The Resurrection Man (5 page)

“M
AYBE YOU SHOULD MAKE
a movie,” said Max. “How many birds does Arbalest keep in his gilded cage?”

“Counting myself and the maid, eight.”

“Eight? That’s quite a household. Mind telling me who they all are?”

“Is it important that you know?”

“Probably not. I’m just asking.”

“All right, Bittersohn, I suppose I owe you one. Madame Ouspenska, of course, you already know about her. More than I do, I expect. She’s the only woman, except Katya.”

“Katya’s the maid?”

“Oh yes. Elderly, ill-favored, unsound in her English, and not very bright, but good-natured and a willing worker. Chosen as much for her lack of sex appeal as for her cleaning skills, I suspect. Faced with the choice between her and a harem, one supposes Arbalest decided Katya would be cheaper to feed and easier to manage.”

Max smiled. “That brings up some interesting questions.”

“I know,” said Goudge, “and I could give you some interesting answers, but I’m not going to. To get on with the inventory, there’s Marcus Nie, about forty-five, lean, balding, taciturn, totally dedicated to his craft, which consists mostly of swabbing or chipping old varnish off large paintings of cows and sheep, as far as I can make out. Rosa Bonheur, you know, and that lot.”

Goudge dismissed the first woman to have been awarded the Grand Cross of the French Legion of Honor with a flick of his fingers. “In short, Nie handles the dog work. The other restorer is Art Queppin: fat, hairy, chatty, flamboyant, getting on for sixty. Sings bawdy songs while he works, to the disgust of Nie, who has to be stabled in a separate stall so that he can concentrate on his eternal chipping and swabbing. Queppin’s far the more skillful of the two; he does the more important parts, such as relining old canvases and repainting missing bits of great-grandpa’s sideburns. Mr. Arbalest also takes a hand at the paintings when he’s not out drumming up business. He’s the best of the three, but gets the fidgets if he has to sit too long at the same job.”

Brooks chuckled. “I remember that. In New York, Bartolo was always popping over to the coffee shop. He’d sit where he could see his own shop door and go bouncing back if he spotted a customer wanting to get in. With a half-eaten doughnut in his hand, like as not. Of course he couldn’t operate like that now, situated as he is.”

“Poor man,” said Theonia. “The jailer always becomes the prisoner. How remarkable that Mr. Arbalest has chosen to do so.”

“What’s remarkable to me,” observed Sarah, “is that so many ghastly things have happened to his workers. Such a string of calamities could hardly be coincidental. It almost makes one wonder whether he’s a victim or a villain.”

“Victim,” Brooks answered without hesitation. “Though I must say,” he added more slowly, “it would take a very special kind of madman to victimize somebody by slaughtering the people who worked for him.”

“It certainly would. On the other hand, if Arbalest was, say, running some kind of fix-it shop for stolen art works that had got damaged during robberies, the murdered employees could have been the ones who asked the wrong questions, or tried to blackmail the boss for bigger pay when they found out what was really going on. Doesn’t that make more sense than mass murder for purposes of annoyance?”

“Sarah, I did mention that Bartolo always had a reputation for scrupulous honesty.”

“Well, naturally, Brooks dear. He’d need one, wouldn’t he? It’s not so difficult to be honest up front, what counts most is what’s happening out back. If Mr. Arbalest is as expert a salesman as Mr. Goudge says he is, wouldn’t you think he might also be a fairly convincing actor? I’m sorry, Mr. Goudge, I didn’t mean to interrupt. You’ve mentioned four artisans, counting Lydia. What about the other two?”

“First, Mrs. Bittersohn, I’d just like to say that thus far I’ve seen no evidence that Mr. Arbalest is engaged in anything clandestine. That, of course, doesn’t necessarily mean he wouldn’t like to be. Please bear in mind that I’m either with him or near him almost every hour of every day, and that I am, to say the least of it, a trained observer.”

Carnaby Goudge took another careful sip of his brandy. “I’ll grant you the hypothesis that Mr. Arbalest could conceivably be marking time running a legitimate operation, ruthlessly spurning any approach from the lesser fry among the art underworld, while waiting for a really juicy plum to fall his way. One does realize that crimes of historic importance don’t happen very often. One must only hope that nothing of the sort turns up while I’m in Mr. Arbalest’s employ, because I should then become an awkward person to keep around and a most unsafe one to let go.”

He gazed affably around at his hearers. “That is, of course, assuming Mr. Arbalest was in fact running a secret Augean stable and had imaginative ways of cleaning house. If I’d thus far discovered any reason to think he was, I should not be sitting here now pouring out my soul to you; I’d be legging it for Paraguay as fast as I could go. To get back to your question, Mrs. Bittersohn, the remaining two artisans are Peter Laer and Jacques Dubrec. Laer is a woodcarver, Dubrec is a Jacques of all trades and a master of several. He gets the jobs nobody else is equipped to handle, such as repairing old porcelain and objets d’art; particularly the smaller, more delicate pieces that are the most easily broken.”

“I should think those would make up a large proportion of your business,” said Theonia.

“You’re quite right, Mrs. Kelling, they do. They’re the atelier’s next-biggest source of revenue, after paintings and prints. Last on the list, but by no means inconsiderable, is antique woodwork. Most of these jobs come through antique dealers and auction houses. The atelier doesn’t actually take in large pieces and refinish them, this would be quite outside the scope of Mr. Arbalest’s operation as it’s presently conducted. Laer does things like carving a new wing for an early German angel, matching a broken chair leg, or creating a new pediment for a vandalized highboy.”

“But doesn’t restoring an antique lessen its value?” asked Theonia.

“That depends on the condition. Some pieces arrive literally in fragments. Putting what’s left back together and recreating the missing parts makes the piece usable; a restoration is at least more desirable than a blatant copy. If it’s a damaged altar, a carved balustrade, or something of that sort, Laer occasionally goes out to see what needs to be done. He makes sketches, takes photographs, perhaps pulls out the damaged section either to repair or to replicate, then returns to the studio and gets to work. Finally he goes back out to remove any broken parts that remain and fit in the replacements.”

“And you go along to guard him.”

“Always. I hold the ladder and hand up the glue pot or chisel in a properly subservient manner, thus impressing on the client what a privilege it is to have so preeminent an artisan plugging up his wormholes. It’s always taken as an act of faith that our client will in turn point out the restored portions to his own clients, assuming he plans to resell.”

“But it’s not included in the contract that you stick around to make sure he does?” said Max. “What are Laer and Dubrec like?”

“I’d say they’re the most normal members, relatively speaking, of our latter-day
Schildersbent
. Neither is a young man. Laer’s a widower with a grown son and daughter, both of whom fortunately live abroad. There’s no estrangement, they write back and forth every month or so and telephone on major holidays, but they don’t show any urge to visit, which I don’t suppose Mr. Arbalest would let them do anyway. I believe Dubrec was married at one time, but he doesn’t talk about it.”

“Another silent type?”

“Oh dear, no. I’d rank him third in loquacity to Mr. Arbalest and Madame Ouspenska when the group are having one of their round-robin fireside chats, which of course don’t happen by the fireside at this time of year. Anyway, it’s only a gas log. Sorry, I’m digressing. And I do apologize for having taken up so much of your time, but I don’t often get a chance to chat with colleagues, if I may be so bold as to call you so.”

“Sure, go right ahead.” Max stood up and reached for his cane. “Drop in again when you’re over this way, Goudge, there’s usually somebody around. By the way, our secret operative mentioned having seen a vaguely Asian-looking guy doing aerobic exercises out in the alley behind Arbalest’s house. He wouldn’t have been one of your Schilders, by any chance? Longish black hair showing a little gray? Dressed in a bright-red winter-weight jogging suit?”

Goudge let his lip curl just ever so. “You did mention that your chap’s an actor, as I recall. I suspect what he actually saw was somebody’s wash twisting in the breeze. We’re near the river, you know. There’s a woman in the basement apartment on the other side of the alley who has a habit of putting strangely assorted garments out to dry on one of those folding clothes racks, trusting soul that she is. Either she has amazingly eccentric taste in clothes, or else she’s some kind of costume designer.”

He shrugged off the woman in the basement apartment. “As I mentioned, I spotted your tail and his vivacious lady friend as soon as they arrived on the scene. After the three of us had escorted Madame Ouspenska safely home, your two went on down to Berkeley Street, where they parted company. She walked on ahead in the direction of Newbury, he nipped into the alley to check out whether Mr. Arbalest had installed grilles on all the back windows as well as the front. That rather impressed me, your chap could be quite good with a little more experience. However, if you plan to use him often on surveillance, you’d do well to have his eyes tested. Well, I expect I’d better get back before Mr. Arbalest throws a fit. Thanks for your hospitality, ladies, it’s been a pleasure.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” said Max after he’d seen their unexpected guest safely off and limped back to the library. “Anyone care to venture an opinion as to why Goudge was in such a loquacious mood tonight?”

“Elementary, my dear boy,” said Brooks. “He knew Bartolo and I were old acquaintances, he assumed I either already knew or could easily find out about Bartolo’s bizarre series of calamities. He’d watched Lydia hailing you and Sarah as old friends; he hadn’t been close enough to hear what she was saying to you, but he thought she must have given you an earful about the atelier. By running on about things he assumed we might already know, he created an atmosphere of confidence and comradeship, or thought he did. Bridge building, I believe it’s called.”

“Then why did he blow up the bridge by telling us that asinine lie about the man in the alley?”

“Because his own eyes need to be examined?” Sarah offered. “Because the man was one of the artisans who’d sneaked out of the atelier when he should have been working, and Goudge was covering up for him?”

“Why?”

“So that Brooks wouldn’t tell Mr. Arbalest? No, that doesn’t make sense. If the man wasn’t supposed to be there, why would he have made himself so conspicuous hopping around and clapping his hands? I give up.”

“Whoever it was, he doesn’t appear to fit any of the descriptions Goudge gave us,” said Brooks.

“Mr. Goudge didn’t actually describe the last two,” Theonia pointed out.

“But he did say Laer and Dubrec were the most normal of the lot. I don’t see anything all that normal about this chap’s cavorting around in public in a heavy suit under a broiling sun.”

“If it was a chap, darling. It could have been a woman. One might have a hard time telling, if she was upside down in a baggy sweat suit. In that case, of course, she wouldn’t have been a member of Mr. Arbalest’s guild.”

“We mustn’t rule her out,” said Sarah. “I suppose, like me, you’ve been picturing Katya the maid as blondish, heavyset, and Slavic because of the Russian-sounding name. But people do give their children odd names. From Mr. Goudge’s description, though, Katya doesn’t sound like the sort of woman anybody would bother to lie about. You don’t suppose Mr. Arbalest is keeping a clandestine mistress in a secret room behind the boiler or somewhere? He’s the one who made those rather odd security arrangements, therefore he’d know how to get around them. How hard would Mr. Goudge be to fool, Max? Is he really as good as he seems to think he is? What do we know about him?”

“Not a lot. The word around is that he comes from a wealthy Connecticut family and went to Yale or Brown or somewhere suitably Ivy League.”

“I can believe that.” A loyal Bostonian, Sarah was unimpressed by Yale and Brown. “What did he study?”

“Nothing, apparently. The way I heard it, he had two hobbies, target shooting and stalking wild animals. He didn’t shoot the animals, apparently, he just liked to sneak up on them and watch what they did. After he flunked out of college, he tried being a nature photographer, but that didn’t work out so he got the bright idea of becoming a professional stalker. He worked for a detective agency for a while, then branched out on his own as a bodyguard. He appears to be hardworking, competent, and conscientious. He must be at least reasonably trustworthy or he’d have been rubbed out by now. Goudge doesn’t seem to have any trouble finding work, evidently his customers come to him by word-of-mouth recommendations. He doesn’t advertise or even have an office, as far as I know. Any thoughts on the subject, Brooks?”

“Just one. Goudge may not need an office, but he must have some kind of hideaway where he can at least keep an answering machine, his extra sneakers, and a few changes of clothing to fit his various roles. I visualize a small flat in a mildly tacky building right here in Boston, or maybe over around Central Square.”

“And I visualize my wandering husband going to bed,” said Sarah. “Not to be a nagger, Max, but I don’t want you waking up tomorrow stiff as a new boot. Shall I draw you a bath?”

Hot baths were part of Max’s therapy, but he shook his head. “Not tonight, thanks, I’ll just take a quick shower. Too much soaking makes me itchy. So does that setup of Arbalest’s. Why do you suppose we’re all so interested?”

“Lydia’s involved,” said Brooks, “so we naturally expect there’s something insane and probably illicit about it. And because Charles, of all people, would certainly have been able to tell a costume on a clotheshorse from an Asian in a sweat suit. Theonia, would you like me to brew us a pot of tea?”