The Last Weynfeldt Read Online Free Page B

Sunday morning was now over two weeks ago. He should have asked Lorena for her phone number. Her address, at least.
    He had made four extra visits to La Rivière since then, breaking his normal rhythm, staying each time for two martinis which he consumed according to the same ritual. For the best part of an hour the glass stood at his elbow untouched, then he fished the olive out with the cocktail pick, ate it slowly and placed the stone on the little saucer the barkeeper provided with every drink. That was his sign that the barkeeper could clear the glass, still full, and replace it with a fresh drink. Once, and once only, had the barman attempted to serve him a martini with two olives. Weynfeldt had placed one of them straight on the saucer without comment.
    He had not been able to muster the courage to ask the barkeeper for news of Lorena. But he undoubtedly realized why Weynfeldt was suddenly here so often. If he knew anything he would have said.
    The telephone rang, and Weynfeldt forced himself to let it ring twice, three times. If it was Lorena she shouldn’t think he was sitting by the phone waiting for her to call.
    But it wasn’t Lorena. It was Klaus Baier, one of his parent’s peers’ children nearly a generation older than Weynfeldt. Baier’s father had run a textile firm which did business with Weynfeldt & Co. The two fathers had remained friends long after both companies were taken over by healthier competitors. They had both been keen hunters, inviting each other to their respective hunting grounds, and traveling to East Africa on safari together in the 1950s.
    The two sons had never had much contact. Initially because of the age difference, later because they had no mutual interests. While Adrian was focused on his passion, art, Klaus was interested only in money. Following his father’s untimely death in 1962, Klaus Baier began making risky attempts to boost his inheritance. He became a daring speculator, someone with a good nose, who frequently gambled his entire wealth, and on more than one occasion lost everything except his assets of last resort.
    These reserves included a few valuable pictures, the remains of the respectable collection of Swiss art his father had bequeathed him. A seascape in oil and two watercolors by Ferdinand Hodler, a portrait of a woman by Segantini, two floral still lives by Augusto Giacometti and a notable nude by Félix Vallotton.
    This modest collection was later to bring them back into contact. Shortly after Adrian had completed his doctorate, Klaus called and asked him to value his pictures. It was the first job of Adrian’s career and he went to great effort to come up with plausible figures. Like many people who speculate with money on a large scale, Klaus Baier was stingy when it came to small scale transactions, and Weynfeldt’s payment was simply dinner. Adrian didn’t care. Even then he was financially secure, and in the course of his research he had come into contact with Murphy’s Swiss art expert at the time, who subsequently engaged Adrian as his assistant for a symbolic salary.
    Baier and Weynfeldt had met for occasional lunches or dinners at irregular intervals ever since, the initiative usually coming from Baier, hoping to avail himself of a free valuation. He would ask Adrian the current market value of his pictures; if the information was favorable he would pay the check, if not he let Weynfeldt pay.
    Baier’s most secure asset was the small Hodler seascape. The artist’s market value had risen steadily over the years with little fluctuation. The Augusto Giacometti was also a blue chip, which could safely be realized at any time. The riskiest item to speculate on was the Vallotton however. Although the artist’s prices had seesawed over the years, an image such as Femme nue devant une salamandre was capable of achieving a sensational price, independent of the artist’s current rating. Nude Facing a Stove