THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF MISS PATRICIA MAXWELL
Desmond and Francis Okewood faced each other across the table in the
snug living-room of Desmond’s little service flat in Saint James’s. The
curtains were drawn, for it was five o’clock of a winter evening; and
the tantalus, siphon, and glasses which filled the tray between them
suggested that the two brothers were prepared to celebrate, in their
peculiar fashion, the rites of the hour. However, a tea-wagon,
appropriately decked out, that stood near the window, indicated that a
visitor of less masculine tastes was expected.
“Well,” remarked Desmond, resuming his train of thought which he had
interrupted to light a cigarette, “if old Clubfoot, as you say, has any
money, I’d like to know where he gets it from, that’s all!”
Francis grunted. “He’s got it all right, don’t worry,” he retorted, “as
Patricia Maxwell will tell you in a minute . . .”
“Provided she hasn’t forgotten the appointment,” said Desmond, looking
at the clock.
“She’ll be here to the tick,” his brother replied, “unless she has
altered from what she used to be when I knew her in the States!”
“A friend of Monica’s, didn’t you say she was?”
(Monica was Francis Okewood’s American wife.)
Francis nodded. “They went to the same school in America. We met her
again last year in California. That’s why she came to me with this
extraordinary story of hers. But here she is, I think!”
Old Batts, the valet of the flats, appeared at the door.
“Miss Maxwell!” he announced.
Patricia Maxwell was of that not uncommon type of American girl who in
the daytime looks as though she had stepped out of the current number of
a fashion paper, and in the evening as though she would appear in the
forthcoming issue. From the crown of her little brown hat to the sole of
her neatly shod foot she was absolutely flawless, perfectly coiffed,
perfectly dressed, perfectly gloved, perfectly shod. An orphan, her more
than comfortable means enabled her, through frequent visits to Europe,
to appreciate her country to the full, besides permitting her to admit
with impunity her real age which was on the right side of thirty. Her
little London house, within a stone’s throw of the Park, was, like
herself, a gem of good taste. She knew everybody and liked almost
everybody, and everybody liked her.
“So this is the famous brother?” she said when Francis introduced
Desmond. “If you only knew how perfectly thrilled I am to meet you two
together! But you’ll have to promise not to laugh at my story, Major
Okewood! I dare say it’ll seem just silly to _you_!”
“On the contrary, Miss Maxwell,” Desmond answered with his rather
languid air, “I am honestly quite extraordinarily curious to hear it.
Believe me, a yarn that’ll interest this brother of mine must be
something well out of the ordinary!”
And over the tea-cups in that tranquil room, while outside the cars and
taxis purred and hooted up and down the slope of Saint James’s Street,
she told her story. Long before she had done, Desmond, nursing his knee,
his eyes fixed on the speaker’s face, had let his cigarette go out as it
dangled from his lips.
“I expect your brother has told you,” she said, “that I’m a collector of
enamels. I guess it’s a kind of hobby of mine. Every time a special
piece comes up for sale in London or Paris or Vienna, one of the dealers
is pretty sure to notify me, and if it’s any way possible, I go along
and see it.
“Well, the other day a dealer friend of mine called me on the ’phone and
told me that a Russian ikon—you know, one of these sacred pictures you
see in Russian homes and churches—was to be sold at Blackie’s. It was a
beautiful piece, he said, with the figures of the Madonna and Child in
green-and-blue enamel under a silver sheeting—probably twelfth or
thirteenth century work. He thought it would fetch under a hundred
pounds and wanted to bid for me. But I like auctions and I said I’d go
myself. I went into Blackie’s the day before the sale and fell in love
with the ikon at once. It was quite small, not above about nine inches
by six, I guess, and heavy for its size, the silver covering cut out so
as to show the enamel figures underneath—you know the way it is—black
with age.
“Well, yesterday was the day of the sale, and Süsslein, my little
dealer, went along with me. The ikon was part of the collection of some
Russian Count—I forget the name—one of the _émigrés_ from the Russian
Revolution who had served with Denikin against the Bolsheviks. We sat
there all through the afternoon and by the time the ikon came up the
hall was three-quarters empty.
“One of the dealers started the bidding at ten guineas, and between
three or four of us we ran it up to seventy-five. Then the others began
to drop out, and by the time we’d got to a hundred there were only three
of us left—Harris, who buys for Lord Boraston, me, and a funny-looking
little runt of a man with a grey chin-beard and spectacles. He wasn’t
one of the ordinary dealers, so I sent Süsslein to find out just who he
was. When he came back he whispered to me he was a man called Achille
Saumergue, who was believed to be a Frenchman. Nobody had ever seen him
before.
“At two hundred guineas we topped Harris’s limit, and he passed away,
leaving me and old Saumergue to it. He and I kept on quietly tossing the
ball to and fro until—I’m cutting this all short, you know—I brought him
up all standing with an advance of fifty guineas on his three hundred
and fifty. I jumped the price up a bit because Hermann, the auctioneer,
who’s an old friend of mine, kept looking at the clock, and I knew the
poor man was dying to shut down and go home.
“Then old Saumergue asked if he might telephone—I suppose he’d reached
his limit. As he went out, I noticed that Süsslein went after him. He’s
pretty slick, and I guessed he meant to pick up what he could outside
the telephone box.
“But, my gracious! in two minutes my little friend was back in no end of
a way. Why, the man was so white I thought he was ill! He started
telling me a long story about old Saumergue buying in the ikon for some
Russian family where it was an heirloom, that it was really a rather
inferior specimen, and a lot of stuff like that. That’s the line of talk
dealers always hand out when they want to shoo you off a piece.
“But it didn’t go any with me, Major Okewood. I wanted that little old
ikon, and I meant to have it. But do you think what I wanted mattered?
Say, for about five minutes that little Jew never let up knocking that
holy picture, saying the price was ridiculous, and how I must be plumb
crazy to bid four hundred guineas for a thing that wasn’t worth above
forty!
“As Hermann picked up his hammer again, I just waved the dealer aside.
That old skate and I went at it once more. Everybody in the place was
crowded round us now, sort of in two camps—you know the way it is—and it
was so quiet you could almost hear a pin drop, I guess.
“‘May I say four hundred and fifty guineas? It’s a lovely piece,’
Hermann calls out in his soft voice, and the old man nods. He was
standing up, very serious, blinking through his spectacles, but I could
see his hands shaking with excitement.
“‘Five hundred!’ I said from my place just under the desk—they had given
me a Heppelwhite chair from the Zossenberg sale next week to sit in.
“‘And twenty-five!’ says the old man with a kind of gasp.
“‘Fifty?’ asks Hermann, looking at me. I nodded.
“Süsslein pulled my sleeve. ‘Let him have the ikon!’ he whispered. ‘It
don’t matter any to you, a common old thing like that! For God’s sake,
let him have it, Miss Maxwell!’
“I shook my head.
“‘Six hundred!’ I said.
“‘Any advance on six hundred?’ asks Hermann, and brings his hammer down
pretty sharply. ‘Six hundred guineas I’m bid. For the first time! It’s
getting late, and we all want to go home, I’m sure. For the second
time . . .’
“‘Seven hundred!’ says the old Frenchman faintly.
“All this time Süsslein was whispering in my ear. The man was all worked
up. ‘You’ve got to let him have it,’ he kept on saying. ‘Take my advice,
Miss Maxwell, and let the thing be. It’ll bring you no luck! Believe me,
I know what I’m saying!’ His voice was shaking and his eyes were
starting out of his head.
“But I meant to have that ikon, though, by this, the price was ’way
beyond my figure. The end came quick.
“‘Shall we say eight hundred?’ asks Hermann.
“I nodded. With that the old man turned on his heel and walked straight
out of the place. The ikon was mine.
“Süsslein didn’t say any more. He left me there. He seemed a changed
man. And I took the ikon home. As I told Süsslein, I had it all planned
out where I was going to hang it in the little space between the panels
over the desk in my boudoir.
“This morning, before I was up, Süsslein was round at the house. He said
he wanted to speak to me urgently. He had come, he told me, on behalf of
a client to offer me a thousand pounds for the ikon. I told him I wasn’t
selling. He asked me what I would take. I told him I didn’t intend to
part with my treasure.
“‘My client,’ he said, ‘is most anxious, for family reasons, to acquire
the ikon,’ and he offered me two thousand guineas, and then three.
“By this time I was getting pretty peeved, and I told Süsslein so. ‘If
your client can prove to my satisfaction,’ I told him, ‘that this ikon
really is an heirloom in his family, it’s a different matter. At present
it looks to me as though you and he had realized too late that I had got
on to something pretty good. I’m not selling, and you can tell your
client so!’ And with that I sent him about his business.
“I had a lot of trouble to get rid of him. Like so many dealers, he
seemed to think it was all a question of money. He couldn’t realize that
I’d never part with anything that went so well with the dull green
wainscot of my boudoir unless, of course, they could prove to me that
the ikon had been stolen or something of that kind.”
“Your dealer pal didn’t tell you the name of his client?” asked Desmond.
“I asked him, of course, but he said he was not at liberty to reveal it.
But it didn’t matter any, for, about an hour later, he arrived in
person.”
“The client?”
“Sure. A Russian, a certain Dr. Madjaroff. I was sick and tired of the
whole thing, so I told the butler to say I was busy. But he said he’d
wait till I was disengaged. So, just to get rid of him, I saw him. My
dear, he was the most extraordinary-looking person, a vast man with a
great bushy black beard and a clubfoot . . .”
There was a crash from the fender. Desmond Okewood had suddenly dropped
the knee he had been hugging and overset the fire irons.
“He spoke in French,” Patricia Maxwell went on. “He said that, through a
misunderstanding, Monsieur Saumergue, who had been bidding for him at
Blackie’s yesterday, had failed to secure the ikon. ‘But,’ he said, ‘I
am prepared to pay handsomely for the mistake. I will now write you my
cheque for three thousand five hundred guineas!’ And he actually
produced a cheque-book and a fountain pen!
“I told him I didn’t want to sell. But do you think he’d take ‘no’ for
an answer? Not on your life! ‘Would I name my own figure?’ he said, and
when I stood up and repeated that I meant to keep the ikon and that he
was wasting his time, he offered me first five thousand guineas and at
last, by stages, six thousand five hundred.
“You know, that man rather frightened me. I’m supposed to be a pretty
determined sort of person myself, but never in my life have I run up
against such a dominating personality as this Dr. Madjaroff. He was so
big and hairy with the vitality of some great animal like a buffalo
or . . . or a rhinoceros.
“When I turned down his offer of six thousand five hundred guineas, he
bent his dark bushy eyebrows at me.
“‘Miss Maxwell,’ he said, ‘I’ve set my heart on that ikon. You’ve got to
let me have it.’
“I told him I was sorry, but it was quite impossible.
“‘I’ve offered you thirty, fifty times its value,’ he returned. ‘Believe
me, you will be well advised to accept my offer.’
“‘My mind is made up,’ I replied, and rang to show him the interview was
at an end. ‘The ikon is not for sale.’
“Do you know, the queerest change came over that old guy! All his hair
seemed to bristle and his eyes just burnt like two hot coals. He raised
up his stick—he had a crutch-stick that he walked with—as though to
strike me, then turned his back on me and hobbled out of the house. My!
I tell you I felt relieved to see him go . . .”
Desmond broke in quickly. “I hope you didn’t leave the ikon hanging up
in your house?” he said. His languid air had given way to a brisk and
eager manner. His steely blue eyes searched the girl’s face as he spoke.
“Why, no!” said Miss Maxwell. “As a matter of fact, I brought it along
to show you!”
So saying she opened her capacious leathern handbag and produced a flat
brown paper parcel. Unwrapping it, she drew forth the ikon, which she
handed to Desmond.
He bore it quickly to the electric-light bracket by the fire-place and
carefully examined it. Once or twice he balanced it in his hand as
though appraising the weight.
“Now, why do you suppose,” the American asked, “that this Russian is so
dead set on getting hold of this old ikon? It’s beautiful work and all
that, of course, but it’s not worth six thousand five hundred guineas or
the half or even the quarter of the eight hundred I paid . . .”
But Desmond had turned away and was talking to his brother.
“We want to make sure,” he was saying. “Tell him I’ll come round at once
and see him.”
Francis Okewood stepped across to a desk in the corner on which the
telephone stood and asked for a number.
“Why,” exclaimed Miss Maxwell, “that’s Süsslein’s number!”
But Francis held up his hand for silence, the telephone receiver to his
ear.
“I want to speak to Mr. Süsslein,” he said, and stood listening for a
moment.
“I see,” he said presently. “No, I hadn’t heard.”
He hung up the receiver and faced them.
“Süsslein was found dead in his office after lunch!” he said quietly.
“Dead?” exclaimed the American in a shocked voice.
“He had hanged himself,” Francis answered gravely.
“That settles it!” said Desmond, looking up from his study of the ikon.
“This means that The Man with the Clubfoot is at his old tricks again!”