The Palace Guard (23 page)

“What do you mean, our?” said Brooks. “You’ve just been telling us you did them all yourself.”

“Every single brushstroke on every one of those great masterpieces is mine and mine alone,” said the artist with fierce pride, “but he has always emphasized that we work as a team. ‘You do the work and I bear the responsibility,’ he says. And I’m proud to reveal that in spite of the countless demands on his time and energies, his interest has never flagged. Never for one second.”

Dolores waxed oratorical. “I can truthfully say that without his faith and trust, his continuing support and inspiration, I could never have accomplished what I did. When I faltered, he spurred me on. ‘I know you will not let our great work down,’ he has said time and again. Through him I have found the strength to fulfill my mission.”

“Bravo,” cried Bittersohn. “By the way, Mrs. Tawne, I hope Mr. C. Edwald Palmerston has expressed his appreciation—er—materially as well as verbally.”

“He has been as generous as the limitations of the museum’s budget will allow,” said Dolores stiffly, “and more. In fact he pays for every cent’s worth of my art materials out of his own pocket. His own pocket. I’ll bet he didn’t tell you that.”

“No,” Bittersohn replied, “he didn’t.”

“That’s so like him. ‘Do good by stealth,’ that’s his motto. I daresay he didn’t even mention that he also pays for maintaining the vault.”

“I can’t believe this.”

“It’s absolutely true. And it must be a pretty penny, what with the temperature and humidity controls and the hermetic sealing and all that, not to mention the initial cost of construction.”

“Eh?” snapped Brooks, “what’s that?”

“Why surely he explained about the vault. That’s the whole cornerstone of our work. That,” Dolores was orating again, “is the overwhelming responsibility Mr. Palmerston took upon himself when he first became chairman of the board of trustees. Madam Wilkins’s original purchase is preserved against the ravages of time, climate, and environmental pollution under scientifically controlled conditions in a dustproof, bombproof, radiationproof, mothproof vault, while a perfect copy is displayed to the public. It wouldn’t do, of course,” she explained in a more matter-of-fact tone, “to come straight out and say the paintings are copies, so we’ve quietly substituted them one by one as I’ve finished the duplications, and nobody has been the wiser. Never once in thirty-two years has anybody raised a question.”

A shadow flickered across her functional countenance. “That is, nobody ever did until that old fool Joe Witherspoon started moaning about his sweetheart’s having changed. It was right after we changed the paintings, I’ll grant you that, but there’s no way Joe could have found out. That Titian I consider my masterpiece. I’ll bet I worked harder on the copy than Titian himself did on the original, and if you can find one single flaw anywhere, I’ll eat my palette.”

“The Titian is the museum’s most valuable possession, right?” said Bittersohn.

“Oh, yes. Far and away the gem of the collection. We left it till almost the last because, to tell you the truth, we were almost afraid to tackle it. It’s so big, and it’s a painting that really gets looked at, if you know what I mean. Mr. Palmerston was nervous as a cat on hot bricks. ‘You must positively outdo yourself this time,’ he kept telling me.”

“And you did, Mrs. Tawne. It’s remarkable that Witherspoon managed to spot the substitution.”

“He did no such thing! Joe was getting soft in the head from old age, that’s all.”

“Did Mr. Palmerston know Joe was telling the other guards that the painting had been altered?”

“There’s precious little goes on around the palazzo that Mr. Palmerston doesn’t know. Certainly he knew. I told him myself.”

“Then it must have been something of a relief to you both, if I may say so, when Witherspoon took that header off the balcony.”

“I’m frank to say I didn’t shed many tears when I heard the news, though I didn’t relish the adverse publicity for the museum. And when I found out that darn fool Brown had made a bad matter worse with his clowning around pretending to have been robbed, I almost had a fit. Of all the times to pick! If I’d been there when it happened, I don’t say but what I might have been tempted to toss him after old Joe and be done with the pair of them.”

“But you weren’t in the palazzo then?”

“No, I wasn’t. If you must know, I was over at Jimmy’s place putting ice packs on his head so he’d be in some kind of shape to go to work Monday. I’m afraid it’s no great secret that my brother gets a bit above himself now and then. He’d got hold of a few extra dollars Saturday night and gone on a bender unbeknownst to me. If I’d found out in time he had the money—”

“Where did it come from?”

“As a matter of fact, Mr. Palmerston gave it to him in a moment of forgetfulness. Jimmy does odd jobs for him sometimes and he always insists on paying, though I’ve told him over and over I wish he wouldn’t.”

“Doesn’t he know your brother will drink up the money as soon as he gets it?”

“I suppose he keeps hoping Jimmy will reform,” sighed Mrs. Tawne. “Being such a pillar of rectitude himself, he doesn’t always take into consideration the weaknesses of others. He’s been very understanding about Jimmy, by and large. Mr. Palmerston is one of the world’s real philanthropists.”

Sarah thought of another experiment to try. “He more or less gave us to understand that the vault had been your idea.”

Dolores beamed. “Isn’t that just like him! No, it was entirely his own personal inspiration. Of course I advised him on the details,” she added quickly.

“You also picked out the location, I believe?”

“Not I. Strange as it may seem I don’t even know where the vault is situated. He always has felt it best that I remain totally aloof from that part of the project. ‘You have enough on your shoulders as it is,’ he tells me. ‘I must not burden you with any unnecessary responsibility.’ He understands the immense pressures the creative artist is subjected to.”

“Then you’ve never even visited the vault?”

“Never.”

“You just bring a painting here and copy it, then he takes away the original and that’s the last you see of it.”

“That’s it in a nutshell, Mrs. Kelling. Of course I don’t keep the originals here all the time I’m working on them. What I do is take pictures and make sketches and careful notes, then I work mostly from those. Since I have my own keys to the palazzo, I can always run over during off-hours and make a comparison if I have to. When the time comes to make a substitution, sometimes I do that, sometimes he does. If it’s a really important one like the Titian, we do it together.”

“And that’s all there is to it?”

“Well, not quite.” Dolores actually simpered. “After the job is done, we meet back here and have a little private celebration. I fix us a nice snack, Mr. Palmerston brings a bottle of champagne, and we drink a toast to the success of our enterprise. Then he delivers a brief address about how future generations will be grateful to us for preserving their priceless heritage from the ravages of time and so on. Of course there’s nobody but me to hear the speeches, more’s the pity. I’ve suggested making tape recordings to put in the vault with the paintings, but he won’t hear of it. True greatness and true modesty go hand in hand, as I’ve often told him.”

That was too much for Brooks Kelling. “True horsefeathers,” he snorted. “That old goat’s been pulling the wool over your eyes for thirty-two years and you’re too damned infatuated to admit it.”

“I’ll thank you to explain that remark, Brooks Kelling,” said Mrs. Tawne dangerously.

Bittersohn intervened. “Perhaps this will explain better than Kelling can.” He showed her Bill Jones’s list, now tattered from much handling. “If you’ll check over this listing, Mrs. Tawne, you’ll see where, when, and for approximately how much money each one of the originals you copied was sold.”

Dolores stared at the paper. “But—but this is crazy! They’re all in the vault.”

“The vault you’ve never seen and don’t know where to look for? I’m afraid that vault exists only in C. Edwald Palmerston’s imagination, Mrs. Tawne.”

“In other words, Dolores,” said Brooks cruelly, “you’ve been led up the garden path.”

“I don’t believe you. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t! Mr. Palmerston is a fine, noble, philanthropic gentleman.”

“Like hell he is.”

“And besides”—the woman’s anguished bewilderment was pathetic—“why would he do such a dreadful thing to me?”

“For money,” Bittersohn told her.

“Mr. Palmerston doesn’t need money. He’s a rich man. He gives lavishly to worthy causes.”

“He certainly does, and it’s never cost him a cent. One might add that Mr. Palmerston has other expensive philanthropies.”

“Such as?”

“Women, mostly.”

“Women? Oh, no. Not Mr. Palmerston.”

“I’m afraid you don’t know the man as well as you think you do, Mrs. Tawne. He’s kept you slaving for thirty-two years in order to support a series of expensive lady friends.”

“Who for instance?” Dolores had fight in her still. “If you mean that Ouspenska trollop—”

“She was one, yes. When she was young and beautiful, of course. That’s how he likes them. Doesn’t he, Mrs. Kelling?”

Bittersohn gave Sarah a surreptitious poke. With downcast eyes, she followed his cue.

“You must remember, Mrs. Tawne, that I’d led a very sheltered life. I simply didn’t understand what he was leading up to until—well, how could any silly young girl have resisted? Orchids every day, lavish dinners, jewels, sables, weekend flights to Monte Carlo—”

“You’re lying,” said Dolores faintly. “This is all some insane joke.”

“Mrs. Tawne, does a betrayed woman lie about such things?” Sarah covered her face with her hands.

“How—how many others—?”

Sarah shrugged wearily. “I couldn’t say. I doubt whether he could, either.”

“And all of them—orchids, jewels, sables, trips to Monte Carlo?”

“Lately I believe it’s been Tahiti.”

“Tahiti? And me painting my guts out for a bottle of cheap champagne once or twice a year?”

Dolores Tawne turned brick red, then chalk white. She sank back in her chair and stared blindly at the paint-stained floor of her studio. “You’re right, Brooks,” she said. “I’m nothing but a damned old fool.”

D
OLORES WOULD HAVE CONFRONTED
Palmerston in curlers and kimono if Brooks hadn’t told her to act her age and get some clothes on. She was still fuming like a volcano about to erupt when she led the charge up C. Edwald’s elegant brownstone steps.

A pretty young maid in a sexy negligee answered the doorbell, and that capped the climax. Aflame with righteous ire, Mrs. Tawne steamed to the attack with Max and Brooks at her heels and the maid trailing behind wringing her hands and bleating questions to which none of them paid any attention.

Sarah missed the first part of the confrontation because Bittersohn had commanded her to find a telephone and get hold of Fitzpatrick and Fitzgibbon. When she reached the scene of battle, easily located by the stridencies in which Dolores Tawne’s voice led all the rest, Palmerston was sitting up in bed, prudishly clutching an eiderdown to his chin with one hand and groping for his teeth and eyeglasses with the other, gummily and ineffectually trying to defend himself.

“But, Mrs. Tawne,” he mumbled, “my motives were wholly humanitarian.”

“Humanitarian my backside!” shrieked his enraged dupe. “Buying sable coats for that little tramp right there, I don’t doubt.”

The maid burst into loud sobs. “It’s only m-muskrat.”

“There, see!”

“Now, Dolores—”

“Don’t you Dolores me! I’ve never been one of your fancy pieces and you can’t try to make out I have. Just because I don’t paint my face and wear dresses cut down to my b-belly-button—” She, too, started to cry.

Bittersohn put her gently aside. “You might as well come clean, Palmerston. The police are on their way here. Lydia Ouspenska has survived the dose of arsenic and Nembutal you put in her stomach capsule. She’s awake and talking. Mrs. Tawne’s going to spill all she knows about your faked painting racket, and we already have Bill Jones’s testimony about how and when and where you got rid of the paintings, so I daresay one or two of the fences will be willing to finger you in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Perhaps Mrs. Tawne can also tell us about an unfinished Murillo that turned up in Ouspenska’s studio all of a sudden last night.”

“Is that where it went?” gasped Dolores. “He sent Nick Fieringer to get it last night. I couldn’t imagine why. I warned Nick to be awfully careful about the wet paint. I hope he was.”

“He was,” said Bittersohn. “Too bad you were so conscientious, Mrs. Tawne, or we might have got along a little faster. As to why the painting was moved, I expect it was an attempt to make the countess look like the person who’d been painting the fakes. She was supposed to die, you see. Palmerston thought, no doubt, that she was already dead by then and wouldn’t be able to correct the misapprehension. You told him her Russian roulette joke, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Yes, I told him. And he’d have robbed me of the credit for thirty-two years’ work to save his own rotten skin?”

“Why not? He’d robbed just about everything else there was to rob by then, and things were getting a bit warm around the Madam’s. He had to get out from under somehow, didn’t he? Otherwise the world might lose one of its real philanthropists. By the way, Palmerston, Nick Fieringer will be talking, too. He’s already explained how you got him to hire Dr. Aguinaldo Ruy Lopez, whom your man Kelling here had the pleasure of seeing safely to jail about an hour ago. Fieringer can tell the police about that Murillo and the phial of arsenic you got him to plant in Ouspenska’s bureau drawer.”

Palmerston’s lips twitched and Bittersohn noticed. “I see. You planted the arsenic yourself that night you took Lydia home from Mrs. Kelling’s. That’s a minor detail. We know you gave Jimmy Agnew money Saturday night so that he’d get drunk and be absent from work on Sunday and you’d have an easier chance to hide in that sedan chair on the balcony without being noticed. You must have been rather upset with your faithful friend and confidante Mrs. Tawne for being able to produce a substitute guard at such short notice, but you went ahead and you were lucky. You’d arranged with Brown to get Witherspoon on the balcony somehow so that you could nip out and shove him over the railing. You anticipated a hue and cry, and you ordered Brown to fake an assault and attempted robbery in the chapel so that attention would be drawn away from the Grand Salon and you could make a getaway. The next day you killed Brown to shut him up by putting paint remover and a pinch of rat poison in his whiskey bottle.”