Murder at the National Gallery Read Free

door for Annabel. “How is he?”
    “Fine. Grumbling now and then about the current crop of law students’ attitudes, and forever promising to paint the house. He refuses to hire someone, he’s not really retired, races to every crime scene at the mildest cry for help, so it never seems to get done. Say hello to the vice president for us.”
    “When, and if, I ever get to see him. Thanks, Annabel.”
    Annabel’s final words before the car door closed were, “And burn that Polaroid.”

3
THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
    Courtney Whitney III patted senior curator Paul Bishop on the back. “Consider it a good news, bad news thing, Paul. The bad news? Another voice to be heard, another set of eyes looking over our shoulders. The good news? Genuine interest in what we’re doing by the White House itself. Mrs. Smith certainly isn’t a bureaucrat like Cathy Eder. As I understand it, she and Mrs. Aprile go back to college together.”
    “Hardly a reason to have her assigned as liaison,” the short, burly Bishop muttered.
    “It doesn’t matter what you or I feel about her involvement, Paul.” Another slap on the curator’s broad back. “Let’s welcome her this morning with open arms. She’s a charming lady and extremely attractive. Even knows something about art.”
    “Maybe that’s why Luther’s so pleased with her coming here.”
    Whitney laughed as he removed his suit jacket from an oak coat tree in a corner of his office, one of three new suits recently arrived from his Savile Row tailor-of-choice, Tommy Nutter. “I suspect the last thing on Luther’s mind these days is attractive women. His love affair with Caravaggio is all-consuming. Besides, Mrs. Smith is happily married. Or so I hear. By the way, did you see this?” He handed Bishop the latest edition of the monthly bulletin
Stolen Art Alert
, compiledand distributed by the International Foundation for Art Research. Bishop quickly perused the list of recently stolen art, grunted, and said, “Three Pretis, huh?”
    “Among other things. Come on. They’re waiting for us.”
    The National Gallery’s exhibition committee met every three weeks in a tastefully furnished conference room on the seventh floor of the Gallery’s East Building, a few doors from the director’s office. Upon the arrival of Court Whitney, the National Gallery’s director, the seven permanent members of the committee took up proposals for exhibitions that had been suggested by the Gallery’s curatorial staff or curators from other museums wanting cooperation. This morning, however, Paul Bishop began by voicing his continuing objection to an exhibition already installed, the early works of French artist Dubuffet, which had been donated to the Gallery by retired art dealer Stephen Hahn and permanently installed in the East Building. “Dubuffet!” he snorted. “An untalented mudslinger. The public may be brutish, but even
it
has disdain for
art brute
.”
    Others at the table winced, smiled, or sat back, breathing patience through their nostrils. The Dubuffet exhibition was reality. Why continue to protest? To make his point, they knew. Paul Bishop was a man consumed with making his point about anything and everything.
    The Gallery’s deputy director, Naomi Warren, quickly advanced that morning’s agenda. After much discussion, an exhibition of African art was shelved until it could be determined if administrators of the National Museum of African Art, across the Mall, would be interested in collaborating (and wouldn’t find their noses too far out of joint). A decision on an educational exhibition suggested by Paul Bishop featuring works of the
Nabis
, particularly the influence of Japanese art on that iconoclastic turn-of-the-century school of painting anchored by Bonnard and Vuillard, was also postponed. It would first have to be determined how many representative pieces of art were available for loan before discussions could continue.
    “Well,” Whitney said from the