The Case of the Reluctant Model

Chapter Four

Ten-thirty Tuesday morning Hollister was again on the line with Mason. “I am inviting you,” he said, “to a press conference aboard the yacht of Otto Olney. It is taking place at two o’clock this afternoon at the Penguin Yacht Club. You are invited to be present and to stay for cocktails — two to five.”

“What about filing the suit?” Mason asked.

“We’re filing the suit at one o’clock this afternoon,” Hollister said. “Our client is very much annoyed over the statement attributed to Mr. Durant, and your affidavit by Maxine Lindsay covers the situation perfectly. We are asking damages in an amount of twenty-five thousand dollars. Mr. Olney places a very high valuation on this particular picture and feels that the statements made by Durant not only reflect on the value of the picture, but on his judgment as a businessman. Furthermore, our client has gone all the way and has alleged in his complaint that the statements were made deliberately and with malice, and has asked for another twenty-five thousand as punitive or exemplary damages.”

“I’ll be glad to be present,” Mason said. “I take it I may bring my secretary, Miss Street?”

“Certainly.”

“We’ll be there. I’m glad you’re going ahead with the suit.”

“We don’t like to play cat’s-paw for other people,” Hollister said tartly. “Of course the real cause of action is one that Rankin has against Durant.”

“I take it,” Mason said, “Olney is able to compensate you for your services in the matter.”

“Quite able,” Hollister said.

“All right,” Mason told him, “we didn’t bring you in as a cat’s-paw, we handed you a piece of legal business. I take it I’ll meet you at two o’clock?”

“I’ll be there,” Hollister said.

“I’ll look forward to meeting you then.”

The lawyer hung up and turned to Della Street who had been monitoring the conversation.

“To thunder with all this business of sitting in a musty old office, Della, browsing through the files of antiquity in order to find out the course of legal reasoning which has actuated judges in determining litigation. Let’s leave the office at one, drive leisurely down to the Penquin Yacht Club, board the palatial yacht of Otto Olney, look at the picture in question, and imbibe several cocktails; after which we can have dinner and perhaps engage in a little dancing, just by way of exercise.”

“I take it,” she said, “that my presence is necessary as a part of the business in hand.”

“Oh, quite necessary,” Mason said. “I wouldn’t think of being there without you.”

“Under those circumstances,” she observed demurely, “it would seem only right that I should call the client who has the three o’clock appointment with you and tell him that a matter of urgent business has necessitated postponing the appointment.”

“Who is it, Della?”

“The man who wanted to see you about the appeal in that case of his brother — the one where the brother’s attorney failed to object on the alleged misconduct of the prosecutor.”

“Oh, yes,” Mason said, “I remember now. That is an interesting case but there’s no great hurry about it. Ring him up and tell him that I’ll see him at twelve-thirty instead of at three, or he can have the appointment tomorrow. Take a look at the appointment book and see if you can fit him in, but we definitely can’t let anything interfere with appraising the art work of Phellipe Feteet. As a matter of fact, the description of the man’s technique interests me a lot.”

Della Street smiled as Mason picked up a pile of urgent mail she had stacked on a corner of his desk. “Nothing,” she observed, “leads you to tackle routine matters with greater energy or more enthusiasm than the prospect of getting away from the office and running head-on into adventure.”

Mason weighed the accusation for a moment, then gleefully acknowledged the accuracy of her observation. “We need a little adventure, Della. Let’s get through with this damned bunch of routine stuff, then go have a ball.”

With which, the lawyer plunged into the pile of mail.

At ten minutes to one, Mason and Della Street entered the lawyer’s car, stopped briefly at a roadside drive-in for lunch, then went on down to the Penquin Yacht Club, made inquiries as to the location of Otto Olney’s yacht and shortly thereafter were escorted aboard a trim craft which looked like a miniature ocean liner.

A tall, tired-looking individual in his late forties, wearing a yachting cap, a blue coat and white trousers, came forward to greet them. “I’m Olney,” he said, glancing at Perry Mason, then letting his eyes shift approvingly to Della Street.

“Perry Mason,” the lawyer told him, “and this is Miss Street, my confidential secretary.”

“How do you do, how do you do?” Olney said, shaking hands. “You’re a little early. Would you care to step in and make yourselves comfortable? Perhaps a drink?”

“We’ve just eaten,” Mason said. “It’s a little early for a drink but I’d like to look at the painting. I had some conversations with your attorneys about the case.”

“Yes, yes, I know. Come in and take a look.”

Olney led the way into a luxuriously furnished main salon, dominated artistically by a painting showing women stripped to the waist grouped under the shade of a tree while just behind them in vivid sunlight naked children romped against a background of riotous color.

“The idea of saying that picture’s a fake!” Olney exclaimed. “That’s up in the headhunters’ country, back of Baguio, and Phellipe Feteet is the only artist who was ever able to get the spirit of the thing. Just look at the depth in that picture! Look at the texture of the skin on those women! Look at the expressions on their faces, and then look at that sunlight. You can just see it beating down. You want to get back into the shelter of the shade of the tree and sit with the women.”

Mason, startled, said, “Why, that’s one of the most unusual paintings I’ve ever seen!”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Olney exclaimed. “I’m a fan of Feteet’s. The guy had something no one else ever has developed and I’d like to buy more of his paintings if I could get hold of them at anything like a reasonable price. I’m satisfied they’re going to be tremendously valuable someday.”

“I should certainly think so,” Mason said. “Those women — the colors — the background — there’s so much depth to the picture.”

“You can get depth if you can get a shaded foreground with a sunlit background,” Olney said, “but very few people are able to achieve it. Most of the pictures showing sunlight are pale, insipid things with a sort of pastel sunlight. It looks as though you were looking at a colored photograph taken on a hazy day.

“But Feteet had the knack of making the shade cool and comfortable and having it dominate the foreground so that the vivid coloring of the background suggests a type of sunlight that— Ah, here’s Miss Kenner. I want you to meet her.”

Olney went forward to shake hands with a serious-eyed, quite good-looking woman in her mid-thirties who gave him her hand and said casually, “Hi, Otto. What is it this time?”

“This time,” Olney said, “you are going to get a surprise. But I don’t want to announce it until some of the other people get here. Ah, here’s Hollister now.”

Hollister, a bundle of dynamic energy, closely knit, quick-moving, brief case in hand, boarded the yacht and was introduced to Mason and Della Street. Then after a moment a group of newspaper reporters appeared, accompanied by photographers with press cameras, and last, Lattimer Rankin came stalking majestically across the landing and aboard the yacht.

“Where’s Maxine?” Olney asked.

“I thought it better for her not to come,” Hollister said. “We have her affidavit and there’s no use having her interviewed by the press when we can use her affidavit, which speaks for itself.”

For a moment there was a flicker of disappointment on Olney’s face. Then he said curtly, “Okay, you’re the attorney.”

Olney was busy for a while greeting newspaper reporters. Then, seeing that the gathering was complete, he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to have cocktails and then I am going to tell you the reason for this gathering.”

One of the newspaper reporters said, “Look, Olney, we know the reason for the gathering. Your attorney has filed suit about this painting by Feteet. Now, cocktails are all right but we want to get a story to the papers and we might as well get the story before we have the cocktails.”

One of the photographers said, “If you’ll just stand up in front of the painting, Mr. Olney...”

Lattimer Rankin stepped forward. “Now, just a minute,” he said, “I want to have this thing done right I want—”

“Now, wait a minute, who are you?” one of the reporters interrupted.

Another one said, “He’s the guy that sold the picture in the first place.”

“Okay, okay, get up in front of the picture. You can stand with Olney.”

“Now, just a minute,” Corliss Kenner said. “I don’t want to be the only expert interviewed on this matter. I have another expert coming. I don’t know why he wasn’t invited in place of me. He’s the greatest expert on this particular type of art there is in the country. I was surprised to find he hadn’t been invited earlier.”

She turned to look at Olney. “I am referring to George Lathan Howell. I took the liberty of inviting him on my own responsibility, Otto. I hope you don’t mind. There are reasons why I felt it advisable. He should be here any minute.”

Hollister said, “Now, hold on. This is a lawsuit and I want to have something to say about how it’s handled. The witnesses—”

“Hello, everybody,” a voice said. “Looks as though I’m a little late.”

“Here’s Howell now,” Corliss Kenner said, relief in her voice.

Mason regarded the thirty-five-year-old brown-eyed, bronzed individual who entered the salon with a light, springy step and the easy affability of one who is assured of his welcome anywhere.

“Now we can go ahead,” Corliss said.

Otto Olney said, “As the reporters know, and most of you people are now entitled to know, an accusation has been made that this painting by Phellipe Feteet is a forgery.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Howell exclaimed.

Rankin said, “The authenticity of that painting stands out like a sore thumb. No other painter could get that effective brilliance, that pigmentation, that—”

“Now, hold everything,” Olney said, “I want to serve some cocktails. Let’s get these pictures taken. You boys want photographs and you shall have them. Come on now, we’ll get up in front of the painting. You, Hollister, come up here. Rankin, you should be here and Corliss, we’ll want you. And, of course, Howell.”

“Not I,” said Hollister. “I don’t want to be put in the position of trying a lawsuit in the newspapers. I don’t think I’d better be in that photograph, and as far as Mr. Howell is concerned—”

“Howell is the greatest living expert on this type of art,” Otto Olney said. “I’m glad he’s here.”

One of the reporters said, “All right, get up in front of the painting. Now, don’t look as though you’re having your picture taken. Don’t look at the camera. Be looking at the painting. You’ll have to get in fairly close — we don’t want pictures of the backs of your heads. You can keep your profiles to the camera.”

The photographers quickly arranged the group. Flash bulbs flared, camera backs clicked as the slides on film holders were put in and withdrawn.

“Okay,” one reporter said, “we’ve got the pictures. Now let’s have the rest of the story.”

Olney said, “Collin M. Durant, a self-styled art expert, a man who claims to be a dealer, has seen fit to challenge the authenticity ol this picture. He has stated that it’s not a genuine Feteet.”

“Good Lord,” Corliss Kenner said, “can you imagine anyone who knows anything about art making a statement like that!”

Olney said, “Now, I’d like to have Mr. Howell make a statement—”

Hollister interrupted. “We have these art experts here. Now, if we get them photographed we’re going to have to put them on the witness stand. Otherwise, it will look as if one of our witnesses backed down.”

“Well, nobody’s backing down,” Howell said, laughing. “You don’t need to make a close examination of this canvas to know who did it. I think any reputable art expert in the country could look at that canvas clear across a museum and give the name of the painter and the approximate date of the painting. This was done somewhere between thirty-three and thirty-five in the period of Feteet’s painting when he was beginning to uncover a new technique. If the man had lived he might well have revolutionized contemporary painting.

“The only reason he didn’t establish a school is that nobody else has been able to duplicate his effect.”

“I think it’s something in the pigmentation,” Corliss Kenner said.

Howell nodded. “There’s no question about that. He had some secret of mixing his paints. The results show that. Look at the skin on the shoulders of these women under the tree. The smooth texture, the sheen — someone has claimed that he put a little coconut oil in his paints.”

“Well, that isn’t it,” Corliss Kenner said. “Coconut oil won’t work.”

“You tried it?” Howell asked.

She hesitated, then smiled and said, “I experimented a bit. I’d like to find out just what his secret was. I guess every art expert would.”

Men in white coats entered the salon carrying silver trays on which were glasses, ice and bottles.

Otto Olney said, “We have Scotch and soda. We have bourbon and the conventional mixers. We have Manhattans. We have Old Fashioneds and Martinis already mixed. We’re opening up a bar at the far end and—”

One of the reporters said, “How much did this yacht set you back, Olney?”

“I have more than three hundred thousand in it,” Olney said quietly.

“How do you keep it up? Do you write it off?”

“It is used for entertaining in a business way.”

“Is it true you keep all your paintings here?” the reporter asked.

“I keep many of them, yes,” Olney said.

“Why?”

There was a silence. Then Olney said stiffly, “I find it convenient and I like to have them near me. I spend a good deal of my time on the yacht.”

Hollister said to Mason, “He and his wife don’t have the same tastes. She doesn’t like art and doesn’t like the art crowd. He lives on the yacht a great deal of the time.”

“Divorce?” Mason asked.

“There won’t be any.”

A waiter appeared at Mason’s elbow. “Mr. Olney would like to know your pleasure.”

Mason glanced at Della Street.

“Scotch and soda,” she said.

Mason nodded. “Make it two.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hollister said, “It’s hard to keep these things from getting out of hand. I think it’s a good idea to have a story but I don’t want to be accused of using publicity to create a prejudicial atmosphere in a lawsuit. I don’t think that’s ethical.”

“It’s frowned upon,” Mason said dryly.

Howell, moving over to the painting, took a magnifying glass from his pocket, examined the canvas carefully.

Mason, accepting the Scotch and soda from the waiter, moved over to stand by Howell’s side.

“Well?” he asked.

“No doubt of it on earth,” Howell said, “but I’m just making sure so that some smart lawyer can’t cross-examine me and—

“Now, wait a minute,” Howell went on hurriedly, “I didn’t mean that personally, Mr. Mason. You know there are lawyers and lawyers.”

“Just as there are art dealers and art dealers,” Mason said, laughing.

“Exactly,” Howell said. “I didn’t know anything about this until Corliss called me. I don’t know how in the world any art dealer could have doubted the authenticity of this canvas... Tell you what, Mason, this is going to be a great thing for the Phellipe Feteets that are in existence. There are only about two dozen of them. Personally, I’d add three to five thousand dollars to the price of each one just on the strength of this publicity, and that’s a conservative estimate.

“If you ever get a chance to pick up a Feteet at anything under fifteen thousand dollars, grab it as an investment.”

“Think they’re going up?” Mason asked.

“I know they’re going up,” Howell said. “How did all this start, anyway?”

“As I understand it,” Mason said, “although I am not an attorney of record, at a gathering here a dealer by the name of Durant—”

“I know him,” Howell interposed, “sort of an unscrupulous publicity hound. Go on.”

“Expressed an opinion in a conversation that the picture was spurious.”

“Tell Olney that?” Howell asked.

“No,” Mason said, “a young artist named Maxine Lindsay was the one to whom the statement was made.”

Howell’s face froze into immobility. “I see,” he said.

“And,” Mason went on, “I believe she repeated what had been said to Mr. Rankin, the dealer who sold Olney the picture. Rankin communicated with Olney and quite naturally Olney was furious. He feels that Durant’s opinion, if permitted to stand unchallenged, will affect the value of the painting.”

“Well, there’s one thing certain,” Howell said, “nobody in his right mind is going to challenge the authenticity of that painting.”

Mason turned back to Della Street, touched the rim of his glass to hers. “Here’s looking at you,” he said.

“Right back at you,” she told him. “How long do we stay? There’s always the chance this might become a brawl.”

“We stay just long enough to size up the situation,” Mason said.

A flash bulb flared. A photographer said, “Hope you don’t have any objections, Mr. Mason, but you and your secretary, standing shoulder to shoulder looking in each other’s eyes, makes a better story for my paper than this story about the painting that all the other fellows are going to have. What’s your interest in this?”

“Just curiosity,” Mason said. “I was invited and thought I’d look in to see how the other half lives.”

“I get you,” the reporter said, laughing. “Slumming, eh?”

Mason turned to Della Street with a smile.

“Let’s go shake hands with our host and be on our way.”

“Back to the office?” Della Street asked with a smile.

“Don’t be silly!” Mason said. “We can find a lot better things to do than that. Let’s go down to Marineland — you can telephone Gertie that we won’t be back. Tell her to get in touch with Paul Drake at the Drake Detective Agency in case anything breaks that needs us. You can tell her I’ll give Paul a ring before we finish up for the evening... and we can have dinner and a few dances at the Robbers’ Roost.”

Della Street extended her arm. “Twist,” she said.