The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man_ A Norman De Ratour Mystery - Alfred Alcorn [4]
I do not like to snoop among other people’s personal effects whatever my proclivities as a sleuth. Indeed, I usually would rather not know the titillating or embarrassing details of another’s life, especially if that person wants them kept private. But in this case my investigative instincts had been stirred, and I poked around for the coffee things with my antennae positively bristling.
In finding a tray, a black-lacquered affair with a stenciled rose pattern, some modern Danish mugs, a set comprising a pewter creamer and sugar bowl, antique sterling spoons with a raised monogram I couldn’t read, some Christmas cocktail napkins, and the lower half of the coffee contraption — I felt more like a butler than a detective. The place appeared utterly clueless, as, perhaps, it was.
But as I started out of the kitchen in the direction of the parlor, I noticed a wall phone with a hanging pencil and a pad of paper on the sloping shelf beneath it. The top leaf was clear but with an obvious and perhaps decipherable imprint on it. Putting the tray down, I quickly and delicately removed the square of paper and slid it into the side pocket of my jacket.
In walking back toward the parlor, I hesitated when I heard Lieutenant Tracy ask those awkward, necessary questions of one who is presumably grieving. “Can you tell me where you were yesterday evening, Ms. Bonne?”
“I was here.”
“The whole night?”
“Not all of it.”
“I see. And what time did you leave and return?”
“I left around seven thirty and returned … not long after midnight.”
“About what time?”
“One. Perhaps one thirty.”
“Was anyone else here with you?”
“No. Not when I came home.”
“And were you with someone else during the time you were away?”
“Yes.”
“Would you mind telling me who that was?”
Perhaps because I was not directly present, her hesitation seemed the more pronounced before she said, “Yes. Until I’ve spoken to him.”
I took that opportunity to make my entrance. I came into the room and put the tray down on a faux antique Sheraton coffee table. As I did so, I noticed a Pissarro over the fireplace very much like his Chaumières au Valhermeil, which I had seen in a private collection. It’s a stunning oil, with an impressionistic gauze muting the scene, a marvelous rendering of thatched cottage, curving road, stone wall, red-bonneted figure, and trees against a blighted sky. Indeed, I forgot the circumstances of our visit altogether in going up to it and examining it closely.
“When did you get this?” I asked, quite amazed.
“Oh, we just got it. It’s what Heinie calls, called, a real fake.” She got up and came around to stand beside me.
“A real fake?”
“Yes. I mean I guess somewhere along the way, a very good artisan copied the original. We have some dupes of Sargent watercolors done with permission back in the nineteen twenties. And upstairs we have a Monet done by an Italian just after World War Two that would fool an expert. They’re valuable now.”
Merissa sat back down and attended to the coffee things. She appeared to have composed herself quite well. Until, in continuing, as though her husband were still alive, she said “Heinie says …” and her face again constricted, but more, I thought, in horror than in sorrow.
Lieutenant Tracy brought us back to the grim business of murder investigation with a new line of questioning, delving gently into von Grümh’s relations with his present and past business partners. He recalled for Merissa the dispute her husband’s company had had with a local Indian group as to exactly who owned the land. There was speculation that the Native Americans in this case were fronting for a mob-based syndicate out of New Jersey that wanted to build a casino, a big gaudy thing called Pocahontas North.
Merissa prettily and tragically sipped her black coffee and shook her abundant chestnut hair. “Heinie never talked to me about his business dealings. He might have