Pursued by Shadows (23 page)

“Don't be stupid,” said Harriet firmly. “She's left without warning once in her life. And that was because Guy wasn't the sort of person you could have a reasonable argument with. Tell him you wanted to leave, and his response was to break your nose. Jane doesn't sneak out on people. She leaves in the blaze of combat.” She frowned. “Why don't you come over here? I'll call John and see what he thinks. And one more thing. Never believe
anything
that Nina Smithson tells you unless there are two independent witnesses backing her up. And even then be cautious.”

Jane stared down at her empty coffee cup. It began to slide sideways, closing itself, turning into two insubstantial coffee cups. Nina was saying something to her, something ridiculous about Guy and money, and she suddenly realized that she needed Amos to hold on to her, or she was going to slide and split and divide into two Janes and then turn fuzzy and insubstantial too. She tried to explain this to Nina, but her mouth was frozen and unable to shape letters; her tongue was thick and woolly and immobile, like a child in a snowsuit.

And from far away, she heard a voice that billowed and sank like the sea. “Hurry up. Wrap this around her and slide her into the back of the station wagon. If anyone sees you they'll think she's a piece of sculpture, for God's sake. Stop worrying. And get that goddamn picture off the wall—you stupid, incompetent little bastard—before someone else comes in and sees it.”

Two sets of stamping feet at the front door of Harriet's apartment announced John's arrival, that and the smell of pizza and warm cardboard drifting up the stairs. “I brought Ed and lunch,” he said, dropping the box in the middle of the table. “Since otherwise we weren't going to get any.”

“Did she make definite appointments with the gallery and the lawyer?” asked Dubinsky, as soon as everyone was supplied with plates and food. “Or was she just chancing it?”

“No—she called,” said Amos. “She was to be at the gallery at ten-fifteen; the lawyer at eleven. They're only a block away from each other. Then we were going to meet at eleven-forty-five for a very early lunch and to decide what to do. Whether to stay here, or go home, or go and get Agnes. We didn't know if she was going to have to stick around to look after things. Or even if there were things to look after.”

“What about the map?” asked Ed Dubinsky. “Doesn't she still have it?”

“Sort of,” said Amos. “It's in my safe-deposit box, but she can have it any time she wants. It was one of the things she was going to ask the lawyer about. I mean, if it's real, and if Beaumont came by it legally—and frankly, I can't see it, but Jane says it's just barely possible—we ought to sell it to a museum or something. She was going to get his opinion on what she should do.”

“Maybe she asked Nina about it,” offered Harriet. “I mean about whether it was real or not. And how to sell it.”

“But Nina said she hadn't even been there—”

“That doesn't mean a thing. No matter who called the gallery, asking for Jane, Nina would assume that there was something tricky in the question and say no. She lies out of habit, you know. Truth is always her absolute last resort.”

“Isn't Nina likely to be mixed up in the whole scam?” asked Ed. “Not the best person to go to with innocent questions about how to get rid of the map.”

“We only assumed it was Nina's money behind the map because we didn't know that Guy was rolling in the stuff,” said Harriet. “Jane always thought that Guy was the one who found it, you know. And she was there. She could be right.”

“So what in hell was Dean Smithson playing at?” said Dubinsky. “Why tell Miss Sinclair he killed Beaumont? Or are we just dealing with another nut?”

“I don't think he was a head case,” said Harriet. “Wouldn't you have a file on him if he was one of those crazies who confesses to every murder in the city? I think he was just trying to scare Jane. Even though the poor guy looked mean as hell, he wasn't very good at dealing with people. But that doesn't matter right now, does it?” said Harriet, who was watching Amos Cavanaugh's white face and clenched hands. “What matters is finding Jane. Do you think Nina might have sent her to talk to her expert?”

“What expert?” asked Sanders.

Harriet smiled guiltily. “Remember the morning I went over to Nina's? Did I remember to tell you that there was some professor hanging about in the hall, waiting to see her? It occurred to me last night that he might be the map expert. He looked very distinguished and professorial. And that would explain why he was at Nina's at that particular time. After all, how many different kinds of professors does she need in a month?”

“What did he look like?” asked Dubinsky. “Besides like a professor.”

Harriet closed her eyes to dredge up a picture. “Fairly tall,” she said, after a few moments, “dark hair originally, gray at the temples and graying elsewhere. Thin, elegantly dressed in a dark suit, carrying an expensive-looking raincoat over his arm, black umbrella, uh, dark eyes, I think, and pale face, clean-shaven—no—one of those tiny mustaches. There. Not bad, eh? He looks like everybody's idea of the picky expert. The kind who goes ‘Tut, tut, Inspector, you didn't notice that fragment of llama hair on the bottom of the end table? Careless.'”

“Well, I'll be damned,” said Ed. “Did you get his name?”

“Sorry. I didn't know it was going to be important. Of course, he could have been there about the drains—except that I'm sure the housekeeper called him the professor.”

“Why are you looking so significant?” asked Sanders.

“Because he sounds to me like the expert at the U of T. The one I interviewed about the map. I think we might drop in on him, don't you? You stay here,” he said, turning to Amos, “in case she calls and says that she's been out shopping for shoes all morning.”

The telephone rang in the momentary silence that followed Ed Dubinsky's pronouncement. Sanders reached his long arm over to the desk and picked up the receiver.

“That was McNeill,” he said, after he finished making the last note on the conversation. “We sent him over to the gallery as soon as you called. At noon, Mrs. Smithson was sticking to her guns about maps and about Miss Sinclair. She knows nothing about the map except what we've told her, and she hasn't seen poor Miss Sinclair since London. He thought she sounded rather irritable. The lawyer hasn't seen her either. Or heard from her. Nor has his secretary, his receptionist, etc. So maybe we ought to try the professor—”

“Martin, his name is,” said Ed. “Richard Martin.”

“—even though it's a slim chance. Let's get moving,” he added, reaching out his hand to Harriet.

“What do you need me for?” she asked, looking over at the lonely form of Amos Cavanaugh.

“My perceptive darling, if you are right about that, then you are the only person who can connect the expert with Nina Smithson.”

They stepped out of the elevator into the long, dreary concrete hall that led to Professor Martin's office. The university had already dropped into its half-somnolence of the summer. There wasn't another human being in sight; for a moment, there was absolute and chilling silence, and then the rumble of distant traffic resumed its place in the background. “It's at the far end,” Dubinsky said. “Of course.” And strode rapidly and impatiently ahead of them.

Martin's door was not quite closed when he reached it. Without pausing, Ed knocked once irritably on the frame, pushing open the door at the same time. He halted in mid-stride, braking his forward momentum with a reverse thrust of his enormous shoulders. “Jesus Christ,” he said quietly, and spread his arms out to the side, barring the way.

The office had lost its air of neat academic clutter. There were sheets of paper lying everywhere, on the desk, on the turned-over plants, on the tipped chairs, and on the person lying on the rug in front of them. Except that the papers scattered over him were crumpled and decorated with huge, scarlet stains. His hands were clutching spasmodically and catching at sheets from his manuscript. Ed Dubinsky stepped over him and grabbed the telephone from the desk; its cord dangled; the jack hung on by one frail filament. He swore. “Do what you can for him,” he snapped and vanished.

“What's going on?” said Harriet, elbowing her way past Sanders. She stepped on a piece of paper, stopped and looked down. “Oh, my God,” she breathed, and sank to her knees beside Martin.

“Ed's gone for help,” said John, bending over the injured man and removing the manuscript, sheet by sheet, from his torso. Blood welled up from two separate places in his chest and abdomen. John glanced around him quickly to see what aid the surroundings could offer, extracted his handkerchief from his pocket and looked helplessly at the two wounds.

Harriet pulled off her sweatshirt and handed it to him. “It was clean this morning,” she said.

He shook his head at such irrelevant considerations and held it down over the wounds in a futile attempt to staunch them. “He's been stabbed,” he said unnecessarily.

Professor Martin opened his eyes and blinked. “Both of them,” he said hoarsely. He was stopped by a fit of coughing.

“Did you recognize them?” asked Sanders urgently. “Who attacked you?”

“The little one,” he whispered and closed his eyes again.

“Is it real, Professor? The map? Is it really Columbus's map?” asked Harriet.

Sanders glared at her. “For chrissake, let's keep this to essentials,” he said very quietly.

Martin's lips formed themselves in a kind of sly grin. “Remember Frederick,” he whispered. “
Huren, Professoren
—” It came out with the slickness of an old and favourite joke. His mouth worked again and he clutched Harriet's hand in his bloodied fist. An indecipherable sound emerged, his eyes clouded over and were still.

“Frederick?” asked Sanders frantically, his hands still pressing down in their futile attempt to hold life inside the body. “Who in hell is Frederick?” he said, turning to Harriet. “Do you know what he's talking about?”

“It's a joke,” said Harriet. “Is he . . .”

“Looks like it,” said Sanders, without moving from his position.

She extricated herself from the dead man's loosened grip and stood up. Sanders released the pressure long enough to give her his handkerchief, and she used it to wipe her bloodied hand automatically, over and over, a wide-awake Lady Macbeth. “I haven't heard that one for a long time. Frederick the Great. He said it about whores, professors, and ballet dancers, actually. That you can always get them with money. So that means that the map is—”

“A fake.” He shook his head. “And is he . . .”

“Nina's tame expert? Oh yes, that's who he is. Or was.” Harriet spoke somberly. “He looked like a nice man. I guess he just wanted his slice of the pie, too.”

“But why kill the person who was going to authenticate the map?” asked John irritably. “It doesn't make sense. And who is the little one?”

“His murderer? Someone who can identify the forger? Maybe the forger is the little one.”

“But he was into it up to his neck as well. He couldn't identify the forger without incriminating himself. Who in the name of God is chasing all over the city looking for that fucking map? Nina Smithson? Is the little one her little boy?”

“
Nina
?” said Harriet in astonishment. “Running around with a knife? Ruthlessly butchering innocent professors while wearing a white linen jacket straight from the cleaner's and a pleated skirt?” She swept her hands down her body in a parody of Nina's flawless dress and then tears sprang to her eyes. “My God. What a picture. John, you have to let reality temper your imaginative flights now and then. Nina wouldn't know which end of the knife to hold.”

“You think she's too sweet and gentle to kill someone.” The icy contempt in his voice froze every word.

“I would never say that. Not about Nina. Just too neat and tidy.”

In the distance they heard the muted clang of the elevator bell; the sound of voices and footsteps running filled the hall.

“Here they come,” said John. “Let's just drift quietly along the hall until we're wanted. Let Ed handle this.”

“But where's Jane?” cried Harriet suddenly.

“But I tell you she isn't here, and I don't know where she is. She isn't at home. I know that, because I called, and the housekeeper hasn't seen her since she left for work this morning.” There were the beginnings of tears in his eyes, and once more Christopher Smithson looked like the gawky adolescent that Harriet remembered.

“She didn't leave a number or anything like that?” asked Harriet gently.

“No. And I don't know what to do. Except that I'm going to close the gallery for the afternoon,” he said, with an uncharacteristically stubborn set to his jaw. “It's horrible of mother to open up the day after Dean's funeral anyway. It looks as if she doesn't give a damn about him.” Christopher pulled a damp handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose fiercely. “She called the school and left a message that I was to take a cab down to the gallery as soon as I finished my exam, because she had been called out on an emergency. I've got the message here,” he muttered, fishing around in his trousers pocket and extracting a crumpled piece of paper.

Sanders read it. It said exactly what the boy had said it would, and was dated with the current date, at 11:05.

“She left the key with Madeleine in the dress shop next door,” Christopher went on. “When I got here she was gone—Madeleine said she'd left just after twelve.”

“When did you get here?” asked Sanders.

“About twenty past twelve, I guess. The school called a cab for me and as soon as I walked out of my exam I was hustled into it.”