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The Uninvited Countess
A Bedford Green Mystery
By Michael Kilian MysteriousPress.com
Copyright © 2002 Michael Kilian
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2010-7
CHAPTER 1
"I have news," said Sloane Smith, Bedford Green's famously tall and lovely assistant, as she came through the door of his Greenwich Village art gallery more than an hour late on a disagreeably hot summer morning in 1925.
Bedford, seated at his desk, lowered his newspaper. "And what is that? Have we actually sold a painting?"
He brushed a speck of street dust from his white duck trousers, and then another from his navy blazer. The motorcar traffic in New York was becoming impossible.
"Yes, we have," Sloane said. "I have. But that's not the news."
She sat down on his desk, crossing her long legs. Even without shoes, she was equal to his six foot of height, and her legs traversed a considerable distance. Her pale yellow sleeveless summer dress had a shockingly high hemline, even by the provocative standards of the time. Bedford flushed a little, keeping his eyes on her face.
Sloane was very fair of complexion, and wore her dark hair in a chic, sleek, fashionable bob. She had highlighted her gray-green eyes with a matching eye shadow. In all, she was flawlessly groomed, though she'd been at their neighborhood speakeasy, Chumley's, as late as he had been — matching him and his friends whiskey for whiskey.
"How could you sell a painting without opening up the gallery?" he asked, pointedly but unnecessarily consulting his wristwatch.
"If you were one tenth as perceptive as you're reputed to be," she said, lighting a cigarette, "you would have noticed that I did indeed open up this much-neglected establishment this morning. I went through the mail, took delivery of two paintings from overseas, tidied up generally — which has not been done in some days — and sold one of the Gerrit Beneker Cape Cod oils to an elderly woman from Patchin Place. Then I closed up again, all before you finally arrived."
"Which Beneker?"
"The one of Provincetown harbor."
"How much?"
"Seven hundred fifty dollars."
"Gosh, Sloane. Bless you."
"Don't thank me," she said. "Thank Mr. Beneker."
"Thanks and blessings to Mr. Beneker. Now tell me the 'news.'"
She leaned back, turning her head to look at him, but then became distracted by his copy of the New York Day, the ratty morning tabloid where Bedford had once labored as a celebrity and society columnist. Her eyes fixed on a headline, then she swiveled around, turning toward him, and picked up the paper.
"Golly Moses," she said. "William Jennings Bryan has died. The poor old coot."
A week before, Bryan had been on the witness stand at the Scopes "Monkey" trial in Tennessee, undergoing the most merciless imaginable questioning from his nemesis, Clarence Darrow, on literal interpretation of the Bible. All Greenwich Village had followed the proceedings with great interest and amusement.
"Died defending his faith," Bedford said.
"Perhaps he just died of embarrassment," Sloane said. "The way Darrow humiliated him. It was close to torture." She put the paper aside. "I wonder though if he just succumbed to the heat. I couldn't survive three days in Tennessee."
Sloane was from Chicago. Her family had a huge house in Lake Forest on a bluff overlooking breezy Lake Michigan.
"Now your news, if you please," Bedford asked. "And could you tell me where it is you went when you were gone from the gallery?"
"It might be none of your business."
"If that's the case, you needn't tell me."
She got to her feet, smoothing down what there was of her skirt.
"I went just down the street, is all — to Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's studio. She rang up and asked me over for coffee."
"Was she showing off her latest sculpture?"
"No."
"She gave you this all important news you still haven't told me about."
"Yes."
"And it is?"
"It is, Mr. Green, that you have become socially acceptable."
He stared at her, wondering at the game. "Impossible. You've been grievously misinformed."
"How can you say that? Just because you're stone broke; consort with gamblers, showgirls, racetrack touts, and other lowlifes; and once actually worked as a newspaperman."
"You left out artists. I consort with artists."
"Artists are beyond society. But you, sir, for once, have now achieved genuine social status. We have been invited up to Gertrude's place in Newport. You and I — the both of us."
"By Gertrude's 'place,' you must mean that monstrous Vanderbilt mansion —'the Breakers.'"
"All she said was, 'her cottage.'"
"'Cottage,' indeed. It has seventy rooms."
"Would you rather spend the weekend in some egalitarian Lower East Side tenement?"
"Not particularly. Neither would most of the tenements' inhabitants. But she actually invited me?"
Bedford came from a very old New York family, but one so old it had long before run through all its money. His parents had died leaving him nothing but a large farmhouse in Cross River up in Westchester and the wherewithal to open his gallery — though not enough, alas, to keep it in business.
The Vanderbilts were comparative newcomers to the New York social scene, but now ruled it as the richest clan in the city. If they wished, Bedford supposed, they had money enough to buy the whole of Greenwich Village outright. Some contemptuous local bohemians treated Gertrude as though she had a secret plan to do just that as part of some capitalist, monopolist plot, though all she owned or planned to in the neighborhood was her studio building on West Eight Street, a few doors down from Bedford's gallery. And she was as much a friend to her fellow artists as there was to be had in the city.
"She's inviting us both," Sloane said. "I suppose I'm to tag along to keep you from committing some gaffe, such as poking at the gold leaf to see if it's real." She got up and went to a painting on the wall near the front display window, straightening it.
"Of course their gold leaf is real," Bedford said. "I'm surprised they haven't covered their lawn with it."
Sloane laughed. "That's probably the next Newport dernier cri."
He glanced at his newspaper again, then folded it neatly and set it on the cabinet behind him.
"There's a reason for this invitation," he said. "Something lurking in the weeds."
Sloane was still fidgeting with the painting.
"Clever man," she said. "Yes, the Vanderbilts do have a problem. Or so Gertrude says."
"Does it involve art? Or is she interested in my pick for the next Belmont Stakes?"
"It involves Hungarians. Do you know of a noble Hungarian family named Zala?"
"The only Hungarians I believe I've ever encountered outside of André Mohar's restaurant on Hudson Street were Austro-Hungarians in the war — and they were shooting at me."
"That's not true. Your actress friend Claire Pell — she's half Hungarian."
"Yes, that's right. She is."
"Is she speaking to you again?"
"I'm not sure. But what sort of Hungarians is Gertrude interested in?"
"This Hungarian countess named Zala. Gertrude is very worried about her. You might even say scared. She wants to know more about her. She's of the opinion you know everybody and can help her in this."
"Why didn't she ask me herself?"
"I think she wanted to sound me out about it first. She was afraid you'd resent being invited to Newport for what amounts to an ulterior reason."
He shook his head, wishing a customer would come in. "Sorry, I do believe I am the wrong fellow for this. Much as I like Gertrude, I'm not much good with aristocrats. Not the Hungarian kind, or the Vanderbilt kind."
Sloane returned to the side of his desk, and smiled. "Gertrude says this countess is very beautiful."
He pondered this observation, and what it might mean for the Vanderbilts, brushing another speck from his white trousers. "Were you supposed to tell me about this countess now, or was I to learn upon arriving?"
"A bit after that, I think, so you wouldn't think the invitation was extended under false pretenses."
"As in fact it was. Or will be."
"You wouldn't think that if I hadn't told you."
"True enough. Why did you?"
"You're my friend, Bedford. I don't keep things from you. Not if they concern you."
"Has Gertrude officially tendered the invitation?"
Sloane pondered this as though it were some weighty matter. "Actually, I guess not. She said she might talk to you later."
"So in the meantime I'm to pretend I've heard nothing about Hungarian countesses."
"Just be your sweet old well-mannered and highly circumspect self, and everything will be all ticketyboo."
She leaned down and kissed his cheek, which she did about once a year, and then went to the rear alcove that was their office and workroom to wrap the Beneker painting. Bedford tilted his chair back against the wall, recalling his childhood visits to Newport, Rhode Island. He'd been intimidated by the Vanderbilts and the other robber barons even then.
His last visit there had been in the company of someone considerably more intimidating, though for a different reason. It had been aboard a motor yacht, full of smuggled scotch. Bedford had been a guest of his old Great War flying comrade, Liam O'Bannion, who had prospered greatly as a trans-Atlantic bootlegger.
"Do you really want to accept this invitation — presuming she ever extends it?" he asked.
"Yes. Of course."
"I thought you told me all these society swells bore you silly."
"They do. I just like to run barefoot on their lawns. They always have such wonderful lawns."
"Fine, but much as I like Gertrude, I think I will decline," he said.
"I really wish you wouldn't. I want you to go there."
He stared at her, in a way he seldom did. "You want me to run barefoot over their lawn with you?"
"Don't get the wrong idea, Bedford Green. I want you to come with me because I think Gertrude's really worried about something."
"What makes you think that?"
"She asked if you had a gun."
CHAPTER 2
Bedford suggested that Sloane quit work early, as they'd had no other customers and she'd certainly earned her pay for the day. A few minutes after she was out the door, he closed up the gallery and, straw boater in place, headed east down Eighth Street toward Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's studio.
The sun was still fairly high in the sky and the day's summer heat as yet little dissipated. Ever mindful of his appearance, Bedford walked slowly to keep down perspiration. Reaching the lady's building, a two-story structure with marble pillars to either side of the front steps and only a few windows facing the street, he stopped, hesitating before the door.
He was indeed resentful. He felt he was being summoned out to the Breakers like some hired tradesman, only paid in canapés. To be sure, he was a tradesman. No matter how grandly his fellow art gallery owners tended to view and conduct themselves, they were all in essence shopkeepers — paintings and sculpture as much commodities as produce, however lofty the language of commerce.
Mrs. Whitney's disingenuousness angered him. It was wholly unnecessary. If she had simply asked him for this favor as a friend, he'd gladly have attended to it without any need of weekends in Newport.
He decided he would do precisely that. He'd learn what he could about the mysterious Hungarian lady and then present the information to Gertrude before she had a chance to extend any Newport invitation.
He moved on, happier now, strolling south toward Washington Square. The park was full of people, many of them mothers with small children. He walked around the central fountain, then turned north again and passed through the arch, heading up Fifth Avenue. He had time to call upon several people in what remained of this day.
He started with Dayton Crosby, the curmudgeonly Wall Street lawyer he'd inherited from his parents along with the family's weathered country house in upper Westchester. The old gentleman had largely retired from the law firm where he had for years been managing partner, devoting himself now to more interesting pursuits, including books he authored about notable New Yorkers and the animal welfare charity he had founded. A habitually rumpled fellow who resembled more a sort of shaggy bear than the proper gentlemen his Knickerbocker forebears had been, Crosby had a fondness for animals of all sorts. He lived with a small menagerie of dogs, cats, and more exotic creatures in a shabbily genteel townhouse facing Gramercy Park.
Bedford walked there, perspiring uncomfortably, only to find the man not at home. Presuming Crosby would be at one of his many clubs, he set out first for the Masters Chess Club down on Mercer Street. There the old gentleman indeed proved to be, sprawled in a comfy leather armchair at a table near the back, waiting with carefully restrained impatience while a younger, bearded opponent stared at the board in grim frustration.
"Should I resign?" the opponent asked as Bedford joined them.
"Well, I am surely not about to," Crosby interjected.
He looked up at Bedford and grinned, the cat in possession of the mouse.
"Do you see it?" the bearded man said to Bedford. "I'm not sure."
"I do see it, I think," said Bedford quietly. There were several games in progress in the room. "Checkmate in three moves, depending."
"Depending on what?"
"On what you do, sir."
"What would you do?"
Crosby leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. "Asking advice is against house rules."
"I would resign," Bedford said.
The bearded man nodded, taking his king and laying it on its side. He rose, and shook Crosby's hand, then walked away, pulling at his curly beard. When he was gone, the old man got painfully to his feet, and suggested whiskey in the club's back room. He was afflicted with arthritis, and it plagued him when the weather was muggy. He claimed the occasional cocktail or two helped.
"Would you have resigned?" Crosby asked when he had reseated himself and their drinks were poured.
"I wouldn't have gotten as far as he did," Bedford said. "You'd have checkmated me long before."
Crosby scowled. "That's rubbish. You'd have lasted at least two moves longer than he did. I don't suppose you've come by for a game?"
"No. I came by to seek out your extensive knowledge of Hungarian aristocracy."
"You have been seriously misinformed, my boy. All I know of the Hungarian aristocracy is that you don't notice so many of them driving cabs and waiting on tables as you do of the Russian aristocracy nowadays. But then, the Hungarian revolution had a more salubrious outcome."
He meant that Hungary's leftist revolutionaries had failed in their uprising, allowing the monarchy to return to the throne.
"Could you suggest where I might go to become better informed?" Bedford asked.
A sparkle came into Crosby's eyes. He raised a forefinger.
"The very place. Budapest!"
Bedford sipped his drink. "Thank you, Dayton, for the sage advice. As it happens, I won't be in Budapest anytime soon. I'm about to be invited by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney out to her family's place in Newport."
"Well, then, your problem's solved. You can ask around there about Hungarian aristocrats."
"How so?"
"The old Commodore wasn't much, in the beginning, don't you know. Skippered a garbage scow out of Staten Island. Then he moved to steam ferries from New Jersey and from there to ships, railroads, and real estate. Thus does America grow its aristocracy. Some of his descendants have hankered for the real thing, and Gertrude's sister Gladys married one — His Excellency Count Laszlo Szechenyi."
"I'd forgotten. Is he a fortune hunter?"
"On the contrary. He's a diplomat — since 1921, His Royal Hungarian Majesty's minister to the United States. I met him at a dinner once at the Coffee House Club. Nice fellow. And he's made Gladys a countess. Their children won't have to settle for having a garbage scow skipper as their most illustrious ancestor."
"I never quite understood the point of a titled American."
"Neither did the Europeans, until they got a sniff of American money. Do you know the General?"
"Gertrude's brother?"
"Yes indeed. General Cornelius Vanderbilt III. Very nice fellow, too. And intelligent. Won the Croix de Guerre in the war — just like you. Surprised you didn't run into him."
"It was a very large war. But I do know him. I mean, I know of him. I certainly know his wife."
"Who does not know the inimitable Grace Wilson Vanderbilt?"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Uninvited Countess by Michael Kilian. Copyright © 2002 Michael Kilian. Excerpted by permission of MysteriousPress.com.
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