killer found out that Mr. Danforth was putting together a retrospective exhibit of Piet Mondrian’s works, which in and of itself was no cause for alarm. After all, his fake paintings had survived such exposure in the past. But it seemed that Mr. Danforth was aware that there were far more Mondrians in circulation than Mondrian ever painted. What is it they used to say about Rembrandt? He painted two hundred portraits, of which three hundred are in Europe and five hundred in America.”
“Mondrian’s not been counterfeited on that grand a scale,” Danforth said, “but in the past few years there have been some disconcerting rumors. I decided to combine the retrospective with an exhaustive move to authenticate or denounce every Mondrian I could root out.”
“And toward that end you enlisted the aid of Mr. Lewes.”
“That’s right,” Danforth said, and Lewes nodded.
“Our killer learned as much,” I said, “and he was scared. He knew Onderdonk intended to put his painting in the show, and he wasn’t able to talk him out of it. He couldn’t let on that the painting was a fake, not after he’d sold it to Onderdonk himself, and perhaps Onderdonk began to suspect him. That’s supposition. What was clear was that Onderdonk had to die and the painting had to disappear, and it had to be a matter of record that the damned thing disappeared. All he had to do was frame me for the theft and murder and he was home free. It didn’t matter if the charges stuck. If I went up for the job, fine. If not, that was fine, too. The cops wouldn’t look for someone with a private motive for Onderdonk’s death. They’d just decide I was guilty even if they couldn’t make the charges stick, and they’d let the case go by the boards.”
“And we’d pay the cousin in Calgary $350,000 for a fake painting,” Orville Widener said.
“Which wouldn’t affect the killer one way or the other. His interest was self-preservation, and that’s a pretty good Qui bono six days out of seven.”
Ray said, “Who did it?”
“Huh?”
“Who sold the fake paintings and killed Onderdonk? Who did it?”
“Well, there’s really only one person it could be,” I said, and turned toward the little sofa. “It’s you, isn’t it, Mr. Barlow?”
We had another one of those hushes. Then J. McLendon Barlow, who’d been sitting up very straight all along, seemed to sit up even straighter.
“Of course that’s nonsense,” he said.
“Somehow I thought you might deny it.”
“Palpable nonsense. You and I have never met before today, Mr. Rhodenbarr. I never sold a painting to Gordon Onderdonk. He was a good friend and I deeply regret his tragic death, but I never sold him a painting. I defy you to prove that I did.”
“Ah,” I said.
“Nor did I ever visit your shop, or represent myself to you or to anyone else as Gordon Onderdonk. I can understand your confusion, since it is a matter of record that I did in fact donate a painting of Mondrian’s to the Hewlett Gallery. I’d hardly be inclined to deny it; there’s a plaque on the gallery wall attesting to the fact.”
“Unfortunately,” I murmured, “the painting seems to have disappeared from the Hewlett.”
“It’s clear that you arranged its disappearance in preparing this farce. I certainly had nothing to do with it, and can provide evidence of my whereabouts at all times yesterday. Furthermore, it’s to my disadvantage that the painting has disappeared, since it was unquestionably genuine.”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid not,” I said.
“One moment.” Barnett Reeves, my jolly banker, looked as though I’d offered a dead rat as collateral. “I’m the curator of the Hewlett, and I’m quite certain our painting is genuine.”
I nodded at the fireplace. “That’s your painting,” I said. “How positive are you?”
“That’s not the Hewlett Mondrian.”
“Yes it is.”
“Don’t be a fool. Ours was cut from its stretcher by some damned vandal. That painting’s intact. It may well be a fake, but it certainly never hung on our walls.”
“But it did,” I said. “The man who stole it yesterday, and I’d as soon let him remain anonymous, was by no means a vandal. He wouldn’t dream of slashing your painting, genuine or false. He went to the Hewlett carrying a bit of broken stretcher with the outside inch of canvas of a homemade fake Mondrian. He dismantled the stretcher on our specimen, opening the staples and hiding the canvas under his clothing. He hung the pieces of stretcher down his trouser legs. And