Dan Marlowe: The Fatal Frails

“You'll do nothing of the kind,” Lieutenant Dameron said coldly. “This is an extremely delicate matter.”

“Delicate!” Johnny snorted. “They ought to call you Delicate Dameron. The rightest guy you ever knew comes to you for a favor, an' you dump him. Well, you can butt out, right here. If you'd been gonna handle it officially, I'd never have heard about it. Since you're not, just what the hell makes you think you can keep a hand on the steerin' wheel?” He turned to the cardinal. “Kiki? What's his name?”

The churchman looked steadily at the lieutenant, who turned red and looked away. “I'm sorry, Joseph,” the cardinal said quietly. “This is important to me.” He looked at Johnny. “The name is Dechant.”

“Dechant?” Johnny echoed. “Claude Dechant?” The cardinal's nod was gratified. “You know him?” “I knew him,” Johnny replied gloomily. He spread his hands wide in a gesture of resignation. “Claude Dechant committed suicide at the hotel two hours ago.”

“Dechant was the one?” Lieutenant Dameron asked incredulously. He recovered immediately. “I'm sorry your — ah-mission is over before it really began, Your Eminence.”

“I wouldn't like to think so,” the cardinal said in obvious disappointment. “After the raising of my hopes, I wouldn't-”

Johnny cut in promptly as the big man's voice died away. “That's good enough for me. Let's you 'n me take a walk out've this righteous atmosphere, Kiki. You fill me in. I'll find somethin' to hang a nail in, an' we'll go from there.”

“Now just a minute-” Lieutenant Dameron glared across the desk.

“First, a little story,” the cardinal said. “When we've all heard it, perhaps it will be clear there's nothing to be done. Joseph knows the basic facts.” Joseph didn't look as though the knowledge agreed with him, Johnny thought. “The entire story is a long one, and unnecessary. We can conveniently begin at a time in the spring of 1948, when a valuable piece of church property stolen by the importer Dechant in Florence, Italy in 1944 was brought to this country from Paris.”

The trained speaking voice continued, bell-clear. “It was sold in this country by Dechant to a wealthy collector, a man by the name of August Hegel. The amount paid was considerably more than the dollars-and-cents value, so Hegel knew what he was buying.” The cardinal smiled faintly. “I'm given to understand there are collectors like that.”

“If it's as easy as gettin' to this Hegel-” Johnny began, then pulled up at Dameron's snort.

“August Hegel is dead,” the cardinal supplied gravely. “Of natural causes. He was an old man. The point that presently concerns us about him is that he left his entire I collection to the Leland Stafford Museum, a city-administered institution.”

Johnny glanced at the silent lieutenant. “You just rubbed my nose in the spot where the smell of Joe's cold feet started, Kiki. Every damn slingshot politician in this town's on the board of governors of that place. Joe couldn't see stickin' his highly developed political nose into that kind of flytrap for you, right?”

“You're prejudging,” the cardinal warned. “It's not that simple. For one thing, the museum doesn't have the collection yet. The will is being contested by the nephews and nieces of the childless Hegel, and the matter is in the probate courts.”

“Now you lost me again,” Johnny complained. “You might have to wait a little longer, but when all the whereases are gatherin' dust, don't you figure to recover either from the museum or the heirs, whichever winds up with it?”

“There is another complication.” The cardinal smiled as 5i Johnny threw up his hands. “The stolen property is a monstrance, eighteen inches high, one of six exquisitely jeweled masterpieces made in the thirteenth century for the private chapels of six of the ruling princes of Italy. They were gifts from Pope Clement. One is in Milan, in the possession of the titled family whose ancestors acquired it. One was given to the Cathedral Salveggi in 1520. It is this one that was stolen. Early in the period of the intervening five hundred years since they were fashioned by the leading artisan of his day, the remaining four disappeared.”

“So Hegel's could be one of the missing four?”

“It could be so claimed. It would not be true.” The churchman's voice was rocklike. “I've traced this carefully.”

“You haven't even gotten to the point yet,” Lieutenant Dameron inserted wearily.

“Forgive me,” the cardinal apologized. “I naturally made representations both to the board of governors of the museum and to the administrator of the Hegel estate. From the museum I received a reply that if, as and when the Hegel collection actually became museum property, the matter would have their most careful attention. I'll admit I've had responses upon which I've looked with more favor, but it was from the Hegel administrator that I received my real shock. This man is a Federal judge, a man of probity, and he's assured me that the monstrance was not part of the collection turned over to him to be vault-stored pending court settlement of its disposition. He verified that it had been included in Hegel's private catalogue, but that it, along with two or three of the smaller pieces, had never been found.”

“And His Eminence thinks that after Hegel's death Dechant stole it back again,” the lieutenant said harshly.

“I'm convinced of it,” the cardinal said seriously. “De-chant was, if not a trusted aid, a valued assistant in the continuing search for new acquisitions for August Hegel's collection. He had access to it as few men did. Dechant stole it to resell it. This whole affair first came to my attention sixty days ago, when an art dealer in Lisbon, Portugal, knowing my interest, called to tell me that a monstrance had been offered to him for purchase. He thought it had to be a facsimile. We know now that it didn't. The one in Milan is still there. Do you doubt that the one offered in Lisbon was Hegel's?”

“The man we'd have to ask that is dead by his own hand,” Lieutenant Dameron said exasperatedly.

“Unfortunately,” the cardinal admitted. “But I wouldn't like to have to accept a complete dead end.” His eyes went to Johnny. “I feel responsible. I lost the monstrance. When Florence was declared an open city in the summer of 1944, I ordered the monstrance moved from a perfectly safe hiding place in southern Italy and sent to the Villa Montagnana on the outskirts of Florence. The owner was a friend of mine, and his home was a deposit for some of the greatest art the world has ever seen.” The huge man shrugged. “The open-city designation not only was not respected, but wholesale looting took place in the days before the city was liberated. Over three hundred paintings hidden at Montagnana were taken. And the monstrance. You can understand my concern, and the burgeoning of my hopes recently after this long interval. It's because in the special circumstances Joseph seemed to feel he could do nothing that I had him call you, Johnny. Hoping-”

“Your Eminence.” Suppressed anger crackled in the lieutenant's tone. “If somebody walked through that door this minute and laid the thing on my desk, I'd have to turn it over to the estate administrator. Is that what you want?”

“On advice of counsel, don't answer that, Kiki,” Johnny said cheerfully. He looked from the big man in the flowing robes to the scowling lieutenant. “I'll carry the ball, Joe. You're outta the game.”

The frosty eyes narrowed. “Now look, Johnny-”

“It doesn't call for the official touch, right? That's your position?” Johnny outstared the apple-cheeked man's silence. “Okay. They don't come any more unofficial 'n me. I'll just kind of soft-shoe around an' lean easy on a few people.” He thought fleetingly of the red-haired Gloria Philips. “I could even get to like the idea.”