by Thomas Swan
“My grandfather had peculiar notions about his possessions,” Llewellyn said defensively.
“My point exactly. There are people who would secretly spend a fortune for an important painting then never share it with another soul.”
“Are you suggesting that if I attract Vulcan, he’ll attempt to steal my painting?”
“I’m suggesting that given that opportunity, Vulcan will attempt to take your painting because, quite simply, it is immensely valuable. This assumes, of course, that Vulcan and whoever he’s in cahoots with have been planning to steal a portrait to sell to a buyer who has agreed in advance to a very high price.”
Llewellyn twisted uncomfortably in his chair. “I’m not sure I like this.” He stood and went to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk and wrote “lightning rod” on the board. He turned and faced Oxby. “Tell me more.”
Oxby smiled reassuringly. “You’ve listened very patiently, and for that I thank you. Perhaps you don’t want to become deeply involved in unraveling our mystery, and if that’s so, I would understand. But I suspect you recognize the immense importance of finding Vulcan before more lives are lost and more paintings destroyed. Is that a fair assumption?”
Llewellyn nodded.
“Good.” Oxby tapped out several numbers on a phone and said into it, “We’re ready.” Then he rolled the blackboard away from the wall and stood beside it, looking for the moment like a schoolteacher. “I want you to announce through the public information office of the Metropolitan Museum that you will personally assume responsibility for the delivery of your painting to the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Llewellyn asked.
“Because under usual circumstances, your painting will be packed and shipped by the Metropolitan staff and will disappear for several weeks then, on schedule, appear at the Musée Granet. During that time neither you nor Vulcan would know where the painting was. But for you to be a lightning rod, you and your painting must travel together.”
Oxby flipped over the blackboard to reveal a map of France. “I suggest that you fly to Paris, stay overnight at the Hôtel Meurice and on the next afternoon appear as featured speaker at a symposium sponsored by the Societé des Artistes in the Musée d’Orsay. You will speak, of course, on Paul Cézanne and his impact on the Post-Impressionists. As scholarly a talk as you wish. Most important, you will present your portrait, its first public showing at an occasion that will attract worldwide attention. On the morning of the third day you will travel by high-speed train to Lyon, and that evening you will present your painting at a special exhibition in St. Peter’s Fine Arts Museum.”
Oxby put a pointer on Lyon and traced autoroute A7 south. The highway crisscrossed the Rhône River for 136 miles until Avignon, where the river and road divided. Oxby tapped the pointer on the orange circle that surrounded Avignon. “On the fourth day you will travel to Avignon and stay at the Hôtel l’Europe for three days. I have made tentative arrangements for you to participate in a local arts festival on Monday the fifteenth.” Oxby sat on the edge of the table, his arms folded across his chest. “You will have become a celebrity in a very short period of time, and the person most interested in your trip south from Paris will be Vulcan. He will be watching you closely and I suspect will be in the audience when you make your presentations. He will be there not to hear your comments on Cézanne but to see how well protected you are and who’s doing the protecting.”
“I’d like an answer to that one now.”
“In Paris you will be well protected by police, the security force in the Musée d’Orsay, by two from my staff, and by me.”
Llewellyn nodded and leaned foreward, his elbows on the table. “After Paris?”
“In Lyon, I will arrange for the local police to accompany you in public, and I will have a private force in place in the hotel at all other times.”
“In Avignon?”
“The same. It’s a small city, there won’t be large crowds of tourists this time of year. It’s unlikely that Vulcan will try anything in Paris or Lyon. He will assume that you are well guarded, but after several days we’ll let our guard down—so to speak. If he conceives a plan to take the painting, he will do it in Avignon, and in my judgment, he’ll try to do it on Tuesday, January 16, the day following your last presentation.”
“Would you call that his ‘window of opportunity’?” Llewellyn asked dryly.
Oxby nodded. “I shall take responsibility for your safety, and you’ll be guarded extremely well, but understand that it’s a balancing act we’ve got to work out, and the trick is not to allow any of the security to be obvious.”
Oxby faced Llewellyn squarely. “There will be a risk.”
“How much?”
“That will depend on Vulcan. I can’t honestly answer.”
There was a rap on the door. Nigel Jones came into the room carrying a large, flat carton, which he placed on the floor against the wall.
“Good show, Jonesy, just in time,” Oxby said, then introduced the two men. “I promise that Jonesy will clear up some of the mystery I’ve just created.”
Llewellyn clasped Jones’s hand firmly and said good-naturedly, “I have an old-fashioned fear of being struck by lightning, and I’m dead set against showing off my painting as if it were a charcoal sketch whipped up by a sidewalk artist in Montmartre.”
Oxby said, “Show Mr. Llewellyn what you brought with you.”
What Jones had brought was a painting, which he placed on an easel and pulled in front of Llewellyn. “Do you recognize it?”
Llewellyn stared in amazement at the painting of a woman bent forward, her strong, peasant’s hands curled around a string of beads. “Cézanne’s Old Woman with a Rosary from your National Gallery. What are you doing with it?”
“I’ll explain,” Jones replied, “but first I want you to tell me if you notice anything unusual about the painting.”
Llewellyn looked intently at the painting for a full minute. “It’s very powerful. Her eyes stare down to her hands, yet I feel that she is looking out at me . . . that she will speak after she has said her final amen.”
“Examine it more closely.”
Llewellyn edged forward in his chair. “The shadowed areas have an eerie denseness, a greater depth than I remember.”
“Closer,” Jones urged. “Touch it if you wish.”
“I don’t approve of touching a canvas.”
“Quite correct, but you may touch this one.”
Llewellyn timidly ran his fingers over the old woman’s hands. “What is it?”
“A photograph,” Jones replied. “One made by a process incorporating conventional and Polaroid films. A painting this size can be reproduced with cameras and enlargers fitted with fine lenses, and larger paintings are reproduced with a camera so big that two men work inside the camera’s bellows. Colors are matched to the original by means of a computer with an accuracy exceeding 99 percent. Then finally the texture of the paint is applied. It’s a very proprietary and secret process,” Jones said.
“I’ll be rolling south like a Hollywood advance man with a photograph?”
Oxby nodded. “Making news, attracting attention. Particularly Vulcan’s.”
“Suppose we succeed, but Vulcan gets past your security ring and we have a face-to-face?”
“In the unlikely event that happens, you’ll be able to signal us, and you’ll have a gun if you wish. Have you ever used one?”
“I hunted occasionally, but I haven’t held a revolver in ten years.”
“Are you afraid of handling one?” Oxby asked.
Llewellyn shook his head. “I could use some practice.”
“We’ll do better than that. You can choose your own gun then spend a day with one of our instructors.”
“You sound as if I’m going along with your scheme.”
Oxby gave a confident smile. “You’re asking all the right questions.”
“I have more. What hap
pens to my painting, the real one?”
“With your permission, Alex Tobias will deliver it to Aix-en-Provence. His wife will travel with him, but even she won’t know that Alex has the painting with him.”
“Who makes the copy, or is that another secret?”
“I’ll coordinate that job,” Jones answered. “I’ll take the original photographs, but the final product will be in the hands of technicians in Cambridge, Massachusetts.”
“Jonesy will deliver the copy to your home and help install it in the frame that now holds the original,” Oxby said.
“When do you plan to take the photograph?” Llewellyn asked.
“As soon as you return to New York,” Jones said.
“Stay with me if you like,” Llewellyn said. “I’ll be in Paris this weekend, and on Sunday I drive to Fontainebleau for a meeting of the museum security managers. I leave for New York next Wednesday.”
Oxby said, “I hoped you were going. I plan to attend.”
“Aren’t the Fontainebleau forests off your beat?”
“Not in our business.”
Jones said, “That means I can shoot on Friday.”
Llewellyn gave Jones one of his cards. “Call me from the airport, I’ll have you picked up.”
Oxby looked over at Jones. “You owe me a final lab report.”
“I’ll have it for you day after tomorrow. Won’t be much new in it, we’re still fine-tuning the formula for the solvent.”
Oxby reacted somberly. “Keep at it Jonesy. We’re due for a little luck.”
Chapter 32
Peder Aukrust ’s station wagon was a hundred yards from Frédéric Weisbord’s house in a spot carefully chosen to provide a clear view of the property, including LeToque’s silver Porsche parked immediately behind the house. Not quite a week had passed since he had been overwhelmed by LeToque and his gang. His right hand was still stiff, the cuts in the palm not completely healed. Worse was the infection that had developed on the right side of his face and ear. It was, in fact, so serious that on Thursday morning he had gone to the hospital clinic in Vallauris, where a young doctor meticulously cleaned his wounds and closed the cuts with twenty-eight multiple fine sutures. He was into the third day of his vigil and had not yet found a way to break through the protective shield and retrieve the painting.
Aukrust was never certain who was in the house—Weisbord, LeToque, the girlfriend, or the housekeeper. He had actually seen Weisbord go off for three hours the previous Friday afternoon, or the housekeeper had popped in and out doing her chores or as happened on Sunday had walked in the direction of neighborhood church bells. But the others? Had LeToque recruited someone like Cat to shore up the defenses?
It was also on that Sunday afternoon that Aukrust had moved the car to a spot beneath the wide spread of a huge beech tree. The weather had changed, from clear and warm to clouds and a cold wind that made waiting seem endlessly uncomfortable. He had replayed over and over the telephone conversation he had had with Astrid, amused to learn that the police called him Vulcan. Had they known, they might have called him Heimdall, the Norse god of fire. From Astrid he had also learned that an Inspector Oxby was on the case, that he was a short man who asked many questions, and that he and Llewellyn would attend a meeting near Fontainebleau whose purpose was to approve a security plan for the special exhibition of Cézanne’s paintings. Once, Aukrust dozed off and imagined that Margueritte DeVilleurs was walking toward him and had stopped at his car. She smiled at him, but when he opened the door for her, she disappeared.
On this Monday afternoon, ten minutes past five o’clock, the Porsche moved slowly down the driveway. Aukrust aimed his binoculars at the driver. It was the girl, alone. She turned right onto the street, and he followed her for a mile to a neighborhood shopping plaza. Aukrust trailed then parked two spaces away from the Porsche and watched the girl go skittering into one of the markets then reappear several minutes later carrying a plastic grocery sack and a newspaper, hurrying still. As she bent to put the key in the lock, Aukrust appeared beside her.
“Let me help,” he said.
“Non, monsieur,” she said abruptly, “Non, merci!”
Aukrust’s gloved hand grasped her wrist, and his other hand took the keys away. It happened in an instant.
“Don’t be frightened,” he said calmly. “Let me open the door.” He turned so that she could see his face.
“You can’t—”
She stopped in mid-sentence, staring at the long-bladed knife he held a few inches from her throat. “Say nothing.” He growled the words, then ordered her to slide across to the passenger seat. He got in behind the wheel.
She began to cry. “Put the knife away. Please.” The words were barely audible.
He placed it on top of the dashboard in front of him. “I’ll put it here. Where we both can see it.”
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I want you to make a phone call to LeToque.”
She was silent, the color drained from her face.
“Did you go with LeToque and Weisbord to Geneva?”
Again she was silent.
“Did you?” he asked with more urgency.
More silence then she nodded.
“And did Monsieur Weisbord have a painting with him?”
She nodded again.
“Did he bring the painting back to his house?”
She seemed about to answer but turned her eyes away.
“Did he bring the painting back?” Aukrust wanted an answer, an accurate answer, but realized that his threats were frightening her. Then as if he truly cared he asked, “What is your name?”
She brought her gaze back to him. “Gaby, short for Gaboriao,” she answered.
“Does your family live in Nice?”
“My mother.”
“You live with LeToque?”
“Is that your business?”
“LeToque is my business. Monsieur Weisbord paid him to do this.” He held up his hand and pointed to the bandages that covered his ear. Now Weisbord is paying him for protection, but he’s not paying enough.”
“Five thousand francs a day,” Gaby said defiantly.
“The painting he is protecting is worth a hundred million francs.”
“It’s a stupid little picture of a man with a black beard.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“I fell asleep against it in the car.”
“Then Weisbord did return it to his home?”
“He put it on the wall over his bed.” She looked at him, “I think he puts it in his bed at night.”
Aukrust familiarized himself with the cockpit of LeToque’s Porsche, then started the engine, backed out of the parking space, and turned in the direction of Saint Étienne and a small residential hotel they had passed on the way to the shopping plaza. There was a phone booth off the lobby. He located Frédéric Weisbord in the directory, wrote down the number, then gave Gaby precise instructions for her conversation with LeToque. Gaby dialed the number and when Idi answered, she asked for LeToque.
“I’m with Monsieur Aukrust . . . he has called the police . . . because Weisbord lied to you . . . it’s true he has lied! . . . he can’t sell the painting . . . the police will be there very soon ... meet me at the Hôtel Gounod . . . Monsieur Aukrust said you must come there . . . you must tell Weisbord I’ve had an accident with the car . . . that you must drive his car . . . you will be away for only a short time . . . I will meet you at the hotel. . . . ”
Her last words to LeToque were spoken as if she were reading a script and reading it badly. She replaced the receiver. “I don’t know if he will go to the hotel,” she said.
Aukrust stared down at her. “He will go.”
She shook her head. “He wanted to know why. You didn’t tell me, and I couldn’t tell him.”
Gaby was trapped in the small booth. The air was hot and heavy with their perspiration and her cheap perfume. He pocketed the knife, then took her arm and backed out
of the booth. In the lobby he told her to wait while he talked to a woman behind the desk then returned and said, “A taxi will be here shortly. It will take you to the Hôtel Gounod.” He put money into her hand.
“But you said I could drive to the hotel.”
“I’ve changed my mind.” He moved toward the door.
“But LeToque’s car—what will I tell him?”
“You just told him you had an accident.”
“The Hôtel Gounod,” he reminded her. He drove the Porsche back to the shopping plaza, parked it in an unlighted area, then went to his own car.
It was nearing 7:45 and dark. There were lights in every room in Weisbord’s house, including bright lights on either side of the front door. The garage was open but Weisbord’s car was not in it. LeToque would be nearing the center of Nice. Aukrust parked his car at the foot of the driveway.
Voices came from somewhere along the street, a car door slammed closed, and the car was driven away. At the back of the house was a flight of wooden steps that went up to an open porch that ran the full width of the house. There were eight steps, and he went up half of them until he could see the windows in each of the three rooms along the rear of the house: the kitchen to his right, in the middle a dining room, to the left Weisbord’s study. Aukrust’s view into the latter room was partially blocked by curtains.
The housekeeper carried a tray of dishes into the kitchen and turned up the volume on an old black-and-white television. Flickering bluish images reflected off shining kitchen surfaces and her implacable face. He climbed the remaining steps onto the porch then went across the porch to the single large window in the study. The lawyer was at his desk, papers spread in front of him, lights shining from table and floor lamps. From where Aukrust stood, he could clearly see that Weisbord was underscoring the text of a letter or a contract. Smoke rose up from an ever-present cigarette teetering on the edge of a huge ashtray.
Suddenly Weisbord swiveled his chair and got to his feet. “Idi!” he shouted. “Idi, damnit, come here!” His shouting gave way to a fit of coughing, and he managed to shout the name once more before he fell back into his chair.
