He paused for a moment and then he whispered, hoarsely, «Tell me John, what is going on? Let me in on it.»
«I don’t know,» I said.
«But you talked with him and he told the chief you had told him not to answer any questions.»
«That’s good legal procedure,» I told him. «You can have no quarrel with that. And another thing, I’ll hold you responsible for seeing that those diamonds don’t disappear somehow. I have an inventory signed by Chet and there is no charge …»
«What about busting jail?»
«Not unless you can show cause for his being arrested in the first place.»
He slammed down the receiver, and I hung up the phone and sat there trying to get the facts straight inside my mind. But they were too fantastic for me to make them spell out any sense.
«Dorothy,» I yelled.
She poked her head around the door, her face prissy with her disapproval.
Somehow, apparently, she had heard about what had been going on—as, no doubt, had everyone in town—and she was one of the few who held George in very ill-repute. She thought he was a slob. She resented my relationship to him and she often pointed out that he cost me, over the years, a lot of time and cash, with no money ever coming back. Which was true, of course, but you can’t expect a junkyard operator to afford fancy legal fees and, in any case, he was Elsie’s uncle.
«Put in a call to Calvin Ross,» I told her, «at the Institute of Arts in Minneapolis. He is an old friend of mine and …»
Banker Amos Stevens came bursting through the door. He crossed the outer office and brushed past Dorothy as if she weren’t there.
«John, do you know what you have got—what you’ve got down there!»
«No,» I said. «Please tell me.»
«You have got a Rembrandt!»
«Oh, you mean the painting.»
«Where do you think George found a Rembrandt? There aren’t any Rembrandts except in museums and such.»
«We’ll soon find out more about it,» I told Banker Stevens, Willow Grove’s one and only expert in the arts. «I’ve got a call in now and …»
Dorothy stuck her head around the door. «Mr. Ross is on the phone,» she said.
I picked up the phone and I felt a little funny about it, because Cal Ross and I hadn’t seen each other for a good fifteen years or more, and I wasn’t even sure he would remember me. But I told him who I was and acted as if we’d had lunch together just the day before, and he did the same to me.
Then I got down to business. «Cal, we have a painting out here that maybe you should have a look at. Some people think it might be old and perhaps by one of the old masters. I know that it sounds crazy, but …»
«Where did you say this painting is?» he asked.
«Here in Willow Grove.»
«Have you had a look at it?»
«Well, yes,» I said, «a glance, but I wouldn’t know …»
«Tell him,» Stevens whispered, fiercely, «that it is a Rembrandt.»
«Who owns it?»
«Not really anyone,» I said. «It’s down at the city jail.»
«John, are you trying to suck me into something? As an expert witness, maybe.»
«Nothing like that,» I said, «but it does have a bearing on a case of mine and I suppose I could dig up a fee …»
«Tell him,» Stevens insisted, «that it is a Rembrandt.»
«Did I hear someone talking about a Rembrandt?» Cal asked.
«No,» I said. «No one knows what it is.»
«Maybe I could get away,» he said.
He was getting interested—well, maybe interested isn’t the word; intrigued might be more like it.
«I could arrange a charter to fly you out,» I said.
«It’s that important, is it?»
«To tell you the truth, Cal, I don’t know if it is or not. I’d just like your opinion.»
«Fix up the charter, then,» he said, «and call me back. I can be at the airport to be picked up within an hour.»
«Thanks, Cal,» I said. «I’ll be seeing you.»
Elsie would be sore at me, I knew, and Dorothy would be furious.
Chartering a plane, for a small-town lawyer in a place like Willow Grove, is downright extravagance. But if we could hang onto those diamonds, or even a part of them, the bill for the charter would be peanuts. If they were diamonds. I wasn’t absolutely sure Harry Johnson would know a diamond if he saw one. He sold them in his store, of course, but I suspected that he just took some wholesaler’s word that what he had were diamonds.
«Who was that you were talking to?» demanded Banker Stevens.
I told him who it was.
«Then why didn’t you tell him it was a Rembrandt?» Stevens raged at me. «Don’t you think that I would know a Rembrandt?»
I almost told him no, that I didn’t think he would, and then thought better of it. Some day I might have to ask him for a loan.
«Look, Amos,» I said, «I didn’t want to do anything that would prejudice his judgment. Nothing that would sway him one way or the other. Once he gets here he will no doubt see right away that it is a Rembrandt.»
That mollified him a bit, and then I called in Dorothy and asked her to fix up arrangements for Cal to be flown out, and her mouth got grimmer and her face more prissy at every word I said. If Amos hadn’t been there, she’d have had something to say about throwing away my money.
Looking at her, I could understand the vast enjoyment she got out of the revival meetings that blossomed out in Willow Grove and other nearby towns each summer. She went to all of them, no matter what the sect, and sat on the hard benches in the summer heat and dropped in her quarter when the collection plate was passed and sucked out of the fire-and-brimstone preaching a vast amount of comfort. She was always urging me to go to them, but I never went. I always had the feeling she thought they might do me a world of good.
«You’re going to be late in court,» she told me curtly, «and the case this morning is one you’ve spent a lot of time on.»
Which was her way of telling me I shouldn’t be wasting any of my time on George.
So I went off to court.
At noon recess, I phoned the jail, and there’d been no sign of George. At three o’clock, Dorothy came across the square to tell me Calvin Ross would be coming in at five. I asked her to phone Elsie to be expecting a guest for dinner and maybe one for overnight; and she didn’t say anything, but from her face I knew she thought I was a brute and she’d not blame Elsie any if she up and left me. Such inconsideration!
At five o’clock I picked Cal up at our little airport and a fair crowd was on hand. Somehow the word had got around that an art expert was flying out to have a look at the painting George Wetmore had picked up somewhere.
Cal was somewhat older than I had remembered him and age had served to emphasize and sharpen up the dignity that he’d had even in his youth.
But he was kind and affable and as enthusiastic about his art as he had ever been. And I realized, with a start, that he was excited. The possibility of finding a long-lost painting of some significance must be, I realized, a dream that is dear to everyone in the field.
I drove him down to the square and we went into the station and I introduced him round. Chet told me there was no sign of George. After a little argument, he got out the painting and laid it on the table underneath the ceiling light.
Cal walked over to look down at it and suddenly he froze, like a bird dog on the point. For a long time he stood there, not moving, looking down at it, while the rest of us stood around and tried not to breathe too hard.
Then he took a folding magnifier out of his pocket and unfolded it. He bent above the painting and moved the glass from spot to spot, staring at each spot over which he held the glass for long seconds.
Finally he straightened up.