gleaming varnished oak adorned by a brass knocker and doorknob polished to golden brightness. The front windows seemed to wear their original glass, leaded and beveled, behind a filigree of wrought-iron bars, that were both decorative and practical in a city with such a high burglary rate.
Sigrid knew this type of house well. Her father's aunts and uncles had owned similar houses in Brooklyn near Prospect Park, and as a small child, she had been taken there for visits. She still remembered the high-ceilinged rooms; the dark parquet floors covered with Turkey red carpets; the peacock feathers in tall vases; and Aunt Kirsten's long, lace-covered table, spread with an incredible assortment of strange-tasting food. After tea Uncle Lars would take her over to the Prospect Park zoo to feed the polar bears while Anne, her mother, southern born and bred and therefore doubly alien, remained behind with the aunts, bridging conversational chasms with her high, light chatter. Family ties were very important to Anne, who for Sigrid's sake had kept up with her dead husband's people. The aunts and uncles in their turn had pitied the plain, gawky child Sigrid had been and always included her in family gatherings. Over the years these had gradually dwindled as the oldest generation died out. The connection with her father's cousins was tenuous by the time Sigrid reached maturity, but she had never forgotten those long- ago Sunday afternoons and those tall spacious houses.
Nowadays such houses were at a premium again, especially in this part of Manhattan. The new owners either restored them to their former elegance, all dark wood and understated antiques, or else gutted the insides, lowered ceilings and created dramatically modern interiors behind the old facades. In any event, there would be a small, exquisite garden in the rear, just large enough for smart cocktail parties on summer evenings and-most important- the cachet of an address near or 'on' the park.
Although she may not have admired the park's beauty, Sigrid knew there were others who did; who were, in fact, willing to pay exorbitant rents or taxes for houses with a view-even a diagonal one-of
Central Park. A shocking waste of money in her opinion, but Riley Quinn's bank balance must have been comfortable enough. The City University of New York paid its full professors generously, and as a leading expert on modern art, he'd probably done quite well financially with books, articles and outside lecture fees. Moreover, Leyden 's and Vance's remarks suggested that Quinn had realized rather large sums from the sale of some of the Hungarian's paintings. Was there a motive in that? Murder to stop the sale of a dead artist's work?
Sigrid didn't actually expect much help from Quinn's widow. Regretfully she was forced to concede that this did not look like the usual simple uncomplicated 'family' murder, so that Mrs. Quinn was not an active suspect. Still her comments might throw a different light on Quinn's character. Although everyone Sigrid had talked to so far said that Riley Quinn had been sarcastic, pompous and condescending, it was possible that in the privacy of his home he had been a confiding husband, had lain in his wife's arms and in the quiet darkness spoken of those who had reason to hate him.
Whenever Sigrid tried to picture living in close communion with someone, imagination failed her. She had read widely, of course, but she had no firsthand knowledge of how married people behaved when alone. Her father was a vivid memory; laughter; being swung up on his shoulders; the smell of his freshly shaven face; standing at the window to wave goodbye to him in his blue uniform-all this she remembered. But she'd been much too young to evaluate his relationship with her mother before he was killed; and Anne had never remarried, so Sigrid had nothing tangible to build on.
Of all her married cousins, north
Whatever the status of Quinn's marriage, Sigrid wasn't to hear Mrs. Quinn's version that night. As she reached for the bell, the heavy oak door suddenly swung open, spilling light across the threshold, and
Oscar Nauman's tall frame filled the doorway.
Behind him stretched a hallway paneled in gleaming walnut. An intricate Tiffany lamp stood upon a richly carved chest beneath the wainscot of a wide staircase, and muted Oriental rugs softened the marble tiles. In this traditional setting the large canvases that adorned the wall looked like so many garish comic-book illustrations to Sigrid's untrained eyes, and seemed to strike a jarring note.
'Come to question the grieving widow?' asked Nauman sardonically when he had recognized her.
'Yes. Is she in?'
Nauman leaned against the door frame to consider her question. His face was shadowed, but light gleamed through his white hair and haloed his head in silver.
'Technically she's in; metaphysically she's out,' he said at last.
'The technical side will be sufficient,' she said coldly and started to pass him.
She was blocked by a surprisingly strong arm, and his keen blue eyes were amused at her sudden irritation. Sigrid glared back at him, and he dropped his arm to herald her entrance with a sweeping flourish of his tall lean body.
'Up the stairs and first door to your left,' he called after her. 'Don't say you weren't warned.'
Unreasonably annoyed, Sigrid strode up the steps, her back rigid. She was conscious of Nauman's mocking eyes following her progress. At the top of the landing a concealed spotlight illuminated a small canvas chastely framed by unadorned wooden strips. At first glance it seemed to be nothing but a matte black square; not even a brush stroke disturbed its smooth surface, and its pointlessness fueled her annoyance.
As a child, she had been dutifully marched around the city's great museums, shifting from one leg to other as her mother lectured on the aesthetic quality of one interminable picture after another. Only the portraits had held her attention, and she particularly like the drawings and illuminated manuscripts at the Morgan Library. Still lifes and landscapes, if not too fulsome, had also been acceptable. But whenever Anne tried to interest her in nonrepresentational art, she had resisted fiercely. Once when confronted with some paintings by Jackson Pollock, she had rebelled, declared the whole room to be filled with 'scribble-scrabble baby pictures' and had so dug in her heels that Anne gave up. Even a required college survey course in art appreciation had not altered her original evaluation. She still felt that abstract art was an elaborate put-on, and this plain black square before her seemed to prove it. She dismissed it with a shrug and looked around.
The rest of the upper hall was in darkness except for a sliver of light beneath the first door. Sigrid tapped softly, and at her slight pressure the door slid open upon an injudicious blend of Parisian bordello and American 'sweet sixteen'.
Sigrid's first stunned impression of Doris Quinn's bedroom was of its overpowering fluffiness. Bouffant white silk shades capped each delicate crystal lamp, and at all the windows heavily ruffled curtains crisscrossed beneath red velvet drapes and swags. An overstuffed chaise longue was upholstered in some sort of white fur heaped with plush velvet cushions, while the dressing table was swathed in frilly white organza. Sigrid's feet sank alarmingly into the soft red carpet, and her eyes were assaulted by coy bouquets of red-and-green roses spangled across a white wallpaper.
The bed, an extravaganza in beknobbed and curlicued brass, had a curved tester and dust ruffles of lace-edged organza. The puffed silk coverlet repeated the wallpaper's overblown roses, and it, too was edged in white lace, as were the pillows.
In the midst of this froth of white lace Sigrid recognized Piers Leyden's muscular form as he struggled with a woman's inert body.
'Ah, the hell with it!' she heard him mutter. Then he heaved himself upright and staggered over to collapse on the chaise longue.
'Professor Leydon?' she asked hesitantly.
He smiled up at her without really focusing, turned over and buried his curly black head in the velvet cushions. 'All classes are canceled,' he announced and promptly passed out.
From the direction of the bed rose a muffled snore. Sigrid tiptoed over, nearly tripping on the thick rug. It was like walking on marshmallows.
Doris Quinn was visible only from the waist down. A black elastic girdle smoothly encased her softly rounded bottom, and the shapely legs, which dangled over the edge of the bed, still wore sheer black stockings. Her head, arms and upper torso were entangled in a lacy black slip. Frustrated in his effort to remove it, Leyden had abandoned in mid-stream the whole idea of putting Doris Quinn to bed.
If she spent the entire night with her head and arms so constricted by that slip, Sigrid reflected, Mrs. Quinn was going to wake up awfully stiff and sore-that is, assuming she didn't suffocate during the night. Deftly she
