Restrike (7 page)

After she’d fed and walked Dolly, Coleman put on her nightgown and robe and settled down on the couch in the sitting room. She loved her little apartment on East Fifty-Fourth Street. Debbi and Dinah nagged her to buy something bigger and fancier, but even if she were as rich as Bill Gates, she wouldn’t move. The kitchen was tiny, but who cared? She didn’t cook. Her snug home office was a desk in the dining nook. The sitting room windows looked out at the Queens skyline beyond the East River, gorgeous at night. She’d installed bookshelves wherever she could fit them in, and the room was warm and inviting.

But the best part was the two bedrooms. Coleman slept in the smaller one—Dinah said its narrow bed and white walls reminded her of what she’d read about nuns’ cells—and used the second bedroom as her sewing room, where she kept her sewing machine and the dressmakers’ models she’d made for herself and for Dinah. She hung many of her dresses and suits on a big clothes rod on one side of the room, instead of crushed in a tiny closet. The shelves on the other walls were stacked with brilliantly colored fabrics—bright green, turquoise, blue, red, hot pink—and fashion magazines. She’d designed it to look like the sewing room where she’d worked with Aunt Polly, except then the magazines hadn’t been
Vogue
and
Bazaar
, but battered copies of
Ladies’ Home Journal
and
Good Housekeeping.

When she’d arrived at Slocumb Corners, a dirty, uncivilized five-year-old orphan, the household was desperately poor. Coleman had always been poor, but her grandmother, Miss Ida, Miss Ida’s sister, her great-aunt Polly, and even seven-year-old Dinah
worked.
The people Coleman had lived with mostly drank and smoked dope. Coleman had never known people who worked the way her new family did.

Miss Ida baked—wedding and other cakes were her specialty—and catered for parties, and Dinah helped in the kitchen. Aunt Polly sewed. She made dresses, and anything else the local ladies wanted—curtains, slipcovers, baby clothes, whatever. She did alterations, too, and Coleman helped her. Coleman took to sewing, and by the time she was in sixth grade, she was making all her own clothes and Dinah’s. She winced when she remembered those clumsy creations, but the clothes she’d designed and made for high school and college were much better-looking. When her classmates saw them, they, too, wanted “Coleman” labels. She’d sewed her way through college.

These days, she could afford to buy designer clothes, and sometimes she did. But most outfits for someone only five-feet-two-inches tall were designed to make the wearer look cute, and Coleman hated cute. She wanted clothes to make her look taller, slimmer, more sophisticated, and the best way to get them was to design them herself. Fashion wasn’t easy if you were short, curvy, blonde, and dimpled. Anyway, playing with fabrics and patterns was fun. And relaxing. If she weren’t so tired, she’d go in the sewing room and work out a new design, but she just didn’t have the energy.

She picked up the
Daily News
from the stack of newspapers and skimmed through it, but she couldn’t concentrate. Dolly climbed onto her lap and settled down for an after-supper nap. Coleman stroked the little dog’s soft fur and picked up the TV remote. Maybe she could find an old movie—she loved fifties films—but before she could turn on the television, her phone rang.

It was Clancy. “Bad news, Coleman. The police have decided they were right from the beginning. They never found anything to tie Jimmy La Grange’s death to the sale of those prints. If they ever find the guys Jimmy was seen with, they can easily make their case. But they’re not looking very hard.”

“Are you still working on it?”

“No. Unless something new turns up, it’s over, at least for the
Times.
But I know there’s an art connection. I can’t figure out how La Grange could have bought those two prints, or why the real owner—or owners—are lying low, unless they have something to hide. Keep me posted, okay?”

“Sure. Thanks for calling, Clancy. Let’s talk soon.”

Coleman lay back down on the couch, Dolly on her chest. Clancy’s throwing in the towel was a blow. He was her only link to the police. The
New York Times
had great sources. But she couldn’t blame him.

All she had were questions: Who killed La Grange and why? Who
was
Bain? What about Simon?

Rachel Ransome had not heard of Jimmy La Grange’s murder, but she knew that he was ostensibly the seller of
The Midget.
That kind of information came readily to the owner of the Ransome Gallery. News of La Grange’s sordid death was not important enough to make the London papers, but even if an item had appeared, Rachel would not have read it. She found the daily news at best boring, at worst distracting. She was immersed in the sixteenth century.

In the more than ten years since Rachel had established the Ransome Gallery, she had become successful. She did not seek publicity, and the passing years had made her even less interested in other people than she had been when she was young. Few members of the public knew the Ransome Gallery existed, but every important museum in Europe and the United States sent representatives to call on the gallery, and every private collector of Renaissance art knew Rachel. She met with clients by appointment. There was no walk-in business for the treasures found at the Ransome Gallery.

Many of the works Rachel sold were part of her inheritance from Ransome. She doled them out, since Renaissance connoisseurs coveted treasures from Ransome’s collection. Other objects had come her way through
The Record
, the document Ransome left behind detailing locations of art all over the world—in museums, of course, but more important, in private collections. Nothing was more useful to a dealer than supply, and the owners of works of art tucked away in attics or dark corridors in freezing country houses were often willing to sell them when they learned of their value. Finally, some works came through those who had known Ransome and honored Rachel as his heir.

She had no need for the wealth she had accumulated through the sale of art. Ransome had left her far more money than she could ever spend. Her life was patterned on that of Professor Ransome’s. He had taught her to enjoy elegant simplicity. She had been so influenced by Ransome that she could not remember what her tastes had been before the many years she’d spent with him.

Because she lived such a secluded life, she might never have heard about Simon’s purchases for Heyward Bain, had she not happened on an item about him in the art press. She had learned about the sale of
The Midget
from a story in
Art Journal
and had inquiries made as to its seller. She did not discuss these matters with Simon. She thought of him as a remittance man. She paid him handsomely to stay out of England, and away from the gallery.

Recently, however, a Dürer collector had come in to choose a piece of Renaissance jewelry as a gift for his wife. After he selected a handsome pendant and was waiting for it to be wrapped, he said, “I’ve never seen Dürers in more beautiful condition than the four woodcuts Simon bought for Heyward Bain—not even collector’s stamps. Do you know anything about their provenance?”

“I haven’t been involved in Simon’s purchases for Bain. Which Dürers were they?”

“
The Holy Family with Three Hares
,
The Virgin Crowned by Two Angels
,
The Beheading of St. John the Baptist
, and
The Annunciation.
Would you ask him where they came from? They were sold at an auction house I never heard of, and the only provenance in the catalog was the Ransome Gallery. Nothing before that.”

Rachel nodded. “I’ll ask, and let you know.”

Four Dürer woodcuts in exceptional condition? Where could Simon have found them? But she was preoccupied with a puzzling attribution, and put the subject aside.

She didn’t think of the Dürers again until evening when she was sipping her pre-dinner sherry. A faint suspicion occurred to her, but she dismissed it as impossible, and turned to her grilled turbot and asparagus.

In her bedroom that night, however, she unlocked the closet where her furs and less valuable jewelry were kept, opened the safe secreted behind a panel, and took out the ancient Italian chest containing her more precious jewelry. Behind the chest and yet another panel, opened by a pressure point, a locked metal box housed the four notebooks in which she had written the information culled from
The Record
before storing the originals in the bank vault. She turned to the D’s. There it was: “Dürer—four woodcuts in pristine condition. No collector stamps. Baldorean Collection. Keeper, Yeats.”

The prints listed were the four that Simon had purchased for Bain. Simon had stolen those prints from the Baldorean Collection. There could not be an identical set of Dürers in existence, and they could not have come on the market in any other way.

He had gained access to
The Record
. Worse, he had used the gallery’s name when selling stolen prints. He had dared to involve the Ransome Gallery in his petty schemes. She was angrier than she had been in many years, but this was not the time to waste energy on impotent rage. She would end Simon’s schemes, but not tonight.

After she returned everything to the safe and secured the system, she put on one of the high-necked, long-sleeved white silk gowns she bought from a little shop near the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, unbraided her hair—still as heavy and thick as when she’d first met Ransome, but now streaked with gray—and brushed it. When she had settled down in her four-poster bed, propped up on the big white pillows and tucked under the white eiderdown, she sipped the hot chocolate that her housekeeper had left in a thermos on her bedside table.

Usually at this time she read a few pages from Jane Austen. She read and reread Austen’s novels. She had never found anything to equal them for bedtime reading. But tonight she stared into space, thinking. When she finished her chocolate, she set the cup down and switched off the bedside lamp. She would put her worries aside for the weekend. Almost immediately she fell asleep.

On Monday, Rachel met her assistant downstairs at eight thirty. Miss Manning, sixtyish, small and prim, had been “made redundant” in her previous job and was grateful for her current employment, which included a number of perquisites—tickets to museum and gallery openings, a delicious lunch, and exquisite teas—in addition to a very good salary. For six years she’d assisted Rachel with both her personal affairs and the business of the Ransome Gallery. Rachel trusted her more than she’d trusted anyone since Ransome died.

“Miss Manning, I want you to assemble material on the Heyward Bain print purchases Simon has arranged in New York. Get me copies of everything about the Print Museum that has appeared in the press. As soon as they are awake over there, call New York and ask for press releases, lists of prints Bain wants or wanted, lists of prints bought, anything to do with his museum.”

Miss Manning took notes rapidly, bobbing her untidy gray head. When she’d completed them she looked up, her bright brown eyes shining, her head cocked. Miss Manning resembled a West Highland terrier, and she was also temperamentally rather like one. She was fanatically loyal to Rachel, and took umbrage at anyone who slighted or abused her employer.

“Please ask Accounts to give me a list of everything the gallery has sold to Bain, with receipts, profits, and so on—they will know what I need. And call the solicitors’ office, and see if Mr. Quincy can come to see me this afternoon, or if that is not possible, tomorrow afternoon.

“Please call a locksmith and the security people. I want all the locks changed today. We’ll pay a bonus to get it done quickly. The lower floors should be on one key or set of keys, and re-issued to the staff. The locks on my private floors should have three sets of keys only—one for me, one for the housekeeper, and one for you.”

Miss Manning’s head bobbed, and Rachel continued. “I want both the big safe in the basement and the small one in my closet either replaced or the combinations changed, whatever security thinks best. Have them go over the whole place, check everything.

“I am going out on an errand. I shall go straight to the hairdresser afterwards and be home for lunch at the usual time. If you should speak to Simon, do not mention any of this to him.”

Rachel pulled on her mink-lined boots, slipped into her mink coat and settled a mink turban over her tightly braided coronet before she walked the few blocks to Simon’s flat in Mount Street. Warmly dressed as she was, she shivered in the raw November air. Among her few extravagances were furs and cashmere. She suffered the cold more every year.

She let herself into the flat, and began her search.

The combination for his small safe was, predictably, his birth date, but it contained nothing but a few pieces of the less expensive jewelry she had given him for birthdays and Christmas presents in their early years. She dropped the cufflinks and tie bars into her alligator carryall. The room-sized bedroom closet was crammed with his clothes—suits and jackets and trousers on hangers, shelves of sweaters and shirts, boxes of shoes. The closet reeked of Simon’s scent, but she found nothing unusual.

The sitting room was modern, comfortable, and brightly lit, but held little of value. She searched the desk, but she discovered nothing of interest except cancelled checks and unpaid bills, testaments to Simon’s extravagance.

The entry area closet was locked. She selected a key from her ring and opened it. When the gallery had leased the flat, Rachel had obtained a set of keys. Simon had never noticed. He was too self-involved to pay much attention to what other people did.

She flipped through the magazines stacked on the shelves. Pornography. On the floor, a basket of sex toys. Some of the clothes hanging on the bar were women’s, including a nurse’s uniform. They were all in large sizes. A trunk-like box full of cosmetics, makeup, hairpieces, and wigs.

A padlocked metal file box caught her eye. She took it into the kitchen and wrenched it open with pliers she found in a drawer.

There they were: photocopies of her summary of
The Record
. She dropped them in her bag and opened a small file folder underneath the photocopies. It was empty except for two sheets of lined paper with “TO DO—LONDON” in capitals at the top. In Simon’s neat handwriting was a list of planned tasks and the dates by when he expected to complete them. “Make dentist appointment, March.” “See tailor, April.” Number six on the list was “Get rid of Rachel, June.”

“Get rid of Rachel,” indeed! Did the fool think he could wrest the gallery away from her? Or did he plan to murder her? Perhaps he did. Simon had no morals, but she had assumed that his sense of self-preservation would keep his behavior within reasonable bounds. She had been wrong.

She dropped the list in her bag and, using the telephone on the desk, dialed her private number. “Miss Manning? When the locksmith comes, please accompany him to the Mount Street flat. I want those locks changed as well. I shall leave the keys to the flat with the owner of the trattoria on the corner.”

Rachel put the empty metal box inside a plastic trash can liner and dropped the bag in a rubbish bin outside a construction site a few houses down the block. After she left the flat’s keys with the obliging owner of the trattoria, she hailed a taxi. It was Monday morning, and on Mondays at eleven she had a standing appointment with Jean Claude at his hairdressing salon in Jermyn Street.

At half past one, Rachel joined Miss Manning for lunch at a small table drawn up before the fire in the sitting room. Miss Manning reported on her morning’s activities while they ate. “The locks have been changed. The keys are on your desk. The security man says there’s no need to replace the safes, but you must choose new combinations. He recommended a few other minor security measures—bars on the first floor bathroom window and the ground floor powder room window, and a chain on the delivery door. I told him to proceed. He’s recoding the alarms. You have only to choose the new codes.”

“Were you able to get material on Bain and his museum?”

“Everything is on your desk with the accounts summary. Mr. Quincy can come this evening at six, if that’s all right?”

“Yes, fine. Since Simon will spend most of his time in New York in the future, he will no longer need the flat or the country house. I have decided to sell them. You may know whom to call. If not, ask Mr. Quincy’s office. The two cars Simon keeps in the country should also be sold, and the horses. Please ask someone in Quincy’s office how best to dispose of everything. Move as quickly as possible.

“Also, I want to reduce staff to the minimum. Leave a caretaker in charge of the house and garden, and arrange for someone to take care of the horses until they are sold, but everyone else should go immediately. We should release everyone on the payroll who does not work for the gallery or for me personally. Get Accounts to work out settlements.”

Rachel had declared war. She knew it would be vicious and bloody. She would do all she could to protect the name of the gallery, but secrets would emerge. Perhaps it was time, even past time, that the truth was revealed.