Lawrence Block - The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian

“I have two fairly substantial facts,” I said, “but they don’t prove much to anyone but me. Fact number one is that I’ve been to the morgue, and the body in Drawer 328-B”-now how on earth did I remember that number?-“isn’t the man who wandered into my bookstore one otherwise fine day. Fact number two is that the man who called himself Gordon Onderdonk is here right now, in this room.”

I’ll tell you, when everybody in a room draws a breath at the same moment, you get one hell of a hush.

Orville Widener broke the silence. “You have no proof for that,” he said. “We have just your word.”

“That’s right, that’s what I just told you. For my part, I suppose I should have guessed early on that the man I met wasn’t Gordon Onderdonk. There were clues almost from the beginning. The man who let me into this apartment-I can’t call him Onderdonk anymore so let’s call him the murderer-he just opened the door an inch or two before he let me in. He kept the chainlock on until the elevator operator had been told it was okay. He called me by name, no doubt for the operator’s benefit, but he fumbled with the lock until the elevator had left the floor.”

“Is true,” Eduardo Melendez said. “Mr. Onderdonk, he alla time comes into the hall to meet a guest. This time I doan see him. I think notheen of it at the time, but is true.”

“I thought nothing of it myself,” I said, “except that I wondered why a man security-conscious enough to keep a door on a chainlock when an announced and invited guest was coming up wouldn’t have more than one Segal dropbolt lock on his door. I should have done some wondering later on, when the murderer left me to wait for the elevator alone, dashing back into his apartment to answer a phone that I never heard ringing.” I hadn’t questioned that action, of course, because it had been a response to a fervent prayer, allowing me to dash down the stairs instead of getting shunted back onto the elevator. But I didn’t have to tell them that.

“There was another thing I kept overlooking,” I went on quickly. “Ray, you kept referring to Onderdonk as a big hulk of a man, and you made it sound as though clouting him over the head was on a par with felling an ox with a single blow. But the man who called himself Onderdonk wasn’t anybody’s idea of a hulk. If anything he was on the slight side. That should have registered, but I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Remember, the first time I ever even heard the name Onderdonk was when the killer came into my bookshop and introduced himself to me. I assumed he was telling the truth, and I took a long time to start questioning that assumption.”

Richard Jacobi scratched his bearded chin. “Don’t keep us in suspense,” he demanded. “If one of us killed Onderdonk, why don’t you tell us who it is?”

“Because there’s a more interesting question to answer first.”

“What’s that?”

“Why did the killer cut Composition with Color out of its frame?”

“Ah, the painting,” said Mordecai Danforth. “I like the idea of discussing the painting, especially in view of the fact that it seems to have been miraculously restored. There it reposes on the wall, a perfect example of Mondrian’s mature style. You’d never know some foul fiend cut it from its stretcher.”

“You wouldn’t, would you?”

“Tell us,” said Danforth. “Why did the killer cut the painting?”

“So everyone would know it had been stolen.”

“I don’t follow you.”

Neither, from the looks on their faces, did most of his fellows. “The killer didn’t just want to steal the painting,” I explained. “He wanted the world to know it was gone. If he just took it, well, who would realize it was missing? Onderdonk lived alone. I suppose he must have had a will, and his worldly goods must go to somebody, but-”

“His heir’s a second cousin in Calgary, Alberta,” Orville Widener cut in. “And now we’re coming to my part of the field. My company underwrote Onderdonk’s insurance and we’re on the hook for $350,000. I gather the painting was stolen so that we’d have to pay, but what we ask in a situation like that is Qui bono? I’m sure you know what that means.”

“Cooey Bono,” Carolyn said. “That was Sonny’s first wife, before he was married to Cher. Right?”

Widener ignored her, which I thought showed character. “To whose good?” he said, translating the Latin himself. “In other words, who benefits? The policy’s payable to Onderdonk, and in the event of his death it becomes part of his estate, and his estate goes to somebody in western Canada.” His eyes narrowed, then turned toward Richard Jacobi. “Or is that Canadian relative actually among those present?”

“He’s in Canada,” Wally Hemphill said, “because I spoke to him at an hour that was equally uncivilized in either time zone. He’s empowered me to look out for his interests in this matter.”

“Indeed,” said Widener.

It was my turn. “The cousin never left Calgary,” I said. “The painting was stolen not for the insurance, considerable though it may be. The painting was stolen for the same reason its owner was murdered. Both acts were committed to conceal a crime.”

“And what crime was that?”

“Well, it’s a long story,” I said, “and I think we should make ourselves comfortable and have a cup of coffee. Now how many of you want cream and sugar? And how many just cream? And how many just sugar? And the rest of you want it all the way black? Fine.”

I don’t think they really wanted coffee, but what I wanted was a breathing spell. When Carolyn and Alison had served the nasty stuff all around the room, I sipped some of mine, made a face, and started in.

“Once upon a time,” I said, “a man named Haig Petrosian had a painting in his dining room. It would later be called Composition with Color, but Petrosian probably didn’t call it anything but ‘My friend Piet’s picture,’ or words to that effect. Whatever he called it, it disappeared around the time of his death. Maybe a family member spirited it away. Maybe a servant made off with it, perhaps acting on the belief that the old man wanted her to have it.”

“Perhaps Haig Petrosian’s son William stole it,” Elspeth Petrosian said, with a sharp glance to her right and another sharp glance at me.

“Perhaps,” I said agreeably. “Whoever took it, it wound up in the possession of a man who found a wonderful way to make money. He bought paintings and gave them away.”

Carolyn said, “That’s a way to make money?”

“It is the way this fellow did it. He would buy a painting by an important artist, a genuine painting, and he would lend it to a show or two in order to establish its provenance and his history as its owner. Then a talented if eccentric artist would be engaged to produce a copy of the painting. The owner would let himself be persuaded to donate the painting to a museum, but in the course of things it would be the copy that wound up getting donated. Farther on down the line, he’d donate the painting to another institution in another part of the country, and once again it would be a copy that changed hands. Occasionally he might vary the pitch by selling the painting to a collector, picking someone who wouldn’t be likely to show it. In the course of a decade, he could sell or donate the same painting five or six times, and if he stuck to abstract artists like Mondrian and had his wacky painter vary the precise design a bit from one canvas to the next, he could get away with it forever.

“And the richer you are to start with, the more profitable it is. Donate a painting appraised at a quarter of a million dollars and you can save yourself over a hundred thousand dollars in taxes. Do that a couple of times and you’ve more than paid for the painting, and you’ve still got the original painting yourself. There’s only one problem.”