“Huh?”

“Who sold the fake paintings and killed Onderdonk? Who did it?”

“Well, there’s really only one person it could be,” I said, and turned toward the little sofa. “It’s you, isn’t it, Mr. Barlow?”

We had another one of those hushes. Then J. McLendon Barlow, who’d been sitting up very straight all along, seemed to sit up even straighter.

“Of course that’s nonsense,” he said.

“Somehow I thought you might deny it.”

“Palpable nonsense. You and I have never met before today, Mr. Rhodenbarr. I never sold a painting to Gordon Onderdonk. He was a good friend and I deeply regret his tragic death, but I never sold him a painting. I defy you to prove that I did.”

“Ah,” I said.

“Nor did I ever visit your shop, or represent myself to you or to anyone else as Gordon Onderdonk. I can understand your confusion, since it is a matter of record that I did in fact donate a painting of Mondrian’s to the Hewlett Gallery. I’d hardly be inclined to deny it; there’s a plaque on the gallery wall attesting to the fact.”

“Unfortunately,” I murmured, “the painting seems to have disappeared from the Hewlett.”

“It’s clear that you arranged its disappearance in preparing this farce. I certainly had nothing to do with it, and can provide evidence of my whereabouts at all times yesterday. Furthermore, it’s to my disadvantage that the painting has disappeared, since it was unquestionably genuine.”

I shook my head. “I’m afraid not,” I said.

“One moment.” Barnett Reeves, my jolly banker, looked as though I’d offered a dead rat as collateral. “I’m the curator of the Hewlett, and I’m quite certain our painting is genuine.”

I nodded at the fireplace. “That’s your painting,” I said. “How positive are you?”

“That’s not the Hewlett Mondrian.”

“Yes it is.”

“Don’t be a fool. Ours was cut from its stretcher by some damned vandal. That painting’s intact. It may well be a fake, but it certainly never hung on our walls.”

“But it did,” I said. “The man who stole it yesterday, and I’d as soon let him remain anonymous, was by no means a vandal. He wouldn’t dream of slashing your painting, genuine or false. He went to the Hewlett carrying a bit of broken stretcher with the outside inch of canvas of a homemade fake Mondrian. He dismantled the stretcher on our specimen, opening the staples and hiding the canvas under his clothing. He hung the pieces of stretcher down his trouser legs. And he left evidence behind to make you assume he’d cut the painting from its mounting.”

“And that painting over the fireplace-”

“Is your painting, Mr. Reeves. With the stretcher reassembled and the canvas reattached to it. Mr. Lewes, would you care to examine it?”

Lewes was on his way before I’d finished my sentence. He whipped out a magnifying glass, took a look, and drew back his head almost at once.

“Why, this is painted with acrylics!” he said, as if he’d found a mouse turd on his plate. “Mondrian never used acrylics. Mondrian used oils.”

“Of course he did,” said Reeves. “I told you that wasn’t ours.”

“Mr. Reeves? Examine the painting.”

He walked over, looked at it. “Acrylics,” he agreed. “And not ours. What did I tell you? Now-”

“Take it off the wall and look at it, Mr. Reeves.”

He did so, and it was painful to watch the play of expression across the man’s face. He looked like a banker who’d foreclosed on what turned out to be swampland. “My God,” he said.

“Exactly.”

“Our stretcher,” he said. “Our stamp incused in the wood. That painting was hanging in the Hewlett where thousands of eyes looked at it every day and nobody ever noticed it was a fucking acrylic copy.” He turned, glared furiously at Barlow. “You damned cad,” he said. “You filthy murdering bounder. You fucking counterfeit.”

“It’s a trick,” Barlow protested. “This burglar pulls fake rabbits out of fake hats and you fools are impressed. What’s the matter with you, Reeves? Can’t you see you’re being flimflammed?”

“I was flimflammed by you,” Reeves said, glowering. “You son of a bitch.”

Reeves took a step toward Barlow, and Ray Kirschmann was suddenly on his feet, with a hand on the curator’s forearm. “Easy,” he said.

“When this is all over,” Barlow said, “I’ll bring charges against you, Rhodenbarr. I think any court would call this criminal libel.”

“That’s really a frightening prospect,” I said, “to someone who’s currently wanted for two murders. But I’ll keep it in mind. You won’t be pressing any charges, though, Mr. Barlow. You’ll be upstate pressing license plates.”

“You’ve got no evidence of anything.”

“You had easy access to this apartment. You and your wife live on the fifth floor. You didn’t have the problem of getting in and out of a high-security building.”

“A lot of people live here. That doesn’t make any of us murderers.”

“It doesn’t,” I agreed, “but it makes it easy to search your apartment.” I nodded at Ray, and he in turn nodded at Officer Rockland, who went to the door and opened it. In marched a pair of uniformed officers carrying yet another Mondrian. It looked for all the world just like the one Lloyd Lewes had just damned as an acrylic fake.

“The genuine article,” I said. “It almost glows when it’s in the same room with a copy, doesn’t it? You might have carved up the painting you palmed off on Onderdonk, but you took good care of this one, didn’t you? It’s the real thing, the painting Piet Mondrian gave to his friend Haig Petrosian.”

“And we had a warrant,” Ray said, “in case you were wondering. Where’d you boys find this?”

“In a closet,” one said, “in the apartment you said on the fifth floor.”

Lloyd Lewes was already holding his glass to the canvas. “Well, this is more like it,” he said. “It’s not acrylic. It’s oil paint. And it certainly looks to be genuine. Quite a different thing from that, that specimen over there.”

“Now there’s been some mistake,” Barlow said. “Listen to me. There’s been some mistake.”

“We also found this,” the cop said. “In the medicine cabinet. No label, but I tasted it, and if it ain’t chloral hydrate it’s a better fake than the painting.”

“Now that’s impossible,” Barlow said. “That’s impossible.” And I thought he was going to explain why it was impossible, that he’d flushed all the extra chloral hydrate down the john, but he caught himself in time. Listen, you can’t have everything.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Ray Kirschmann told him, but I’m not going to go through all that again. Miranda-Escobedo’s a good or a bad thing, depending on whether or not you’re a cop, but who wants to put it down word for word all the time?

CHAPTER Twenty-four

After a few urgent words to his wife, something about which lawyer to call and where to reach him, two of the uniformed police officers led J. McLendon Barlow off in handcuffs. Francis Rockland stayed behind, and so did Ray Kirschmann.

There was a respectful silence, broken at length by Carolyn Kaiser. “Barlow must have killed Turnquist,” she said, “because Turnquist was the artist he used, and Turnquist could expose him. Right?”

I shook my head. “Turnquist was the artist, all right, and Barlow might have killed him sooner or later if he felt he had to. But he certainly wouldn’t have come down to my bookstore to do it. Remember, I’d met Barlow as Onderdonk, and all I had to do was catch sight of him walking around hale and hearty and the whole scheme would collapse. It’s my guess that Barlow never even left his apartment after the murder. He wanted to stay out of sight until I was behind bars where I couldn’t get a look at him. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Barlow?”

All eyes turned to the woman who now sat alone on the couch. She cocked her head, started to say something, then simply nodded.