The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man (8 page)

My heart did not skip a beat so much as suffer a few extra ones, real thudders, as I read, “The investigation into the murder of real estate tycoon Heinrich von Grümh took a new twist yesterday when the
Bugle
learned that the large and presumably very valuable coin collection he donated to the Museum of Man has proven to be mostly if not all counterfeits.

“Norman de Ratour, director of the museum, was not available
for comment and did not return telephone calls as the story broke.”

Of course I wasn’t available, I stormed silently at Amanda Feeney, who had written the article. I was in Boston. And I don’t wear a cell phone. Even so, had she really wanted to, she could have gotten in touch.

“Feidhlimidh de Buitliér, curator of the museum’s Greco-Roman Collection, confirmed earlier background reports that the coins, originally valued at more than two million dollars, were ‘extremely good copies.’ He added that they had been fabricated with a process that he had not encountered before.

“De Buitliér told the
Bugle
that he had suspected the authenticity of the coins from the very start, but was discouraged from having them tested. An expert numismatist, the scholarly de Buitliér stated that ‘the coins all had the same feel. They were all too perfectly imperfect.’ A spokesperson for Authentech, an independent lab, said a sample of the coins were subject to EDXRF, energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence. The results showed that while the alloys in individual coins differed in their compositions, their constituent base metals were isotopically identical.

“Von Grümh, the son of the late Albrecht Groome and owner of Natural Realty, was found murdered in his car on museum property on May 11. A spokesperson for the Seaboard Police Department, which is investigating the murder, said the discovery of the faked coins may or may not have a bearing on the case.

“Malachy Morin, Vice President for Affiliated Institutions at Wainscott University, stated, ‘My office will shortly be conducting a thorough-going investigation into the museum’s acceptance of the forgeries. We will examine procedures involving acquisition, verification, provenance, and matters relating to a possible cover-up.’

“An informed source, who did not want to be identified, said the university would also be investigating ‘rampant corruption and cronyism on the part of the museum’s management.’ ”

I paused for a moment to let a flush of anger recede. Interesting, I thought. It sounded more like a prepared statement than something Mr. Morin, a verbal slob among other things, might be able to summon off the cuff.

It also made me believe the rumors that he is now the real power behind President Twill, who, upon announcing his resignation, has become something of a figurehead.

What the article failed to report is that the coins came to us with certificates of authenticity from, among others, the IBSCC, the International Bureau for the Suppression of Counterfeit Coins. Of course, the certificates themselves could have been faked.

The
Bugle
piece went on, rehashing other murders at the MOM and taking indirect, gratuitous potshots at me. Gratuitous in the sense that the news of the forged coins was itself damaging enough. To learn by whatever means that some presumably priceless object or collection in one’s domain is a fake remains a museum director’s worst nightmare. A disputed provenance is bad enough. To have bought at several removes a Klimt or a Mondrian looted by the Nazis six decades ago suggests venality at worst. But fakes make us look incompetent and cast a long shadow of doubt on everything else we love, care for, and display.

I cringed inwardly remembering how fulsomely we had wined and dined and feted and patted Heinie when he began to hint that he would donate his collection to the museum. How extravagant had been the unveiling ceremony just a couple of weeks before. How craven I had been to get my hands on those solid
emblems of quotidian antiquity. Because there is something palpable, precise, ordinary, and romantic about old money. Countless Romans, Greeks, Hebrews, Persians, and others had handled these tokens of value. With them they had bought bread, wine, shelter, love, power, and betrayal. With images of gods, emperors, and Athenian owls stamped on them, old coins constitute nothing less than the hard currency of history. Who wouldn’t want to hoard them?

I restrained myself from anything like an outburst until I arrived at the office. I restrained myself even when Doreen told me that “Mr. Butler,” as she referred to him, had already called and wanted to see me.

“I’m sure he does,” I said. And I would have let him dangle awhile longer had not reporters begun to call.

Feidhlimidh de Buitliér is a smallish, ill-favored man, his hair tonsured like a monk’s above a hirsute if well-trimmed face of a piece with the coarse tweeds he wears regardless of the season. Now he sat in front of me behind a frown of puzzled apology and explaining how he had scarcely begun to write a report to me about the counterfeit coins when unknown parties leaked its contents to the press.

“Why didn’t you inform me earlier that you were testing the collection?”

“Sure, I had no real proof,” he replied with what seemed to me feigned and overplayed incredulity. Or perhaps it was the effect of his brogue, which thickens and thins according to context. I have on occasion heard him in unguarded moments sound like someone from the Lower Midwest.

“That’s not the issue,” I said coldly.

“I have it all here,” he said, placing a folder on the desk between us and ignoring my remark.

“Last week I sent you no less than three e-mails and left a telephone message,” I persisted.

“I was out of the office. All week. Sick leave.” His yellowish brown eyes met mine with a glint of challenge before turning away. He reminded me that he had gone on record, in writing, as opposed to acceptance of the collection until at least a few of the coins could be tested for authenticity.

“You should have been careful about confidentiality,” I said, opening the folder.

“We’re part of the academy,” he said with a significance I didn’t gather right then. “People don’t believe there should be secrets.”

I caught again the insolence of his eyes. I said, “I don’t care what people believe. I want all press inquiries directed here. I want no show-and-tell with you on camera.”

When he began to protest, I put up my hand. “Mr. Butler …”

“De Buitliér …”

“Yes. De Buitliér.” I smiled pleasantly to put him off guard. Then I said, “Was Mr. von Grümh aware that you were testing samples from his collection for authenticity?”

He simulated puzzlement with a convincing frown, but with the hesitation of someone dissembling. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. To what is it relevant?”

“His murder.”

“I don’t see …”

“I don’t expect you to.”

He again gave me a challenging glance.

I returned it and said, “I should tell you that I have grown very ambivalent about our Greco-Roman Collection. I am of half a mind to give the whole damn thing to the Frock.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. But I’m sure you would find working under Col Saunders to your liking, if he would have you. I think that’s how they arrange things there.”

He subsided back into his beard and tweediness, his eyes revealing nothing.

“That’s all for now,” I said presently without looking up from his report, from language such as “… despite my objections as to the authenticity of the specimens in the collection and as to their provenance …”

I don’t trust the man in the least. It wasn’t just that he had challenged me, which he had done in his muffled, occluded way. No, it was recalling how, as he entered my office, he had cast an appraising eye around, as though sizing up what he hoped soon to occupy.

I read through the report and then again. It was competent enough, indeed, quite thorough. Worried had been right about the use of the electron microscope and its ancillary equipment.

Between press calls, I contacted young Edwards, who is in charge of exhibitions, and told him to remove the von Grümh collection from display and secure it.

The media asked me the same questions in the same way. What was going through your head when …? When did you first find out that …? They got tough. Why didn’t you verify at least a sampling from the collection before taking it? How is it possible with all of today’s hard science to be fooled by fakes?

And then the most provocative question of all: Does the fact that the late Heinrich von Grümh gave the museum a collection of fakes have anything to do with his murder?

I pondered this question with considerable mental effort off and on as the morning progressed. My suspicions revolved around Max Shofar, particularly in light of what Diantha had
told me about him and Merissa. Working with expert counterfeiters, had he duped Heinie and perhaps others out of millions of dollars? How else could he live the way he did?

Perhaps Heinie found out about the forgeries. It might have upset him more than Max’s playing around with Merissa. He confronts Max and threatens to expose him, ruining him and the profitable mail-order business he conducts. Max, facing disaster, either has a gun or gets one, no difficult task for someone in his position. He gets close enough to Heinie and shoots him.

I was in the midst of these conjurations when Felix sidled into my office with mischief showing in his acne-scarred and yet attractive face. He was also in a state of rare excitement, his eyes as big as his grin. He sat down and plunked the Warwick file on my desk. “Norm, this is fantastic.”

“What,” I said, “a fake mummy to go with the fake coins.”

“What coins?”

“The von Grümh collection.”

He shrugged. “The guy was a three-dollar bill all the way. But this is real. This is the beginning of something big.”

“I’m not going to allow it. I don’t care how much he gives us.”

“No, no, no, Norman. This is a no-brainer. This is win, win, win all the way to the bank. Old Warwick is only the start. He’s a genius …”

“Please, Felix …”

“Look, most people with dough embalm their names on buildings and benches and you name it. A couple of years later nobody knows or cares who they were. The name turns into nothing but a name. Sometimes it doesn’t take a couple of years. Look at the Prunce Parkway. Who was Prunce …?”

“Harold Prunce developed …”

“Yeah, yeah, you know, but nobody else does. But there, in the Warwick Wing, in the Temple Warwick, will be Warwick
himself, all bandaged up in an open sarcophagus. A real live mummy. We take this idea and run with it. Big time. We could set up …”

“In the first place, we don’t have the space.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. We’ll take back the Pavilion. I’ve been wanting an excuse to do that anyway. Look, Norm, Mr. de Ratour, Lord Museum, the Wainscott lease of the Pavilion space is up next year. We won’t renew it. That’s proof that we are an independent entity. It’ll underscore the fact that Wainscott agreed to rent it on other than an intra-university basis. We’ll make it into the Mortuary Wing.”

“But …”

“But nothing. We not only set up the Warwick Room, but we leave space for others, lots of others. We’ll have a big churchy kind of place, tastefully done, one that we call … the Hall of the Permanent Collection. There, for a goodly sum, you can have your cremated remains put into a space a cubic foot in size. Each niche will have its own marble door with your name and dates on it forever and ever and ever.”

“You’re being absurd.”

“Norman, think. Even a dinky ten-by-ten-by-ten space has a thousand cubic feet. Of course we’d only use the walls. And maybe a stack or two. Like a library. We could also have an urn room, open shelves. If someone wanted to upgrade, well, there could be family vaults, little separate temples or templets …”

“Felix, we are a museum.”

“Yeah. Full of dead things. A few more won’t hurt.” He bent forward, his scarred face brilliant with intensity. “And that would only be the beginning …”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“But think about it. Nothing happens here at night. We could hold … mortuary receptions. Funeral parties. Catered wakes.
Even services. People will line up for this stuff. We’d have a waiting list …”

“You are describing a nightmare.”

“And that crematorium you used for the monkeys …”

“Felix …”

“It still works. We could have it fixed up better than new with scrubbers, state of the art … Okay, okay. That’s pushing it.”

“The whole thing is pushing it.”

He calmed down. He said quietly. “Okay. But I think you’re making a big mistake. And remember, old Warwick is on the Board of Governors. And we need everyone on our side if we’re going to keep Wainscott from taking us over and, not incidentally, save your institutional neck.”

He was right about Warwick and the board. I agreed readily enough to that and stretched my imagination to consider his take on Warwick’s proposal. I couldn’t do it. Even if we charged outrageous prices to keep it a dignified arrangement, it would become a circus.

“So fake coins, huh?”

“You’ve seen what the
Bugle
did with this?”

“Nobody takes the
Bugle
seriously. Nobody serious, anyway.” He stood up to go. “Beat them to it. Set up an exhibition using real fakes.”

“Instead of what, counterfeit fakes?”

“Hey, don’t think they don’t exist. Those Lipanov replicas get knocked off all the time.”

It wasn’t a bad idea, but one I had little appetite for right then. I merely looked at him and silently shook my head.

“Cheer up,” he said at the door. “Tonight’s your big night. I’ll see you there.”

•  •  •

It had completely slipped my mind that there was to be a private screening, a premiere so to speak, of the documentary based on Corny Chard’s account of his amputational adventures in South America. The invitation, which had arrived some weeks before, was for drinks, large hors d’oeuvres, and
A Leg to Stand On
at the Seaboard Players’ Little Theater. It’s located in a refurbished waterfront warehouse of some vintage judging from its small size and the eight-by-eight posts and beams they’ve left in place.