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“It was a perfectly good line. She was toffee-nosed.”
Steed snorted a laugh at Gambit’s indignant reaction to being rebuffed by the woman at the gallery.
“It just proves my theory,” he replied, settling in behind his desk. They were in his office at the ministry, a wood paneled masculine space decorated with military artifacts and a few keepsakes from past cases. Gambit eased into one of the leather upholstered guest chairs and waited, knowing Steed would expound upon his theory without being prompted. “Substance over form, Gambit. Women look for substance.”
“I have substance!”
Steed grinned as he leaned forward to spread out the grainy eight-by-ten prints from his watch camera.
“So who are they?” he asked, tapping a photo of the woman bidder, and then of the round man. The photo of the bald man lay half obscured by the others. Glad to drop the subject of being spurned, Gambit referred to a computer printout. His expression darkened.
“She is our villain. Maxine Tellerman, freelance operative currently in the employ of the Chinese.”
“Yes of course. The hair is different, and she is not aging well. But now I recognize her. And him?”
“Arnold Bray, art historian, and, apparently, art collector.”
Steed’s gaze rose from the photos he’d been studying to look at Gambit. “That’s all?”
“He’s a collector. No criminal connections. He bought the painting because he liked it.”
Steed frowned, picking up a photo of Mr. Bray with the painting, out of focus, in the background.
“The first two bids were from other collectors,” Gambit went on, looking at the auction tag that he had procured from the gallery assistant’s worktable. “Then came Mr. Bray. Our man followed him, and then Miss Tellerman, and as we know those three bid one another up to the rather handsome sum that Mr. Bray managed to enter just before the auction ended.”
Steed leaned back in his chair, not sure whether to be proud that Emma’s painting had attracted such interest from a serious collector or annoyed that the collector had managed to buy it, casting their investigation into disarray. He did not even want to begin to think about why agent Skinner, who was supposed to place the winning bid and keep the microdot in their hands while exposing who from the other side was interested, had failed.
“He’s got the painting, and the microdot, and he told the gallery assistant that he was leaving the country with it first thing in the morning,” Gambit went on.
“But we’re sure he has no criminal connections? Any chance he was put up to it by someone?”
Gambit shook his head slowly. “Anything is possible, but research hasn’t found anything to support that theory.”
“Blackmail?” Steed tried.
Gambit shrugged, “Nothing to suggest it, so far.”
“Be sure they keep looking – after all, they’ve only had two hours. Meanwhile, we shall have to visit him tonight. And by we, I mean you. Go get the painting back, then let your contact know that the sale took an unexpected turn. Offer to contact all of the bidders for a private auction. Otherwise he’ll drop you and we’d have to start all over with some other agent infiltrating his supply chain. If we’re lucky Miss Tellerman will still be interested in the information in the microdot and we’ll be able to nail her too.”
“And what are you going to do?” Gambit asked, his expression still grim.
“Me? I’m going to call our man Skinner and ask him how he managed to botch the bids – he was supposed to win. And then I’m going home to my wife.”
***
Steed rolled his shoulders in an attempt to ease some of the tension that had built in them during the evening and the meeting with Gambit. Gambit was impatient, and the results of the bidding tonight had thrown a wrench in his plans to gain his contact’s full trust. Steed was sympathetic, but he could not allow this misstep to distract them. They had too much time already invested in the investigation. The fact that he had not been able to reach agent Skinner meant that he had been deprived of the pleasure of chastising him for failing in his role as a buyer. Not that Steed enjoyed berating other agents, but Skinner was a second rate man who’d been forced on him. This was a troubling trend – Mother had always given Steed a very free hand, although he sometimes put up a façade of displeasure at his more unorthodox methods. But this thing with Skinner had come from beyond Mother and indicated that his long-time superior might be losing authority. That was very disturbing indeed.
His footsteps thudded as he climbed the stairs and ambled down the hall past the dark nursery. The door to the master bedroom was slightly ajar, a tacit reminder from Emma that he was both expected and missed, even when he got home at nearly three o’clock in the morning.
He had made the journey through the house in the dark so that his eyes were accustomed to it as he crossed the bedroom. As he walked he withdrew Nancy’s handwritten tally from a pocket and unfolded it, setting it on the nightstand nearest Emma’s sleeping form. He crossed the room again, loosening his tie as he entered the adjoining dressing room. He shut the door and switched on the light in order to change into his favorite navy blue pajamas. A few minutes later he switched off the light before opening the door, and was surprised to see Emma sitting up in the bed examining the list by the light of the bedside lamp.
“I tried not to wake you,” he said as he returned to the bed.
“You didn’t. She did,” Emma ran one hand over her belly. “She was kicking like mad. I think she sensed you.”
Steed climbed into bed and snuggled up close to her so that he could stroke her belly too. “Is she still at it?” he asked as he kissed her temple. She half turned her face to capture his lips in a second kiss, her eyes still focused on the paper. With her other hand she guided his to a spot on the side of her belly.
“There,” she said. “Feel it?”
“Yes. There she is. Our little princess.”
“You do know that calling it she does not guarantee a girl?”
“Shhh, I’m communing with my daughter.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “It looks like your man paid a lot for my sacrificial painting.”
“In point of fact, no. The winning bidder is a bona fide art lover.”
Emma lowered the list and turned her head to stare at him. “Oh dear.”
“I should think you would be glad!”
“No, I am not glad. The painting is inferior – that’s why I let you use it. I expected it to be lost in the ministry’s evidence storehouse, or perhaps destroyed in the grand conclusion to your investigation – an explosion perhaps, or it would be bashed over the head of the diabolical mastermind.”
Steed ignored her fantasy, mostly because it was so highly probable. “Nancy is delighted. Please don’t tell her you aren’t – she’ll want to know why.”
“And I’d have to explain that I would rather the painting be destroyed than bought by a serious admirer. Don’t worry Steed, I’ll behave.”
“Oh, there she goes!” the gentle thrusts under Steed’s hand shifted across Emma’s belly and Steed followed them, stroking Emma’s flesh gently.
“She’s probably going to keep us up all night after she’s born, too,” Emma sighed.
***
The loud ringing of the bedside phone startled Emma half awake. With her face still buried in her pillow she reached over and felt around on the nightstand until her hand landed on the receiver. Mercifully the ringing stopped as she lifted it.
“Steed residence,” she said once she got the receiver turned right way round against her ear.
“It’s Gambit. I’m sorry to wake you Emma. May I speak to Steed?”
Emma rolled onto her back and tapped Steed on the shoulder. He lay inert, his back to her, his head half covered with a pillow.
“Steed,” she said, resorting to shaking him.
“Asleep.” His mumble was muffled in goose down.
“Awake. Mike wants to speak to you.” She nudged him with the receiver.
He shifted, rolling onto his back. His hair was disheveled, the lapels of his pajama top twisted. He shot her an apologetic look as he took the receiver.
“Steed here.”
Remarkably, he sounded wide awake, a talent Emma had noticed the very first time she’d been awakened by the telephone in his company.
“Did you get it?” Steed asked.
“Unfortunately, no,” Gambit replied, speaking over voices in the background.
“Go on.”
“I brought in a tactical team. Someone got here ahead of us. Mr. Bray is dead and the painting is gone.”
“Miss Tellerman?”
“Or my contact. Or it could be unrelated. Hold on a moment will you Steed?”
Gambit covered the mouthpiece with his hand and spoke to someone for a moment, then came back.
“Steed? Several other paintings were also stolen,” he said. “The moment Mr. Bray’s son was informed he contacted their insurance company.”
“Deeply disturbed by his loss, I take it?”
“Apparently,” Gambit tried to conceal a wry smile. “They’re sending their man to investigate. I’ll try to keep him out of our business. I just wanted you to know.”
“All right. Keep me updated. I don’t have to tell you the consequences if Miss Tellerman, or any other genuine member of the opposition got a good look at the information on the microdot.”
“It would blow the whole case. I know,” Gambit grimaced at what for Steed constituted a reprimand, not that Gambit had done anything wrong, but a bungled case reflected on the agent, no matter how well he handled it.
“Keep me updated.”
“Of course.”
“And Gambit, I wasn’t able to reach Skinner. See if you can find him, will you?”
“Will do.”
Gambit replaced the telephone receiver with a sigh, realizing that he was not going to get to bed tonight at all as he turned back to the body of Mr. Bray sprawled out on the floor of his study. He crouched down to look at the strangulation marks on his throat. The killer had used Bray’s own necktie and left it hanging around his neck.
“Excuse me miss. Miss?” the voice of a young police officer set to guarding the crime scene filtered in from the next room. Gambit glanced toward the doorway, his gaze stopping on a pair of three-inch spike-heeled pumps. He let his eyes follow shapely ankles up over sleek calves, pause on perfect knees, and move on to the hem of a pencil-thin skirt. He paused there because the hem of the skirt over shapely thighs seemed to demand it.
“I presume that is the late Mr. Bray,” the female voice was pitched in the low alto range and had the sexy burr of a smoker. Gambit almost did not want to look up for fear that the rest of her would not live up to the legs and voice. “But you are not a policeman,” she added, clearly speaking to Gambit.
He let his gaze travel on up over her hips – just round enough to be interesting and accent her narrow waist. He almost could not bear the precision of her décolletage – the exquisite V of her neckline over creamy skin, sharp collarbones framing the toned neck. A single teardrop burgundy stone suspended on a fine gold chain below her throat. She was a redhead. At first that was all he noticed about her head.
“Catherine Banning,” she said, extending her right hand. Although she was extraordinarily feminine, the gesture was neither demure nor timid. Nor was it aggressive – she was not a woman trying to compete with men. She had no need to compete. “I represent Mr. Bray’s insurer. I’ve been asked to find his missing paintings.”
Gambit stood up and accepted her offered handshake. “Michael Gambit,” he said.
“Michael, or Mike?” one of her perfectly plucked brows arched over a knowing smile.
“Mike,” he confessed. “Catherine, or Cathy?”
“Catherine.” The word was a little shove, returning him to a respectful distance. “Are you a policeman?” she asked. “I prefer to work with the authorities, or at least to make them aware of my priorities.”
“I am certainly interested in your priorities,” Gambit heard himself say – an automatic response that he immediately wished he’d repressed. “I am also investigating Mr. Bray’s loss.”
Catherine strolled around the corpse, her eyes focused on Gambit, until she stood across from him with her back to Bray’s desk. Her expression was curious and slightly amused, as if she was accustomed to dealing with flirtatious men and found them quaint. She directed her gaze toward the far wall where a darker rectangle of wallpaper indicated a missing painting.
“The Picasso still life,” she said. “And the Kandinski,” she glanced over her shoulder at a smaller dark patch.
“You’ve called on Mr. Bray before?” Gambit asked. Catherine shook her head as she opened the sleek leather attaché case hanging on one shoulder and withdrew a file.
“No, but I am intimately familiar with his collection,” she said, opening the file. “I can tell by the sizes. I can also tell that the thief is not an art expert.”
“Oh?”
Catherine turned her head to look at a small sketch on a narrow patch of wall between two windows. “He – or she – left behind the most valuable work in the house. That is a very rare early Picasso.”
Gambit walked over for a closer look. The sketch depicted a naked man in profile with thick thighs and curly hair on his rotund belly. One hand was wrapped around the base of his engorged, outsized member as he gazed into the distance at a group of women in bathing costumes. The image was cartoonish despite the subject matter – nothing like the colorful cubist images Gambit had come to think of as Picassos.
“You’re sure?” he asked with a chuckle, turning back toward Catherine.
“Absolutely. I am an art expert.”
“So what else do you think about the thief?”
Catherine looked at a set of photographs that were in her file – prints of Bray’s collection, Gambit surmised. She shuffled through them, apparently unconcerned that he was waiting for a response. At last she looked up at him where he stood with the Picasso sketch just behind him over his left shoulder. Her wry smile puzzled him for a moment until he glanced at the wall behind him and realized that the figure’s erection was pointing at his ear. He stepped away from it, looking pointedly down at the photos in her hand.
“The theft of the paintings was used to cover something else.”
Gambit stopped and his gaze snapped up to her face. She looked smug.
“Mr. Gambit, I am here to try to recover the paintings. What are you looking for?”
***
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