The Mysterious Mickey Finn (2 page)

‘So he's here?' said Evans.

‘He got in yesterday,' Jansen said, and sank into a deeper gloom, which was agitated by fitful flashes of awareness that something drastic must be done.

Now Hjalmar Jansen was what might be termed a serious artist. That is to say, when he produced a painting that was distinctly below par he threw it away, sometimes stretcher and all. He had impressed Hugo Weiss at a New York cocktail party, where his hearty voice, rugged physique and capacity for bathtub gin had made him stand out from the city folks present. They had ducked out of the party together and spent the evening at Luchow's where the magic of Weiss's presence had produced real Würzburger.

It would not be fair to say that Hjalmar had done no work since coming to Montparnasse, but his artistic conscience had developed much faster than his skill, so most of the canvases had been chucked out of the window, not a few before the window had been opened. After a failure he would usually get roaring drunk, and get into a fight if he could find a man big enough. Then, if he still felt rebellious, he would hop a Belgian canal barge on which he would ride to the border, through the marvellous canals of northern France, insisting on doing most of the work and on buying all the wine. This would take about two weeks, after which he would settle down to work again. His best painting, a portrait of the proprietor of the Dôme, was hanging inside the
café
and was the proprietor's prize possession. He had accepted it for a bar bill that would, if represented by stacked saucers, reach approximately to the level of the Eiffel Tower. By such expedients, Hjalmar had lived abundantly and made his thousand dollars go far, but it was nearly gone. In fact, there were seven francs fifty of it left, and lunch for himself and the English girl with the tenacious temperament and enormous feet had to come out of that.

The two friends sat silently at the Dôme while Evans reviewed the facts in his mind and Hjalmar Jansen shifted in his seat, twisted his
béret
in his huge hands and tried to decide what to do. By borrowing the portrait hanging in the
café
(and which the proprietor prized almost as much as his licence to do business) Hjalmar would have three paintings to show his benefactor, – three paintings to answer for a year's hard work: the portrait of Chalgrin, otherwise known as M. Dôme, in a severe black frock coat and funereal tie, somewhat after the manner of Fantin-Latour; a nude of the English girl with red hair (and consistent at that) and those expressive British feet in the foreground; and a still life of some old boots that had taken his fancy. Could he explain to Hugo Weiss that he had covered about an acre of canvas, each foot of which had taught him something? What to do? What to do? His wits were not responding that morning, partly on account of his benefactor's unexpected arrival, partly because Maggie Dickinson, the English girl, had been particularly tearful and troublesome at breakfast and had made it clear that she intended, for his own good, to make him settle down.

‘Listen, old boy,' Evans said, at last. ‘I've been up all night, and involved in a number of things. My publisher has been badgering me, I've beheld starvation in the midst of plenty. I have seen the sun rise behind the spires of Our Lady while the predatory bat was a-wing. It's certain: (1) that Hugo Weiss did not come to Paris expressly to view your masterpieces; (2) that he will still be here to-morrow, since I noticed in this morning's
Herald
that he is to be a guest of honour at the banquet of the
Société des Artistes Français
three evenings hence; (3) that I can give you better counsel after I have had two hours' peaceful sleep. Meet me here at five this evening, when, if the sun holds strong, a long cool drink will be in order.'

‘Thanks. Much obliged. I will,' said Jansen, rising quickly and upsetting two chairs in his progress across the
terrasse.
‘So long. Sleep well. At five,' he roared, from the sidewalk, and of the dozen heads behind spread newspapers, only one turned toward the speaker and then back to where Homer Evans was sitting. That one belonged to Ambrose Gring.

No one knew where Ambrose Gring had been born or what sort of passport he carried. He frequented art galleries, the kind that deal in fabulously priced old masters, and seemed to be familiar with the dealers and attendants all up and down the rue la Boétie and in the place Vendôme. He had been at Yale and won a poetry prize, was familiar with Constantinople and spoke Turkish, had followed Kolchak in northern Russia, although no one could imagine him as a fighting man, and had been involved in a notorious affair which ended by having an American widow taken forcibly from his apartment by her male relatives and sequestrated in a private and expensive
Maison de Santé
until she had cooled off sufficiently to give up Ambrose. Gring listened to the voice of Hjalmar because it was his habit to listen to everything. Whatever he saw or heard he made a mental note of, for future reference, and oftener than might be expected, he found odd scraps of information could be made profitable to him, either to ingratiate himself with someone, or to take vengeance for a personal slight, for he was very vain.

‘This afternoon at five,' Gring repeated to himself, and resolved to be on hand, at a nearby table. He knew that Hjalmar was agitated and that he was perfectly sober, two unusual circumstances which by coinciding made it certain that something important was in the wind. And it was a small wind in Montparnasse that did not blow Ambrose at least a cup of coffee or an introduction to some naïve American girl who was seeing Paris for the first time, and needed guidance.

Homer Evans was aware of Ambrose, sitting two tables in front of him, but that did not spoil the morning for him. He was tolerant of Ambrose Gring as he was tolerant of everyone. In fact he had often admired the eel-like way in which Ambrose got along, without work or visible achievement, without disclosing his past, explaining his present or speculating upon his future. Most pan-handlers worked hard at their trade, so hard in fact that in any other line of work they would have been successful. Not so with Ambrose. The lilies of the field were sweatshop slaves compared with him, and Solomon in all his glory never had a better fitting suit or a niftier tie. It was true that a few years previously some articles bearing Gring's signature had appeared in
Art for Art's Sake,
a commercial review which listed all the important auctions and sales, but no one had seen Gring write them.

As Homer Evans turned to call the waiter, he saw with dismay that Maggie Dickinson, the English girl, looking sterner and more haggard than, ever, was heading across the
terrasse,
unmistakably bound for his table.

‘I know you don't like to be interrupted, but I must talk to you,' she said, running her skinny fingers through her shock of red hair.

He had risen courteously, and with all his impatience concealed, asked her to sit down.

‘You're the only one of Hjalmar's friends who has any sense, or decency,' she burst out, and the ears of Ambrose Gring, two tables in advance, spread themselves a fraction of a millimetre and expressed the utmost satisfaction.

‘What's wrong?' Evans asked.

‘He's wasting himself, he's throwing himself away.... Oh, don't think I'm jealous. He can run around with other girls if he wants to, but he needs a steadying influence, someone to take care of him, his clothes, his filthy studio, to wake him at the proper hour, to give him breakfast, get his models there on time, take care of his money and see that he eats his regular meals. I don't mind if he drinks. It's natural, perhaps, for him to drink. But he ought to work and he needs a little order.'

‘It's hard to say what anyone needs,' said Evans, uneasily.

‘He says that he likes plump women, that I'm too skinny, but he says that in the morning. I haven't noticed that he has any aversion to me at night. Of course, he's drunk at night, but he likes me.'

‘Of course he likes you,' Evans said.

Her face took on a more desperate expression and for a moment it looked as if she were about to sink to her knees. With clasped hands she said imploringly:

‘You talk to him. Tell him to marry me. Nothing else would settle it. He'd feel some stability then, and stop wasting his life. He can paint. You know he can. But he doesn't, and if he does, he throws away the paintings. I'm no judge, but I'm sure the ones he throws away are just as good as the ones he keeps. I can't for the life of me see a bit of difference.... You'll talk to him, won't you? Promise.'

Gring's ears moved a full millimetre that time and his face was lighted with his cat-like smile.

‘Listen, Maggie,' Evans said kindly. ‘I know you're fond of Hjalmar and want to do the best you can for him. But right now I can't think. I've been up all night. . . .'

‘I'd like to know why you all sit up all night. It's just the same as the day-time, except for the lamp-light, isn't it?' she said, with pent-up exasperation.

‘Suppose you meet me at the Dingo at seven....'

‘I'll be there at seven,' she said, and strode away, dabbing at her eyes with a wilted handkerchief.

‘Hell. I'm going to bed,' Evans said. ‘If only I could be lulled to sleep by Czerny. Good old Czerny and his school of velocity. I'll bet he was steady, all right. No weeping ex-virgins in his life, I'm sure. Or am I? I must look it up. .. .'

And with that he paid the waiter and started for the rue Campagne Première, his mind on fresh cool sheets and dim silences. The day and night preceding had been too eventful for his quiet taste. Everything in moderation, was his motto. He could, on a pinch, stand one event a day, or at best, two. Three were decidedly too many.

His latchkey was in his hand but he did not insert it. Instead he listened. From the piano came to him the familiar five-finger exercises, and for a moment Evans thought his heart was pounding. The western girl, whose soothing music he had missed too severely, had returned. He could see her profile, the proud way she held her head, the graceful slope of her shoulders. She was playing Czerny as she had never played him before, with microscopic exactness and clarity.

The clock struck one, she raised her fingers from the keys and looked at him.

‘Good morning,' she said.

‘Why, good morning,' he answered. He was so glad to see her that he could say no more.

‘You seem surprised,' she said, a little bewildered.

‘Quite pleasantly,' he said.

‘You didn't get my letter?'

‘Your letter?' Obviously he had not received it. With a faint guilty smile he opened the door again, reached out into the corridor and opened his mailbox. In the midst of a two-week accumulation of letters and circulars he found the one postmarked ‘Billings, Mont.'

‘I might have known you wouldn't read it,' she said, for it was one of Evans' rules of life that mail, unless it is truly important, should be read when the recipient wishes and not when any Tom, Dick, or Harriet sees fit to write.

Homer started to rip open the flap of an envelope from Billings, Montana.

‘Don't read it now,' she said, blushing and making a movement to restrain him.

‘Why not?'

She hesitated and blushed more deeply. ‘You're tired,' she said. ‘You haven't been to bed.'

‘Is it as harrowing as that?'

‘I didn't mean it to be, but one never knows how a letter will seem....'

Evans had always resented being pampered by women, perhaps because it gave him such unmistakable comfort that he was afraid it might be habit-forming. ‘It's true that I'm tired, and I've had a hell of a day. If this keeps up, I'm going to Times Square for a little peace and quiet,' he said.

‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘It's of no importance.'

‘You know very well that I can't go to sleep until I've read it,' he said.

‘Then perhaps I'd better tell you,' she said.

Impatiently he tossed the unopened letter to the tray. ‘Be brief,' he said. ‘I've appointments at five and seven.... Christ almighty. I might as well be Roxy or Charley Schwab.'

‘There's not much to tell,' she said.

That brought him to his senses. He stepped forward and placed a hand on each of her shapely shoulders. ‘Miss ... What in hell is your name?'

‘Leonard ... Miriam Leonard,' she faltered.

‘Miss Leonard, I'm not an imbecile, although I've been acting like one. I may be eccentric, wilful, and selfish. I may be an idler, escapist, and expatriate. But I am fairly observant and can

associate ideas. You are in trouble. In some way I am to blame, although that phase of the matter eludes me at the moment….'

‘I never said you were to blame,' she said. ‘I don't know why I came here.'

Evans rubbed his hand across his forehead. ‘I've actually got a headache now,' he said. ‘Let's have a drink. You'll have to get this off your chest.... I suppose you're in love....'

‘This has nothing to do with love,' she said firmly.

‘Thank God,' he said, and went to the kitchen to mix a couple of drinks. For himself he prepared cognac and siphon, for Miss Leonard a vermouth-cassis, the former to induce sleep, the latter to stir an appetite.

‘I'm keeping you out of bed,' she said nervously.

‘That's become the regional sport,' he said. ‘Now pull yourself together, and don't try to spare me. I know you're not hysterical or coy or deceitful. I owe you a great deal, more than I realized until you went away….'

‘I wish I had stayed here,' she said.

‘Not possible,' he said. ‘Career. Brilliant young pianist. Meets go-getting western man, where men love horses. Vacillates between career and marriage.... Wrong either way....'

‘That's not the way it was at all.'

‘How was it, then?'

‘I can't play anything but finger exercises,' she burst out, and bit her lips to hold back tears.