Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 128, No. 6. Whole No. 784, December 2006

The sign on the front of the otherwise unprepossessing residence in a suburb of Grechtenweil boasted gold letters on black enamel and spelled out Winfred Kaltendorf. And under the name stood: Painter, Portraitist,Copier. The order ought to have been backwards, of course, when viewed from the standpoint of the activity that brought in Kaltendorf’s meager income. Indeed, a new commission had just arrived. The Grechtenweil Boating Club wanted a copy of Auguste Renoir’s Oarsman’s Breakfast for its clubhouse. Two thousand euros. To be delivered in one month, in time for the club’s anniversary celebration.

Winfred sighed gustily, startling the gray-and-white cat on the window sill out of her afternoon nap. The fee would cover the rent on his little house and the canvas and painting supplies he needed, but the few cents left over for liquor after he had paid the grocery bill scarcely rewarded the work of copying the Renoir. And besides: What did the boating club want with a copy when it could have a genuine Kaltendorf? Winfred longed to show the world that his own skills were every bit the equal of the great masters. He was only willing to concede a point or two on the issue of originality. And on the fact that he would never enjoy a place in the annals of art history; that much was clear.

He had already painted the entire background of the Oarsman. Only the painting’s figures and their heads were missing. Winfred bent over the local paper — or, to be more precise, over the page with the death notices. He had never had any patience with the sanctimonious sayings usually found there: “called to his last rest”; “torn abruptly from life.” Kicked the bucket; bit the dust; pushing up daisies; shuffled off this mortal coiclass="underline" That’s the way Kaltendorf would have written death notices. And then that expressionless black-and-white photo of Mareike Koller, whose face Winfred was now painting carefully under the brim of the straw hat of the young woman leaning casually on the railing in the back of Oarsman’s Breakfast. The shadow cast by the hat was a blessing; it hid her lifeless eyes. Kaltendorf hadn’t had a chance to shoot his own photo of Mareike after the young woman came racing around the blind curve and steered her car over the cliff. He’d barely had time to get the warning signs that he’d used to block off the road stowed safely away in the trunk of his car before the sirens were audible. Someone in that nearby house must have noticed the accident. Faster, at any rate, than Mareike had noticed what she’d done when her car ruthlessly swept his favorite cat from the street. It was a stiff, inanimate face that stared up at him from the painting. Kaltendorf had to admit that this was not yet his masterpiece.