The Odd Job Page 3

  “I could make it work.” Now that she’d been refueled, Lala was showing real interest. “What else do they do? Suppose I walked into the museum and stole a painting in broad daylight.”

  “You’d be caught and sent to jail. That’s why museums have security guards.”

  “How about if I took along an accomplice? We could be dressed just alike. One could keep the guard interested while the other cut the painting out of the frame with a razor blade or something and stuffed it under her clothes.”

  “That wouldn’t be so easy as it sounds. In the first place, two women dressed just alike would be noticed, and watched. If one did manage to cut the painting out of the frame, she’d have to be awfully quick and careful or the blade might slip and do serious damage. If she stuffed the canvas inside her clothes she’d most likely crack the paint surface and lower the value of the painting. But again, it does happen. My husband once caught a thief in the men’s room of a place I’d better not name. He’d cut a nice little Sargent beach scene out of its frame and was taping it to a plaster body cast that he was wearing.”

  “What did your husband do?”

  “Flashed his private detective’s license and yelled for a guard to call the police. Luckily the painting wasn’t badly damaged, though of course it had been somewhat reduced in size by the cutting.”

  “But still salable?” Lala insisted.

  “I suppose so, if the buyer was gullible enough.”

  “How about that?” Lala’s bangles were making such a racket that she had to quit waving her arms to make herself heard. “There we go, Elwyn. After your next board meeting, you just stick a few masterpieces under your coat and wear them home. We then paste photos of the cows on top, take them to Palm Springs, peel off the cows, and peddle the Rembrandts to the movie stars. How about you, Percy? Care to join the mob?”

  Mr. Kelling was not amused. “Thank you, Lala, but I hardly think grand larceny is my métier. Just out of curiosity, Sarah, what if the painting one wanted to steal was too big to carry?”

  “Like that big—ah—Titian, is it?” Elwyn Turbot had been silent too long to suit him. “The one with the—”

  Anne Kelling shifted a bit in her chair and coughed behind her napkin. Percy threw his wife a glance of approval and took up the torch.

  “Quite so, Elwyn. By all accounts, the Titian—the original Titian, I should say—was the gem of the Wilkins Collection.”

  “Which Bittersohn was supposedly going to get back,” Turbot snarled.

  Percy made a neat job of not noticing that he’d been interrupted. “Think of the thousands upon thousands of art lovers who have admired that work of genius, but how many have recognized its historical aspect? Even you, Sarah, may not be aware, though you certainly ought to be, that the woman in the painting was a noble Roman matron named Lucretia, or Lucrece. A paragon of beauty and a model of domestic virtue, she was depicted by Titian as being—ah—mishandled by one Tarquinius Sextus, a son of Tarquinius Superbus. Lucrece’s husband was a first cousin of that brilliant statesman Lucius Junius Brutus, who wrested the reins of power away from Tarquinius the Elder, drove the Tarquins out of Rome, and established a republic.”

  “He and his cousin?” teased Lala.

  “So what are relations for?” Sarah seemed to be the only one who heard what the surly young waiter mumbled. He gathered up the dessert service, carried his laden tray to a swinging door that must lead to the kitchen, and kicked it open with quite unnecessary violence. Not batting an eyelid, Percy finished his history lesson.

  “After having informed her husband and father of the outrage to which she had been subjected, and having exacted from them a solemn vow of vengeance upon the Tarquins, the noble lady, preferring death to dishonor, took her own life.”

  “How times have changed.” Having resumed her lady-of-the-manor manner, Lala rose from the table. “What do you say, anybody? Would you care to go back to the pasture and pat the pretty moo-cows?”

  Chapter 3

  THERE WERE NO TAKERS. Percy glanced at Anne, Anne glanced at Sarah. Sarah nodded. Anne did what was proper, as always.

  “This has been delightful, Lala, but we really ought to be getting along. Percy has things to do.” Which would consist of switching on the television to some sports program or other, settling into his armchair, and going to sleep in front of the tube. “And Sarah’s expecting a long-distance call from her husband.”

  Turbot wasn’t letting that pass without a parting shot “Then will you kindly remind your husband for me, Mrs. Bittersohn, that even if he doesn’t have a written contract with the Wilkins, there’s still such a thing as a gentlemen’s agreement. I haven’t yet had time to go into the matter thoroughly, but so far it looks to me as if Bittersohn’s been dragging his feet over that Titian for the past six years, and it’s high time he showed some action. You might also mention that there are plenty of other operators in his line of work who’d be only too glad to take on the assignment without soaking us for another of those fat fees he’s been so punctual about collecting.”

  Cousin Percy froze stiff as a fly in amber. Cousin Anne was regarding Turbot as though he were a jimsonweed that had suddenly popped up among her gypsophila. Sarah was the coolest of the three.

  “You seem to have been misinformed, Mr. Turbot. My husband has not been dragging his feet, he hasn’t asked for a penny that wasn’t earned several times over, and he’s tried very hard to interest other agencies in taking on some of the Wilkins work. The response has been mostly negative. The trails were too cold and the fees too small to be worth their time and risk. If you can locate any reputable agency willing to take on the job without demanding hefty retainers up front and no strings attached, I strongly suggest that you accept their offer.”

  “Hunh. So you’re backing out too, is that it?”

  “No, Mr. Turbot, that is not it. I’m merely trying to point out to you some of the realities you’d have done well to consider before you accepted the chairmanship. Right now, all I can tell you is that we still have not the faintest clue as to where the Titian might be.”

  Turbot must have practiced snorting with one of his bulls, he did it beautifully. “It’s been taken out of the country, naturally. How stupid can you get?”

  “Not stupid enough to fall for such a jejune solution, Mr. Turbot.” Sarah expected another snort, but Turbot didn’t appear to know what jejune meant, so she went on. “We have a widespread and reliable international network of informants, none of whom has come up with anything. The Titian is too large and far too precious to be smuggled any great distance without enormous risk. The logical assumption is that it’s hidden somewhere not far away from where it was stolen. Since no ransom demand has been made, we assume it’s being held for other reasons.”

  “Such as what?”

  “Maybe the thieves think it’s still too hot to offer for sale, or maybe some cuckoo just likes it to look at.”

  Sarah made a move toward the door, but Lala wasn’t ready to let the party die.

  “Percy, you’re the one who knows all about high finance. How much would they want for a ransom? Do you mean that crooks actually kidnap paintings instead of people?”

  Didn’t the woman ever read a newspaper? “Oh yes, Lala.” Percy must be reminding himself by now that the Turbots were lucrative clients. “It happens. Frequently an insurance company becomes involved.”

  Sarah was growing very tired of this conversation. “There isn’t any insurance in this case. Madam Wilkins was too cocksure of her security arrangements to believe that anybody would dare to steal any of her treasures. And of course art robberies weren’t such a big business then. Furthermore, the endowment that seemed so munificent at the time of Madam Wilkins’s death is drastically reduced by now, partly because everything costs so much more and partly because, as you must have found out at the trustees’ meeting, Mr. Turbot, there had been some milking of the funds during the previous chairman’s tenure.”

  “Is that
supposed to be a hint?” Turbot growled.

  “Only if you choose to take it as one. I did leave my handbag in the foyer with yours, didn’t I, Anne? Thank you for a most interesting visit, Mrs. Turbot.”

  It was a relief to get back in the car, even with Percy at the wheel. Knowing his views on women who chattered while he was trying to keep his mind on the road, Sarah and Anne had opted for the back seat. Anne took advantage of a sympathetic ear to explain in detail what the Turbots’ landscaper should have done instead of what he did. Sarah made appropriate noises from time to time and continued to wonder why the board of trustees, some of whom were still at least partially compos mentis, had turned over the reins of office to a man so patently wrong for the job as Elwyn Fleesom Turbot.

  Sarah rather wished she could be a fly on the wall the first time Turbot locked horns with Dolores Tawne. Mrs. Tawne was not even on the board, but she’d have made a far better chairman than the lot of them put together. For roughly three decades, Dolores had been the Wilkins’s chief prop and mainstay, taking on all the odd jobs from mending the moth holes in the tapestries to doctoring the peacocks and deadheading any flower in the courtyard that dared to fade before the gardeners’ weekly visit. All in all, her dedication and skill had been utilized so zealously that they’d led, among other malefactions, to two murders and a near miss.

  Because the trustees could not imagine how the museum would be able to stay open without Dolores, particularly after visitors had quit coming in hordes and the cash flow had slowed from a torrent to a trickle, they had voted unanimously that the catastrophe hadn’t really been her fault. Having already figured that out for herself, Dolores had thanked them for their vote of confidence, risen above the ruins, and soldiered on as usual, dusting the bibelots and berating the security guards with unflagging zeal.

  Dolores would be Turbot’s greatest asset, Sarah was thinking, if only he’d have sense enough to give her the chance. Not that Dolores would need much of a chance; she was bullheaded enough not to take any lip from a blustering neophyte and old enough to get away with telling him off. Sarah had noticed often enough how those big, strong man-of-destiny types tended to quail before women who reminded them of their mothers. Turbot wouldn’t have tried his bullying stunt on Sarah Kelling Bittersohn, she decided with some resentment, if she’d been twenty years older and fifty pounds heavier.

  Anne Kelling voiced something along the same lines, keeping her voice low so that Percy wouldn’t overhear and tighten his lips. Having covered the ground from unimaginative landscaping to Lala’s bangles to that young waiter’s lack of savoir faire, she remarked, “Don’t you think, Sarah, that it was out of place for Elwyn to make such a fuss about Max’s being out of town? You handled him well, I must say.”

  Sarah shrugged. “So did you. I expect Mr. Turbot tried to give me a hard time because he didn’t think I’d bite back. Cousin Dolph used to bluster like that sometimes before Mary Smith took him in hand, bless her heart. Dolph’s quite human now.”

  “So I’ve noticed. I must drop Mary a note about those plants for the Senior Citizens’ Recycling Center.”

  “You really are an angel, Anne. You know, I don’t think I’d better stop at your house any longer than to pick up my car. I need to push on to Tulip Street and see what’s happening there.”

  “Oh dear, I was hoping you’d stay for tea. How long will you be in Boston?”

  “I wish I knew. With Mariposa gone, I’m not too keen on leaving Charles there by himself for any great length of time. He’s so used to being directed when he’s acting and being bossed around by Mariposa when he’s butling that he keeps looking for a prompter to feed him his lines. When he does try to take the initiative, it tends to backfire.”

  “But Uncle Jem’s right there on the Hill,” Anne pointed out. “Can’t he and that nice valet of his move in for a few days and keep Charles company?”

  “That’s a case of the cure being worse than the ailment,” Sarah replied. “Egbert alone would be fine, but Uncle Jem’s helpless without him so it has to be both or neither.”

  “I do wish there were some way I could help,” Anne fretted. “Perhaps I could nip over tomorrow and put in a little work on your flower beds.”

  Anne would never have dreamed of offering to take Sarah’s child for a day; Sarah’s perennials were quite another matter. Sarah understood perfectly and gave Anne an A for Agriculture.

  “Would you really, Anne? Mr. Lomax will be around, but his rheumatism has been acting up so that he can’t do much bending or stooping. Please don’t ask him how he feels, though, he likes to pretend he’s as good as he ever was. I don’t have a spare house key to give you, but Mr. Lomax will have one. He knows who you are, of course, just tell him I said to let you in. And please feel free to use the kitchen. You’ll be wanting a cup of tea and Max’s mother sent over some lovely pastries with prune filling. Help yourself, they ‘re in the fridge.”

  “What fun! This will make a nice change for me.”

  Sarah couldn’t quite see how weeding somebody else’s perennial borders would be all that different from weeding one’s own, but she wouldn’t have said so for all the tea bags in Chinatown. Their talk turned to Sarah’s landscaping needs; at least Anne talked and Sarah did her conscientious best to listen. With October’s bright-blue weather approaching, Anne was all for blending massed chrysanthemum plants in shades from yellow to rust at the top of the drive for a splash of autumn color. It sounded lovely. Sarah took out her pen and checkbook on the spot, wrote a check made out to Anne’s most-favored nursery, and told her cousin to do as she thought best. Anne accepted the check with awe and wonderment and vowed to be true to her trust, though not in those precise words.

  Anne really was a dear in her own funny way, Sarah thought as she put her wallet back in her handbag. Max had his wife well-trained by this time; Sarah’s house keys were locked in the glove compartment of the car that she’d left parked in Percy’s driveway. Her charge cards, her checkbook, her driver’s license, and her ready cash were in the slim wallet that she’d slipped into a pocket sewn inside her skirt before dropping her handbag with Anne’s on the refectory table in the Turbots’ front hall. Anybody who might have cared to investigate her comb, lipstick, and clean handkerchief would have been welcome to do so.

  Always having to be on the qui vive was a boon to the reflexes but sometimes a pain in the neck. Sarah wondered how it might feel to be fixated on chrysanthemums instead of criminals for a change. Dull, probably. She did wish she could go back to Ireson’s Landing, if only for an hour or so, but that would be silly. The whole purpose of driving her own car to Percy’s had been to shorten the drive to Boston.

  Brooks and Theonia had commandeered Max’s elderly leviathan, which was ideal for driving on long trips now that Ira had fitted it with a less gas-hungry engine and every other environmentally acceptable safeguard he could think of. Basically, this was the same car in which the enigmatic Mr. Bittersohn had driven semi-hysterical Mrs. Alexander Kelling from Ireson’s Landing to Beacon Hill only a few hours after she’d been told that she was a widow. The car had been almost new then. Since she’d become Mrs. Bittersohn, Sarah had driven it scads of times. She didn’t begrudge the travelers their comfort today, she was content with the less opulent but easier to park mid-sized American model that she’d bought when it became obvious that a backup vehicle was essential to their growing family business.

  Sarah had picked this car not only because she liked the way it behaved but because it was identical with many others of the same make and color. Sometimes, being just one more in a crowd could be an advantage. In a supermarket parking lot, trying to sort out her own vehicle from all the other look-alikes was more apt to be exasperating, so Sarah kept a shocking-pink ribbon at hand to tie around her aerial when she went grocery shopping. She also carried a blaze-orange pennant in case of emergencies but so far she’d never had to use it. As she said good-bye to the Percy Kellings and turned the ignition key in th
e lock, she was inwardly hoping to goodness that she wouldn’t find yet another emergency waiting for her on Tulip Street.

  Sarah could easily have run into one before she ever got there. Two idiots in a gray Toyota tried to give her a hard time. Little did they know that this dainty lady had been on familiar terms with every bump and jog in the road before she was out of her teens. She led them a merry chase until she caught the blue flash of a state police car, ditched the Toyota slick as a weasel, slowed down to a decorous forty-five, and caught a gratifying glimpse through her rearview mirror of the two silly fellows—she supposed they were fellows—getting hauled over to be dealt with as they deserved.

  This seemed to be her day for handing out comeuppances. Sarah was feeling rather smug by the time she turned up Tulip Street. Evidently some of the neighbors weren’t back from their Sunday drives, parking was less dire than usual. Charles must have been watching through the window, he was out on the sidewalk and opening the car door before she’d had time to switch off her motor and unfasten her seat belt.

  “May I assist you to alight, moddom?”

  Sarah tried to keep a straight face and failed. “Don’t overdo it, Charles. Here, take these flowers.”

  The handsome bouquet had been a last-minute offering from Anne, who’d had the flowers conditioning in a bucket beside the greenhouse in case Cousin Sarah couldn’t stay for tea on account of all the exotic and important things she had to do. Anne had made a professional job of overcoating her offering for the road in wet paper towels and plastic baggies while Percy was unlocking the door and disconnecting the burglar alarm that he’d talked himself into buying after a skinny thief had wriggled in through a small vent in the greenhouse roof. It was sweet of Anne to share her flowers, but just now Sarah’s mind was on other matters.