“If Mr. Biggers returns, please deny him entrance to the apartment, then call the police and tell them he was here. I am Ms. Fiske’s executor, and you are not to admit anyone to the apartment without written permission from me.” He gave the man his card. “Let’s go,” he said to Carrie.
33
They got into a cab, and Stone got out his cell phone. “Excuse me a moment, I’ve got to call my security guy.” He pressed the speed dial and waited.
“Bob Cantor.”
“Bob, it’s Stone Barrington.”
“What do you need?”
“I need you to go to the following address.” Stone read it to him. “I want the locks to all the exterior doors rekeyed, and make sure you find all of them on both floors. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“You can leave one key with the super, and tell him he’s not to admit anyone without written permission from me. Also, check out the security system, then call the managing company and change the entry and exit codes to the number 1946. Also, change the cancellation code, in the event of a false alarm, to Bob.”
“Like my name?”
“Sort of.”
“How many keys you want?”
“Send me a dozen. Then I want you to go to East Hampton.” He gave him the address of the beach house. “Stop by my place on your way, and Joan will give you keys to both properties and a letter of authorization.”
“Okay.”
“You know somebody who does what you do in Palm Beach, Florida?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Same instructions to him.” He gave Bob the address. “The housekeeper’s name is Hazel, and he can give three keys to her, then FedEx another dozen to me. Joan will call Hazel and let her know he’s coming. And get it done fast, will you?”
“Don’t I always?”
“Thanks, Bob.” Stone hung up, then looked up a number in his list of contacts and called it.
“Paul Eckstein.”
“Paul, it’s Stone Barrington.”
“How are you, Stone?”
“Very well, thanks. I have a very large appraisal and cataloging assignment for you.”
“As large as the Bianchi estate?”
“Larger. Can you come to my house this morning? I’ll give you the details.”
“Certainly. I can be there in an hour.”
“That’s fine. And Paul, please bring a loupe with you.”
“I never go anywhere without one.”
Stone hung up. “Now we’ll get this show on the road.”
Back at his office, Stone buzzed Joan. “Please print me up a hundred letterheads, ‘The Estate of Carrie Fiske,’ using this address and adding my name as executor and trustee.” He gave her the keys to the apartment and beach house. “Bob Cantor will be here soon. Give these to him. Paul Eckstein will be here, too. Send him in. And write me two ‘To Whom It May Concern’ letters, mentioning Bob in one and Paul and his assignees in the other, saying that they are authorized to be admitted to the Fiske premises on my authority as executor.”
Joan went back to her office.
“Well, if you’ll excuse me,” Gala said, “I have a screenplay to work on.”
“I’ll send you up some lunch later.”
She vanished into the elevator.
Bob Cantor arrived, picked up the keys and his letter, and left. Paul Eckstein was right on his heels.
“Come in, Paul, and have a seat.”
Eckstein did so. “Well, what do you have for me? I’m all excited.”
“Does the name Carrie Fiske ring a bell?”
“Vaguely. Socialite?”
“In a big way. She was murdered near Santa Fe a few days ago, and she was my client.”
“Murdered? By whom?”
“The principal suspect is her ex-husband, Harvey Biggers.”
“That rings a faint bell, too. Financial guy, very big?”
“Yes.”
“Carrie had three residences.” He handed Paul a sheet of paper with the addresses. “The East Hampton house is about what you’d expect around Georgica Pond. There’s some good contemporary art — I saw a couple of very nice Hockneys — but the Palm Beach and New York residences, as you can tell by the addresses, are prime, and the contents of each contain the collections of three generations, and are something to behold — furniture, silver, jewelry, and art. I want the three appraisals as furnished, but I want to have the option of auctioning an impressive number of pieces of American antique furniture and the better paintings, so make separate appraisals of each.”
“How soon do you need this?”
“How fast can you get it done?”
“The East Hampton house, a week. The Palm Beach and New York places, two weeks, if I use a separate team for each place.”
“And that would cost the same as if one team took five weeks?”
“Yes, except for any travel expenses. I’ll consult with real estate agencies on property values, but I’ll want my own people to do the interiors, and I’ll want museum and auction house people for the art.”
“I’ll have keys to all three properties sent to you within twenty-four hours.” Joan came in with the authorization letter, and Stone signed it and gave it to Eckstein, who read it.
“This will do nicely.”
“Something else.” He took the velvet bag from his pocket and placed it in Paul’s hand.
Paul weighed it. “Heavy. What is it?”
“That’s what I want you to tell me.”
34
Paul Eckstein shook the bag, and the contents fell into his hand. He stared at it for a moment, then reached over and pointed Stone’s desk lamp at the necklace. He retrieved a loupe from his pocket and examined, randomly, a number of the stones. “These are very good,” he said.
Stone took the Blume receipt from his pocket and handed it to Paul. “This says they’re all flawless.”
Paul read the letter. “Oh, the necklace is a copy — for a minute there, my heart was in my mouth.” He looked at some of the rubies. “Mind you, it’s an excellent copy, by the original maker.”
“What’s it worth?”
“At auction, a couple of million dollars, maybe more, if you get a couple of enthusiasts bidding.”
“There’s a tiny stamp inside the choker,” Stone said. “I couldn’t make it out.”
Paul held the piece close to the lamp, located it, and looked at it through his loupe. “Jesus Christ,” he said, and there was wonder in his voice.
“What does it say?”
“It says, ‘Bijoux Blume, Paris 1899.’”
“The receipt says 1946.”
“Then either the receipt or the necklace is lying.”
“Which one?”
“Stone, do you know what this is, or what it’s a copy of?”
“Sort of. It’s very like the choker in Gustav Klimt’s Woman in Gold.”
“Its proper title is Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, painted in 1907 — or rather, finished in that year. Klimt worked on it for three years before that.”
“Yes, I saw it at the Neue Galerie a while back.”
“The painting, along with several others, and the choker, were confiscated by the Gestapo shortly after the Anschluss, the Nazi takeover of Austria.”
“I know.”
“The paintings ended up in the Belvedere Museum, in Vienna. Frau Bloch-Bauer’s niece sued the Austrian government, took them all the way to the Supreme Court, then went to arbitration to get them back.”
“I know. What happened to the necklace?”
“It ended up in the possession of Hermann Goering. His wife wore it.”
“What happened to it at the end of the war?”
“Goering took his possessions out of his hunting lodge, called Carinhall, after his late first wife. As the Russian Army approached, he set fire to the house, and it burned to the ground, then he escaped to his house on the Obersalzberg, the Bavarian Alps. From there he made his way to Radstadt, near Salzburg, where he planned to surrender to the Americans in order to stay out of the Russians’ hands, but he was captured by the American Army before he could surrender.”