The Golden Calves (15 page)

“Well, I never could stand her old maid sentimentality and her drooling over beautiful things. That kind of frustrated lesbianism I had quite enough of as a girl, thank you very much, when Mother shipped me off to stay with the maiden aunts in Northeast Harbor. But family is family, after all, if we're going to be smeared all over the public prints...”

"One article in a low-circulation art magazine is hardly being smeared in the public prints.”

“Well, so long as you say so. But I'd hate to have people insinuating we hadn't done right by Cousin Daisy.”

Sidney knew that he was now on notice, if it came to a row, which side his wife would be on. For Helena was a tribal creature. She was a loyal enough spouse, but her primary duty would always be to the chief medicine man. So long as Sidney remained strictly within the rules of the village, she would obey him. But the moment he strayed, she would, with an appalling impassivity, hand him over to voodoo for whatever emasculation was prescribed.

In his dressing room, getting ready for the office, he tried to reduce the matter to its correct proportions. After all, the will had been admitted to probate, the estate half-administered and court approval obtained for the major sales and distributions. What could the Vogel bitch do but whimper? A little public whimpering would soon pass. And in the meantime he had his plan, his master plan! The outline in white lines on blue paper of what would soon be soaring arches and marble walls! Nothing must be allowed to destroy his pleasure in the realization of his bold decision to reorient the entire museum into a chronological series of galleries culminating in the great Modern American wing. What a glory it was going to be, with its political, religious and scientific exhibits, its documents and dioramas and splendid artifacts, climaxing in the giant comic strip cartoon dramatizing the coincidence in time of the moon landing and the tragedy of Chappaquiddick!

On his way to the subway, which he always took to Grand Central, he bought a copy of
Art in Town.
He saw at once that the article was a good deal worse than he had feared; the ride was not nearly long enough to finish it. At his office he closed his door and told his secretary he would take no calls.

Its title was "The Conning of Evelyn Speddon.” The first page of the piece faced a full page of photographs: of Miss Speddon, of the façade of the museum, of Mark Addams and of Sidney himself. The text told of Mark's calls on the old lady during her last illness and prior to the execution of a new will, only weeks before her demise. It strongly implied that Addams had given the testatrix the impression that he was romantically interested in her ward. It ended with a partial list of the sales made by the executors and the museum, and a prediction of extensive deaccessioning in the future.

Sidney brooded for a silent hour. Even when his mind was seething, it could still work closely on a problem. What, after all, was this but the work of the same old imp, grinning in the path before him, that had leaked the story of the cribbed term paper at Yale which had cost him his bid to Skull and Bones, and tipped off the
New York Times
to the illegal campaign contribution? So long as one knew in time, damage could often be contained. He had been able to put about his own version of the term paper story so as to salvage a bid from another senior society, and to handle the campaign trouble in a way to avoid all danger of indictment. Half-truths, quarter-truths lost much of their menace once one was apprised of their circulation. As here now. Oh, yes, the article might even turn out to be a blessing in disguise, a warning that he had been going a bit too far in the Speddon matter, a small malignant tumor that was still operable, that could very likely be excised, completely encapsulated in untainted flesh. He picked up the telephone.

"Call Mrs. Pinchet,” he told his secretary, "and ask her if she'd be so kind as to receive me in half an hour. She'll know what it's about.”

Lucy Pinchet's house, on East 80th Street, small, neat and Georgian, was as cool and exquisite as its owner's manners. There were Victorian things in it—perhaps even ugly ones—Belter chairs and Bouguereaus—but the perfect condition of every piece produced a kind of harmony. Lucy, pale, plump and still pretty, received him with a little smile that could have meant almost anything. But it was no doubt significant that no kind of refreshment was offered.

"I've come about the article.”

“Of course.”

"Do you think I should sue? Or simply take an attitude of high disdain?”

"If you were to sue, what would you sue for?”

"Why, damages for libel, of course.”

“But isn't libel the remedy for misrepresentation?”

"Certainly.”

"Then what facts does the article distort?”

Sidney paused to redeploy his forces. He even found a moment in which to wonder what he had done to unite the sex against him. Vogel, his wife and now Lucy. What was it in Sidney Claverack that turned them into termagants?

"Why, simply every fact there is! The article is a tissue of lies from start to finish. It is manifestly the product of revenge. Miss Vogel was discharged by the museum for insolence and insubordination.”

“For
alleged
insolence and insubordination.”

"Lucy, can you really have had the time to come to serious conclusions about that piece? It only just came out.”

"But I received it in galleys two weeks ago. The editor submitted it to Miss Vogel, and she brought it to me. I have had every opportunity to study it. And to discuss it with some of Aunt Daisy's old friends.” She paused to smile with a deadly sweetness. Obviously she was having the time of her life.
“And
with my lawyers. My new lawyers. Selders and Stein. For I hardly thought it would be possible to retain your firm when you will be a defendant. One of the defendants, I should say. My brother, Tom, will be another, though he seeks to be co-plaintiff. And of course I shall ‘join,' as I believe the legal term is, the Museum of North America and its enterprising but, I'm afraid, unscrupulous young director.”

Sidney began to feel reassurance in the prickle of combat. He summoned up a picture of a squadron of bullet-headed soldiers in brown uniform dragging a stripped Lucy down to a cold dripping cellar to machine-gun her bloated body against a wall.

There was no hint of this, however, in what he smoothly said: “If you think you can upset Cousin Daisy's will, let me remind you that it has been duly admitted to probate pursuant to your own duly executed waiver and consent.”

"I am of course aware, Sidney, that with a firm as able as yours, every form has been scrupulously followed. The bone that I am picking with you is with your morals, not your mind. You will shortly be served with a summons and complaint instructing you that I intend to prove a conspiracy between you and Tom and your director to take advantage of Aunt Daisy's enfeebled mind. I shall allege that you substituted a will that she never understood for the one that set forth her true intentions. As for my waiver and consent, of course they were obtained by fraud.”

Sidney was still able to smile and shake his head. "You will find the game on which you have embarked an expensive one. However, I suppose I shouldn't begrudge a good fee to a fellow member of the bar. I've always had the greatest respect for Harold Stein.”

***

In the taxi crossing the park to the museum, Sidney carefully thought out his defense plan. When the driver spoke of the heat of the early spring, he shut him up. He had already been back to his office, and after a conference with Miss Norton he was beginning to make out the possibility of placing the onus of the Speddon “conspiracy" squarely on the shoulders of the director. That had not indeed been Norton's idea. But wasn't it with Addams that the ultimate responsibility
should
lie? Had Addams not recently been hinting that the chairman was impinging on the director's territory? Well, that young man would find one territory that he could have entirely to himself!

Which was only right, too. Sidney glanced at a flock of pigeons swooping down to an old woman scattering crumbs. Were they poisoned crumbs? One read of such witches. Surely Lucy Pinchet would be capable of it. The trustees were supposed to be aloof, dignified, unchanging in temper. They should be kept clear of coprophagous bugs like Lucy, scrounging for extra legacies in the dung of the Surrogate's Court. That was surely the director's business.

And if Lucy were defeated, would he not have a permanent hold on Addams from the way it had been done? Would Addams not have to perjure himself? Oh, yes, he
was
beginning to see his way. And his duty as well! One had to be tough in all businesses, and cultural institutions were no exception.

He did not go to Mark's office at the museum. He went to the smaller one reserved for the chairman and rarely occupied, and sent word to Mark to join him there. It was a time to observe every hierarchical distinction.

Mark came in, a copy of
Art in Town
in hand, and took a seat opposite the chairman without even a greeting, his expression accepting grimly the gravity of the conference about to be held. Sidney began.

"I have just come from Lucy Pinchet. She is going to sue. Undue influence, fraud, the works.”

"I supposed that was in the cards.”

“I thought I'd put Chessie Norton on the case. She's a tough litigator, and this will be her great chance."

A pause. "Of course, you know of our relationship.”

“I thought that was over. Anyway, she knows all about you and Miss Vogel."

"What is there to know?"

"Isn't that for the jury, my friend?”

Sidney surveyed with some satisfaction the troubled countenance before him. What
had
happened between Mark and the Vogel woman? Had he really slept with the scrawny creature? Probably. Didn't these young men screw everything that moved?

"A couple of kisses, that was all.”

"Well, it had better be a case of kissing and
not
telling.”

"May I ask you what you mean by that?”

"You may. In fact, I think it an excellent idea for you and me to cultivate the habit of frankness with each other. We may find it useful in the months ahead. I presume that any osculations between you and Miss Vogel did not occur before a grossly gaping public. That they happened in the privacy of your apartment or hers?”

Mark was very red now, but whether from anger or shame was not clear. "Certainly not in public.

But as I've never been in Miss Vogel's apartment, nor she in mine, I suppose whatever happened took place in a taxi.”

"So unless the driver is identifiable, it will be her word against yours?”

"Surely Mrs. Pinchet's counsel won't go into trivia like that?”

"It's precisely what they
will
do, unless they want Lucy to charge them with malpractice. They'll try to establish a sinister plot to undermine an ancient, addled testatrix. You must take the position before the judge and jury that nothing occurred between Galahad Addams and Virgin Vogel that would not have taken place before a synod of bishops!”

“Won't that make me seem an awful ass?”

"But an innocent ass, my boy. An innocent ass.”

Mark got up impatiently and went to the window. "At the risk of saying ‘I told you so,' may I point out that I begged you not to fire Miss Vogel?”

"No sir, you may not. Because when I dispensed with her services, I had no idea that our virtuous director had been snatching kisses from her pretty lips.”

“Hadn't you virtually suggested it?”

“Never!”

"Hadn't you practically told me to get Miss Speddon to change her will any way I could? Hadn't you even promised me the directorship if I succeeded?” Sidney, contemplating the mottled features of this angry young man, was almost enjoying himself.

“You must know, Mark, that I have a very emphatic, at times even an exaggerated, way of putting things. No doubt, in speaking to you about using your arts of persuasion on the late Miss Speddon, I may have seemed to suggest that you cümb into the old girl's bed, let alone her companion's. But that is what my friends call Sidney's hyperbole. The means were left entirely to your discretion. It certainly never crossed my mind that they would not be altogether proper and ethical.”

Mark's stare showed that he saw he was trapped. “Would it be ‘proper and ethical' for me to perjure myself by denying something I'd done?”

"Perjury? It's a strong word. Look at it this way. What, in theory at least, will a court of law be trying to establish? The truth, will it not? Now you and I both know that the truth is that Miss Speddon was of sound mind when she executed that will. Don't you agree?”

"Tes, but—''

"Yes but nothing. She may have had some old maid's bee in her bonnet about a romance between you and her protégée, but when you get right down to it, she knew who her heirs were, what the terms of her will were, and how it would operate. Is that not certainly so?”

Mark played with the shade cord. “Yes, I guess that is so.”

"Very well. Then it is up to us to help the court establish that truth. If you admit that in the course of your discussions with Miss Speddon you made cynical love to her confidante, you are going to cast the whole business in a very ugly light. The jury will see you as a cool and calculating villain and may well be persuaded that you bamboozled the old girl into doing something she really didn't want to do.”

“So I must tell a lie to establish a truth?” Mark resumed his seat before the desk. "Frankly, Sidney, your attitude strikes me as unacceptably cynical. I know you care for the museum as much as I do, and I know how much I owe you. But a mein's got to make his own moral decisions. The fact that I may have once made some wobbly ones doesn't mean they all have to be wobbly. And I wonder whether the time hasn't come for me to be truthful at any cost."

"At any cost?” Sidney moistened his lips as he touched with one finger the shiny surface of the ace of trumps in his imagined hand. “Any cost to whom? To yourself or the museum?"