Rex Stout: The Broken Vase

A middle-aged man with a worried brow and harassed eyes approached. “Telephone, Mrs. Pomfret. Mr. Barbinini.”

“Oh, my lord, fighting again,” exclaimed Mrs. Pomfret, and rushed off.

“Will you have a drink?” offered the husband. “Dora?”

“No, thanks.”

Gill declined too, but Fox admitted that he could get along with one. It appeared, however, that drinks were not available in that chamber at that hour; at any rate, Fox was conducted out of it, through another room only less large, along a corridor and around a corner, and finally into a comfortable little apartment with leather-covered chairs, a radio, books...

Pomfret went to a combination tantalus and electric refrigerator and procured necessities. Fox, glancing around, saw a Lang Yao sang-de-boeuf perched on a cabinet in a corner, and a large deep peach bloom on a table against the wall. He crossed to the latter for a closer look. Behind him Pomfret’s voice inquired if he liked vases.

“I like this one,” Fox declared.

“No wonder,” said Pomfret with pride in his tone. “It’s a Hsuan Te.”

“Apparently you like them.”

“I love them.”

Fox glanced at him, and saw that his face, like his tone, displayed unassuming sincerity. It was even at that moment an appealing face, though he had at first sight found it not attractive, with broad mouth not harmonizing with the rather sharp nose, and the restless gray eyes too small for the brow that sloped above them.

“There’s no finer peach bloom than that anywhere.” Pomfret brought the drink over. “I have another one nearly as good that’s in my wife’s dressing room. I’ll show it to you before you go, if you’d care to see it, and some others.” He laughed, a bit awkwardly. “I suppose one reason I’m so proud of them is that they’re the only things in the world that belong to me. It was my wife’s money that bought them, of course, since I’ve never had any, but they’re mine.”

Fox sipped his highball. “What do you do, have agents on the lookout, or pick them up yourself?”

“Neither one. Not any more. I’ve quit. My wife doesn’t like things shut up in cabinets, she likes them scattered around. For that matter, I agree with her, but about a year ago some lout knocked over a Ming five-color, the finest one I ever saw, and busted it into twenty pieces. If you’ll believe it, I wept. I don’t mean I sobbed, but I wept tears. That finished me. I quit. It was such a beautiful thing, and I felt responsible...”

Pomfret drank, frowned at his glass, and resumed, “Then I had another loss last fall. A Wan Li black rectangular — here, I’ll show you.” He put his glass down, got a portfolio from a shelf, and found a page. “Here’s a color picture of it. It was absolutely unique, the gem of any collection. See that golden yellow enamel? And the green and white? But that doesn’t half do it justice.”

Fox scrutinized the picture. “Did it get broken too?”

“No. It was stolen. It disappeared one day when — oh well, I don’t want to bore you about it.”

Fox was assuring him politely that he was not at all bored when there was a knock at the door, and in response to Pomfret’s invitation Perry Dunham entered.

“Orders,” he stated crisply. “Checking up. Everyone’s here but Koch, and Mum wanted you located.” He approached Fox and extended a hand. “Hullo. I’m Perry Dunham, as you may remember from the other evening.” He eyed Fox’s half-empty glass. “That’s an idea.”

“Have one?” Pomfret offered, not, Fox thought, with excessive cordiality.

“I will if you’ve got bourbon.”

“No bourbon, I’m sorry. Scotch, Irish, rye—”

“I’ll find some bourbon.” The arrogant young ape — according to Diego — departing, turned after opening the door. “Showing Mr. Fox Mum’s vases? And her florins and ducats?” The door closed after him.

A patch of color appeared on the cheek of Mr. Pomfret which was visible to Fox. Apparently the emotion which caused it was for the moment too acute to be covered by conversation, and Fox, embarrassed, tried to help out.

“Picturesque,” he observed lightly. “Florins and ducats?” He waved his drink. “And dinars and guineas?”

“He was referring,” said Pomfret stiffly, “to a little collection of coins I have made. I took it up as a sort of consolation when I abandoned the vases. If you drop them they don’t break, and even if they did it wouldn’t be anything to cry about.”

“Old coins? I would enjoy looking at them.”

“I doubt it.” Pomfret seemed considerably less enthusiastic about coins than vases as objects of prideful display. “Are you a numismatist? You mentioned dinars.”

Fox said no, that “dinar” was to him only an exotic word, and that it would really be interesting to see one if there were any in the little collection. Pomfret said that he supposed they should be joining the others, but he did happen to possess a dinar of the Fatimids; and, taking a key fold from his pocket and selecting one, he opened the door of a cabinet, disclosing a tier of shelves holding rows of shallow trays. The tray he removed was partitioned into small velvet-lined compartments, in each of which reposed a coin. Pomfret pointed to one.

“That’s it. Not in very good condition. This is much rarer and finer, a denier of Louis the First. That’s a bonnet piece of James Fifth of Scotland. That? An old British stater— Come in!”

It was Diego Zorilla. He entered, flashed his black eyes at them, shook hands perfunctorily with Pomfret and warmly with Fox, and announced that he had been sent to fetch them. Pomfret replaced the tray and locked the cabinet. Fox swallowed the last of his drink.

“In the cathedral?” Pomfret inquired.

“No, they’re in the library.”

It seemed to Fox, when they got there, that the room had less right to the old-fashioned and dignified title of “library” than any he had ever seen. Some books were present, but they were lost in the indiscriminate jumble. There were racks of antique-looking musical instruments, an enormous harp, bronze and marble busts of composers, a map of the world ten feet square on which someone had painted black lines in all directions... without even starting the inventory. There were also people, seated along the sides of a large rectangular table, which gave that territory the aspect of a directors’ board room, and at one end was Irene Dunham Pomfret. On her right was the harassed-looking secretary, Wells. She interrupted a conversation with Adolph Koch, on her left, long enough to call “Sit down!” to the three men arriving, without looking at them.

“They only made one of her,” Diego murmured to Fox. “Once at a meeting here of the Metropolitan Symphony Board she threw the minute book at Daniel Cullen and ordered him to leave.”

“There’s no reason — I don’t really belong—” Pomfret was saying to the length of the table.

“Sit down,” said Mrs. Pomfret.

He did so, finding a place between his stepson Perry and Hebe Heath. Beyond Miss Heath was Felix Beck. Across the table, besides Fox and Diego, were Dora Mowbray, Ted Gill, and Garda Tusar, and Adolph Koch at the corner. There was talk in subdued tones. Mrs. Pomfret finished with Koch, rapped with her knuckles on the table, and the talk stopped.

She spoke with the easy and informal authority of an experienced chairwoman. “I invited you here today for two purposes. First, I think you are entitled to read the note which Jan left when — Monday evening. Or hear it read. At my suggestion the police kept it from publication, and it has been turned over to me. Let me have it, Wells.”

From a portfolio on the table before him, the secretary extracted a slip of paper and handed it to her.