by Iain Pears
On the other hand, Besson was a bit of a danger. Somebody, after all, had informed this omnipresent man with the scar that the picture was to be found at Delorme’s. And who might that have been? He didn’t really want to have a chat with Besson and then find unpleasant characters with antisocial tendencies turning up on the doorstep an hour later. For Besson, he thought, he needed a bit more support. Like half a dozen burly French policemen on either side. Better still, leave it to them entirely.
That, of course, was another problem. The police had already arrested the man, hadn’t they? Or maybe not. Janet hadn’t mentioned it, and he should have, really, when Bottando made his enquiries. And he’d forgotten to ask Delorme how he knew all this anyway. Altogether, it was most curious.
Anyway, he reckoned that Besson had better go in the pending tray for a while. And that left the owner of the picture. Eighteen months ago in a private collection. Now under his bed, and had moved around a lot in the meantime.
That exhibition catalogue had only said the painting was in a private collection. A usual device, to indicate that the picture was not in a museum, without giving the name of the owner and telling thieves where to look. Another point to be noted, he thought to himself. The thief, whoever it was, hadn’t needed any help.
What good fortune, he thought as he left the hotel and hailed a taxi, that I am such a well-trained and conscientious researcher. In the library in Rome, he’d written down the name of the man who had organized the exhibition and now he remembered that he worked at the Petit Palais. It was cutting it fine: the chances of this Pierre Guynemer being there were slight and he should have telephoned. But he had just enough time, had nothing else to do, and felt like at least putting on a display of action.
For once, luck was on his side. While the woman on the admissions desk of the museum was far from happy about seeing him, it being nearly closing-time, and openly dismissive of his suggestion that perchance Monsieur Guynemer might be in the building, she did agree to make enquiries. Then he was sent off through the vast echoing exhibition rooms of the museum, into the back corridors where the staff offices were located and where he was accosted by a man who again asked what he wanted. This obstacle overcome, he went wandering down more corridors, peering at names on doors as he went, until he came to the right one. He knocked, a voice told him to come in, and that was that. Simple beyond belief.
So simple, in fact, that he hadn’t actually prepared himself for the possibility that he might find the man, and consequently didn’t know what he should say. Still, when in doubt, lie through your teeth. That was always the best policy.
So he concocted and simultaneously delivered a bizarre and none-too-convincing tale to explain what he was doing in this man’s office at nearly five o’clock on a Saturday evening. It was a logical tale in its way, but not very well expressed; Argyll believed that its style rather than its substance was the main reason for Guynemer’s slightly raised eyebrows and sceptical look.
Also, the trouble was that the curator was one of those people you take a liking to the moment you meet them, so Argyll felt bad about being duplicitous. He was a broad fellow, just the right side of overweight, comfortably ensconced in his desk chair, with an open face and cheerful expression. About Argyll’s age, give or take a year or so. Which meant that he was either very bright or very well connected. Or both, of course. Unlike most museum curators, unlike most people, in fact, he seemed perfectly unsurprised at the unexpected arrival and quite willing to countenance being disturbed. Generally, if a total stranger turns up on your doorstep spinning a yarn, you chuck them out, or at least mutter about being too busy. Not this one; he sat Argyll down and heard him out.
Argyll’s tale was something along the lines of his doing research into pre-Revolutionary neoclassicism, of his being on a brief and unexpected stopover in Paris until Monday afternoon, and wanting to take the opportunity to do something about these pictures by Jean Floret so that they could be included in a forthcoming monograph.
Guynemer nodded understandingly and, very irritatingly, launched into a monologue about the pictures and what he knew about them, mentioning, among other things, the article in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts and a host of other references which Argyll, for the sake of appearances, duly wrote down.
‘So,’ the Frenchman said when he finished, ‘could you tell me, Mr Argyll, why it is that you say you have never heard of the Gazette article when you’ve read my exhibition catalogue which refers to it several times? And how it is that you say you are in the fourth year of writing a book on neoclassicism and still know next to nothing about the subject?’
Damnation, Argyll thought. Must have said something wrong again.
‘Just stupid, I guess,’ he said abjectly, trying to look like a particularly slow student.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Guynemer with a brief smile, almost as if he felt apologetic for bringing up such a tasteless topic of conversation. ‘Why don’t you just tell me why you are really here? Nobody likes to be made a fool of, you know,’ he added a little reproachfully.
Oh, dear. Argyll hated the reasonable ones. Not that the man didn’t have good reason to feel a little annoyed. Telling lies is one thing; telling bad ones is quite another.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Full story?’
‘If you please.’
‘Very well. I’m not a researcher, I’m a dealer and at the moment I am providing a little practical assistance to the Italian art police. At the moment I have in my possession a painting by Floret entitled The Death of Socrates. This may have been stolen, no one seems sure. The buyer was certainly tortured to death soon after I brought it to Rome; another man interested in it was also murdered. What I need to know is where the picture came from, and whether it was stolen.’
‘Why don’t you ask the police in France?’
‘I have. That is, the Italians have. They don’t know.’
Guynemer looked sceptical.
‘It’s true. They don’t. It’s a long story, but as far as I can see they are as mystified as anyone else.’
‘So you come to me.’
‘That’s right. You organized this exhibition with the picture in it. If you won’t help, I don’t know how else to go about it.’
Appeal to the human side. Look pathetic and pleading, he thought. Guynemer considered the matter awhile, clearly wondering which was the least likely, Argyll’s first story or his second. Neither, in truth, was exactly straightforward.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said eventually. ‘I can’t give you the name. It’s confidential, after all, and you don’t exactly inspire confidence. But,’ he went on as Argyll’s face fell, ‘I can ring the owner. If he is willing, then I can put you together. I shall have to go and find out the details. I didn’t actually do that section of the exhibition myself. That was Besson’s part.’
‘What?’ said Argyll. ‘Did you say Besson?’
‘That’s right. Do you know him?’
‘His name wasn’t in the catalogue, was it?’
‘Yes. In small print at the back. A long story, but he left the project half-way through. Why do you ask?’
It seemed time to be open and honest about things; weaving tangled webs had got him nowhere, after all. But it might well turn out that Besson and Guynemer were bosom buddies and he would be thrown out on his ear in a matter of minutes if he were straightforward. In which case it would be a case of so near and yet …
‘Before I say, can I ask why he left?’
‘We decided that he was not suitable,’ Guynemer parried back. ‘A clash of personalities. Your turn.’
‘This picture, if it was stolen, subsequently turned up in Besson’s hands. I don’t know yet how it got there.’
‘Probably because he stole it,’ Guynemer said simply. ‘He’s that sort of person. That’s why he wasn’t suitable. When we found out. We hired him as an expert in tracking paintings down and getting their owners to lend them. Then we discovered that we were in effect h
elping to introduce a wolf into a sheep pen, so to speak. The police got wind of it and came to warn us. Once I saw the dossier on him –’
‘Ah.’
‘So, if I may take it one stage further for you, he would have known where this picture was, and may well have visited the house where it was kept. Draw any conclusions from that you want.’
‘Right. Did you not like him?’
The subject of Besson did nothing for Guynemer’s amiability. Clearly he had a lot to say, but decided against saying it. However, he indicated that they were not close.
‘But I think I should go and find out about your picture, do you not?’
And he disappeared for about five minutes, leaving Argyll to stew silently.
‘You’re in luck,’ he said when he returned.
‘It was stolen?’
‘That I couldn’t tell you. But I spoke to the owner’s assistant, and she is prepared to meet you to discuss the matter.’
‘Why couldn’t this woman just say?’
‘Possibly because she doesn’t know.’
‘Is that likely?’
Guynemer shrugged. ‘No more unlikely than anything you’ve told me. Ask yourself. She will meet you at Ma Bourgogne in the Place des Vosges at eight-thirty.’
‘And now can you tell me who is the possible owner?’
‘A man called Jean Rouxel.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘Of him. Of course. A very distinguished man. Old now, but immensely influential in his day. He’s just been awarded some prize. It was in all the papers a month or so ago.’
Research is the secret of the good dealer; this was the little motto that Argyll had adopted in the few years since he had taken up the business. It wasn’t necessarily true; at least, it was clear that he knew an awful lot about pictures he hadn’t managed to sell, while colleagues unloaded others so fast they wouldn’t have had time to find out about them even if they’d been so minded.
Clients were a different matter. However philistine some dealers may be – and many take a very jaundiced view indeed of the things they sell and the people they sell to – all believe that the more you know about a client the better. Not about the ones who wander in off the street, see something they like and buy; they don’t matter. It’s the private clients who deserve this treatment, the ones who, if you work out their tastes and inclinations properly, may come back again and again. Such people vary from the idiots who like to say loudly at dinner parties ‘My dealer tells me …’ right through to the serious, judicious collector who knows what he wants – ninety nine out of hundred collectors are men – and will buy if you provide it. The former type is lucrative, but no pleasure to deal with; a good relationship with the latter can be as enjoyable as it is profitable.
So Argyll set to work on Jean Rouxel, not in the hope, this time, of selling him anything, but merely to know what he was getting involved in. For this task he had to go to the Beaubourg, which houses the only library in Paris regularly open after six o’clock in the evening. Fortunately it was not raining; the place becomes strangely popular when it’s wet, and queues form outside the door.
Merely being in the place put him in a bad mood. Argyll liked to think of himself as a liberal sort, open to modern ideas and a fully paid-up believer in the notion that education was a good thing. The more people had it, the better the world would be. Stood to reason, although in the twentieth century the available evidence seemed to contradict the idea. Many academics he’d met didn’t help the argument, either.
Being on the fifth floor of the Pompidou Centre, however, made Argyll’s belief wobble. The building itself he loathed: all that dirty glass and peeling paintwork on pipes. Classical buildings can take grime; a bit of weathering even improves them sometimes. The high-tech look just seems battered, sad and miserable when it stops being squeaky-clean.
Then there was the library itself, a haven of popular learning. The trouble was that it was the intellectual equivalent of a fast-food outlet. It was the reverence Argyll missed. Just another consumer temple, offering information instead of clothes or food. Take your pick; Socrates or Chanel, Aristotle or Asterix, they all become of equal value in the Beaubourg.
Listen to me, he thought as eventually he made his way to a vacant plastic desk with a pile of reference books. Worse than my grandfather. I don’t know what’s coming over me.
But at least it had some of the books he needed, so he tried to take his mind off the surroundings, and concentrate instead on the reason he was there. Rouxel, he said to himself. Find out, then get out. He worked his way through the material to find out about Jean-Xavier-Marie Rouxel. From a good Catholic family, he thought to himself, with brilliant insight.
Born 1919, the French Who’s Who assured him, which made him around about seventy-four. No chicken he. Hobbies: tennis, collecting medieval manuscripts, time with his family, poetry and duck-breeding. So, a well-preserved all-rounder. Address: 19 Boulevard de la Saussaye, Neuilly-sur-Seine, and Château de la Jonquille in Normandy. A rich well-preserved all-rounder. Married Jeanne Marie de la Richemont-Maupense, 1945. Oh, ho, he thought, going up in the world, eh? Daughter of the aristocracy. Bet that helped the career. One daughter, born 1945, quick work. Wife dies 1950, daughter dies 1963. École Polytechnique, graduating 1944, in the middle of the war. Board member of Elf-Aquitaine, the French oil company. Then chairman of Banque du Nord. Then Axmund Frères stock-brokers; Services Financiers du Midi; Assurances Générales de Toulouse; no end to it. Still on the board of some. Deputy in the Assembly, 1958 to 1977. Minister of the Interior, 1967. A high-flyer, thought Argyll. Didn’t agree with him though. No more politics after that. Legion d’Honneur, 1947. Croix de Guerre, 1945. Hmm. High-ranking war-hero type. I wonder when he fitted that in. Must have joined up at the Liberation. Member of war-crimes tribunal 1945. Private practice for a few years thereafter before the leap into industry and politics. Then a list of clubs, publications, jobs held, honours given. Standard stuff. A model citizen. Even lends his pictures for exhibitions, although after this experience I doubt if he’ll do it again.
Other volumes fleshed out the picture but added few new facts. Rouxel was not a very successful politician, it seemed. He had been popular with colleagues but somehow or other had got up de Gaulle’s nose. He was given a trial run for only eighteen months in government then was chucked out and never succeeded in attracting attention again. Or maybe it was the other way round and he didn’t like high office; perhaps the pay wasn’t good enough or he was more of a backroom man than a fast-talking minister type. Whatever, he still did the odd job – committees here, advisory boards there, governing bodies all over the place. One of the great and the good, the old regulars who pop up time and again in every country, serving the public and keeping their well-manicured hands firmly, if discreetly, on the reins of power in the process. Doing well by doing good; reading between the lines, Rouxel did not come from a wealthy family. He had certainly made it now.
Unfair, thought Argyll as he left. Mere jealousy because you will never be asked to do anything like that. Or just because you’re in a bad mood from that library. Such were his thoughts as he marched boldly along the Rue de Francs-Bourgeois to his rendezvous with what he gloomily expected would been spinsterish, twittering type of personal assistant; the sort who was good at writing letters but not exactly a live wire. Didn’t even know if her employer had been burgled. He might well have to spend an entire evening doing his best to be charming and gallant to this woman and would get nothing useful out of it at all. Had he been consulted, he would have pleaded a previous engagement and held out to see Rouxel himself. But he was stuck with it now, he thought morosely as he rounded the corner at last into the Place des Vosges. Might as well get on with it.
So with scarcely a pause to admire the scenery – which showed what a bad mood he was getting into, it being his favourite bit of the city – he surveyed the crowd inside the restaurant. Little elderly lady, sitting on your own – where ar
e you?
No luck. No such person. Typical. So incompetent she couldn’t even show up on time. He checked his watch.
‘M’sieur?’ said a waiter sliding up alongside. Odd about Parisian waiters, how much they can squeeze into one word. Their most simple greeting can exude so much contempt and loathing it can quite put you off your food, and inspire foreigners with terrors of cultural inferiority. In this case, what the waiter meant was ‘Listen, if you’re just a gawping tourist, clear off and stop blocking the way. If you want to sit down and eat, say so, but get a move on, we’re busy and I don’t have time to waste.’
Argyll explained he was meant to be meeting someone.
‘Is your name Argyll?’ said the waiter, with a passable stab at wrapping his tongue round the surname.
Argyll admitted it.
‘This way. I was asked to show you to madame’s table.’
Oh-ho. Must be a regular, he thought as he followed. Then his thoughts stopped in their tracks as the waiter pulled out a chair at a table opposite a woman sitting quietly smoking a cigarette.
Jeanne Armand was not little, she was not old, she was not spinsterish and, though technically she might have had nephews and nieces, she was not in the slightest bit auntie-ish either. And if Argyll spent the rest of the evening doing his best to be charming and gallant, his efforts were not forced; he couldn’t help it.
Some people are blessed – or cursed, depending on how you look at it – with being beautiful beyond the ordinary. Flavia, now, had very definite opinions on this. She was very attractive herself, even though she put little real effort into it. But not devastating in the way that can cut off conversation and reduce grown and articulate men to gibbering wrecks. She counted this as good fortune; people instinctively liked her because of her appearance, but they did not ruin her life because they could not take their eyes off her. Even in Italy, she could get people to listen to what she said. Except, of course, Fabriano, but this was a basic defect in his make-up.
