The Blue Hammer by Ross MacDonald Page B

voice was precise and rather thin. “What I was going to say is, I matched up your picture with one of the Lashman pictures in the basement.”
    “That’s marvelous, Ralph. You’re a genius.” She took his hand and shook it wildly. “By the way, this is Mr. Archer.”
    “The non-genius,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”
    Ralph flushed. “Actually it was terribly easy to do. The Lashman painting was sitting out on one of the worktables, propped up against the wall. You’d almost think it was looking for me instead of I for it. It virtually leaped right out at me.”
    Betty turned to me. “Ralph has found another painting of that same blond model. One by a different painter.”
    “So I gathered. May I see it?”
    “You certainly may,” Ralph said. “The beauty of it is that Simon Lashman should be able to tell you who she is.”
    “Is he in town?”
    “No. He lives in Tucson. We should have a record of his address. We’ve bought several of his paintings over the years.”
    “Right now, I’d rather look at the one in the basement.”
    Ralph unlocked a door. The three of us went downstairs and along a windowless corridor that reminded me of jails I had known. The workroom where Ralph took me was also windowless, but whitely lit by fluorescent tubes in the ceiling.
    The picture on the table was a full-length nude. The woman looked much older than she had in the Biemeyer painting. There were marks of pain at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her breasts were larger, and they drooped a little. Her entire body was less confident.
    Betty looked from the sorrowful painted face to mine, almost as if she were jealous of the woman.
    She said to Ralph, “How long ago was this painted?”
    “Over twenty years. I checked the file. Lashman called it Penelope, by the way.”
    “She’d be really old now,” Betty said to me. “She’s old enough in the picture.”
    “I’m no spring chicken myself,” I said.
    She flushed and looked away as if I’d rebuffed her.
    I said to Ralph, “Why would the picture be sitting out on the table like this? It isn’t where it’s usually kept, is it?”
    “Of course not. One of the staff must have set it out.”
    “This morning?”
    “That I doubt. There wasn’t anyone down here this morning before me. I had to unlock the door.”
    “Who was down here yesterday?”
    “Several people, at least half a dozen. We’re preparing a show.”
    “Including this picture?”
    “No. It’s a show of Southern California landscapes.”
    “Was Fred Johnson down here yesterday?”
    “As a matter of fact, he was. He put in quite a lot of time sorting through the paintings in the storage room.”
    “Did he tell you what he was after?”
    “Not exactly. He said he was looking for something.”
    “He was looking for this,” Betty said abruptly.
    She had forgotten her jealousy of the painted woman, if that is what it had been. Excitement colored her cheekbones. Her eyes were bright.
    “Fred is probably on his way to Tucson.” She clenched her fists and shook them in the air like an excited child. “Now if I could get Mr. Brailsford to pay my travel expenses—”
    I was thinking the same thing about Mr. Biemeyer. But before I approached Biemeyer I decided to try to make a phone call to the painter Lashman.
    Ralph got me the painter’s number and address out of the file, and left me alone at the desk in his own office.
    I dialed Lashman’s house in Tucson direct.
    A hoarse reluctant voice answered, “Simon Lashman speaking.”
    “This is Lew Archer calling from the Santa Teresa Art Museum. I’m investigating the theft of a picture. I understand you painted the picture of Penelope in the museum.”
    There was a silence. Then Lashman’s voice creaked like an old door opening: “That was a long time ago. I’m painting better now. Don’t tell me someone thought that picture was worth stealing.”
    “It hasn’t been stolen, Mr. Lashman. Whoever painted the stolen picture used the