The Eighth Commandment (40 page)

“Mr. Grandby,” I said, “I know that it is standard operating procedure when someone comes to us with valuable property to be auctioned—be it furniture, paintings, coins, stamps, or whatever—a credit check is made to determine the reputation and trustworthiness of the client. I presume such an investigation was made of Archibald Havistock. Could you tell me what the results were?”

“That is confidential information,” Lemuel Whattsworth said in his thin voice.

I stood up, jammed my notes back into my shoulder bag, and faced them defiantly.

“You’re paying me to investigate the disappearance of the Demaretion,” I said, in what I hoped were steely tones. “If you refuse to cooperate, that’s your problem, not mine. I’ve asked you for information. If you refuse to divulge it, then I tender my resignation as of now, and you can face the possibility of paying for the Demaretion’s loss on your own.”

Stanton Grandby groaned. “For heaven’s sake, Lemuel,” he said, “tell her.”

“I advise against it,” the attorney said.

“Then I’ll tell her,” Grandby said. “Please, Miss Bateson, sit down. The credit check on Archibald Havistock was satisfactory. He was—is a rich man. But most of his wealth is in unimproved land which is in his wife’s name. The only section of his credit report that gave us pause was that he was not in a very liquid condition. That is, he did not have a great deal of cash in relation to his total assets.”

“I know what ‘liquid condition’ means,” I said. I wasn’t going to let him patronize me.

Now that the cat was out of the bag, the lawyer took over. “However,” he said, “that is hardly an unusual condition of people seeking to auction property. Invariably they wish to convert their collections to cash. I fail to see how Mr. Havistock’s shortage of liquid resources relates to the theft of the coin. If the Demaretion had been included in the auction, he would have gained more.”

“That’s true,” I agreed. “A great deal more.”

I think I had them thoroughly befuddled at that point—which suited me just fine. Let them suffer awhile. I thought I’d bring them out of their misery soon enough, but meanwhile I enjoyed their discomfiture. Such
stiff
people!

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “If the Demaretion is not recovered, Grandby and Sons will have to recompense Mr. Havistock for its loss. But actually, your insurer, Finkus, Holding, Incorporated, will pick up the tab.”

“That, essentially, is correct,” Whattsworth said. “Minus the deductible, of course. Which I may say, without fear of contradiction, is a considerable sum.”

“All that doesn’t amount to a row of beans,” Stanton Grandby said impatiently. And from that moment I began to like him—almost. “The dollar loss isn’t going to kill us. What does hurt is the damage to our reputation. Grandby’s has never had a scandal of this magnitude in our long and honorable history. People entrust valuable property to our care in the expectation that it will be guarded as if it was our own. If we are forced to admit carelessness or incompetence, the result will be similar to a run on a bank: people will simply lose confidence in our house. That I will not allow.”

Then all three looked at me as if I was to be their savior, the Joan of Arc who would solve all their problems, temporal and spiritual.

“We’ll see,” I said, standing up again. “I thank you for your cooperation.”

“Dunk!” Felicia Dodat wailed. “Don’t you have
anything
to tell us?”

“Not at the moment,” I said. “Things are moving too swiftly. I’m sure you are aware of the murder of Orson Vanwinkle, Mr. Havistock’s private secretary. Last night, Ross Minchen, Mr. Havistock’s son-in-law, was arrested and charged with committing that homicide. And early this morning Mr. Havistock’s son, Luther, confessed to the brutal slaying of his wife. So you see, there is more to this than just the disappearance of an ancient Greek coin.”

I left them stunned and shattered.

I had plenty of time to walk over to the Havistocks’ apartment; it wasn’t far. I hadn’t called for an appointment because I thought I’d be put on hold; they’d be distraught and concerned only with the imprisonment of their son. But I was resolved to wait there until I could see Mabel or Archibald, or both. I owed them that.

It was a murky kind of day, the sky a swamp and the air as thick as pudding. No breeze at all; the poor, dusty leaves on the street trees weren’t moving, and everyone seemed to go shuffling along, conserving their energy to breathe. Which was no great treat.

I had expected to find a gaggle of reporters outside the Havistocks’ door, and perhaps a TV crew. But the hallway was empty. I rang the bell and waited. The door was opened cautiously a few inches, the chain still on. Ruby Querita peered out.

“Ruby,” I said, “it’s me. Can I come in, please?”

She let me enter, then hurriedly relocked, bolted, chained the door. “Lots of people come,” she said. “I don’t know who they are.”

I nodded. “I can imagine. Big trouble, Ruby. More and more trouble.”

She took a deep breath. I could see that she had been weeping. That dour face was creased with damp folds and wrinkles. All her features seemed drawn down, everything sagging with sorrow. I realized then that, despite her imprecations and predictions of doom, she loved this family and felt their hurts. I put an arm about her shoulders.

“Are you all right?” I said.

“I live,” she said. “I try to understand God’s justice.”

We spoke in whispers, as if a corpse was laid out in the next room.

“Is anyone home?” I asked her.

“Natalie is in her room. She won’t come out.”

“Good. Make sure she stays there. Mr. Havistock?”

“He is at the lawyer.”

“And Mrs. Havistock?”

“She is here. In the living room. She sits and stares. She will not eat.”

“Ruby, would you tell her I’d like to talk to her? I’ll wait here. If she doesn’t want to see me, I’ll go away.”

The housekeeper drifted away. I had never before noticed how silently she moved. She was back in a few moments.

“She says to come in,” Ruby reported. “Please, be very good to her. She is broken—like this.” Ruby made a twisting gesture: two closed fists moving in opposite directions. “She tries to live—but I know.”

“I’ll try not to disturb her. Ruby, there are two men coming at three o’clock. Will you tell me when they get here? One is a police officer.”

She stared at me. “Oh,” she said. “Ah. Then it is the end?”

“I think so,” I said. “I think it is finished.”

I left her weeping, tears slowly dripping down those dark furrows in her cheeks.

When I entered that fusty living room, Mabel Havistock was seated on a severe ladder-back chair, pressed into it as if to support the rigidity of her spine. Her broad shoulders were square, the long jaw lifted. I saw no outward signs of that twisting motion Ruby had made; this woman had not been broken.

“Miss Bateson,” she said with just the faintest hint of a wan smile, “thank you for coming by.”

“Ma’am,” I said, totally incapable of commiserating adequately, “I am sorry for your troubles.”

She gave a sharp nod, but that heavy, corseted body did not relax for an instant. As usual, she was groomed to an inch, the blued hair precisely in place, the dress of flowered chiffon unwrinkled. Her eyes were as cold as ever, showing no signs of the strains she was enduring. How solid and craggy she was! She could have been right up there on Mount Rushmore.

“Please,” she said, gesturing, “do sit down. Would you care for a cup of tea? Coffee? Anything?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Havistock,” I said, touched by her effort to act the gracious hostess. I sat in one of those obese club chairs facing her. I found myself at a lower level, looking up at her—which, somehow, seemed right. “Actually I came to see your husband, ma’am, but Ruby tells me he’s out.”

“Yes,” she said, “he is consulting with the attorneys regarding our son Luther. I believe—we believe the boy was temporarily deranged and in need of, ah, professional help.”

“I agree completely,” I said. “The last time I saw him, I thought he was close to the breaking point.”

She stared at me. “All my children,” she said bleakly, but I didn’t understand the significance of that. She shook her massive head slightly as if to clear her mind. “What was it you wished to see my husband about?” she asked.

The question made me acutely uncomfortable. I could have faced Archibald Havistock and told him the truth without flinching. But this woman—nephew murdered, daughter an attempted suicide, son-in-law arrested for homicide, son a confessed killer—surely I could not add to her sorrows; it would be too painful, for her and for me.

She must have guessed what I was thinking because she raised her heavy chin a trifle and said, “I am stronger than you think.”

She gave me such a keen, shrewd look that, at that moment, I was certain, absolutely, positively, that she knew why I had come and what I had discovered.

“Mrs. Havistock,” I said, feeling my face suddenly flushed with confusion and embarrassment, “you’ve known all along, haven’t you?”

“Not known,” she demurred, raising a cautionary finger, “but suspected.”

I took a deep breath. What a family! Wheels within wheels.

“When I accepted your offer of employment,” I said, “I agreed that if I discovered a member of your family was involved in stealing the Demaretion, I would come to you first before going to the authorities.”

“I am aware of that,” she said calmly.

“Then why in God’s name did you hire me?” I cried out.

She touched that beehive of bluish hair. “I insisted on it because I thought you were an intelligent, persistent young woman. And perhaps because I considered that you might serve as a kind of avenging angel who would set right a wrong.” She was silent a moment. Then: “A wrong that I didn’t have the courage to set right.”

How I admired her! What a blunt, honest woman. I could understand her conflicting feelings. Suspecting but not knowing, and not really wanting to know because the final realization might mean the end of her life as mother, wife, and dutiful matriarch of this dissolute family.

“I am not an angel,” I told her. “As for avenging anyone or anything, I really have no interest in that. My initial motive for beginning the investigation was to clear my name. It was purely selfish. But then, I admit, I got caught up in the challenge of the search.”

“And now it’s at an end?” she said.

“Yes, Mrs. Havistock,” I said, “it’s at an end. I have asked Detective Al Georgio of the New York Police Department and insurance investigator John Smack to join me here. When they arrive, and when your husband returns, I think we better finish all this.”

“Yes,” she said, sighing, “it’s time. When did you begin to understand what had happened?”

“Not for quite a while. There were too many loose ends, too many false leads. Then I got this crazy idea I could scarcely believe myself. But as time went on, it began to seem more and more logical. Not logical, perhaps, but understandable.”

“Irrational!” she thundered. “Totally irrational! I should have told you my suspicions from the start. I acted like a weak woman.”

“Not weak,” I said. “Never. But you
are
a woman, wanting to protect your family, your marriage, your home. I don’t blame you. No one can blame you.”

There was a slight cough from the doorway. We looked up. Ruby Querita.

“Those two men,” she said. “They’re here.”

“Please show them in, Ruby,” Mrs. Havistock said as serenely as if she was inviting the entry of dignitaries.

Al Georgio and Jack Smack came in, bobbing their heads at us. I stood up.

“Ma’am,” I said to Mabel Havistock, “I must talk to these gentlemen, explain to them what has happened. Perhaps it would be best if I spoke to them in the hallway or another room.”

“No,” she said decisively, “you may talk to them here, in my presence. I assure you I shall not be shocked or insulted.”

“As you wish,” I said.

I waited until Al and Jack got seated, side by side on one of those awful brown velvet couches. I turned sideways in my armchair so I could address them and still not ignore Mrs. Havistock. I wanted to note her reactions to what I had to say. I spoke as directly and concisely as I could.

“For the past five years,” I said, “or perhaps more, Archibald Havistock had been having an affair with Vanessa, his son’s wife. They met in that apartment on East Sixty-fifth Street, leased by Lenore Wolfgang, Mr. Havistock’s attorney. I am sure he paid Vanessa for her sexual favors. I suppose they called the payments ‘gifts,’ but whatever you call them, she was getting a great deal of money out of him.”

I paused to glance at Mabel. Her naturally florid complexion had paled, but her lips were tightly pressed, and she made no effort to interrupt my recital.

“I have good reasons to believe,” I continued, “that Vanessa was also entertaining other men, and receiving cash ‘gifts’ from them as well. Whether Archibald was aware of those activities, I don’t know. I suspect he was, but so sexually obsessed that he could not bear to give her up. The same was true of her husband. Luther must have known where all the money was coming from, but he was in thrall to his wife and endured her unfaithfulness. But he drank heavily; it was, literally, driving him out of his mind.”

Al and Jack glanced at each other, both expressionless. Then they turned back to me. I had no idea how they were taking all this, but I supposed, being detectives, they would have a lot of questions to ask later.

“Now we come to Orson Vanwinkle,” I went on. “He came to work as private secretary to Archibald about five years ago. Being the kind of man he was, it didn’t take long for Orson to discover his boss was involved in an adulterous relationship with his daughter-in-law. So Orson began to blackmail him. To come up with the payments, Archibald had to sell off coins from his collection. The cash drain must have been horrendous. Not only was he paying Vanessa for those afternoons on East Sixty-fifth Street, but now he was paying Orson to keep his mouth shut. Do you wish to comment, ma’am?” I asked, turning to Mrs. Havistock.

“No,” she said. “I have no comment.”