[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Perhaps you remember from your college days that after the Napoleonic wars,
it was presumed of firstborn sons of a certain class that they would become
lawyers. Edgar dutifully followed his father s wishes and enrolled at the
Faculté de Droit. Fortunately for the rest of the world if not his parents he
dropped out in favor of doing something more creative than litigation after
only a month.
He walked on. Cézanne spent almost three years at law school in Aix, replete
with boredom. And Matisse actually clerked for a lawyer for quite a while,
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
drafting briefs and keeping files. It was only when he was forced to stay at
home with appendicitis that he was given his first paint set by his mother. A
decade later, he changed the history of the art world with the birth of
Fauvism exuberant colors and wildly distorted shapes. Imagine our loss if any
of these giants had become mired in the law. You don t paint by any chance, do
you, Miss Cooper?
Lowell Caxton managed to summarize a bit of art history while making clear his
disdain for the legal profession. I got the point.
So far, the hallway lined with Impressionist paintings was as breathtaking as
any gallery in the finest museums. Caxton opened the last door, which had been
Denise s bedroom. The contrast was stunning.
A bit self-involved, would you say? he asked rather facetiously.
The room was like a shrine to its former occupant, with almost every painting
in it a portrait of Denise. Gifts from the artists, of course. Thankful for
her ability to turn their talents into gold, in some instances. Quite like
alchemy. The Warhol is the great irony, in that he started this whole odyssey
for her, without his ever knowing it.
Displayed above the headboard of the king-size bed, covered in an exquisite
set of antique linens with countless throw pillows layered on top, were the
four-colored Warhol images of a younger Denise Caxton. The youthful bride with
a swanlike neck and beauty queen smile was deserving of a few portraits, I
conceded, but this accumulation was a bit frightening.
The three of us circled the space, looking at signatures and taking in the
variety of styles. I recognized some of the names Richard Sussman, Emilio
Gomes, and Aneas McKiever among them but Caxton pointed out the rest of those
I had never encountered. There were Deni Caxtons fully clothed and bejeweled,
and there were Deni Caxtons completely nude and erotically posed. There were
torsos without heads and limbs, and there were heads without body parts.
How d she let this one slip in? Chapman asked. He pointed at a yellow
canvas, three feet square, with a small pink rectangle in the upper right
corner.
Caxton laughed. That is Denise, Detective. According to Alain Levinsky. Even
she had a sense of humor about it. She managed to sell about a dozen Levinsky
portraits, Mr. Chapman. One each to Bardot, Trump, and Ted Turner can t
remember who sat for the others. A few rectangles, a few oblongs, a few
squares. Et voilà, a portrait.
This is all like The Emperor s New Clothes, if you ask me, Chapman said.
Precisely, Caxton responded. I couldn t agree with you more. Denise mocked
me for my traditional views too representational, she used to argue, too
old-fashioned. I wish P. T. Barnum had lived long enough to encounter this
trend. Nowadays there are two or three suckers born every minute, if you ask
me. He might have gone into partnership with Deni.
Mercer was scouring the surfaces of the furniture bedside tables, dresser top,
lingerie chest for any signs of notes or papers, names or phone numbers. But
there was nothing loose and nothing casually laid about. Either Mrs. Caxton
lived that neatly or Valerie had removed every jotting or message pad before
we arrived.
Would you or the housekeeper know whether any belongings are missing? Mercer
asked. Jewelry, clothing, anything like
I couldn t begin to guess, said Caxton. He stepped to the only other door in
the room and pulled the handles back to reveal a walk-in closet, which was
probably larger than half of the studio apartments in Manhattan. Clothes were
assembled by category dresses, slacks, suits, evening gowns and then again by
colors within those groupings. The lesser jewels are kept in that safe at the
rear. The more important things, from my mother and grand-mére, are all
safeguarded in a vault. We ll certainly check for you during the week.
If you ve seen enough here, we ll go inside to Deni s office.
I wasn t sure that I was ready to leave the boudoir, but we were given no
choice, and the three of us dutifully followed Caxton, retracing our steps
back up the corridor and into the next room.
Page 27
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Denise had constructed a thronelike encampment for herself at one end of this
huge home office, centered around a fifteenth-century table that Lowell told
us he had found in an Umbrian monastery. The table had become her desk and was
ornamented only by a Fabergé clock. There were two chairs placed opposite
Denise s high-backed leather seat, and four more scattered around the room
that matched that pair. Here the walls were decorated with paintings that were
completely unfamiliar to me all contemporary and none bearing signatures that
I recognized.
Caxton walked behind the table and lowered himself into Denise s chair,
looking around the room as if for the first time from that perspective, and
invited us to sit down and ask him whatever questions we wanted to pose about
her.
When do we reach the point at which you ask me who her enemies were,
gentlemen?
We re ready anytime you are. How long s the list? Chapman said.
Depends on where you are in the art community, I would think. A disgruntled
artiste who thinks his dealer has taken too great a commission for his work.
Just glance at the walls and see how many of those there might be. Then you ve
got the clients, who ve found they ve paid too much for a painting, on the
dealer s advice, that they neither like nor will be able to resell for
anything remotely near the price they put out.
There isn t anyone in the business, he went on, who hasn t been accused of
selling a forged piece, by accident or design, over the years. And then
there s the current brouhaha in the auction houses, with the government
charging sellers with rigging the bids to knock up the prices. On the surface,
gentlemen, it s a world of exquisite beauty and refinement. But it s every bit
as filthy and cutthroat as any other commercial enterprise, as soon as you get
beneath the top layer of gouache.
Mercer was leaning forward, balancing his pad on his knee while he reviewed
subjects he wanted to ask Caxton about. We ll need a client list, then, as
well as contact information for the painters she represented.
You ll have to talk to her partner about that tomorrow at his office.
I thought you were her partner, Mike said.
As I mentioned, I set her up in the gallery in the Fuller Building
originally. Without the Caxton name, I doubt she would have been able to sell
the Mona Lisa, had it come on the market. I was the entrée to the uptown world
in Manhattan old money, large walls, deep pockets. But once she got involved
in the New York scene, she had her own separate business a thriving one at
that with a silent partner who mirrored her taste much more directly. Perhaps
you ve heard of him Bryan Daughtry? They called their business Galleria Caxton
Due.
Mercer and I certainly knew Daughtry s name. He had been a suspect in a very
bizarre murder case in a neighboring county beyond our jurisdiction but right [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl wyciskamy.pev.pl
Perhaps you remember from your college days that after the Napoleonic wars,
it was presumed of firstborn sons of a certain class that they would become
lawyers. Edgar dutifully followed his father s wishes and enrolled at the
Faculté de Droit. Fortunately for the rest of the world if not his parents he
dropped out in favor of doing something more creative than litigation after
only a month.
He walked on. Cézanne spent almost three years at law school in Aix, replete
with boredom. And Matisse actually clerked for a lawyer for quite a while,
Page 26
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
drafting briefs and keeping files. It was only when he was forced to stay at
home with appendicitis that he was given his first paint set by his mother. A
decade later, he changed the history of the art world with the birth of
Fauvism exuberant colors and wildly distorted shapes. Imagine our loss if any
of these giants had become mired in the law. You don t paint by any chance, do
you, Miss Cooper?
Lowell Caxton managed to summarize a bit of art history while making clear his
disdain for the legal profession. I got the point.
So far, the hallway lined with Impressionist paintings was as breathtaking as
any gallery in the finest museums. Caxton opened the last door, which had been
Denise s bedroom. The contrast was stunning.
A bit self-involved, would you say? he asked rather facetiously.
The room was like a shrine to its former occupant, with almost every painting
in it a portrait of Denise. Gifts from the artists, of course. Thankful for
her ability to turn their talents into gold, in some instances. Quite like
alchemy. The Warhol is the great irony, in that he started this whole odyssey
for her, without his ever knowing it.
Displayed above the headboard of the king-size bed, covered in an exquisite
set of antique linens with countless throw pillows layered on top, were the
four-colored Warhol images of a younger Denise Caxton. The youthful bride with
a swanlike neck and beauty queen smile was deserving of a few portraits, I
conceded, but this accumulation was a bit frightening.
The three of us circled the space, looking at signatures and taking in the
variety of styles. I recognized some of the names Richard Sussman, Emilio
Gomes, and Aneas McKiever among them but Caxton pointed out the rest of those
I had never encountered. There were Deni Caxtons fully clothed and bejeweled,
and there were Deni Caxtons completely nude and erotically posed. There were
torsos without heads and limbs, and there were heads without body parts.
How d she let this one slip in? Chapman asked. He pointed at a yellow
canvas, three feet square, with a small pink rectangle in the upper right
corner.
Caxton laughed. That is Denise, Detective. According to Alain Levinsky. Even
she had a sense of humor about it. She managed to sell about a dozen Levinsky
portraits, Mr. Chapman. One each to Bardot, Trump, and Ted Turner can t
remember who sat for the others. A few rectangles, a few oblongs, a few
squares. Et voilà, a portrait.
This is all like The Emperor s New Clothes, if you ask me, Chapman said.
Precisely, Caxton responded. I couldn t agree with you more. Denise mocked
me for my traditional views too representational, she used to argue, too
old-fashioned. I wish P. T. Barnum had lived long enough to encounter this
trend. Nowadays there are two or three suckers born every minute, if you ask
me. He might have gone into partnership with Deni.
Mercer was scouring the surfaces of the furniture bedside tables, dresser top,
lingerie chest for any signs of notes or papers, names or phone numbers. But
there was nothing loose and nothing casually laid about. Either Mrs. Caxton
lived that neatly or Valerie had removed every jotting or message pad before
we arrived.
Would you or the housekeeper know whether any belongings are missing? Mercer
asked. Jewelry, clothing, anything like
I couldn t begin to guess, said Caxton. He stepped to the only other door in
the room and pulled the handles back to reveal a walk-in closet, which was
probably larger than half of the studio apartments in Manhattan. Clothes were
assembled by category dresses, slacks, suits, evening gowns and then again by
colors within those groupings. The lesser jewels are kept in that safe at the
rear. The more important things, from my mother and grand-mére, are all
safeguarded in a vault. We ll certainly check for you during the week.
If you ve seen enough here, we ll go inside to Deni s office.
I wasn t sure that I was ready to leave the boudoir, but we were given no
choice, and the three of us dutifully followed Caxton, retracing our steps
back up the corridor and into the next room.
Page 27
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Denise had constructed a thronelike encampment for herself at one end of this
huge home office, centered around a fifteenth-century table that Lowell told
us he had found in an Umbrian monastery. The table had become her desk and was
ornamented only by a Fabergé clock. There were two chairs placed opposite
Denise s high-backed leather seat, and four more scattered around the room
that matched that pair. Here the walls were decorated with paintings that were
completely unfamiliar to me all contemporary and none bearing signatures that
I recognized.
Caxton walked behind the table and lowered himself into Denise s chair,
looking around the room as if for the first time from that perspective, and
invited us to sit down and ask him whatever questions we wanted to pose about
her.
When do we reach the point at which you ask me who her enemies were,
gentlemen?
We re ready anytime you are. How long s the list? Chapman said.
Depends on where you are in the art community, I would think. A disgruntled
artiste who thinks his dealer has taken too great a commission for his work.
Just glance at the walls and see how many of those there might be. Then you ve
got the clients, who ve found they ve paid too much for a painting, on the
dealer s advice, that they neither like nor will be able to resell for
anything remotely near the price they put out.
There isn t anyone in the business, he went on, who hasn t been accused of
selling a forged piece, by accident or design, over the years. And then
there s the current brouhaha in the auction houses, with the government
charging sellers with rigging the bids to knock up the prices. On the surface,
gentlemen, it s a world of exquisite beauty and refinement. But it s every bit
as filthy and cutthroat as any other commercial enterprise, as soon as you get
beneath the top layer of gouache.
Mercer was leaning forward, balancing his pad on his knee while he reviewed
subjects he wanted to ask Caxton about. We ll need a client list, then, as
well as contact information for the painters she represented.
You ll have to talk to her partner about that tomorrow at his office.
I thought you were her partner, Mike said.
As I mentioned, I set her up in the gallery in the Fuller Building
originally. Without the Caxton name, I doubt she would have been able to sell
the Mona Lisa, had it come on the market. I was the entrée to the uptown world
in Manhattan old money, large walls, deep pockets. But once she got involved
in the New York scene, she had her own separate business a thriving one at
that with a silent partner who mirrored her taste much more directly. Perhaps
you ve heard of him Bryan Daughtry? They called their business Galleria Caxton
Due.
Mercer and I certainly knew Daughtry s name. He had been a suspect in a very
bizarre murder case in a neighboring county beyond our jurisdiction but right [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]