The Pearl Crucible - A Dardana Fenek Mystery - MULLINAX (Part 3)

(Chapter 12, part 3)

The office wasn’t big, hardly larger than mine, but it looked out on a green lawn between the Academy buildings, a few white paths crossing it under the ilex trees. Mine looked out at a dank courtyard with laundry lines hanging across it. The walls, instead of being cracked plaster with faint frescoes from two hundred years ago, were heavy oak paneling. There was a young man at the desk in the waiting room eating an apple and reading the Racing Form, and he started to stand up—for Mullinax, I’m sure—but the Doctor Professor waved his hand dismissively at him and closed a door with a frosted glass window behind us.

“Sit,” he said.

He dropped into his chair behind the desk and looked me over. He had wiry gray hair and a weathered face, somewhat craggy. He was fifty-five or sixty, maybe. He undid the fastening at the top of his robe through the panel of elaborate and, I assume, symbolic embroidery and turned on a fan by the window.

“The lecture halls are the devil for heat. Water?” he offered.

“Thank you,” I said.

He poured a glass from a stone jug on a table, and gave it to me, but did not offer any to Barsina. I sipped, looking at the wooden filing cabinets and the framed certificates and documents with their ribbons, seals, and signatures. I passed the cup to her, hoping she’d drink, but she’s Barsina: she’d die of thirst before she did anything improper, and she just stood there holding it.

“Who are you, and how can I help you?” he said before I could catch my breath.

“Miss Dardana Fenek. I am a private inspector.” I pulled one of my cards from my girdle and handed it to him. He looked at it and then at me.

“Is this legal?”

“There’s no law barring women from it,” I said. “I checked.”

He frowned. “I’m sure you did. And?”

“I’m investigating a case,” I said, “and Meisje came up.”

He leaned back in his leather-covered chair and looked at me. “What are you talking about.”

“The painting,” I said. “Meisje—mm, Barsina?”

“Meisje met de parel,” she said.

“Meisje with the pearl,” he said softly. “Yah. How is she involved? And with what?”

“Murder of an aristoi, Doctor Professor Mullinax.”

He sat quietly and folded his hands. “This is the Fortunato business.”

“Yes, Doctor Professor.”

He nodded and spread his slender fingers as if to ward me off. “I had nothing to do with this.”

“I did not say that you had.”

He pointed a finger at me. “But you are here. Why? How did the painting become involved?”

“I don’t know that it is. But Mist Fortunato had a spare key to the case in his pocket, and the key was taken. He had a folder with documents relating to it on his desk, and the documents were purloined. He was working on an ancient art exhibit, and she is to be the centerpiece.”

“I’m not connected. A key? I presume she hasn’t been stolen!”

“I haven’t said you were,” I said. “And she hasn’t. But the piece passed to the State Gallery from Herme Scyros and then from you, and you found it. And it was transferred under … questionable circumstances?”

“Questionable? Under whose authority are you questioning me?”

“Ensign-Captain Mardonios of the Night Market Commissariat,” I said, again going to that well.

He looked at the apparato on his desk, and pointed at it. “If I call him to confirm this?”

I smiled calmly. “Oh, please do,” I said. “I encourage you to.”

He blew out a sigh.

“I found the painting. In Zoan.”

“Yes. Tell me about this.”

“The Academy helped sponsor the excavation,” he said. He reached behind him to a crowded shelf and pulled out a brown-bound book, thrusting it at me. I opened it and thumbed through it. “However, a deal of my money went into it, and that of other investors.”

“Ah,” I said. “Including?”

“Miss Herme Scyros, yes.”

He flushed as I gazed evenly at him. “I begin to understand. You could decide to whom the spoils went.”

He took offense. “Spoils! Collectors and the Academy were paying. A profit and a benefit would be turned. It was agreed I would sort out what went where, as long as the State Gallery and the Academy got the lion’s share.”

“You had an assistant, Miss Izenna Ceccaldo. You sorted out where she went?”

He looked uncomfortable. “My girl Izenna now,” he said, sounding defiant.

“Explain how this happened.”

“I’m under no obligation—”

“Ensign-Captain might consider otherwise.”

He sat back as I paged through the book. Of course, he was the author. There were engravings of the ruins, diagrams of excavations, and engravings of artifacts. Colored plates were tipped in. The paper was heavy, almost glossy, and had a particular smell and feel, thin like cool clay.

“Miss Scyros deals in handling and training citizen women of good quality who become deprived of their citizenship. She offered to provide Izenna to me in exchange for the painting. It was easily done.”

“Miss Ceccaldo was worth a priceless painting from Earth?”

“To me, she still is,” he said, not disputing her title for the moment.

“I’m certain she’s flattered. Miss Scyros referred to her as ‘mousy’,”

He bridled. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Miss Fenek.”

“Miss Ceccaldo’s opinion of her experience?”

“My girl Izenna is perfectly happy.”

I ordinarily have no opinion of citizens who lose their civil rights. It’s not my problem, nor were his delusions about her feelings. Citizens look down on them as dirt. Tank-girls look down on them because they are clumsy and unreliable and cause trouble around the house. However, I had a (momentary) strong urge to point out she was probably quite unhappy, no matter what she said. Former citizens, as I’ve mentioned, are well-known and practiced liars. But I didn’t challenge him on the dubious ethics of the little scheme performed against the young woman. As I say, I’ve no interest in such matters.

I did think about Miss Nunzia Azzopardo and my client. The circumstances were strikingly similar, but Fortunato used brutally direct and illegal means to get what he wanted. At least this little wispy-haired Doctor Professor had used a legal—if questionable—method to get his woman.

I ran my fingers across the pages, feeling the impression of the heavy letters in the paper. “Consider this murder, consider this painting. Can you see a connection between the two?”

He licked his lips. “Nothing comes to mind.”

“Can you tell me about how it was found?”

He laid his hands on his desk and shrugged. “If I must.”

( … This way to Chapter Twelve part 2 … ) ( … This way to Chapter Thirteen part 1 … )