The Mysterious Mickey Finn (4 page)

‘Just to be his wife. That's all I ask.'

‘I can't promise anything, but I'll do the best I can. Meanwhile you must go away....'

‘I can't. I wouldn't dare.'

‘Only for two weeks. If you are right, and he needs you so much, he'll miss you. He'll appreciate all the little things you've been doing for him. I can talk with him more freely if you are not on the scene. You must leave at once. To-night. You have money? ...'

‘Of course, I have money. But he won't let me spend a cent of it.'

‘All right. Take the next train for London. Don't leave a note, don't tell him you're going. When you come back ...'

‘When I come back I'll find another woman, some fat, shameless creature who doesn't care whether he paints or not....'

‘That's the only thing I'll promise you definitely. There'll be no other woman on the premises when you return....'

‘I'll do it,' Maggie said, desperately. And as Ambrose Gring came through the doorway she repeated, more wildly: ‘I'll do it. But I won't stop at murder….'

‘Calm yourself,' said Evans, sharply.

‘Remember what I say, and I mean it. There's nothing I won't do.' And she rushed distractedly out the doorway.

‘Ah, Gring,' said Evans, cordially. ‘Have a drink with me. I haven't had a talk with you in ages.'

‘A
FRIEND
of mine, who admires you very much, was asking for you to-day,' said Evans, in his most charming manner. Ambrose, who, had he been contemporary with Narcissus, would have outstripped the latter so far that the famous piano piece would have been named Ambrose and not Narcissus, turned pale with delight and astonishment.

‘Not Hugo Weiss?' he gasped.

‘Oh, no. I haven't heard from Hugo, although he usually calls whenever he's in town,' Evans said.

‘Hugo Weiss calls on you?' Ambrose gasped. ‘He actually looks you up?'

‘I put him on to a good thing, once, or at least I saved him from wasting a lot of money. It was a matter of a fake El Greco….'

At that Gring almost fainted. ‘A fake El Greco,' he repeated, reaching for water. ‘You didn't say a fake El Greco?'

Utterly unable to understand his companion's alarm at the mention of the Cretan-Spanish master, Evans changed the subject at once.

‘I wasn't thinking of Hugo Weiss but of Miriam Leonard,' he said quickly.' You surely remember Miriam, the good-looking young girl from Montana.'

‘Miriam Leonard,' Gring repeated, still in a daze.

‘Her father has struck oil,' said Evans, and the change in Gring was little short of miraculous. His dark eyes shone, his thin lips parted in a dizzy sort of smile. He clasped his hands in a prayerful way and gasped. ‘Struck oil! Why that means millions.... And she spoke of me?'

‘You were the only one she talked about. She gave no other reason for returning to Paris, although perhaps I shouldn't have told you. She's bashful, really timid, you know. Was raised on a ranch. That makes girls shy. An only daughter, too…. Well,' he paused to look at the clock, ‘I must be going. So long Gring. No doubt I'll see you later....'

Gring was out on his feet, or rather, on his bar stool. He made a feeble attempt to clutch at Evans' departing sleeve, made a hesitant start to follow him when the bar-tender's voice brought him back to earth with an unpleasant thud.

‘Twenty-two francs fifty,' the bar-tender said. He knew he could put the amount on Evans' monthly bill but he preferred to get it out of Gring, if he could. The bar-tender at the Dingo didn't have much fun, especially in the springtime, and almost never had a chance to separate Ambrose Gring from any of his francs.

‘Oh, dear. Oh, my God,' Ambrose said, and gazed despondently through the empty doorway in the direction of Evans' back. There was nothing to do but to pay. He couldn't afford to offend Evans, or even to lose a jot or tittle of his newly-acquired esteem…. Oil.... Millions…. ‘Well, you needn't be so impatient. I'm not going to run away with your old twenty-two francs fifty. So there now,' Gring said, and with that he stamped a well-shod foot, took a leather change purse from the pocket nearest his heart and counted out exactly twenty-two francs fifty. Miriam owed him twenty-two fifty, was the mental note he made as he handed over the coins. Gring never placed coins on a plate or a table. He delivered them personally, with proper regard for their nature and their magic properties. Once the operation of payment was over, he wiped his brow with a mauve silk handkerchief and hurried out into the evening, jostling passers-by as he desperately sought a glimpse of Homer Evans. Every strange girl looked western to him, and he paused, his jaw dropped, his eyes grew bright with anticipation when one by one the regulars of the sidewalk, whom in his perturbation Gring failed to recognize, said:' ‘'ello,
chérie'
or ‘
Où allez-vous, cher Monsieur?'

Meanwhile Evans was approaching the Select, where Miriam was waiting demurely at one of the tables in the rear of the
terrasse.
In order to be sure that she would not be ogled or annoyed by night-faring tourists she was pretending to read a copy of the
Saturday Review of Literature,
Actually she was thinking: ‘He's coming. He's really coming. I'm not sorry I hurried back to Paris. I don't care if they stop making pianos to-morrow. He didn't seem to dislike me. He didn't throw me out.'

‘Am I late?' Evans asked.

The clock on the nearby tower began to strike, so an answer was unnecessary.

‘I was early,' she said, apologetically.

‘I've involved you in a conspiracy,' he said.

How pleased she was that he didn't try to talk about the piano. How marvellously tactful to plunge her at once into another line of thought, she said to herself.

‘You are very thoughtful,' she said.

‘You won't think so when I tell you about it,' he went on. ‘But first, let's order something to eat. I'm starved. I've done more meddling into other people's affairs to-day than in all my life together.'

‘In what way can I help you?' she asked.

‘I warn you that the assignment is a tough one. You've got to immobilize Ambrose Gring… you've got to hold him like a bird before a snake....'

Her dismay was eloquent. ‘That lizard ! What on earth have I to do with Ambrose Gring?'

‘I've got to be certain that he doesn't leave his table on the Dôme
terrasse
between the hours of eleven this evening and one to-morrow morning,' Evans said. ‘It's a matter of life and death, almost.'

‘Would it be asking too much if I begged for an inkling as to why I should immobilize that scissorbill, and if not why, at least how? He never has even so much as glanced at me. I'm not in Bradstreet, worse luck, and although I've paid little attention to your friend Ambrose I'm sure he's fond of money. Of course, I'm stronger than he is, but if I hold him forcibly in place won't he scream? Wouldn't the police interfere, or the waiters? I'd have to give them some explanation.'

‘I've attended to all that,' Evans said. ‘I've already told Gring that your father just struck oil.'

‘Oh,' she gasped. ‘You've told him that.'

‘I've taken an even greater liberty,' Evans went on. ‘I hinted that you had come back to Paris expressly on his account, that you like him, that he ... er ... fascinates you.'

Miriam half rose, then regained a part of her former placidity. ‘Mr Evans,' she said, severely, ‘if anyone, but you had done such a trick, I would crown him with this siphon and leave town.'

‘Please let me explain....'

‘Well. That's a relief. You're going to explain.'

Rapidly and succinctly he told her about Hjalmar Jansen's predicament and the remedy he himself had suggested. Her hearty but not boisterous laugh caused neighbouring drinkers to glance at the handsome couple, all except Harold Stearns, who was taking his drinking with the usual appropriate seriousness and thinking about the Atlantic Ocean because it was between him and prohibition in the United States.

‘I'll do the best I can, but how does one strike oil? I've got to haves a factual background, or Ambrose will smell a rat.'

‘He won't find it strange that you've taken a fancy to him. It will seem to him quite normal. Whenever he gets you on dangerous ground talk about money. You must have seen large sums of it in mints or banks. But above all, don't mention Hugo Weiss and if you see any of the neighbouring painters dashing toward Hjalmar's studio with canvases under their arms rivet Gring's attention.'

‘If only it were anyone except Gring,' she sighed. ‘However, I'll try.'

They had finished their dinner, there was an hour to spare, so Evans suggested a drive around the lake in the Bois. His favourite taxi driver, Lvov Kvek, former colonel in the recent army of the late Tsar, was not in line so they strolled back and forth along the sidewalk between the Select and the Rotonde, enjoying the contrast between the chorus of American voices on the
terrasse
of the former and the Scandinavian inflexions which poured from the latter. Rug peddlers with fezzes and brightly coloured wares walked to and fro in a half-hearted way, a fire-eater filled his mouth with gasolene, sprayed it out and lighted it, long-haired sketch artists with portfolios braced likely groups of tourists and were enjoying a fairly brisk trade. The foliage of the trees showed yellow-green around the street lamps. Montparnasse was hitting its evening stride of those un-forgetful days gone by when mankind was dancing without thought of the fiddler's recompense.

As Miriam walked beside Evans, he was pleased to note that she could keep in step. He was telling her about Lvov Kvek, about his escape via Constantinople, his days of starvation in Paris because he was proud and spoke no French and his final triumph over economic problems in the Hôtel Voltaire. It seemed that when Lvov was at the lowest ebb of his fortune he had noticed an old engraving on the wall of his narrow hotel room. He had hidden it under his coat, sold it for three hundred francs on the quai (it was worth much more) and then for three francs had bought a modern engraving to replace it. Each week, until he learned enough French to make his living with a taxi, ex-colonel Kvek has asked the manager to give him another room. He was nervous, he said, and couldn't sleep more than a week in any room. The manager was obliging and thus the engravings in room after room were changed without anyone except Lvov being the wiser. It was Evans' custom to use Lvov's taxi whenever he had a long errand and when it drove up he helped Miriam in and exchanged a few pleasant words with the resourceful Russian. From that moment until they returned to Montparnasse Evans said almost no words at all and when, half way around the lake, he noticed he was holding Miriam's hand, he continued to do so, to soften the ordeal with Gring which was to be her lot that evening.

It was not hard for them to locate Ambrose. He was almost in a state of collapse, stumbling from
terrasse
to
terrasse
in search of Evans and the oil princess of Montana. He looked more haggard than the rug peddlers, for, being of a suspicious nature, he had been shaken with the fear that Evans might have thought over the girl's possibilities and that, even as Ambrose hustled from
café
to
café,
Homer might be trying to steal her affections and her millions. His relief, when confronted by Evans and Miriam, can better be imagined than described. He leaned against a plane tree, clutched his coat lapels and an ivory
café crême
hue spread quickly over his rapturous countenance.

‘It's you,' said Miriam, and looked straight into his eyes.

‘Glub glub,' he answered as he struggled for words and for strength to sustain himself without the aid of the tree. What followed amounted to mesmerism. The girl drew Ambrose toward the
terrasse
of the Dôme and, by much squeezing and willowy hip weaving, got him seated with his back to the sidewalk. Evans, unable to hold back his laughter, had made a hasty retreat.

Meanwhile, across the boulevard Montparnasse trudged a solitary figure, a red-headed English girl with enormous feet and a large suitcase, hoping for a last secret look at Hjalmar Jansen before she started on her lonely pilgrimage. Luckily for the success of plan ‘a', she did not see Hjalmar, who was in a secluded corner of the Rotonde with a tall Swedish actress. He had kept his promise anent the grape. He even had kept track of the hour. But Hjalmar had ten minutes to spare and his dynamic nature, further aroused by the prospect of a Maggie-less fifteen days, demanded stimulation of some sort and Jansen was not the man to thwart himself, if he could help it.

T
HE
picture-signing bee went off without a hitch, although Hjalmar had a rather narrow escape from painter's cramp. The next morning, Evans, true to his promise, called on Hugo Weiss at the Plaza Athénée and was surprised to find that Gring had been there before him.

‘Come right in, Mr Evans,' boomed the hearty voice of Hugo Weiss. The multi-millionaire was clad in pyjamas and slippers, covered in part by a loose dressing gown of Persian brocade. The remains of a sumptuous German breakfast were spread on a table near the bedside, a stack of unopened mail rested loosely on the floor. There was no valet in the offing, although Weiss's clothes were ranged neatly in the spacious closet. Except for the breakfast dishes and unopened mail, the large, sunny room was in order.

‘I was afraid I might be too late,' Evans said. ‘All the biographers of American millionaires would have us believe that they are at their desks by eight-thirty, or at least nine o'clock.'

‘In the first place, I'm not American; I'm cosmopolitan. Secondly, I'm not a millionaire, but a multi-millionaire. And I never have had a desk… I'm really glad to see you. Where have you been all this time? You saved me, young man, from making a fool of myself... from being laughed at by that hypocrite, T. Prosper Stables….'