The Trouble with Mirrors (An Alix London Mystery Book 4)

by Charlotte Elkins

  Alix grinned. “But you’re going to take a crack at it anyway, am I right?”

  “Since you insist,” he said, smiling back. “Just don’t take it as gospel.” He stopped with his hand on the door’s panic bar. “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s by a follower of Daniele da Volterra’s, very likely one of his students.”

  It took a second for Alix to place the name and then she laughed. “Il Braghettone?”

  “The same.”

  “Il Braghettone,” Chris repeated, frowning.

  “It was da Volterra’s nickname,” Alix explained. “‘The Breeches Maker.’ He got it because he’s the poor guy the pope stuck with the job of painting over the genitals in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment with fig leaves and loincloths and such.”

  “Oh, he must have loved that,” Chris said as they stepped through to the outside and began walking across the big Neo-Renaissance courtyard.

  “He hated it,” said Norgren. “He was a huge admirer of Michelangelo’s and thought the ceiling was just fine the way it was, but the pope was the pope.”

  “And what about Michelangelo? I bet he wasn’t too crazy about it either.”

  “He was dead at the time,” Alix pointed out.

  “Good thing for him,” Chris said.

  Once outside they walked past the larger-than-life bronze cast of Rodin’s Thinker that was the centerpiece of—in fact the only statue in—the grand courtyard. It was the first time Alix had seen it without a crowd of visitors around it, mostly snapping pictures of their friends and relatives taking Thinker-like poses at the base of its plinth. Norgren sneaked another look at his watch. “Well, my car’s over there in the staff parking lot. I’d better—”

  “Let us walk over with you,” Alix said. “I’d really like to talk just a little more. I’ll make it fast, I promise.”

  “Sure,” Norgren said, but picking up the pace so that Chris had to lengthen her stride to keep up with him and Alix was practically sprinting. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “You said ‘follower’ of da Volterra,” Alix puffed. “You don’t think it could have been da Volterra himself?”

  “Could have been? Sure, the work is competent enough, but it’s like coming across something that has a Rembrandtesque quality to it. Any curator worth his salt is going to hope it turns out to be by the master himself, but you don’t jump to the conclusion that it is. There was only one Rembrandt, but he had dozens of students whom he taught to paint the way he painted, and thousands of imitators who were pretty good too. So, absent other evidence, the simple odds tell you it was most likely one of them. Da Volterra had some pretty decent students and apprentices too—Michele Alberti, Giulio Mazzoni, Jacopo Rocchetti . . .”

  “Yes, that’s all true,” Alix said, even though, of the three, Mazzoni’s name was the only one that rang a bell, not that she could remember why it should; probably, he’d assisted da Volterra with the Sistine Chapel work. “But da Volterra, as good as he was, was no Rembrandt. I doubt if he had dozens of students.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say—”

  “Well, he certainly didn’t have thousands of imitators.”

  “That’s true enough,” Norgren said agreeably. “Well, here’s my trusty little Acura.” He was anxious to be on his way, with the ignition key already in his hand, but he paused at the door. “You know, there’s one thing we didn’t get to talk about. Assuming we’re right about the panel being the real thing, then—”

  “I know,” Chris said. “Then where did Tiny get it?”

  And after a moment of silence, Alix softly asked: “And how?”

  Nobody had any answers.

  CHAPTER 19

  The drive from the Legion of Honor to their downtown hotel through San Francisco’s evening rush hour was one frustrating stop-and-start after another, and for the first quarter-hour of it they had their heads down, prowling separately through cyberspace, Chris on her iPhone and Alix on her iPad Mini.

  Chris came up first, with a pensive look. “You know, there’s something funny about all this.”

  Alix glanced at her. “Gee, ya think?”

  “No, seriously.” Chris dropped the phone into her bag. “Now, for the last fifteen minutes I’ve been bouncing around the auction databases seeing what I can find on da Volterra and his students—Art Nexus, Hislop’s, FindArt, and so on. There hasn’t been a lot of action on da Volterra himself, but what has been sold averages in the low five figures; anywhere from two or three thousand to twenty or so. The biggest sale was a St. John the Evangelist that went for a hundred thousand at Semenzato’s in Venice in 2001, but that’s, like, five times more than anything else, before or since. And as for those followers of his—Mazzoni, Alberti, and so on—there’s nothing. For at least a hundred years, not a one has sold at any known auction. But if one were to come up for sale, it’d have to go for a lot less than one by da Volterra himself, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes, you’re right, and I see what you’re getting at, Chris. It does seem like there’s been an awful lot of fuss over it, even if it is authentic.”

  “Chump change,” Chris agreed. “That’s all it would go for. Low five figures at most, probably even less. So . . . what’s going on?”

  Alix shook her head and spread her hands. “Don’t ask me.”

  Chris grumbled something and looked out her window. “Where the heck are we, anyway?”

  Alix looked out her own window. “Golden Gate Park,” she said. “There’s the de Young Museum. Slow going.”

  The driver heard them. “Yeah, I guess I should have taken Geary, after all. Sorry about that. Fulton’s usually better. Should be there in fifteen minutes or so, though.”

  “No problem,” Chris told him and got her iPhone out again. By the time they were dropped off at the curb in front of the Inn’s modest canopy, she had lined up a superfast United flight at ten-thirty the next morning that would have them in Monterey before noon. They agreed to meet in the hotel lobby at seven-thirty to take care of checking out. Then they would leave their luggage with the concierge and walk to one of the nearby restaurants for a hearty breakfast—eggs, meat, protein—and thus, for what was likely to be another busy day, be better prepared than their oat fudge bars had left them that morning.

  First though, there was this evening’s dinner to be decided on. “I don’t know how I can be hungry again after that colossal sandwich at lunch,” Alix said, stretching upon getting out of the limo. “I thought I’d never want to eat again, but I sure do. And I know you’re ready to eat.”

  “Now how would you know that?” Chris wanted to know.

  “Because: when are you not ready to eat?”

  Chris lifted an eyebrow as if she were trying to decide whether or not this required objection on her part, but after a beat or two the eyebrow came down and she responded with a judicious and tolerant nod. “That’s a point.”

  “You know this area better than I do,” Alix said. “Any recommendations for where to go?”

  “Well, what do you feel like, French? Chinese? Steaks? Sea—”

  “How about plain old American comfort food? It’s been a long day.”

  Chris’s face lit up. “I was hoping you might say that. Hamburger, fries, chocolate shake, something along those lines?”

  “Exactly along those lines.”

  “Wonderful. Believe it or not, there’s a place right around the corner, at Sutter and Powell. Lori’s Diner. Straight out of the 1950s. Great burgers.”

  Lori’s Diner was as advertised, with leather-topped chrome stools at the counter and red vinyl booths along the wall. A motorcycle was mounted atop the cold drink refrigerator and a jazzy, two-tone Edsel convertible stood near the back looking all ready to load up the kids up for the Saturday night sock hop at the high school gym. A black-and-white-tile floor and Elvis belting out “Blue Suede Shoes” on the jukebox made the picture complete.

  And naturally the waitresses, one of whom came to their booth with menus and gla
sses of water, wore black rayon waitresses’ uniforms with little white aprons.

  “Evening, folks,” she said, handing them their menus. “Today’s dinner specials—”

  “Oh, we don’t need menus,” Chris told her. “We know what we want. Alix?”

  “I’d like a hamburger and fries, please,” Alix said, “and a chocolate shake.”

  “What kind of hamburger?”

  “What kind? Oh, maybe I’d better look at the menu after all.”

  “Not necessary,” Chris said, gathering both menus up and handing them back to the waitress. “We’ll both have the Big Bopper with fries, and a chocolate shake for me too.”

  “Big Bopper?” Alix asked warily.

  “Trust me,” Chris said.

  “I guess I’ll have to.”

  “Trust me, you’re gonna love it,” said the waitress, heading off.

  Alix still looked as if she had something to say about Big Boppers, but Chris had something else on her mind. “Alix, I have a question about the mirror. At one point there at the Legion, the two of you referred to the mirror—I mean the panel it was on—as a fragment.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to ask about it then—I was pestering you with more than enough questions—but did you mean that literally? It’s a piece of a larger panel?”

  “Right.”

  “So there’s . . . or there was . . . a panel somewhere that must be missing a piece?”

  “Probably more than one piece. If it followed the usual pattern, probably all the corners were cut off. And as for the center . . .” She shook her head. “Well, that might be gone altogether. Destroyed, I mean.”

  Chris had begun to lift her glass to her mouth, but it went back to the table before she got it there. “Now you’re really losing me. Cut off? We’re not talking about some kind of accident? Somebody cut it into pieces on purpose?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, Chris, I thought you understood.”

  “I do not understand. Kindly elucidate.”

  “Well, it’s been an unfortunate practice for a lot of years, sad to say—centuries. Thieves steal paintings from an old palace, or church, or museum, but if the paintings are even moderately well-known, trying to sell one of them to anybody is next to impossible because—”

  “Because if the potential buyer was familiar with it, he might know it was stolen?”

  “Right. Imagine trying to sell the Mona Lisa if you were an art thief. Is there anybody in the Western World who wouldn’t recognize it and know it should be in the Louvre? You would certainly recognize it, wouldn’t you?”

  “What kind of a question is that? Of course I’d recognize it.”

  “How?”

  “How?”

  “How would you recognize it? From the smile? The face . . . ?”

  “Well, yes, sure, and the hair, the head in general, and the clothing, and the pose, with one wrist over the other . . . at least I think it is . . . and a whole lot of things that, taken together—”

  “What’s in the background?”

  “Background?”

  “Yes, background. What’s behind her?” Alix smiled and waited. Three seconds passed . . . four . . . five . . . “Excuse me, I didn’t quite get that?”

  “Uh . . . draperies?” Chris offered weakly. Alix merely continued to smile. “Roman columns?” Chris tried. On the jukebox now, the plangent voice of Johnny Cash was sinking deeper and ever deeper into his Ring of Fire. “Okay, not draperies, not columns,” Chris said. “I give up, what?”

  “A pretty blue lake with a winding path leading to it,” Alix said. “Trees, hills, a patch of pale blue sky . . .”

  “You’re kidding me, a lake? A path? I thought . . . I don’t know what I thought.” She whipped out her smartphone and pulled up an image of the painting. “Whoa, will you look at that! All the times I’ve seen it, even in the Louvre itself, and I never knew there was a lake, or any of it.”

  Their shakes had come, each served in a ribbed soda-fountain glass and topped with a thick blob of whipped cream and a maraschino cherry. Beside the glasses were second helpings in the frost-coated metal beakers they’d been mixed in. So for a couple of minutes conversation was replaced by discreet slurping and murmurs of gratification.

  “And so,” Alix went on when it came time to top her drink off from the beaker, “if you were a thief and you’d somehow managed to steal the Mona Lisa, what would you do with it? Nobody would buy it from you. Even the crookedest fence in the world wouldn’t touch it, because, what would he do with it? And with every police agency in the universe hunting for it, simply having it in your possession would be a tremendous risk.”

  Chris was engaged in using a long-handled spoon to shovel up the slippery gobbet of semi-solid ice cream at the bottom of her glass, but she nodded to show she was following along.

  “So if he wanted to get any profit out of it at all,” Alix continued, “what he’d do would be to cut out that part of the painting—it’d be the upper left quarter—frame it, and see if he could sell it as an authentic, sixteenth-century, miniature landscape. Which, of course, it is. It wouldn’t bring him in even a thousandth of the worth of the full painting, but the full painting couldn’t be sold, and at least this way there’d be something in it for him. Of course, to be on the safe side, he’d then have to destroy the rest of the painting as quickly and thoroughly as he could.”

  “And you think that’s what happened with this painting, this panel.”

  “Possible. More than possible.”

  “Hm.” Chris shook her head. “No, I don’t buy it. Why go to all the trouble and the risk of stealing a famous, well-guarded painting like the Mona Lisa in the first place if that’s all you’re going to get out of it?”

  “Well, the Mona Lisa was just an example. Nobody in his right mind would steal it—although somebody once did steal it, but that was back in 1911 and he wasn’t in his right mind. But the thing is, if Chris Norgren is right and Tiny’s mirror is part of a panel by a follower of da Volterra, it’s sort of famous, but not that famous, and probably wasn’t that well-guarded either. And since I’m still guessing, I’d bet that it had more chunks that could be sold separately than the Mona Lisa does, because the Mona Lisa is a portrait. Other than that upper left corner, I can’t really think of anything but Mona’s image itself that could pass for a complete, saleable painting on its own.”

  “Except that it would be unsaleable,” Chris said.

  The Big Boppers now arrived, and they turned out to be fat hamburgers with the usual trimmings—tomato slice, onion ring, lettuce, and relish—but with the addition of two thick bacon slices crossed on top and the whole thing drenched with melting cheddar cheese. The rest of the plate was hidden by a steaming heap of aromatic French fries.

  “Whew,” Alix said, having lifted the top half of her hamburger bun to have a look at the inside.

  Chris grinned at her and shrugged. “I just thought that maybe we were a little weak on our saturated fat minimum daily requirement. Don’t worry, you can handle it.”

  CHAPTER 20

  In the end, Chris could but Alix couldn’t. Even after leaving almost half of the Big Bopper and a dozen French fries on her plate, she was uncomfortably stuffed as they left the diner.

  “Okay, final question,” Chris said. “Can you handle one more?”

  “Please. Maybe it’ll get my mind off my stomach.”

  “Why are the two of you so sure that it’s only a fragment of a bigger panel and was never an independent smaller painting in itself? You talked about a miniature landscape before, so why not a miniature skyscape? It’s kind of attractive, in a somber sort of way.”

  “Yes, it is, but there’s no focus to it, Chris, no design, no organization. There’s no center, just a bunch of floating clouds and one off-center half-cherub that’s—”

  “But how do you know there’s no center? If there is one, it’d be behind the mirror, wouldn’t it? So we can’t see it; the Virg
in Mary or some saint, or something?”

  “Well, yes, that’s the sort of thing that would very likely be the focus of this kind of painting, but we don’t have to be able to see what’s in back of the mirror to know that the focus isn’t there.”

  “Maybe you know, Alix, but I sure don’t.”

  “All right, remember that faded cherub down near the left-hand bottom corner, the one that Tiny didn’t paint, the one that was part of the original?”

  “Sure, the one with his eyeballs turned up. In adoration, as you pointed out.”

  “Right—up and to the left, as you pointed out.”

  “Okay, so?”

  “Well . . .”

  She had to stop while the Powell and Mason cable car came racketing down Powell Street a few yards from them, clanking and clanging away like a fire engine in a circus clown act, and just as packed.

  “So,” she went on once it had passed, “what’s he looking at?”

  “Who knows? We can’t see it. It’s off beyond the edge . . . oh, I see what you’re saying. The only way that makes sense is if that’s where the focus of the painting is—the saint, whatever. Meaning that what we’ve got is only a piece of the original whole, probably something down near the lower left corner . . . no, the lower right corner, since the little guy is looking up and to his left.” She scowled. “Do I have that right?”

  “It’s the way I see it.”

  As they came up to the Inn’s entrance Chris glanced at her watch. “Early yet. What would you think about a nightcap? They don’t have a bar here, but there’s the St. Francis right across the street and they have a great one.”

  “Yes, it is a nice one, but I’ll pass. I’m too stuffed.”

  “Coffee, then?” They were in the lobby now and Chris was pointing to a couple of urns in a corner seating area.

  “Yes, that might hit the spot.”

  Just as she said this her telephone rang. Alix checked. “It’s Jamie. I should take this.”