4

“I thought—in all politeness—that the least I could do in return for your failure to close the car window was to buy you a good lunch,” Alex DuPaul said with a smile.

It was a week following their previous encounter and he and Kek were seated in the Blue Room of the Chambord Restaurant in the Rue de la Loi back in Brussels, having just finished an excellent meal. There are those who claim the cuisine in the Green Room of the Chambord is superior, but since no alcohol is permitted in the Green Room—a fiat dating from some long-forgotten scandal of the sixteenth century—the Green Room normally caters to gentlewomen visiting the city, or to young ladies being escorted to matinees by their younger brothers. The Blue Room, on the other hand—in those bleak days of 1948—was mostly peopled by the growing number of entrepreneurs who handled the banking and other businesses so vital to a country recovering from a disastrous war; and these gentlemen obviously needed their cocktails if they were to save the country.

DuPaul drew his case of black cigars from his pocket, offering one to his companion, but Huuygens politely refused, preferring one of his own cigarettes. The two men lit up, the black smoke mingling with the blue, and leaned back in their comfortable chairs, idly fingering their brandy glasses. Either in honor of his guest or because the Blue Room maintains rigid standards (as does the Green Room as well, of course), DuPaul had managed a haircut and even wore a neat cravat and dress shirt. His moustache, however, still retained its independence.

“Thank you for a most delightful lunch,” Kek said, and meant it.

The luncheon had indeed been a delight. To Huuygens’ amazement, DuPaul was far more cognizant of matters of art than he had suspected, and the two men had left other matters to be discussed after their food had been enjoyed. Now, however, that they were relaxing with their tobacco and cognac, Kek brought up a subject both men had left untouched during their meal, as if by mutual consent.

“I hope,” he said casually, “that my unfortunate failure to close the car window did not lead our fat friend in Madrid to suffer anything irremediable? Because of his in-discretion?”

His tone was light, but his eyes were quite serious.

“Nothing physical,” DuPaul said, and smiled. “In my profession one has sufficient problems with the police—as well as sufficient enemies—without creating others needlessly.”

“Good!”

“However,” DuPaul continued, his green eyes twinkling wickedly, “I’m afraid he suffered something much worse than the beating he deserved for what you so lightly term a mere ‘indiscretion.’ His pocketbook underwent the pangs of starvation.”

“But I thought the customer was his?”

DuPaul wiped ash from his cigar and laughed, but there was no humor there.

“Thwaite is a fool! His customer was an overly rich idiot who would have blabbed about his secret Hals to every acquaintance he had, probably including the commissioner of police. I had little trouble persuading Thwaite to give me his name. I knew the man.” He shook his head in disgust. “Had I known who Thwaite wanted to sell the painting to in the first place, we could have all been saved a lot of trouble!”

“But—?”

DuPaul grinned. “So I simply offered my services as intermediary between the insurance company and the naughty people who stole the painting, and was fortunate enough to be rewarded by them twice.” He shrugged. “As you said, one has one’s pride, especially in doing a good job. And being properly paid for it, of course.”

“And Thwaite? He’ll keep quiet?”

DuPaul’s grin disappeared; his voice hardened.

“He’ll keep quiet, and be very happy to. He was lucky to get his fare back to England and enough to pull him out of the red.” The grin suddenly returned. “Do you know what he said to me?”

“No. What?”

“He said, as if it somehow excused what he had done—that was the kind of tone he used—he said, ‘But I’ve just paid two thousand pounds to Huuygens to bring the picture into the country. And he brought it in.’ He was almost weeping. I said to him, ‘If you did, you’re a fool, but I don’t believe you in any event. I’m positive Huuygens didn’t bring the picture through customs!’”

“How could he believe you?” Kek said, enjoying the tale.

“He couldn’t, of course. That’s what made it so pleasurable.” He looked across the table, serious now. “You see, that was our big argument in the first place. To give the fat man credit, possibly he would have stayed honest—though probably he would not—had I agreed with him to use your services in the first place. But I was sure we didn’t need them. And I proved it.”

“You did very well,” Kek said with a smile. “I’m afraid I underestimated you.”

“But scarcely as much as I underestimated you,” DuPaul said dryly. “Anyway, that’s what happened to our friend Thwaite. Nothing that a bit of honesty on his next job won’t cure.”

He raised his drink in a mock toast to Thwaite’s honesty on his next job. Kek raised his as well.

“I hope you gave him enough to at least buy a new suit,” he said, and drank.

DuPaul finished his drink, wiped his moustache fastidiously, and then pointed to the two empty glasses. Their waiter tremblingly picked them up and moved toward the bar as fast as his eighty years would permit. At the Chambord he was considered a young man among the staff.

“Tell me,” DuPaul said, suddenly changing the subject as if weary of Thwaite, or even the memory of him, “you’ve spent a lot of time in America lately, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Kek said. “Actually, I’ve applied for citizenship. I’m only here for a few months. We’re borrowing the apartment of a traveling friend.”

“We?”

“Yes,” Kek said, and smiled. “I’m an old married man, now. All of three months.”

DuPaul suddenly snapped his fingers. “Of course! You’re married to Lisa Nieuport, the actress. I read about it someplace.” He waved his hand vaguely, dismissing that subject as well. “What’s it like?”

“It’s lovely,” Kek said amazed. “What did you expect?”

DuPaul grinned. “No, no! I mean America. What’s it like?”

Kek accommodated himself to the sudden shift in conversation.

“Very nice. Of course it’s a gigantic country, the size of Europe, practically, and I don’t even know a small part of it. I live in New York and I like that very much, although even in the few years I’ve been there it has changed. I have a sad feeling that in time it will approximate all big cities, and be unlivable,” he said with far more prophecy than he knew. “But in the meantime, it’s fine. For one thing,” he added, “the money remains stable, which is a pleasant change from the Continent.”

DuPaul grinned and nodded.

“I know what you mean. In Europe it’s quite different. Look around you.” He turned his head as he spoke, swinging his arm to demonstrate, smoke trailing from the cigar in his fingers. “Look at the men at all these tables. If you could listen to them you’d find their conversations are following the rigid ritual of a tribal dance, where every partner automatically knows the steps of the other and executes them perfectly.” He puffed on his small cigar almost excitedly, emitting reeking fumes, arranging his ideas, his eyes sparkling as his thoughts clicked into neat patterns. Satisfied, he continued:

“They begin their meal with a discussion of the Belgian franc—a matter of national pride, if not of much else. This handles the tucking in of the napkin and the ordering of the martini. It’s the overture to the dance, you might say. Then they move, almost with rhythm, to the solidity of the Swiss currency—this generally coincides with the fish course. The British pound sterling handles the chop; and they always end up talking about the American dollar with the flan.”

Huuygens laughed. “And with the after-dinner brandy?”

“Then they discuss what the others might be discussing at the other tables,” DuPaul said, and spread his hands. “As we are doing. What else?”

“You’re quite right, you know.” Kek’s laughter disappeared, replaced with a touch of sadness. “I can remember when one saw a man and a girl walking together with their arms twined about each other and their heads touching in intimacy, you could be positive they were discussing marriage, or at least talking about love—”

“Or going to bed,” Alex suggested.

“Which is the same thing. And, believe it or not, that’s the way it still is in the States. But over here one can’t be sure at all. In fact, the chances are quite different. You see a man and a girl close together over here today, and the chances are they’re discussing foreign exchange, or lost documents, or temporary resident papers for England or Portugal, or something of that nature.”

“Too true. Still, of course, people weren’t shoved around America the way they were over here.” DuPaul lifted his hands from the table so their waiter could shakily put their glasses down. Fortunately, they were balloon glasses and did not spill. He made a scribbling motion with one hand, requesting the check. “It’s a pity what’s happened in Europe …”

“More than a pity,” Kek said somberly. “A tragedy.”

“Yes.” DuPaul shrugged. “The war … Still, I suppose we’re lucky to be alive.” He raised his glass. “A votre santé.”

“And yours.”

The two men sipped their cognac in silence. DuPaul crushed out his cigar and lit another; Kek thought of Lisa waiting for him at home and decided to forgo a cigarette at the moment. DuPaul happened to glance over Kek’s shoulder as he brought his match to the cigar; he lit it and shook the vesta out absently, bending forward, lowering his voice.

“Speaking of the tragedies connected with foreign exchange”—their talk had not exactly covered that particular angle, but it was close enough—“here comes a prime example. Who also happens to be our benefactor, or at least one of them.”

“Benefactor?”

“Don’t look now. Possibly you can catch him in the mirror back of me. He’s the young fellow just being seated in the corner near the entrance, by the rubber plant. With the straw-colored hair brushed sideways.”

Kek stared over DuPaul’s shoulder into the faintly stained mirror there in time to see a rather handsome blond young man being seated. The young man turned to speak to the waiter, probably to order a drink; Kek could see a rather sharp nose and small eyes that somehow detracted from the first impression of handsomeness. The mouth was also small, with thin lips. Still, Kek thought, women would find no objection to his appearance; he was athletically built, extremely well dressed, and looked well financed. He brought his attention back to his companion.

“And how is he one of our benefactors?”

“Among other things, he’s one of the trustees of the Clouet Gallery,” DuPaul explained. “My own guess is that he doesn’t know an original oil painting from a”—he grinned—“well, a wall-calendar, let us say. However, it’s his contribution to Belgian culture and we really shouldn’t be nasty.”

“You shouldn’t, of all people.”

“You’re right. He handled the insurance for the Clouet.” DuPaul smiled.

“Who is he?”

“His name is Vries Waldeck.”

“Of Waldeck Imports?”

“The same. The son, of course,” DuPaul said, and wiped ash from his cigar. “Actually the only son and heir. And the owner of the business, since the old man died.”

“I assumed it was the son,” Kek said sardonically. “The old man was well into his seventies when he passed on. I read it in the papers; it even made New York, you know. But I was under the impression the son had sold the business and gone off to live in America.”

“He’d love to,” DuPaul said quietly, and smiled, twisting the stem of his brandy glass, watching the amber liquid swirl under the motion. “He would adore to. Remember what I said before about the tragedy of foreign exchange? Vries Waldeck is the perfect example.”

“And his tragedy?”

“Five million dollars,” Alex DuPaul said, the sum making his tone almost reverent, and then corrected his statement. “Sorry; not five million dollars. The equivalent of five million dollars in Belgian francs. Roughly, close to a quarter of a billion francs.”

“A great tragedy,” Kek agreed. He could not hold back a faint smile. “How does one go about acquiring a tragedy of those dimensions?”

“One prays to God one never faces it. Don’t laugh,” DuPaul said. “I’m serious.” He puffed on his cigar and wiped ash into his ashtray. “His problem is that he would like to leave Belgium and move to America on a permanent basis, but the government won’t permit him to exchange any of his holdings here—which I understand he has pretty much converted into cash—into dollars.”

Kek frowned across the table. “But, surely—”

Alex DuPaul shrewdly and accurately read the other’s thoughts.

“No,” he said quietly, shaking his head decisively. “The most the black market would offer him was twenty-five percent. One-quarter to him in American dollars, and the balance of three-quarters of the Belgian francs they would keep. And actually, as things stand today, it wasn’t such a bad offer.” He saw the look of doubt on Kek’s face and nodded. “It’s true. I know, because I was asked by the group he approached if I wanted any part of it.”

“And you didn’t?”

“No. To begin with, it isn’t my line of work. And besides,” he added with a smile, “it wouldn’t have made any difference if I had, because Waldeck wasn’t having any part of it.”

“And I don’t blame him,” Kek said. “Twenty-five percent!”

DuPaul shrugged. “I’m not so sure. Nobody knows what’s going to happen to the currency here. It could go to ten to one, and then where would the group be? Or fifty to one—or a million to one, the way it did in Germany after the first war.”

“Except Germany lost that war,” Kek pointed out.

DuPaul smiled at him. “I like you, Kek. I like your innocence. Who do you think lost this war? Who do you think won it?” He studied the other sardonically. “Have you tried to get a decent meal in England? And this is three years after 1945, remember. Have you even tried to get some heat in your room in England? They’ll have a million excuses, but coal they won’t have. You have to go to Berlin for coal—the Americans are flying it in. While we’re talking. Or to Dublin for an egg, for that matter.”

He crushed his cigar to extinction, taking some of his irritation out on the innocent stub. His voice was bitter.

“Who won the war? It’s a good question. All I know is that if Waldeck had offered German marks instead of Belgian francs, the group would have made him a much more attractive offer. And I may even have taken a piece, even though it isn’t my line.” He thought a moment. “Also, of course, the government is getting tough with the black market. There is growing danger in being involved in such transactions, from either side.”

“Still,” Huuygens said thoughtfully, “even twenty-five percent of five million dollars is a lot of money.” He unconsciously reached into his pocket and brought out a cigarette, tapping it on the table, calculating. DuPaul leaned over with a lighter, lighting it. Kek nodded his thanks absently. “That’s a million and a quarter dollars. A person can manage to struggle along very nicely on a sum like that in the States today. Invested in almost anything, the return would be in the nature of at least a hundred thousand dollars a year …”

“Except that you don’t know the Waldeck family.” DuPaul almost snorted. “The old man was bad enough, but this one? The son? This Vries? He makes the old man look like a philanthropist. He’d cut his own throat—not to mention yours, naturally—before he’d give away three-quarters of his fortune.” He brought his glass to his lips and finished his drink. His eyes fixed on Kek’s face as he tilted the balloon glass to its apex and then slowly brought the glass down. He paused, thinking.

“Now, there’s a thought,” he said slowly. “Why don’t you sell your services? Offer him to get his money out? You’ve gotten about every other thing across one border or another, as I hear. Why not the Vries Waldeck fortune?” He was smiling.

To his surprise, Huuygens didn’t smile in return.

“It’s really not a bad idea,” he said thoughtfully, toying with his brandy glass. “Off course, just getting the money out of the country—physically, that is, in the form of paper currency—without bothering with customs or currency control; that wouldn’t be any great chore—”

“No?”

“No.” Kek suddenly smiled at the other. “You could probably do it yourself, given a big enough umbrella—but that wouldn’t really solve Mr. Waldeck’s problem. For one thing, it wouldn’t turn the francs into dollars, and for another, it wouldn’t release him from his obligation not to exchange francs for foreign currency, which his government seems to have placed on him …”

He frowned at the tablecloth, sighed, and drank the balance of his brandy. His cigarette burned itself into a column of ash in the ashtray, unnoticed.

“An interesting problem. A most interesting problem …” This last was said so quietly that DuPaul almost missed it.

A veined, trembling hand reached past them apologetically and managed to put the saucer with their check on the table before the shaking fingers caused one or both to slide to the floor. DuPaul checked the bill with Gallic thoroughness and placed sufficient money on the plate to include exactly the proper tip. He crushed out his black cigar and placed his broad hands on the table, preparing to push himself erect. He paused, studying Huuygens’ face.

“You have an idea, eh?”

Kek brought his eyes back from the mirror where he had been studying the profile of Vries Waldeck. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said, you have a notion regarding Vries Waldeck and his problem. No?”

“A faint one,” Huuygens admitted.

“You know, I really should claim a finder’s fee,” DuPaul said with a grin, and came to his feet. “It’s usually ten percent, I hear. But I won’t. First, I still consider myself in your debt. And second—and more important—I consider Mr. Vries Waldeck very far from a fool, and if he hasn’t been able to figure out a way, then it can’t be easy, because I’m sure he’s been sweating blood trying to figure one out. Which simply means you would be wasting your time.”

Kek smiled at him, and also came to his feet. “If I were called on to remove a painting from the Clouet,” he said quietly, “I should be absolutely lost. Or if I were asked to import a bottle of Madeira from Lisbon, which I’m sure the Waldeck Import Company does as a matter of routine, I wouldn’t know which pencil to use. But—” He paused, significantly.

“True,” DuPaul admitted. “I understand. A matter of every shoemaker to his last, eh?”

“Exactly.”

The two walked toward the cloakroom, handed over their tickets and received coats in return. DuPaul dropped a ten-franc note into the silver tray on the counter and the two men pulled on their coats, moving to the door. DuPaul pulled up his collar preparatory to braving the elements and turned to Kek.

“However, should you somehow manage the impossible feat, then the next time we meet I shall expect you to buy me lunch.”

“With the greatest of pleasure,” Kek assured him.

“And, with any luck, in New York.”

“Even better.”

They swung through the door. The weather outside had turned chilly, finally recognizing the lateness of the season and reluctantly accepting it. The sun peeked from behind gray puffs of lowering clouds, ready at a moment’s breath of icy air to disappear entirely. DuPaul dug his hands into the pockets of his trench coat and turned, smiling.

“Huuygens! Good-bye. Thank you for coming. I really enjoyed it.” He waited a moment. “Huuygens!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I was saying good-bye.”

“Oh! Sorry. Good-bye, Alex.” Kek smiled vaguely, his mind miles away. “And thank you very much for the information. It was delicious.”

“The information?”

“I mean, the lunch! It was delicious.”

He raised a hand in farewell and turned, walking off down the windy street, his mind churning. Five million dollars; over a million and a quarter pounds sterling and then some! And all the black market was offering in dollars was twenty-five percent …

Certainly, if one were to approach Waldeck with a decent proposition for handling the transfer in a more legal fashion, there had to be a very good profit in it. One could quite reasonably ask for twenty percent; it was certainly better than the seventy-five percent the black market group wanted. And twenty percent would be one million dollars! How many schemes would have to be developed, how many paintings or valuable manuscripts or books or gems or anything else would have to be gotten past how many customs officials in how many countries to even faintly equal that sum? Far more than he cared to consider.

DuPaul stared after him. A faint smile curled the moustached lip. If anyone in the world could dream up a scheme to handle Vries Waldeck’s problem, Kek Huuygens could. His smile faded. The difficulty was, of course, that nobody could do it, because it just couldn’t be done. It was impossible. He lit another cigar and marched off in the opposite direction, puffing thoughtfully. How would he, Alex DuPaul, for example, go about getting that many francs converted into dollars without danger? He pondered the problem for less than a block and then gave up. It was, indeed, a matter of every shoemaker to his last. That umbrella in Madrid had been a one-shot bit of pure luck, and he knew it.

Kek Huuygens walked slowly along the Rue de la Loi in the direction of the Boulevard Franklin Roosevelt and his borrowed apartment. His mind worried at the problem like a cat with a ball of yarn, trying to find one loose end that could serve as a starting point to unravel a workable scheme. There had to be one! There always had been and always would be! A faint inkling had come to him during his farewell from Alex; in his usual fashion he began to line up the facts.

One: outside of the black market—which was ruled out for many reasons—what organizations existed that had the kind of liquid cash involved? Which could be used for ready deals? Well, to his knowledge, only two whose money wasn’t tainted: insurance companies and banks. He doubted if any workable scheme could be devised to arrange an insurance company to accept premiums in one currency and pay out in another, and besides, what could Waldeck own worth insuring for five million dollars? Import companies were mostly goodwill. Art work? Highly doubtful. Insurance companies looked most carefully into expensive paintings destroyed for any reason; and if the destruction were actual, Huuygens wanted no part of it. His life? Huuygens grinned. That scheme might be workable, but he doubted if Waldeck would go along with it.

That more or less left banks. But banks were normally not permitted to exchange currency under the law except for certain rare instances, like tourism, and in quantities too small for consideration. Besides, in the case of Waldeck, he had been specifically informed that the banks would not exchange his francs. And whatever means were eventually devised to get the money into dollars and into America, they would have to be legal—or have the complete semblance of legality. If not, the money could be confiscated, and there was even the faint possibility of people going to jail. And even if the most reasonable scheme in the world were devised, if there was the slightest chance of being involved with illegalities, then Mr. Vries Waldeck was going to be most difficult to convince.

Kek tossed away his cigarette and two steps later lit another, his mind wrapped up in the problem. Still, if banks were the only ones with the kind of free dollars needed to satisfy Mr. Waldeck, then banks had to be considered at greater length. The faint glimmer of an idea that had come to him in DuPaul’s presence returned and he began to concentrate on it in lieu of a better one, considering it from all angles, putting himself in people’s places, enlarging on it in rough style and then breaking it down to finer detail, twisting it, turning it, looking for every possible point of failure. Nobody was as exigent with an idea as Kek Huuygens with one of his own. It had proven his salvation more than once.

The scheme he was contemplating might just work. It was far from foolproof but at the moment he could not conceive of anything else that had the slightest chance of success. He realized it would take a lot of concentrated thought, an even greater amount of detailed planning when the proper stage was reached, and—of course—a masterful bit of salesmanship to convince Vries Waldeck. In fact, it would take a good deal of planning even to arrange the conditions under which young Mr. Waldeck could be sold. Still, assuming sale to Waldeck was possible, then the scheme itself—the master plan—was possible.

Humming softly to himself, and completely unconscious of doing so, he continued along his way, the wind whipping at his ankles unmercifully—and unnoticed—his mind slipping gears into gears, building an impregnable machine.

“Kek? Darling?”

Silence.

“Kek, darling? Darling? Kek?”

Silence.

“Kek Huuygens!”

Kek glanced down at Lisa as if surprised to see her sitting there.

“It really isn’t necessary to shout, dear.”

“Isn’t it?” Lisa sat a bit straighter in the easy chair from which she had been directing Operation Drape-Hanging. “To begin with, I consider it a complete imposition; on the part of your friend Willi to give his staff holidays and leave his drapes to be hung by us. And in the second place, if we have to hang them, let us hang them. You’ve been standing on that footstool holding that foolish bit of crepe de chine for ten solid minutes. Do you intend to hang it, or are you merely modeling it?”

“Oh.” Kek grinned. “Sorry. I was thinking.” He placed the brass hooks over the thin rod, spread the patterned fullness of the drape to cover the blank stare of the impersonal glass of the window, and stepped down. “How’s that?”

“An absolute work of art,” Lisa said shortly, still not mollified. She considered him thoughtfully. “Kek, where do you go when you disappear like that? In your thoughts, I mean. You leave me very much behind.”

“I’m sorry, sweet. I honestly am. But I was thinking.” He pulled the low footstool back into place before Lisa’s armchair; she swung her long lovely legs on top of it, taking advantage of its comfort. Kek sat down, moving her feet slightly to make room.

“What were you thinking?” Lisa said, watching him carefully.

There was a moment’s pause, and then Kek grinned at her cheerfully.

“Sweet, how would you like to be the hostess at a cocktail party?”

“Not at all,” Lisa said definitely, ending the subject. “And are you through hanging the drapes your so-called friend left for us to hang? There is still the bedroom, if you’ve forgotten.”

“I haven’t forgotten. About this cocktail party—”

Lisa studied her husband’s face, recognized signs it had taken her a reasonable while to recognize, and instantly changed her mind.

“I would love to hostess a cocktail party, darling. Quite obviously. May I ask why?”

“Because you love me and wish to please me, sweet.”

“Disregarding your pure logic for the moment, darling, I mean why a cocktail party at all? We’ve been in this place less than a week. We have no obligations to anyone. I don’t know where a single thing is. If you feel like entertaining, why not a restaurant or a club?”

“Because a restaurant or a club wouldn’t be proper for the business reasons I have in mind. As for your lack of knowledge concerning the apartment”—Kek shrugged—“in any event, you’ll cater it, so let the caterer find out where things are. You can walk around behind his men and learn.”

Kek clasped his hands about one knee, leaning back on the footstool, looking at his wife, reveling in her blond loveliness. For the thousandth time since they had met, courted, and married, he wondered how Lisa could practically live on bonbons—plus her three good-sized meals per day—and still manage that flawless complexion and that fabulous figure.

Lisa accepted his answer with aplomb.

“Who do you want me to invite?”

Kek shrugged indifferently. “Any of your friends you would like to have. Possibly some of your old acquaintances in the theater. But not too large a group—something intimate, I should judge. Six couples, or eight, something like that.” He paused significantly. “Plus one man. It is absolutely essential that he be here. Otherwise there’s no point to the whole affair. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly, darling. I understood when you started to talk about a party in the first place. I’m only happy it isn’t a woman.” She smiled at him brightly. “Who is he?”

“His name is Vries Waldeck. Do you know him?”

Her violet eyes widened. “I know who he is, of course. All Brussels does. But more important, do you know him?”

“Unfortunately, no.” Kek shook his head sadly and then looked up with a smile. “But I intend to.”

“I see,” Lisa said slowly, and picked up a bonbon, munching on it thoughtfully. “Vries Waldeck … I’m fairly sure he’s a friend of the Fleurs. I might be able to get him through them. In fact, I’m sure I can get him through them.” She swallowed her chocolate and studied Kek coolly. “I thought the Waldeck family was in the import business, darling. What would he have to do with art appraisals?”

“Art can also be imported, sweet,” Kek said. He smiled at her gently, blessed Alex DuPaul for the information imparted at lunch, and added, “Besides, he’s a trustee of the Clouet Gallery.”

Lisa gave up this line of questioning as being hopeless. She wondered, not for the first time, what Kek Huuygens had that allowed him to lead her about by the nose.

“When would you like this party, darling?”

“As soon as possible.”

“A week,” she said with decision. “A week at the earliest, or possibly even two weeks. Even when people are free, it is insulting to them to ask them to an affair with any less notice. It indicates one might think they could be unoccupied that evening. I’m not speaking of the Fleurs,” she added with a smile. “They will come whenever I ask them. Or whenever anyone else in society asks them, for that matter.”

“Nouveau riche?” Kek asked with interest.

“Nouveau pauvre,” Lisa replied with a smile that had very little humor in it. “Like so many people on the Continent today.” She sighed audibly and changed the subject, studying Kek. “What if this M’sieu Vries Waldeck refuses our invitation?”

Kek considered her with admiration. “How could any man refuse an opportunity to meet a famous actress like Mlle. Lisa Nieuport in person? He wouldn’t be human if he did.”

“Ah!” Lisa smiled. “How do we know he is human?”

“I understand he is as far as money is concerned,” Kek said.

“And is there a Madame Waldeck who should also be invited?”

“No. He’s a bachelor.”

“Which you are not,” Lisa said positively. “And do not forget it! I’m very apt to bring some very attractive friends from the theater to fill out this party, and I want you to remember that you have prior responsibilities. Do you hear?”

“I hear. And I’m quite fond of my prior responsibilities,” Kek said. He unclasped his hands from his knee and gently stroked her calf.

“Stop that!” Lisa said, and smiled at him. “Besides, the bedroom drapes aren’t hung yet.”

Kek sighed grumblingly and came to his feet.

“You certainly know how to drive a man to work,” he said reproachfully, and started in the direction of the bedroom.