The Fatal Frails Read online

  Sally was watching his face. “What is it, Johnny?”

  “Just my big nose itchin’, I guess.” He slapped both palms down on the little wooden gate that separated them, with a report that made Sally jump. “New record on the turntable, ma. Come on upstairs in the mornin’, huh?”

  She tried to ignore the added color in her cheeks. “You overwhelm a girl with the delicacy of your invitations, sir. The apartment’s not good enough for you? I don’t like skulking around upstairs. And I’ve got clothes drying, and ironing to do—”

  “If you’re lookin’ for a sales’ talk, ma, I got no time. Hell with the ironin’—you come on up. Consolidated Friction, Inc. is about to declare a stock dividend. I wouldn’t want you to miss it.”

  “If I miss it, can they declare it?” she inquired pertly.

  “It’d be a problem,” he admitted. “You be there.” He turned to leave. “Tell Paul.”

  “About Consolidated Friction?”

  “Not unless I’m there to watch you tell him.” Sally made a face at him and waved him away. In the foyer he was glad to see the rain had stopped. On the sidewalk, his shoulders hunched involuntarily against the damp bite of the night air. Damn chilly for late June. Probably noticed it more after the warmer weather they’d been having, he decided. At his arm wave a cab rolled down from the corner.

  On the short ride he speculated again upon the reason for the importer’s sudden suicide. He shrugged it aside. Who could figure why people did the things they did?

  He paid off the cabbie in front of the familiar weather-beaten old red brick building. Two black Cadillacs stood at the curb, each appearing half a block long. Johnny trotted up worn white steps and, inside, turned left on oil-darkened wooden floors.

  The desk man nodded before Johnny could speak. “He’s waitin’. Second—”

  “—door on the left,” Johnny finished for him. In the hall he noticed two calm-faced black robes seated on a bench. Two more were strolling the upper corridor. Somebody must have caught the black pill, Johnny thought uneasily. He knocked twice on the second door on the left, and entered. In the concentrated glare of the goose-necked lamp on the cluttered desk he watched Lieutenant Joseph Dameron’s solid bulk rise from the depths of his swivel chair. The expression in the frosty gray eyes and on the apple-cheeked blunt features beneath the steel-gray hair was noncommittal. “H’ya, Joe,” Johnny said. “What the hell’s the—”

  The lieutenant flung out an arm in the manner of a magician calling attention to the rabbit emerging from a hat. “His Eminence,” he announced warningly. “Cardinal Lucian Alerini.”

  Johnny’s eyes switched left to the beamingly florid moon face of a massive, bald-headed man in flowing dark robes. “Kiki!” Johnny exclaimed, and was enveloped with a rush in a rib-crunching bear hug. Instinctively Johnny’s hands came up.

  “Easy!” Lieutenant Dameron rapped at him apprehensively.

  Unheeding, Johnny punched joyfully at a forearm that felt like a fireplace log. “Kiki! What’re you doin’ here?”

  “Business!” a big voice boomed in Johnny’s ear. The hard arms rocked him from side to side before releasing him, and then the cardinal stepped back to look at him more closely. “Not one iota have you changed, Johnny. Which cannot be said for the rest of us,” he mourned, running a hand over his bald pate, down the left side of which ran a livid scar. The dark eyes were merry. “You remembered, eh?”

  “Remember? I hope to tell you I remember.” Johnny leveled a finger at the huge figure, six-four and well over two hundred fifty pounds. “Like the night at Reggio Calabria? When the lousy st—”

  “Language, language!” Lieutenant Dameron intervened hastily. “Watch it, will you? His Eminence doesn’t—”

  “Eminence?” Johnny interrupted. “You’re a cardinal now, Kiki?” His eye caught the flash of the ring, and he grinned. “So the only rope-climbin’ bishop in captivity’s a cardinal? Gettin’ down to the bottom of the barrel, aren’t they?”

  The big churchman’s resonant roar of laughter rattled the windows. “Exactly what I said!”

  “Will you kindly show a little respect?” the lieutenant asked Johnny in anguish. “His Eminence—”

  “His Eminence knew us when, Joe,” Johnny interrupted again with a grin. “You under the delusion he didn’t know where you got the information that time at Foggia when you an’ the little widow—”

  “Will you shut up?”

  “It makes a man feel young again to look at you, Johnny.” The cardinal’s rumble cut in smoothly behind Dameron’s rasp. The big man sounded wistful. His English was flawless, but formal. “How many days and miles removed from our last meeting on the cliffs, my friend? Yet a look in the mirror mornings keeps the memory green.” Once more he lightly touched the savage-looking scar on his head.

  Lieutenant Dameron cleared his throat heavily. “His Eminence wants to talk to you,” he said sourly to Johnny. “Seriously.” The lieutenant didn’t look too happy about it, Johnny thought.

  “I asked Joseph to call you,” the cardinal affirmed. “I have a favor to ask.”

  Johnny nodded. “À l’instant.”

  The beaming smile flashed again. “Merci. It’s good to know the attitude’s as little changed as the man.” The moon features turned serious. “I know I give you no news when I say that, in the bad days we remember, there was much looting of property, including the church’s. Some has been recovered, but a great deal has not. Some stolen articles had commercial value, almost all had museum value, but to the church there were other values than the lira that could be realized from their disposal.”

  “You mean they had a history,” Johnny said.

  “A very long history, in some cases. But to the mutton: I recently learned the name of a man of conspicuous talent in the management of such disappearances in those days. I’m assured that this man personally supervised the removal of one item in my charge for the recovery of which I would gladly receive the duplicate of this.” His hand went again to the scar. “The man is in this city.”

  “He is? Joe’s gonna snatch him for you?”

  “I’m here primarily on ecclesiastical matters,” the cardinal said obliquely. “The other is a private project, and not simple. The stolen item has the status of an objet d’art. Even when found after all this time there’s the question of proof of original ownership, of jurisdictional latitude and longitude, of the statute of limitations, of the availability of witnesses, of many, many other things. You follow?”

  “I follow,” Johnny replied grimly. He glared at the man behind the desk, and Lieutenant Dameron turned a dull red. “You came to Joe, an’ he fluffed you off.”

  “Now listen, Johnny—”

  “You haven’t heard the special point of the story.” The cardinal overrode the lieutenant’s abortive protest in the bland manner of the born diplomat. “I said the man is in the city.” He paused for emphasis. “The man is at your hotel, Johnny.”

  “At the Duarte?” Johnny rubbed his hands together briskly. “Well, what are we waitin’ for? Tell me his name an’ I’ll run back over there an’ shake the fillin’s outta his back teeth.”

  “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.”

  CHAPTER II

  “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 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 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. “Dechant 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.”

  “I want no trouble from you,” the lieutenant warned. His voice rose. “I want no—”

  “Sure, Joe, sure,” Johnny interrupted soothingly. “All you want is the world with a fence around it. As usual.” He turned to the cardinal. “Where can I reach you, Kiki?”

  “At the Rosario.” The big man looked as though he were enjoying himself.

  “I’ll be on the phone to you presently.”

  “Johnny!”

  On his way to the door Johnny lifted a hand in mute acknowledgment of the lieutenant’s angry bellowing of his name.

  He closed the door firmly from the outside.

  • • •

  Johnny grabbed a robe at the familiar tap on the door. Sally slipped in from the corridor as he opened the door, and at once threw her arms about herself to hug her slim figure tightly. “Say, man, I don’t have to come up here to get chilblains,” she protested, marched to the window and closed it.

  “Fresh air’s good for you,” he said from right behind her, and the big arms enfolded her as she turned.

  Sally shivered at the combination of the chill in the room and the husky resonance in her ear. “You and your polar-bear blood,” she said resignedly. A small hand darted upward and sharply tweaked the chest hair exposed by the loosely belted robe. “We don’t all carry our own rugs around with us, you know.”

  “Maybe we could graft a few yards onto you, ma?”

  “I’m doing nicely without, thanks.” She pushed him gently away, turned back to the window and drew the shade. “There’s too much light in here.”

  “You could find yourself outvoted on that. Two hundred thirty-eight pounds to ninety-eight.”

  She ignored him grandly. “Hop into the bed and warm up those sheets,” she commanded. Her nimble fingers flew over clothes fastenings. “I’ve got goose bumps already.”

  “I’ll massage ‘em, ma. Individually.” Johnny threw off the robe, turned down the bed and climbed in. He turned barely in time, holding up the covers to admit the silver arrow that flashed across the room. Sally, squealing at the touch of the icy sheets on her bare flesh, scrambled up on top of Johnny, elbows and knees thrashing. “Goddlemighty, I might’s well be in bed with a centipede,” he grunted.

  “Ooh, but you’re the warmest thing,” she murmured, wriggling along his length. She sighed in satisfaction. “Let me soak up a little heat first.”

  Silently the hard hands reached down over her and glided over the velvety expanse of slender back and not-quite-boyish behind. Sally’s initial rapid breathing slowed and quieted, then once more began to accelerate. The big hands stroked delicately, patted and teased. And paused. “That a goose bump, ma?”

  “Stop it!” she ordered, and rolled off the massive chest.

  “No complaints about the sheets now?”

  “Don’t—talk—” she murmured huskily. The brown eyes were enormous. “You’re so—good for me. You’re—oh!”

  “What was that last remark, ma?”

  “Mmmmm!”

  Johnny eased back down under the covers and handed Sally one of the cigarettes he’d lighted. The brown eyes examined his face. “You definitely bring out the worst in me, man,” she complained.