The Modigliani Scandal - Ken Follett [42]
He took her arm roughly and led her over to sit on the bed. He pushed her shoulders.
Wordlessly, submissively, she lay back on the sheet and closed her eyes.
IV
DUNSFORD LIPSEY WAS ALREADY awake when the stout black telephone beside his bed rang. He picked it up, listened to the night porter′s hasty good morning, and put it down again. Then he got up and opened the window.
It looked out onto a yard, a few lockup garages, and a brick wall. Lipsey turned away and looked around his hotel room. The carpet was slightly worn, the furniture a little shabby; but the place was clean. The hotel was inexpensive. Charles Lampeth, who was paying for the investigation, would not have quibbled if Lipsey had stayed at the best hotel in Paris: but that was not Lipsey′s style.
He took off his pajama jacket, folded it on the pillow, and went to the bathroom. He thought about Charles Lampeth as he washed and shaved. Like all the clients, he was under the impression that a small army of detectives worked for the agency. In fact there were only half-a-dozen; and none of them could have done this job. That was part of the reason Lipsey was doing it himself.
But only part. The rest of the reason had something to do with Lipsey′s own interest in art, and something to do with the smell of the case. It was going to turn out to be interesting, he knew. There was an excitable girl, a lost masterpiece, and a secretive art dealer—and there would be more, much more. Lipsey would enjoy untangling the whole thing. The people in the case: their ambitions, their greed, their little personal betrayals—Lipsey would know of them all before too long. He would do nothing with the knowledge, except find the picture; but he had long ago abandoned the straightforwardly utilitarian approach to investigation. His way made it fun.
He wiped his face, rinsed his razor, and packed it away in his shaving kit. He rubbed a spot of Brylcreem into his short black hair, and combed it back, with a neat parting.
He put on a plain white shirt, a navy blue tie, and a very old, beautifully made Savile Row suit—double-breasfied, with wide lapels and a narrow waist. He had had two pairs of trousers made with the jacket, so that the suit would last a lifetime; and it showed every sign of meeting his expectations. He knew very well that it was hopelessly out of fashion, and he was utterly indifferent to the fact.
At 7:45 he went downstairs to the dining room for breakfast. The solitary waiter brought him a wide cup of thick black coffee. He decided his diet would stand bread for breakfast, but he drew the line at jam.
″Vous avez du ̗fromage̗ s′il vous plâit?″ he said.
″Oui̗ monsieur.″ The waiter went away to get the cheese. Lipsey′s French was slow, and badly accented ; but it was clearly comprehensible.
He broke a roll and buttered it sparingly. As he ate, he allowed himself to plan the day. He had only three things: a postcard, an address, and a photograph of Dee Sleign. He took the photograph out of his wallet and laid it on the white tablecloth beside his plate.
It was an amateur picture, taken apparently at some kind of family gathering—buffet tables on a lawn in the background suggested a summer wedding. The style of the girl′s dress indicated that it had been taken four or five years ago. She was laughing, and seemed to be tossing her hair back over her right shoulder. Her teeth were not well-shaped, and her open mouth was unbecoming; but a personality of gaiety and—perhaps—intelligence came through. The eyes had a turned-down look in the outer corners—the reverse of Oriental slantedness.
Lipsey took out the postcard and laid it on top of the photograph. It showed a narrow street of high, shuttered buildings. The ground floors of about half the houses had been turned into shops. It was an undistinguished street—presumably, postcard pictures of it could only be sold in the street itself. He turned it over. The girl′s handwriting told him much the same story as her photograph had. In the top left-hand corner of the reverse