The Paris Secret

by Karen Swan

  The Paris office wasn’t anywhere near as splashy as the New York headquarters, a vast converted warehouse in Tribeca with a newly purchased Pollock in the reception area; nor did it match the muted old-school splendour of the London base in Mayfair where their European operations were based and which she now headed up. Rather, it was a lone outpost in the Marais which Angus had rented for his fleeting visits through the capital, just a single room above an old papeterie, with little in it apart from a Napoleon desk, a chair, a plug socket and a view into the nail bar opposite.

  She let herself in and without even opening the windows – and it was stiflingly hot in there – logged on to the Getty Provenance Index, her eyes flickering every few seconds up to the huge former stationmaster’s clock which she had bought at Clignancourt flea market.

  Ten minutes till New York opened. She and Angus always touched base at 9 a.m. his time. He might have ignored her messages last night but he couldn’t avoid her for much longer now. If he was planning on firing her, he was going to have to do it to her face and she didn’t intend to make it easy for him. In the space of the twenty-four hours since he’d left, yes, she’d had a fracas with the clients’ daughter but she had also established that their prize Renoir was officially recognized in the catalogue raisonné and she had a title and date for it. If she could just establish the chain of ownership, or provenance, from the artist through to the Vermeils, before he called . . .

  Her fingers flitted over the keypad, her eyes scanning the screen quickly, dispassionately, as the information uploaded. She wrote down the pertinent details: Yellow Dress, Sitting had been painted in 1908 and sold to Renoir’s renowned dealer Ambroise Vollard in May that same year. It was sold in London in 1910 to a man called Fritz Haas who kept it until his death, when it was sold by his daughter in 1943 to—

  Flora stopped scribbling as she saw the next name to acquire it: Franz Von Taschelt. She knew the name; any decent industry professional would. Von Taschelt had been a prominent dealer of modernism in Paris, with a successful gallery on Place Valhubert. But when the Nazis occupied Paris, Von Taschelt had collaborated with them, becoming complicit in systematically plundering wealthy Jewish families’ private collections in which sales were forced and their assets seized. The worst part of it all? He was Jewish himself.

  The fact that there wasn’t a name below his on the Provenance Index worried her –Von Taschelt was rightly reviled for what he’d done and even all these years later, the mere mention of his name inspired contempt in those who knew of such things. Factor in that the Vermeils were an influential family with a high philanthropic profile, and it would be terrible PR for them if it transpired they had bought it from him – no doubt for a song. There had been practically no art market in Europe during the war and the Third Reich’s crackdown on what they considered to be modernist ‘degenerate’ art meant works by Dalí, Cézanne, Picasso and the like were almost unsaleable. The opposite had been true in North America, by contrast, with many of the most venerable institutions buying the grand-master and modernist stocks that the Nazis didn’t want, via the regime’s small network of six dealers who were authorized to trade on this free market, with all proceeds going straight from the art to the Third Reich’s armaments programme. There had even been a bureau dedicated to these wartime ‘deals’ – the ERR, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg; to maintain an appearance of legality, its purported goal was to ‘safeguard the works’ belonging to wealthy Jews but no one was fooled by that and this plundering of art had been declared a war crime in the Nuremberg Trials immediately following the end of the war. It was art history’s darkest hour and Flora wasn’t pleased to see that her clients had been brushed by it.

  She dropped her head in her hands. Her remarkable run had come to a juddering halt. This was not what Angus would want to hear; she needed to establish how the Vermeils had come to be in possession of the painting and whether or not Von Taschelt had sold it on to them directly, or to someone else in between . . .

  The FaceTime dial tone suddenly rang out.

  She was out of time.

  She checked the clock again. Ten past nine in the morning in New York.

  ‘Angus,’ she smiled, her voice full of a lightness she didn’t feel, as his image suddenly beamed onto the screen. He didn’t look happy.

  He ran his hands over his face. ‘You actually slapped her?’

  As an opening gambit, it wasn’t promising.

  ‘She hit me first,’ Flora replied quietly. ‘If that makes any difference.’

  ‘No! Not really!’

  She inhaled slowly and watched as he paced the office – so much bigger and brighter than hers. She could see a new Anne Magill oil above the desk, his silver Montblanc pen strewn over some papers.

  ‘You realize you almost gave me a goddam heart attack when I got off the plane last night and saw your messages? All twelve of them.’

  ‘Sorry. I just . . . I wanted you to hear it from me first. It was a crazy situation. I didn’t want her to make it sound worse than it was.’

  ‘You mean it’s possible to get any worse after kidnapping and assault?’ He raked his hands through his hair. ‘Christ almighty, I mean, they’re our single-biggest clients right now.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘If we get this entire collection to sale, do you realize what it’ll do to our bottom line this year?’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘Imagine harder. It’s more than we could have dreamed of. Not to mention the exposure we’ll get once the press gets wind of it, and they will – you can be sure of that.’

  Flora closed her eyes. And if they got wind of the fight between her and Natascha . . . ? Her position here was untenable, she saw that now. It didn’t matter what she brought to the table on the Renoir, he couldn’t hold on to her in these circumstances. The agency had too much to lose.

  ‘Angus, I understand your position. I know I’ve put you in an impossible situation. I’ll resign my post with immediate effect. Just please don’t fire me—’

  ‘Fire you? What, are you kidding me?’ Angus looked furious now.

  ‘But I thought—’

  ‘You should be so lucky as to think I’m going to fire you. We’ve got a ton of work to do and I need you on the ground over there.’

  Flora stared back at him in astonishment. ‘But what about the Vermeils?’

  He shrugged. ‘What about them? Lilian and Jacques haven’t been in contact. I’ve been waiting for a call but if they haven’t been in touch by now then as far as I’m concerned, nothing’s happened. It’s business as usual.’

  ‘But surely . . .’ Flora was flabbergasted. She’d barely slept for worrying about the fight and . . . what? Natascha and Xavier hadn’t even mentioned it? They were going to let it fly?

  Angus lowered his voice. ‘Listen, I didn’t like to say anything before, but Xavier and Natascha don’t exactly have the best reputations. I’m not sure their word counts for much with most people, including their parents. Although that’s strictly off the record.’

  ‘. . . OK.’ She was dumbfounded.

  He looked back at her sternly again. ‘But that doesn’t mean I’m letting you off the hook, Flora. It is not OK to go round slugging the clients, especially those with priceless Renoirs in their possession.’

  ‘Angus, I assure you, nothing like this has ever happened before, nor ever will again. It was a complete freak thing. You can trust me.’

  He blinked down the screen at her, taking in the bags under her eyes and her wan pallor. It must be clear to him that she’d been beating herself up over it.

  ‘Yes, well, you’re just lucky they’re French. If it had happened over here, you’d have been hauled up on assault charges.’

  ‘Understood,’ she nodded. Christ, like her parents needed that right now.

  ‘Right, well, that’s the end of today’s lecture. Make it up to me. Give me some good news,’ he said, perching on the edge of the desk again and folding his ar
ms over his chest. Flora thought he looked even more relieved than she did.

  ‘OK . . . uh . . . well, the good news is the Renoir is in the cat rais. As we thought, it is called Yellow Dress, Sitting and guess what? It has a companion. Yellow Dress, Walking.’

  Angus looked pleased by this. ‘Interesting.’

  ‘I thought so,’ she said, relaxing a little. ‘Now, the paintings were painted over the winter of 1908, and sold by Renoir to his dealer Ambroise Vollard in May, who in turn sold both in 1910 to a man called Fritz Haas. He kept them till 1943.’ She bit her lip. ‘But here comes the bad bit – that year his daughter sold our Renoir to Franz Von Taschelt.’

  She watched as Angus’s expression changed. ‘. . . Please tell me there’s more.’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ she replied. ‘The Getty site doesn’t have anything registered for it after that sale in 1943.’

  There was a long pause. ‘So how the hell did it get into the Vermeils’ apartment?’ Angus asked eventually.

  ‘I don’t know yet, but I’ll find out. I’m only just back from Bernheim-Jeune.’

  He rubbed his face in his hands again. ‘Jesus. Of all the places for the trail to run cold.’ He looked up again. ‘You do realize this throws the Vermeils’ ownership into doubt? It doesn’t matter if they bought from him in good faith. Practically all his deals were covers for asset-stripping rich Jews.’

  ‘I know. But you’ve already checked the ALR and there aren’t any heirs placing a claim to it, so that’s got to be something – the transaction could have been genuine.’

  Angus looked sceptical. ‘We definitely need to get this provenance sewn up. The Resistance flooded the market with good-quality fakes to dupe the Germans as it was. If we can’t show a step-perfect paper trail, all bets are off. The painting’s authenticity will be thrown into doubt if we go to market saying it was found in an abandoned apartment and our clients can’t explain how they came by it.’

  ‘Well, if there was one thing the Nazis were meticulous about, it was keeping their books – they made a big show of recording all the bills of sale to conceal the forced nature of the transactions, so there’ll be something written down somewhere,’ she said reassuringly. ‘It may take a while but I’ll find it. I’ll speak to the family again and try to find out what other paperwork they’ve got from the father.’

  Huh,’ Angus snorted. ‘After all this time? Good luck. François Vermeil’s been dead over seventy years.’

  ‘Maybe the notaries have a ledger listing everything that was in the apartment, or a receipt of sale? You never know,’ she said, determined to sound optimistic.

  Angus looked somewhat mollified. ‘OK, well, I don’t care how you get it – you have to turn in the goods on this, Flora. The buck does not stop with Von Taschelt, you hear me? Under no circumstances does the trail stop with that Nazi. The family would never sell if that connection had to be made public.’

  In which case, bang went their commission and up went the overdraft. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find out how it came into the Vermeils’ possession.’

  ‘You know, it might be worth trying to find the owners of the companion piece,’ Angus said thoughtfully. ‘If it’s still with the same family, they might know something – like why one of the pair was sold to Von Taschelt.’

  ‘Everyone needs money in a war.’

  ‘Hmmm, 1943 you said?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘That’s the same year the Vermeils shut up the apartment, meaning they must have bought it off him almost immediately,’ he murmured. Then he brightened suddenly. ‘In which case, Von Taschelt may have acted just as a broker between the two parties, you know – flipped it? So there’d be a reasonable chance the Haas heirs know what happened next. If a painting as important as that was in the family for . . . what, thirty-odd years, and they held on to the other one, they’re bound to have kept tabs on it. They could well know something about that sale.’ He got up from the corner of the desk he had perched on and walked round to his chair. ‘What did you say the other one was called?’

  ‘Yellow Dress, Walking.’

  She watched as he tapped on his keyboard for a moment, no doubt in the Getty Provenance archives too. He looked back at her triumphantly a moment later. ‘Don’t bloody believe it,’ he winked. ‘A New York address!’

  ‘Brilliant,’ she nodded, not quite as convinced as he was that this would make a material difference to their search. Did it matter why one of the Renoirs had been sold? The fact was, it had left the Haas family and ended up with another. It was the second part of that equation they needed to answer.

  ‘Right, leave that with me. I’ll make contact at this end and get a meeting set up pronto.’

  ‘OK.’ She leaned forwards, getting ready to disconnect. ‘And I’ll come back to you as soon as I know anything more on the provenance for ours.’

  ‘OK, I’ve got to run. I’ve a meeting with Rory Mortlake at Christie’s in fifteen.’ He looked at her, as if noticing her for the first time. ‘And get a decent sleep, Flora. You look tired.’

  She tried to rally. ‘Me? No, I’m fine.’

  He was quiet for a moment. ‘Hmmm . . . well, keep me posted.’

  ‘Sure thing.’ The screen went black and she slumped back in the chair, dropping her head on her folded arms for a minute. He was right, she was exhausted but this was no time to let up. She’d been that close to getting fired.

  She tabbed back in to the Getty site. ‘So if Von Taschelt was the last recorded owner . . .’ she murmured to herself. ‘Then, if I do a search under dealers . . .’

  Her eyes scanned the information that came up.

  1934–1938: Blumka Von Taschelt Gallery, Innere Stadt district, Vienna, specializing in French Impressionism and post-Impressionism.

  1938–1943: Galerie Von Taschelt, Place Valhubert, Paris. Specialists in surrealism, modernism, cubism, Impressionism, post-Impressionism.

  1944–Currentday: Attlee & Bergurren, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, specializing in twentieth-century modernism. Gallery maintains fragmentary historic records for Galerie Von Taschelt: picture stock books, sale books, property received, correspondence, clippings, exhibition catalogues.

  ‘Bingo.’ Flora sat back in her chair, swinging it lightly on the pivot. It was that easy. If only Angus had given her a few more minutes . . . The details of Von Taschelt’s sale of the Renoir would be in those historic ledgers. The answer she needed was in the South of France.

  She smiled. She was back on top.

  Chapter Nine

  Ines was waiting for her by the scooter when she finally exited the building four hours later.

  ‘Your bell doesn’t ring,’ Ines muttered, a cigarette dangling from her mouth as Flora grabbed the spare helmet from the back.

  ‘I hope that’s not a euphemism for my sex life,’ Flora quipped.

  Ines cackled with laughter, grinding her cigarette into the ground and hopping astride the bike. ‘You’re in a good mood today.’

  ‘I’ve had a good day,’ Flora smiled, fastening the chin strap.

  ‘He didn’t fire you then?’

  ‘Dodged a bullet this time.’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ Ines winked. ‘They are so much badder than a catfight, those two. I bet they have completely forgotten already.’

  Flora clasped her hands around her friend’s waist, feeling discomfited by the thought. She hadn’t been able to forget either of them so easily; in fact, her mind kept replaying events every time she fell into a daydream – Natascha’s viciousness, the sudden appearance of Xavier at the door.

  There was no question of riding astride the scooter in her narrow olive-green skirt, so she sat side-saddle, her arms around Ines’s waist and her friend’s curly black hair tickling her face as they zipped through the traffic. The city was drowsy from the midsummer heat and the roads were quiet, Ines languidly manoeuvring the bike along the boulevards, boys whistling at them each time they stopped at the lights.

  Th
ey were there in just a few minutes, stopping at the junction where Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré meets Rue Boissy d’Anglas. Flora slid off the seat, Ines dismounting with a careless leg thrown high like a gymnast’s as she shook her hair out of the helmet, her Isabel Marant mini-dress perfectly pitched for the city heat.

  Ines handed her a stiff ivory invitation and they were waved through the multi-storeyed Hermès flagship building by the security guards. They stepped into the mirrored private lift and both women set to checking their appearances – Ines backcombing the roots of her hair with her fingers, Flora fiddling with the collar of her white shirt.

  She fanned her neck. ‘Damn, it’s hot. I should have gone home first and changed. This shirt is wilting. I look grim.’

  ‘You look gorgeous. You always look gorgeous. Anyway, for once, no one will be looking at you.’ The doors had opened and Ines winked at her as she walked out. ‘Just wait till you see this.’

  Flora followed, scarcely able to believe what she was seeing. She had anticipated the rooftop being a stone affair with tasteful lighting and maybe some artfully arranged plant pots. She hadn’t counted on a perfect lawn banked with beds of jasmine; apple and pear trees heavy with fruit; magnolia branches spreading like splayed hands above the crowd and casting dappled shade onto the lawn; balustraded pathways squaring the perimeter of the space and keeping the garden back and hidden from view from the streets below; charming country-house treillage laddering the walls. It was a pocket Eden in the heart of the capital.

  ‘Paris’s secret garden,’ Ines said in an excited whisper. ‘Only a very few people know it is even here. This is VVVIP, baby.’

  They each took a whisper-fine crystal flute of champagne from a tray and stepped seamlessly into the chic crowd. White was clearly the new black; almost everyone was wearing it, bolts of white linen accented with flashes of grass-green or red, but mainly Hermès’ trademark orange – be it the ribbons on neat panamas or orange H-slide sandals, ‘collier de chien’ studded cuffs or double-strap Kelly watches.