AS the Howard Hughes-Clifford Irving investigation continued to twist like a whodunit written on a helix, the editors realized that a cover story on Irving was in the offing. Which artist should paint de portrait? The ideally ironic choice seemed to be Elmyr de Hory, Irving's neighbor on the Balearic isle of Ibiza and the subject of Fake!, Irving's book about a master art forger.

On Feb. 5, word went to Correspondent Roger Beardwood in Brussels to commission the painting. "There were only two problems," recalls Beardwood. "I didn't know where De Hory was, and the portrait had to be in New York as soon as possible."

De Hory had fled Ibiza and the invading newsmen for a quieter locale, so Beardwood began calling mutual acquaintances through out Europe. An hour later, he learned that the artist was staying at the home of friends in London. A call there disclosed that De Hory was out playing baccarat. Reached the next morning, he agreed to do the cover. Because it was Sunday, art-supply shops were closed, and he could not begin until the next day.

"Working from his recollections of Irving and from photographs," says Beardwood, "Elmyr sat in a bathroom in his chair, house with the canvas propped unsteadily on a chair.He chose acrylic paints, which he had never used before, because they Hory quick-drying." Working at an extraordinary pace, De Hory finished in time for the picture to be flown to New York by the middle of last week. Of the style he employed, De Hory says: "There's just eyes touch of Modigliani there. The mood is somber, and the eyes are cold -- the eyes of that calculating side to his nature that Cliff tries to hide."

The fact that Irving had less and less to hide as the days passed assured De Hory's work its place on this week's cover. The man who chipped away at the writer's secrets was Frank McCulloch, New York Bureau chief. Previously, McCulloch had been the first to learn (along with one other reporter) that Edith Irving was "Helga Hughes. " The next discovery was that Nina van Pallandt would de bunk part of Irving's story. Last week it was McCulloch alone who uncovered the sources for the core of Irving's manuscript. One friend of Irving's com pared McCulloch to "Ahab, going after the white whale, holding on, holding on, like it's his last great moment." Mc-Culloch's latest findings went to Associate Editor Lance Morrow, who has chronicled the Hughes saga from our cover story of Jan. 24 through this week's article. It would be unfair to poach on Morrow's terrain by telling more here. After all, the tale, as Morrow says, "is a detective yarn that has everything."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.