The Brass Go-Between

Chapter twenty-one

The humidity must have been nudging the hundred mark the next morning when I came out of the Metropolitan Police headquarters at 300 Indiana Avenue. Gray, fat clouds moved slowly to the east, taking their time like plump brokers on the way back to the office after a big lunch and a thoughtful speech. It was 11:15 and I was late and there was a tickle in my throat because I had been answering questions for a solid hour and some of my answers had even bordered on the truth.

I hailed a taxi and it deposited me at the entrance of the Coulter Museum at 11:27. At 11:30 Frances Wingo’s young Negro secretary was holding open the door to her employer’s office. There was no smile this time. I decided that she handed out that smile only to the prompt.

At four o’clock that morning, as I lay in a rough nest of twisted sheets, it had all seemed unambiguous, clear-cut, even simple. But as I went through the door into Frances Wingo’s office everything crumbled and what had seemed simple in that awful hour between four and five in the morning, now seemed impossibly far-fetched and complicated.

Frances Wingo and Winfield Spencer were seated at the far end of her office occupying two of the chairs in the cluster of comfortable furniture that was grouped around the fireplace. I noticed that the Klee was gone. In its place was a chilly blaze of electric blue squares by someone I failed to recognize. Frances Wingo wore an off-white dress that was trimmed in black. Spencer wore what seemed to be the same gray suit with vest that I’d seen him in before. His shirt collar was un-frayed this time, but his hair still seemed to have been trimmed with the garden shears. He also had on a different tie, a blue polka dot butterfly bow that clipped neatly on to his collar. It must have cost all of seventy-five cents. They both wore those politely pained, frosty expressions that are adopted by busy persons who have been kept waiting for half an hour by someone who isn’t busy.

“Sorry I’m late,” I said. “I had to give the police two statements and it took longer than I thought it would.”

“While we were waiting,” Frances Wingo said, “I informed Mr. Spencer about the call that I received from Lieutenant Demeter at one o’clock this morning. He told me about apprehending the two suspected thieves and recovering the money. It would seem that you might have let me know that the money was missing when we spoke on the phone last night, Mr. St. Ives.”

“I would have,” I said, “but you hung up in my ear.”

Spencer once again fixed his green gaze on my forehead. “If I understand correctly, the money is safe, the thieves are caught, but the shield is still missing. That is a brief but I hope succinct summary of the current situation, is it not, Mr. St. Ives?”

“It is,” I said.

“Then it would seem that you did what you said you would not do.”

“What?”

“Help catch the thieves.”

“Yes, it does seem that way, doesn’t it?”

Spencer nodded and shifted his gaze to the coffee table that lay between the two of them in their chairs and me on the couch. “We are, of course, deeply disappointed.”

“I’m sure you must be.”

“The shield — not the money, not the thieves — but the shield was the most important thing.”

“Yes,” I said. “It would appear so.”

My head started to throb again, not as bad as the night before, only a dull, deep throb — something like a distant artillery barrage.

“Our problems are further compounded,” Frances Wingo said, “by the impossibility of keeping the theft from the press any longer. After I informed the Jandolaean Embassy this morning, they insisted that the news be released.”

“That’s understandable,” I said. “Who’s going to announce it?”

“I regret that we must,” she said.

“When?”

“This afternoon. I’ve scheduled a press conference. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police will be on hand as will a representative of the Jandolaean Embassy.”

“Isn’t that a little unusual?” I said.

“Yes, but I think you’ll agree that the circumstances are unusual.”

I looked around for an ashtray, but found none. Frances Wingo, once more reading my mind, crossed to her desk and came back with one which she placed on the table before me. I lit a cigarette and ignored the mild look of disapproval that appeared on Spencer’s face. It only made him look a trifle more forbidding than normal.

“As thefts go it was unusual,” I said. “Very unusual. Four people were killed — five if you count the guard’s wife who hanged herself. That made it unusual enough to assure it a biennial spread in True Detective for years to come. But what made it really unusual was that there was never any thought of returning the shield. At least not to the museum.”

Spencer chuckled. I had never even seen him smile so the chuckle caught me off guard. It sounded dry and dusty, as if he used it once or twice a year at most, perhaps at Christmas Eve. “Sorry,” he said, “but I’m just recalling that rather lengthy lecture that you gave us when we first approached you about serving as our intermediary. At that time you went to great pains to disavow your responsibility for either the apprehension of the thieves or the solution of the theft. But it seems that last night you actually turned the two thieves, a man and a woman, I understand, over to the police and now you are displaying a certain amount of deductive reasoning in the most Holmesian manner to explain the motive behind the theft. I’m sorry, Mr. St. Ives, but I find it amusing. Why not play your new role to the hilt and tell us that you have deduced where the shield is?”

I ignored him. It’s not easy to ignore a billion dollars, but I did my best. “The theft was planned by Mrs. Wingo’s late husband,” I said.

“That’s not true,” she said, but there wasn’t much conviction in her voice.

“I think it’s true,” I said. “The police think it’s true and the two thieves know it’s true. They told me so last night. Your husband never intended to return the shield to the museum. He did intend to grab the ransom money though. His share would have kept him in heroin for a while and after that, there was always the chance for blackmail.”

“Whom would he blackmail, Mr. St. Ives?” Spencer said.

“The person that he stole the shield for.”

“And I assume that this unnamed person now has the shield?”

“Yes.”

“Remarkable.”

“Not really.”

“So all we need is the name of the person and we can turn him over to the police.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“And you no doubt know who this person is?”

“I think so,” I said.

“You think so; you’re not sure?”

“Fairly sure.”

“Would you tell us?”

“No,” I said. “I’ll tell you, Mr. Spencer, and then, as chairman of the museum’s executive board, you can determine what steps to take. But Mrs. Wingo was married to the man who planned and engineered the theft. As such she comes under suspicion as either an accomplice or an accessory.”

“That is ridiculous,” she said.

“Not ridiculous,” I said. “Not even farfetched. Your husband had an expensive habit. He had exhausted all funds — both yours and his and this was the only way that he could get more. A lot more. As director of the museum, you were in a position to introduce him, casually I assume, to Sackett, the guard. From there on he handled it all except that you were also in a position to tell him about that one door that wasn’t electrically sealed from the inside. The police say it was an inside job. Perhaps they just haven’t figured out how deeply inside it was.”

She stared at me and there was nothing but contempt and loathing in her gaze. I smiled at her, but it was a feeble smile. “It does hang together, you’ll have to admit.”

“You mentioned that you thought that you know who now has the shield,” Spencer said.

“I also said that I’d tell you, but not Mrs. Wingo. If she is an accomplice, and if I’m right about who has the shield, she could easily tip him off.”

“You don’t believe that she has it, do you?” Spencer said.

“Tucked away in the attic perhaps where she can admire it, even gloat over it, during long winter evenings.” He chuckled again for the second time that year.

“No,” I said. “I don’t believe that.”

“Well, Mr. St. Ives, let’s get it over with. My dear, if you’ll excuse yourself.”

She rose and without looking at me or saying anything walked quickly to the door, opened it, and left. Spencer watched her leave. After the door closed he looked at me and this time his green eyes met mine for the first time and held.

“All right, St. Ives. Who?”

I took a deep breath, but it came out as a croak anyway. “You,” I said. “You’ve got the shield.”