The Dark Lady Read online

  “'Art thief’ is too limited a description. I also steal jewelry and a number of other beautiful things.” He paused. “I prefer to think of myself as a master criminal. It sounds so much more professional.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

  “Because I'm imposing on your hospitality,” he said. “And because an alien can't testify against a human being on Charlemagne.”

  “But I can tell the police what I know.”

  He shrugged. “They already know what I've done. Proving it is another matter altogether.” He smiled at me. “Besides, we're going to be friends, and that would be a decidedly unfriendly thing to do.”

  “I cannot be friends with a thief,” I said adamantly.

  “Of course you can. I'm actually a very likable fellow. In point of fact, it's my stock in trade. Without it, I'd have a much harder time in my chosen profession.”

  “But why be a thief at all?”

  “It's my parents’ fault. I personally view myself as a victim rather than a thief.”

  “What have your parents to do with it?”

  “They spent too much money.” He finished his drink and leaned forward in his chair. “You see, the Heaths have been a monied family for more generations than you can imagine, and of course, no Heath would ever stoop to working for a living. My own education prepared me to do nothing but squander the family fortune— so you can imagine my disappointment when I found out that Father's taste in women and Mother's passion for gambling had left me precious little to squander.” He paused. “I was totally unqualified for even the most menial position— but I do have a cultivated and exquisitely developed sense of taste, if I say so myself... and since I had been raised to expect certain of life's amenities, it was only natural that I should drift into the one profession for which I am temperamentally suited.”

  “What makes you temperamentally suited to be a criminal?” I asked.

  “Like all spoiled children, I was raised to care about no one except myself, of course,” he replied. “If I respected other people's rights, I would undergo enormous moral conflicts every time I plied my vocation. Fortunately, I suffer no such qualms, and of course, if it weren't for people like myself, the insurance industry would soon undergo a serious recession, so in my own way I'm actually benefiting the economy.”

  “I knew there were thieves in some alien societies,” I said, “but I never thought to meet one who took such pride in his work.”

  “Why not be proud of what I do? It's an art form, and I'm certainly a better thief than Sergio Mallachi is a painter.”

  “I feel I must point out to you that I am carrying no currency with me,” I said.

  “I'd never steal currency,” he said disdainfully. “It's much too easy to trace the serial numbers.”

  “It is even easier to trace a stolen portrait,” I noted.

  “Ah!” he said with a smile. “But people spend currency. They keep their art treasures under lock and key. The trick is to steal things that are so famous that their new owners would never display them publicly. That's why I deal with collectors, and why I never support public auctions.” He paused thoughtfully. “Of course, I make it my business to supply collectors with anything they want, including honestly procured artwork, and I frequently act as a middleman for them. And,” he concluded, “I occasionally act as a consultant for clients who have an abundance of wealth and an absence of taste. Usually I arrange for them to purchase paintings like that,” he said, pointing to an exceptionally poor abstract that hung behind the couch.

  “But if you came by the Mallachi portrait honestly, you could have auctioned it,” I pointed out.

  “Then people would want to know why I don't have everything auctioned,” he replied. “Consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds, but inconsistency does tend to bring one to the attention of the police computers.”

  “I don't know if I should even be talking to you,” I said, uncomfortably aware of the fact that I had been captivated by his manner and that my fear and apprehension had all but vanished. “You represent immorality and disorder and dishonor.”

  “You overestimate my importance, Leonardo,” he replied easily. “I'm merely an opportunist in quest of opportunities, nothing more. If anything, you should feel some sympathy for me; I'm working harder than any Heath in the past five hundred years, doing my best to restore the depleted family treasury.” He paused and seemed to survey his surroundings for the first time. “God, what dreadful taste the decorator had! Bare walls would be better than this hideous metallic wallcovering!” He shook his head. “I'll wager they've hung sporting prints in the bedroom.”

  “What did you steal from the museum?” I asked.

  “Just one piece,” he said with a shrug. “You wouldn't think the police would become so incensed over a single piece of artwork, would you?”

  “It all depends what it was,” I said.

  “A Morita sculpture,” he answered.

  “A Morita!” I exclaimed.

  He nodded, looking quite pleased with himself. “One of his most innovative.”

  “But surely the police will find it when they examine your home!”

  “It all depends which home they examine,” said Heath with no show of concern. “I've got eleven of them, all under different names, and only three of them on Charlemagne. You don't mind if I pour myself another drink, do you?” He got to his feet and walked over to the bar. “You're sure I can't fix one for you?”

  “No.”

  “As you wish.” He smiled again. “But where are my manners? Can I order some native Bjornn drink for you? Room service has an adequate selection.”

  “I am not thirsty, thank you.”

  Just then the porter knocked at the door.

  “Come in,” said Heath in a loud voice, and the door opened a moment later. “Just put everything in the bedroom,” he ordered, directing the porter through the room and tipping him on the way out.

  “Thank you, Mr. Leonardo,” said the porter. “Enjoy your visit to Oceana.”

  “I'm sure that I will,” answered Heath, ordering the door to close.

  “But I am Leonardo,” I said.

  “True,” agreed Heath. “But I am more likely to need an alibi than you are.”

  “For what?”

  “Who knows? The day is young yet.”

  “You are a thoroughly reprehensible person,” I said.

  He smiled. “But charming. Poppa Heath always held that if you couldn't cultivate a fortune, you should at least cultivate the illusion of one— and that, of course, requires charm.”

  “Malcolm Abercrombie has a fortune, and is perhaps the least charming human I know,” I said.

  “Abercrombie? He's the man who wants the portrait of the Dark Lady, isn't he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? It's an ugly piece of art. I was almost ashamed to offer it to Tai Chong, but my creditors have expensive tastes and I really must generate some income this week.”

  “He collects representations of her.”

  “I didn't know she posed for any other artists.”

  “She did not pose for the portrait you have offered for sale,” I said. “She has been dead for more than six thousand years.”

  “Nonsense,” he scoffed. “She was Mallachi's mistress. For all I know, she still is.”

  “You must be mistaken,” I said. “I have seen a photograph of her from the days when Man was still Earthbound.”

  He shook his head. “You may have seen someone who looked like her.”

  “I could not be mistaken. I have seen the evidence.”

  “I don't suppose Mallachi could be mistaken either,” replied Heath. “After all, he painted her.”

  “I wonder if I could speak to this Mallachi,” I said.

  “I don't see why not,” answered Heath. “Of course, I'll have to track him down. He doesn't live on Charlemagne.”

  “I would appreciate it.”

  “I'll see what I c
an do,” said Heath. “By the way, how many other portraits of the Dark Lady does Abercrombie own?”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  A predatory look passed across Heath's face. “Are any of them by well-known artists?”

  “Why do you wish to know?” I asked.

  He smiled disarmingly. “I'm just making conversation— unless you prefer sitting here in silence until nightfall.”

  “You are an admitted art thief,” I replied. “I do not know if I can answer your question.”

  “You're hurting my feelings, Leonardo.”

  “If so, then I am sorry.”

  “I'm a very sensitive person.”

  “I have no doubt of it,” I said.

  “But you still won't tell me anything about Abercrombie's collection?”

  “I require ethical guidance from the House of Crsthionn before I reply.”

  “Crsthionn,” he repeated. “That's not the word you used before.”

  “Crsthionn is my House. Earlier I was speaking about the House of Ilsthni.”

  “So you were,” he said. “They're the jewelers and you're the art dealers.” He paused. “Tell me something, Leonardo.”

  “If I can.”

  “Why do you look so different from the jewelers? After all, you're all members of the same race.”

  “We are physically as similar to each other as human beings are,” I replied.

  “Structurally, perhaps— but you're orange and violet, and you've got broad stripes all over you. The other Bjornns were covered with circles, and were green and black.”

  “Men come in different colors, and yet you are all Men. It is our Pattern and our color that determine which of the thirty-one Houses we will enter, and yet we are all Bjornns.”

  “You mean you're stuck with a profession based on the markings you have at birth?”

  “Were you not, by your own admission, forced into your own immoral profession due to an accident of birth?” I asked.

  “Touché.” He grinned. He paused for a moment. “Still, had my parents not squandered away my birthright, I would have had numerous fields open to me. You, evidently, did not.”

  “You make it sound limiting, and I assure you it is not. Every profession has numerous different duties and disciplines connected with it.”

  “But you still have to enter that profession,” he persisted.

  “We become part of that House,” I said. “There is a difference.”

  “I don't see it.”

  “Unlike you, we are descended from herd animals, and so we have an overriding instinct to belong, to be a part of the Family. The greatest tragedy that can befall a Bjornn is to be born with a Pattern other than those of the thirty-one Houses.”

  “Does it happen often?” asked Heath.

  “Perhaps once in two thousand times,” I replied. “The child is ostracized, and dies almost immediately.”

  “It sounds rather barbaric to me.”

  “Far from it. The race strives for genetic purity, and to allow a non-Patterned into the society is to court disaster.”

  “How many generations are you inbred?” he asked.

  “You still do not understand,” I said. “Mating frequently takes place between members of different Houses, expressly to avoid the less desirable traits of intensive inbreeding. I myself am such a product. My mother was of the House of Krylken, and my father, whose Pattern I bear, was of the House of Crsthionn.”

  “So he raised you?”

  “I was raised by my Pattern Mother.”

  “I'm getting all confused,” said Heath. “I thought your mother didn't have the same Pattern.”

  “She did not. I was given to a matriarch of the House of Crsthionn— my Pattern Mother— and it was her obligation to see that I was cared for and instructed in the ethos of the House of Crsthionn.”

  “What about your father?”

  “What about him?”

  “Didn't he have something to say about it?”

  “I have never met him. He left Benitarus II before I was born.”

  “Why? Had he broken some law, or were they just upset with his choice of wives?”

  “Neither,” I replied. “Bjornn society is a matriarchy. Males are infinitely replaceable; females are the source of strength and stability within the House. Therefore, all males leave the House, and usually the planet, upon reaching maturity, lest they prove disruptive to the orderly life of the House.”

  “From what you've said, it seems to me they'd miss the social life of their Houses.”

  “Desperately.”

  “Do they ever return?”

  “Only for breeding, or to take further instruction in the ethos of their Houses.” I stared directly at Heath. “One meets many deleterious influences while traveling abroad in the galaxy, and occasionally one must return home to reimmerse oneself in the moral imperatives of the Bjornn.”

  Heath looked amused. “I do believe I've just been insulted.”

  “If so, then I apologize.”

  “Graciously accepted,” he said. “And now, shall we get back to discussing Abercrombie and his collection?”

  “I am ethically compelled not to.”

  “Ethics can be such a bother,” he said wryly. “Especially, it would seem, for a Bjornn.”

  “I come from a very harmonious and honorable society,” I replied. “Doubtless I was inadequate in my description of it.”

  “I doubt it. I get the distinct impression that it stifles a certain type of individual initiative.”

  “The individual is nothing. The House is all.”

  “You don't really believe that nonsense, do you?” he asked.

  “I most certainly do.”

  “Well, after a couple of weeks with me, you'll have a more practical outlook.”

  “We shall not be together that long.”

  “Certainly we will,” he replied easily. “You've got to examine the painting, and then you wanted to meet Mallachi. That's four or five days right there.”

  “But you said two weeks,” I pointed out.

  “So I did.”

  “What will consume the extra time?” I asked.

  “Oh, I'm sure we'll think of something,” he answered confidently, and somehow I knew that I had not heard the last of his questions about Malcolm Abercrombie and his collection.

  9.

  As night fell, I still had not formed a judgment concerning Valentine Heath. He was interesting and amusing, and he treated me with civility and respect; but if he was to be believed (and I saw no reason to doubt him), he was a thoroughly amoral felon who was currently harboring stolen artwork and would doubtless be selling some of it to an unsuspecting Tai Chong before too much longer. Even before we descended to the ground floor of the Excelsior Hotel, I had decided to remain in his company only long enough to obtain the Mallachi painting, and then to return to Far London as quickly as possible.

  “Shall we hire a vehicle, or is there some form of public transportation you would prefer?” I asked as we approached the front door.

  “Public transportation?” he repeated with a mock grimace. “Rubbing shoulders with the proletariat while they exhale smoke and garlic in your face? Bite your tongue, Leonardo!”

  “Then I will flag down a vehicle,” I said, stepping outside.

  “Allow me,” he said, signaling to a large, luxurious silver vehicle that was halfway down the street. It immediately came to life and pulled up to the door.

  “My pride and joy,” he said, opening a door for me. “Even the cigar lighter is fusion-powered. What do you think of it?”

  “It is quite large,” I remarked as I climbed into the immense back seat.

  “If you're thirsty, there's a built-in bar,” he said, joining me and pressing a button that raised a small liquor cabinet between us.

  “No, thank you.”

  “There's also a video with an octaphonic sound system,” he continued.

  “How interesting,” I said.

 
He pressed another button, and I stifled a yelp as the entire seat began vibrating.

  “For those days when you're bone-weary from dodging the police,” he explained.

  He knocked on the opaque glass that separated us from the front seat, and the driver, a Mollutei, slid the panel back.

  “Yes, Mr. Heath?” he said through a translator pack, which came out in perfect Terran.

  “The subterranean penthouse, James,” he said.

  “Yes, Mr. Heath,” replied the Mollutei, sliding the glass panel shut again.

  “What is a subterranean penthouse?” I asked.

  He chuckled. “An underground apartment.”

  “I noticed that you called your driver James,” I said. “I was not aware that the Mollutei possessed human names.”

  “They don't. But I can't pronounce his name, so I call him James.” He paused. “The last one, if I recall correctly, was Oscar.”

  “I am delighted to discover that you are willing to employ non-humans.”

  “As I believe I mentioned, their testimony is not allowed in Charlemagne's courts,” replied Heath. He paused. “Also, they work for less money than humans, and I'm continually trying to cut expenses— not that it ever does any good. I was brought up never to settle for second best, but no one thought to teach me how to afford the best. My professional life has been an endless round of trial and error.”

  “Obviously you haven't made too many errors,” I noted, “since you are still at large.”

  “Oh, I've made my share,” he answered easily. “But so have the police. You'd be surprised at how long it takes them to realize that someone in my position could be a thief. A stock-market swindler, a manipulator of government contracts, a buyer of political favors— these things are expected from a man of obvious wealth and breeding. But a thief in the night? It never seems to occur to them.”

  “Then why were you forced to hide in my suite?” I asked.

  “Almost never,” he amended. “And of course by the time they catch me, the Morita will have already been placed with a person who has even less reason than I to make its possession a matter of public record, and then I'll be given a clean legal bill of health and a series of profuse apologies, and the police will wait even longer before suspecting me of the next theft.”