The Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 20 Classic Mysteries!

Reward for Genius

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Nov. 1965.

Cletus Higgins sampled the glitter of Florida sunlight, unwillingly cracking his eyelids as someone banged on the door of his cottage.

“Hey, Clete! You in there? I got to see you, Clete.” The voice from outside belonged to Perky Bersom who knew better than to call during the afternoon hour Cletus reserved for siesta.

Cletus turned on his lumpy daybed, making no movement to rise. “Go away,” he said.

“Clete, this is urgent,” Perky pleaded from outside. “I haven’t a minute to waste. Let me in!”

“You are a boorish bourgeois,” Clete said, eyes closed, “and I will have no truck with you.”

“But I have a commission for you, Clete. You want to make five hundred dollars?”

Clete’s eyes flipped open. He didn’t exactly spring to his feet, but there was no hesitancy in his action as he rose from the daybed.

Clothed in barefoot sandals, rumpled cotton pants and dingy T-shirt with a slight rip in the right shoulder, Cletus stood tall and lanky. His face was a weathered collection of aquiline features in a nest of wild, fearsome black beard and hair.

Clete made his way toward the door through a clutter and disarray that would have driven even a Picasso to the chore of housekeeping. Canvasses, paints, brushes, palettes, easels were mingled with pieces of junk, rumpled clothing, dirty dishes, bean cans, bread wrappers; it was as if a capricious wind had stirred the contents of the cottage for days on end and then raced off when nothing more could be misplaced.

Perky was all set to rattle the hinges when Cletus yanked the door open. He lowered his upraised knuckles and shoved into the cottage. Under his left arm, Perky awkwardly carried a package, wrapped in brown paper, that was thin but large in its perimeter dimensions.

Cletus recognized stress when he saw it. Normally, an action such as breaking into another person’s siesta would have brought a sheepish grin and mumbled apology from Perky. But not today. Instead, he shoved aside some dirty dishes, dropped his package on the table, and knuckled sweat off his forehead. “Boy, am I glad you were home!”

“What’s this about five centuries of bread?” Cletus asked. He regarded Perky remotely.

Perky and his wife, Lisa, lived a few miles down the beach, where the real estate was much less overrun with mangrove and palmetto, and considerably more valuable. Cletus had a private word to describe the pair. Images. Images from perfect little molds. Perky was boyishly handsome, and Lisa was lovely. Their beach house was small, but it was a sterile page from a decorator’s magazine. They lived within the limits of the income from a small trust fund which Perky’s father had set up. They devoted all their time to sophisticated little parties, sailing, swimming, bridge, teas, and chit-chat. They exercised religiously, dieted carefully, and took their vitamin pills punctually.

For some time now, Perky and Lisa, who had met Cletus when he’d had a one-man show in Sarasota, had frequently included the artist in their guest list. Cletus Higgins was unique; he was atmosphere; he was color. Perky and Lisa were as proud of him as they were of the modest, but shiny cabin cruiser bobbing at their private dock.

To Cletus, neither of the pair was quite real; merely porcelain images incubated in the kiln of an affluent society.

Recovering his breath and containing his anxiety, Perky slipped a Florentine silver case from the pocket of his natty slacks, chose a cigarette for himself, and extended the case.

Cletus helped himself to three cigarettes. Two of the butts almost disappeared in the black mane when he stashed one over each ear. The third he thrust between thin lips that were surrounded by a black thicket and waited impatiently for Perky to offer a light.

“You’re taking a long time to get down to cases,” Cletus said.

“I’m trying to think how to start. It’s the wildest thing ever happened to me.” Perky snapped a lighter and held it forward, careful of Clete’s beard. “It’s — I want you to do a portrait. Without a model. From another portrait that isn’t all there.”

Cletus gave him a look. Perky took a nervous drag on his cigarette. “Maybe I’d better start back at the beginning.”

“Sounds reasonable. By all means proceed. You’ve ruined my siesta with an offer of five hundred dollars for what sounds like an impossible task.”

“I’m sure you can do it. You’ve got to do it, Clete!”

“Really? While I never sneer at bread, five hundred isn’t entirely vital to me.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Perky said with alarm touching his voice. “I’m relying on your friendship. You’re the only person who can help me.”

“Then let us explore your woes,” Clete said. He scuffed toward the kitchenette and began rattling dirty pots in the sink as he collected the various component parts of a percolator.

Tagging along, Perky talked while Clete began preparations to make coffee in an old percolator.

“I have a cousin, Clete. She’s several years older than I. Her name is Melanie Sutton.”

“I’ve heard you and Lisa speak of her,” Clete said. “She’s the one who’s filthy with boodle.”

“She can buy yachts like I would buy canoes.”

“Hand me the coffee, will you? Not that can. It’s full of secondhand grease. That’s the one.”

“Cousin Melanie’s folks are all dead,” Perky said. “I’m the nearest of kin, surviving.”

Cletus dumped coffee into the basket and set the percolator on the two-burner hot plate.

“We haven’t seen Cousin Melanie in several years,” Perky went on. “She was educated in Europe, and has a decided affinity for the continent She returns to this country only occasionally.”

“I take it that one of those occasions is in prospect.”

“She phoned us less than an hour ago,” Perky said “She had to fly to New York to talk to some corporation lawyers, and decided it’s the right season for some Florida sun. She’ll be dropping in on us by the end of the week, which doesn’t give you much time, Clete.”

“Time for what?”

“I’m coming to that. The minute Cousin Melanie hung up, Lisa and I thought of the picture.”

“Picture? What picture?”

“Cousin Melanie’s portrait. She sent it to us from Paris three, four years ago. If she paid the artist anything at all, she got rooked. The portrait’s an abomination. We never did hang it.”

“But now,” Clete said, “you decided you’d better hang the rich relative in the choicest spot in your living room.”

“You’re dead right.” Perky frantically lighted a fresh cigarette from his first one. “Lisa and I — well, frankly, the way we have to pinch pennies — Cousin Melanie’s money...”

“I’m with it,” Clete said, “and I can’t blame you for stammering, I suppose. You can’t afford to do the slightest thing to offend the rich relative.”

“I’d take a chance on swimming in sharky waters if she insisted,” Perky admitted.

“So why don’t you hang her?”

“We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“She’s ruined,” Perky said bitterly. “From the day we got it, Cousin Melanie’s portrait has been in the storage room adjacent to our carport. These Florida insects and an audacious rodent have dined royally. Maybe there was some glue or sizing in the canvas that attracted them.” Perky shuddered and rolled his eyes heavenward. “If Cousin Melanie ever finds out the manner in which we treated her portrait, she’ll draw her own strong conclusions about the way we feel about her. We’ll never see the first copper of her money. It will all probably wind up in the hands of some Swiss charity!”

Clete shook stale coffee from a cracked cup and poured himself a helping from the steaming percolator. He carried it into the outer room of the cottage with Perky dogging his heels.

At the cluttered table, Clete ripped string and brown paper from the package which Perky had brought with him. The package, Clete noted, contained two likenesses of Cousin Melanie, a nine-inch by twelve-inch photograph and the desecrated two by three feet painting in oil.

While the face had escaped destruction, the portrait showed obvious signs of careless neglect. A mouse had nibbled the corners. Bug and larvae had burrowed into the board. Moisture and mildew had left stained spots.

Clete surmised that Perky had slipped the photograph from a frame prior to bringing it here. The photo held Clete’s attention. Cousin Melanie was not a beautiful woman, but she was patrician, with a finely cut face framed in white hair. The features had that small, firm quality that remained tenaciously young looking, making the hair seem prematurely gray, though it was the real key to her years.

The feature that struck Clete’s artistic sense most forcibly was Cousin Melanie’s neck. It was amazingly long, delicate, even fragile looking, but it held not a hint of stringy awkwardness. Truly, Clete thought, it was a rare neck, the kind that poets of old rapturously called swan-like.

Perky was literally jittering from one foot to the other. “Well? How quickly can you copy the portrait?”

“I don’t know that I can,” Clete said. “It’s an unholy horror as a work of art, flat, two-dimensional. I’m not sure I can paint so badly.”

“But you’ve got to try!” Perky begged. “She’s got to believe that her picture has never been off our living room wall.”

Clete dropped the portrait on the table. He gave a derisive laugh that wasn’t directed at Perky. Instead, it seemed to be for himself and his cottage and the years that were behind him.

“At least. Perky, our conspiracy has a new wrinkle. Many artists have copied masterworks, but I’m sure I’m the first to copy, for such a purpose, an artistic abortion!”

Perky yanked out a handkerchief and mopped his face and neck. “I can never thank you sufficiently, Clete, old boy.”

“Yes, you can. Just write the check. And understand one thing; I guarantee nothing. I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise to succeed in reproducing a portrait so lifeless.”

Perky had more cajoling words of pep talk, but Clete took him by the arm and ushered him out.

Clete sketched in the background, when he’d set up easel and canvas, in a matter of minutes. The rest became a nightmare. By the week’s end, he had ruined three canvasses. But in the fourth, he believed he’d produced a copy that would pass the rich relative’s inspection. He phoned Perky Bersom and told him to buy a frame.

Then Clete drank a tenth of Scotch and retired to his daybed to sleep around the clock. His exhausted brain purged itself while he slept. Lifeless portraits slipped and wheeled in and out of his dreams. They overlaid and obscured the image of a long, delicate, swan-like neck.

The party was one of those small, informal, and entirely happy affairs for which the Bersoms had a long-practiced knack. The aroma of fine barbecue wafted across the patio. Excellent stereo music murmured from the tasteful beach cottage. The landscaping of tropical foliage combined with the background of Gulf and Florida sky to make the spot seem enchanted. Perky and Lisa were the perfect host and hostess. They knew how to choose a guest list, whom to mix.

As he walked from his dirty old sedan, Clete was spotted by Perky who rushed to meet him with a big grin. He punched Clete in the ribs with his elbow.

“Clete, old boy, you’re a genius.”

“I know,” Clete said without superiority. “I take it the portrait passed inspection.”

“The minute Cousin Melanie arrived,” Perky said, “she spotted the picture. She couldn’t have missed it, in the spot I’d chosen for hanging and lighting. She was so overwhelmed by the compliment that she got a little misty-eyed. Clete, old boy, we’re in solid with her. Real nice and solid.”

“I’m glad I was able to help.”

“Help? My friend, we’d be sunk without you! Remind me to put another century of bread in your bank account, as a bonus.”

“The worker is grateful for his hire,” Clete, said in a slightly insulting tone, “but I sure won’t forget to remind you.”

“Great.” Perky slapped him on the back. “Now, how about a drink? Your usual? And this barbecue is the finest the caterers have ever turned for us.”

Clete knew most of the guests, beach neighbors of Perky’s and Lisa’s. He drifted, passing small talk, sipping his drink.

Fifteen minutes later, Cousin Melanie came out of the cottage, entering the patio from the Florida room. She was slim, trim, youthful despite her years, as her photograph had suggested.

Clete’s gaze immediately centered on her neck. Wearing a simple cotton dress, with her neck fully revealed, she turned this way and that in her progress across the patio, smiling and speaking to people. She was obscured now and then from Clete’s view as Perky introduced her to strangers. Finally, nothing lay between Clete and Cousin Melanie except Perky’s shadow.

Perky was leading her forward. He cleared his throat “And this is Cletus Higgins, Melly, the artist of whom I’ve spoken.”

Clete and Cousin Melanie exchanged helloes.

“Cousin Melly.” Perky said, “has an artistic interest.”

“How nice,” Clete murmured through cold lips. “How very nice.”

“I act a bit,” she confessed with a smile. “Too often I have to buy a play to find a vehicle, which indicates, I’m afraid, that I’m a very bad actress. But if one has the money, I say, one should make use of it oneself.”

“I’m sure one should,” Clete said coolly.

Clete’s tone brought a briefly worried look from Perky. But Cousin Melanie and Clete were both ignoring him, and Perky drifted with backward glances toward his other guests.

“Tell me about it,” Clete suggested.

Cousin Melanie laughed, joining Clete as he seated himself on a redwood bench beneath a multi-colored umbrella.

“There isn’t much to tell, really,” she said. “In Italy, Spain, France you can always find money-hungry producers. I enjoy acting, even if I am — lousy, as you would say on this side of the Atlantic.”

Clete sat as if hypnotized by the hollow of her throat “You seem to have a rare honesty,” he murmured.

“Why not? If I get a certain satisfaction from my avocation, who gets hurt? No one. On the contrary, each little play in each little theater makes work for a number of people.”

Clete picked up her hands, turning them slowly, looking at them. Then his gaze returned to her neck.

“I’m going to paint you,” he said.

She was poised for a moment, her pulse beating like a bird’s as she tried to study his face, fathom his eyes. Then she relaxed and smiled. “Are you?”

“A portrait” Clete said, “head and shoulders. A real work, nothing like the atrocity Perky has hanging in his living room.”

“And what is your commission for such a work?”

He pushed her hands away almost roughly. “No commission. I thought you would understand.”

She was silent a moment. Then she half lifted her hand. “I’m sorry. I am very sorry. When would you like me to begin sitting?”

“Tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. I live several miles down the beach. Perky will tell you how to get there.”

Clete got up, walked directly to his car, and drove away.

The next morning at ten, red-eyed and pale. Clete looked as if he had substituted small, continual nips of Scotch for sleep during the whole of the night. His mass of beard and hair obscured much of the evidence, and his nerveless control did the rest Cousin Melanie blithely entered the cottage without noticing the clues to his mental state. Instead, the unbelievable disarray of the cottage captured her immediate attention.

“You,” she said with a laugh, “have created a room straight from the left bank, here on the sunny shores of Florida.”

Clete reached behind himself, flipping the latch, locking the door. “Sit there, please.”

She gave him the grin of a gamin on a lark, crossed to a straight chair, and sat down. She was silent as Clete walked around her slowly, three times.

“I didn’t believe it at first,” he said. “It simply wasn’t reasonable. All night long I wrestled with the problem of it.”

She began to frown. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“It was as if my artistic senses had gone haywire,” he said. “My genius was playing me false. But no! My perceptions are still true.”

She came out of the chair slowly. “I think we had better postpone this, or cancel the idea entirely. Perhaps we can discuss it sometime when you haven’t been drinking.”

“Who are you?” Clete asked.

“I’ve no earthly idea what you’re talking about. Let me pass, please.”

“Who are you?” Clete shouted.

Real fright flared in her eyes. She ducked around him and made for the door. Clete caught her before she could reach it. He grabbed her arm and spun her about.

She had an unusual resistance to panic. “You’d better think what you’re doing,” she said. “Release me and open the door this instant and I won’t report you. Otherwise, it will go hard for...”

Clete made an animal sound in his throat, suddenly and without warning twisted her arm. She was wheeled into a helpless position, frozen in a hammerlock. With his free hand, Clete scooped the hair from the side of her face.

“Only a tiny, threadlike scar,” he said. “The plastic surgeon didn’t have to do much, did he?”

“You’re mad!” she gasped. “You shall pay for this!”

He jerked her away from the door and shoved her across the room. She half fell on the protesting daybed and remained there, supporting herself with her hands on the edge of the railing.

“I don’t suppose I need to ask you a third time,” he said. He loomed over her, hands on hips. “You were probably an understudy, a double to begin with, searched out with her money, through the talent agencies of Europe. Then later, a bit of plastic surgery and you were her identical twin — except for one thing. So the question now is: What happened to the real Melanie Sutton, the rich old babe with the theater bug? How did you kill her? What did you do with her?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! Move aside or I’ll start screaming.”

“Go ahead and scream,” he said relentlessly, “and we’ll tell the whole world why. I’ll give you three safe seconds in which to scream.”

He waited. Both remained silent, the woman crouching on the edge of the daybed.

“Where is the real Melanie Sutton?” he insisted. “At the bottom of an Alpine crevasse? Feeding the fish off the south of France?”

She stirred, finally, “How did you know?”

“Your neck. The conniving, money-hungry plastic surgeon could not very well change the length of your neck, so it is far too short”

“My neck...” she raised her hand slowly to her throat.

“Possibly no one else in all the world would ever have noticed,” Clete said. “But I labored over the depicted image of Melanie Sutton for endless hours. When I saw you, I knew instantly, even though it took me all night to believe it, to admit it.”

“I should never have come here,” she said, “but I had to. The corporation lawyers in New York were faintly puzzled by a thing or two I said and did. I was playing the role of ever-loving elder cousin. They would have become downright suspicious if I’d refused the opportunity to drop by and see my closest surviving relative, Perky boy and his wife. So I had to come. I believed I could carry it off here as well as I did in New York. I’d studied Melanie Sutton and her affairs from close range for a long time. I knew everything there was to know about her — except that her cousin had you for a friend.”

“Now I shall live and paint,” Clete said, “away from all this. I am now a painter with a liberal patroness.”

She came to her feet almost shyly. “And if I am to be your patroness, how do I know I can trust you?”

“You’ll simply have to take my word.”

“Your word — yes, I suppose I must. You wish me to mail you your first check today?”

“And once a month thereafter,” Clete said, “for so long as you live. A thousand a month will do nicely.”

The woman was quite composed when she stopped her car in the Bersom driveway. Perky came bouncing out to meet her.

“How did it go, Cousin Melly?”

“Not too badly, but I decided not to sit for any more portraits.” She remained behind the wheel of the car, giving him such a sudden, intent look that the smile eased from his lips.

“Perky, I know this isn’t talked in polite family circles, but I want an honest confidential answer, just between the two of us. In an acute crisis, to what lengths would you go to insure your eventual inheritance of my fortune?”

The thing in her eyes got through to Perky. His playboy aura seemed to fall away. He became bone and sinew, with the eyes of a hungry, prowling cougar. “I think I would even murder,” he said with cool honesty.

The woman behind the wheel looked far down the beach. Then she turned, got out of the car. “My dear boy,” she said fondly, “your answer couldn’t have pleased me more...”