“I see. At some point, we may need to ask you some questions also. In the meantime, madame, do you know the whereabouts of the marquis de Valfierno?”
“I’ve never even heard of him,” she said quickly.
“That’s unfortunate,” said Carnot, “because he will want to read this.” He removed a sealed envelope from his inside pocket and held it out to her.
Madame Charneau’s response was to cross her arms and give him a defiant look.
Carnot smiled and tossed the letter onto a small shelf on the hall stand.
“Make sure he gets it.”
Inspector Carnot escorted Ellen and Julia out to a car in the courtyard, its motor purring at an idle. He opened the rear door and motioned for the two women to enter. He slipped into the driver’s seat, and with an unnerving rattle, the car pulled away. Madame Charneau watched it disappear into a curtain of rain before closing the door and picking up the sealed envelope.
* * *
Madame Charneau hurried across the Pont-Neuf, afraid that the driving wind and rain might sweep her off her feet into the rushing river. It was a disturbing sight. Devoid of its usual traffic, the river boiled along with a dark, angry menace. She had never seen it so high, so forceful. A few hardy souls, their coats wrapped tightly around them, their hands pinning their hats to their heads, stood at the bridge’s balustrade watching in awe as waves crested up onto the embankments straining to reach up to the street-level quays. Earlier, Madame Charneau had tried placing a telephone call to Valfierno from the Hôtel de Fleurie, but the system was not working.
She reached the Right Bank and hurried along the quai de la Mégisserie in the direction of the Hôtel d’Ville. It was difficult staying out of the puddles and small streams that had formed in the road, and soon her shoes were soaked through.
By the time she reached the entrance to Valfierno’s house on rue de Picardie, she was thoroughly drenched. She pounded on the door, the memory of the police inspector driving away with Ellen and Julia replaying in her mind.
Valfierno opened the door and she quickly stepped into the foyer.
“Madame,” he said in shock, “what has happened? Is something wrong?”
She took a deep breath and began. “Madame Hart and Mademoiselle Julia have been taken away for questioning by a policeman.”
“What are you talking about?” Valfierno said. “Mrs. Hart left Paris hours ago. I saw her get on the train.”
“No,” Madame Charneau said breathlessly, “her train had to return to the station because of the flooding.”
“What’s going on?” said Émile, bounding down the stairs.
“Mrs. Hart and Julia have been arrested,” said Valfierno.
“Arrested?” Émile blurted out. “I don’t understand. You said that Mrs. Hart left—”
“When did this happen?” Valfierno asked Madame Charneau.
“Not half an hour ago. And the inspector told me to give you this.”
She handed him the letter, limp and wet despite her efforts to protect it from the rain.
Valfierno picked up an ivory-handled knife from a side table and slit it open. He carefully unfolded a single page. Some of the writing was smudged, but it was still legible. He read it aloud.
“‘Monsieur, we have not had the pleasure of meeting but I hope that will be remedied soon. My proposition is simple. You will come immediately to the Saint-Michel Metro station bringing with you the original painting—you know the one I speak of—along with all the money you have collected from your clientele in America. Do not try to deceive me, I warn you. I know more of your scheme than you could possibly realize. This, I assure you, will not be a one-way transaction. As you will know, Madame Hart is in my custody. There will be serious consequences for her should our business not be satisfactorily concluded. Bear in mind that this transaction will be a private one between our two parties. Once concluded, my interest in you will come to an end, a further advantage, as it will provide you with an escape from prosecution. I will expect you at precisely four o’clock.
“‘Counting on a timely response, I hope you accept, Monsieur, the assurance of my respect, Inspector Alphonse Carnot.’”
“He’s certainly being very polite about it,” Madame Charneau commented.
Valfierno handed the letter to Émile and pulled out his pocket watch. The time was 3:05.
“This is outrageous,” Émile fumed, quickly perusing the letter. “Who is this Carnot, anyway?”
“I believe he is an esteemed member of the Sûreté,” Valfierno answered with a sharp hint of sarcasm.
“A flic?” said Émile in surprise. “Why would he play this kind of game with us?”
“I would imagine that the large amount of money we still have in our possession might have something to do with it.”
“But how did he find out?”
“I’m not sure. Perhaps our friend, Signore Peruggia, is involved in some way.”
“This is what happens when you bring in outside people,” said Émile, exasperated.
“But you were the one who brought him to us in the first place,” Madame Charneau pointed out.
“Madame Charneau,” said Valfierno, “I’m forgetting my manners. Come in by the fire.”
He guided her into the sitting room where burning logs crackled in the fireplace.
“I’ve never seen such a rain.” She rubbed her hands together over the fire. “The river will be flowing over the bridges if this keeps up.”
“The metro station mentioned in the letter,” Valfierno said to Émile. “You know it?”
“Yes, it’s just across the river near the Pont Saint-Michel. It’s one of the new stations still under construction.”
“And completely abandoned on a Sunday,” added Valfierno. “The perfect place to avoid prying eyes.”
Valfierno stared intently into the fire, deep in thought.
“Émile,” he said after a few tense seconds, “retrieve the painting. We can’t use the motorcar; by now the police will have blocked off all streets leading to the river. I want you to bring it to the metro station as soon as you can, but it is imperative that you don’t reveal yourself until I call for you. Do you understand?”
“It will be too dangerous for you,” protested Émile. “Let me go. I’ll bring both the painting and the money to him.”
“I’m afraid that’s not all he wants,” said Valfierno thoughtfully.
“But it says right here that you’ll be free from prosecution if you follow his instructions,” said Émile.
“Free from prosecution, perhaps, but I fear there is more to this than is outlined in this letter.”
“I don’t understand,” said Émile.
“Carnot could have learned about the painting from Peruggia, that’s clear. However, Peruggia knew nothing about Mrs. Hart, which makes me think that our policeman, or someone else, wants more than the painting and the money.”
“What?”
Valfierno reached behind the mantelpiece clock and pulled out a long, white glove. He contemplated it for a moment, feeling the soft, silky fabric between his fingers.
“Me.”
Chapter 44
Émile left the house immediately to retrieve the painting from Diego’s studio on the other side of the river. The closer he got to the Seine, the more dramatic became the flooding in the narrow, twisting streets of the Marais. Dirty water bubbled up around manhole covers, making them gyrate and dance like the lids of boiling pots; miniature rivers filled the gutters on either side of the street. Cold rain mixed with flecks of snow fell from sullen clouds. Silvery white frost clung to bare tree limbs and empty park benches, contrasting incongruously with the mud and oily sludge covering the streets.
A block from the river, a horse-drawn cart laden with sandbags clattered past, forcing Émile to jump out of the way. A harried-looking soldier urged the reluctant horse forward and, as it drew even with Émile, a sandbag slipped from the back into a deep puddle, splashing him with co
ld, filthy water.
Soaked to the skin, he stopped at the Pont au Change leading to the Île de la Cité. The water had risen far above the embankments below street level. The archways through which boats normally traversed had all but disappeared. Barely a yard of space existed between the rushing water and the tops of the arches. Bits of furniture, wooden casks, and all sorts of debris and rubbish built up against the upstream deck of the bridge.
Suppressing a tug of fear in his stomach, Émile took a deep breath and hurried across.
* * *
In the basement studio of rue Serpente, water had begun to seep across the floor. Diego rapidly gathered together the artworks he planned to take with him. The last few weeks had been a mad blur of industry; he had not created so many new works in such a short space of time in more than two years.
In a pile next to his zinc tub, he came across the master copy of La Joconde, the one he had used as a reference point for making all the others. He briefly thought of taking it with him but discarded the notion; he had reached a new pinnacle of artistic creativity and he was no longer interested in the fruits of his creative sabbatical.
The copy of La Joconde reminded him of the pile of incomplete forgeries and other canvases in his storage closet. Taking the master with him, he hurried into the small room, leaned it against the wall, and rummaged through the reproductions in search of anything of interest he had overlooked. Finding nothing, he went back into his studio, leaving the master copy behind.
* * *
Émile walked rapidly past the Prefecture of Police to the Pont Saint-Michel, which joined the island to the Left Bank. The rushing water seemed even more ferocious here, but he swallowed his fear and started across, passing a group of onlookers peering down at the turbulent water.
The river had turned a sickly yellow color and held little resemblance to the usually placid and stately Seine. The channel was clogged with debris. A logjam of barrels and lengths of wood fought to break through the rapidly diminishing arches of the bridge. Furniture smashed and broke apart against the abutments. He even caught sight of something that looked like the carcass of a pig spinning like a bizarre merry-go-round in the swirling water.
On the far bank, a bearded officer was exhorting a group of a dozen or more soldiers to unload the same wagon that had passed him before.
“Hurry up there!” the officer bellowed. “Leave no gaps between the bags!”
The officer turned his attention to the people on the bridge. “You!” the man shouted. “All of you! Off the bridge now! Can’t you see the danger?”
The various citizens of Paris turned their heads toward the officer with more curiosity than alarm. Trading a few laughing remarks with each other, they chose to ignore him and turned their attention back to the raging spectacle below. One man—with the help of another holding on to his belt—was even attempting to reach down and retrieve a wine cask.
“Imbéciles!” the officer cried before turning back to scream once again at his men. “Work faster! We have to buttress this entire section! Pry up the paving stones and use them if you have to!”
Émile crossed the street to the Place Saint-Michel, where he took note of the ornate cast-iron arch supporting a sign in scripted lettering: MÉTROPOLITAIN. Beneath it, a temporary shack covered the mouth of the street-level entrance of the future Saint-Michel metro station, the meeting place designated by Inspector Carnot.
He crossed the place and hurried down rue Danton. The water bubbling up from the manhole covers filled the street to a depth of three or four inches, slowing Émile’s progress, but he finally reached rue Serpente. Outside Diego’s basement studio stood a large hand cart. A tarp covered it, but he could see the edges of a number of panels outlined beneath it. Émile lifted the tarp to reveal a stack of canvases. Flipping through them, he found no sign of La Joconde. In fact, he didn’t recognize these paintings at all. He stepped out of the sunken road onto the pavement, which was still dry and acted as a sort of dam, protecting the steps leading down into the basement.
Émile went through the open door and descended to the studio. The floor was slick from seeping ground moisture. Diego stood before a table stacked with painted canvases stretched over wooden frames. He was wrapping them, one by one, in cloth.
“What are you doing?” Émile asked.
“The rats have already vacated. I’m following their wise example.”
Émile picked up a canvas from the pile. It was the most bizarre image he had ever seen. A woman, or rather, parts of a woman, were piled on the seat of an armchair. Half of her head had been sliced neatly off at a forty-five-degree angle; rivulets of multicolored hair cascaded down from the featureless, partial face; something—a hand, perhaps, or a claw—held part of a newspaper, an actual newspaper, Le Journal, which had been pasted onto the canvas, as had real wallpaper on the wall behind the chair. The woman’s breasts floated freely—my god, they were Julia’s breasts, the ones from her so-called portrait, the ones that looked like pastry bags. They appeared to have been cut out and pasted into the center. Her derriere was partially covered by a piece of cloth painted to look like some sort of frilly undergarment. He felt as if he was looking through some sort of nightmarish kaleidoscope at the disjointed pieces of a human puzzle that could have been imagined only by a blind madman.
“You like it?” Diego asked.
“I don’t even know what it is,” Émile said.
Diego picked up what was left of the original portrait of Julia. Large pieces were missing. The slashed canvas, smudged and smeared by the palette Julia had thrown onto it, echoed the same disjointed quality as the one that Émile held.
“Inspiration!” Diego said.
“But this is not your name.” Émile pointed to the signature in the lower corner of the canvas he held in his hands.
“Ah, but it is. It’s the name I reserve for my true art. My name is Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso.” Diego took a breath and shrugged. “For short, just Picasso.”
Putting down the damaged painting, Picasso took his original from Émile and added it to his bundle. “The inspiration came to me like a flash of lightning, thanks to your beautiful and spirited Julia.”
Émile looked into Picasso’s eyes. The man was clearly mad as a March hare.
“Au revoir, Monsieur Émile. And you can keep my cut of the money. I have rediscovered something that no amount of money can buy. My soul. Kiss the lovely Julia good-bye for me. I think she would like that.”
Picasso pulled a paint-stained beret onto his head and disappeared up the steps with the last of his canvases. Émile watched him go for only a moment before stepping into the storage room.
The room was a shambles, canvases and supplies strewn about the wet floor. Fending off a surge of panic, Émile knelt and began shifting through the mess. He collected all the panels with images of La Joconde, discarding the obviously incomplete reproductions until he was down to four.
He cleared the small desk in the corner, placing the four panels on it. Two were of identical proportions; the other two were slightly larger but also identical in size.
The panic returned. There should be no others the same size as the original. He searched again among the remaining panels on the floor. All were obviously unfinished, so he got to his feet, his mind racing. He had seen all the paintings that Diego had taken, and it wasn’t among them. It must be here. He must have missed the identical-sized copy when he had first hidden the original.
Then he remembered: the master copy. That was the same size as the original. That must be the other painting.
This was not a problem. He could pick out the real one. He wished he remembered the exact dimensions—not that it would have mattered as he didn’t have a measuring tape. He examined the two smaller panels. They were both excellent but definitely too small. It had to be one of the larger paintings, but which one? He turned them over. They both h
ad the crucifixlike repair at the top. Just to be sure, he checked the backs of the smaller panels. They had similar repairs, though on opposite sides. That made no sense. It didn’t matter, they were too small.
He balanced the two larger panels side by side on the desktop. He looked from one to the other then back again. They were identical.
Time was running out. He placed one on top of the other and hurried back into the studio. He wrapped them both in a piece of cloth and bounded up the stairs two at a time.
Chapter 45
Valfierno convinced Madame Charneau that she had done all she could and to stay in his house. He left not long after Émile but almost didn’t make it across the Pont au Change in time. Gendarmes and soldiers were clearing the roadway of gawkers and attempting to deny access to the Île de la Cité. One gendarme was more interested in tacking a poster to a tree announcing that citizens had twenty-four hours to turn in anything removed from the river. Clutching the handle of his leather valise, Valfierno took advantage of the confusion and slipped across before the last group of onlookers was expelled from the bridge. He passed behind a military officer arguing with a gendarme. The officer was advocating using dynamite to clear the logjam of debris to release pressure on the bridge. The gendarme was trying to explain that the sandbag walls might not be able to withstand the sudden surge of water.
As he reached the far end of the Pont au Change, Valfierno paused to look down at the river. Frothy and muddy, it had taken on a lead gray pallor. Water pounded into the bridge abutments with such force that Valfierno wondered if it was strong enough to hold. Then, in the midst of the debris rushing by on the river, he saw the body of a woman floating facedown. She was dressed in rough peasant clothing, her arms and legs spread-eagled as she slowly spun in the raging current. He watched transfixed as she hit a bridge abutment and held there for a moment before being sucked through a narrow opening at the top of one of the debris-choked arches. Valfierno turned away, hurried across the Île de la Cité to the Pont Saint-Michel, and crossed to the Left Bank.
Stealing Mona Lisa Page 25