Dolly And The Cookie Bird - Dorothy Dunnett - Johnson Johnson 03 (14 page)

“But Janey has,” Johnson said. “Maybe Janey has had better luck. I should ask her, if I were you. If we’re not both in prison.”

Austin Mandleberg’s workshop was not all that hard to break into. It couldn’t have been: Johnson did it so easily. We didn’t go into the garden. We walked along the dirt lane running behind Gallery 7 and found a row of windows, covered with fine, blue-painted netting, which must belong to Austin’s own rooms. Below them was another window, with no nets but a balcony, not too far up from the ground. Johnson’s theory was that this would lead us to a room off the inside first landing. When I remembered the slope of the ground, I realized he was probably right.

I got up without any help on the balcony and crouched there, behind the pots of red-flowering cactus, while Johnson messed about with, he said, a hairpin. There was a click, and then he messed about a bit more with a knife. No one came along the lane but a dog. It looked up at us and then trotted on. Then Johnson said, “How nice,” with a rather satisfied sound in his voice.

“What?” I said.

“The burglar alarm,” Johnson said. “A good make. But not very well fitted. One of the hazards of living abroad. Are we clear?”

“No one’s coming,” I said. I was still frightened: the smallest bit frightened. Of Johnson. Then he opened the window, and in a moment, we were both inside Austin’s house.

It was dark and stuffy, once the window was shut, and smelt of glue and fresh paint and carbonized metal and food. The room we were in appeared to be some kind of office. Producing a little torch from his pocket, Johnson swept it over the few elegant furnishings: a filing cabinet; a typist’s table and chair; a larger desk with a tape recorder and a telephone on its green leather surface.

The door was open, leading onto a lightless landing, devoid of all sound. Johnson closed it and, drawing both blinds on the windows, proceeded to kneel at the desk. I said, “Hey!”

The first drawer was open, and Johnson, very quietly, was ruffling at speed through the papers. I said, “Hey!” again. He shut the drawer and opened another. “Don’t worry,” he said. His voice was so low I could barely make the words out. He sounded mildly amused. “If I come across any love letters, I’ll tell you. I want to see the receipts for the production and sale of his jewelry. This is Gregorio’s desk.”

“Oh,” I said. He went through all the drawers in turn, looking at everything but taking nothing out. He didn’t speak again, and neither did I, until he had finished and relocked the lot. I said, “That wasn’t Gregorio’s desk.”

He grinned: a flash in the dark. “I know, dearie,” he said. “But if he likes you enough to ask you to go to Seville, I feel we ought to view his credentials.”

“And?” I said crossly.

“Clean as a whistle,” said Johnson. “Now take me to this lair in the basement.” And opening the door, we pussyfooted out onto the landing and then down the white marble stairs to the hall. Then we turned left, away from Austin Mandleberg’s ground-floor antique room, and opened the little green door.

I found the creaking stairs and went down making very little noise, and I noticed Johnson did the same. At the bottom, all the lights were switched off except one: at the end where Gregorio had his apartment. It was a very dim bulb, encased in a lantern framework hanging with dirt: American efficiency obviously hadn’t penetrated belowstairs to the native quarters. To my horror, signing me to stay out of sight, Johnson felt his way first away from the workshop and toward where the dim light was hanging, listening at doors as he went.

He saw the cat the moment I did, lying in the shadows by the far wall, curled inside its tail, fast asleep. He stopped, but the beast had sensed him: it raised its head, the end of its tail twitching, and then got up and let loose a meow like a train whistle. Then it stared at Johnson, stared at the last door of the corridor—the door farthest away from the stairs—and stalking toward it, meowed over again.

There was a line of light under that door. I saw Johnson wait for a moment. Then, very softly, he leaned forward, and with one gloved hand, he turned the knob of the door. He did it slowly, and in absolute silence, while the cat watched him, its ears pricked, its tail switching. Then, when the latch was just disengaged, he pushed the door gently open.

The cat stalked in, giving a view of a small, heavily furnished room with a fire smoldering behind a wrought-iron guard. It was quite empty.

Johnson smiled, and leaving the door slightly ajar, came back to me. “Come on,” he said, and made for the other door, the workroom door right beside us.

Seen in the light of the torch, the workshop looked like any room used by craftsmen. The broken floor tiles were littered with curls of metal and shavings, and the heavy benches were piled with raw materials and work in various stages of process, together with all the appliances—the vises, the lathes, the soldering and welding equipment— needed for the trade of repair and reproduction of jewelry.

“Three men, perhaps,” said Johnson. “Under Jorge, the old fellow you saw.” If you looked closely, you could see the empty packets of cigarettes, the greasy sandwich paper which hadn’t fallen into the square box of rubbish; the stained jackets hanging on rough hooks by the wall. On the opposite wall was a safe.

It was the only receptacle with a lock in the room. I remember Johnson stood before it for a long time, just looking, until I got impatient and said, “Gregorio will be coming back. What is it?”

“It hasn’t got an alarm,” Johnson said.

“Poor thing,” I said. “What does it matter? We couldn’t open it.”

Johnson walked forward briskly. “With the aid,” he said, “of a stick of well-cooked spaghetti, any child over the age of six months could open that safe. Observe.” And indeed, he had hardly touched it when it did actually swing open. Inside was a packet of gold leaf and some worn bank notes, packed beside a tray of rather dishy, reproduction antique rings. The total value of the whole thing was probably about twenty quid.

“So?” I said.

“So there’s a safe somewhere else,” Johnson said. “Not upstairs. If they’re doing anything shady, they don’t want to be carrying stuff about through the hall. I know.”

I followed him along that hellish corridor again, bleating. He paid no attention but, reaching the door at the end, listened for a moment again, then gave it a push and went in.

The cat, which had settled comfortably this time in front of the fire, looked up, recognized him, and bristled with superior hate. Johnson went on in, and I followed.

It was a room devoted to the total dominion of cloth. You could tell a Spaniard, or so Daddy said, because he liked his cutlet frills done up with tassels. All the furniture was square, heavy and dark; the religious paintings were hellish; and the lampshade had bobbles and went up and down. “It would fetch a fortune in Lord and Taylor’s,” said

Johnson. “Where do you suppose he keeps his money?”

“There,” I said, lifting the Prodigal Son.

“It seems a bit obvious,” said Johnson.

“It’s a safe,” I said. “In the wall. Under the picture. Not everyone has seen as many old movies on telly as you have.”

He said, with slightly more interest, “This one has an alarm,” and started in to disconnect it. I made no comment. The time one might expect Señor Gregorio to remain at his devotions was running out fast. I wanted out.

The safe door creaked open, and Johnson’s black head disappeared inside. After a moment, he withdrew it. “About two hundred pounds in pesetas and nine thousand used dollar bills, a bundle of personal papers, some rather good silver plate, some old-fashioned family jewelry, and two tins of cat food,” Johnson said.

“Let’s put the cat in beside it,” I said. I hated that cat. “No rubies?”

“No,” said Johnson absently. He was still staring at the safe.

“Come on, then,” I said. The cat moved, stretched, and arching its back, leaped from the hearth rug to a dusty, plush armchair and lay down again, watching us. Coinciding with the soft pad of its landing, I thought I could hear, somewhere in the house, a double click which could have been a key in a lock. I pulled Johnson’s arm.

He shut the safe door with a blessed alacrity. “Back to the workroom,” he said. The cat bristled.

I said, “Someone’s coming!”

“Well, if it’s Gregorio, he’ll come in here, won’t he?” said Johnson reasonably. “Back to the workshop. I’ve got an idea.”

I could feel all the little octopuses lying dead at the bottom of my paella. I said, “Why can’t we get out?”

“Because there are two people on the floor above,” said Johnson. He had, I admit, a logical brain. He also had nothing wrong with his hearing. As we hared along the dark corridor in the direction of the other room at the end, I could make out the quiet footsteps too, coming along the hall above from the direction of the front door. They walked up to the head of the stairs and went, so far as I could judge, to the study. “Hell,” said Johnson, placidly.

“Why?” We were in the workroom again, with the door shut.

“They’ll feel the draught from the window.” He was moving, very fast, back to the safe, and in two seconds, he had it open again. He said, “Stand behind the door, Sarah, will you? If they come in, try and slip upstairs and out through the front door.” All the time he was speaking, the beam of his little torch was probing inside the safe. I saw the small circle of light dim as he put his hand in and heard him say something, quietly under his breath as I felt my way, in the dark, to the door.

I had hardly got there when it opened, slamming into my arm. Light from the main switch sprang, dazzling, into the room. I had a picture of Johnson turning, his arm dropping from the still-open safe, the other hand in his pocket. There was a terrific report, like a lorry backfiring, and a sort of popping sound immediately after. Johnson crashed to the ground, and behind my door, someone yelped sharply. There strode into the room a tall, heavily built man followed by another clutching his rib cage and groaning. The wounded man was Austin Mandleberg. The other was Anthony Lloyd, Janey’s father, and he had a smoking gun in his hand.

LETTING GO the door, I ran round it to Austin, and held him up. He looked fearfully surprised, in a dazed kind of way, and then let me ease him down onto a stool. I can’t bear to see people hurt. It’s the retriever instinct, Daddy used to say. Then I remembered I wasn’t supposed to, and looked round at Mr. Lloyd and at Johnson.

Johnson wasn’t hurt: he had just taken cover in time. There was a hole in his jacket pocket, and a gun with a long thing on its muzzle was still in his hand. Mr. Lloyd said, “Good God.” Then he said, “Put your gun down.”

“Oh, dear,” said Johnson. He put down his gun. “Have I hurt you, Mr. Mandleberg? But really, you shouldn’t let your friends fire on people unseen. Mr. Lloyd might have killed me.”

Austin Mandleberg’s voice had got very high.

“He was doing me a favor,” he said. “Anyone is perfectly justified in defending his home against thieves.”

“I’ve lost my pipe,” said Johnson, hunting. “Oh, there it is.” He picked it up and, fishing out tobacco, started to load it.

Moving very quietly for a man of such bulk, Mr. Lloyd walked forward and confronted Johnson. His revolver made a small movement. “We’ll have your attention, please,” said Janey’s father. “What are you doing here? And Sarah?”

Johnson sighed. “Playing at detectives,” he said. “An obvious error. But we were not, I promise you, attempting to steal anything. Rather, to save Mr. Mandleberg some trouble.”

“Detectives?” said Austin. He sat up, jerking the rolled-up handkerchief out of my hand. Blood was spreading over the side of his cream jersey suit. It would never dry-clean. “There was gold leaf and money in that safe. How did you get it open? I don’t know what pretext you’ve thought up to take Sarah with you, but you are a thief, sir. The fact that you carry a gun is quite proof enough.”

The bifocals looked surprised. “Mr. Lloyd carries a gun.”

Anthony Lloyd said, “I’m a businessman living in a foreign country. I don’t pretend to be a painter on holiday. Are you a painter? Or is your name perhaps not Johnson at all?”

Johnson looked down at his pipe. A torn sheet of tracing paper lay on the workbench beside him. Leaning over, he knocked the pipe bowl into it, hard, and then laying it aside, ground his thumb into the brown charcoal mess and straightening, considered Mr. Lloyd for a moment, his head on one side, his glasses repeating: two large men; two steady revolvers. Then he ran his thumb softly over the tracing paper in a half circle, another; a line, a line, a dot, a squiggle; a mass of soft ruffled shadow.

Anthony Lloyd’s shadowy face lay on the workbench before us. “They call me Rembrandt Bloggs in the underworld,” Johnson said.

“Why, then?” said Austin. His ribs had started bleeding again.

Johnson told them. Not the detail, but the substance: how I had caught sight of some jewelry I had later realized was identical with the Saint Hubert rubies; how it occurred to us something odd was going on in Mr. Mandleberg’s absence; how, after a visit to the wine garden (Johnson’s voice was apologetic), we thought we would see if we were mistaken or not.

“You didn’t think to get in touch with Mr. Mandleberg, who could have investigated the thing properly? It was, after all, his business, not yours?” Mr. Lloyd said. “Or was this a drunken fantasy, with no substance at all? I am quite prepared to believe that Sarah saw something, but that she could have seen that particular collar is highly unlikely. I don’t suppose the thought would even have occurred to her if you hadn’t put it into her head.”

I opened my mouth, and the glasses flashed in my direction. “I fear I did lead She-she astray,” said Johnson contritely. “But we were passing the house, and I wanted to show off my safe-cracking technique. It’s very handy, you know. I once painted a stockbroker who’d come up via Wormwood Scrubs, and he paid me in kind. You do it.” And Johnson swung the door shut and took out his hairpin. After a moment’s hesitation, Mr. Lloyd laid down his gun and craned forward.

They opened and shut the door twice, Johnson’s voice instructing Mr. Lloyd, while I got Austin a glass of water and found the first-aid box for him. It was full of Beecham’s pills. The bullet had gone, he said, right through his side; and he was looking quite frightful. He wouldn’t let me send for a doctor.

It was all very well, not wanting trouble; but I felt that Johnson had rather asked for any trouble he’d got. Austin didn’t even listen to what I was saying. When there was a break in the burglary class, he called, “Mr. Lloyd!”

Johnson came over, even quicker than Janey’s father. “Our wounded! I do apologize. There you sit suffering, while we amuse ourselves with safe-blowing. I’m afraid I returned Mr. Lloyd’s shot quite instinctively. I had no intention in the world of inconveniencing you.”

I was furious. I said, “He’s got a hole right through his ribs, and he’s bleeding.”

“A doctor,” said Johnson. “Mr. Lloyd, where can we get a doctor?”

“I’ll ring one,” said Lloyd. He looked at Johnson. “If I do, you know it’ll mean trouble.”

Austin said weakly, “I want Mr. Lloyd to do something first.” I never knew anyone so hopeless as men for sheer waffling. I let him go, wet pad and all, and went off to find a telephone. I don’t know how Johnson got to the door ahead of me but he did, and tucked my hand in a friendly way under his arm. I tugged.

Austin went on speaking. “If what Sarah here says is correct, then there’s something far wrong. I’d like to know first what it is. Mr. Lloyd, would you look in that safe?”

“There’s nothing there,” said Johnson helpfully. My muscles cracked, under his arm.

“There’s nothing there,” said Mr. Lloyd, a moment later. “No rubies, that is.”

“Right,” said Austin. “Then if I may trouble you, sir, there is another safe in Señor Gregorio’s room.” He described where it was and repeated the number. I looked at Johnson, but Johnson was sucking his empty pipe, his glasses raised to the ceiling. A moment later, Lloyd called from the other room. “Nothing here, either.”

He reappeared in the doorway just as Johnson said, “Are these all the safes you have, Mr. Mandleberg?”

“Yes,” said Austin. He swayed. “Could I have…?” Mr. Lloyd jumped forward, but Johnson had already taken a hip flask from one of his pockets and was holding it out.

“Try that,” he said. “I have news for you. You have one more safe than you thought.”

It seemed to be brandy, which has not much, medically, to recommend it, but Austin didn’t complain. He handed the flask back, his eyes bleary, and said, draggily, “What?”

“Didn’t you notice?” said Johnson. “It’s very cleverly hidden: you should come here and look. There’s a safe inside the safe.”

He let go my hand, and I helped Austin to his feet. Mr. Lloyd was already there, swinging open the old safe door as far as it would go, while Johnson shone his small torch inside. There was nothing to see, except for the money and the leaf gold at first. Then Johnson put in his muscular fingers and pressed something hard. The grain of the wood moved, like a ship being launched, from one side to the other, revealing a small recessed dial. Austin’s eyes were like blue plastic marbles. Mr. Lloyd’s voice had lost a lot of its measurable warmth. “I should like to see you open that,” said Janey’s father.

“You open it,” said Johnson cheerfully. “If you look, I’m sure you’ll find the combination in Señor Gregorio’s safe.”

He did, too, and opened it. We all craned round while he felt about and brought out the only thing that was lying inside. I don’t think any of us were surprised by then to see a replica of the Saint Hubert rubies.

“Gregorio,” said Austin, and fell back against the edge of the workbench. “Or Jorge.” Mr. Lloyd stood, looking at the elaborate collar. He said, still studying it, “It isn’t an offense to copy fine jewelry.”

“No,” said Johnson. “But it is a little disturbing when the copy is so painstakingly hidden. Gregorio couldn’t make this himself?”

“No! No,” said Austin. “Jorge, my goldsmith— he must have made it under Gregorio’s instructions. The three others are juniors and recently added to the staff. I would not expect them to know anything… May I see?”

Mr. Lloyd handed over the necklace. He said,

“I suppose there’s no doubt it is a replica? No, I see that it is…”

And indeed, even to me, the clumsy metalwork and the sharpish red of the stones were quite clearly false. I do know the look of a ruby, in the same way that I know sable and ermine and mink. One always knows where one is going, even if one doesn’t quite know how to get there.

Johnson said, “You had no idea this safe was here?” and Austin shook his head, dropping the stones on the bench. I said, “If you could stop talking for two minutes, he needs to get into bed and have that thing bandaged.”

They ignored me. “So you were right,” said Mr. Lloyd to Johnson. And to Austin he said, “Well, it’s up to you, Mr. Mandleberg. Do you want the police told?”

Austin shook his head. “There’s nothing worse than a scandal in my kind of business. I’d be happy, Mr. Lloyd, if you’d take that collar and throw it away, or break it up and dispose of it in some way, so that we know it won’t be misused. I’ll look after Jorge and Señor Gregorio myself, and I promise this won’t happen again. My God, I couldn’t afford to let it happen. Honesty is the strongest card we have in our trade… Mr. Johnson, I can’t say I’m happy that you felt you couldn’t bring your problems to me, and I sure wish your aim had been better, but I won’t say I’m sorry now that it’s turned out the way it has. Mr. Lloyd, I have to thank you for tackling what you thought was an intruder on my behalf…”

“What made you come back?” I said.

“You didn’t expect us, did you?” said Mr. Lloyd.

He didn’t sound very pleased. “Gilmore drove the Cooper through Ibiza just as I was getting into my own car in the Bartolomé de Rosello. He stopped when I waved to him, and Mr. Mandleberg offered to get out and take me back here for the two ikons he promised me, while Gilmore drove Janey on home.” He paused, and then said to Austin, “I think you had better do what we originally planned and come back to the Casa Veñets with me. If you insist on having no treatment, my daughter is fairly knowledgeable about nursing and could make you comfortable, at least. If any complications develop, naturally we shall have to call in qualified aid.” He slipped the necklace into his pocket and shut the double safe door.

I did three months more of that first-aid course than Janey. Janey left after four weeks. I opened my mouth and then shut it again at the expression on Mr. Lloyd’s face. We all crawled upstairs, switching off lights and locking doors as we went.

Mr. Lloyd had a not quite new Buick, parked in the Plaza España, just down the road, by courtesy of his friends in the police, or Austin’s status as resident. We lifted Austin into the back, and Johnson stood waiting to walk down to where the Seat was standing. Mr. Lloyd stopped at his side. “What you did was, to say the least, both foolish and criminal,” he said. “You or the girl might quite easily have been shot as a result. I cannot say that I am sorry about anything that has happened, except that it should have been Austin and not yourself who eventually suffered.”

Johnson stroked some sawdust off Mr. Lloyd’s jacket. “Never trust an artist,” he said. “It’s a corrupting profession. I shall take up something healthy, like tennis, instead.”

He waved cheerfully, as I got in, but Mr. Lloyd didn’t wave back. In fact, as he got into the driver’s seat, I could see by the dim light from the lamppost that he had gone rather red. I also saw, sticking out of his pocket, a corner of tracing paper. At least he hadn’t had the nerve to get Johnson to sign it.

Helmuth put Austin to bed, and Janey and I fought a ladylike battle over the nursing which Janey won quite unfairly by dint of her father coming in and sending me sharply to bed. I kissed Austin good night, and he opened his eyes and said weakly, “I guess this puts paid to that trip to Seville, meantime at least. You’re a crazy girl, Sarah.”

“I’m not so crazy,” I said, sweetly, for the benefit of Janey. “Johnson’s going to paint my portrait.”

For the first time, the annoyance in Mr. Lloyd’s face gave way to a kind of unwilling respect. He put his hands on my shoulders. “Sarah Cassells, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I always know what I’m doing,” I said, and squeezed Austin’s hand, and let myself be steered out of the room.

Capricorns had had a big day, all right.

Anne-Marie did the shopping next morning: I wasn’t up to it. Over a late breakfast which nobody ate, I affirmed my decision to go home on Monday; nobody rushed to persuade me to stay either, except Janey, and she was in two minds because of Austin. Austin, it seemed, had had a reasonable night, and no doctor had been called. Gilmore, perhaps because of the after-effects of the vodka, spoke to practically nobody and went to knock some tennis balls moodily against a wall. Mr. Lloyd, who had taken one or two telephone calls, informed us that the Russians had left for Madrid and that it appeared that Coco Fairley had died through drowning following a severe overdose of drugs. He told us after Gilmore had gone. He also took occasion to take from his pocket, before witnesses, the fake rubies, and smash them with a coal hammer on the terrace, breaking one or two of the paving stones in the process. So that was that.

I got in once, to see Austin, but Janey stayed there with her manicured hand on his brow the whole time, and I felt a bit spare. I had brought him another pillow, a jug of fruit drink with ice cubes that I had concocted myself, and some paperbacks I’d had on the plane, but he was practically sleeping and didn’t pay much attention. I got both him and Janey to promise they wouldn’t mention who Mummy was. Austin gave me a queer look before he closed his eyes, and I suddenly realized that this had made me a bit eccentric, to say the least of it, in his eyes. But if he could tolerate any scab who could write poetry or paint letters on boxes, I couldn’t see why he couldn’t be broad-minded about Mummy and me.

I could see Janey taking his temperature with her thumb, and hoped he wouldn’t go into a high fever while I was out of the house. Then I prepared an elaborate luncheon, beginning with iced melon balls and going all the way down to petit fours with the coffee, and lit out to the Hotel Mediterránea to see my brother Derek.