The Mysterious Mickey Finn (5 page)

‘It was nothing,' said Evans.

‘To me it was important,' the older man said. ‘Not financially, of course. I'm more concerned with getting rid of money than with making it. But I'll tell you a secret. I'm vain. I like to think that I'm perspicacious. I don't like to be deceived....'

Evans suddenly felt the warmth of the morning sunshine and mopped his forehead. ‘No. Naturally not,' he said, uneasily. At that moment his scheme in Hjalmar's behalf seemed transparent and ridiculous. They would be found out, exposed, and Hugo Weiss would be deeply offended. Even worse, he would be hurt. Still, Evans had no choice but to continue.

‘I've come to you about a friend of mine, an artist named Hjalmar Jansen,' he began.

‘Jansen,' repeated Weiss, trying to place the man…. ‘Oh, Jansen,' he said. ‘The big Norwegian who drinks like a barracuda. Where is he? What is he doing? Why didn't he ever come to see me in New York? '

‘You sent him to Paris,' Evans said.

‘Oh, yes. Paris, of course. To paint? Or was he a sculptor?'

‘He paints,' Evans said.

‘Tell me all about him,' the philanthropist said. ‘Ah, now it comes back to me ... a garret in Greenwich village… Luchow's. That Würzburger. “Take me down, down, down where the Würzburger flows, flows, flows. It will drown, drown, drown all your troubles and cares and woes.” Very true, that, Evans, my boy. I had a good evening with the chap, and I'm glad he's getting on. Straightforward sort of man, no nonsense. Didn't try to impress me, didn't pretend a lot of things that weren't so. That's what I like, Evans. An artist with self-respect and sincerity, one who doesn't put on any dog, whose word is his bond. One who's not afraid of work, who goes straight to his goal.... That's Jansen, or I sized him up wrong, and I'm seldom mistaken about people,' said Weiss.

‘He was hoping you could see his work ... he owes so much to you....

‘Owes me? Nonsense. Of course I'll see his work. And by the way, do you suppose there's any real beer in this city? He'd know it, if there is.'

‘You're very kind,' said Evans. ‘When may we expect you at the studio?'

‘That's the difficulty. People keep me busy, day and night. I'd like to loaf, as you do. I'd enjoy being detached and inconspicuous but in the beginning I didn't play it that way. I thought I wanted power, and all I got was responsibility.... Now, the studio.... Let's see. To-day I'm all tied up. Some relatives, you know. It'll be refreshing to see that chap Jansen, who wouldn't give a damn what anybody thought. Imagine him dressing up his place for me, the way relatives do.'

Evans was passing a bad few moments. ‘Perhaps to-morrow,' he suggested.

‘That's it. To-morrow. I'll drop in before I go to that damned banquet of the
Société des Artistes Français
. I hate banquets and speeches, especially in French. What can a man say in French that hasn't been said too many times already? And I don't even know yet what it is they want of me. They're getting good prices for their stuff, that gang. No, Evans. It's the hardworking, obscure young men like Jansen who'll be talked about when we are gone. Mark my words.'

Evans was marking them all too well. He looked forward to the morrow with misgivings. ‘About six o'clock?' he asked.

‘Make it six-thirty. I hate to keep young people waiting.... And, by the way, did you meet that chap who came to see me just before you did? Ambrose Gring, he said his name was, although it doesn't sound likely. What was he up to, do you think? Said he wrote for
Art for Art
'
s Sake
and wanted a story. You know as well as I do that stories in that sheet don't mean a thing. They're thrown in with the ads. He wanted, in particular, to know if I intended to visit any of the private galleries, if I could tell him of any interesting old masters that might be on sale. The whole thing sounds fishy to me. He wanted to pump me for something. What was it? Who is he?'

‘His name is Ambrose Gring, all right.... At least, that's the only name he's used in Montparnasse. No one has seen his passport. He went to Yale, won a poetry prize, claims he was with Kolchak in Russia....'

‘If I'd known that, I'd have thrown him out bodily,' the philanthropist said.

‘He did once write for
Art for Art
'
s Sake
, a small job with almost no pay. He seems to know all the dealers. ...'

‘What seemed stranger than anything else, he asked me about oil. Was it a good, safe investment? Were there really millions in it?'

‘What did you tell him about oil?' asked Evans, amused.

‘I told him that oil belonged to the public, that natural resources were the property of all and that anyone who took private profit from them was a robber and a scoundrel. That's what I said. And it seemed to disturb him, almost to frighten him. He thought the public was going to seize the oil before the day was over, it seemed to me. Anyway, I had nothing to tell him about my plans. I'm going to keep away from galleries. I'm not going to open any mail. I shall not put in an appearance at any studios except that of your beer-drinking friend.'

‘I must leave you,' Evans said. ‘I've taken too much of your time.'

‘Not at all. Come any day you like. And thanks again for that Greco incident. I should have stubbed my toe, and been the butt of the trade if it hadn't been for you.'

‘To-morrow, then, at half-past six,' said Evans, and with growing qualms walked down the long corridor, descended to the lobby and got into Lvov's taxi at the kerb.

Hjalmar Jansen's studio was in the loft of a dingy building in the rue Montparnasse, overlooking the narrow street and the roofs and chimney-pots of the lower buildings across the way. From the rear window might be seen a small gravelled playground which, at hours of recess, swarmed with decorous half-dazed children from the adjacent parochial school. The windows at the back were barred, since the day when Hjalmar had absent-mindedly heaved a painting of a male nude down into the yard just a moment before the children were turned loose by the nuns, three of whom suffered nervous breakdowns. From that time on, no matter how enraged he became because of the inadequacy of his works, Hjalmar was careful to chuck the discarded paintings northward, toward the street. Of course, not a few of these sailed all the way across and rested on the sooty roofs and before coming to rest tore out aerials and clay chimneys. But that was considered by all concerned the lesser of two evils.

The studio was a huge one, having one small corner set off by curtains for sleeping purposes, and a small gas stove and a wooden table in another corner called the kitchen. The plaster walls were bare, marred by stains of rainwater and bearing scars of nails from which canvases had now and then been hung. The works of Jansen, in what might be termed his ‘Paris period', were stacked against the radiator, which never got even warm. Hjalmar had northern blood in his veins. The lack of steam heat did not trouble him, but it was a trial to poor Maggie, who, except in the hottest days of summer, had to watch herself to keep her teeth from chattering.

On the evening Weiss had promised to inspect Hjalmar's paintings, which also was the day set for the annual dinner of the
Société des Artistes Français
, Miriam was again assigned to the task of keeping Gring out of the play. When she joined him on the Dôme
terrasse
she found him in a tremulous state.

‘Er, oil, my darling.... Oil, my dear. Don't you think you should cable your father?' Ambrose began, and the sound of his words confused him. He had intended to lead up to the subject tactfully.

‘There's plenty of time for cabling, although I don't know what I shall say to dad,' she said. ‘Just think, in Montana it's only about six o'clock in the morning. How I miss the ranch, sometimes. The shorthorns and the buckaroos, the sagebrush and the cactus. What a pity it is that Montparnasse is not in Nevada, just across the state line. One could rope a broncho....'

At this Ambrose shuddered.

‘One could rope a broncho,' she continued, steadying her glass so that Ambrose's shuddering would not spill
crême de menthe
on her dress. ‘One could ride for hours across the prairie and the hills, and tie up at the Dôme. That would be living.'

‘I got a very disturbing tip about oil, straight from one who knows,' Ambrose mumbled.

‘Perhaps father should sell the petroleum and invest in olive oil. Shall I cable him to do that?'

In his eagerness, Gring did upset the
crême de menthe
, but Miriam was too quick for him, and got out of harm's way in time.

‘Nothing hasty,' he said imploringly. ‘Oh, dear. I'm so nervous this afternoon. I feel as if something were going to happen, as if the people we know were looking at me strangely, as if nothing were safe....'

To get him safely away, she suggested a walk in the Luxembourg gardens.

Their departure was the signal for a general exodus in the direction of the rue Montparnasse. At Evans' suggestion, a half-finished canvas was on the easel, wet. Hjalmar had wet it that same afternoon. The paintings to be exhibited were not stacked neatly but were ranged around the huge room with an air of nonchalance and abundance. Only Evans, who was to select them and place them on the easel, knew exactly how they had been arranged. He had placed them, from left to right, in the order of their merit, as best he could decide, so that the year's progress would be evident. His own portrait of Hjalmar, however, he had placed at the end of the stack, not because he thought it was the best. He could not judge it at all. But he hoped, secretly, that before his portrait was reached, Hugo Weiss would have seen enough. Evans didn't know why, but he was reluctant to have Hugo inspect the so-called self-portrait.

Some very decent sherry had been obtained, clean glasses and a couple of trays had been borrowed from the Dôme and Hjalmar had also borrowed a number of kitchen chairs and daubed them a bit with chrome yellow and emerald green for the sake of the
décor.

Promptly at six-thirty, a taxi stopped at the door.

‘Here he comes,' said Gwendolyn Poularde, who was watching from the window.

Hjalmar looked at Evans for reassurance. He would have rushed from the studio and signed on with the first freighter he bumped into, had he not believed it his duty to stand by and take the blame when it should descend on them. The light of early evening seemed to Hjalmar to be brighter and clearer than it had been at noon.

A knock sounded on the door, and he hastened to open it.

‘Glad to see you,' said Hugo Weiss, heartily, offering his hand. ‘Four brutal flights of stairs, but I got here just the same.'

Evans joined them, having seen that Hjalmar's knees were knocking together.

‘How are you, Mr Weiss? I took the liberty of inviting a few friends for the occasion, people who have a tremendous interest in Jansen's work. They've done so much to help him and encourage him, that I thought you wouldn't mind. . . .'

‘Of course not. Of course not. Only don't make any ceremony. Trot out the stuff and let me see it. I'm sure, in advance, that it's all right. Seldom make a mistake in sizing up the younger men, if I do make a bloomer now and then on old masters.'

One by one, Gwendolyn, Rosa, Harold Simon, and Sturlusson were presented and Hjalmar, after trying to manage the tray and accidentally lofting three or four glasses of sherry over his left shoulder, asked the Finn if he'd pass around the drinks.

‘Unluckily I haven't much time,' Weiss said. ‘I've got to attend that infernal banquet. What on earth shall I say? I don't like respectable painters. They don't even like themselves or each other. Can you imagine four or five of the Salon crowd coming together like this and trying to encourage another artist? Never. It's here, in the garrets, that honest work is done and honest judgements are made. No pretence. No fake. ...'

That time even Sturlusson dropped the tray. ‘I tink I go,' he said, but thought better of it and sat down moodily in a corner. Evans was trying to decide just where to begin. With a banquet staring him in the face, Hugo Weiss could not be expected to react to still lives of oysters and Gorgonzola, and Homer wanted to delay the portraits on account of his own. Landscapes. That was the note for a sunny evening. He pulled out a very creditable garage by Simon and placed it on the easel. Hugo Weiss looked at it politely, and no one said a word. Evans tried a clump of trees by Gwendolyn.

‘Very fresh,' said Hugo Weiss, adjusting his
pince-nez
and trying to be informal. ‘For a big hulk of a sailor, who drinks beer like a Viking, that painting seems extraordinarily feminine.'

Evans jerked it away and reached for another garage, this time with some farm buildings to relieve the severity.

‘Mmmmm,' grunted the philanthropist. ‘Uncompromising reality. You're versatile, my boy. Quite versatile.'

In a panic, Evans made a grab at random and came up with Maggie, against a velvet background, the foreground usurped by her extraordinary feet.

‘Gott im Himmsl,' said Weiss.

From that time on, until the portraits were reached, the show went better. Hugo Weiss, surrounded by sympathetic Bohemians and warmed by the sherry which he pronounced ‘excellent' (one grade higher than ‘decent') began to joke as best he could and tried to get the others to express their opinions of the paintings as they were shown. Sturlusson had done a few oysters himself, at a time when he was very hungry, and Weiss thought he detected a considerable advance over the Oysters done by Rosa.

‘What do you think, Mr Sturlusson? Hasn't our friend made progress?'

‘I think the first are better oysters,' Sturlusson said, and Rosa, not to be outdone, held out for the bivalves of the Finn. That worked out better than when the same pair was asked to decide between a garage done by Gwendolyn and another two-car garage with pump by Harold Simon.