Portrait in Crime (9 page)

“That's perfect,” Nancy said as Megan left to get the camera.

Nancy took a picture of the painting and walked down to the front door. “Megan, will you promise to keep the painting safe until I find out what's going on?” she asked.

“That's why I have it,” Megan replied softly. “Because Nicholas wanted me to take care of it.”

On the drive back home, Bess and George tried to convince Nancy to put the mystery aside and go with them to the beach.

“Just for an hour!” Bess pleaded. “I finally pried George away from Gary so we could all be together. We can discuss the case, I promise.”

“Okay, okay.” Nancy gave in, laughing. “Can we stop at home and get our suits, or do you want to go like this?”

“I'll let you stop at home only if you promise not to read your mail or answer the telephone,” Bess threatened with a grin.

The girls changed and gathered their beach gear. It was the first time in a while that they'd had time to relax and talk alone. The beach was crowded, but they found space to spread out their towels. The first thing they did was to slather sunscreen on their bodies.

“I don't know how these people stand it,” Bess said, looking at the magnificent modern houses that dotted the beach above the vegetation line. “Imagine having all these strangers lying around in your front yard.”

George snorted. “Like us, you mean?” she asked as she lay back and closed her eyes.

Bess laughed. Then she put on an elaborately casual tone of voice. “Did I tell you Tommy and I are going out alone tonight? Without anyone else?”

“You mean, like on a date?” George asked.

“Not
like
a date!” Bess corrected her. “It is a date. Our first official one. All the others involved casts of thousands.” Smiling smugly, she continued to rub sunscreen onto her arms.

“That's great, Bess!” Nancy said.

“Anyway, I need advice on what to wear,” Bess told them. “Something devastatingly gorgeous.” She began to look a little worried. “Actually, now that I think about it, I should be shopping right now!”

“Hold on,” Nancy said. “Where are you going?”

“Uh, I'm not sure. Pizza and a movie, I think.” Bess closed her eyes in rapture. “I have butterflies in my stomach! I haven't been this nervous about a date in ages.”

“Pizza and a movie isn't that big a deal,” George said dryly. “You can leave the evening gown in the closet, I think. Relax, Bess!”

Nothing could put a damper on Bess's mood. She babbled and commented on everything she saw. Nancy tried to concentrate on Bess's bright chatter, but the mystery kept intruding. She was itching to find out if the gallery owned the
painting, but she wasn't anxious to run into Cynthia or Bob.

“Nancy, did you
hear
me?” Bess asked, exasperated.

Nancy looked up guiltily.

“I said, look at the sailboats. They're really racing in this wind.” Bess sighed. “Honestly, when you're on a case, you're hopeless!”

• • •

Nancy waited until just before closing time to go back to the gallery. She was in luck. When she got there, Cynthia and Bob were nowhere in sight. Nancy went over to the reception desk and reintroduced herself to Cecilia.

“Yes, I remember you,” the girl responded. “Cynthia told me to help you in any way I can. You just missed her, by the way.”

Nancy pretended to be disappointed. “And I really needed to talk to her. Would you mind if I left her a note?”

Cecilia handed Nancy a pad of note paper.

“It's a long note,” Nancy said hastily. “And I don't want to hang over your desk while I write. Do you mind if I go into one of the offices in the back to write it?”

“No problem,” the girl said agreeably. “I've got to hang around for another half hour anyway.”

Nancy went down the hall and slipped into Bob's office. She had seen the account books there the last time she came. If the Nisus Gallery really had bought the
Vanity
painting, she should
be able to find proof of the payment in one of the books.

Nancy pulled down the ledgers and paged through them, checking each payment to Christopher Scott carefully. They were recorded neatly, each one for fifteen thousand dollars. There was no entry for the
Vanity.
Nancy checked again, but she had been right the first time. The portrait wasn't listed.

So Megan had been telling the truth, she thought. Bob had lied. But why would he want that particular painting so badly? It hadn't even been painted by Christopher, according to Megan.

As Nancy flipped the pages, she noticed something else. Tommy had told Bess that nothing at Nisus sold for less than twenty thousand dollars. But according to the ledger, a number of paintings had sold for much less, as little as five thousand dollars each. Nancy examined the entries carefully. None of them was Christopher Scott's. But, she realized, all of the cheaper paintings were sold to the same place—ART Inc.

Nancy went back to where the artists' commissions were listed. Each of the payments to the artists whose work was sold to ART Inc. matched the sale price exactly. So the Nisus Gallery hadn't made any money on those paintings at all!

There were other payments to ART Inc., she saw, like consultants' fees, frames, and supplies. ART Inc. must be another gallery. That could explain why the prices were so low. Was it usual
for one gallery to sell paintings to another at cost?

Nancy didn't know. From what she understood, most of the paintings were handled on a commission basis, with no money going to the artist until the painting was actually sold. When there was an exclusive arrangement such as the one Cynthia Gray had with Christopher Scott, Nancy guessed, the gallery probably gave the artist an advance payment. That must explain the constant payments of fifteen thousand dollars to him.

Nancy slipped the book back onto the shelf. She was curious about the accounts and the ART gallery. But that wasn't her case. None of the Scott paintings was involved.

Nancy looked through the Nisus Gallery's checkbook, studying the stubs. ART Inc. was located in the Hamptons! The address was right there.

Nancy copied down the address and slipped it into her purse. She had time to drive over there before it got dark, she thought.

Leaving a note with Cecilia for Cynthia, Nancy left the gallery and got into her car.

As she drove along, Nancy admired the old Hamptons homes with their gingerbread details on wraparound porches. Many of the houses looked Victorian. They were pretty, though not as elaborate as the sprawling modern ones in the Scotts' neighborhood.

It seemed strange that ART Inc. wasn't with
the other galleries, in the commercial part of town. Nancy's destination turned out to be a house. Maybe she had remembered the address wrong, she thought, pulling over to the side of the road. She pulled out her wallet and took a slip of paper from it.

Nancy glanced down at the paper in her hand. It had an address written on it, but not for ART Inc. What she had in her hand was Bob Tercero's address and phone number, which he had written down for her that afternoon.

Nancy's pulse quickened. According to the paper in her hand, she had pulled up in front of Bob Tercero's house.

Nancy pulled out the slip on which she had written the address for ART Inc. The addresses matched. Bob Tercero's house and ART Inc. were one and the same!

W
ELL
, I
MIGHT AS WELL
see what he has to say about this,” Nancy muttered to herself. Getting out of her car, she strode up to Bob's porch and knocked at his door. There was no answer.

Things were beginning to make sense, she thought as she drove home. Bob Tercero must be selling paintings to himself at prices far below market value. The low prices meant that not only did Nisus make no money on the sales, but since the artists' fees were based on the sale prices, the artists didn't get as much as they should either.

It was probably legal, Nancy thought, but it didn't seem very ethical. How could Bob do it without Cynthia finding out? she wondered. Or was Cynthia involved? Nancy didn't like to think
she could be, but then she remembered the woman telling her to drop the case.

Nancy had to decide what this new development meant. Should she do anything about it? She was uncovering a lot in her search, but none of it had anything to do with Christopher Scott's whereabouts, she thought in frustration. At least she was sure that the Nisus Gallery didn't own the
Vanity
painting, so it was all right to leave it with Megan for the moment.

Nancy drove back to her aunt's house. When she got there, she found George and Eloise sprawled out on couches in front of the television. An open box of pizza was sitting on the coffee table.

“Hi.” George waved her over, a slice of pizza in her hand. “Bess is out with Tommy, and Gary's in New York City visiting his sister. Eloise and I decided to have a girls' night at home. Come join us.”

“Unless you have a date,” Eloise put in, exchanging an amused glance with George.

“No,” Nancy said, sinking into a chair, “no date, believe it or not. Sorry to disappoint you two. Is the pizza still warm?”

“It just arrived,” George said, putting a slice on a plate for Nancy. “Where have you been?”

Nancy took a few bites of pizza before telling them about her investigation at the gallery and Bob Tercero's scheme.

“Everything points everywhere
except
to Christopher Scott,” Nancy remarked tiredly
when she finished her story. “I just have this feeling I'm missing the most important clue. There's got to be something that ties it all together.”

“Let's go over this again,” her aunt suggested. “Forget Bob's company for a minute. Bob Tercero says the Nisus Gallery owns the
Vanity,
but from what you can see, it doesn't. Megan says it's impossible. Megan also says, oddly, that
Nicholas
painted the
Vanity.
Bob says he was there when Christopher was painting it, and that was before Megan had met the Scotts, anyway.”

“If I can positively decide who did the painting, I could understand much more. If Nicholas Scott actually painted something that's been attributed to his uncle . . .” Nancy's voice trailed off. Something was nagging at the back of her mind. What was she missing?

“You saw the painting,” her aunt Eloise's voice broke in on Nancy's thoughts. “Did it look like Christopher's work to you?”

Nancy gave up. Whatever the thought was, it was lost for the moment. “Well, yes, but I'm no art expert,” she said. “Maybe I can get Tommy to look at it. He must be pretty familiar with Scott's work.”

They decided to stop discussing the case and watch a movie George had rented.

“Hello!” Bess called merrily a couple of hours later. “I'm home.”

“How was it?” George said, pouncing on her.

“Heavenly!” Bess exclaimed. She sat down
near the pizza. “Is that cold pizza? One of my passions.”

“I thought you and Tommy went out for pizza,” Nancy said, puzzled.

“We did, but I didn't eat more than half a slice. I was too nervous,” Bess confessed. “So now I'm starving!”

“Forget the food,” George said impatiently. “Get to the good part.”

“Well . . .” Bess leaned back on the couch, a satisfied look on her face. “He kissed me!”

“During the movie?” George asked.

“Not at the movie,” Bess said in disgust. “We were
watching
the movie. Later.”

“When?” Nancy asked, leaning forward.

“Later,” Bess repeated. “Okay, let me start from the beginning. First we had dinner at the Pizza Stop, and I didn't eat much, as I told you, but we talked about
everything
. He's really smart, you know. Then we went to the movie.”

“And?” George urged.

“It was a great show. A romance. I almost cried in the end.”

Eloise grinned. “Bess, stop teasing George. Tell us what happened.”

“Then he drove me home. We talked about the movie on the way and kind of started talking about romance. And when we got here . . .” Bess paused, a secret smile playing about her lips.

“Go on, you know you're dying to tell us,” Nancy teased.

“When we got here,” Bess continued, blushing,
“he said he'd never had such a good time on a date before. And even though we'd known each other only a short time, he thought I was really special. And then he kissed me.”

“Of course he did!” George exclaimed, throwing a pillow at her cousin. “What was it like?”

“What do you mean, what was it like?” Bess asked indignantly. “It's none of your business what it was like!”

“Oho!” George said. “Bess is getting touchy!”