The Mysterious Mickey Finn by Elliot Paul Read Free Book Online Page B

money or it’s worth nothing at all. I know you’d give me every painting in the room, if I asked for them….’
    â€˜Sure,’ said Hjalmar, and Gwendolyn half rose to her feet.
    â€˜But I want to pay. Why shouldn’t I? And some day, my boy, I want you to do a portrait of me, for my daughter. I’ve refused to pose for anyone, so far. But if you can do that of yourself I want to know what you’d do with me.’ With that he handed Hjalmar a Second cheque, shook hands with everyone and started for the door, the portrait, unframed, in his hands. Only Evans had the presence of mind to accompany him. Lvov was in line with his taxi. Evans helped Weiss into the Russian’s cab, shook hands, thanked him profusely, and said to Colonel Ḳvek:
    â€˜The Cercle Interalliée .’
    The cab started off, turned into the boulevard Raspail. Evans stood watching it, feeling a strange combination of relief and shame. He mounted the stairs again, entered the studio, and approached the group who were slowly recovering.
    â€˜Let’s see the cheques. I want to see; what price you got for that prize portrait,’ said Rosa.
    Hjalmar handed them over. He still hadn’t read the figures, but the awareness that he was all set henceforth and forever was stealing over him, also the fact that Maggie was far away, that Evans had saved him from exile and privation, and that Hugo Weiss was a brick. His musings were interrupted by Rosa’s scream. Rosa gasped, flung the cheques towards Evans and rushed to the corner where the Pernod had been set aside.
    â€˜My God. He thinks highly of that daub,’ Evans said, taken aback.
    â€˜Whatever he paid is yours,’ Hjalmar said.’ Of course, I know you were fond of that thing, but I’ll pose for another....’
    â€˜Oh, no,’ said Evans. ‘Never again. And you know I’ve all the money I need. The loot is yours.’
    â€˜Let me divide it with the gang,’ Hjalmar said.
    They all protested. They had set out to do an unselfish deed and didn’t want it to prove to be a boomerang. They were beginning to enjoy the situation, and to look forward to an epoch-making evening. The cheques were each for twenty-five hundred dollars. Both were made out to Hjalmar and bore the same date.
    â€˜Gring’s back. We’ve got to rescue Miriam,’ Evans said, ‘but first we must decide where she should join us. We’re not quite out of danger yet, you know. I’ve seen Gring snooping around Hugo Weiss’s hotel already and if he gets wind of this and tips off Weiss, who dislikes above all things to be deceived, we’re sunk.”
    â€˜I’d better cash those two cheques to-night, in case,’ Hjalmar said.
    â€˜I think you’d better, too. But where?’
    â€˜Chalgrin will take one, Delbos the other. I owe them both enough to make it worth their while,’ Hjalmar said.

CHAPTER 6
The Philanthropist Disappears
    I T was eight o’clock in the spacious main salon of the resplendent Cercle Interalliée. Elsewhere, in the same zone with reference to Greenwich, it was eight o’clock, too, but the people did not seem to be so uneasy about it. The odour of expensive food in preparation, in fact in readiness, mingled with the fragrance of tulips, roses, hydrangeas and lilies of the valley. The resultant atmosphere was stirred with talk about art, not for art’s sake, but for the sake of the distinguished gathering of men, all clad in the conventional black, with neatly trimmed beards, practically all sporting the rosette of the Legion of Honour in their buttonhole. The artists assembled knew that the guest of the evening was to be Hugo Weiss, and they all were sure the dinner would come back to them, like bread cast upon the waters, in the form of donations to funds for the stabilization of art. Only two men, the president and the first vice-president of the Société , who by