.

“Oh, very well.”

She took the photograph from my hand and studied it. Her hand was shaking, and the picture fluttered like something in a high wind from the past. She handed it back to me as if she were glad to get rid of it.

“It does bear some resemblance to a woman I knew when I was a young girl.”

“When did you know her?”

“I didn’t really know her. I met her at a party in Santa Fe before the war.”

“What was her name?”

“I honestly can’t say. I don’t believe she had a definite surname. She lived with various men and took their names.” Her eyes came up abruptly. “No, my husband wasn’t one of those men.”

“But he must have known her if he painted the picture.”

“He didn’t paint this picture. I told you that.”

“Who did, Mrs. Chantry?”

“I have no idea.”

Impatience had been rising in her voice. She glanced toward the door. Rico was leaning there with his hand in the pocket of his robe; and something larger than a hand, shaped like a gun. He moved toward me.

I said, “Call off your dog, Mrs. Chantry. Unless you want this written up in the paper.”

She gave Betty Jo an icy look, which Betty Jo managed to return. But she said, “Go away, Rico. I can take care of this.”

Rico moved reluctantly into the hallway.

I said to Mrs. Chantry, “How do you know your husband didn’t paint it?”

“I would have known if he had. I know all his paintings.”

“Does that mean you still keep in touch with him?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then how do you know he didn’t paint this some time in the last twenty-five years?”

The question stopped her for a moment. Then she said, “The woman in the painting is too young. She was older than this when I saw her in Santa Fe in 1940. She’d be a really old woman now, if she’s alive at all.”

“But your husband could have painted her from memory, any time up to the present. If he’s alive.”

“I see what you mean,” she said in a small flat voice. “But I still don’t think he painted it.”

“Paul Grimes thought he did.”

“Because it paid him to think so.”

“Did it, though? I think this picture got him killed. He knew the model who sat for it, and she told him your husband had painted it. For some reason the knowledge was dangerous. Dangerous to Paul Grimes, obviously, and dangerous to whoever killed Grimes.”

“Are you accusing my husband?”

“No. I have nothing to go on. I don’t even know if your husband is alive. Do you know, Mrs. Chantry?”

She took a deep breath, her breasts rising like fists under her robe. “I haven’t heard from him since the day he left. I warn you, though, Mr. Archer, his memory is all I live for. Whether Richard is dead or alive, I’ll fight for his reputation. And I’m not the only one in this city who will fight you. Please get out of my house now.”

She included Betty Jo in the invitation. Rico opened the front door and slammed it behind us.

Betty Jo was shaken. She crept into my car like a refugee from trouble.

I said, “Was Mrs. Chantry ever an actress?”

“An amateur one, I think. Why?”

“She reads her lines like one.”

The girl shook her head. “No. I think Francine meant what she said. Chantry and his work are all she cares about. And I feel small about doing what I just did. We hurt her and made her angry.”

“Are you afraid of her?”

“No, but I thought we were friends.” She added as we drove away from the house, “Maybe I am a little afraid of her. But also I’m sorry that we hurt her.”

“She was hurt long ago.”

“Yes. I know what you mean.”

I meant Rico.

I returned to my motel. Betty Jo came in with me to compare notes. We compared not only notes.

The night was sweet and short. Dawn slipped in like something cool and young and almost forgotten.

^chapter

15

When I woke up in the morning, she was gone. A pang that resembled hunger went through me a little higher than my stomach. The phone beside the bed rang.

“This is Betty Jo.”

“You sound very cheerful,” I said. “Painfully cheerful.”

“You had that effect on me. Also my editor wants me to do a feature on the Chantry case. He says he’ll give me all the time I need. The only drawback is that they may not print it.”

“Why not?”

“Mrs. Chantry talked to Mr. Brailsford first thing this morning. He owns the paper. So they’re going to have an editorial conference in Mr. Brailsford’s office. In the meantime, I’m supposed to go on digging. Do you have any suggestions?”

“You might try the art museum. Take along your photograph of the painting. There may be somebody in the museum who can identify the model who sat for it. And if we’re very lucky the model may be able to tell us who painted it.”

“That’s exactly what I was planning to do.”

“Good for you.”

She lowered her voice. “Lew?”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing. I mean, do you mind about my thinking of it first? I mean, you’re older than I am, and maybe not quite so liberated.”

I said, “Cheer up. I’ll probably see you at the art museum. You’ll find me among the old masters.”

“I did hurt your feelings, didn’t I?”

“On the contrary. I never felt better. I’m going to hang up now before you hurt my feelings.”

She laughed and hung up on me. I shaved and had a shower and went out for breakfast. An early wind was blowing on the water. A few small craft were out in it. But most of the boats in the harbor danced in place at their moorings, naked-masted.

I found a clean-looking restaurant and took a seat by the front window so that I could watch the boats. They gave me the empathetic feeling that I was in motion, too, scudding along under complex pressures and even more complex controls toward the open sea.

I had ham and eggs with potatoes and toast and coffee. Then I drove uptown and parked in the lot behind the art museum.

Betty Jo met me at the front entrance.

I said, “We seem to be synchronized, Betty Jo.”

“Yes.” But she didn’t sound too happy about it.

“What’s the matter?”

“You just said it. My name. I hate my name.”

“Why?”

“It’s a silly name. A double name always sounds like a child’s name. It’s immature. I don’t like either of my names separately, either. Betty is such a plain name, and Jo sounds like a boy. But I suppose I have to settle for one of them. Unless you can suggest something better.”

“How about Lew?”

She didn’t smile. “You’re making fun of me. This is serious.”

She was a serious girl, and more delicate in her feelings than I’d imagined. It didn’t make me sorry that I had slept with her, but it lent a certain weight to the event. I hoped she wasn’t getting ready to fall in love, especially not with me. But I kissed her, lightly, philanthropically.

A young man had appeared at the entrance to the classical sculpture exhibit. He had a wavy blond head and a tapered torso. He was carrying the colored photograph of the memory painting.

“Betty Jo?”

“I’ve changed my name to Betty,” she said. “Please just call me Betty.”

“Okay, Betty.” The young man’s voice was precise and rather thin. “What I was going to say is, I matched up your picture with one of the Lashman pictures in the basement.”

“That’s marvelous, Ralph. You’re a genius.” She took his hand and shook it wildly. “By the way, this is Mr. Archer.”

“The non-genius,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

Ralph flushed. “Actually it was terribly easy to do. The Lashman painting was sitting out on one of the worktables, propped up against the wall. You’d almost think it was looking for me instead of I for it. It virtually leaped right out at me.”

Betty turned to me. “Ralph has found another painting of that same blond model. One by a different painter.”

“So I gathered. May I see it?”

“You certainly may,” Ralph said. “The beauty of it is that Simon Lashman should be able to tell you who she is.”

“Is he in town?”

“No. He lives in Tucson. We should have a record of his address. We’ve bought several of his paintings over the years.”

“Right now, I’d rather look at the one in the basement.”

Ralph unlocked a door. The three of us went downstairs and along a windowless corridor that reminded me of jails I had known. The workroom where Ralph took me was also windowless, but whitely lit by fluorescent tubes in the ceiling.

The picture on the table was a full-length nude. The woman looked much older than she had in the Biemeyer painting. There were marks of pain at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her breasts were larger, and they drooped a little. Her entire body was less confident.

Betty looked from the sorrowful painted face to mine, almost as if she were jealous of the woman.

She said to Ralph, “How long ago was this painted?”

“Over twenty years. I checked the file. Lashman called it Penelope, by the way.”

“She’d be really old now,” Betty said to me. “She’s old enough in the picture.”

“I’m no spring chicken myself,” I said.

She flushed and looked away as if I’d rebuffed her.

I said to Ralph, “Why would the picture be sitting out on the table like this? It isn’t where it’s usually kept, is it?”

“Of course not. One of the staff must have set it out.”

“This morning?”

“That I doubt. There wasn’t anyone down here this morning before me. I had to unlock the door.”

“Who was down here yesterday?”

“Several people, at least half a dozen. We’re preparing a show.”

“Including this picture?”

“No. It’s a show of Southern California landscapes.”

“Was Fred Johnson down here yesterday?”

“As a matter of fact, he was. He put in quite a lot of time sorting through the paintings in the storage room.”

“Did he tell you what he was after?”

“Not exactly. He said he was looking for something.”

“He was looking for this,” Betty said abruptly.

She had forgotten her jealousy of the painted woman, if that is what it had been. Excitement colored her cheekbones. Her eyes were bright.

“Fred is probably on his way to Tucson.” She clenched her fists and shook them in the air like an excited child. “Now if I could get Mr. Brailsford to pay my travel expenses—”

I was thinking the same thing about Mr. Biemeyer. But before I approached Biemeyer I decided to try to make a phone call to the painter Lashman.

Ralph got me the painter’s number and address out of the file, and left me alone at the desk in his own office.

I dialed Lashman’s house in Tucson direct.

A hoarse reluctant voice answered, “Simon Lashman speaking.”

“This is Lew Archer calling from the Santa Teresa Art Museum. I’m investigating the theft of a picture. I understand you painted the picture of Penelope in the museum.”

There was a silence. Then Lashman’s voice creaked like an old door opening: “That was a long time ago. I’m painting better now. Don’t tell me someone thought that picture was worth stealing.”

“It hasn’t been stolen, Mr. Lashman. Whoever painted the stolen picture used the same model as you used for Penelope”

“Mildred Mead? Is she still alive and kicking?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t seen her in some years. She’d be an old woman by now. We’re all getting older.” His voice was becoming fainter. “She may be dead.”

“I hope not. She was a beautiful woman.”

“I used to think that Mildred was the most beautiful woman in the Southwest.” His voice had become stronger, as if the thought of her beauty had stimulated him. “Who painted the picture you’re talking about?”

“It’s been attributed to Richard Chantry.”

“Really?”

“The attribution isn’t certain.”

“I’m not surprised. I never heard that he used Mildred as a model.” Lashman was silent for a moment. “Can you describe the picture to me?”

“It’s a very simple nude in plain colors. Someone said it showed the influence of Indian painting.”

“A lot of Chantry’s stuff did, in his Arizona period. But none of it is particularly good. Is this one any good?”

“I don’t know. It seems to be causing a lot of excitement.”

“Does it belong to the Santa Teresa museum?”

“No. It was bought by a man named Biemeyer.”

“The copper magnate?”

“That’s correct. I’m investigating the theft for Biemeyer.”

“To hell with you, then,” Lashman said, and hung up.

I dialed his number again. He said, “Who is this?”

“Archer. Please hold on. There’s more involved than the theft of a picture here. A man named Paul Grimes was murdered in Santa Teresa last night. Grimes was the dealer who sold the picture to Biemeyer. The sale and the murder are almost certainly connected.”

Lashman was silent again. Finally he said, “Who stole the picture?”

“An art student named Fred Johnson. I think he may be on his way to Tucson with it now. And he may turn up on your doorstep.”

“Why me?”

“He wants to find Mildred and see who painted her. He seems to be obsessed with the painting. In fact, he may be off his rocker entirely, and he has a young girl traveling with him.” I deliberately omitted the fact that she was Biemeyer’s daughter.

“Anything else?”

“That’s the gist of it.”

“Good,” he said. “I am seventy-five years old. I’m painting my two-hundred-and-fourteenth picture. If I stopped to attend to other people’s problems, I’d never get it finished. So I am going to hang up on you again, Mr. whatever-your-name-is.”

“Archer,” I said. “Lew Archer. L-E-W A-R-C-H-E-R. You can always get my number from Los Angeles information.”

Lashman

^chapter

16

The morning wind had died down. The air was clear and sparkling. Like a flashing ornament suspended from an infinitely high ceiling, the red-tailed hawk swung over the Biemeyer house.

Jack and Ruth Biemeyer both came out to meet me. They were rather conservatively dressed, like people on their way to a funeral, and they looked as if the funeral might be their own.

The woman reached me first. She had dark circles under her eyes, which she hadn’t quite succeeded in covering with makeup.

“Is there any word about Doris?”

“I think she left town with Fred Johnson last night.”

“Why didn’t you stop her?”

“She didn’t give me notice that she was leaving. I couldn’t have stopped her if she had.”

“Why not?” Ruth Biemeyer was leaning toward me, her handsome head poised like a tomahawk.

“Doris is old enough to be a free agent. She may not be smart enough, but she’s old enough.”

“Where have they gone?”

“Possibly Arizona. I have a little bit of a lead in Tucson, and I think they may be heading there. I don’t know if they have the picture with them. Fred claims it was stolen from him.”

Jack Biemeyer spoke for the first time. “That’s horse manure.”

I didn’t argue with him. “You’re probably right. If you want me to go to Tucson, it’s going to cost you more, naturally.”

“Naturally.” Biemeyer looked past me at his wife. “I told you there would be another bite. There always is.”

I felt like hitting him. Instead I turned on my heel and walked to the far end of the driveway. It wasn’t far enough. A five-foot wire fence stopped me.

The hill slanted sharply downward to the edge of the barranca. On the far side stood the Chantry house, miniatured by distance like a building in a bell jar.

The greenhouse behind it had a half-painted glass roof. Through its flashing multiple panes I could make out dim movements inside the building, which was choked with greenery. There seemed to be two people facing each other and making wide sweeping motions, like duelists too far apart to hurt each other.

Ruth Biemeyer spoke in a quiet voice behind me. “Please come back. I know Jack can be difficult—God knows I know it. But we really need you.”

I couldn’t resist that, and I said so. But I asked her to wait a minute, and got a pair of binoculars out of my car. They gave me a clearer view of what was going on in the Chantry greenhouse. A gray-headed woman and a black-haired man, whom I identified as Mrs. Chantry and Rico, were standing among the masses of weeds and overgrown orchid plants, and using long hooked knives to cut them down.

“What is it?” Ruth Biemeyer said.

I handed her my binoculars. Standing on tiptoe, she looked over the fence.

“What are they doing?”

“They seem to be doing some gardening. Is Mrs. Chantry fond of gardening?”

“She may be. But I never saw her doing any actual work, until now.”

We went back to her husband, who all this time had been standing in a silent stony anger beside my car, like some kind of picket.

I said to him, “Do you want me to go to Tucson for you?”

“I suppose so. I have no choice.”

“Sure you have.”

Ruth Biemeyer interrupted, glancing from her husband to me and back again like a tennis referee. “We want you to go on with the case, Mr. Archer. If you need some money in advance, I’ll be glad to give it to you out of my own savings.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Biemeyer said.

“Good. Thank you, Jack.”

“I’ll take five hundred dollars from you,” I said.

Biemeyer yelped and looked stricken. But he said he would write me a check, and went into the house.

I said to his wife, “What made him that way about money?”

“Getting some, I think. Jack used to be quite different when he was a young mining engineer and had nothing. But lately he’s been making a lot of enemies.”

“Including his own daughter.” And his own wife. “What about Simon Lashman?”

“The painter? What about him?”

“I mentioned your husband’s name to him this morning. Lashman reacted negatively. In fact, he told me to go to hell and hung up on me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter to me personally. Still I may need Lashman’s cooperation. Are you on good terms with him?”

“I don’t know him. Naturally I know who he is.”

“Does your husband know him?”

She hesitated, then spoke haltingly. “I believe he does. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You might as well, though.”

“No. This is really painful for me.”

“Why?”

“There’s so much old history involved.” She shook her head, as if it were still encumbered by the past. Then she spoke in a smaller voice, watching the doorway through which her husband had disappeared. “My husband and Mr. Lashman were rivals at one time. She was an older woman than my husband—actually she belonged to Lashman’s generation—but Jack preferred her to me. He bought her away from Lashman.”

“Mildred Mead?”

“You’ve heard of her, have you?” Her voice grew coarse with anger and contempt. “She was a notorious woman in Arizona.”

“I’ve heard of her. She sat for that picture you bought.”

She gave me a vague disoriented look. “What picture?”

“The one we’re looking for. The Chantry.”

“No,” she said.

“Yes. Didn’t you know it was a picture of Mildred Mead?”

She put her hand over her eyes and spoke blindfolded. “I suppose I may have known. If I did know, I’d blanked out on the fact. It was a terrible shock to me when Jack bought a house for her. A better house than I was living in at the time.” She dropped her hand and blinked at the high harsh light. “I must have been crazy to bring that picture and hang it in the house. Jack must have known who it was. He never said a word, but he must have wondered what I was trying to do.”

“You could ask him what he thought.”

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t dare. I wouldn’t want to open that can of worms.” She looked behind her as if to see if her husband was listening, but he was still out of sight in the house.

“You did open it, though. You bought the picture and brought it home.”

“Yes, I did. I must be going out of my mind—do you think I am?”

“You’d know better than I would. It’s your mind.”

“Anybody else would be welcome to it.” There was a faint rising note of excitement in her voice: she had surprised herself with her own complexity.

“Did you ever see Mildred Mead?”

“No, I never did. When she—when she became important in my life, I was careful not to see her. I was afraid.”

“Of her?”

“Of myself,” she said. “I was afraid I might do something violent. She must have been twenty years older than I, at least. And Jack, who had always been such a skinflint with me, bought her a house.”

“Is she still living in it?”

“I don’t know. She may be.”

“Where is the house?”

“In Chantry Canyon in Arizona. It’s on the New Mexico border, not too far from the mine. In fact it was the original Chantry house.”

“Are we talking about Chantry the painter?”

“His father, Felix,” she said. “Felix Chantry was the engineer who first developed the mine. He was in charge of operations until he died. It’s why it was such an insult to me when Jack bought the house from the old man’s estate and gave it to that woman.”

“I don’t quite follow you.”

“It’s perfectly simple. Jack took over the mine from Felix Chantry. Actually he was related to Felix Chantry. Jack’s mother was Chantry’s cousin. Which was all the more reason why he should have bought the Chantry house for me.” She spoke with an almost childish bitterness.

“Is that why you bought the Chantry picture?”

“Maybe it is. I never thought of it in that way. I bought it really because I was interested in the man who painted it. Don’t ask me how interested, it’s a moot question now.”

“Do you still want the picture back?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I want my daughter back. We shouldn’t be standing here wasting time.”

“I know that. I’m waiting for your husband to bring me my check.”

Mrs. Biemeyer gave me an embarrassed look and went into the house. She didn’t come out right away.

I still had my binoculars hanging around my neck, and I carried them down the driveway to the edge of the slope again. The black-haired man and the gray-haired woman were still cutting weeds in the greenhouse.

Mrs. Biemeyer came out of the house by herself. Angry tears were spilling from her eyes. The check she handed me was signed with her name, not her husband’s.

“I’m going to leave him,” she said to me and the house. “As soon as we get through this.”