The Stargazey (31 page)

“Holyoake was the scene early Sunday morning of a strange event. The body of a man dressed in a tuxedo was discovered by Miss Principia Soames when she appeared as she always does early on Sunday to tidy the church and see to the flowers. ‘This church ain't used much between one Sunday and t'other, and so I expect he coulda laid here for days. Don't think I wasn't half scared, seeing him face down over there.' Here Miss Soames pointed toward the altar.

“ ‘All Souls is a small Tudor church,' the pastor, Reverend Brinsley, told us, going on to say it was almost derelict but that he did like to try to keep it up because ‘All Souls does have one or two interesting features. Note that window over there; it could be a signed Tiffany—”'

Simeon Pitt laughed and coughed.

Melrose edged down in his wing chair. “Will they get round to the body again?”

Pitt held up his hand and read on:

“ ‘—and we've a fine example of 16th-century misericords [Pitt laughed again]. Mr. Bertram Missingham, Sheriff of Oake Holyoake—
the title is complimentary, there being no official police presence in the village—revealed: ‘Crime in Oake Holyoake has never been lower in the time I've been sheriff, and that's going on to ten years now. We're a peaceful people round here, and we're twinned with a place of near the same name in south Germany called Holioke.' When asked his opinion of what had befallen the body in evening dress in the chancel, he announced that he was in no position to say. Miss Soames remarked, ‘It's a job keeping drugs and such out of Oake Holyoake, but we done our best. He's a Londoner, must be mixed up with the Mafia. All I know is he drove in in his Beamer and dropped down dead.' ”

Both of them, Pitt and Melrose, were laughing, both slumped in their chairs.

Melrose said, “I have a detective friend at New Scotland Yard. I think he should go to the place and investigate, don't you?”

Pitt was mopping a tear-filled eye with his handkerchief. “After he does that, he ought to investigate those paintings. Collusion, I'll bet.”

“Oh?” Melrose said, to this opaque comment.

“Well, of course, Mr. Plant—” Pitt stopped; then his brow furrowed in deep thought. The way Simeon Pitt was eyeing him, Melrose might himself have been one of the parties to this conspiracy to—to what?

“Sandpaper, he said?”

“Rees's medium for painting? I think so, yes.”

“You know—no! Not another word until I get a friend of mine in on this. Where's the telephone?” Pitt looked almost wildly around, as if all the phones that had been to hand had been snatched from his grasp. “Higgins!” Pitt thumped the arm of the chair. The ancient waiter came as quickly as he could but not quickly enough. Pitt called to him to find a telephone and bring it.

“You bought one of those paintings.”

“Guilty, yes.”

“Could you get it?”

“You mean, have them take it down? Yes. I think Fabricant was going to take down the ones they'd sold and deliver mine here.”

Higgins was back with the telephone, which he handed to Pitt, and then plugged the cord into the wall. Pitt rubbed his hands, punched in a number.

Melrose listened to one side of a cryptic conversation between Pitt and the person on the other end, someone named Jay. Pitt hung up, smiled that cat-and-cream smile, and said, “I might just go round and have a word with Fabricant.”

T
he gallery was not open on Monday to customers, but this did not apply to Scotland Yard. Opening and closing hours seldom did.

It was Sebastian, sleeves rolled up, who had seen Jury and his sergeant at the door and opened it. “You've caught us actually working. Sorry about that.” He smiled broadly.

Jury returned the smile, “You've caught us at it too.”

With that reply, Sebastian's smile became a rather uncertain cough, but he recovered. “I see. Well, but you chaps always are.”

“Not always, sir, we do go on holiday sometimes,” put in Wiggins, taking everything literally, as usual. “That's a nasty dry cough you've got there, sir.”

Wiggins was introduced, and Wiggins was anxiety's antidote. More immediately, a dry cough's.

Sebastian visibly relaxed. It was difficult to throw up a defensive wall when Sergeant Wiggins was on the scene; he could dismantle it brick by brick with his concern and advice. “Don't take any of your over-the-counter medications; it's a waste of good money. Only thing for a really dry cough is lemon juice, honey, and ginger, strong as you can take it, with a little hot water to dissolve it all. But the less water, the better. Works every time.” Wiggins's free advice was actually an invaluable
ally—many nuggets of information had been mined belowstairs when Wiggins took a cup of tea with the kitchen staff during an investigation. Jury could do much the same thing by trying. But Wiggins could do it merely by breathing.

Sebastian led them down the hall to one of the display rooms, where Nicholas was hanging a large painting in a heavy gold-leaf frame. It was a traditional drover-with-flock-of-sheep thing, and Jury was surprised to see it in this gallery, which seemed to lean more to the avant-garde and the abstract.

Ralph Rees was in the next room, dismantling his
Snow
series. Having met the artist, Wiggins watched this with a deadly earnestness. One arm across his chest, his chin resting on the upright hand of the other arm, Wiggins prepared to take it all seriously. For once, though, this probably wasn't owing to the Wiggins sensibilities but to Jury's suggestion: “Don't laugh when you see them. Be dead serious.”

This injunction rather surprised Wiggins, who would have found it impossible to laugh at anyone's brave attempt to paint, write, or play a musical instrument. The command was superfluous.

Now, Wiggins's somber appraisal of Ralph's
Siberian Snow
was all Jury could have hoped for. Assuredly, it was all Rees could hope for. Wiggins moved back, moved in close, moved even farther back, made a half-frame of fingers and thumb and looked at the white paintings that way, nodded and nodded his head, and made one or two throaty noises of approval. “Well, I must say, Mr. Rees, this is an interesting group. Extremely daring, isn't it?”

(Jury hoped he wouldn't fall into Plant's habit of calling it “this white lot.”)

When Ralph asked Wiggins, “In what way?”—a question that would have frightened the casual fraud straight off the premises—Wiggins answered, “To paint it the way it looks. Especially that one with the fallen branch—”

Jury was at a loss until he realized Wiggins was pointing to the canvas with the thin black line down in the corner. Branch?

But Ralph was merely nodding. “Everyone seems to see something different there, Sergeant.”

Wiggins gave a condescending little laugh. “Some as can't tell chalk from cheese. Never mind them. When were you there?”

Jury, who had turned away to hide a smile, turned back, rather astonished. In all of his and Plant's talk about these paintings, it hadn't occurred to Jury that Ralph had
been there.
In Russia. It could as easily have been snow in Montana or the North Yorkshire moors.

“Twice I was there, not in Siberia but in St. Petersburg. It's where I met the Fabricants.”

Jury asked. “When were you there; that is, when last?”

Ralph calculated. “Um. Last spring. March, I think. We—Ilona—Seb—”

“Seb what?” asked Sebastian, who'd returned from the storerooms in back.

“I was just telling Mr. Jury that we'd gone to St. Petersburg. Ilona goes several times a year. Well, it's her home, isn't it?”

Sebastian agreed. “St. Petersburg's where she lives, really. In her heart, in her mind.”

Jury wondered about this, given Michel Kuraukov's execution by the Cheka.

Wiggins, still thinking he'd found something in these paintings, nodded to them. “Did you paint all these when you were there?”

“Two of them I did. The others—well, I've been doing this over the last year. As you can imagine.”

It was fortunate he'd directed this comment to Wiggins, who, indeed, probably
could
imagine. Jury couldn't. “I wonder, Mr. Fabricant”—Jury had turned to Sebastian—“if I might have a word with you?” He wanted the same word with the rest of them, but individually.

Sebastian led him into the office, a smallish room that housed another computer and the fax machine, a desk, and two slick-looking Eames chairs opposite the leather swivel chair in which Sebastian sat down.

“Do you know a woman named Nancy Pastis?” He saw that Sebastian was at least appearing to think this over, and perhaps (thought Jury) he really was. Jury didn't quite trust him.

“No. No, I can't say I do.” Sebastian looked at his watch. “Sorry. I don't mean to cut you short; it's just that I'm expecting a client about now.”

“Don't worry, you won't cut me short,” Jury said, ambiguously. “But it's Monday. You're not open on Mondays.”

Sebastian's pause was marginal and the blush faint, but just long enough and just red enough to suggest the “client” might be a fiction. Then he said, “Appointments I take if I have to. This one's a good client.”

Jury went on. “Nancy Pastis lives in Curzon Street and has a wall full of paintings. I'd be surprised if she hadn't been into your gallery, given she lives so close to it.”

“She might well have; I don't see everyone who comes in here and probably wouldn't remember them unless we'd sold them something. Who is this person? Why are you interested?”

“Let's just say that I am.” Jury smiled. “You keep a record of sales, don't you? And a mailing list?”

“Yes, of course. But—”

“Look.”

Sebastian pulled over one of the two Rolodexes sitting atop his desk. He thumbed through it, shook his head. “No one by that name.” He looked up at Jury. “This is the mailing list; we try to put anyone on the mailing list who purchases from us.”

“Sales? What about that record?”

It was clear Sebastian wasn't pleased to have to rise and drag down a heavy ledger from a shelf. He sat down again and opened the ledger. “Look, I can hardly go over this entire list. It goes back for fifteen years.” He inclined his head toward the shelf and the other ledgers there.

“If the ledger you have there is this year's, let's start with that.”

Sebastian sighed. “But it'll take time.”

“I could take the ledgers with me.” Jury smiled. Tantamount to producing a search warrant, at least in implication.

Seb shook his head. “I'll start at the end and take the latest purchase first.”

Jury nodded, watched him run his finger down one page, turn, do it on another; he was one of those people who silently mouthed the words he was reading.

“Ah. You're right, Mr. Jury. Nancy Pastis . . . here it is.
St. Ives.
This was back in February. February twenty-ninth.”

Jury asked, “Is this a very small painting, framed in ash?”

Seb thought for a moment. “Yes. Quite small. Of St. Ives.”

“That's in Cornwall.” Jury smiled. “It looks more like a port in Paradise.”

“Does this help you?”

“Yes, but more if you recalled waiting on her.”

He tapped the page. “This is my brother's writing. Both of us make entries. Do you want to ask him?”

“Yes.” Jury rose and followed Sebastian down a narrow hall to a room at the rear which was very large and well lighted.

“We had skylights put in,” said Seb, who asked Nicholas about the Pastis sale.

Nicholas gave this some frowning thought. “I like to think I remember everyone who's ever bought from us.” He smiled ruefully. “But I can't. I remember the painting, certainly. But not the patron. Sorry.”

“Maybe I could jog your memory. Do you recall the photo I showed you at your house?” Jury had drawn one of the police photographs from the inside pocket of his raincoat.

“This isn't that murdered woman? The one you found in Fulham Palace?”

Jury said, “Yes.”

“Good lord. Yes, I guess I did see her. If I'd seen the photo in this context the first time, maybe I'd have—” He looked apologetic. “It's possible she came in before she bought the painting. Probable, I should say. People don't ordinarily buy the first time around. They want to think about a painting. I just don't recall seeing her at another time, that's all.”

“How did she pay? Check or plastic?”

“Cash, I think. Oh, it wasn't all that much. Five hundred pounds. People have put down cash in much greater amounts than that.”

Jury handed Nicholas one of his cards. “If you think of anything else about her, would you get in touch?”

Nicholas nodded. “Certainly.”

“Thanks for your trouble. I'll go look up my sergeant. He appeared to be fascinated by Mr. Rees's paintings.”

“Everyone is,” said Sebastian. “We're trying to decide what to put up on that wall and how best to display the remaining two. We've sold three, now.”

Wiggins was actually seated in a wooden chair supplied him by Ralph, and both of them were studying the snow series; Ralph had lined up the ones he'd taken down so that there would be an uninterrupted progression. At least, that's what Jury supposed. What in heaven's name did Wiggins see in all this? Wiggins was a no-nonsense type when dealing with anything outside of his little world of allergies and anodynes.

Jury said to Ralph, “You've sold some of the series, then?”

“Yes, and I'm thrilled. These two”—he indicated the ones propped against the wall—“to an American. And one last week to a British peer.”

Jury glanced at Wiggins, who, with a crimped little smile, was bending over to study God-only-knew-what at the bottom of one of the paintings. Jury said, “A peer? Well, you know the aristocracy. Always have to be first off the bat with . . . things.”