Paganini's Ghost

by Paul Adam

  “But he said he was coming back in a few days?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then I’m inclined to leave it, do nothing for the time being. He’s phoned in. He seems to be safe and well. Let’s wait for him to return.”

  “Ludmilla won’t like that. She wants him tracked down and brought back now.”

  “It’s not as easy as she thinks.”

  “She won’t take no for an answer. You know how persistent she is. She’ll be coming into your office, camping out in the foyer until you do something.”

  “Fortunately, I won’t be here,” Guastafeste said. “I’m going out of town for a couple of days.”

  “Oh, yes? Where?”

  “Paris.”

  “Paris?”

  “The jewellery expert examined the gold box this morning. The hallmarks indicate that it was made in Paris in 1819 by Henri le Bley Lavelle. I’m flying up there tomorrow morning. Le Bley Lavelle’s business was taken over by another firm in the mid-nineteenth century, but they still have all his records dating back to the 1780s.”

  “You want to check the records?” I said.

  “The box was made for a specific violin. The cutout shape inside it—Le Bley Lavelle must have been supplied with the exact dimensions he had to work to. I want to know if the records give any information about the violin the box was made to fit. I need to know what we’re looking for. And while I’m in Paris, I want to have a talk with François Villeneuve’s business partner, Alain Robillet.”

  “I didn’t know he had a partner.”

  “Nor did I until today. We asked our colleagues at the Sûreté for information on Villeneuve. Their report was faxed through this afternoon. He had something of a dodgy reputation: three instances of stolen property being found in his possession—and not small stuff, either. We’re talking valuable furniture, old masters, antique silverware. He wriggled out of the charges each time—insufficient evidence to prosecute him for receiving—but the French police clearly think he was guilty. Villeneuve might have been a successful fine-arts dealer, but it would seem that he was also a successful fence.”

  “Was the gold box stolen?”

  “We’re checking to see.” Guastafeste paused. “I’m glad you rang, Gianni. I was going to call you this evening anyway. You like Paris, don’t you?”

  “Well, yes,” I said warily. “Why?”

  “I want you to look at Le Bley Lavelle’s records with me.”

  “You mean fly up there with you tomorrow?”

  “It’s all cleared with my boss. You’re the violin expert. I need your help, Gianni. Having your company will be nice, too.”

  “I’ll have to get myself a ticket,” I said.

  “That’s all arranged. I’ll pick you up at half eight. Our flight leaves Linate at eleven.”

  Eleven

  I have happy memories of Paris. It was where my wife would have liked to have gone for our honeymoon, only we were too poor to afford it at that stage of our lives. We were in our early twenties and I was an unknown, struggling luthier. A long weekend at Bellagio, on the shores of Lake Como, was all our budget would stretch to, but when you are newly married, your honeymoon destination is ultimately immaterial. You are not there to look at scenery or wander round museums; there are other things to occupy you.

  Paris would have been wasted on us back then. We would have been too absorbed with each other to take in the cultural delights the city offers. But later, when the children were off our hands, we managed a few days there. We were no longer the starry-eyed newlyweds for whom the French capital is such a draw, but Paris is not the exclusive province of the young and enamoured. The middle-aged and exhausted are also allowed to share in its sophisticated pleasures.

  We did all the classic tourist things—went up the Eiffel Tower, took a boat trip on the Seine, ate out at restaurants where the imagination lavished on the food came in a poor second to the imagination lavished on the bill—and loved it. Of all the European capital cities I have visited, and I have not visited many, Paris is undoubtedly the most captivating. Berlin is grand but dull, Rome a chaotic inferno of traffic and dusty ruins, London damp and unappealing. Paris cannot compete with its rivals on many fronts. Its weather is inferior to Rome’s, its public services worse than Berlin’s. Its parks are not a patch on London’s green open spaces, yet it has a style, a charm that the others cannot match. To live there is probably hell, but to visit for a short time is an exquisite experience, particularly with someone you love.

  We have become cynical these days, and with good cause. Our lives are saturated with the lies and obfuscations of the PR and marketing industries, whose main raison d’être is to part us from our money. The image of Paris, the romance of Paris, has been filtered and distorted through so many films and glossy advertising campaigns that it is hard to tell what is reality and what is a sales pitch. But my memories of the city are not tainted by commercial misrepresentations. I know that. They are not part of a movie scenario or a tourist brochure. They are real and they are vivid and they are happy. For I was there with Caterina. I was there with her when she was well and full of life, before she succumbed to the vile, creeping sickness that was to take her from me. For that, I will always have a tender spot in my heart for Paris.

  Guastafeste and I, however, were not there on holiday. We had business to transact. Our flight from Milan got into Charles de Gaulle at half-past twelve. It was nearly lunchtime, but you would have to be insane to eat by choice in an airport, so we took a taxi straight into the city centre. The offices of Molyneux et Charbon were in the Place Vendome, near the Ritz Hotel, whose well-heeled customers could stroll out of the front door and straight into the jewellers’ showroom, then back to their luxury suites without being unduly worn out by the weight of all those carats round their necks and fingers.

  This was no ordinary high-street jewellery store. I had seen shops like it in Milan. You couldn’t simply walk in and ask to see a few diamond rings. You had to make an appointment for a “consultation,” during which items would be brought out of a display case or the high-security safe by solicitous assistants who spoke at least half a dozen languages, including English, Arabic, and fluent flattery.

  Guastafeste pressed a bell by the door and spoke our names into an intercom, a CCTV camera on the wall above us scrutinising our every move. When the lock clicked back to open the door, we stepped through into a strange artificial environment. All trace of the outside world seemed to disappear. The noise of the street was cut out altogether by the thick walls; there was a deep burgundy carpet on the floor, on which our feet made no sound. The sunlight, partially blocked by the shutters and small windows, was replaced by a constellation of spotlamps sparkling and scintillating in the ceiling. The unnatural quiet, the lighting—which was somehow both bright and subdued—made me feel as if we’d walked into a well-appointed fish tank.

  A man came forward to greet us. He was in his forties, a tanned, jowly man with thick black hair and dazzling white teeth. He was wearing a dark three-piece suit, which had a gold watch chain dangling from a fob pocket, and a gold tie pin inset with tiny sapphires. He had the smooth, well-fed look of an affluent banker.

  “Buon giorno, signori,” he said, then went on in excellent Italian. “I am Olivier Delacourt, the assistant manager.”

  We shook hands. His palm was soft and fleshy.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said. “Did you have a good journey?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Guastafeste replied, his voice much quieter than usual. In the refined atmosphere of the shop, it seemed almost rude to speak above a whisper.

  “Monsieur Jahinny is expecting you. Please, this way.”

  Delacourt opened a door at the back of the room and led us through into a vestibule, which had several other doors leading off it. One of those doors opened and a man and a woman emerged from a private consulting room. The man was dark-skinned, with the facial features of an Arab, though he was wearing We
stern dress. The woman was much younger, a blonde in a low-cut haute-couture dress for whom the phrase “dripping with jewels” might have been invented. She seemed to have diamonds on every available surface of her body—dangling from her ears, round her throat, on her fingers, and even round her ankles. Behind the couple came a second man in a three-piece suit like Delacourt’s—presumably another shop assistant, although that description could not possibly do justice to the young man’s appearance. He was tall and dark, with the smouldering good looks of an old-fashioned French movie star, the kind of actor you might have seen in newsreels from Cannes in the 1950s. He was carrying a stack of embossed leather cases, which I guessed must have contained more newly purchased additions to the blonde’s already-impressive collection.

  Delacourt spoke to the Arabic-looking man in French, his manner deferential to the point of servility, then stepped aside to let the group pass. We waited a moment, the blonde’s cloying perfume lingering in the air, then went through one of the other doors and up a flight of stairs to an office on the first floor.

  The office was large and spacious, furnished with expensive antiques—a huge leather-topped desk, mahogany chairs, an elaborate walnut chest of drawers with a marquetry front. The floor was covered in the same rich burgundy carpet as the showroom downstairs, and there were gilt-framed paintings on the walls, one a Cézanne, which I knew would be an original. Molyneux et Charbon was not the kind of firm that would have any truck with reproductions.

  Monsieur Auguste Jahinny, the general manager, was a small man in his fifties. He had greying hair, a silver moustache, and close-trimmed beard, and he was wearing the dark three-piece suit and watch chain that seemed to be the standard company uniform. Perched on the end of his nose was a pair of half-moon reading glasses.

  We went through the usual introductions and courtesies; then Monsieur Jahinny offered us coffee, speaking all the time in Italian.

  “We don’t want to put you to any trouble,” Guastafeste said.

  “It is no trouble,” Monsieur Jahinny replied.

  He spoke into an intercom on his desk, and a few minutes later a middle-aged woman entered with a tray of porcelain cups and a silver pot of coffee. She, too, was wearing the requisite dark suit—in her case, a jacket and skirt—but she had been spared the need for a waistcoat and watch chain. She put the tray down on the desk and left the room. Monsieur Jahinny consulted his fob watch, glancing at us anxiously, as if he feared he was being rude.

  “I am timing the coffee,” he explained. “A good-quality arabica needs at least three and a half minutes to brew, or the flavour is impaired.”

  “Of course,” Guastafeste said, nodding politely in agreement.

  “I am most particular about my coffee. I’m sure you are, too, being Italian. Now, while we wait, shall we get down to business? I was very sorry to hear of François Villeneuve’s death. And in such horrifying circumstances, too.”

  “You knew him?” Guastafeste asked.

  “A little. We had occasional business dealings, but no more than that.”

  Jahinny sniffed, and I thought I could detect a hint of distaste in his expression. That was understandable. Given Villeneuve’s suspect reputation, no jeweller with Jahinny’s sort of clientele would want to be associated with him.

  “ ‘Business dealings’?” Guastafeste said.

  “He would sometimes consult us on antique jewellery that came his way. He was most knowledgeable about paintings and furniture, but jewellery was not his strong point. I saw him only last week, as a matter of fact.”

  Monsieur Jahinny looked at us over his half-moon glasses.

  “Interestingly enough, he also wanted to look at the records of Henri le Bley Lavelle.”

  Guastafeste caught my eye, then turned back to Jahinny.

  “Is that right? Did he say why?”

  “He said he’d been offered an item that appeared to have been made by Le Bley Lavelle and he wanted to check its authenticity.”

  “Did he tell you what the item was?” Guastafeste asked.

  “No. And, of course, I didn’t ask. That would not have been discreet.”

  Vincenzo Serafin had said something very similar in his office, but I was more inclined to believe Monsieur Jahinny.

  “And was the item authentic?” Guastafeste said.

  “I don’t know that, either. François went down into the basement—where you will shortly be going—and examined the ledgers for a time, but that is all I can tell you, I’m afraid. I hope this item, whatever it is, has no relevance to his murder.”

  Guastafeste didn’t answer the question. He took a colour photograph from his jacket pocket and passed it across the desk to Jahinny.

  “François Villeneuve placed this gold box in his hotel safe in Cremona two days before he died. We’ve established from the hallmarks that Le Bley Lavelle made it in 1819. I believe this may have been the item that Monsieur Villeneuve wanted to look up in your records. When was he here?”

  “Last week, as I said. I think it was the Tuesday.”

  “Tuesday? That was two days before Villeneuve arrived in Cremona,” Guastafeste said. “Do you recognise the box?”

  Jahinny studied the photograph.

  “That is hard to tell from a photo. I have certainly seen boxes like this before. Le Bley Lavelle made a lot of gold boxes. How big is it?”

  Guastafeste demonstrated with his hands.

  “It has an interesting lock on it,” he said. “A four-dial combination lock using letters rather than numbers.”

  “Letters?”

  “Is that unusual?”

  “The lock, no. Le Bley Lavelle put combination locks on many of his boxes. They were invariably used for storing jewellery or other valuable items. A good lock would have been essential. Number combinations are the most common, but I have seen letter combinations before.”

  “But not this particular box?”

  “No. The ones I’ve seen were smaller than the one you describe.”

  “You say they were used for storing jewellery?”

  “Generally, yes. They were often made with a partitioned interior for separating the contents—rings, necklaces, brooches, and so on.”

  “What about violins?”

  “Violins?” Jahinny stared at Guastafeste.

  “Did he ever make boxes for violins?”

  “A violin would be far too big for a box like this.”

  “A small violin.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “You’ve looked at Le Bley Lavelle’s records yourself?”

  “Not in detail, no. I’ve consulted them occasionally, but not for several years. François Villeneuve was the first person to check the archives in a very long time.”

  Jahinny glanced at his watch again. The aroma of coffee was getting stronger, tantalising my senses. I had eaten and drunk nothing since breakfast, except for a plastic beaker of a liquid on the aeroplane—which, whatever the airline chose to call it, was certainly not coffee. I was longing for a cup of the real stuff now, but Jahinny was in no hurry to serve it. At least three and a half minutes, he’d said, and he struck me as a man who would not risk going a second too soon.

  “Perhaps you could tell us a little about Henri le Bley Lavelle?” Guastafeste said.

  “Yes, of course,” Jahinny replied. “He was one of the finest French goldsmiths of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries—which is to say, he was one of the finest in the world. Paris then was the centre of the international jewellery business, the home of the greatest, most renowned jewellers.” He paused to allow himself a modest smile. “Plus ça change . . . He had a workshop not far from here, in the rue Saint-Honoré, and worked to commission for most of Europe’s aristocracy, including a number of crowned heads.”

  “We believe this box was made for Napoléon’s sister Elisa Baciocchi,” Guastafeste said.

  “That wouldn’t surprise me. He made jewellery for all the Bonaparte family—Prin
cess Caroline, Princess Pauline, the Empress Josephine. He was a master craftsman whose work was highly prized—and highly priced, too. You say this box is hallmarked 1819? He would have been at his peak about then. Those two decades, from about 1810 to 1830, produced his best work. After 1830, he went into decline. When he died, in 1838, his business was taken over by two other goldsmiths, Molyneux and Charbon, whose names still adorn the firm to this day.”

  Jahinny made a final check on the gold watch in his fob pocket and leaned forward towards the silver coffeepot.

  “Let us drink our coffee now,” he said. “Then I will ask Monsieur Delacourt to show you the archives.”

  The basement of the Molyneux et Charbon premises was a complete contrast to the rest of the building. There was no carpet on the floor, just bare stone flags, and the lighting was supplied by a couple of unshaded sixty-watt bulbs dangling from cables that were wreathed in cobwebs. Instead of the heady scent of Chanel and money, there was an unpleasant smell of damp mixed with a sharper, more noxious odour that seemed to be seeping up from the sewers.

  “I’m afraid this isn’t a very salubrious place,” Olivier Delacourt said apologetically. “We rarely come down here, as you can see.”

  “How do we find the records for 1819?” Guastafeste asked.

  “I’ll show you.”

  Delacourt moved off into the stacks of shelves that ran the full length of the basement, each shelf laden with leather-bound ledgers and dusty cardboard boxes.

  “There’s no real filing system,” Delacourt said. “No one has ever cata logued every item that’s down here; it would be a simply enormous task. The records are arranged in a rough chronological order, but I couldn’t guarantee that what you’re looking for is here.”

  “Monsieur Jahinny said that François Villeneuve came in last week. Do you know what he looked at?”

  “I’m sorry, no. I brought him down and left him. I will have to leave you, too, if that’s all right. I have clients to see.”

  “Yes, thank you for your help.”

  We waited until Delacourt had gone, then turned to the shelves. There must have been hundreds of volumes to go through.