Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries And Impossible Crimes

The grafin allowed a sneer of anxiety to cross her face. “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, Mr, ah, Baum. This has all been so fatiguing.”

“I’m sure losing a two-million dollar painting must be quite tiring,” I said, returning to the couch. I took my time settling back onto the cushion and opening my notebook again, and then looked back up at my audience. “Tell me about your household staff.”

There was a short pause while they thought this over. “Well, there’s Feodore,” Paula said, leaning forward. Her teeth, I noticed, gleamed with a whiteness that her toothpaste manufacturer would have approved of, but they looked somehow sharp.

“Feodore?”

“The butler,” Paula explained.

“We keep quite a small establishment here,” the grafin said. “Only a butler and two maids. But of course the building has a concierge service which supplies many of our needs.”

Of course. “Has Feodore been with you long?” I asked.

“About five years,” the grafin said. “We brought him with us from Paris. The two maids we acquired here.”

“Where are they from?”

“One is from Guatemala. Maria. The other, Estafia, is from Honduras. They are quite bright and capable, and seem completely trustworthy.”

“And besides,” Graf Czeppski broke in, “they were off yesterday, when the theft happened.”

“Could they have snuck in without your knowing it?” I asked.

“They don’t have keys,” the graf said. “The concierge staff has to let them in.”

“Ah,” I said, making a random squiggle in my notebook. “Then I guess that lets Maria and Estafia out. What about Feodore?”

“He, also, was away at the time of the theft. He is away for this whole week. Some family matter he had to take care of.”

“It was an outside job,” Paula said. “Did you not read the police report?”

The police report said no such thing, but I decided not to point that out. “I try to form my own opinion,” I told her. “The police and I have different goals.”

“Yes,” Grafin Sylvia said. “The police are trying to catch the miscreant who took our picture. You are trying to find a way to avoid paying us one million and two hundred thousand dollars.”

“I am trying to recover the picture,” I said, standing up and putting the notebook in my pocket. “Which will save the insurance company one point two million dollars. But it will also get you back your St Simon; which, I understand, is worth considerably more than that.”

The graf shrugged a broad shrug. “I am told it will bring over two million dollars at auction,” he said, “but who knows? There is no guarantee. And after the auction house takes its twenty per cent commission – there is little to choose.”

“I see,” I said.

He took a step toward me, put a finger on the middle button of my shirt, and pushed slightly. “But that is not to say that I would have any reason to arrange for the theft of my own picture,” he said in a flat, controlled voice, which was trying to suggest suppressed anger, but seemed overly theatrical. “I know what you people at Fiduciary Mutual are suggesting, but I don’t know why you’re suggesting it, except in some obscene attempt to refuse to pay the claim. You didn’t hesitate to collect the rather substantial premium – and to make me pay for the authentication of the picture and the too-expensive shipping costs.”

I stepped forward and he hastily jerked his finger out of the way. “I don’t work for Fiduciary Mutual,” I told him. “I am a private investigator specializing in cases of fraud and embezzlement. My employer is Continental Investigations & Security.” We were nose-to-nose. I hoped my breath was okay; I didn’t want to offend. His breath smelled faintly of licorice. “Fiduciary Mutual calls us in when they want to be absolutely sure that there has been no hanky-panky. If I tell them you’re clean, then they’ll cut you a cheque tomorrow.”

“Hanky-panky,” the graf said.

“And it is us that they suspect of this hanky-panky?” the grafin asked.

“I don’t know that they suspect anyone,” I told them, prevaricating perhaps just the smallest bit. “They suspect the situation. It appears to be an impossible crime, but there are no impossible crimes, only misunderstood crimes. They have sent me to see if I can understand it.”

There was a prolonged silence as everyone thought this over. Graf Czeppski’s belligerent attitude disappeared in a wave of good fellowship, and he smiled a broad smile at me. “Then it is to our interest to help you ascertain what happened, is it not?” he asked.

“It is,” I assured him.

“Then ask your questions.”

I nodded. “The painting was delivered the day before yesterday. It actually arrived in Los Angeles the day before that, but it was held up in customs. Late last night it was gone. Who, aside from your guests of yesterday evening, knew that the painting was here?”

“The persons from the shipping company,” the grafin suggested.

“And?”

“Lasser & Sons, the auction gallery,” Graf Czeppski said. “They were to pick it up here today.”

That I knew. It was delivered to the Czeppskis instead of directly to the gallery because Lasser & Sons’ insurance for this particular auction wouldn’t start until today. “Did any of you tell anyone?” I asked. “Among your friends, not connected to the gallery.”

Grafin Sylvia lifted her nose higher to stare at me down it. “Are you suggesting that one of our friends might have done this?” she asked in a voice that would chip stone.

“Of course I am,” I said. “Tell me which of your friends you could swear wouldn’t steal a quarter of a million dollars, and I’ll cross him or her off the list.”

“A quarter of a million?” Paula asked. “I thought -”

“Thief’s wages,” I told her. “These days valuable and unique artwork is hard to fence. Whoever took it will be lucky to get that much for it.”

After a few more questions I excused myself to prowl around the apartment. The Czeppskis stayed in the living room, trying to ignore the fact that a private detective was poking through their drawers and closets. I tried to think of places that the police might have missed on their search, and I poked and prodded a few possibilities, but nothing came of it. There was a bit of white powder at the bottom of one of the drawers in Paula’s bedroom which interested me for a moment, but it proved to be some sort of chalk. The windows in the two bedrooms looked out over a locked courtyard to which the tenants did not have a key, so the painting had probably not been lowered out a window. Unless a confederate was stationed in one of the apartments below. I made a note to check on the tenants in the suspect apartments.

I pulled aside the curtains in the living room. One of the rungs holding the curtains to the oversized curtain rod was not looped over the rod. Paula, who was watching me, did not restrain herself from making comments as I felt along the curtain to make sure a two-by-three foot slab of wood had not been inserted into it somewhere. “Ah!,” she exclaimed, “The great detective has found a clue! Not there? Perhaps it has been sewn into the carpet!”

Like Gaul, the large picture window behind the drapes was divided into three parts: an unopenable centre section framed by two smaller casement windows. I cranked open the one on the left and peered out. The window faced West, with a splendid view of the facade of the 1930s apartment building across brass Street. That building only went up ten stories, so the tenants above the tenth floor in this building might have a wonderful view of the tops of buildings in Santa Monica, and maybe even a glimpse of the ocean. Directly below was the black tarred roof of the two-storey parking garage, access to which was available only to workmen, who had to sign out the key. According to building security, the key had not been signed out for three weeks until the police used it this morning. There were a couple of old white fivegallon cans and a coil of black rope visible on the roof, but no painting.