by SL Beaumont
“I’m fine,” Stephanie insisted. “Now, James, tell us what you have found out. Do you know what’s in Epernay?”
James finally smiled. “Not entirely, but I have a hunch.”
Chapter 31
Evening, Tuesday 3rd January
“It’s to do with a guy named Hoffman,” James said.
“What, the Hoffman who was curator of the Berlin Gallery, your grandfather’s friend before the war?” Stephanie asked.
James nodded. “Michael and I had a good talk with Grandpa this morning. He’s been quite lucid for long periods over the last few days. We asked him about the tin that he hid using the treasure map and although he had no recollection of where he hid it, he knew why he had hidden it.” He paused and took a sip of coffee. “Apparently, Hoffman realised his days were numbered in Germany, so Grandpa helped him escape. When Hoffman left on a merchant ship bound for Canada he entrusted Grandpa with his greatest secret.”
Stephanie sat forward on the sofa. “Which was?”
“The whereabouts of a cache of priceless art treasures that he had been unable to get out of Europe. Apparently he had witnessed the Berlin fire brigade setting fire to countless pieces of art considered degenerate by the Nazi regime and he was terrified that many cultural treasures were going to be lost forever. So he started hiding what he could. The numbers and letters from the piece of paper in the tin are the map co-ordinates for the location of his cache. From what Michael has deduced, it is somewhere outside of the town of Epernay in France.”
“Hang on—let me get this straight. There is a hoard of missing art hidden somewhere in France and your grandfather never searched for it himself?” Max shook his head in disbelief.
“Well, no. He thought that it was liberated at the end of the war by the Allies,” James said.
“That makes sense,” Max agreed. “So Alex is hunting for ghosts.”
“Perhaps,” James agreed. “But Michael did a background search on Karl Hoffman. He obtained his postgraduate art history qualification at a university in Switzerland in the 1920s. In the university’s centennial publication a few years back, there’s a photo of Hoffman sitting with his arm around a young French woman by the name of Claudette Mouchan.” James paused. “Claudette Mouchan was from Epernay.”
“Oh?” Stephanie said. “That can’t be a coincidence.”
“But even if he hid the art work with her, I agree with your grandfather, it would have been liberated at the end of the war,” Max said.
James shrugged. “Claudette and her husband Pierre were members of the Resistance and were both shot by the Nazis in 1941. So, in theory the only three people who knew where the art was hidden died long before the end of the war,” he said.
“It’s a long shot,” Max said. “I suspect that we have just sent Alex on a wild goose chase.” He laughed. “Good job, too. Vince, let Marks know that we have come up empty-handed. Alex will have skipped town by now. Although tell Marks that he may want someone on the lookout in Epernay in case Alex works out the co-ordinates. And find out what happened to his local police support?” Max stood and walked towards the kitchen.
James opened his mouth to say something else and closed it again.
Stephanie tilted her head to one side and frowned at him. “What?”
“I’m going to check out Epernay. I have a few days before we’re due to play again. Claudette and Pierre’s descendants still own a small vineyard outside of Epernay. It’s worth a visit,” he said.
“But where could he have possibly hidden paintings and things that haven’t been found in the past sixty odd years?” Stephanie asked.
“Epernay is built on chalk rock. There are hundreds of kilometres of caves under the town and surrounding area. They are mainly used as cellars by the big champagne houses, such as Moet and Mercier, but even the smaller vineyards have their own cellars in the caves.”
Stephanie’s face broke into a smile. “I see where you are going with this. If the paintings were well hidden and the only people who knew of their existence are dead, then they could still be there.”
Chapter 32
Afternoon, Wednesday 4th January
Stephanie and James hired a car at Reims airport and drove for twenty minutes to Epernay through the rolling countryside and past rows upon rows of vines, following the contours of the landscape like lines of soldiers on parade. Many of the vineyards planted a single rose bush at the end of each row which would add a welcome splash of colour in summer. But being winter the vines and rose bushes were bare, looking like nothing more than twigs. Stephanie made a mental note to visit again during the summer or autumn before the harvest, when the vines would be a lush green and the roses in bloom. Despite the low temperature, the sky was clear. They drove along the aptly named Avenue de Champagne. James had programmed the GPS with the address of the Mouchan family vineyard.
The sign announcing the vineyard said Fermé, Closed, but James turned the car into the driveway regardless. They bumped and wound their way between two large fields of vines, up towards a farmhouse and several other buildings. A young man was bent over tending the vines near the house. James eased the car to a stop and wound down his window. “Bonjour.”
The man put down the ties he was holding and came over to the car, removing the beanie from his head and running his hand through his short black hair. “Bonjour.”
“Are you Claudette’s great-grandson?” James asked, his French a little rusty.
“Oui,” he nodded.
James and Stephanie got out of the car and introduced themselves. “Je m’appelle James Knox et elle s’appelle Stephanie Cooper.” James shook Claudette’s great grandson’s calloused hand. He was tall and lean and not much older than James.
“Hi, I’m Jean-Pierre,” he replied in heavily accented English. “James Knox?” He studied James. “You play guitar in that English band?”
Stephanie rolled her eyes. James grinned.
“Great to meet you. What can I do for you? Unfortunately, we are closed for tastings this time of year,” Jean-Pierre replied. “But I am sure that I can arrange something.”
“This may sound strange, but we’d like to talk to you about your great-grandmother Claudette,” Stephanie said. She had joined James on the driver’s side of the car and now leaned against the bonnet.
“No, not strange—she and my great-grandfather are famous around here as martyrs of the Resistance. We have historians and journalists dropping by from time to time. Would you like to come in for coffee?” he offered, noticing Stephanie shivering. It was much colder in northern France than it had been in Barcelona and she had not dressed appropriately.
“That would be great, if it’s no trouble,” Stephanie replied.
“It would be my pleasure.” He held out his arm to Stephanie. “Just bring your car up in front of the house, James,” he said as he led Stephanie towards the farmhouse.
James scowled slightly, watching Stephanie walk ahead, arm in arm with the Frenchman.
“This area is beautiful. It reminds of the vineyards in New Zealand,” Stephanie commented as they walked.
“You are from Nouvelle Zelande? The All Blacks played here a couple of months ago,” Jean-Pierre said.
“Yes—although I don’t really follow rugby,” she replied, stepping across the threshold of the single level stone farmhouse. She pulled her sunglasses off and placed them in her hair. Jean-Pierre registered her black eye and winced. “Ouch,” he said.
Stephanie self-consciously touched a hand to her eye. “Yeah—long story,” she said.
James joined them a moment later and they followed Jean-Pierre into an enormous kitchen fitted with white cabinetry and stone bench tops. Nestled into what used to be a massive fireplace was a restaurant sized stove and oven. The kitchen looked lived in and contained every modern appliance.
“So what would you like to know about Claudette? Anything that I can’t answer, my grandfather who lives in a cottage on the property will be abl
e to,” Jean-Pierre said, as he loaded coffee beans into the espresso machine. Stephanie smiled, Andy would be impressed.
“It’s not about the Resistance per se, but it is about events before World War II,” James began.
It took half an hour, with many interruptions and a second coffee, to explain.
“So let me make sure that I understand you correctly. You think this Hoffman stored a number of valuable paintings in our wine cellar?” Jean-Pierre asked.
Stephanie and James both nodded. “It’s possible. Do you store your wine in caves on the property?” James asked.
Jean-Pierre nodded. “Although, I have never seen any paintings, and I have been in and out of those caves every day of my life,” he said.
“We think that they will be well hidden,” James replied. “Could we take a look?”
“Sure,” he said with a shrug. “But I don’t think that you will find anything.”
They followed him out of the kitchen door and walked around to the back of the house. The ground was frozen solid with a layer of frost on top which crunched a little underfoot. There was a large open garage behind the house, with a variety of tractors and other farm equipment. To the left, was an industrial sized concrete building.
“That’s where our vats and bottling plant is situated,” Jean-Pierre explained. “We send most of our grapes to the co-op, but we still produce around two thousand bottles each year.”
About three hundred metres behind the house, a hill rose gently. They walked towards it. A large semi-circular opening had been cut into the hillside. They followed Jean-Pierre down the gently sloping path and stepped into the darkness. He flicked a switch at one side of the entrance and the cave was illuminated with soft light from naked bulbs strung across the low curving roof. Pillars of brick supported the natural roofline at intervals. Jean-Pierre led them past row upon row of wooden wine barrels, all lying on their sides, and past rack upon rack of wine bottles, each section labelled in chalk, with a different year. Further on, bottles of champagne were placed neck first into sandwich board type racks running down one side of the cave. The curvature of the cave reminded Stephanie of the ceiling at the Casa Mila in Barcelona. She shivered involuntarily as the cold, damp, musty smell of the cave brought memories rushing back of being imprisoned in the cellars beneath Knox Manor. James slipped an arm around her waist. She took a deep, steadying breath.
Stephanie focused her attention on her surroundings. The cave was no more than six and half feet in height, lower in some places, as Jean-Pierre and James both had to stoop slightly as they neared the side walls. The ceiling and walls were the uneven shape of natural rock. There appeared to be nowhere to hide anything, especially large paintings. Stephanie felt a sinking feeling of disappointment. She was so sure that the evidence pointed to the Mouchan vineyard. As they came to the rear of the cave, her spirits rose again, for the cave veered off to the left and sloped down and wound its way deeper into the hillside.
“In the old days, before the large champagne houses took over, we produced and bottled all of our own wine and these cellars would be full. However, now it’s just the front bit that you have seen that we really use. This back section is mainly for storage or if we have a bumper harvest,” Jean-Pierre explained.
He reached up and unhooked a torch from a beam and passed it to James. “It goes back quite a way and the floor is uneven, so watch your step,” he said. “I will just grab another torch and join you.”
They carefully stepped their way deeper into the cave. Stacks of empty crates and wine barrels lined one wall. James shone the torch between the crates, but they could see nothing unusual. The passage narrowed until they had to walk single file. Every few metres there were alcoves cut into the wall, some deeper than others, some contained specially made wine racks, which held around five hundred bottles each, other alcoves were empty.
“Must have been something in its day, all of this filled with bottles and barrels,” Stephanie commented.
“Yeah, it would have been a good hiding spot,” James agreed.
“I don’t think we are going to find anything,” Stephanie said.
“Sadly, I think you are right,” James replied.
The cave turned a slight corner, widened again then abruptly ended. James ran his torch along the wall.
“That’s as far as it goes,” Jean-Pierre said. “I really don’t think there is anything hidden here that we wouldn’t have found over the years.”
“I agree,” said James as he turned to walk back through the cellar. “It would have made a good story, though.”
Stephanie pulled off her gloves and bent down to retie her bootlace. A cold rush of air hit her fingers. She frowned and standing again moved closer to the wall. She reached out with her hand, no air movement. She bent down again. There was definitely a rush of cold air coming from behind the wall at ground level.
“Jean-Pierre, is there anything behind this wall?” she asked.
“No, just the hill. That’s as far as the cave goes,” he said.
Stephanie crouched down and examined the area where she had felt the breeze. There was a small pile of rubble, where part of the wall had crumbled away. “James, can I have the torch for a minute?”
He crouched beside her. “What is it, Steph?”
She took the torch from his hand and gave the crumbled area a tap with the base of the torch. More chalky rock crumbled away. She kept tapping and felt the cold air getting stronger.
“There’s definitely something behind this, otherwise, where is this cold air coming from?” she said, taking James’s hand and holding it in front of the wall.
A further tap, and a small section of the wall crumbled inwards. Stephanie shone the torch into the tiny hole—there was open space behind it.
“Let me see,” Jean-Pierre said. He picked up some of the crumbled rock and rubbed it between his fingers. “This is not natural, this is, what do you call it? Mortar?” he said.
“Mortar?”
“Yes, we mix it up to repair and strengthen the walls from time to time,” he said, standing up and running his hand over the wall. Using the end of his torch he chipped away, knocking loose more stone. Underneath the outline of rough bricks appeared. He looked at them in astonishment. “This isn’t a natural end to the cave, this has been bricked up,” he exclaimed.
“Can we knock through a hole and take a look?” James asked.
“Sure. I will get some tools,” Jean-Pierre ran back through the cellar and returned a couple of minutes later with a pickaxe and a hammer.
They took turns at widening the tiny hole that Stephanie had made. It was dusty and slow work. The mortar flaked away easily, but the bricks were solid. Jean-Pierre took several low swings with the pickaxe and piece by piece the hole widened. Stephanie got down on her hands and knees and shone her torch through the opening.
“There is definitely an open space behind here, but I can’t see if it’s empty or not,” she said.
It took another half an hour of chipping away at the mortar and brick before a space big enough to crawl through was made. They all crouched around it.
“I’ll go,” James offered.
“It really should be me, since I am the smallest,” Stephanie said.
James put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay,” he said. He had already taken off his jacket and now he unzipped his hoodie and tossed it to one side. Sliding the torch through the opening, he lowered onto his front and began pulling himself through the hole with his hands. Stephanie and Jean-Pierre watched as his torso, followed by his hips, and finally his legs, disappeared.
“This is unbelievable,” Jean-Pierre whispered.
“I know, right?” Stephanie agreed. “See anything?” she called through the hole to James.
“You are not going to freaking believe this.” James voice was muffled.
A loud ringing noise made Stephanie jump. “What’s that?” she asked Jean-Pierre in alarm.
He sighed. “It�
��s a bell to tell us that someone has driven up the drive—obviously ignored the closed sign. I am the only one here today, so I had better go and see what they want. I’ll be back in a moment.” He took off at a jog.
“Should I crawl in too?” Stephanie called to James.
“Yeah, come on—you have to see this,” he replied.
Stephanie removed her jacket and scarf and got down on her knees and forearms and began to edge her way into the space behind the wall, using her elbows to propel her forward. James reached out and helped her to her feet once she was clear of the wall.
She looked around in astonishment. The space behind the wall was another little alcove, slightly larger in size than the ones that they had searched earlier, except this one had shelving along one wall. A section of the roof had caved in on the opposite wall, letting in a small shaft of light.
“That explains the breeze that I could feel,” Stephanie said. “What’s on the shelves?”
“Look,” James replied.
On the lower shelf were three wooden boxes. Inside each, resting in some kind of material, was a terracotta statue. Stephanie reached out to touch them. They were intricately carved and felt cold and smooth. A heavy canvas covering a large rectangle shape at the end of the shelving caught her eye. She grabbed James’s torch and redirected its beam.
“Here, help me unwrap this?” she said. Together, they carefully lifted the large sheet. It tore in several places, revealing a stack of three large canvases. “Oh my God, James.” They carefully removed a cloth from in front of the first painting. It was brightly coloured in red, blue and gold and appeared to be of people dancing. Stephanie crouched down and read the signature, Emil Nolde. She glanced up at James, who shook his head. He wasn’t familiar with the name. The second painting was unnamed, but was a beautiful landscape watercolour. Carefully they leaned the first two paintings forward to look at the third one.
“No way. This can’t be,” Stephanie said, shaking her head in disbelief.
