Loot

by Aaron Elkins

  Anyhow, I was plodding away early one afternoon when I heard the mouselike scratchings of the fax machine across the room. As always when working on Hoogstraten, I was easy to distract, but you have to let these bossy machines know who's in charge, so I ignored it and took my own good time finishing up a paragraph while a sheet of paper stuttered its way out of the machine, flopped into the tray, and lay waiting.

  It was a formal letter, not a fax form, with a letterhead consisting of a crest with a two-headed eagle and the words Albrecht, Graf Stetten, in Gothic lettering. No address.

  Graf. Count. How about that, first the Count of Torrijos and now the Count of Stetten. Suddenly, I was up to my eyeballs in counts. I settled back into my chair to read it.

  My Dear Dr. Revere:

  I have read with great interest the news accounts of the Velazquez portrait that has recently come to light in Boston. I was particularly interested in the role you played in identifying it and in your knowledgeable references to the lost truck from Altaussee.

  It is my belief that this painting, like the others on that truck, was confiscated from my family's Paris residence by German occupation forces in December, 1942. At that time they removed a total of seventy-three paintings, including major works by Giorgione, Hals, Poussin, Tintoretto, Goya, Watteau, and others, for which I have been searching without success since the end of the war. You can imagine my excitement upon reading about the Velazquez.

  More exciting still, yesterday I was contacted by a Czech art dealer who claims to have in his possession a second painting from my father's collection (in fact, the companion portrait to El Conde de Torrijos), which he has offered to me, assuming that satisfactory terms can be reached. I wonder, therefore, if you might be willing to assist me in a preliminary assessment of its authenticity? This would necessarily involve a brief visit to the Continent. Naturally, I would expect to pay all costs, as well as a reasonable fee for your assistance.

  You may reach me by telephone or fax at my Salzburg residence: 43-662-84-85-71. I do hope this matter interests you.

  Yours sincerely,

  Albrecht von Stetten

  You bet the matter interested me; how could it not? I'd put in years of research on the theft of art in the Second World War; how could I pass up the chance to actually play a part in its recovery? Even if I'd never known Simeon Pawlovsky I'd have jumped at the chance.

  But of course I had known Simeon, and it was Simeon that was at the front of my mind now. It could hardly be a coincidence that not even three weeks after Simeon was bludgeoned to death over a painting from the Lost Truck, up pops another one—the only two, aside from the Turner in the Hermitage—to show up in half-a-century. Surely, surely there was a connection between them. By taking Stetten up on his offer I could work on finding a link to Simeon's murder from two opposite directions—forward from the past by means of the trip to St. Petersburg, and backward from the present by helping Stetten with his painting. Neither one of them the most direct route to finding a murderer, perhaps, but despite Cox's reservations I was as sure as ever that the Velazquez in Simeon's safe was at the heart of what had happened to him. That had been the one thing on which that Alex Porter and I had been in agreement.

  I read the letter again while going to the kitchen to touch up my coffee. "The companion portrait"—that rang a bell. Hadn't the catalogue raisonné made some reference to El Conde de Torrijos' having been painted as one of a pair? I'd have to go back to the library if I wanted to see the catalogue, but at least I had the MFA&A report right there in my desk. It took me only a second to open a desk drawer, find my neatly labeled Velazquez file—I might not be the most focused person in the world, but I'm organized—and pull out my copy of the MFA&A report on the Lost Truck. I turned quickly to the inventory.

  And there it was, right below The Count of Torrijos.

  F-8. Velazquez, The Countess of Torrijos. 93 cm. x 63 cm. No signature. La Conda de Torrijos inscribed at bottom. December 1942.

  A quick scan of the other entries showed that everything on the truck had indeed been acquired by the ERR in 1942. The total number of artworks, however, was 106, not the 73 that Stetten had mentioned, so there had been other people's paintings aboard too.

  I dialed an international line and called Stetten's number. The receiver was picked up on the fourth ring.

  "Guten Abend. Hier bei Graf Stetten." The voice was bossy, the tone gruff but proper. The butler? Well, why not? if counts couldn't have butlers, who could?

  "Guten Abend," I said. "Ich möchte ich mit Graf sprechen, bitte. Hier ist Benjamin Revere aus den Vereinigten Staaten."

  Don’t be too impressed. You can't very well be a curator of northern European painting without knowing some German, and I can understand the spoken and written language, even scientific German, fairly well, but my accent, so they tell me, is pretty atrocious. Some German-speakers have even said that they have trouble understanding it, but no doubt this was in jest.

  Fortunately for us both, Count Stetten's English was more than adequate: cultivated and only faintly accented with a pleasing, sophisticated Continental overlay. "Dr. Revere, is that really you? This is Albrecht von Stetten. How good of you to call so quickly! May I hope that my proposition appeals to you?"

  He had a thin, timid voice with a slight, pleasant hitch of hesitation in it. I pictured an elderly curate in a Victorian comedy, apple-cheeked, cheerful, innocent, and ever so slightly befuddled.

  "It certainly does," I said.

  "Excellent. You'll take the job then?"

  "Well, I do have some questions—"

  "Yes, of course you would. As to the matter of your fee—"

  "It's not that, it's just that I’m not sure you’re getting the right person. There are some top-notch authorities a lot closer to Salzburg than I am, and, you know, I'm not particularly known as a Velazquez expert."

  "Oh, I know that," he said, laughing. "You're known as a Hoogstraten expert, isn't that so?"

  That caught me by surprise because it told me that this was no spur-of-the-moment contact on his part. He'd taken the trouble to find out about me before getting in touch. On the one hand, I was flattered. On the other, who wants to be known as a Hoogstraten expert?

  "I understand that you're also something of an expert on Nazi plunder," he went on, "and that should be a good thing. But the most important thing is that you are the only recognized art authority who’s had the opportunity of examining the companion portrait in the last fifty years. In this case, I think such experience is invaluable, don’t you?"

  Yes, I did, come to think of it. I, alone in the art world as far as either of us knew, was in a position to compare the physical aspects of the two pictures—the colors, the amounts of fading or darkening, the backings (including the labels and markings), the canvases themselves, the overall condition of the works. When you're trying to judge the authenticity of a painting that was originally done as one of a pair, that's a lot of handy information.

  "Well, that's true," I said, happy to let him think he was arguing me into it. "Look, can you tell me a little more about what's going on? You said you'd been approached by a Czech dealer?"

  "Yes, that's right, a Mr. Zykmund Dulska. I've had him thoroughly looked into."

  In one day? I thought. Clearly, Count Stetten had some pretty good resources for looking into people.

  "The fellow seems to be a highly reputable dealer with an established business in decorative and fine arts in Prague. It seems he found the piece tucked away in a lot he bought at auction several years ago and only recently discovered its worth. Somehow, he learned that it had come from my family's collection and contacted me at once. He wants only to do the right thing, you see. All he's asking is a finder's fee."

  Talk about setting off an alarm bell. Not too many art dealers, established or otherwise, go into that shark-infested business because they are possessed of a desire to "do the right thing." And from what I've seen, "finder's fees" usually turn out to be no m
ore than a socially acceptable way of saying "ransom."

  The thing is, crooks can find it extremely difficult to unload high-profile stolen art (and any Velazquez is going to rank as high-profile) on the legitimate market. As a result, they are sometimes forced to go back to the original owner and offer him his property back . . . for a consideration.

  On the other hand, a finder's fee can also be nothing more than what a perfectly upstanding citizen asks as honest recompense for his time and effort in reconnecting a piece of art and its owner. I just can't think of any recent examples, that's all.

  "And how much does he want?" I asked.

  "How much does he want?" From the blank way he said it, I knew that this was the first time the subject had crossed his mind. "Well, I don't know, really. We didn't discuss it." He paused. "Is it likely to be much?"

  "I don't know. Several thousand dollars for sure, probably considerably more. A lot depends on how much he paid for the painting himself." Or rather, how much he claims he paid.

  "I see. Hmm. Well, as long as it's no more than . . . well, I'm sure I'll be able to manage it." But he sounded concerned, which wasn't really surprising. It'a been a long time since princely wealth and princely titles necessarily went together. He coughed gently. "Perhaps I'd better ask what your fee will be, Dr. Revere."

  "Generally, I charge a thousand dollars a day, but—"

  "No, please, I can certainly afford that. As long as it doesn't involve too many days, of course."

  "If it's a problem, I'm sure we can work something out."

  "My dear friend, I was only joking. I don't see why a day or two shouldn't do it, do you? So, are we in agreement? You'll take me on?"

  "I will, yes. Did you want me to fly to Prague, then?"

  "Oh, we won't be going to Prague. I don't tolerate the stresses of international travel very well these days—the humiliating debilities of age, I’m afraid. So Mr. Dulska has agreed to bring the picture to Vienna. We can meet him there."

  More alarm bells. "To Vienna? How does he expect to get it through Customs?"

  "Customs?" Apparently this was another subject it hadn’t occurred to him to give any thought to. "To tell you the truth, I don’t know. But that's what he's offered to do, so I suppose it's his problem, not ours, yes? Now, as to timing: would there be any possibility that you might come this week? I know it's very soon, but I can't begin to tell you how anxious—"

  "I can come." Hoogstraten had been waiting 300 years for his monograph. He could hold out a little longer.

  "On Friday? That is to say, perhaps you could fly to Vienna on Thursday so that we could meet with Mr. Dulska the following morning? I can book a room for you at the Imperial."

  Friday would work out fine. My Russian visa was good as of Saturday, the very next day, so if I allowed two days for Vienna to be on the safe side, I could fly from there to St. Petersburg on Sunday and meet Yuri on Monday. Perfect. The only thing that worried me a little was that, this being Tuesday, I would have only two days to get my Velazquez expertise up to snuff, but then we'd already agreed that Velazquez expertise wasn't the number-one priority at this stage. Later on, assuming it passed our initial inspection, the lab experts could have their go at it.

  "I'll be there," I said.

  "Ah, that's wonderful, thank you."

  "But you have to understand: all I can do is make a stab at saying whether or not it’s authentic. Even if it is, that won't prove that it’s really the same painting that was taken from your family’s collection. There’s no way I can help you there."

  "My friend, you let me worry about that."

  "Fine. And I assume you'll have some legal help with you?"

  "Legal help? Will I need a lawyer?"

  "I think it'd be a good idea. These things have a way of getting complicated in a hurry."

  He hesitated. "All right, I shall. Ah . . ." He cleared his throat. "As to Friday evening . . . do you happen to like opera?"

  Well, I do and I don’t. Verdi, Puccini, Donizetti, sure, I can float all night on those lush, lilting melodies. But five minutes of Wagner (let alone five hours) and I’m clawing at the arms of my chair. Still, it was obvious that the guy was dying to go and he wanted company. I took my chances and said yes.

  "Oh, that’s wonderful, wonderful," he said warmly. "They’re performing Rigoletto at the Staatsoper."

  (Whew.)

  "I haven’t been in years," he chattered happily on. "I don’t get into Vienna much any more, you see, and even then, it's unpleasant to go to the opera by oneself. Now the season’s just begun, so tickets are hard to come by, but I'll do my best. Goodbye, goodbye!" he sang in his reedy, lively voice. "Until Thursday. And thank you!"

  I didn't know if he was more excited about his Velazquez or his Verdi.

  Chapter 10

  This time I spotted her from a block away as she crossed Gloucester Street with the "Walk" light, her long, confident stride distinguishing her from the slouching, end-of-the-workday mob that crossed with her. We'd been hit with one of our muggy September heat waves after all, the nasty kind that comes after everyone has begun to hope that the worst of the summer is finally past. Afternoon temperatures and humidity had both been in the mid-nineties for a week, steam-bath weather, and yet there she was, stepping lightly along at the end of a sopping day, a fresh thoroughbred in a mob of straggling dray horses.

  Having never tolerated the heat very well myself, I considered this display of fitness unseemly, almost a personal affront. But the truth is that, despite the naked athleticism, I was pleased to see her. A dozen times since our distinctly unspectacular meeting two weeks earlier, she'd popped unbidden into my mind. More than once I'd replayed our conversation, starting over again from the beginning and giving myself lines that would have done a better job of explaining where I was coming from and been a lot snappier to boot. She needed some better lines too, so I gave her some as well.

  What was surprising about this was that I'd come away from the encounter with a rankling sense of irritation and injustice. Alex had struck me as overbearing, obstinate, closed-minded, and generally exasperating. And then something changed. I'm not sure what it was, but all of a sudden one morning I wasn't exasperated any more, except with myself for having cut such a feckless figure. For Alex I found myself making excuses: what had seemed overbearing seemed on second thought to be forthright, what had been obstinate was now steadfast and self-possessed. More than that, I found myself remembering with pleasure that amusing, upturned nose, those wide-set, gray-green eyes, the general clean-cut look of her. And especially the cool pressure of her fingers when we shook hands at the end. Had a tremor run through me at the time, or did I only imagine that it had?

  In short, what I was doing was mooning over her, and I couldn't remember the last time a woman had gotten me doing that. I don't mean to imply that I'd been celibate since separating from Trish—far from it (well, not as far as all that, actually)—but I'd never been able to get comfortable with the modern mating dance, and, without ever consciously deciding to do it, I'd been gradually dropping out. The early years of my marriage had been wonderful, and I hadn't ever expected to be out on the circuit again so I hadn't paid much attention to the changing mores of the unattached set. Now, either I'd been out of circulation too long or the rules had changed on me while I was married, or both. Or maybe, just between you and me, I was starting to think that having sex wasn't worth the rigmarole that went along with it if you were single.

  Also, take it from me, there are some extremely strange females out there.

  Anyway, as soon as I'd finished talking to Stetten I opened the local telephone book, found a number for one "A. R. Porter" of Brookline, and dialed it, holding my breath and hoping that it was the right number. Happily, it was. I told her that it appeared that I had another project that might conceivably shed some light on her uncle's death after all. If she was interested, I said nonchalantly, did she care to meet me again at Ciao Bella to hear the details?

>   She did, and now here she was. I was at the same table as before, this time with a white-wine spritzer. She sat down opposite me and ordered a club soda with lime. Amazing. She looked cool as a cucumber. In fact, she looked like a cucumber: dark-green linen jacket on the outside, pale green knit shirt and pale green slacks on the inside.

  No small talk this time. "Are you working with the police again?" she asked.

  "No, I'm on my own."

  Then, playing up the more exotic and glamorous angles, I told her about the telephone call from Stetten and my upcoming trip to Vienna.

  She wasn't exactly bowled over. "'Count'? Who goes around calling himself 'count' these days?"

  "Well, it's different in Austria."

  "Why? There isn't any more Austro-Hungarian throne. The Habsburgs haven't been around since what, 1914, 1918? He sounds like some kind of shyster to me."

  "No," I said, summoning up what little wind was left in my sails, "a lot of the old nobility have kept their titles over there. Besides, he never actually referred to himself as a count; it was on his letterhead, that's all. There wasn't really anything phony about him, or stuffy either. He sounded like a nice guy."

  "But?" she said, hearing the misgiving in my voice before I realized it was there myself. And it was. I did have reservations.

  "But," I said, "I have to admit that there's an oddball quality to the whole deal."

  "In what way?" She looked at me over the rim of her glass. Her green eyes, showing some interest now, seemed flecked with hazel pinpoints, with no gray at all, and so clear that the pupils were like enameled black circles on green glass. Splendid, I thought, that was the word for her. How could I not have noticed the first time?