“And now,” Parker said grimly, “we’d better see Mr Heffer.”
“Certainly.” And Appleby nodded. “In fact, we’d better catch him before he goes out to lunch.”
“Goes out to lunch!” Parker was scandalized. “Good Lord, sir! You don’t suggest that after two occasions on which–”
“It’s no good, Parker. You can’t hold him. To last night’s affair, you’ll agree, there is only one material witness – Mrs Huffkins. And Mrs Huffkins lets Heffer right out. Of course her own conduct was so extraordinary and seemingly irresponsible that she would have a rough time in the box. But there she is. As for this morning, there’s again no more than a single material witness. Of course this Quinn girl may be a confederate of Heffer’s, and the female visitor have no real existence. But the present presumption has to be that Miss Quinn is more or less speaking the truth as she sees it. She hasn’t a very nice mind, perhaps, but I doubt whether she’s a deep deceiver. And her story – together, of course, with the absence of all trace of a weapon – lets Heffer out almost as definitely as Mrs Huffkins’ story does. We’ll only embarrass the investigation at the present stage by arresting or trying to detain young Heffer. He must be kept an eye on, of course. That’s a different matter. And now we’d better go and be civil to him.”
“Civil to him!” Parker’s indignation was enhanced. “Do you remember that shout he gave last night, sir? Even if it was a joke – which it certainly was not – it could be made the subject of a charge perfectly adequate to hold him on.”
“No doubt. But he may have a more interesting career, from our point of view, if not held.”
“Well, sir – that’s a different matter.” Much mollified, Parker marched down a corridor and threw open a door. “The Commissioner,” he said impressively.
Two constables sprang to their feet. And so too, this time, did Jimmy Heffer.
But it wasn’t out of politeness. Appleby took one glance at the young man and recognized somebody to whom something had happened – something so shattering as to blot out all consideration of manners whether good or bad. Heffer had sprung up like a man whose simple instinct is to get his back to a wall and defend himself.
“Good morning, Heffer.” And Appleby gave a brisk neutral nod. “You and I do meet in the most extraordinary circumstances, do we not? If only you had managed to come to dinner last night we might be on very much more familiar terms.”
“Let me say at once that I have nothing to say to you.”
“Then you are unlike Gulliver’s secretary. She has been saying quite a lot.”
“Hysterical gibberish. If you listen to that girl, the more fools you.” Heffer had flashed this out.
“I would agree with you about the hysteria – or a certain element of it. On the gibberish I am not so sure.” Appleby paused. “Would you agree with her, by the way, that Gulliver put in a good deal of time chattering to women in his room?”
Heffer, who was now literally standing with his back to a wall, made an odd movement of recoil which brought him hard up against it.
“I say again that I have nothing to say to you. Twice within twenty-four hours I find myself standing beside a murdered man. And you arrive and ask me idle questions. Why not act? Arrest me, charge me, put me on trial. I haven’t killed anybody, but you have a sporting chance of convincing a jury that I have. And it’s your only chance, it seems to me. Because it’s evident to me that neither you yourself, nor this man Parker, nor any of your understrappers, has a clue. Not a clue.”
If these provocative remarks were in fact designed to provoke action – and they seemed to have no other function – they singularly failed. Parker and the constables seemed instantly to turn to wood. And Appleby looked entirely amiable.
“I wonder,” he said, “if you’d care to come out to lunch with me?”
If Heffer could have retreated another six inches, he would – it was possible to feel – have done so.
“And can you tell me,” he said, “why the hell I should do that?”
“Oh – for the sake of a little talk, you know. Not, I need hardly say, about these unfortunate events. The sort of talk we might have had if you had managed to dine with my wife and her guests last night. Picasso, Rembrandt – things like that.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Which of them chiefly?” Heffer asked.
“Oh, Rembrandt – without a doubt.”
“I shall be delighted to lunch with you,” Heffer said. His tone was icy. And, as he spoke, he crossed the room and picked up an umbrella and a bowler hat. It was against this very hat, and in this very room – Appleby remembered – that there had been perched the enigmatical painting produced by the girl who called herself Astarte Oakes.
“Astarte Oakes?” Heffer said half an hour later. The hand with which he was scooping out Stilton seemed perfectly steady. And his voice was perfectly steady too. “Yes, I remember the name.”
“She brought a picture, which was examined by Gulliver and yourself?”
“Yes, she did. And we both looked at the thing. I remember the occasion very well.”
“Do you, indeed?” Appleby looked hard at the young man. “One would certainly expect you to. It can scarcely be described as an incident in the remote past, you know.”
“No?” For the first time, Heffer’s tone was momentarily uncertain. “Perhaps it seems to me a very long time ago.”
“You inspected the picture. I think you may also be said to have inspected the girl?”
Heffer raised his eyebrows slightly. The effect was to suggest that a man doesn’t use expressions of that sort in speaking to a comparative stranger whom he has invited to lunch at his club.
“Inspected the girl?” Heffer said. “Is this some story which you had from Gulliver?”
“Gulliver happened to give me an account of certain events which had perplexed or struck him. He was struck, apparently, by this unknown Miss Oakes. She was strikingly beautiful or handsome?”
“Beautiful? Handsome?” Heffer looked at Appleby in urbane surprise. “Good Lord, no! She was a dim little creature, as far as I remember. No looks at all.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“We take coffee in another room,” Appleby said. “But would you care for a glass of port with this cheese?”
“Thank you, no. But the cheese is excellent. We have nothing as good in my place.” Another silence followed this polite exchange. “How very odd of Gulliver,” Heffer then said. “To say that about Miss…Oakes, was it?”
“Oakes.”
“He liked building up a bit of a romance, did poor Gulliver. I expect he made quite something out of the girl’s picture, as well.”
“Out of the Rembrandt? He was certainly much struck with it – as I understand you were too.”
“Did you say Rembrandt?” Heffer sat back and laughed – a little too loudly for some of his neighbours. “And what sort of a Rembrandt did the old boy say it was? A Saskia? A Hendrickje Stoffels? A landscape? A fancy dress scriptural affair?”
Appleby made no reply, and this time the silence prolonged itself notably.
“In point of fact,” Heffer said, “what the girl brought in was an eighteenth-century family portrait. I remember thinking for a moment that it might be by Mason Chamberlin, who is a notable painter in an odd eclectic way. But it wasn’t. It was simply unknown work of no particular significance or interest.”
Appleby nodded absently. He was signing his bill.
“Do you know,” he said, as he rose, “that unknown work fascinates me? I just hate leaving off until I have discovered the responsible hand. Shall we move on for that coffee?”
But if Jimmy Heffer was hard to rattle – Appleby reflected as he led the way to the smoking-room – it wasn’t because the young man was in any sense unperturbed. It was rather as if he had been, so to speak, perturbed once and for all; it was as if something had so decisively happened to him that nothing could really ever happen to him again. And he hadn’t been like this last night. The death of Jacob Trechmann had confronted him with some sort of crisis, put him in some sort of dilemma. But he hadn’t been then, as he indefinably but assuredly was now, a man to whom there had happened the kind of thing that happens for keeps. It was the death of Gulliver, not the death of Trechmann, that had taken Heffer across some mysterious Rubicon.
“Would you care for a cigar?” Appleby enquired politely, when the coffee had appeared before them.
“No, thank you.” And Heffer accepted a cigarette. “After all,” he murmured ironically, “we mustn’t overdo things, must we? Even on an expense account footed by Her Majesty’s Government.”
“As you please. But I don’t know that you need really boggle at a cigar. Has it occurred to you that Her Majesty’s Government may soon feel obliged to foot a considerably larger bill on your behalf?”
Heffer set his coffee cup down carefully.
“Meaning?” he said.
“Oh, come!” Appleby smiled and made a slight gesture with his hands. “You’re not disputing, are you, that at this moment you are heading straight for a very substantial term of imprisonment?”
The mildness of this did have its effect. Heffer turned perceptibly pale. He stubbed out the cigarette, produced a cigarette case, and lit one of his own. It was only when this symbolical action had been achieved that he spoke.
“Do you commonly,” he asked, “accompany your hospitality with conversation of this kind?”
“Of course not.” Appleby spoke quite simply now. “I’ve just been hoping, you see, that a combination of privacy and shock tactics might induce a little wholesome frankness in your attitude to these mysterious events. I’d like to have your idea of why Trechmann was killed, and–”
“I have no idea of why Trechmann was killed.”
“You haven’t?” Appleby looked at Heffer curiously – but not at all as one who disbelieves. “That may be so. But at least you are aware of activities of Trechmann’s to which he didn’t – well, give much publicity.”
“I am nothing of the sort.”
“I confess to a slight scepticism on that point. As for Miss Oakes, either Gulliver told me what is not true yesterday, or you have told me what is not true today. Your accounts are irreconcilable.”
“Oh, impressions vary, you know – and memory is notoriously fallible.”
“That, if I may say so, is merely frivolous. You agree with Gulliver only on three material points: that the girl appeared, claimed the name of Astarte Oakes, and produced a picture. And these, as it happens, are the three points upon which irrefutable testimony exists. The girl presented herself, stated her business, and wrote her name – or wrote a name – in a book. The vital point, of course, is the nature of the picture. Only you and Gulliver saw it. But how many people heard of it?”
“You for a start, it seems.”
“Quite so. And for a finish, too. That appears to be what you are banking on, Heffer. Isn’t it rather a big risk?”
“I don’t understand you.”
“If I had to recount in a witness box what Gulliver told me about that picture, it might be suggested that my memory was at fault, or that my evidence was for some other reason quite inaccurate. But what if he told this story to other friends? You are simply gambling on the supposition that he did not.”
“I totally fail to comprehend you.”
“I don’t think so. Shall I give you my sketch of the situation?”
Heffer took a watch from his waistcoat pocket and consulted it.
“As you please,” he said in his most icy manner.
“Thank you. It may really save us time later. The picture was brought to you and you had a look at it. At once you went across to Gulliver, and he went back with you to your room. Neither of you had the slightest doubt that here was a Rembrandt – a painting of quite enormous value.”
“I tell you–”
“Very well, Heffer. For the moment let it be a Mason Chamberlin – or rather not a Mason Chamberlin, but something entirely unknown and insignificant. At least, you call in the young lady. She is shown into the presence of the Director and his assistant. I don’t think she had ever seen Gulliver before, but I am quite sure that she had seen you. No, don’t interrupt. You knew each other – but the girl had come in with no suspicion that here was your job and that she might run into you. So you were both a little disconcerted. Gulliver, as it happens, wasn’t really aware of all this, since the picture, whatever its authorship or merits, was continuing to absorb him. But the fact, I may say, somehow seeped through his narrative.”
Heffer’s eyes had narrowed on Appleby. They showed cold through a haze of cigarette smoke.
“Continue,” he said.
“This girl had given a false name and a false address – and for the purpose of getting an expert opinion on something that might be worth a fortune. She was naturally perturbed when she found herself identified by you. But you didn’t give her away. To begin with, that may have been pure chivalry. There was this fact, of course, that she was astoundingly beautiful.”
“She was as dim as a mouse.”
“She was astoundingly beautiful. But now she took both her astounding beauty and her astounding picture out of your gallery with the greatest celerity. You didn’t mind, because you knew where to find her – or at least to hunt for her. You set about the job next day – suddenly taking a chunk of a holiday due to you for the purpose.” Appleby paused for a moment. “Now, let us suppose that the Rembrandt was not, in fact, the legal property of this young person–”
“I consider that to be a derogatory and offensive expression.” Heffer had interrupted stonily. “She was a lady, and she had better be referred to with proper respect.”
Appleby stared. It was, for some reason, a long time since he had felt so surprised.
“This dim mouse?” he asked.
Heffer’s pale face was momentarily suffused with a flush.
“Yes,” he said – stonily still – “this dim mouse.”
“Very well. Suppose this girl was not the owner of the Rembrandt, and suppose that she wanted to make money out of it. This would be feasible only if certain circumstances obtained. The true proprietor must be ignorant or indifferent as to whether this canvas – perhaps thought of as without value – were still in his possession or not. He must never become aware of some big deal in the picture market which he might identify with this particular hitherto disregarded possession. Do I make myself clear?”
“Quite as clear as most romancers contrive to be. Go on.”
“Very well. I am inclined to conjecture that an incontestably and self-evidently genuine Rembrandt of the first order which had no provenance – no known previous history – could be put on the market easily enough. A story could be told about it when asked for, and nobody would bother very much. What would interest a purchaser would simply be the unhesitating endorsement of all the greatest authorities on the painter. So a Rembrandt out of the blue, so to speak, would be easy money. But suppose it couldn’t be brought forward quite out of the blue and with some simple and convenient fiction attached to it. Suppose there was one man who had seen it before, and who could provide it with a scrap of authentic provenance. And suppose that that man happened to occupy a professional position such that a great Rembrandt couldn’t possibly be publicly sold without his becoming aware of it, and inspecting it either in the original or in a reproduction. A Sir Gabriel Gulliver, in fact. How awkward that might be.”
“Awkward?” Heffer said.
“Oh, come.” Appleby paused and smiled. “I’m afraid, you know, that I’m always saying ‘Oh, come.’ But you do ask for it. For you can’t maintain that you’re not really following me.”
“Very true. I’m not so much following you as preceding you, Sir John. I feel rather like some tolerably mobile creature moving through a fantastic jungle, and hearing a somewhat out-of-condition elephant crashing along behind. A policemanly elephant, but one belonging to the best clubs. Go on going on.”
“Very well. I continue to crash. The question is: Ought something to be done about Gulliver? Ought Gulliver to be squared?”
Heffer gave another of the laughs that were just a shade too loud.
“The jungle becomes a bog,” he said. “And the elephant goes down with a plop. For a moment there is the tip of a trunk, and then only a few bubbles before all is still. You can’t imagine that anybody would seriously contemplate ‘squaring’, as you call it, the Director of the–”
“There might be differing views. There was something lurkingly vulnerable, something not quite stable, about Sir Gabriel Gulliver. Intelligence – or could it rather be intuition? – might bank upon that. And the brute order of money involved is a factor. One hears of £30,000, or £50,000, or $200,000 being bid for pretty well nothing at all – a canvas painted five years ago by a fellow with the output of a high-efficiency marine engine, or fifty years ago by somebody who went to tea with your grandmother.”
“Very true,” Heffer said. “We’ve found something to agree about at last.”
“And an Old Master of the first quality, provided it engages the interest of the right competitors, may fetch such a sum that a mere rake-off from the total would rate as a substantial private fortune.”
This time Heffer was silent.
“So we mustn’t laugh out of court the notion of squaring Gabriel Gulliver. One might indulge it. One might feel one had glimpsed some weakness in the man. One might go forward on that basis. And one might find, too late, that one had been all wrong.”
“Too late?” Heffer said. He was now as pale as a sheet.
“Just that. One might have burned one’s boats.”
“And then?”
“Well – something rather definitive might happen.”
“And then?” Heffer had stood up, like a man who is about to take his leave.
Appleby got up too, and led his guest from the room.
“To that one,” he said, “the answer can only come from you.”
“One would have to fight,” Heffer said. He spoke with a quiet, cold finality, which was yet oddly touching. “There would be nothing for it but that.”