“Go on, Chuck,” Bett said. “It’s short.”
“Just two pages,” Harrow added.
Parker said, “You read it, didn’t you?”
“Well
yes.”
“So you can tell me about it.”
Parker turned away from the book and went over to sit at the writing desk, turning the chair around to face the room.
Bett was still smiling. She settled luxuriantly on the bed, catlike, and said, “You might as well do it his way, Dad. I don’t think Chuck’s a reader.”
“Well, but
” Harrow was confused and unhappy; this wasn’t the way he’d planned things.
Parker had had enough waiting around. “Either get to the point or get out,” he said.
Bett said softly, “And go to the police?”
“If you want. I don’t give a damn.”
Bett laughed and looked challengingly at her father. Harrow sighed. “Very well. It would have been easier if you’d
but very well. This article concerns a group of eighty-two statuettes in a monument at Dijon, in France.” He turned the book around so Parker could see. “You see the title? ‘The Missing Mourners of Dijon’, by Ferdinand Auberjonois.”
“You want me to steal a statue,” Parker said, and Bett laughed again.
“I want you to understand the background.” Harrow answered unhappily. “It is important that you understand the background.”
“Why?”
“Dear Dad’s a romantic,” said Bett, with honeyed venom in her smile.
Parker shrugged. He didn’t care what the Harrow family thought of each other.
“These statuettes, eighty-two of them, were made for the tomb of John the Fearless and Philip the Good, Dukes of Burgundy,” Harrow said. “John was murdered in 1419, but not before ordering the tomb to be built. Philip was his son, and survived till 1467, when he”
“The statues,” Parker said.
“Yes. The statues. They are sixteen inches high, made of alabaster, and were placed in niches at the base of the two memorials. No two of them are precisely alike, and they all express an attitude of mourning. Every possible variation on mourning, both true and false. There are monks, priests, choirboys Well. At any rate, they are priceless. And at the time of the French Revolution, many of them were stolen or lost. At the present time, seventy-four of the statuettes are still in Dijon; some were always there, others have been found and returned. Of the remaining eight, one is owned by a private collector in this country, in Ohio, and two are in the Cleveland Museum. The other three mourners are still missing.”
He closed the book, but kept his finger in the place. “That’s what this article would have told you,” he said, “and just as quickly as I have told it to you.”
Parker waited, controlling his impatience. None of this was necessary. Harrow wanted a statue stolen, that was the point. If the job looked easy enough, and if the price was right, he might do it. Otherwise, no. All this talk was a waste of time.
But Harrow wasn’t finished yet. “Now, for you to understand what I want, and why I want it, you must understand something about me.”
“Why?”
Ben said, “Let him, Chuck. It’s the only way he knows how to talk.”
“Elizabeth, please.”
“Get on with it,” Parker said.
“Very well. Very well. I, Mr Willis, am in a very small and special way a collector of medieval statuary. I say in a special way. My collection is small, but if I do say so myself it’s excellent. I have at present only eight pieces. This is because my criteria are very high indeed. Each piece must be unique, must be one of a kind, must have no counterpart anywhere in the world. Each must be valued so highly as to be for all practical purposes priceless. And each must have an unusual and fascinating history. My daughter is right, Mr Willis I am a romantic. I am fascinated by each piece in my collection, by its creation and by its history. You understand this collection is for my own satisfaction, and not on display.”
Bett laughed and said, “Because they were all stolen.”
“Not so!” Harrow looked indignantly at his daughter. “Every piece was paid for, and handsomely too.”
“But the fascinating history,”she said, mocking the words. “It always includes a theft or two, doesn’t it?”
“That is not at allmy concern. I myself have”
“Shut up,’ said Parker.
They stopped their bickering at once, and looked at him, startled. “You want me to steal one of these statues, right? From a museum?”
