The Broken Vase

Chapter 3

I don’t agree,” Diego Zorilla said with conviction. “I don’t agree at all. It was a sensible thing for Jan to do. I should have done it myself when I lost my fingers. As for the violin, I don’t believe it. If any substitution had been made, Jan couldn’t possibly have failed to know it.” He drank, put the glass down, and shook his head. “No, it was simply stolen, that’s all. Though how and by whom...”

“Yes, you might let me in on that,” Fox suggested.

They were sitting in Rusterman’s Bar, having finally left Carnegie Hall around midnight. The last two hours there had been productive of no result whatever, except the negative one that Jan Tusar’s violin could not be found. There seemed to be no question that it had been in the dressing room immediately after Tusar had shot himself. Everyone denied having removed it or even touched it, but it was generally admitted that in the confusion and excitement it could easily have been taken without observation. A careful check had established with a fair amount of certainty that only three people had left the scene before the arrival of the captain: a Mrs. Briscoe, a Mr. Tillingsley, and Miss Hebe Heath. Men had been sent to interview them, and they had all denied any knowledge of the violin. It was true that there had been overcoats and women’s wraps around, under one of which the instrument could easily have been carried unseen, and any of those present might have been away for a few minutes without its being remarked, but a search of the entire building was fruitless.

In the comfortable little booth at Rusterman’s, Diego had told Fox that of the three persons who had left the scene before the arrival of the police, Mrs. Briscoe was the lady whom Fox had characterized as a skeleton in sable and could be dismissed from consideration as a fiddle thief; Mr. Tillingsley was the concert master of the Manhattan Symphony Orchestra, equally above suspicion; and, though Hebe Heath was a movie star and therefore not subject to the normal processes of reason or logic, it seemed unlikely that she would steal a violin to the purchase of which she had contributed the substantial sum of two thousand, five hundred dollars.

Fox inquired, “Is she also an admirer of the arts?”

“She was an admirer of Jan Tusar,” said Diego in a certain tone. “Jan was a very romantic figure. He was, in fact, truly romantic — as he proved tonight. And as I am not. I am a realist. When my fingers were smashed in an accident and they had to go, taking the best of me with them, did I finish the job? Not me. I accepted your hospitality — your charity — and for months stayed at your place in the country, because a realist has to eat. Shall we have another drink? And now I arrange music for the Metropolitan Broadcasting Company.”

“A lot of people listen to it. Anyhow, you’re all right. Tell me about some of those other people.”

Diego told him. It was understood, he said, that Tusar had entertained the idea of marrying Dora Mowbray, but it had not been encouraged by Dora and had been unrelentingly opposed by her father. When, a few months ago, Lawton Mowbray had tumbled from his office window to his death, there had even been murmurs about the possibility that Jan Tusar had sent him on that last journey in order to remove an obstacle from the path of true love; but, Diego said, that had been merely a drop of acid from rumor’s unclean tongue, for Jan hadn’t been so romantic as all that. After an interval Dora had consented to act again as Jan’s accompanist; firstly, because Jan insisted that otherwise he could not play, and secondly, because she needed the money; for, though Lawton Mowbray had been an extremely successful manager of artists, he had spent more than he had made and had left nothing but debts, pleasant memories, and a penniless daughter.

Fox remarked that young Mr. Dunham seemed to be on terms with Miss Mowbray.

Diego snorted and said he hoped not. Perry Dunham was an arrogant young ape, incapable of appreciating one of so true a loveliness as little Dora. He called her “little Dora” because when he had first met her, six years ago, she had been only fourteen and had legs like a calf. Even now, he admitted, she lacked somewhat in roundness for a Spaniard’s taste, but she was undeniably lovely, and she could even make pretty good music. As for Perry, he thought swing was music, which — judging from Diego’s tone — settled him. The only reason he ever set foot inside Carnegie Hall was to keep on the good side of his rich mother, Irene Dunham Pomfret, who was the financial godmother of enough musicians to make up a Bethlehem Festival. Garda Tusar, Jan’s sister, was more his type than Dora Mowbray.

Were they?...

No, not that Diego knew of. The dark and tempestuous Garda, as Fox had himself had opportunity to observe, exhibited in her face and figure and movements the authentic ingredients of a seductress, but if she was using them to that end she was being extremely discreet about it. She was in fact somewhat of a mystery. She was supposed to be working at some vague sort of job connected with the fashion world, but if her salary paid for the clothes she wore and the apartment she maintained and her car and chauffeur, it must be a super-job.

She had been fond of her brother, Fox said.

Undoubtedly, Diego agreed; but recently there had been a coolness. Only yesterday Jan had told him that Garda was so angry with him that she was not coming to the Carnegie Hall recital, but he had not said what she was angry about. Diego added remorsefully that for the past few months he had not maintained his former close relations with Jan, and that had been wrong because it had been his, Diego’s, fault; he had been envious. In his remorse, and after six or seven drinks, he admitted it. Jan had been preparing for the most important event of his career; it would assuredly be a glorious triumph; and it was a little more than Diego could bear. He had neglected his young friend at the moment of his greatest need, and he would never forgive himself. Now he would do what he could to atone for it. He would avenge the contemptible treachery that had plunged Jan into a false but fatal despair and caused him to take his life. He would, with his friend Fox’s help, discover who it was that had substituted a cracker box with a handle for Jan’s violin and had taken it away after it had fulfilled its base purpose. He would...

Ten minutes later he was saying that if any substitution had been made, Jan couldn’t possibly have failed to know it.

Fox smiled at him. “You can’t have it both ways, Diego. A little while ago you said—”

“What if I did?” Diego met the smile with sour gloom. “Anyway, I was right. It’s all well enough to say Jan couldn’t have been fooled about that violin, but he was. And I’m going to find out who did it. I’m drunk now, but I won’t be tomorrow, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“Well, good luck.” Fox looked at his watch. “I’m sorry I can’t be here to help, but I’m catching a sleeper to Louisville. Two days should be all I need there, so I’ll probably be giving you a ring Thursday morning to ask how you’re making out.”

But at Louisville a problem regarding a sudden and unaccountable epidemic of stomach-aches in a stable of racehorses, among them a Derby entry, took a day longer than Fox had expected, so it was Friday instead of Thursday when he returned to New York, at two in the afternoon instead of eight in the morning, and at LaGuardia Airport instead of the Pennsylvania Station. He did not, however, need to phone Diego Zorilla to learn how he was making out with his project of atonement and vengeance, because he had talked with him over long distance Thursday evening and already knew. Furthermore, he had received information and a request which now resulted in his eating a hasty lunch in the airport lunchroom, taking a subway to Manhattan, and a taxi to an address on Park Avenue.

His fatigue after three strenuous days and nights, his pockets bulging with packages — gifts for the Trimbles and others at the Zoo, as his home in the country was popularly called — and the battered suitcase he was carrying, should naturally, he thought, have caused some degree of aloofness on the part of the impeccable butler who admitted him to a spacious reception hall after an elevator had lifted him to the twentieth floor. But the butler seemed utterly unimpressed, and Fox surmised that the household staff of Irene Dunham Pomfret was hardened to apparitions from other worlds. The butler was standing by courteously while a second man in uniform, also courteously, was disposing of Fox’s bag and outdoor coverings, when a woman appeared from within through a vaulted archway and approached, talking as she came.

“How do you do? I don’t have any maids. I don’t like them. I have only men. I had maids once, and they were always sick. You’re Fox? Tecumseh Fox? I’ve heard a great deal about you from Diego. You were very sweet to him at the time of his misfortune. Let’s go in here...”

Fox was valiantly concealing a series of shocks. The large and richly furnished reception hall had furnished one. He happened to know something about Chinese vases, through their involvement in a case he had worked on, and two rare and beautiful specimens were displayed there on a table; and on the wall back of them was an ordinary colored print of Greuze’s “The Broken Pitcher”! He did not know, of course, that that had been the favorite picture of James Garfield Dunham, Mrs. Pomfret’s rather sentimental first husband, nor that Mrs. Pomfret was capable of complete disregard of canons of convention and taste when her personal feelings were involved — though after one look at her the latter would have been an easy surmise.

Her appearance was the second shock. It displayed none of the bloodless and brittle insolence her reputation as a female Maecenas had led him to expect. Her figure was generous, her eyes shrewd and merry, her mouth with full lips well-disposed and satisfied with life, and her surprisingly youthful skin — considering, in view of her son Perry, that she must have been at least halfway between forty and fifty — was a flesh covering that Rubens would have enjoyed looking at. Fox himself did.

The vast chamber into which she conducted him, in which two concert grands were merely minor incidents, was overpowering but not irritating. She stopped at the edge of a priceless Zendjan rug and called in a voice that succeeded in blending tender affection with a note of command which invited instant response:

“Henry!”

A man got out of a chair and approached.

“My husband,” said Mrs. Pomfret; and Fox was amazed that a woman could say that as she might have said “My airedale” or “My favorite symphony” without offending his masculine pride. She was proceeding: “This is Tecumseh Fox. I know one thing, if I were your wife and you went around with a stubble like that—”

Fox, bewildered, released Henry Pomfret’s hand and foolishly tried to defend himself. “I had to jump and run to catch a plane and didn’t have time to shave, and besides, I don’t like to shave, and I haven’t any wife.” He glanced around, and as far as he could see there was no one else there except a girl and a young man seated on a divan. “I understood — Diego told me on the phone that you had invited everyone here who—”

“I did, but Adolph Koch sent word that he couldn’t come until four o’clock, and you were on an airplane and Diego couldn’t notify you — nor could my secretary reach Dora or Mr. Gill to let them know — do you know them? I suppose not.”

She led the way to the divan, and the two there stood up. As Mrs. Pomfret pronounced names, Fox saw Dora’s hand start up and then hesitate, and he reached for it, and found that it was shy but firm. Her cheeks were flatter than he remembered them, but, reflecting that she had just been through a severe flattening process, he was willing to concede Diego’s remark about loveliness. He shook hands with Ted Gill, who had the absent and faintly resentful air of a man who had been interrupted in an agreeable and important task.

“He looks,” said Mrs. Pomfret, “like a Norwegian tenor I met in Geneva in 1926 who sang with his Adam’s apple.”

“Not me,” Henry Pomfret laughed. “I probably look to her like a crocodile she met in Egypt in 1928. That was for you, Gill.”

“A cross-eyed baby crocodile,” his wife retorted with fond malice. “And that Norwegian tenor, his name was — yes, Wells, what is it?”

A middle-aged man with a worried brow and harassed eyes approached. “Telephone, Mrs. Pomfret. Mr. Barbinini.”

“Oh, my lord, fighting again,” exclaimed Mrs. Pomfret, and rushed off.

“Will you have a drink?” offered the husband. “Dora?”

“No, thanks.”

Gill declined too, but Fox admitted that he could get along with one. It appeared, however, that drinks were not available in that chamber at that hour; at any rate, Fox was conducted out of it, through another room only less large, along a corridor and around a corner, and finally into a comfortable little apartment with leather-covered chairs, a radio, books...

Pomfret went to a combination tantalus and electric refrigerator and procured necessities. Fox, glancing around, saw a Lang Yao sang-de-boeuf perched on a cabinet in a corner, and a large deep peach bloom on a table against the wall. He crossed to the latter for a closer look. Behind him Pomfret’s voice inquired if he liked vases.

“I like this one,” Fox declared.

“No wonder,” said Pomfret with pride in his tone. “It’s a Hsuan Te.”

“Apparently you like them.”

“I love them.”

Fox glanced at him, and saw that his face, like his tone, displayed unassuming sincerity. It was even at that moment an appealing face, though he had at first sight found it not attractive, with broad mouth not harmonizing with the rather sharp nose, and the restless gray eyes too small for the brow that sloped above them.

“There’s no finer peach bloom than that anywhere.” Pomfret brought the drink over. “I have another one nearly as good that’s in my wife’s dressing room. I’ll show it to you before you go, if you’d care to see it, and some others.” He laughed, a bit awkwardly. “I suppose one reason I’m so proud of them is that they’re the only things in the world that belong to me. It was my wife’s money that bought them, of course, since I’ve never had any, but they’re mine.”

Fox sipped his highball. “What do you do, have agents on the lookout, or pick them up yourself?”

“Neither one. Not any more. I’ve quit. My wife doesn’t like things shut up in cabinets, she likes them scattered around. For that matter, I agree with her, but about a year ago some lout knocked over a Ming five-color, the finest one I ever saw, and busted it into twenty pieces. If you’ll believe it, I wept. I don’t mean I sobbed, but I wept tears. That finished me. I quit. It was such a beautiful thing, and I felt responsible...”

Pomfret drank, frowned at his glass, and resumed, “Then I had another loss last fall. A Wan Li black rectangular — here, I’ll show you.” He put his glass down, got a portfolio from a shelf, and found a page. “Here’s a color picture of it. It was absolutely unique, the gem of any collection. See that golden yellow enamel? And the green and white? But that doesn’t half do it justice.”

Fox scrutinized the picture. “Did it get broken too?”

“No. It was stolen. It disappeared one day when — oh well, I don’t want to bore you about it.”

Fox was assuring him politely that he was not at all bored when there was a knock at the door, and in response to Pomfret’s invitation Perry Dunham entered.

“Orders,” he stated crisply. “Checking up. Everyone’s here but Koch, and Mum wanted you located.” He approached Fox and extended a hand. “Hullo. I’m Perry Dunham, as you may remember from the other evening.” He eyed Fox’s half-empty glass. “That’s an idea.”

“Have one?” Pomfret offered, not, Fox thought, with excessive cordiality.

“I will if you’ve got bourbon.”

“No bourbon, I’m sorry. Scotch, Irish, rye—”

“I’ll find some bourbon.” The arrogant young ape — according to Diego — departing, turned after opening the door. “Showing Mr. Fox Mum’s vases? And her florins and ducats?” The door closed after him.

A patch of color appeared on the cheek of Mr. Pomfret which was visible to Fox. Apparently the emotion which caused it was for the moment too acute to be covered by conversation, and Fox, embarrassed, tried to help out.

“Picturesque,” he observed lightly. “Florins and ducats?” He waved his drink. “And dinars and guineas?”

“He was referring,” said Pomfret stiffly, “to a little collection of coins I have made. I took it up as a sort of consolation when I abandoned the vases. If you drop them they don’t break, and even if they did it wouldn’t be anything to cry about.”

“Old coins? I would enjoy looking at them.”

“I doubt it.” Pomfret seemed considerably less enthusiastic about coins than vases as objects of prideful display. “Are you a numismatist? You mentioned dinars.”

Fox said no, that “dinar” was to him only an exotic word, and that it would really be interesting to see one if there were any in the little collection. Pomfret said that he supposed they should be joining the others, but he did happen to possess a dinar of the Fatimids; and, taking a key fold from his pocket and selecting one, he opened the door of a cabinet, disclosing a tier of shelves holding rows of shallow trays. The tray he removed was partitioned into small velvet-lined compartments, in each of which reposed a coin. Pomfret pointed to one.

“That’s it. Not in very good condition. This is much rarer and finer, a denier of Louis the First. That’s a bonnet piece of James Fifth of Scotland. That? An old British stater— Come in!”

It was Diego Zorilla. He entered, flashed his black eyes at them, shook hands perfunctorily with Pomfret and warmly with Fox, and announced that he had been sent to fetch them. Pomfret replaced the tray and locked the cabinet. Fox swallowed the last of his drink.

“In the cathedral?” Pomfret inquired.

“No, they’re in the library.”

It seemed to Fox, when they got there, that the room had less right to the old-fashioned and dignified title of “library” than any he had ever seen. Some books were present, but they were lost in the indiscriminate jumble. There were racks of antique-looking musical instruments, an enormous harp, bronze and marble busts of composers, a map of the world ten feet square on which someone had painted black lines in all directions... without even starting the inventory. There were also people, seated along the sides of a large rectangular table, which gave that territory the aspect of a directors’ board room, and at one end was Irene Dunham Pomfret. On her right was the harassed-looking secretary, Wells. She interrupted a conversation with Adolph Koch, on her left, long enough to call “Sit down!” to the three men arriving, without looking at them.

“They only made one of her,” Diego murmured to Fox. “Once at a meeting here of the Metropolitan Symphony Board she threw the minute book at Daniel Cullen and ordered him to leave.”

“There’s no reason — I don’t really belong—” Pomfret was saying to the length of the table.

“Sit down,” said Mrs. Pomfret.

He did so, finding a place between his stepson Perry and Hebe Heath. Beyond Miss Heath was Felix Beck. Across the table, besides Fox and Diego, were Dora Mowbray, Ted Gill, and Garda Tusar, and Adolph Koch at the corner. There was talk in subdued tones. Mrs. Pomfret finished with Koch, rapped with her knuckles on the table, and the talk stopped.

She spoke with the easy and informal authority of an experienced chairwoman. “I invited you here today for two purposes. First, I think you are entitled to read the note which Jan left when — Monday evening. Or hear it read. At my suggestion the police kept it from publication, and it has been turned over to me. Let me have it, Wells.”

From a portfolio on the table before him, the secretary extracted a slip of paper and handed it to her.

“It is written,” she went on, “on a sheet torn from the telephone memo pad there in the dressing room, and this is what it says:

Tears started down Mrs. Pomfret’s cheeks as she finished with her voice trembling. Diego growled. Felix Beck groaned, and Dora Mowbray buried her face in her hands. Garda Tusar said in a strained high-pitched voice:

“I want that paper! I want it! It’s mine!”

Mrs. Pomfret, using her handkerchief on the tears, ignored her.

“I want it and I intend to have it! My brother — that was the last thing he did and I have a right to it—”

“No,” said Mrs. Pomfret sharply. “You may speak to me about it later.” She used her handkerchief again. “The only one mentioned by name is Dora, and if she wants to claim it she may.”

“But I—”

“That will do, Garda — I’m surprised all of you don’t cry. I can’t read it without crying. I felt that you were entitled to know its contents, but I’m sure you will agree that they should not be publicly disclosed, especially the reference to Dora. That is a — very intimate — matter. Now — the list, Wells?”

The secretary produced another paper.

“This,” Mrs. Pomfret continued, “is a list of those who contributed to the fund for the purchase of the violin:

“Which makes the total $36,000, and it was possible, as you know, to get the Oksmann Stradivarius so cheaply only by a lucky chance.”

“I don’t see—” Adolph Koch began.

“Please, Mr. Koch. When I am through— All of you here did not contribute to that fund. I invited Dora because she is mentioned in the note, and also to represent her father’s interest. If after discussion it is decided to sell the violin — I’m sure we could get what we paid for it — and return the amounts to the contributors, the $1,500 will be of great help to Dora, who is too proud and silly to accept favors from friends. I invited Garda because she is Jan’s sister, Felix because he was Jan’s teacher, and Diego because he was Jan’s friend and was responsible for the contribution from Mr. Fox. Mr. Gill came to represent Miss Heath, who said she would be unable to come, but apparently she changed her mind.”

“The urgent appointment I had with important—”

“I understand, Miss Heath.” Mrs. Pomfret’s voice suddenly had vinegar in it. “There are some things I would like to say but can’t because this is my home. I will only suggest — it will be a relief if you will leave your share of the discussion to Mr. Gill. However, before we enter upon any discussion I must tell you of a surprising—”

“What discussion?” Adolph Koch demanded. “What is there to discuss? If you mean the violin, what’s the use discussing it when we don’t know where it is?”

“But we do. It’s here. It came this morning by parcel post, addressed to me.”

Everyone stared at her except Tecumseh Fox. His eyes moved to take them all in. He saw varying degrees of surprise, interest, and the shock of the unexpected; and Hebe Heath, across the table from him, with the back of her hand pressed dramatically against her mouth, gazed in wide-eyed incredulity at her hostess.

“No!” she gasped. “You mean — Jan’s violin—”

“I mean what I said,” Mrs. Pomfret told her shortly.

“This is interesting,” Koch murmured.

“You say it’s here?” Diego rumbled. “Let’s see it.”

“Wells,” said Mrs. Pomfret.

The secretary disappeared behind a screen, and emerged carrying a cardboard shipping carton some three feet long, which he deposited on the table in front of Mrs. Pomfret. She flipped back the folding covers and inserted her hand. Fox, shoving back his chair and starting for her, called:

“Excuse me! I wouldn’t handle it.”

He was at her side and met a twinkle in her eye “You mean fingerprints,” she said, as to one who should be humored. “There aren’t any. I asked the police commissioner to send up an expert — confidentially, of course. He wanted to take it away, but I wouldn’t let him.” Carefully and gently, her hand was raised from the nest of tissue paper in the carton, with all eyes staring at what it held.

“It’s a violin,” Koch said dryly, “but how do you know it’s Jan’s?”

“That’s another reason I invited Felix. Felix, will you—”

Beck, already there, was reaching for it with both hands, as a woman reaches for a baby. Fox retreated a step and watched the faces; the others were watching Beck.

“It looks like it from here,” Adolph Koch said to himself but audibly. He was the only one who had not left his chair; Mrs. Pomfret had stood up first, to reach into the carton. The others were stretching their necks to see, except Perry Dunham, who was so close he didn’t need to, and Hebe Heath, who, her breast heaving, was clutching her throat as though to strangle intolerable suspense.

For three long minutes Felix Beck was oblivious of them. His peering intent eyes went over every inch of the beautiful golden red-brown instrument, its ancient patina now glowing, now dull, in changing angles of the light, as it was tenderly shifted in his hands. Then he held it against him, in his arms, looked at Mrs. Pomfret, and nodded.

“Well?” voices demanded in chorus.

“It’s the Oksmann Stradivarius,” Beck said.

A moment of complete silence was followed by noises. Perry Dunham said, “Let me see it,” and stretched out a hand, but Beck continued to hug the violin. Koch muttered, “So there’s something to discuss after all.” Hebe Heath flopped limply into her chair. Henry Pomfret nodded his head like a man who has had surmise verified. Dora Mowbray sat down again, unsteadily, and Ted Gill followed her example if not her manner and said something to her ear. Mrs. Pomfret grasped the neck of the violin near the pegs and Beck released it, and she returned it to the nest of tissue paper.

“We may as well sit down,” she said, and waited until all were back in their seats. “I think you’ll agree that before we consider the question of what is to be done with it, there are one or two other points to be discussed.”

“Such as,” said Diego Zorilla determinedly, “whether Jan was playing on it Monday evening.”

“And” put in Ted Gill, “such as who mailed it to you.”

Mrs. Pomfret nodded at him. “That, I should think, comes first, but there is something else to consider even before that. The police are inclined to be interested in this — development. The man they sent here this morning wanted to take not only the violin, but also the carton and wrapper. At my request Commissioner Hombert kindly instructed him not to press the matter. After all, no crime is involved — that is, Jan did it of his own volition, if the poor boy—”

“He didn’t!” The fierce exclamation was from Jan’s sister. “I don’t believe it! Jan didn’t kill himself! And you all know it! Some of you know it!”

“You’re a fool, Garda.” Perry Dunham was glaring across at her. “I was right there and saw him. So was Dora—”

“Dora!” she cried contemptuously. “You’re both lying! If it hadn’t been for her tricks—”

Mrs. Pomfret’s palm smacked the table. “That will do,” she said incisively. “Henry warned me that if you came you would make trouble—”

“And I will!” Garda’s black eyes flashed and her voice trembled with resolve. “You can’t shut me up! Just because you’re Irene Dunham Pomfret! You say there was no crime — but there was! Jan was killed. He was murdered!”

A derisive snort came from Perry Dunham. His mother straightened her shoulders preparatory to commanding the unfortunate situation, but was forestalled by another voice:

“She’s right.” Dora Mowbray, her fingers twisted tightly together before her on the table, moved her head from side to side as though to decide which one she wanted to tell it to. “Garda’s right. Jan was killed. I killed him.”