The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues (16 page)

“Photostats,” Dickory replied tersely.

“It was a stupid mistake I made years ago. Nothing serious, as you know, but it would be very painful for my wife if she ever found out.” Panzpresser looked for sympathy from his young blackmailer, but her face was hard and determined. “All right, how much do you want?”

“We’ll get to the price after you’ve answered a few questions,” she said in a businesslike tone. Panzpresser was at her mercy. “First, did you ever meet Edgar Sonneborg?”

“No.”

Disappointed, Dickory continued. “Then how did you get his painting, the ‘Fruit Peddler’?”

“It won first prize for unexhibited artists at the old Whitney Museum. I bought it.”

“But you never met the artist who painted it?”

“Sonneborg? No, I never met Sonneborg. The painting was delivered by a friend of his, another artist who wanted to show me some of his own paintings. They were awful. The only good thing about them was the frames. I suggested he give up painting and become a framemaker.”

“What was this friend’s name?” Dickory asked from the edge of her chair.

“Name? How should I know, that was fifteen years ago.”

Dickory unwrapped the paintings and held one toward Julius Panzpresser. “Is this the friend?”

“Sonneborg!” Panzpresser exclaimed to Dickory’s horror. He leaped up, grabbed the painting, and rushed to the window to examine it in daylight. “Where did you get this? This is a Sonneborg painting!”

“Yes, Mr. Panzpresser, this is a Sonneborg painting,” Dickory said with relief. “But who is the man in the portrait?”

The art collector was so delighted with his new discovery that Dickory had to repeat her question.

“The man in the portrait? Oh, that’s the big guy who delivered the ‘Fruit Peddler,’ the one with the good frames.”

“His name was Frederick Schmaltz,” Dickory said. “His name is now Isaac Bickerstaffe, though his face is hardly recognizable. He saved my life.”

“Fifteen years I’ve been searching for another Sonneborg painting. Fifteen years.” Eyes glued to the canvas, he had not heard a word Dickory said.

“Mr. Panzpresser, please put that painting down. I have some very important things to discuss with you. Mr. Panzpresser. Photostats! Blackmail!”

The art collector returned to his chair, more concerned about buying the painting than paying blackmail. “Name your price.”

“Free Garson.”

“Garson!” Panzpresser was out of his chair again, ranting about that third-rate dabbler, that murderer who deprived the world of one of its great modern geniuses. Only after Dickory started for the door with both canvases did he settle down and listen to her explanation.

“I don’t have any photostats, Mr. Panzpresser, and even if I did I would never blackmail anybody. But I had to get you to hear my story. You have a great deal of influence; you could get Garson released from prison—after all, you started the whole investigation.”

Julius Panzpresser began fuming again.

“Edgar Sonneborg is still alive. And still painting,” she said quickly.

Now Julius listened.

Dickory explained, upon Panzpresser’s promise of secrecy, that Garson was Sonneborg. She explained why Garson insisted that the paintings be kept from public view.

The art collector was still skeptical. “Even if I could identify the mutilated man, Isaac what’s-his-name, as the one who delivered the painting, it doesn’t prove he’s Schmaltz. Besides, this painting is of the same period as the ‘Fruit Peddler.’ That ridiculous portrait Garson made of my wife looks more like the work of Schmaltz than the genius of Sonneborg.”

Dickory was prepared for this argument. “Mr. Panzpresser, I have met your wife, Cookie. She is a wonderful woman, so cheerful and full of life.”

“Oh, no,” Julius moaned. “Not blackmail again.”

“Not at all. I don’t want to hurt either you or Mrs. Panzpresser; I just want to free Garson.” Dickory unwrapped the second canvas. “I have something to show you that may cause you some pain, but please try to look at it with the eye of a collector. Look at it for the masterpiece it is, one of the greatest paintings of Edgar Sonneborg.”

Julius Panzpresser stared into the laughing face of a prancing, middle-aged drum majorette, hat askew on her tousled bleached curls.

“Cookie,” he said. “That’s my Cookie.”

3

Wearing the blank mask of Garson, Edgar Sonneborg sat opposite Dickory behind the glass partition. He looked grayer, slimmer, in his baggy prison chinos. His right hand shook noticeably as he lifted the telephone to speak.

“Isaac and I will be released in a day or two. Chief Quinn said you arranged the whole thing.”

Dickory squirmed in her chair. “It was really Julius Panzpresser who did it.” Eyes lowered, she explained in a hesitant voice, “I—I exchanged the Garson portrait of Cookie serving tea for the Sonneborg painting of the drum majorette.”

Garson turned ashen.

“Don’t worry, Garson. Please,” she whispered into the phone. “I had to do it to get you out of here. You and Isaac. Julius Panzpresser promised never to show the portrait to anyone. Or to tell anyone that Sonneborg is still alive.”

Slumped in his chair, Garson did not respond.

“No one was hurt, Garson, just the opposite. You see, you were wrong about Cookie. In the Garson portrait you painted her, not as she saw herself, but as she thought her husband wanted her to be. Neither you nor Cookie realized that Julius Panzpresser loves his wife just as she is—happy and nutty, just as she is in the Sonneborg portrait.” Dickory tried a smile. “Now they’re both happy and nutty and off on their second honeymoon.”

“Well, I guess I can’t complain about a happy ending,” Garson said listlessly. He looked tired and drawn.

“Is it awful in here?” Dickory asked with concern.

He tried to put her at ease with a shrug. “Not really, but I do miss not being able to work. There are so many characters here I’d like to paint. Recognize anybody?”

For the first time since entering the visitors’ room Dickory noticed the other prisoners seated in a row behind the glass partition, speaking in telephones to their relatives. At the far end she did recognize somebody—Professor D’Arches. He was shouting with great agitation to an attractive woman, probably his wife, who seemed to be taking it all in stride. Next to D’Arches sat a chubby young man, Harold Silverfish, who was trying to console an even chubbier visitor, his sad-faced mother.

“They were arrested for tearing down the traffic signs on Wall Street,” Garson explained. “They’ll be released as soon as bail is posted. Now, do you recognize the next man?”

The prisoner looked familiar to Dickory—elderly, portly, she had seen him somewhere before—standing in a photograph. “F. K. Opalmeyer?”

Garson nodded.

“Good old Opalmeyer and the Empress Fatima bracelet,” Dickory said. The next prisoner she recognized from the bobbed nose that didn’t fit his face. And his red thumbs. “Winston S. Fiddle, the face on the five-dollar bill.”

“Very good. Now, do you recognize the one and only?” Garson pointed to a middle-aged prisoner who had just sat down. Sandy hair, rimless glasses, Dickory could not remember having seen his face before. But she did recognize his gangly visitor who was entering the room. “George! ”

“Hi, Dickory,” George Washington III said sheepishly. He walked toward her with a reddened face. “I’m visiting my uncle.”

“Your uncle?”

He nodded, still blushing. “He got himself into a lot of trouble for having two different apartments and not paying his bills. I can’t quite figure it out, Dickory. Seems he was forging his own name, if you can do such a thing.”

Now Dickory recognized the prisoner. “Eldon F. Zyzyskczuk,” she exclaimed.

“How did you know that?” George asked in amazement. “He’s from the side of the family that didn’t change their name.”

“Your uncle Eldon is a very famous man,” Dickory said. “Why don’t you wait outside for me when your visit is over, George, and we’ll go for some pizza. And then to work. We’ve got a lot of assignments to catch up on.”

A happier George walked over to his uncle, and Dickory returned to Garson. “How is Isaac?” she asked.

Isaac was not well. “He has barely eaten,” Garson said sadly, “and he never smiles. He doesn’t know where he is, or that he’ll soon be going home.”

Julius Panzpresser, having twisted a few arms, had arranged for the deaf-mute’s release in Garson’s custody; but Dickory still had some unanswered questions. Isaac was the clue to Garson’s guilt, to his bloodstained hand; but she could never ask Garson. “Inspector Noserag, tell me about Frederick Schmaltz,” she said.

Garson nodded, then with shoulders slumped and back bowed from years of tracking footprints, Noserag spoke: “Fifteen years ago two struggling young artists shared a studio. They painted from the same models; they sang together and drank together, and together wallowed in shallow profundities. Their names were Edgar Sonneborg and Frederick Schmaltz. Sonneborg had all the talent; Schmaltz had all the charm, but as Sonneborg began to attain some recognition for his work, Schmaltz began to brood. Something in Schmaltz couldn’t bear the idea that he would never be another Matisse. Then Sonneborg won the Whitney prize, and Schmaltz’s entry was rejected.” Garson stopped, his eyes staring into the past.

“Go on, Inspector Noserag.”

“Sorry, Sergeant Kod. As I was saying, Schmaltz brooded. Grasping one last chance, he delivered Sonneborg’s painting to the art collector who had purchased it, in order to show his own paintings to him. I don’t know what Panzpresser told him, but Schmaltz returned to the studio roaring drunk. That night he had the terrible accident.”

“It was Panzpresser’s fault,” Dickory said. “Panzpresser told him that his paintings were awful and he should become a framemaker.”

Garson shook his head and closed his eyes against the dreaded memory. “Schmaltz had received criticism before, lots of it. It was later, in the studio, that he—when he saw the portrait Sonneborg was painting, the cruel portrait of Schmaltz as an untalented clown. . . .”

“What happened then, Inspector?” Dickory asked before Garson broke down.

Noserag replied quickly. “Schmaltz ran out into the street, in front of a moving truck. He was drunk, but it was no accident. He tried to kill himself, and he did. He killed Frederick Schmaltz. Only a grunting vegetable survived.”

“And that’s when Sonneborg became Garson,” Dickory guessed.

“Soon after. Schmaltz’s parents, who were then alive, wanted to put him in an asylum. Sonneborg changed his named to Garson, renamed Schmaltz, and with the prize money and the Panzpresser fee bought the house on Cobble Lane.” Garson rose abruptly. “I’ll go with the guard to get him. Isaac just huddles in a corner and won’t move unless I lead him. Maybe if he sees you. . . .” His voice broke.

Dickory watched the guilt-ridden artist leave through the barred door of the visitors’ room. Another prisoner entered and began pacing back and forth, waiting for his visitor to arrive, back and forth, back and forth.

“Donald!” Dickory shouted, leaping up from her chair.

Her brother Donald could not hear Dickory’s shout through the glass. Back and forth he paced as Blanche entered the visitors’ section, sobbing.

“Blanche, what’s wrong?” Dickory cried, embracing her sister-in-law. “Why is Donald here—in prison?”

“Oh, Dickory, it’s just awful,” Blanche sobbed. “I don’t know how it happened. The electric company turned off the lights again, and Donny went to pay the bill, and they arrested him. Because of his red thumbs. I kept telling him not to eat so many pistachio nuts, you’ve heard me tell him, Dickory. Poor Donny.”

Dickory tried to make some sense out of Blanche’s stammerings. “Who arrested him?”

“They did. They arrested poor Donny for passing a counterfeit five-dollar bill. The police searched the whole apartment and everything, but Donny won’t tell them where he got it.”

The phony five-dollar bill had come from Dickory’s dresser drawer. “Don’t worry, Blanche; I can fix everything. Donald thinks he is protecting me, that’s why he won’t say anything. Now, go tell Donald it’s all right; I can fix everything. After I leave here, I’ll call Chief of Detectives Quinn and tell him it was my five-dollar bill. He’ll get Donald out of here, fast.” Dickory knew that the chief was accountable for his own evidence. She reassured Blanche several more times, led her to a seat, and threw a kiss to her brother. “Now don’t worry.”

“Thanks, Dickory,” Blanche said, giving her a big hug. “We both miss you so terribly. Are you coming back home soon?”

“No, I’ll be living in the downstairs apartment in Garson’s house, but I’ll come visit the two of you often.”

Blanche wiped her eyes and blew her nose, but she still seemed unconsolable.

“Here, Blanche, I almost forgot.” Dickory reached into her pocket. “I have a present for you.”

Blanche gasped. “But it belongs to you, Dickory.”

“It belongs to you now, Blanche. To you and Donald. I owe you a lot.” Dickory opened the enameled watchcase painted with roses and placed it into her sister-in-law’s hand.

“Oranges and lemons,”
say the bells of St. Clements;
“You owe me five farthings,”
say the bells of St. Martins. . . .

The antique pocket watch was still chiming when Garson returned, shadowed by the shambling Isaac. Head bent, he seemed smaller, as though he had shriveled up into himself. Garson seated the deaf-mute in the chair before Dickory.

He did not look up.

Dickory stared at the poor helpless creature who had saved her life, and whom she had handed over to the police. She was overwhelmed with a confusion of pity and gratitude and guilt, but there was no way she could reach him. She could not touch him through the glass barrier; she could not speak to him over the telephone. She rapped on the glass. She stamped her feet on the floor.

Isaac felt the vibrations and raised his head. His good eye shone glassy and unseeing.

Dickory opened her face into the widest smile she could muster and waved her hand in a happy greeting.

Isaac furrowed his brow.