A Cruise to Die For (An Alix London Mystery)

by Elkins, Aaron

  “You do, huh? Who’s that?”

  Ted smiled. “Sorry. Confidential.”

  Panos made a sour face. “All right, so this client of yours—”

  “Clients. I have several possibilities in mind.”

  “You do, huh?” Panos thought for a moment. “Okay, all right, come with me.”

  They took the forward stairwell up to the bridge deck, the top level, and to the Captain’s Bar, a cozy little room that was startlingly different from most of the ship’s Grecian or Classical décor. This place looked like an interior decorator’s vision of an officers’ club in colonial India, with porcelain tigers sitting at either end of a curving bar, the surface of which was softly glowing, back-lit agate. There were just four stools, their seats covered with what Ted suspected was elephant hide. Intricately carved, three-foot-long tusks stood in the corners. Behind the bar, in back of the shelf that held the bottles, where a mirror or a portrait of Queen Victoria might have been expected, was a wall of glass that looked directly into the pilot house, an airy, spick-and-span space with six big monitors lined up on the wide walnut console at the front. There was a keyboard and a mouse in front of each, but if there was a wheel or a control lever of any kind, Ted couldn’t see it. There were three crewmen in the room, none of them doing anything much, and a gray-haired, neatly bearded man—the captain, judging from his aloof, military carriage and the gold stripes on the cuffs of his black uniform—who was standing in front of one of the screens, his hands clasped, statesmanlike, behind his back.

  Ted and Panos’s entrance caught his attention. He saluted and gave an order to one of the crewmen, who started for the opening in the glass wall that led to the bar, apparently to serve them. Panos waved him back and got behind the bar himself as Ted took a seat on a stool.

  Panos banged both hands on the bar. “Let’s have a drink, or is it too early for you?”

  It was a little after nine a.m., a good eight hours too early for Ted—but of course it was never too early for Rollie de Beauvais, and over the years he had found that a little shared alcohol made negotiations like this easier and more productive. An extremely moderate drinker himself, he was in little danger of overdoing it. “I’ll have a Scotch, neat.”

  Panos poured them each a couple of fingers of Macallan 21 Year Old Scotch—about three hundred dollars a bottle, if Ted remembered right. “Skol,” Panos said and chugged it down.

  Ted took a sip of what was without a doubt the best Scotch he’d ever tasted—peaty and smooth, almost syrupy, with just the smallest hint of smokiness—but he managed to look as if it was what he drank every day, just another Scotch. He waited for Panos to pick up the conversation.

  “Tell me this, Mr. Rollie de Beauvais. Why I should sell it to you for you to sell it to someone else? Why not I just sell it myself? Cut out the middleman.” He poured himself a little more Scotch and tossed it down his throat.

  “Go ahead,” Ted said, “suit yourself.”

  “If I wanted to, I could—”

  Ted started to stand up, putting a little exasperation into the movement. “Enough already, Panos. Let’s have a look at the damn thing, and then maybe we’ll have something to talk about. If you’re not interested, just say so.”

  “Hey, hey, hold your horses, what’s the rush?” He put an ingratiating hand on Ted’s shoulder, pushing him gently back down, then used a telephone on the bar to issue some quick instructions in Greek. “One minute, it’ll be here.” He began to top off Ted’s glass, but Ted put his hand over it. Panos set the bottle back down without pouring any more for himself. “So,” he said, “these clients of yours, of course you are planning to tell them about the damage?”

  “I am not. I am planning to tell them it comes with a reliable provenance going right back to the year it was painted, with several authoritative letters of authentication, which you will give me, and with a clean bill of health from the Laboratoire Forensique Pour l’Art, of which I will also want a copy. All of that is true. However, I feel no obligation to inform them of every little scuff and scratch it may have suffered over the centuries.”

  “Scuff and scratch,” Panos said, laughing. “That’s some scratch. So tell me this. How much you expect to get for it?”

  “That’s the wrong question for you to be thinking about, Panos. The right question is, what would you get for it?”

  “Yeah, but what makes you think—ah, look, here it is.”

  Édouard Manet’s Déjeuner au Bord du Lac—or rather an expert copy of Édouard Manet’s Déjeuner au Bord du Lac, according to Alix—now made its appearance atop a steel kitchen cart being wheeled in by one of the stewards.

  Ted got up to look at it. He propped it at an angle against the cart’s handle so that he could take it in more directly. He folded his arms. “Mm.”

  Panos muttered a single word to the steward, who turned and left.

  “It’s worse than I expected, Panos,” Ted said, shaking his head.

  “Oh, not so bad as that,” Panos said, seeing a sale slipping away, “now that I see it again.”

  “Not so bad? That slash is a foot-and-a-half long, and it’s jagged, more like it’s been ripped than cut. That’s harder to fix. This is not good, Panos. I don’t know; I have to think about this.” He stepped a few feet back from it, took out his phone, and held it up to the painting.

  “Hey, what are you doing?”

  “I need to take a few pictures.”

  Panos didn’t like that. “What for?”

  “So I can send them to my restorer and see what he says. For my purposes, the fact that it’s been repaired has to be undetectable—well, undetectable to the naked eye. I want to see if he thinks it’s possible.”

  “Sure, it’s possible. Of course it’s possible. That girl, Alix, she said so too.”

  “Mm,” Ted said. He took five photos, mostly from up close. “I’ll have to let you know; tomorrow, I hope.”

  “I might take seven,” Panos said. “Depending on the conditions. But not a penny less.”

  By road, Agia Pelagia was only a few minutes from Heraklion, so the launch hadn’t yet arrived when Alix was dropped off at the marina. She could see it a couple of miles out to sea, still being trundled out through one of the Artemis’s big bays. It would be a good five minutes before it arrived. She sat on a bench and opened her phone to check her e-mail, hoping for something from her father on Christoph Weisskopf, the painter he’d suspected of being the Manet forger. And there was something, an e-mail sent at 6 p.m. Seattle time last night.

  My Dear Alix,

  I’m afraid I have some rather disturbing news about my old friend Weisskopf. I’ve attached a newspaper article that explains. I don’t know what’s going on here, or whether it has any connection to your Manet, but to speak frankly my dear, it frightens me. I fear you are sailing in dangerous waters, and I am not referring to the Aegean. I don’t know what it is you’ve gotten yourself into, and I’m not at all sure that you do. I don’t mean to be intrusive, and I know only too well the futility of expecting you to follow any advice that I might give you, but you must allow your old dad the privilege of being concerned. Please tread carefully. Keep a low profile, as they say on this side of the Pond. Call me often.

  Love… and safe travel,

  G

  Alix frowned. What now? She hit the paper clip attachment icon and up came a ten-week-old article from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

  GRAND FERRY VICTIM IDENTIFIED

  The strangely dressed man found shot to death in Grand Ferry Park late Saturday night has been identified as Christoph Weisskopf, an artist who had resided on Williamsburg’s South Sixth Street for about ten years. Mr. Weisskopf was dressed in seventeenth-or eighteenth-century garb when his body was discovered at a little after 11 pm. He had been shot three times from close range and had been dead about five hours.

  Neighbors explained that Mr. Weisskopf, who often painted historical scenes, sometimes dressed in costumes of the era to put himself in t
he proper mood.

  Police are investigating the matter. Anyone with personal knowledge of Mr. Weisskopf’s activities or associates, or with information on persons or activities in Grand Ferry Park on the night of March 17 are urged to call the 90th Precinct at (718) 963-5311.

  Her frown deepened. Murdered? And now Donny was dead as well? Surely—

  She turned at the sound of a car door slamming behind her. Edward, Emil, and Gaby were climbing out of a limousine.

  Edward smiled his greeting, Emil seemed to find something in the middle distance that completely absorbed his interest, and Gaby asked pleasantly: “Oh, did you go back to Knossos too this morning, Alix? I thought you were out with Yiorgos.”

  “I was, but something came up that he had to take care of, and he got a local policeman to drop me off here.” They would learn soon enough about Donny’s death, but she wasn’t going to be the one to tell them. It was Ted she needed to talk to. “So was it a good tour?” she asked.

  By this time the launch had arrived, driven by one of the crew, and the four of them clambered aboard.

  “It was excellent,” Edward said. “Our guide was a Princeton professor, here for a summer program.”

  “He should have been excellent,” Gaby said, “considering what he was being paid.”

  “Oh, he was all right on Minoan culture,” Emil opined, “but his knowledge of the Cretan Neolithic was, not to put too fine a point on it, pathetic.” He smiled thinly. “But then, of course, that’s Princeton for you.”

  Conversation died as the launch got underway, but after a minute Edward asked, “Alix, have you had a chance to look over the collection? I was wondering if you had any views you’d care to share.” He held up his hand. “Unless you’ve found something ‘funny’ about the Gauguin or the Renoir. Or the Caillebotte. Or anything. That, I beg you to keep to yourself.”

  “No, nothing like that, but I’ve been meaning to ask you something. I couldn’t find the Monet. Isn’t there supposed to be a Rouen Cathedral somewhere? Is it in another room?”

  “There had been one, yes, but we had to take it out before the cruise began. Didn’t you see the updated catalog?”

  “I guess not. I just remember the one catalog you sent out.”

  “No, there was a follow-up one. The laboratory in Lyons determined it to be inauthentic, and Panos promptly—and properly—agreed to remove it. Not happily, though, I might add.”

  “You have no idea,” murmured Gaby. “ ‘Fit to be tied’ doesn’t come close.”

  “Well, he had reason,” Edward said with a touch of sternness. “He had a great deal of money invested in that painting.” Smiling, he shook his head. “I was just thinking. When I told him about the laboratory report, it was the Manet he thought I was talking about, not the Monet. He never has kept them straight. And now he’s lost both of them, almost as if he brought it on himself. The gods laugh.”

  They had pulled up to the Artemis now, and Artemis was there to help them aboard. “Welcome back, everyone. I hope you’ve had an interesting morning.”

  When she looked in the mirror in her stateroom she got a jolt. She hadn’t combed her hair since that wild ride in the Lancia, and it looked as if she was wearing a bird’s nest on her head. It took her twenty minutes to get the tangles out, and once tidied up, she called Ted on his cell phone. He answered from a beachfront café in Heraklion, where he, Panos, Edward, and Lorenzo had gone for a midmorning snack of thick Turkish coffee and rosewater-flavored Turkish delight.

  “Greek coffee!” she heard Panos bellow with a laugh. “And Greek delight—loukoumi! You don’t see me eating nothing Turkish.”

  “I need to talk to you, Ted. There have been some… unexpected developments. Things are a lot more complicated than I thought.”

  His tolerant, long-suffering sigh was audible. “Why am I not surprised? All right, the launch will have us back pretty soon. I’ll call you. We’ll find someplace quiet on the yacht. No, on second thought, why don’t you catch the launch over here? I’ll wait for you. We can have lunch in town.”

  21

  “How about a pizza?” Ted asked, giving her a hand onto the dock.

  “A pizza sounds great!” she said. “Real American food!”

  Earlier, Ted had spotted a hole-in-the-wall pizza place a few blocks from the dock that had been giving off marvelous smells as they began their day’s baking, and it was there they went. Basically a take-out place, it had three two-person tables along the wall opposite the counter, none of which were occupied, this being only noon. The place was definitely not geared for the tourist trade. The plump, flour-dusted man behind the counter seemed delighted to see them, but he spoke no English, and the one-sheet menus were in Greek. Fortunately, there were color photos on the wall behind him. Ted and Alix pointed at what appeared to be the everything-on-it special and got two Cokes from the glass-fronted refrigerator. The counterman rubbed his hands together, wiped them on his apron, and got happily to work, whistling away.

  “Sorry to steal your thunder,” Ted said as they settled with their Cokes into kitchen chairs at one of the oilcloth-covered tables, “but I’m afraid I already know about this unexpected development of yours.”

  “You do?”

  “Yiorgos called Panos, and Panos told us about Donny. The question is: How do you know about it?”

  “I was with Yiorgos when he got the call. In the speedboat.”

  His brow wrinkled. “You were… never mind; I don’t want to know. The main thing is, you’re right. The kid’s death complicates things, especially if it turns out not to be an accident—which Yiorgos strongly suspects.”

  “I know.”

  “You know that too?”

  “Sure, he told me.”

  Ted shook his head, smiled, and leaned back against the chair. “You know, I’m starting to think you just might be a natural at this kind of work after all. You sure know how to be in the right place at the right time—or in the wrong place, which is just as good if you don’t get killed—and you do have one hell of a knack for getting information out of people.”

  “Maybe I ought to apply for a full-time job.”

  “Maybe you should. Want me to write you up a recommendation?”

  Was he kidding? She didn’t know, but then she wasn’t sure she’d been joking either. Doing a little fishing, more likely.

  No glasses or straws had been offered with the cans so they popped the tops and took their first swigs.

  “Ted, a minute ago—I said ‘developments,’ not ‘development.’ ”

  He winced. “There’s more?”

  Alix told him about Christoph Weisskopf: that he had almost certainly been the forger of the Manet, and that he had recently been murdered.

  Ted sat up straighter. “Whoa, where did this come from? How do you know this? How do you find out these things?”

  She told him about the e-mail from her father and their earlier conversation, expecting him to express at least a little skepticism about the information, considering its source, but instead he listened thoughtfully, nodding once or twice.

  “I know all about Weisskopf. He’s a legend. We took a shot at nailing him once. Put a lot of legwork into it and never laid a glove on him. I can believe he’s the one who forged it, all right.” He surprised her by suddenly smiling. “Oh, I didn’t tell you. You were right; it is a forgery. I hereby apologize for any doubts I may have had. Congratulations.”

  “Jamie come up with something?”

  “Jamie came up with some good photographs, which were what I was hoping for. Let me show you. Do you have your telephone with you? Do you have a copy of the auction catalog on it?”

  “Yes and yes.” She went through her “kleptomaniacal” routine, smooth as glass this time, and navigated to the catalog.

  “Go to the picture of the Manet,” he said as he got out his own phone. “Zoom in on some relatively light part that doesn’t have a lot of color variation—oh, the more distant part of the lake,
for example.”

  “All right.” She showed him the result. “Good enough?”

  “Not as good as it’d be on a computer monitor, but it ought to do the job. Now…” He fingered his own phone and showed her the screen. “Look at this picture. Same area, right?”

  “Yes. Not the same photograph, but yes, it’s the Déjeuner.”

  “Compare the two. Anything wrong?”

  She peered at them.

  “No, don’t study them,” he said. “Just take a quick look. See anything wrong?”

  “Nope, not a thing. They’re the same.”

  “Sure?”

  “Positive. Am I missing something?”

  Instead of replying, he said, “Okay, let me show you another one now.” He brought it up. “Now compare this one with yours.”

  She did as he asked, comparing it to the image from the auction catalog that was on her phone and was puzzled. “Ted, I don’t know what you want me to tell you. It’s the same painting… no, wait.…” She took his phone from his hand and held it side by side with hers. “There’s something about this one.… There’s something different.…”

  “Very good, but what?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know, but there’s something.”

  “Yes, there is. Gotta hand it to you, kid. I am really impressed. That connoisseur’s eye of yours is the real thing. I’ll never doubt you again.”

  “Ha, I doubt that, but I appreciate the sentiment. But, you know, I’m still not seeing what it is about it.…”

  He laughed. “That’s because you’re looking in the wrong place. You’re looking at the painting.”

  “Well, of course I’m looking at the painting. What am I supposed to be looking at?”

  “The craquelure.”

  “The—?” She stared at him for a second then turned her attention to the network of fine cracks that ran over the surfaces. She looked quickly from one photo to the other.