The Play of Light and Shadow & Writing (4 page)

“
Better an uneasy truce than a constant
war,” I said.

Gaines nodded, his eyes lidded with an old,
anchored pain. “She‘s not my daughter, but I’d like to be someone
positive in her life.”

“
All you can do is be there if she
needs you, Bart.”

Derek stood in the doorway, grinning as he
held the camera, sighting into the gallery.

“
Are you finished yet?” Gaines asked
impatiently.

He clicked another picture and lowered the
camera. “Last one. Thank you, Dr. Gaines. I appreciate your
tolerance.” He pulled the door closed and pointed the camera at us.
“How about a shot of you and Dr. Driscoll?”

“
We’d rather not.”

Derek tilted his head in a brief bow. “Very
well, then. I’ll rejoin the party.”

When he’d gone I asked: “What’s his role in
Lexie’s life?”

“
The latest in a long line of
boyfriends. Men seem to be disposable commodities for her. He says
he wants to be a fine arts photographer but earns his living
shooting commercial ads at the agency Lexie works for. They met
there a few months ago.”

“
Well, maybe this one’s Mr. Right.” I
hoped I sounded more convincing than I felt.

“
He’s a little too smarmy for my
liking, but it’s not my decision.” He looked at his watch and
sighed. “If Lexie’s right and this is a circus, I guess it’s time
to play ringmaster.” He removed the gallery key from his
pocket.

“
Wait a minute,” I said. “Just to be
safe, let’s make a final check.”

He nodded and let me precede him into
the room, empty except for the benches, the paintings, and the
sculptures, silent except for our footfalls.
Nomad
still rested on its easel, placid and
undisturbed but disturbing to look at. Darnell entered and crossed
the room as I opened the closet. Except for the ladder, duster, and
hose, it was the same narrow empty space we had seen earlier. I
shut the door.

“
Everything under control?” Darnell
asked.

“
Perfectly.”

Gaines drew in his lips in an uncertain
grimace. “I suppose it’s what they call ‘showtime.’”

We left the gallery. Gaines locked the door
and went to fetch his guests.

“
Sorry I took so long,” Darnell said,
“but I had to find Chadwick, then chase him between the kitchen and
the deck to ask questions. He says everyone here today has worked
for him at least six months.”

Five minutes later we heard a burble of
voices, then Gaines and Marjorie came into view, their guests an
orderly procession behind them. Gaines turned and smiled at them
proudly but nervously. “I crowed enough in the living room; I won’t
keep you waiting any longer. Have a look at
Nomad
.”

He unlocked the door, stepped aside, and the
guests streamed into the gallery, Darnell and I at the rear. The
sound of the crowd was at first just a murmur, rippling and
gradually building in volume that erupted into a dissonant chorale
of gasps and suppressed cries. Someone, perhaps Carol, blurted,
“Oh, God, no!” and someone demanded, “Is this a joke, Bart?”

Gaines pushed forward through the
throng, and his voice silenced them with an agonized bellow:
“
Marchand
!” The name echoed
and rang in that long high room, an invocation and a curse. An
adrenaline chill surged through me when I saw why.

The gilt frame still reposed on the easel,
but it was empty now. On the floor below lay the wooden stretcher
from which the canvas had been removed.

A lengthy hush enveloped the gallery as
though an ethereal, malign presence at its margins mocked our
collective sense of invasion and loss. In an astonished whisper,
Julian Lakehurst put the exclamation point to it: “My God, he’s
done it!”

The others roused; their murmurs and
stirrings made the room hum again with apprehension. Darnell swore,
staring at the empty frame. The brackets around his mouth deepened.
“
No
body got past us, Darnell,”
I said tightly.

He didn’t reply. He looked at the assemblage,
from one of us to the other. Barton Gaines stared at the empty
frame in mortified consternation. Beside him, one hand on his
shoulder, her lips compressed, Marjorie was a portrait of shocked
outrage. Julian Lakehurst, shifting uneasily from foot to foot,
shook his head and muttered inaudibly. With a pained expression,
Carol Prentice moved stiffly to one of the padded benches and sat
down, her youthful buoyancy and litheness overcome by sudden
gravity.

The soundless burst of light from Derek’s
camera might as well have been a thunderclap. We all started
nervously.

“
Put it away,” Darnell ordered. Derek
lifted a conciliatory hand and lowered the camera. His face was
blank, but his eyes gleamed with satisfaction at having gotten his
picture.

Sipping champagne, Alexis strolled
complacently among the guests. “Poor Bart and Carol,” she said.
“Their baby kidnapped. Probably by an art critic.”

“
That‘s enough, Alexis,” Marjorie
snapped.

Darnell moved to the closet door, then
signaled to me. He reached beneath his jacket and drew his gun,
provoking more gasps from the crowd.

“
It’s all right,” Gaines told them.
“Mr. Darnell is a detective in my employ.”

“
And a wonderful detective, at that,”
Alexis sneered.

“
Handkerchief,” Darnell mouthed,
nodding toward the door.

I took a handkerchief from my pocket and
wrapped it around the doorknob. The room fell silent. Darnell kept
the gun aimed at the door while I, from the hinged side, slowly
turned the knob, then, tensing, yanked the door open. The closet
was empty except for the vacuum hose nozzle-flat on the floor, the
ladder, and the duster. After a brief scrutiny, Darnell closed the
door. He holstered the gun and, moving to a corner, waved Gaines
and me over. Marjorie joined us.

“
Who was in here while I was talking to
Chadwick?” Darnell asked.

“
Eight of us,“ Marjorie said. “Derek
took some pictures of the girls and me.”

“
Alexis, too, for a moment,“ I added.
“But the room was empty before we locked it. You saw it
yourself.”

Darnell nodded sourly. “Maybe we’d better
invite the cops.”

“
Absolutely not.” Marjorie’s voice was
low but intense. “We’re paying
you
to handle this.”

“
A felony’s been committed, Mrs.
Gaines.”

“
I don’t care. I told you I wanted this
to be low-profile. I won’t have policemen, and possibly reporters,
crawling all over my home.”

“
And
I
have no authority to detain your guests.”

“
Why should that be necessary?
Obviously Paul Marchand succeeded in stealing the
painting.”

“
Obviously?”

“
Stop fencing, Mr. Darnell.”

“
Okay. Suppose Marchand’s not your
thief. Suppose it’s someone here in the house now.”

With one instinct we looked at the
people thronging the room. Some of our university colleagues were
talking among themselves; others communed with their own thoughts.
Lakehurst lingered by the plundered easel, his glance fastened on
the empty stretcher that lay on the floor, perhaps staring through
and beyond it. Carol still sat on the bench, hunched over now,
right hand abstractedly rubbing her knee, left elbow on her thigh,
left hand shielding her eyes as if against the unbearable glare
of
Nomad
’s absence. Two of the
art students huddled with her, offering solace. Alexis's expression
combined insouciance and arrogance as she sat down on another
bench, sipped her champagne, and surveyed the room. Derek,
forbidden to use his camera, moved about with apparent aimlessness,
yet with eyes that seemed to be framing shots of people and
paintings. The Gaines and Crowell family members formed a
protective knot against outsiders.

“
That‘s nonsense,” Marjorie
said.

“
Is it? Everyone here today knew about
the painting. Plenty of them—maybe all—know the Marchand story.
Someone might’ve used it to his advantage.”

“
Once again, nonsense.”

Darnell let out a breath. “What do you want
me to do, Mrs. Gaines?”

“
Recover the painting. It would still
be here if you’d been more alert.”

“
Then I’ll have to talk to some of your
guests and the help. You’ll have to keep everyone in the house or
on the grounds. I can’t detain them.”

Barton Gaines’s face brightened with feverish
hope. “Then you think the painting is somewhere in the house?”

“
I don‘t know. But if it is and people
start leaving, the odds are greater it’ll go, too.”

Gaines, looking at Marjorie, spoke to
Darnell: “We’ll try to convince them to stay.”

A moment later they were entreating their
guests to partake of lunch and not to let the regrettable event put
a damper on the party.

“
You don’t exactly endear yourself to
your clients, do you?” I said as guests and hosts left the
gallery.

“
Detectives are like proctologists.
Sometimes they’re necessary, but nobody likes them poking around.”
He rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “Okay, Professor,
tell me what happened while I was chasing Chadwick.”

I did, including every detail I could recall,
right up to his return during our final inspection of the room.
Uncertain as to its relevance, I told him about the argument
between Derek and Alexis I had overheard.

“
You say Derek took a picture of the
gallery from the doorway
after
everyone was out. A picture of what? And why?”

I shrugged. “Maybe he wanted a panoramic shot
of the gallery.”

“
Mm-hmm. Look around, Professor. This
room is full of paintings worth a lot more than the Riveau. Why
weren’t any of
them
taken?

“
Marchand didn’t have time?” I asked
lamely.

“
Yeah, sure. This master thief comes
and goes invisibly, gets in and out of locked, guarded rooms, has a
history of stealing masterpieces, but only has time to rip off what
looks like something Hieronymus Bosch did after a three-day
bender—the least valuable piece in the place.”

“
It’s his style, as Bart
said.”

“
And why today? Why grab it in a house
full of people?”

“
Once again: style. He’s a
showman.”

“
Mm-hmm. C’mon.” He went to the closet
and opened it. “See anything different?”

After further examination, I admitted I
didn’t.

“
Look at the shelf.”

Doing so, I noticed a crescent-shaped
disturbance in the dust at the front edge. “I see it, but I don’t
understand it. It wasn’t there this morning, and I’d swear it
wasn’t there when we looked before we locked up.”

“
What about this?” He pointed at a
small blue smudge a few inches above shelf level on the left-hand
wall.

“
It wasn’t there.”

“
I know.”

“
Then how did it get there?” I asked
exasperatedly.

“
Good question.” He closed the door.
“Let’s have a talk with Derek. I want to see the picture on that
disk.”

A funereal rather than celebratory atmosphere
shadowed the living room, the mood somber and subdued, infecting
even the black-clad student hostesses who served robotically,
bereft of their earlier sprightliness. Only Lakehurst showed signs
of animation, excitedly telling a small group of people about Paul
Marchand: “As art thieves go, he’s among the best. He’s never been
caught, there’s no evidence outside of Riveau’s journal to link him
to any crimes, and yet his audacity is spectacular. Why, he once
looted a museum in Paris of....”

Derek was nowhere in sight.

A dispirited Carol Prentice, holding a tray
of champagne glasses, drifted by without noticing us. I touched her
arm and asked if she’d seen him.

“
Derek?” Her tone held the muzziness of
someone who has just awakened from a confusion of dreams. “No. No,
I haven’t.” She blinked rapidly, as though straining to see through
a fog.

“
Did he leave?”

“
Leave?” she repeated.

“
Wake up, Carol,” Darnell snapped.
“Where is he?”

She blinked again, staring through the fog
from eyes suddenly moist. “I’m sorry,” she whispered with barren
hopelessness. “It’s been a horrible day.”

I put a hand on her shoulder. “Carol, we know
you’re upset about the painting, but we have to find Derek. Do you
know where he is?”

She shook her head, blinking, a tear trailing
down her cheek, and without another word moved away.

“
Big help,” Darnell
muttered.

“
She takes it personally. She’s deeply
involved in Bart’s project.”

“
Yeah, well, it’s not helping us find
Derek.”

We continued to inquire among the guests and
students, but none of them had seen him.

“
Let’s look upstairs,” Darnell
said.

We went up to the second floor and along the
hallway, glancing into bedrooms. Bart‘s and Marjorie‘s, complete
with sitting area, was spacious and beautifully appointed. Shelves
lined one wall, filled with books, a stereo system, compact discs,
a television set, and bric-a-brac. Predictably, paintings and
photographs abounded.