Deceptions

by Anna Porter

  “That isn’t the problem,” Helena stopped Waclaw’s torrent of plans. “I came to tell the Vaszarys that the painting may not be by Artemisia Gentileschi, after all.” She approached the seated Vaszarys. “Good afternoon,” she said. “I assume you have reconciled your differences and the divorce is off? Hmm. I thought so.”

  Iván Vaszary stood to greet Helena. He still seemed ill at ease, but it was as if he were relieved to hear Helena’s words about the painting. “It’s not by her?”

  “It may not be,” Helena said. “I did warn Mrs. Vaszary that unless I tested the entire painting in laboratory conditions, we couldn’t be sure.”

  “But you had tested the paints, and they were of her time,” Waclaw shouted.

  “I haven’t introduced my colleague,” Helena said, ignoring Waclaw’s outburst. “Dottore Martinelli works at Arte Forense in Rome. She was kind enough to allow me to run the tests of the paints used in the Judith and Holofernes. And they are, indeed, of the right era. We couldn’t be sure that they were used by Artemisia Gentileschi, but these were certainly the kinds of paints she would have used.”

  “Exactly!” Waclaw said, still confident. “And Vaszary showed me the provenance.”

  “Provenances can be faked,” Andrea said. She had been standing next to Helena, but now she walked toward the painting. She stopped a couple of metres from it, stepped closer, then took out her scope and started examining the picture from top to bottom.

  “I am sure you have heard or read about cases where forgers were able to produce provenances that convinced even the archivists at the Tate,” Helena said. “John Drewe forged provenances for paintings he had commissioned himself and sold, on the basis of those provenances, as original work by such artists as Giacometti and Nicholson.”

  “But Adam Biro was not a forger, Miss Marsh,” Waclaw protested. “He has sold the highest quality of art to museums and collectors for decades.”

  “You are right, Mr. Lubomirski,” Helena said. “He may not have been a forger, but he was certainly a thief, a killer, and a war criminal. Also, he has been dead for some time, as has his son who followed in his footsteps. No one is sure how long the younger Biro has been dead because his death has been covered up so that he can continue to sell paintings his father stole.”

  “We had no idea that Biro was dead,” Vaszary interrupted. “We were told he had a painting to sell, that he was short of funds. I bought it, and we brought the painting to Strasbourg when I was appointed to the Council.”

  “You never met him?” Attila asked.

  “No, I did not. But he was recommended by the then Minister of Justice.”

  “Mr. Magyar,” Helena said.

  “Yes. He is a trusted friend of our prime minister’s,” Gizella added.

  “How much did you pay for it?” Helena asked.

  “A thousand euros. We were told it was a copy of a painting by Gentileschi. He was specific about that — a nineteenth century copy.”

  “What about the provenance?” Waclaw interrupted. “You showed me the provenance for this Gentileschi. Not a copy. The original painting. The one that had been in my family’s home. I was buying it back to honour my family. It was to be . . .”

  “You decided it wasn’t a late copy?” Helena interrupted.

  “Monsieur Magoci told us,” Gizella blurted.

  “When?”

  “When we invited him here to meet with us. He said it looked like a baroque painting by someone very, very good. He asked whether we were interested in having him do some research. Then he called to say he was sure that it was by Artemisia Gentileschi. His firm had looked into its history.”

  “He must have been one of your first visitors,” Attila said in Hungarian. “Why?”

  “You hired him,” Helena asked, “as soon as you came here? What was he going to do for you?”

  “It had nothing to do with the painting,” Vaszary said.

  “Other investments?” Helena suggested.

  “We were investing in real estate, if you must know,” Gizella said. “No laws against that and, as Iván said, nothing to do with this painting.”

  “Real estate?” Helena asked. She remembered Vladimir’s talk about laundering money.

  “How did this man get a provenance?” Andrea asked.

  “He wrote up what he had found out about the painting’s history,” Vaszary said. “That’s what provenance is, right?” He was looking at Andrea.

  “Then why did you ask me here?” Helena asked.

  “Magoci advised us that we needed someone to verify his research,” Gizella said.

  “So you could sell it,” Helena said.

  “Yes, so we could sell it. He knew how to do that. Knew the market for a painting like this.”

  Andrea, who had been studying the painting with a flashlight and a magnifying glass, turned to face Helena. “Nothing for sure,” she said, “but I think the signature may be covering up another signature and it’s possible, just possible, that this is a lost painting by Caravaggio.”

  “Caravaggio?” Waclaw shouted. “It can’t be. The painting we lost is by Artemisia Gentileschi.”

  “In that case,” Helena said, “this may not be your painting. There is only one way to find out. We have to study the signature using infrared light and a microscope. We cannot risk scraping the paint here. Unless we take the painting to Rome, we cannot be sure.”

  “No,” Waclaw shouted. “You can’t take my painting to Rome. We have concluded our deal . . .”

  “You are not taking this painting anywhere,” said the short man with bristly white hair who had come into the room. No one, not even Lucy, had noticed.

  “Miniszter ur,” said Vaszary and rose to his feet again. “We were not expecting you,” he added, still in Hungarian.

  “Nyilván. Obviously,” Magyar said to Vaszary, then he turned to Attila.“You didn’t say you were coming here.”

  “Okay,” Waclaw said in English, “I really don’t care what you say in your language. This painting is coming with me to Warsaw. I paid for it . . .”

  “It is not,” Magyar said. “Do not worry, your deposit will be returned in full. You have been the victim of a fraud, my friend; this painting does not belong to these people. Therefore they are not able to sell it to you — or to anyone else, for that matter. It is the property of my government, and it is not going anywhere except home to Hungary.”

  “Ah,” Helena said, “Mr. Magyar.”

  Árpád Magyar offered to shake her hand, but Helena pretended to look for something in her backpack and ignored the gesture.

  “You told us you planned to buy it from us later,” Gizella said in Hungarian. She was looking at Magyar. “After we brought it out of the country. You said we would even make a bit more on the side, if all went well, you said, and Iván never asked any questions when it came to what you wanted. He took orders. It’s the way it is.”

  “That’s ridiculous, my dear.” Magyar snickered. “No one would believe such a fanciful story.” Turning to Waclaw, he added in English, “I apologize on behalf of my government. As I said, your money, sir, will be refunded in full. Mr. Vaszary will send you a letter withdrawing any claim he imagined he had to the painting, and we shall rely on your goodwill as a gentleman to let this pass. I know it is difficult to forgive, but I promise you that if we decide to sell the painting, your bid will receive the most favourable consideration. And now, I must insist that Vaszary and I are left alone to clear up this mess.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “You didn’t take the money?” Lieutenant Hébert inquired.

  Attila shook his head.

  “You left twenty thousand euros on the table, just like that?” he snapped his fingers. “Regrets?”

  “Not yet,” Attila said. “Maybe when I get home and begin to wonder whether I will be hired again.�
��

  They were sitting at one of Le Rafiot’s wooden tables on the riverside terrace across from Saint Joseph’s church. It was a warm autumn afternoon, the scent of damp leaves, the recent rain on the boardwalk, the drifting algae where the waves from passing boats hit the banks of the Ill. Though the Ill was much narrower and shallower than the Danube, the scent reminded Attila of late summer evenings in Leányfalu, where one of his aunts had a cottage and he used to take the girls for a lazy dip. Despite the beauty of the French Quarter’s multicoloured buildings leaning in to admire their own reflections, and despite his recent encounters with the great man wrapped in the mantle of his country’s current kleptocracy, he felt oddly homesick.

  “I am not sure they would know enough to blame you for what happened after you left,” Hébert said. “I did not even have to produce the recording of Magyar’s conversation with you. I showed Magyar a typed version, and when he asked whether I had the right to invade the privacy of a foreign government’s office, I told him I had obtained the necessary paperwork. I think he imagined that we had bugged Vaszary’s rooms. We had certainly bugged the house. That young woman they brought along as a maid proved to be enormously helpful. Magyar knew that we had enough evidence to arrest him. Except for his diplomatic immunity. But, you know what, Attila, I will make sure the other members of the Conseil know that this man paid to have a French citizen killed.”

  “Given how our government works, I doubt that he would suffer much,” Attila said. “Maybe he would not get another major appointment for a couple of years.”

  “I made sure the papers will have the story.”

  “That won’t make a difference in Hungary. The government controls almost all of the press, and whatever your papers say, they can label it fake news. I suppose the International Criminal Court is too busy to get around to small cases of individual murders when they have mass murderers still walking around free.”

  “Not to mention all those Russians killed by friends of Putin or friends of friends of Putin.”

  “Maybe he could go on one of those lists that would prevent his travel to civilized places.”

  “That rarely happens to anyone in government.”

  “And Magyar will be protected by his friends in our so-called parliament.”

  “Do you think getting the painting out here was his idea, or was he working for someone else?”

  Attila shook his head and ordered another drink. “That, mon cher, we’ll never know. But the way our system works, he would have had to split the millions from the sale of the painting with others — we have an expression in my language, Kéz kezet mos. ‘Hand washes hand’ in English.”

  “Something like protecting each other?”

  “There is an English expression that might fit: taking turns scratching each other’s backs.”

  Hebert laughed. “We have a lot of that going on in France too. Do you know what they plan to do with the painting?”

  “No.”

  “I talked with Tóth about Berkowitz’s murder.”

  “Since Berkowitz worked for Magyar, I assume that will be unsolved for at least a dozen years and by then everyone will have forgotten about him. There are no witnesses, and Vaszary will be too busy keeping his nose clean in Ulaanbaatar . . .”

  “Is that where they are sending him?”

  “It was that or Tashkent. The bastard will have lots of time to think about why he tried to rip off Magyar and his cohorts.”

  “Why? For €21 million or more. Enough to buy him and his pretty wife one-way tickets to anywhere they fancied, change their names, live in clandestine luxury for the rest of their lives. It would be tempting for a pair tired of taking orders.”

  “A pleasure to meet you in person, Madame Marsh,” Hébert said standing up when Helena came toward the table. “You may enjoy meeting my friend, here,” he added, pointing at Attila. “For the past two weeks, he insisted he didn’t know you.”

  Helena kissed Attila on both cheeks and shook Hébert’s hand. “I have some good news, at least,” she said, taking a sip from Attila’s wineglass. “They will have to bury Biro now, and his confiscated collection will no longer benefit your elite little clique in Hungary. I reported the case to the Stern Foundation, and they will send in their own people. I assume the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art will apply the rules. Maybe Zsuzsa Klein will receive an inheritance, after all. There was proof in the archives that her grandfather had bought a Caravaggio, and we may yet be able to identify the Vaszarys’ painting as the one stolen from him.” She called the waiter and pointed at Attila’s glass. “I like your taste in wine,” she said.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  A large bouquet of roses greeted Helena at her office on Rue Jacob in Paris. Louise had unwrapped it and found a vase almost big enough to accommodate its girth. The leftovers — all yellow flowers — were on Louise’s own desk in a much smaller vase. A thick yellow envelope sat leaning against Helena’s vase. The writing was a bit smudged but still legible: “Mademoiselle Helena Marsh, Personal.”

  When she ripped it open, she found three micro voice recorders, a photograph of herself, and a letter on a stiff sheet of white paper.

  My dear Helena,

  I would have destroyed all these, but I didn’t want you to worry that they had fallen into the wrong hands. Or about who killed your archer. Accept this, too, as a gift from an admirer.

  Yours, as ever, Vladimir

  P.S. If your friend decides she wants to sell the Caravaggio, please let me know.

  Acknowledgements

  I am grateful for the encouragement Susan Renouf provided even before I began to write this book, her editorial comments after she first read the manuscript, and her eagle-eyed spotting of small embarrassments after the second read.

  A heartfelt thanks to Julian, who introduced me to Baroque art and to the story of Artemisia Gentileschi.

  About the Author

  Anna Porter is the award-winning author of ten books. Her recent work includes the non-fiction In Other Words, How I Fell in Love with Canada One Book at a Time, and Buying a Better World: George Soros and Billionaire Philanthropy, and the mystery novel The Appraisal, the first Helena Marsh book. She co-founded Key Porter Books, an influential publishing house she ran for more than twenty years. In addition, she writes book reviews, opinion pieces, and stuff about Central Europe. She is an Officer of the Order of Canada and has received the Order of Ontario.

  Copyright

  Copyright © Anna Porter, 2021

  Published by ECW Press

  665 Gerrard Street East

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4M 1Y2

  416-694-3348 / info@ecwpress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW Press. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Editor for the Press: Susan Renouf

  Cover design: Michel Vrana

  Cover image: Judith Beheading Holofernes by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Public Domain)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: Deceptions : a Helena Marsh novel / Anna Porter.

  Names: Porter, Anna, author.


  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200384163 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200384198

  ISBN 978-1-77041-538-6 (Softcover)

  ISBN 978-1-77305-672-2 (ePub)

  ISBN 978-1-77305-673-9 (PDF)

  ISBN 978-1-77305-674-6 (Kindle)

  Classification: LCC PS8581.O7553 D43 2021 | DDC C813/.54—dc23

  The publication of Deceptions has been generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and is funded in part by the Government of Canada. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. Ce livre est financé en partie par le gouvernement du Canada. We acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), an agency of the Government of Ontario, which last year funded 1,965 individual artists and 1,152 organizations in 197 communities across Ontario for a total of $51.9 million. We also acknowledge the contribution of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit, and through Ontario Creates for the marketing of this book.