The Play of Light and Shadow & Writing (6 page)

Darnell considered it, then said: “You’re
right.”

“
Well, thank you all to
hell.”

“
Hey, a guy like you‘s right once a
year; I’m privileged to witness it.”

Warner reprimanded both of them with a
glance, then said: “We’ll have to look for the disk.”

“
May I make a suggestion?” I asked.
They all looked my way expectantly. “There were disks all over the
deck when we found Derek. If he removed the one you’re looking for,
maybe it’s among them.”

“
Good thought,” Warner said. “Get the
camera and disks, Jim.”

“
Great,” Cochran growled. “Now the
schoolteacher’s running the investigation.”

But he grudgingly got the evidence bags and
gave them to Warner, who pulled on a pair of gloves. One after the
other, he inserted the disks and looked into the camera’s LCD
screen. The disks were blank.

“
We’ll have to search the place,” he
said unhappily. “Take some of the men and get on it, Jim. I’ll talk
to Lakehurst.”

Cochran scowled and shook his head, patently
displeased with his assignment. “We’ll start on the grounds, in
case the perp dumped it outside.” He motioned to the uniform men to
follow him.

Warner, Darnell and I entered the house via
Gaines’s office. Warner led us to the gallery where technicians
took photographs and dusted for fingerprints. One of them was
inspecting the interior of the closet.

“
Any ideas about the blue stuff?”
Darnell asked him.

“
Nah. Can’t say till it’s
analyzed.”

“
How about prints?”

“
Only old ones. Your thief probably
wore gloves.”

“
That’s no surprise. The prints on the
outer doorknob are Dr. Driscoll’s and mine.”

Warner sent a uniformed man to summon
Lakehurst, then spoke quietly to a technician who knelt alongside
the easel examining the stretcher. He rose with a painful grunt,
muttered, “Damn arthritis,” and dusted the knees of his trousers. A
few minutes later, the uniformed man escorted Lakehurst into the
gallery. Warner introduced himself, directed the art dealer to sit
on one of the benches, and sat beside him. Darnell and I stood a
few feet away. Darnell seemed suddenly remote and pensive.

“
I need to ask you some questions, Mr.
Lakehurst,” Warner said.

“
I‘m happy to provide what help I
can.”

“
Thanks. How long have you known Derek
Trevor?”

“
I met him today when Alexis introduced
us.”

“
You’d never seen him before
today?”

“
No.”

“
He had your business card on
him.”

“
He inquired about my gallery and
whether I ever display photographic art.”

“
Then he approached you about a
business proposition?”

“
Indirectly, I suppose. He said he had
a portfolio of photographs he hoped to exhibit someday. I said I’d
be happy to look it over.”

Warner nodded. “Did he discuss Dr. Gaines’s
painting with you?”

“
Not as I recall, no.”

“
I’m told you’re the one who proposed
having this party.”

“
That’s right. Barton was worried that
Marchand might make an attempt to steal
Nomad
. I thought having a crowd here might
discourage him.”

“
So you know quite a lot about Charles
Riveau and Paul Marchand.”

Lakehurst bent his balding head in a
brief nod. “Not nearly as much as Barton does, but I
am
acquainted with some of the
history, yes. I’ve learned a lot from Barton’s researches, and from
Riveau‘s journal.”

“
Does Marchand have a history of
violence?”

Lakehurst pursed his lips, his gaze wandering
toward a

Cezanne. “I don’t recall hearing anything of
the sort.”

“
So over the years, he’s been able to
pull off all his thefts without anyone getting hurt.”

Shrewd eyes came back to Warner’s face.
“I said I don’t re
call
hearing
that he ever committed any acts of violence, Detective. It’s not a
fact I can verify.” His smile broadened, striving for amiability.
“If you’re asking whether he might resort to brutality to acquire
the Riveau paintings he swore to destroy, then I’d have to say yes.
Riveau’s journal suggests a passionate desire for revenge on
Marchand’s part.”

“
Then if someone tried to get in his
way, he wouldn’t think twice about killing him?”

“
I’ve never met Marchand,” Lakehurst
answered, his gaze unwavering. “I can’t address his thought
processes.”

“
You think he exists?” Darnell
asked.

“
I beg your pardon?”

“
Do you think Marchand is a real
person?”

“
What a question!” Derision curled his
mouth. “In his journal, Riveau recounts their years together as
partners in crime, how Marchand stole paintings from museums and
private collectors, and how Riveau painted over the genuine works
to conceal them until they found buyers.”

“
Some were masterpieces, weren’t
they?”

“
All
of them
were. Several have never been recovered.”

“
How could he paint over them without
ruining them?” Warner asked.

“
By applying a gesso—a plaster and glue
mixture—to the canvas, which he could paint on. Later, if
necessary, one could safely remove the surface painting. The work
beneath would be intact.”

“
Theft is pretty common in the art
world, isn’t it?” Darnell asked.

Lakehurst nodded sadly. “I’m afraid so.
Many of the thieves are ingeniously clever, right down to providing
falsified provenances to deceive dealers and collectors into paying
millions for worthless paintings. Something on the order of forty
percent of major artworks bought and sold today are
forgeries.”[
*
]

“
Then how does a collector know what
he’s buying?”

“
Unfortunately, he doesn’t always.” He
cleared his throat. “Nor do we who sell art. I hate to admit it,
but I and many of my colleagues have been fooled by clever
forgeries and apparently legitimate provenances. The worst part is
the disservice it does to the art world in its broadest
sense.”

“
What about the collectors who buy the
real paintings?”

“
They’re hoarders,” he said
contemptuously. “They have no intention of sharing their
acquisitions with the world and, in any case, don’t dare admit they
own them. How they obtain the paintings doesn’t matter to
them.”

“
So Marchand and Riveau sold them to
less than reputable collectors,” Warner said.

“
I can only assume that to be the
case.”

“
Ever bought or sold any of Riveau’s
work?” Darnell asked.

“
No, sir.”

“
You had nothing to do with Gaines’s
buying
Nomad
?”

“
How could I? He won it in an
auction.”

“
You seemed pretty interested in
displaying it—or selling it.”

“
If Barton ever wishes to put it on
public display, I’d be honored to have him do so in my gallery.
Should he ever wish to sell it…Well, sir, I’m a businessman, and it
happens I have a client who is willing to pay a considerable amount
for
Nomad
and assure Bart a
profit.”

“
Mm-hmm.” Darnell scratched his chin
with a thumbnail. “You have any clients who fall into what you call
the…uh…‘disreputable’ category?”

Lakehurst swung his gaze toward Warner.
“Detective, my understanding is that this man has no official
status, so I decline to respond to his innuendoes.”

“
Then pretend
I
asked it,” Warner said quietly.

Outrage flared in Lakehurst’s eyes, but his
voice was even. “Very well. I’ve had many clients over the years,
some of whom were one-time buyers or sellers, some of whom are
frequent customers. I can’t attest to the character of all of them,
certainly, nor can I tell you anything about their dealings with
other galleries, but I assure you that their transactions with me
have always been aboveboard. I have a reputation for honesty I’ve
never compromised. Nor will I ever do so.” He paused for breath.
“Now, have you any additional questions, or may I go?”

“
We’re finished,” Warner said. “But I’d
like to ask you to stay on the premises a while longer.”

“
Unless you’re charging me with a
crime, I don’t see why I should be compelled to remain.”

“
There’s no charge and no compulsion.
Just a request.”

Lakehurst rose and looked at his watch. “I
can stay a little longer, but I have an engagement in town this
evening I don’t intend to miss.”

Inconvenienced and indignant, he wheeled and
started toward the door briskly, but the masterpieces on the walls
caught his gaze and his exit was slower than planned.

Warner stood up and rubbed a hand over his
face. “Not much help there, and I can’t detain the rest of them
indefinitely.”

“
You going to search them?” Darnell
asked.

“
Like it or not, the Gaineses are
influential people. There could be big-time repercussions if I
frisked their friends. And even if we find the damn disk, it‘s
possible there‘s nothing incriminating on it.”

“
Derek took a picture of an empty
gallery. Why? The Professor thinks he might’ve just wanted a
panoramic shot, but he could’ve gotten that on his way
in
, before his models went inside.
Why do it on the way out? I think it’s because he saw something
that didn’t belong.”

“‘
The Purloined Letter,’” I
said.

Warner and Darnell looked at me
quizzically.

“
Poe’s story about a stolen document.
It was hidden in plain sight, which is why the police couldn’t find
it.”

“
What’re you getting at, Dr. Driscoll?”
Warner asked.

“
Derek was killed right outside Bart’s
office, and the disk was taken from his camera. Bart has a computer
in his office, so it’s reasonable to assume he has other disks in
there, too. What I’m getting at is what Detective Cochran pointed
out: the killer took an awful risk strangling Derek on the deck
with people just around the corner. Well, did he take the disk,
drop it in a pocket, and casually walk into their midst? He’d be
risking a search later. Or did he duck into the office, hide the
disk, and then stroll back through the house, nobody the
wiser?”

Darnell grinned. “Maybe he
should
be running the investigation,”
he told Warner.

“
Yeah, it’s another good thought. Let’s
have a look at the office.”

My potentially illustrious moment was
short-lived. Warner examined the disks we found in Gaines’s desk on
the office computer. Those that weren’t blank contained only text
irrelevant to the case.

Besides the desk, the only furniture was the
chair behind it, a leather sofa, and, lining the room,
floor-to-ceiling bookcases stuffed with volumes.

“
Let’s start on the books,“ Darnell
said. “Give me a pair of gloves and I’ll help you look through
them. If the disk shows who I think it does, you‘ll have the
evidence you need for an arrest.”

Warner held up a hand, palm out. “Wait
a minute. You said
who
. You
mean you know who’s behind this?”

Darnell nodded.

“
Since when?”

“
A little while ago.”

Warner exhaled loudly. “Y’know, you got
to Cochran immediately, and now you’re beginning to irritate
me
.”

“
It’s the effect I have on people. I’ve
learned to live with it.”

“
Stop being smart-assed and
talk.”

He told us.

“
What makes you think so?” Warner
asked.

He told us that, too.

Warner got gloves for Darnell, had a
uniformed man locate Cochran, and the three detectives spent nearly
two hours pulling books off of shelves, looking for one into which
the killer might have thrust the disk.

“
Bingo!” Cochran said, holding a
leather-bound book in one hand, a disk in the other.

Warner took it from him and inserted it into
the computer’s drive. The disk was filled with photos, date- and
time-stamped, that Derek had taken throughout the day. Among them
was the one Darnell expected. Cochran gave it a splenetic
examination, then transferred the look to Darnell.

“
Score one for the P.I.,” he
muttered.

“
I have no official standing,
remember?” Darnell said. “It’s your collar.”

“
Do it quietly,” Warner admonished.
“Away from the crowd.”

“
I know how it’s done,” Cochran
grumbled, and went off to arrest Carol Prentice.

Half an hour later, we stood in the gallery
with the Gaineses and Julian Lakehurst, surrounded by color,
texture and perspective that blazed out at us from the surrounding
walls. Alexis slumped motionless on one of the padded benches,
numbed by champagne and grief.