Confess, Fletch

Seven

Fletch hesitated: at the corner of Arlington Street before turning left.

Walking along the brick sidewalk he turned up the collar of his Burberry. Lights were on in the offices of the brownstones to his right. After months of sun, the cool October mist felt good against his face.

He did not hesitate under the canopy, of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. He had seen the sign from a block and a half away. He went through the revolving door, across the lobby to the newsstand and bought a map of Boston and a Morning Star.

Turning away from the counter, he saw there was a side door and went through it. He was on Newbury Street.

He turned the pages of the newspaper as he walked. The story was on page five. It was only three paragraphs. No picture. He was identified in the second paragraph as “Peter Fletcher” and was attributed with calling the police. The third paragraph said, according to police sources, he had been alone in the with the murdered girl.

The bare facts made it seem he was guilty. And the Boston press did not care much about the story.

He knew. The only follow-up expected from such facts would be the indictment of Peter Fletcher. Not much of a story. No mystery.

Classified advertisements were In the back, of the paper, just ahead of the comics page. He tore out the strip concerning “Garages For Rent” and stuffed the rest of the newspaper into a small rubbish basket attached to a post at the corner. He put the piece of newspaper and the map in his coat pocket.

In the next block was the Horan Gallery. Of course, there was no sign. A building, an old town house, a thick, varnished wood garage door to the left, a recessed door with a doorbell button, two iron grilled windows to the right. The windows, on the second, third and fourth floors were similarly grilled. The place was a fortress.

The brass plate under the bell button gave the address only—no name.

The door opened as Fletch pushed the button.

The man, in his sixties, wore a dark blue apron from his chest to his knees. He also wore a black bow tie with his white shirt, black trousers, and shoes. A butler interrupted while polishing silver?

“Fletcher,” Fletch said.

To the right of the hall, in what had once been a family living room, was no furniture other than objects of art. Passing the door, Fletch saw a Rossetti on an easel. On the far wall was a Rousseau, over a standing glass case. On a pedestal was a bronze Degas dancer.

Going up the stairs, Fletch realized the house was entirely atmosphere-controlled. With thermostats every five meters along the walls, the temperature was absolutely even. The air was as odorless as if man had never existed. Few of the world’s major museums afforded such systems.

The man, remaining wordless, showed Fletch into a room on the second floor and closed the door behind him.

Facing the door was a Corot, on an easel.

Horan rose from behind a Louis Seize desk, made a slight nod of his head which would have passed Europe for an American bowing, and strode across the soft Persian carpet with his hand extended.

“I understand now,” he said. “You’re younger than I expected.”

Horan hung Fletch’s damp coat in a tight closet.

A Revere coffee service, awaited them on a butler’s table between two small, comfortable, upholstered divans.

“Cream or sugar, Mister Fletcher?”

“Just the coffee will be fine.”

“I spent a pleasant half hour reading you this morning—your monograph on Edgar Arthur Tharp, Junior. I should have read it before this, of course, but it was unknown at the Athenaeum until I requested it.”

“You, do your homework.”

“Tell me, was it originally done as a doctoral thesis? It had no university imprimatur on it.”

“I did it originally about that time in life, yes.”

“But you’ve only printed it recently? Of course you’re still not much older than the average graduate student. Or are you one of these people blessed by the eternal appearance of youth, Mister Fletcher?”

Horan was a far more attractive man than Fletch had expected. In his early fifties, he was slim but heavily shouldered. His features were perfectly even. Without wrinkles, his complexion had to have been cosmetically kept. Over his ears, his hair, brushed back, was silver, not gray. Hollywood could have sold tickets to films of him dancing with Audrey Hepburn.

“Of course,” he continued after Fletch’s silence, haven’t yet gotten my enthusiasm up for the bulk of American artists. Cassat, Sargent, all. right, but your Winslow Homers and Remingtons and Tharp all seem indecently robust.“

“Michelangelo and Rubens you would not call robust?”

“The action in the work is what I mean. The action, the moment, in the bulk of American work seems so existential. It is overwhelmed by its own sense of confinement. It does not aspire.” Horan tasted his coffee. “I shall leave my lecturing for my class at Harvard, where I am due at twelve o’clock. About this Picasso?”

Fletch said, “Yes.”

Being offered a seat was one thing; being put in his place another.

“What is there to say about, the work I haven’t already said?” Horan asked the air. “It may not exist. Then again it may. If it exists, where it? And can it be authenticated? Believe it or not, the job of authentication is easier, now that the old boy is dead. He was prone to claims works he liked, whether he did them or not, and to deny works he probably did do, if he didn’t like them. Then, after we find it, there is the question of whether whoever owns the work is willing to sell, and for how much. You may have come a long way for nothing, Mister Fletcher.”

Fletch said nothing.

“Or did you really come to Boston to expand upon your work on Tharp?”

“Actually, I did,” Fetch said. “ I’m thinking of trying his biography.”

Horan’s forehead creased.

“Well,” he, said. “If I can be of any help… Introduction to the Tharp Family Foundation…”

“Thank you.”

“You want the Picasso purely for your private collection?”

“Yes.”

“You represent no one else?”

“No one.”

“There is the question of credit, Mister Fletcher. Most of the people I deal with, I’ve dealt with for years, you understand. Other than your monograph, privately printed….”

“I understand. The Barclough Bank in Nassau will establish whatever credit for me you require.”

“The Bahamas? That might be very useful.”

“It is.”

“Very well, sir. You mentioned you have a photograph of the Picasso?”

Fletch removed the envelope from his inside jacket pocket. He placed the photograph on the table.

“The photograph was made from a slide,” he said.

“As I thought,” Horan said, picking it up. “Cubist. And Braque did not do it.” He tapped the photograph against his thumbnail. “But we don’t know if Picasso did.”

Fletch stood up.

“You’ll make enquiries for me?”

“By all means.”

“How long do you think it will be before you know something?”

Horan was following him.

“I’ll get on the phone this afternoon. It may take twenty minutes, or it may take twenty days.”

On a little table next to the closet door was a copy of the New York Times. Fletch’s notoriety had not penetrated the Horan Gallery. He looked at the front page.

“I never bother with the Boston newspapers,” Horan said.

“Not even the society pages?”

Horan held his coat for him.

“I believe anything of sufficient importance to warrant my attention will appear in the New York Times.”

Horan opened the door. The houseman, still in his apron, waited on the landing to show Fletch out.

Fletch said, “I’m sure you’re right.”