It took Patch fifteen minutes on the phone before he could cajole Genie into joining them in Southampton. She had come back late that morning from her vacation in the Catskills, and it was everything he could do to convince her that traveling two hours out to the beach would be a worthwhile pursuit. He promised her that a town car would meet her outside the apartment in twenty minutes. She fussed and complained, but ultimately, Patch told her she didn’t have a choice.
With those words, she joined them.
The next few hours passed strangely, as Horatio began to prepare an elaborate lunch for the three of them. Nick insisted that he not go to any trouble, but they were hungry after their trip and the anguish of trying to figure out what was going on.
The three of them roamed around the house, but there wasn’t a single personal artifact, not even a single clue, that led them to know its story.
“I don’t think anyone actually lives here,” Phoebe said, as they poked around one of the bedrooms.
“Why do you say that?” Nick asked.
“I just looked at one of the bathrooms. There are no toiletries, no personal items. Even a guesthouse would have certain amenities.”
“Maybe the Bradford Trust keeps it as an investment, and the Society uses it for meetings,” Patch said.
Nick nodded. “I think you’re probably right.”
“What I want to know,” Phoebe said, “is where does the money come from to pay for all this?”
“Maybe we just saw it all downstairs,” Nick said. “Maybe they sell off the artwork, bit by bit.”
“It’s possible,” Patch said. “But I think it’s a bit more aboveground. If they started with a certain amount of capital and they invested it wisely, they would have hundreds of millions of dollars by now. I mean, the older members pay dues, right? Like, ten thousand a year or something?”
“I think so,” Nick said.
“Think about it-that’s more than enough to pay for it all. Let’s say they have two hundred dues-paying members-that would be two million dollars a year. Invest that, year after year, and you’ve got more than enough to finance all this.”
Horatio rang a bell downstairs in the kitchen, which meant they were being summoned for lunch. The smells of cooking had already started wafting up to the second floor. Once they had started their meal, Patch had to admit that Horatio’s cooking was even better than that of Gertie, Nick’s family’s cook in the city. Horatio had prepared them a lunch of tomato fennel soup, grilled cheese sandwiches with truffle oil, a winter salad of apples and pecans, and a steaming pot of tea to go along with fresh lemon-glazed scones for dessert.
The three of them ate cautiously in the breakfast area on the sunporch.
“Hey,” Phoebe said as she picked at her food. “How do you know he’s not going to poison us or something?”
“I don’t think we need to worry,” Nick said. “I’m pretty sure that isn’t what this is about. His allegiance was to my grandfather.”
“I wouldn’t say for sure,” Phoebe said. She made a motion to indicate that they couldn’t trust him.
“Look, you guys, I’m hungry, okay?” Patch said. “Can we just relax a little bit?”
“If he’s eating it, then it’s probably okay,” Nick said. Patch had, after all, been through more than he and Phoebe had-and had come out relatively intact on the other end.
As they were finishing lunch, they heard a car pull into the driveway. Genie arrived at the front door, bundled up as if she were headed on an arctic excursion. Patch desperately wanted to talk to her about the situation with Parker Bell and what he had learned yesterday, but he restrained himself.
“It’s Southampton, Genie, not Alaska,” Nick said, teasing her, as he gave her a hug around her puffy form.
“I’m an old lady, Nicholas! When you’re my age, you’ll understand what it feels like to be cold!”
Phoebe helped her remove several of her layers, and the four of them sat down in the library, which was down a long corridor in the east wing of the house. A set of picture windows looked out on the English parterre, though most of it was frozen over.
After Horatio served another round of drinks-this time, it was hot chocolate-he gave them some privacy.
“I’m not really sure where to begin,” Nick said.
“Oh, Nicholas, you always think that whatever you have to tell me is going to surprise me in some way. It’s a rather darling quality of yours. Come out with it. There’s not much that can shock this old broad.”
Phoebe laughed, and Patch blushed.
“Okay…” Nick said, glancing at the closed oak pocket doors to the library.
“Just spit it out, Nick,” Genie said.
“Fine. We have just found what might possibly be the world’s greatest undiscovered collection of stolen art. Right here. In the basement. And we think my grandfather may be responsible for it.”
Genie’s face twisted for a moment, as if she were considering the consequences. For a moment, Patch thought she might be truly upset.
Then she started laughing.
Nick and Phoebe looked at each other in confusion.
“What’s so funny?” Nick asked.
“People never change. Oh my goodness, how people never change!”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me tell you a story,” Genie said. “Nick, your grandfather, among his many qualities, had a rather peculiar one. He liked to steal. Not little things or money, but art. The more rare, the more spectacular, the better. It wasn’t economic; he didn’t want to sell the objects. When he was at Yale, he became obsessed with French ormolu, you know, gilt Asian porcelains and so forth? He stole a music box for me, but I told him I couldn’t accept it. It must have been worth ten thousand dollars.”
“How did he do it?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think he did it himself-I think he had some kind of network of thieves. There was something about it all that excited him; he said he got a thrill from having contraband artwork and antiques in his possession.” Genie shook her head sadly. “Really, it was very strange. After the first time, I told him that he had to stop, and he said he had. Only later, after our engagement was broken off, did I learn that he had continued.”
“How did you learn this?”
“One hears these things. It was all chitchat at the time, just a high-level form of kleptomania. The rare eccentricities of a wealthy man.”
Palmer-Patch’s grandfather-was a high-level klepto-maniac?
“It’s bizarre,” Genie continued. “Every time I read about a major art theft, I thought of Palmer. The Gardner Museum in Boston? That one kept me up for several nights.”
“One of the greatest unsolved museum heists of our time,” Phoebe said.
Nick looked dumbfounded. “And you really think my grandfather was behind all this? I just don’t understand it.”
“Your grandfather had an obsession. He had to win, he had to be the best. Unfortunately, he was also a bit of a skinflint.”
“What do you mean?” Nick asked.
“Nick, your family has stayed wealthy for the reason that many people are wealthy: they spend their money wisely. Your grandfather never liked to spend more than he had to. And sometimes that meant that he couldn’t have everything he wanted. Are you familiar with the famous George Stubbs painting of the zebra in the woods?”
“I think I know it,” Phoebe said. “It’s a beautiful painting. It’s like the zebra is totally out of context-you expect it to be in Africa or something and it’s in this very European-looking forest.”
“It is now at the Yale Center for British Art. Palmer was obsessed with it, a few years after your father was born. Said he felt like the zebra-a striped creature in a forest, a creature that didn’t belong.”
“How do you know all this?”
“A girlfriend of mine still traveled in those circles. Palmer was quite indiscreet when it came to his obsessions. Of course, that was always his philosophy, it seems-he kept his petty activities on the surface in order to mask his darker impulses. Talking about an art obsession was fine, but speaking of the Society was not.”
“So what happened?” Nick asked.
“The painting was auctioned at Harrods in London, and a number of buyers were interested. Paul Mellon ultimately got the painting for twenty-two thousand pounds. Somewhere north of two hundred thousand dollars on today’s market.”
“Genie, how do you know all this?” Nick asked.
She looked at him over her glasses. “Nick, if you read all day like I do, you learn a lot.”
The conversation made Patch uncomfortable. It was as if Genie was still obsessed with Palmer. Patch had hoped that his death would have put those feelings to rest.
“Apparently, he tried to reform over the years, but I never believed that he did,” Genie continued. “He would have a relapse every few years; it was as if he couldn’t help himself. I would hear stories from your father, who, as you know, was friends with Patch’s father-”
Patch interrupted her. “Wait a second, Genie-I think we’d better clear something up.”
Nick and Phoebe were silent.
“What’s that?” Genie asked innocently.
“I know about Parker. I know that he’s my real father. Or rather, my biological father.”
Genie paused before speaking slowly. “I’m so sorry, dear, that you had to find out from someone else. I would have preferred to tell you myself. I never knew when the right time was; I thought perhaps when you turned eighteen.” Her voice choked up. “I should have told you earlier. I should have trusted that you could handle the truth. How did they tell you about this?”
Patch looked uncomfortably at Nick and then at Phoebe. It was such a strange thing to speak about aloud.
“I am a beneficiary in Palmer’s will.”
Genie looked genuinely surprised. “What, did he give you a painting or something? I hope not a stolen one!” She laughed awkwardly.
“No, not exactly.”
“Well, Patch, what did he give you?”
Patch took a deep breath, and then offered a strained smile. “He gave me thirty million dollars.”