The Monet Murders (16 page)

“It's absurd, of course. Been called that since before I can remember. Came from Nanny. She was a ruthless old trout, just the kind to saddle an innocent child with a ridiculous nickname. I'm surprised I don't have nightmares about her still. Anyway, the name stuck, and I've become used to it. Has an element of agreeable irony. Care for some coffee?”

“I'd like that, yes.”

“Splendid.” He pushed a button somewhere and a secretary magically appeared with a silver tray bearing a silver pot, two expensive-looking cups and saucers, the kind that light almost passes through, milk jug, sugar bowl, and a dish of macaroons. All the crockery matched and was decorated elaborately with pink flowers and green leaves. The secretary laid the tray on the coffee table, smiled pleasantly, and then dematerialized.

“I hope you like macaroons. My secretary adores them and therefore assumes everyone else must like them, too. Personally, I don't care for them. I don't tell her that; she is a sensitive soul. I take them home and give them to my Labrador retriever. He shares her enthusiasm. Every suit coat I own has crumbs in the pockets.”

“I'm an Oreo man, usually.”

“Yes. Now that makes sense, artistically. A simple but elegant circular arrangement in black and white. Very modern.
Take a pew,” he said, indicating two chairs separated by the coffee table. “You know, for just a moment I thought you said you were an Oriel man. That's an Oxford college. Perhaps you've heard of it.” He said this without any discernible condescension.

“I've heard of it, yes.”

“I was at Magdalene.” He pronounced it “maudlin.”

“And yet you seem so cheerful.”

“Yes. Well, who can explain these things?” He smiled amiably. “It may not surprise you to learn that that witticism has been used before.”

“No, I'm not surprised.”

Finch-Hayden was tall and lean, with hair the color of straw, clear blue eyes, and a hawk nose, which as he told me later was a legacy from a distant ancestor, the Duke of Wellington. (“It's the only legacy our side of the family got, I'm afraid,” he said.) He was dressed in a blue pinstriped suit, white shirt, and blue-and-white striped tie which I assumed meant something, either a regiment or an old school. (Eton, as it turned out.) I noticed that the buttons on the sleeve of his jacket actually buttoned, a sign of Savile Row tailoring. No doubt Manny Stairs would approve.

Finch-Hayden was not especially handsome, but he was elegant-looking. A Leslie Howard type, you might say. About forty, he exuded good humor and total self-confidence—as witnessed by the gold signet ring on the little finger of his left hand. When he wasn't teaching, he was busy cutting a wide swath through the eligible and ineligible women of L.A., New York, and London. At least that was the rumor, and it was not difficult to believe. He had the look, and he had the manner. And of course he was an expert in the arts—a sure
winner with wealthy women who liked to give or attend fundraisers. He offered them the chance to combine a little civilized adultery with pre- and post-seduction conversation about Picasso's blue period. Or Braque's billiard tables.

I didn't know anything about Picasso's blue period or any other period, for that matter, but Bunny was not shy about explaining how art talk paved the way for some high class “shagging”—the British version of “schtupping.” “The secret to the business is very simple, really—it's what you say to them afterwards. You have no idea how a few words about Matisse's brushwork can convince them that you really are interested in them as individuals. Especially if you ask their opinions. The same talk beforehand would rightly be viewed as a mere means to an end and accepted as such. But afterwards, my boy, afterwards. That's the key. Unless of course you are not interested in any afterwards.”

This was after I got to know him a little better, of course. He said he avoided coeds, though. “Tempting, but apt to become clinging. Or demanding. Or now and then given to blackmail. And certain old women in the administration frown on such things.”

“I didn't realize there were many old women in the administration.”

“There aren't any, literally. Just a figure of speech. Reminds me of something someone said about the poet Housman—that he was descended from a long line of maiden aunts. Yes, all things considered, it's much better to stick to married women. They only want a little excitement, sprinkled with culture.”

“I'll make it a point to read up on Picasso's blue period.”

“Yes, do. And don't neglect the rose period. It has its own merits.”

His office was like the library of a men's club—leather furniture, well-used but not worn, floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with books, and one window looking out over a quadrangle. The window faced west so that the afternoon sun was slanting through in yellow shafts created by the wooden blinds. Where there were no bookshelves, there were photographs of young men on sports teams, all smiling and wearing college scarves and white outfits. Above one of the shelves was a rowing scull, and hanging from a hook on the side of one shelf was a cricket bat, much scarred.

There was a desk in front of the window, facing inward, and on the desk an Underwood typewriter with paper inserted, a notebook, a Mont Blanc fountain pen, a telephone, a pipe rack, and an index-card file. The desktop was inlayed with red leather. Like the rest of the office, the desk looked well used, well kept, well aged, and expensive. The Persian carpet was not new and in fact gave off the impression of having been trod upon in earlier times by slippered Paynims. But it was in elegant condition nonetheless. The room smelled of pipe smoke, of course. It was a good smell. I could have cheerfully lived in that room.

When we were seated in opposing leather wing chairs, sipping coffee, he looked at me with friendly curiosity.

“What sort of name is Feldspar?” he asked.

“Made up.”

“Ah. I'm not surprised. I would have pegged you as Scotch-Irish.”

“You would have pegged correctly.”

“Good. I like being right. I won't ask why you travel under false colors. No doubt you have your reasons. Many people out here do.”

“Travel under false colors, or have reasons?”

“Both, I would say. One leads to the other. What's your relationship with the FBI? I gather it's not official.”

“Well, I collaborated with them on a case involving organized crime. In Youngstown, Ohio.”

“Very dreary, those places.”

“In some ways, yes.” But, as I've said, in other ways, not so bad, if you didn't mind the slag heaps. But there was no reason to get into that with “Bunny.”

“I've traveled through some of our own factory towns in England,” he said. “It's the sort of thing everyone should do, if only to understand D. H. Lawrence—or, should I say, if only to forgive him his literary sins. Those awful row houses, smeared with grime. Pathetic gardens in the back. Dirty streets in front. Dirty children sitting on the curbside. One wonders how people stand it. That anyone fights his way out of such places is a minor miracle. Have you read Lawrence?”

“
Lady Chatterley
, yes.”

“Of course. It's not bad, really, if you can get by the smutty parts. Not that I'm a prude. Far from it. But it's a jar to see some words on the page. You know, I once met a couple in Scotland, at a pheasant shoot near Loch Lomond. I was the guest of the local squire. Nice chap. Something out of Trollope or Fielding. Anyway, his gamekeeper was a typical dour Scot, complete with black beard and a scowl. And yet he was living with a very posh Englishwoman, not his wife. She cooked and cleaned their little cottage and didn't seem to mind the constant odor of blood, manure, and wet dogs—a gamekeeper's stock in trade. They seemed poorly matched and quite happy. Queer, isn't it?”

“Life imitating art.”

“Yes, quite right, although I think that expression has become a little shopworn, wouldn't you say?”

“Sorry.”

“Oh, I didn't mean to be rude or critical. Just a lecture point. Always doing it. Bad habit outside the lecture hall.”

“I don't mind. You never know where you'll pick up something of interest.”

“Spoken like a true detective. Have you been at it long?”

“A year. Maybe less.”

“That's not very long. You must have a talent for it.”

“Now and then I'm afraid that I do.”

“I think I understand what you mean. Did you go to university?”

“No. But I like to read.”

“An autodidact. I'm impressed. Most of the great artists were, too. Not many graduated from art school. Gauguin started out as a stockbroker, if you can believe it. Well, let's not waste any more of your time. Tell me, what is this all about?”

“It involves a lost, or possibly stolen, Monet.”

“Ah. Big money. How nice. Was it in a private collection or a gallery? Or museum, God forbid.”

“It was private.”

“And you say the painting has been stolen?”

“That's the way it looks, although other scenarios are possible.”

“Yes, that's usually the way of it.”

“And to cover the theft, or the loss, a copy was made.”

“So there are at least two possible paintings. I say ‘at least' because in these cases there are sometimes several made.”

“Yes. There may well be another floating around somewhere. But I have gotten ahold of one, and I need to know whether it's the original or a copy.”

“How did you come by it?”

“Luck.”

“Ah. Life's most important and elusive commodity. You know what Napoleon said about it.”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

“Bravo! Well, I see you have the tube. Let's have a look.”

I passed the tube to him, and he carefully extracted the painting and spread it on his side table.

“A forgery,” said Finch-Hayden after no more than a few seconds of gazing at the painting through a monocle. “Couldn't fool a child.”

“I see.” This was disappointing, of course, but there was more to the question. “As far as I know, there aren't any children who need to be fooled. Only a middle-aged husband with little or no knowledge of art. Could something like this fool him?”

“Well, since I don't know the husband in question, I can't say definitively. But I assume he's wealthy, owning a Monet and all that.”

“Yes. But it was his wife's idea to acquire it.”

“That's usually the way. Most of the husbands I have met are not interested in art but are happy to stand by, checkbook in hand, looking the other way while the good lady acts the role of patron of the arts. Of all creatures great and small, middle-aged, wealthy husbands are Nature's most perfect fools. Touching in many ways. Of course, there is the other kind—the ones who are jealous and wary and hover over their wives like Othello with a pillow. But they are in the
minority. Most are a byword for gullibility. I suspect it is often a willful gullibility. ‘What the eyes do not see, the heart does not feel,' as the Spanish say.”

He smiled, as if to indicate that, having never been married, he was the beneficiary, rather than the victim, of this widespread gullibility, real or self-induced. “Is the wife in this case young and beautiful? They generally are.”

“No, she's forty-ish and dead. Emily Watson. I'm surprised you haven't heard about it. It was in all the papers.”

“I don't read the papers. And I don't listen to the radio news. I find them depressing. I prefer to edit reality, letting in as little bad news as possible. I find my own mind is a more than sufficient source of distress. I don't need more. Of course, it's too bad about the lady.”

It didn't sound like he was feeling very sorry for the victim. But, then, he hadn't known her. And I sympathized with his technique of editing reality. I tried to do the same thing myself.

“Too bad in what sense?”

“Well, it's an aesthetic problem, a departure from the usual scenario. You know, wealthy older man, beautiful young wife. There's usually a younger lover in the picture somewhere. Although he needn't always be
that
young.” He smiled self-referentially. “Was her death a crime of passion? Or did she die of natural causes, like La Dame aux Camellias? Forgive me if I seem flippant. One does this to keep emotions at bay.”

“More editing reality?”

“Yes. But it's an annoying English trait, I realize.”

That seemed odd to me. He hadn't known the woman, so why should there be any emotion to be kept at bay? Of
course, he was an Englishman. Perhaps that explained it. Still. . . .

“I don't know about passion,” I said. “But it certainly was a crime. She died from a twenty-two-caliber bullet through the temple.”

“I see. Hardly natural causes.” He became serious now. “Murdered?”

“Possibly. Suicide hasn't been ruled out. There was also another shooting. The victim was a younger man. . . .”

“Ah. The plot thickens—according to form.”

“Yes, this part of the story does seem to run true to form. The younger man was not only Mrs. Watson's lover but also a painter. That is confidential, for the time being at least—that he was her lover, I mean.”

“Yes, I supposed as much. I assume this forgery has something to do with the case.”

“Something. We're not sure what, exactly. Not yet, anyway.”

“Naturally you've considered the possibility that the young lover in this case was the forger.”

“Yes, of course.”

“And what's your role in the case, if I may ask? You're not officially with the police or the FBI.”

“No. I'm a private investigator. I was hired by the victim the day before she died, and I'm working with the police to look into the way this painting might have a bearing on the case. They're hoping it has no relationship at all and that the two shootings were a simple matter of a lover's tiff resulting in one murder and one suicide.”