“Who was George Gatty?” Finn asked.
“He was here in the thirties, according to the records. Went on to West Point.”
“One wonders where he came across a Spanish dagger,” murmured Valentine.
“Presumably during the war. Spanish Morocco, Casablanca, somewhere like that.”
“You know your twentieth-century history,” Valentine commented.
“In addition to being headmaster I’m also head of the history department. I teach sixth form.”
“Sixth form?” asked Finn.
“He means grade twelve,” said Valentine.
“Do you know anything more about Gatty?”
“No. Only that he went here in the thirties and went on to West Point. That’s all the information on him I was able to give the police too.”
“You don’t know where we could find him?”
“Tracing down old students isn’t my job, Mr. Valentine. That’s what the alumni association is for.”
“Dr. Valentine.”
“Whatever you call yourself.” Wharton turned on his heel and left the museum.
“Short-tempered fellow,” Valentine observed.
“I’ll say,” commented Finn. “You think we’ll be able to track down Colonel Gatty?”
“With a name like that I don’t think it’ll be too difficult.”
Valentine took a last look at the small painting over the display case and then followed Wharton out of the little museum. The man was waiting beside the door. As Finn and Valentine stepped out of the room he closed the door and locked it.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” asked the headmaster.
“No,” said Valentine, shaking his head. “I think I’ve seen enough.”
Wharton gave him a sharp look. “In that case, perhaps I’ll say good-bye then.”
“Thank you for your help.” Valentine nodded.
“No problem,” answered Wharton. He turned away and went back toward the cloakroom entrance. By the time Finn and Valentine followed he was nowhere to be seen, his footsteps echoing away as he headed back to his office through the school corridors. They exited through the smaller door out into the quadrangle and the hot sunlight.
“Well, what did you make of all that?” said Valentine as they headed back across the quad.
“Is this a quiz?” said Finn.
“If you want it to be.”
“Where do I start?”
“The beginning, of course.”
“His office smelled of pipe tobacco but I didn’t see any pipe.”
“Yes, I caught that too.”
“Uh, he wanted to make sure we didn’t go through the school on the way to the little museum place, so maybe there was somebody he didn’t want us to see… the pipe smoker maybe.”
“Anything else?”
“I think he was lying about Crawley. I bet if we checked we’d find out that Crawley went to Greyfriars.”
“Go on.”
“I think he was lying about this Colonel Gatty as well. I’ll bet he knows more than he’s telling.”
“Why do you think he’d be doing something like that?”
“I’m not sure. Protecting him for some reason, I suppose.”
“Anything else?”
“Not really, except that you seemed awfully interested in that painting in the museum. Looked like a dingy Picasso knockoff.”
“It’s by Juan Gris.”
“The cubist?” Gris, a Spaniard like Picasso as well as his neighbor in Paris, had been one of the early exponents of the style along with George Braque. She’d studied him briefly in her second year. If Valentine was right, the painting was worth a lot of money.
“If the painting is genuine it’s an untitled canvas from 1927. It shouldn’t be there.”
“Why not?” said Finn. “Another generous ex-student?”
“Doubtful,” answered Valentine. “It was looted by the Nazis in 1941 from the Wildenstein Gallery in Paris and hasn’t been seen or heard of since.”
“How would it turn up here?”
“Now that’s a mystery, isn’t it?”
They reached the rental car. The Taurus was still there. The Jaguar was gone. “We can presume the Taurus is Miss Mimble’s.”
“I thought the Jag belonged to Wharton.”
“So did I until I saw the aerial photograph behind his desk. It shows quite a large house tucked in behind the main building. The headmaster’s residence.”
“So who owns the Jag?”
“The person who was smoking the pipe in Wharton’s office just before we came in.”
“Shit,” muttered Finn. “We should have got the plate number.”
“It was a New York World War Two veterans plate. 1LGS2699.”
Somehow she wasn’t surprised that he remembered the number. “Colonel Gatty?”
“Probably. Easy enough to find out.” He tossed Finn the keys. “You drive.” She unlocked the car and got behind the wheel. Valentine climbed in the other side. He reached down, picked his laptop case up from under the seat and plugged it into the empty lighter socket. He booted up the computer, turned on the GPRS wireless modem and tapped his way effortlessly into the New York Department of Motor Vehicles database. Finn ran the car up the long drive and then turned onto the road that led back to the highway. Within a few minutes Valentine had what he wanted.
“It’s Gatty. He lives near the Museum of Natural History.”
“That didn’t take long.”
“Anything Afghani terrorists can do, I can do better.” He grinned. He punched a key on the laptop and closed it. They drove back to New York.
20
Night was falling and the nighthawks were making their swooping, booming mating calls in the purple sky overhead. Instead of being dark, the farmhouse and the outbuildings were bathed in light from half a dozen security lamps on tall poles, lit by the chugging of a small portable generator somewhere. Who had the gasoline to light up a stupid farmhouse these days, making it an easy target for Allied planes overhead, or passing patrols? But Allied flights never got this close to the Swiss border, and there weren’t any patrols wandering around in this area except for them. This was a dead zone, where whatever war that existed was a private one.
They had made a cold camp just inside the tree line using the remains of an old dry stone fence covered with bramble for cover. One of the spooks, Taggart, was whispering to Cornwall, who was making notes using a small pad and his pocket flash. Everyone else was having M-3 meat and vegetable stew or M-1 meat and beans, which tasted as bad as it looked cold and not much better heated. Not that the sergeant much cared; after eating that shit for three years all over Europe his taste buds were cardboard anyway. Shit filled you up just like good stuff and it all came out the same-C-3 accessory-pack toilet paper. Like everyone said, it was a shitty war.
Wonder of wonders, Cornwall was actually talking to him.
“Sergeant.”
“Sir.”
“We’re going to need to get a little closer to the farm.”
“We, sir?”
“You and a patrol. As many men as you think you need.” Stupid fucking question. I need the whole fucking U.S. Army if you’ve got it to spare. The light from the German lamps twinkled off the man’s glasses like he had no eyes at all. He had a voice like a history teacher, like he knew everything in the fucking world. A drone. “What do you want to know, sir?”
“Reconnoiter the situation, Sergeant. How many men, weapons-that kind of thing.”
“Fine.” They were going to do the hard part and Cornwall and McPhail and Taggart were going to sit back here and talk about art. Jesus!
He chose Teitelbaum and Reid because they could keep their mouths shut. They slipped over the hedge and through the last of the trees just after the moon had set. It took them almost an hour to make their way down to the narrow dirt road that ran in front of the farm. It was just on the edge of the pools of light thrown by the pole lamps and offered enough shadow and cover in the roadside ditch to keep the sentries from seeing them.