The Eighth Commandment (16 page)

“Of course not, Mr. Havistock. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

“Take a cab,” he said.

What else? He was paying expenses.

He met me at the apartment door himself and conducted me into the den-library where I sat across from his swivel chair at that enormous partners’ desk. He excused himself, disappeared, and came back a few moments later with a silver tray laden with coffee pot, paper-thin china cups and saucers, silver spoons, pink linen napkins, creamer, sugar, a bowl of butter balls, a plate of warm miniature croissants, and a pot of Dundee’s orange marmalade.

“Beautiful,” I said, eyeing that attractive brunch and forgetting my lost bagel. “I won’t have to eat another thing all day.”

That distant, somewhat chilly smile appeared again as he poured me a cup of steaming black coffee. “Help yourself,” he urged. “The croissants are from a new patisserie on Lexington Avenue. I think they’re quite good.”

It was before noon on a Sunday morning, but he was dressed for a board of directors’ meeting—or maybe a Congressional hearing. I think he was the most impeccably groomed man I had ever met. I mean he
glistened
—from his silvered hair to his polished wingtips. I wondered if he had his shoelaces ironed.

“I’m not going to ask you for a progress report,” he said, and I had the odd notion that he could shatter a champagne glass with that voice if he let it out at full power. “I realize you have only started your investigation. But there are two things I wanted you to be aware of. First of all, it was my wife’s suggestion that you be employed as our private investigator. Initially, I was opposed, feeling it best to leave the solution of the theft to professional detectives. Your knowledge of ancient Greek coins didn’t seem to me a sufficient reason.”

“I can understand your feeling that way, Mr. Havistock. They’ve certainly had more experience in detection.”

“But then, when I learned that members of my family were under suspicion, I changed my mind. I find it most distressing, Miss Bateson, that any of my children, their spouses, or our employees might be guilty of stealing the Demaretion. So I acceded to my wife’s wishes, in hopes that you might be able to reassure us that no Havistock could or would do such a thing.”

“I told you, sir,” I said, “I can’t give you any guarantee on that.”

He waved my demurrer away. “I understand that. I also appreciate your agreeing to come to me first with the name of the culprit, if it proves to be a family member, before going to the authorities. The second thing I wished to discuss with you is this: Orson Vanwinkle has informed me that you asked him questions about my signet ring. Was he correct?”

Now that was a shocker. I could have sworn that Horsy was so smashed he would never remember any of our conversation. I thoughtfully buttered and marmaladed another of those delicious croissants.

“Mr. Vanwinkle is correct,” I acknowledged. “I did ask about your ring.”

He nodded, regarding me gravely. “I wondered about your interest, and then I realized…Whoever substituted the sealed empty case for the one containing the Demaretion must have had access to my signet ring since it was used to imprint the wax seal. Am I right?”

It was my turn to nod. Besides, I couldn’t speak; my mouth was full.

He clapped his hands together with mild delight, and this time his smile had real warmth. “Very, very clever of you, Miss Bateson. And those so-called professional detectives still haven’t grasped the significance of the ring. My wife is right; we did well to employ you. You are a very intelligent, perceptive young lady, and I now have high hopes that you may succeed if Georgio and Smack fail. My only objection is that you did not come to me directly with your questions about my signet ring instead of asking Mr. Vanwinkle.”

I dabbed at my lips with a pink linen napkin, so starched it could have been balanced on its edge. “I didn’t want to bother you, Mr. Havistock.”

“No,” he said, shaking his great, leonine head, “I will not accept that. When my wife and I asked you to investigate members of our family, we were quite willing that we—my wife and I—should be questioned as well as the others. I want to make that perfectly clear to you: Mrs. Havistock and I expect no preferential treatment whatsoever.”

“All right,” I said, pouring him and myself more coffee, “I’ll go along with that, and I’m happy to hear you say it. Now, about the signet ring…Is there one—or more?”

“Only one, to my knowledge.”

“Do you wear it?”

“Very infrequently. But I value it—a gift from my wife.”

“Where do you keep it?”

“Sometimes here,” he said, pulling open a small drawer at the side of his desk. “Sometimes in my jewelry case in the bedroom. That’s where it is at present.”

“So anyone in the household might have borrowed it temporarily?”

He sighed. “I’m afraid so. I use it rarely—to seal documents and things of that sort. It’s never locked up or hidden. Yes, anyone who knew of its existence would have easy access to it.”

I gave him a wan smile. “Just as they had easy access to the two unused display cases in your bedroom closet.”

“Yes. That, too. I can’t tell you how painful I find all this, Miss Bateson, but the more I learn about the crime, the more I tend to agree with Georgio and Smack: a family member was involved. It is not a pleasant prospect to contemplate.”

“You want the Demaretion back, don’t you?” I asked.

He looked at me in astonishment. “Of course. It is a glorious work of art.”

“I agree. I don’t want it to disappear into some private collection where it’ll never be seen again.”

“You think that’s what will happen?”

“Unless we find it first. Mr. Havistock, how would you characterize your relations with your family? Intimate? Close? Distant? Cold?”

He looked at me queerly, those azure eyes glittering. “I have tried to be a good paterfamilias, and I would be the first to say I haven’t always succeeded. My own father was a stern, despotic man, and I suspect I learned too much from him. Times change, and I should have changed with them, but I wouldn’t or couldn’t. More harshness, more discipline, was not the answer. I should have been more sympathetic, more understanding when the children were young. It was my failure. It was my fault.”

Suddenly he was no longer the complete, self-assured man but, by admitting guilt and weakness, someone much more human and likable.

“I have no children,” I said, “so I’m not qualified to give advice. But the time comes, I suppose, when you have to kick them out of the nest and hope they can fly.”

“Yes,” he said sadly, “that time comes. Most of mine seem to have dropped—like stones.”

“I think you’re exaggerating,” I told him boldly. “They may not have come up to your expectations, but they are living their own lives. You must allow them to make their own mistakes. How else can they learn?”

He didn’t answer, but I had the feeling that he was aware of the frailties of all his children—and his nephew as well—and spent too much time brooding on what he might have done differently to ensure their success and happiness.

I cabbed home from that meeting with a lot to ponder. But I resolutely finished the Sunday
Times
, wishing I had accepted Al’s invitation to spend the day with him and his daughter. Then I did some laundry, slurped a blueberry yogurt, and prepared to spend the evening watching TV, with maybe a brief trip out into the living world to have a hamburger or a slice of anchovy pizza.

But I canceled all those noble plans and did something exceedingly foolish. I phoned Jack Smack, really hoping he wouldn’t be in. But he was.

“Hey, Dunk!” he said, sounding genuinely glad to hear from me. “How’re you doing?”

“All right. I’m not interrupting, am I?”

“Hell, no. I’m just sitting here counting the walls.”

I wanted him to know this was a professional call—nothing personal. “Something came up on the Demaretion case, and I thought you’d be interested.”

“Oh?” he said. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it on the phone. Listen, Dunk, have you had dinner yet?”

“Not yet,” I said, hating myself.

“There’s a new place over on the West Side that’s supposed to have the best barbecued ribs in town. Want to try it?”

“No, no,” I said hastily. “Pork makes me break out in splotches.”

“Okay,” he said equably, “then how about this scenario: I’ll run out and pick up a couple of strip steaks and Idaho potatoes. I’ve got the makings for a green salad. Meanwhile you cab down here—I’ll pay the freight. I’m in a loft in SoHo. We’ll have dinner, talk about the Demaretion, and after that, we’ll let nature take its course.”

I didn’t like that last; it scared me.

“All right,” I said faintly.

His loft looked like a factory: High Tech with everything in metal and Lucite. But he had a fully equipped kitchen—the largest compartment in the place. (The bathroom was the only enclosed room.) The bed, I noticed nervously, seemed to be double futons on the floor. Soft, plump, and lascivious.

He had a microwave, and fifteen minutes after I arrived he served up a yummy meal on a table of milk glass supported on black steel sawhorses. He also provided a bottle of super Cabernet. This lad knew how to live. Sour cream and chives with the potatoes, of course. He didn’t miss a trick.

While we gobbled our food, I told him about the signet ring, and what Vanwinkle and Archibald Havistock had to say about it.

He stopped eating long enough to slap a palm onto the tabletop. “God
damn
it!” he said wrathfully. “I missed that, and I’ll bet Al Georgio did, too.” Then he looked at me admiringly. “Dunk, that was good thinking. You’ve got a talent for investigation.”

“Well…maybe. But it doesn’t amount to anything. I mean, anyone in the family could have used that ring.”

“I know,” he said, “but I should have seen it. I’m supposed to be the professional. Anything else?”

“No,” I said, deciding not to tell him about the Minchens’ hobby. “Nothing.”

“Well…” he said, working on his salad. (Too much salt in that salad.) “We got another letter from our anonymous crook. The guy wants two hundred grand for the Demaretion. No way!”

“What will you do now, Jack?”

“Haggle.”

“How will you do that? By letter? Phone calls?”

“This guy is very clever. He sends us print-free letters from different zones in Manhattan. Practically impossible to trace. We reply by coded Death Notices in the
Times.
I know it all sounds like cloak-and-dagger stuff, but it works. In case you’re interested, we’re going to offer him twenty-five thousand.”

“You think he’ll accept?”

“No,” Jack said, “I don’t think he will. He’s got us by the short hairs, and he knows it. We’ll probably settle for fifty Gs—around there. Meanwhile I’ll keep gnawing at it. I may catch up with him before the payoff. Well…enough about business. I have some chocolate tofutti in the fridge. Interested?”

“Thanks,” I said, “but not really.”

“Me neither. But I also have some Rémy Napoléon—and that I
am
interested in.”

“Jack, do you eat like this every day?”

“Of course not,” he said. “I’d be a balloon if I did. I usually thaw something frozen. One of those complete gourmet dinners that tastes like glue. But once or twice a week I like to cook.”

“For yourself?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” he said, giving me that wisenheimer grin that implied sexual goings-on and probably didn’t mean a damned thing—I told myself.

We collapsed on those yielding futons and sipped our cognacs from small jelly jars.

“I have Tiffany snifters,” he said, “but occasionally I like to use these, to remind me where I came from.”

“And where was that?”

“Poverty,” he said, laughing shortly. “I’ve made it, Dunk—so far—but I want to keep remembering the time when a peanut butter sandwich was a treat.”

I had absolutely no idea if he was telling the truth or putting me on. I did know the man was a consummate actor. He told amusing stories in a dozen dialects. His movements could be as graceful as a ballet dancer’s steps or so gauche that they broke me up. He seemed driven to entertain, and I must say he succeeded. I never enjoyed myself as much. Couldn’t stop giggling.

“You know,” he said, taking the empty jelly jar from my fingers and putting it aside, “a friend of mine—a great cocksman—once told me that the best way to seduce a woman is to make her laugh. Do you think that’s true?”

I considered. “It’s a start,” I said.

The problem was that when we were naked, flouncing around on those pads, he was still the entertainer. I didn’t want to think of how many women he had been with to learn all the things he knew. He certainly educated
me.
He was such an expert—but somehow divorced, not really involved. Like an actor who has played the same role too many times.

All those reflections came later. At the time, I was whirled away, brain detonated, unable to concentrate on anything but his physical beauty and skill and what he was doing to me. I was one long, throbbing nerve end, and he knew how to tickle it. What a craftsman he was! I loved him. I hated him.

He drove me home in his Jaguar.

I
WAS BEGINNING TO
learn how detectives worked. You couldn’t sit at home or in your office and wait for people to come in and tell you things; you had to have the gall to go after them, pry, ask embarrassing questions, nag them, and generally make a nuisance of yourself.

I could do all that. Not only was I being paid for it (plus expenses), but I really loved the Demaretion and resented its theft. Also, someone had made a fool out of me—getting me to sign a receipt for an empty display case—so I had a personal interest in this affair. Revenge!

I retained that dauntless mood while I phoned Mrs. Mabel Havistock on Monday morning, asking if I might see her as soon as possible. If she was surprised or discomfited, her voice didn’t reveal it. She said she’d see me at precisely two o’clock that afternoon—in royal tones suggesting that I was being granted an audience with the queen. I thanked her meekly. So much for fearlessness.

My bravura mood got another jolt when the mail was delivered a little after noon. Three catalogues, bills from New York Telephone and Con Edison, and a plain white envelope. Just a typed Mary Lou Bateson on the front, with my address. No hint of the sender.