I told him I’d had a number of things to take care of.
“Do you have the painting with you?”
“Yes.”
There was a sigh of relief. “It is charming, is it not?”
“Charming.”
“You’ll bring it right around?”
I said I was afraid I couldn’t do that.
There was a throbbing silence, and then Max said, in a voice I hardly recognized, “What’s wrong?”
I told him I thought perhaps there’d been a little misunderstanding and that I’d be there shortly to talk things over.
I let an hour go by and then walked uptown. Max nodded when I came into his presence and motioned me to a chair. He was pale, and — it may have been my imagination — his hair seemed to have lost its coppery gleam. Anna was there, composed and unsmiling. No one could be beautiful, I thought, who didn’t look like Anna. Moments passed in a heavy silence and then Max spoke. “I hope you’re not going to tell me something has happened to that painting. It’s not damaged?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“And you brought it back with you?” I nodded. “Good, then!” He forced a smile. “It’s the money, is it? I’ll give you your money and then you’ll bring it here. How’s that?”
I said nothing.
“Or perhaps you’d like us to pick it up. Anna will go back with you to wherever you are staying, and perhaps you would not mind to see her safely back here.”
“It’s not that simple.”
Max stiffened and looked away — not at Anna, just away, then back. “Perhaps you will tell us what it is that is not simple.”
“Our arrangement, Max. Ten percent—”
“Ah!” He smiled. “Perhaps I have been ungenerous. And of course we are very grateful. Shall we say fifteen? Although I must say I would not have expected this of you. After all, we made our bargain.”
“Ten percent’s fine. Ten percent of the selling price.”
“Yes. As we agreed. Two thousand dollars.”
“Forty.”
“Oh!” said Anna.
“Explain yourself,” said Max, in a voice of ice.
I settled back in my chair. “Let’s have some schnapps, Max — then we can talk like civilized people. And you don’t have to worry — I’m not going to tell you anything you don’t already know.”
Max reached for the bottle on the shelf behind him, not taking his eyes off me. Anna handed me a tumbler, staring at me from an immeasurable distance.
I waited until she was back in her chair. “Gerrit Till is dead.”
Anna’s hand flew to cover her mouth. Max looked wary. “Murdered.”
“No,” said Anna. “Oh, please, no!” Her hand dropped to her lap. The dismay in her voice and in her eyes was real.
I felt a rush of anger. “Do you know that his mother is living? An old, old woman living out in the Indies somewhere? Her heart will be broken.” I looked from one to the other of them. “It was a wicked thing to kill that man.”
“Yes, it was,” said Max. “Tell us what happened.”
I described what the broadcast had said, in particular the statement of the housekeeper, who had found the body at about five o’clock when she turned up to fix the murdered man’s dinner. The morning newspaper had described her as grief-stricken.
“Oh, it’s so sad,” said Anna. “It’s so sad.”
I said, “You set me up, you two.”
“What?” said Max. “What?”
“I’ve had plenty of time to think things out. You bought that painting for Ambrose Voyt—” Max’s jaw tightened “—and I figure that makes it worth half a million. But I can’t be sure, so let’s say, at a conservative guess, four hundred thousand. All right? At a hundred percent markup you would have had to pay Gerrit Till two hundred thousand — a quarter of a million, maybe. The two thousand you gave me to hand him was to pacify me, not to pay him. He laughed when I gave it to him. Now I understand why.”
“This is fascinating,” said Max. “Here — let me fill your glass.”
“No, thank you. You gave him his quarter million, waited for me to pick up the painting — which I so obligingly did for you — shot him, and took back your money. Ambrose Voyt’s money.”
“But why send you?” said Max. “Why didn’t I do it all myself?” He smiled at me. “You’re my good friend, Peter, but you’re a crazy fellow, too.”
“You sent me—” I groped for a reason “—to get the merchandise through customs. To be seen. I am known to be a dealer, after all, in a small way. To take the heat off, Max! Why do I have to tell you this? You know it better than I do. If they had picked me up, who would have believed I didn’t kill him? I was there. My car was seen.”
“This is nonsense.” He poured himself a gin, drank it, and set the tumbler down with a sigh. “That’s better. Look, this has all been a great shock, you know? Gerrit was a fine man. What has happened is terrible. And you — I am afraid you are suffering from an overwrought imagination. The painting is what it is, no more — a pretty little landscape — and it reminds Ambrose Voyt of the farming country where he was born — somewhere in Eastern Europe, I think. He’s a sentimental man. The picture is worth twenty thousand to him, and half that to anyone else. Less. Everything else is fantasy.”
I got to my feet.
Anna spoke. “Max and I have been here in the city the whole time you were gone. The whole time.” Her voice was earnest, and her eyes shining with the will to be believed.
I walked to the door at the head of the stairs.
“Where do I reach you?” Max’s voice was calm, but I heard the turbulence underneath. It reminded me of the blue sky Gerrit Till had painted over the unknown work.
“I’ll call you tomorrow after the banks are open,” I said.
Max came thumping into Hal’s apartment a little after half past ten in the morning. Anna was with him. I indicated the sofa. He handed Anna his crutches and they both sat down.
He gazed around the room as though he hadn’t a thing on his mind. “This is your friend’s apartment?”
I nodded. “It’s hideous, isn’t it?”
He looked at me for confirmation. “Who would do this to such a handsome old house?”
He turned to Anna.
“Oh, Max,” she said faintly, “I don’t want to talk about this.”
But Max was himself again. His hair had regained its fire. “That painting over your chair, Peter. Behind your chair, should I say? Dreadful!”
I turned my head and squinted up at the painting: broad black slashes crossing a dead-white ground. Up and down, left and right. Zip-zap.
“A poor man’s Kline,” said Max. “And if I am not mistaken, a left-handed painter.” He narrowed his eyes. “Who is it, Peter? Can you tell me?”
I obligingly swiveled around again. “ ‘P.H.,’ ‘P.L.,’ something like that.”
“Peyell?” He shrugged. “It’s not familiar.”
“Please, Max,” said Anna. “Can’t we do what we came to do and get out of here?”
“Of course,” said Max. “Peter, the painting.”
“The money.”
He brought out a sheaf of bills and placed them on the table beside the sofa. “Two thousand,” he said. “We’ll forget yesterday’s nonsense.”
“Forty.”
“No,” said Max. “I’m sorry Gerrit was killed. May I remind you, I have known him longer than you. And I’m sorry for his mother as well. She is a fine woman — no one should have to suffer so. But what happened has nothing to do with Anna or with me, nothing whatsoever. My dear friend, I must insist that you hand over the painting.”
I shook my head.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Anna jumped to her feet. “Max will give you the money, the forty thousand. All you are asking. We deceived you about the value of the painting, that’s true — but you wouldn’t have brought it out if we hadn’t, would you? You know you wouldn’t! We had no intention to place you in jeopardy and we didn’t! We didn’t! The customs people didn’t make any trouble, did they? What happened was a coincidence, a terrible coincidence! Unless—” a look of the remotest amusement crossed her face “—you didn’t do something foolish, did you?”