Corpus Christmas

“Done!” Elliott Buntrock groaned, already hearing the disbelieving jeers that would rise from his compatriots in the art world when they learned what he’d agreed to. He looked down the long space beyond the archway, to the drawing room, where the others were gathered around the piano. “Shall we tell them the wedding’s on?”

“Be my guest,” said Oscar. “I want another drink.”

In the dining room, a waiter had taken Sigrid’s empty glass and promptly returned with a full one.

At the buffet table were a gray-haired man and woman who both smiled as she approached. “The pates good,” said the man, gesturing to the platter with a hearty friendliness.

“So are the crab puffs,” said the woman, who was so painfully gaunt beneath her diamonds and pearls that Sigrid couldn’t believe anything more caloric than lettuce and water ever passed her lips.

Another couple at the end of the table broke apart from what seemed like an intense conversation. The dark- haired woman wore a vivid red-and-purple dress with panache and she turned with an equally vivid smile on her attractive face. “Miss Harald? I’m Hester Kohn, Jacob’s partner. Have you met Benjamin Peake? He’s director of the Breul House.”

“So pleased,” the director murmured and took her hand and looked into her eyes as if he’d waited all his life to meet her.

Unfortunately for the effect, he immediately turned that same look upon the thin woman beside them, “Mrs. Herzog! Have you met Miss Harald, Oscar Nauman’s friend? Miss Harald, Mrs. Herzog. And this is Mr. Reinicke. They’re two of our most dedicated trustees, Miss Harald.”

“Winston Reinicke,” said the man. “Great admirer of Nauman’s work. Fine painter. Fine.”

“Thank you,” Sigrid replied inanely as the man pumped her hand.

Mrs. Herzog continued to smile graciously, but Sigrid suddenly felt herself inventoried, cataloged and ready to be shelved. Mrs. Herzog (“She was a Babcock, you know”) was not deceived by gold sequins and costume jewelry. “We at the Breul House would feel so honored if an artist of Oscar Nauman’s standing should come to us.”

“Is it quite settled then?” asked a languid voice behind them.

A man approached from the stairs beyond the arched doorway. Sigrid noted that he was several inches shorter than she with a slender, almost childlike body, and the head of someone much bigger. His thatched brown hair grew low on his forehead, almost meeting his thick shaggy eyebrows, and as he crossed to join them by the table, he carried his chin thrust upward at such an angle that Sigrid was reminded of a haughty ape.

“He hasn’t definitely committed himself,” said Benjamin Peake, “but Hester thinks Jacob may persuade him tonight. Perhaps Miss Harald knows?”

The newcomer looked at her curiously as Sigrid disavowed any insider knowledge of Oscar Nauman’s ultimate decision.

“We haven’t met,” he said, offering her his hand. Its smallness and delicacy was surprising after the visual impact of his massive head, but the lack of physical vigor made the limpness of his clasp almost an insult. “I’m Roger Shambley.”

“Dr. Shambley’s our newest trustee, Miss Harald,” boomed Mr. Reinicke. “A fine scholar. He’s going to put the Breul collection on the map, eh, Dr. Shambley?”

For a moment, Shambley’s ugly face was lit by sly glee. “You could say that, ” he drawled. “Yes, you could definitely say that.”

Winston Reinicke beamed at him. “Spoken with the enthusiasm of a real scholar! A catalogue raisonne of the whole collection, eh?” His vigorous arm gesture took in all the pictures that lined this room as thickly as in the gallery across the hall.

“Not exactly,” Shambley corrected him disdainfully. “My new book will merely cite some of these works as examples of general currents in the late nineteenth century. And it will probably sell fewer than five thousand copies nationwide, Reinicke, hardly enough to start a stampede for the Erich Breul House.”

“Of course, of course,” Winston Reinicke said heartily. “Still, one never knows what will further the cause, eh? Something for everyone.”

“Speaking of which,” said Shambley, “I’m told that Rockwells and Sharpes are rising in value. Have you considered them for your empty spaces?”

Sigrid sensed a sudden intake of silence around the buffet, almost as if everyone had stopped breathing.

Then Reinicke said, “ Lydia, my dear, shall we take Albert and Marie some of these crab puffs? They must think we’ve gotten lost, eh?”

Murmuring polite phrases, the older couple arranged several hors d’oeuvres upon a plate and departed.

“Still pulling wings off flies, Roger?” Hester Kohn’s tone was light but there was a wary look in her hazel eyes.

Shambley ignored the other woman’s gibe. “Are you in the art world, too, Miss Harald?”

“No.”

“Miss Harald’s a police officer,” Hester Kohn told him.

Shambley looked at Sigrid with the most animation he’d shown yet. “How appropriate. Robbery, may one hope?”

“No,” Sigrid replied, wondering why Shambley had glanced so pointedly at Benjamin Peake. “If you don’t expect your book to sell many copies, Dr. Shambley, what are you planning for the Breul House?”

“Publicity comes in many forms, Miss Harald,” he said. And with a languid wave of his small hand, he parted a space between Sigrid and Hester Kohn. “Permesso,” he said and drifted toward the door.

Hester Kohn exchanged a glance with Benjamin Peake, then flashed her professional smile at Sigrid. “Would you excuse us, please, Miss Harald?”

Sigrid barely had time to nod before the two followed Shambley from the room.

At the end of the table, a waiter lifted the lid on the silver chafing dish.

“Swedish meatballs?” he asked.

Sigrid nodded hungrily.

Jacob Munson hesitated in the doorway of the drawing room. Only a moment before he’d seen Hester out here in the hall, a flash of purple and red followed by Benjamin, and he had thought it would be pleasant to tell them of Buntrock’s announcement. But when he reached the hall, there was no sign of them. He crossed the hall, peering into the cloakrooms, and finally heard voices from the library-Benjamin’s voice raw with anger, Hester’s intense and cold, and another voice that held a lazy sneer. He listened a moment and realized the third voice belonged to Dr. Roger Shambley.

“Was ist los?” he asked, peering around a bookcase at the three who stood there glaring at each other. In his agitation, he realized he’d spoken in German. “What’s going on?” he repeated in English. “Hester? Ben?”

“A hypothetical question,” Shambley said smoothly. “To which they gave a hypothetical answer. Scusatemi, per favore.” He smiled and walked past Munson into the great marble hall.

Before the inner woman was completely satisfied, Sigrid was joined by Nauman.

“Worked through lunch again, hmm?” he asked, eyeing her plate of appetizers.

“Have a stuffed mushroom,” she advised. “I think they just came out of the oven.”

“You’ll spoil your appetite.”

“Never.”

He laughed. “You must be the only woman in the western world who doesn’t worry about her figure.”

A lot he knew, she thought, watching Francesca Leeds across the room on Soren Thorvaldsen’s arm. Now there was a figure worth worrying about. There was no envy as she noted the way Lady Francesca’s copper hair fell in artful tangles around her lovely face, the way the silky gold fabric enhanced her perfect figure. Yet, Sigrid did find herself wondering again why Francesca Leeds seemed so familiar, almost as if they’d met in another life or something.

There was a pleased expression on Thorvaldsen’s rugged face and Francesca was smiling.