The Tulip Virus

by Danielle Hermans

  “My God. If you convert that to modern currency, it’s more than six million euros,” Damian said.

  “At least. Incredible, isn’t it, all for a handful of bulbs. The orphans walked away with almost twelve thousand guilders each. And the orphanage ended up with nine thousand guilders. But anyway, the children had nothing to complain about. In two hours’ time, they made a fortune.”

  Dick walked over to Alec and Damian, standing in front of them with his hands clasped behind his back. “A few days later, the tulip trade took a nosedive. The experts still don’t know exactly why it all happened so fast— practically from one day to the next— but that list had a lot to do with it, that much I know. It was one of the reasons the bubble finally burst.”

  “This list?” Damian looked at him in surprise. “How so?”

  “Right after an auction, it was standard practice to draw up an inventory of what had been sold and at what price. That was how dealers kept track of the value of different bulbs. A few days after the Alkmaar auction, this list started passing from hand to hand. The story of the huge proceeds spread like wildfire, all over the republic. Everyone in the trade was ecstatic. The list led them to believe that the value of their bulbs had soared.”

  Dick slowly shook his head and grimaced.

  “But it didn’t work out that way. The figures on the sales list became the new standard. That drove up the average selling price, and soon the country was in the grip of a feverish obsession. Some bulbs were sold and resold ten times a day, at higher prices every time. A few people sensed the limit had been reached and got out of the market as fast as they could, before it was too late. A couple of days later, at an auction in Haarlem, it became clear just how disastrous the Alkmaar auction had been. The asking prices in Haarlem were so high that hardly any bulbs were sold. That news spread quickly too. In just a few days, everyone knew.”

  “So they all wanted to get rid of their bulbs before the market collapsed,” Alec noted.

  “Exactly. And of course, it didn’t work. They couldn’t sell those bulbs for love or money. Within a few days, the whole tulip trade was gone, vanished, kapoof.” Dick squinted pensively. “Yes, sixteen thirty-seven was the year of reckoning for tulip speculators. Fortunes were lost, vast fortunes. It was a terrible time. The impact was catastrophic.”

  After his visitors had shut the door behind them, Dick sat for a while, gazing out into space. He rested his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands.

  “It’s all my fault,” he said softly, and he lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “Oh, Frank. If I’d known it would turn out like this, I would never have got you involved.” With trembling fingers, he lit a cigarette. “I’ll put everything right again. I will personally see to it.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Tara stood in the doorway of the dimly lit room looking at her step-father, who sat hunched over his desk, not looking up. He probably didn’t even hear me come into the house, she thought.

  The commanding figure her mother had married so many years ago had recently faded into a mere shadow of his former self. He had always been loud and boisterous, the kind of man you couldn’t ignore. Now he sat huddled in his chair, his head bowed over his paperwork.

  She unbuttoned her coat and looked around at the lighter patches of wallpaper where valuable paintings had once hung. The bookcase was half empty. Apparently he’d sold part of his book collection as well.

  She’d already noticed that a lot of his things had disappeared since the last time she’d been there, a couple of months earlier. Coming into the house, she’d seen the empty space in the hall where the grandfather clock had always stood. Now, looking around the room, she realized that the large nineteenth-century globe was gone from its corner. She put down her travel bag and went to his side.

  “Simon?”

  A shiver ran through his body. As he lifted his head to face her, he gave a feeble and uncertain smile. His eyes were dull and his gray beard, which had always been close trimmed, looked as if it had been neglected for weeks.

  “Oh, Tara, it’s you. How’re you doing, sweetheart?”

  “Not too great, actually. Were you sleeping?’

  “I guess I dozed off.”

  She kissed him on the forehead, and the odor of unwashed hair filled her nostrils. He’d probably come straight out of bed to his chair, putting on the same clothes he’d worn the day before. Or maybe he hadn’t been to bed at all. She sat down on his desk and folded her arms.

  “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “I don’t know, love. I don’t know.”

  “Simon? Do you know where it is?”

  He looked at her sadly. “If Frank had told me that, you’d have known long ago. Don’t worry about your research, darling, there’s no danger. Everything will be all right. Let me take care of it.”

  She leaned in and took him by the shoulders. Through his sweater, she could feel his jutting bones.

  “What do you mean, everything will be all right? Don’t treat me like a child. We’re in a real mess.” She let go. “What now? Where do we go from here? What are we going to do? You know how much is at stake for me. There’s got to be a Plan B, right? Didn’t you and Frank ever consider the possibility that something like this would happen?”

  Simon looked at his stepdaughter, wondering how she’d become so self-centered. Was she really oblivious to his financial troubles? All she ever thought about was herself. For years, he had brought her up and cared for her. Was it his fault she had turned out this way? So cold and ruthless?

  He gave a deep sigh. “I see you brought your bag. Planning to stay?”

  She nodded. “I don’t feel safe on my own, after what happened to Frank. I . . . I’m afraid he might have let something slip about me. I didn’t know what to do, and I thought I might be safer at your place.”

  “Frank didn’t tell them a thing.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  He reached out and turned on the desk lamp. “Because I knew the man. Besides, why would he mention your name? You don’t know anything, do you?”

  She shook her head. “I wish I did, then at least I could do something. But now . . .”

  Tara went to the window and peered outside. Leaves blanketed the gravel drive. She shivered. When she turned, Simon was standing beside her. He reached over and stroked her cheek. She jerked back her head as if she’d been stung by a wasp. He withdrew his hand and looked at her sadly. Then, all of sudden, his eyes narrowed, and he took a step back. “Do you have a hunch, then?”

  “About what?”

  “About where Frank might have hidden it?”

  “If I did, I wouldn’t have to ask you, would I? What kind of a question is that? Is it any of your business, at this stage? I don’t think so.”

  Simon cleared his throat. “No, forget I mentioned it. You’re right, I was out of line. We should have done things differently. We should have realized from the outset that this might happen and taken precautions. Frank was not a young man. He might just as easily have died of natural causes, or in an accident.”

  “Are you sure he never planned for this scenario?” she said hopefully. “Maybe he left some notes somewhere. How about in his will? I mean . . . it can’t just end this way, can it? Simon?”

  “If he wrote anything down, Alec would probably know.”

  “That’s an idea, I could talk to Alec.” Then she glanced around. “What have you done with all your things?”

  “Sold them.”

  “Has it really come to that?”

  He lowered his eyes in embarrassment. “I’d rather not talk about it. I’ll get by.”

  Tara nodded. She had more important things on her mind— anyway, more important than her stepfather’s financial woes.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Alec and Damian walked along the Singel in silence. Though it was still early afternoon, it seemed as if twilight was already settling over the canal. In the tall seventeenth-century houses, most o
f the windows were lit. Two tourists rode by on bright yellow rental bikes with the seats too low, pedaling awkwardly onto the bridge that arched over the Singel. Halfway up the slope, they climbed off and walked the bikes to the top, where they got back on and raced down the other side. An oncoming driver managed to swerve just in time, honking his horn furiously as he hit the brakes.

  “I have to pass by the shop and see what we’re taking to the antiques fair. After that I’ll drive you to the airport. Do you want to come with me, or would you rather get back to the house?” Damian asked.

  “No, I’ll tag along.” Alec thrust his hands deep into his pockets. “What do you make of Dick’s story? Have we learned anything at all?”

  ’Well, we know a lot more about what was going on in sixteen thirty-seven.”

  Alec turned to Damian. “Do you really think Frank’s murder has something to do with the seventeenth-century tulip trade?”

  “I can’t think why else he would have pointed to that date. It’s the only solid information we have to go on.”

  “Yes, but what did he have in mind? An auction? The stock market? It couldn’t have been the tulip trade, there’s no way.”

  Damian nodded. “Well, I’ve been mulling over other possibilities, like seventeenth-century art. Could there be a connection there?”

  “You mean something to do with one of his antiques? One of his paintings? He had a landscape by Jan van Goyen from around that time. I don’t know exactly when it was painted. I should check if it was in sixteen thirty-seven.”

  “Hey, that’s true, I’d forgotten all about that painting.” Damian stopped in his tracks, his eyes gleaming. “Jan van Goyen. Remember how he died? He was filthy rich— his paintings brought in enough to pay the bills, but he made his fortune investing in property and—”

  “—tulips,” Alec chimed in. “Christ, you’re right, that’s how he went bankrupt. When he died, he had nothing but debt. The painting must still be at Cadogan Place. Tibbens would have noticed if it was missing. I’ll check it out when I get back to London.”

  They fell silent again and continued down the Singel until, suddenly, Alec grabbed Damian’s arm and gave a sharp squeeze. With a mesmerized stare, he pointed toward the last short stretch of the canal, across the square. Damian followed the line of Alec’s finger toward the flower market and looked at him blankly.

  “Follow me.” Alec ran across the street. At the first flower stall, he ducked beneath the awning and headed straight for one of the racks. Plastic bags filled with tulip bulbs were hanging from metal rods. Over the heads of two Japanese tourists, he snatched one of the bags and dangled it in front of Damian’s face.

  The strip of cardboard stapled to the plastic was decorated with a fiery red tulip. In the background, long rows of flower beds receded toward a point on the horizon. Beside the tulip was a fluorescent price sticker: €4.50.

  Flushed with excitement, Alec looked at Damian, who took the bag, unsure how to respond.

  “Bulbs,” Alec said.

  “Yes, I can see that.”

  “Don’t you get it? We let that stupid date throw us off the scent.”

  Damian looked at the bag in his hands, which contained five dark brown, onion-shaped bulbs. Dirt trickled through the perforated plastic into his palm.

  “Come on, Damian, use your brain. Don’t you remember? The bulb fraud a couple of years back.”

  Damian’s head shot up. “Christ, that’s right. It was in the paper again just recently. There was a fund or something that invested in tulips.”

  Alec nodded, took back the bulbs, and returned them to the rack. “It made the papers even in England. I don’t remember exactly what the story was, but I know it was some kind of scam. People invested millions and never saw their money again.”

  Damian pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

  “Emma, will you do me a favor? Can you find anything on the Internet about a recent tulip fraud? It would’ve been in . . .” He glanced at Alec.

  “Two thousand three or four.”

  “Did you get that? Right, in Holland. What did you say? No, I’ll be back later, we’re on our way to the shop now. Then I have to pick up the car and take Alec to the airport. Okay, I will. See you later.”

  He put away his phone. “I wonder what she’ll find.”

  “The next step is to find out whether there’s any connection to Frank, and if so, what. I sure hope he wasn’t—”

  “What? You don’t think Frank was involved, do you? Or at least, not like that . . . I mean, Frank wasn’t a con artist, was he?”

  “God forbid. But as awful as it is, we can’t rule out the possibility. Don’t you agree?”

  “He would never do a thing like that.”

  “No, not the Frank we knew. But how well did we really know him? He never said a word about that tulip book, not even to Dick, otherwise it would have come up. That’s weird, right? It’s a collector’s item, one of a kind, something to be proud of.” Alec shook his head dejectedly. “We thought we knew him, Damian, but I’m starting to have my doubts. I blame myself too. I’ll always feel guilty about the way I treated Frank. All I thought about were my own needs. I couldn’t have cared less what was on his mind. What’s worse, it didn’t even occur to me. I didn’t think to ask how he was doing, really ask. Do you know what I mean?”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The glass doors of London City Airport slid shut behind him. Alec made his way to the taxi stand and got in the first taxi.

  Forty-five minutes later, he was standing on the steps at Cadogan Place. It dawned on him that this house, where he had spent most of his childhood, would never be the same to him again. He wanted to be rid of it, as soon as possible. That shouldn’t be too difficult, he thought: a beautiful building, in a desirable location, just a ten-minute walk from Harrods.

  A piece of yellow plastic clung to the doorpost— a leftover scrap of crime-scene tape. Alec pulled it off and stared at it, then crumpled it into a wad. He turned the key in the lock and opened the door.

  “Tibbens,” he called out. “Are you there?”

  “Alec! I’m over here, in the study.”

  Alec crossed the entrance hall and entered the room. The wall to the right was empty. The large mirror that had always hung over the mantelpiece was leaning against the wall to his left, next to the paintings, which Tibbens had taken down. Along the baseboard, the floor was covered with a sheet. Tibbens was standing on a stepladder, with a dripping paint roller in one hand.

  “I couldn’t get rid of it,” he said. “I wanted to finish up before you got back, so you wouldn’t have to see it again.” He sniffed.

  “I understand,” Alec said.

  Tibbens put down the roller and carefully climbed down the step-ladder. Alec saw that his face was dotted with minute flecks of paint. He looked even more melancholy than usual. His eyelids, the corners of his mouth, and the deep grooves along his nose and chin were all sagging. In just a few days, he had aged dramatically. His close-cropped hair looked grayer, and his face was pale with exhaustion.

  “How’re you doing?”

  “Not too bad, I suppose. I just can’t get used to him being gone. It’s as if he could walk in at any moment to ask me a question, or show me something. And whenever my phone rings I think it’s him. You know what I mean?”

  Alec understood only too well. For more than twenty years, Tibbens had been Frank’s right-hand man. He didn’t live in the house, but he was there seven days a week, from early in the morning till late at night. He had been Frank’s cook, butler, chauffeur, and assistant, taking care of all his employer’s needs, making sure he wanted for nothing. The two men had cared deeply about each other.

  “Come with me.”

  Alec took Tibbens by the elbow and led him through the hall to the living room, where it was as if nothing had changed. The yellow walls made the room seem filled with sunlight. Three sofas, heaped with cushions, were grouped around the hearth. On a thick rug in the m
iddle of the room stood a coffee table piled with books and magazines.

  Tibbens sat down, and Alec went over to the wall where Frank had hung a few paintings from his collection. The only modern work was a group portrait. The man and woman were beaming. The little boy between them was not. He was clinging to his mother’s legs and burying his head against her body.

  Each time he saw the painting, Alec felt he had known, even as a child, that something terrible was about to happen, that this was the last photo that would ever be taken of his family. Frank had commissioned the painting of the photograph many years ago.

  Alec remembered almost nothing about that time in his life and didn’t know if the few memories he had were real or his own fabrications, concocted from childhood photos and stories Frank had told him. He scanned the wall until he found what he was looking for. Taking the small painting in his hands, he carefully removed it from its hook.

  The clouds over the Dutch dunes hung heavy in the air. On the horizon, the sails of three ships billowed in the wind. A small boat made its way along the coast. The two oarsmen strained forward, barely equal to the stiff breeze. In the foreground were three men. Two of them sat face-to-face, and the third lay on his stomach in the sand, facing the others, the soles of his feet turned toward the viewer. To the left there was a farm house, shaded by the thick foliage of a stand of trees. Near the house, a woman in a bright blue skirt was milking a cow.

  “What are you doing?” Tibbens asked.

  “I want to check something.”

  He turned over the painting and read the yellowing label pasted to the wood on the back.

  Jan van Goyen

  Dutch, 1596– 1656

  Dune Landscape, 1634

  Oil on panel

  Useless, Alec thought. He’d been hoping that something would be hidden behind the painting. A letter from Frank, explaining everything, or at least giving a clue— something, anyway. He put the painting back in place and sat down opposite Tibbens.