And as for me? Why had she asked me to find Belle?
I’d asked her as much as she was led out of the catacombs. “I just wanted to keep you occupied, out of my hair, out of my apartment! Who’d have thought you’d actually figure out my plan? Or find Belle?” she’d spat at me. “Most days you can’t even find something smart to wear!”
It was a sad climax to a brilliant career and a pathetic end for the aunt I’d respected. She’d always complained that as a child she had wanted for more material comfort than her detective father could afford. But with the successful careers she and her sister, my mum, had forged, who knew she was still harbouring such fear of having too little?
How, I wondered, would Mum react?
I think my mum wanted to take it well, and even tried to…but her efforts fell flat. Annoyingly, the only thing that seemed to lift her spirits was my modelling. My dad, bless him, hadn’t been at all surprised – at least, not by his sister-in-law’s thieving.
“I told you it was impossible that even with her enormous salary she could afford all of the stuff that was constantly going in and out of her apartment.”
Of course, he’d never imagined anything like the scope she’d achieved. And certainly he’d never imagined she’d try to catch me – or, as my mum preferred to think of it, hold me for ransom. (I refrained from pointing out that she’d never asked for money for Belle and Darius. She’d just wanted them out of the way.)
Miriam offered a shoulder for my mum to cry on – Venetia, her friend of many years, had deceived her too. Not once had Miriam suspected that her close friend had been stealing from the very same fashion designers they worked together with and gossiped about. Aunt Venetia had hidden her double life well.
“If only I’d known,” Miriam cried, “I’d have done something, helped her…but I never guessed! All this time Venetia’s been criss-crossing Paris underground, using the catacombs, and I never guessed. For years she’s been going in and out of the houses of some of the biggest names in fashion – undetected! – to steal art. C’est incroyable! And then she’s been stashing the stolen art in the catacombs underneath her apartment building. And I never suspected anything…”
But no one could have suspected anything without regularly visiting Aunt V’s apartment. Only by actually seeing the quantity of packages that came and went through her home could anyone have had an inkling. It was now clear those packages were all filled with stolen art. She’d always maintained they were deliveries of art she’d just bought – and, granted, every wall of her apartment was hung with amazing paintings…but, the fact was, she’d lied. Those packages that she claimed were “deliveries” had never been delivered to her. They were packages that she was sending out! Art she’d stolen, then kept in the catacombs until she’d found a buyer with an illegal collection in some faraway place. At that point she packed the art and carried it directly through the catacombs into her apartment building’s basement then into her apartment. From there they’d get picked up by some very discreet and expensive couriers.
This, of course, explained why my aunt had stopped entertaining in her apartment several years ago.
“And I thought it was because she preferred the Ritz,” Miriam said.
My aunt had studied interior architecture during her pre-fashion days. It was during this time that she learned about Le Vau and his secret passages. However, it was only much later, when she’d decided to fluff up her retirement nest egg with stolen art, that – using the pseudonym of David le Néanar – she began to seriously research Le Vau’s buildings, with the intent of perhaps using the secret passages she’d read about as a student. She struck gold, however, when she stumbled upon the little-known fact that some of Le Vau’s grandest mansions had direct points of access into the catacombs. This, then, became the inspiration for her ultimate plan.
“It’s quite amazing,” Sebastian pointed out. “Not only did you find Belle and Darius, but in the same stroke you found one of the greatest art thieves Paris has ever known.”
I wouldn’t call that amazing…but I’d certainly accomplished what I’d set out to do – and paid a much steeper price for it than I could have imagined.
A strong pair of arms suddenly enfolded me from behind. I turned and faced Sebastian. His eyes were smiling as he tucked my hair behind my ears. “How did you know it was your aunt?” he asked.
It was late by now – nearly midnight – and Sebastian and I were at my hotel. We sat downstairs in a small wood-panelled reading room off the main lounge, cosy and dark, with heavy curtains and rich fabrics. Rain lashed against a window that looked over the private courtyard garden, while a large fire blazed in the fireplace. We sat in deep armchairs we’d pulled up to the fire. A pot of hot chocolate sat on a warmer on the low table in front of us.
Mum was still with Inspector Witt and Miriam – it seemed she’d be occupied for a good part of the night. Together with the Chic: Paris press office, they were now working on a plan for the various press announcements that would have to be made – and not just concerning Aunt Venetia. Apparently, my life wouldn’t be the same after tomorrow morning either. Details about my hunt for Belle were beginning to leak out, and it was only a matter of time before the mainstream press started asking questions – questions I’d have to answer. It seemed the fashion press wouldn’t be far behind.
“Enjoy being incognito tonight,” Miriam had said to me. “It’ll probably be your last night of anonymity. And once this story breaks, every magazine and designer will want to book you, so you can give some thought to your modelling career as well…”
That was a ramification I hadn’t even BEGUN to think about – nor did I want to. At least, not now, tonight.
I was exhausted, but too wound up to feel sleepy. Occasionally, feelings of angst and guilt overwhelmed me. A part of me felt like a traitorous bounty hunter: after all, even when I’d realized it was my aunt behind the disappearances and I’d had the chance to back down, I hadn’t. I’d chosen to go on to the end. Yes, she was a criminal, yes, I’d saved two lives…but, nevertheless, she was – is – my aunt… As a sort of anti-venom to my self-hate, I regularly reminded myself that she wouldn’t have hesitated to trap me if I’d given her just a few more seconds. That helped…but still…
“So how did you know it was your aunt?” Sebastian repeated.
“I wish I could claim a clear line of logical deduction, but actually I ended up bouncing from one hunch to another; and these hunches led me to my dream…”
“David le Néanar?” Ellie had just walked in. After Sebastian’s father had gone into the catacombs, she’d left for a fitting. That was a supermodel for you: super-focused – on work. Even while catching criminals. Ellie had just finished and had come straight to the hotel to hear everything.
“Right. You know my aunt loves anagrams – she’s addicted to them, actually. Well, David le Néanar is an anagram of Diana Vreeland. It was under my nose the entire time, but it wasn’t until last night, after I’d had a good long look at the portraits of Diana Vreeland hanging in my aunt’s dressing room, that the name stuck in my mind… And then later, when I saw the same prints in my dream, it all clicked. Funny how a little thing like that can make all the difference…”
“It’s also funny that she’d choose such an obvious name,” Ellie said.
“Obvious to you, because you’re in fashion,” I answered. “But most people have never heard of Diana Vreeland.”
“It’s also typical for…criminals,” Sebastian said slowly, looking at me.
“It’s all right, Sebastian. She is one. I have to get used to it.”
“Criminals often like to work with inside jokes, so to speak. They’re often vain and like to think of themselves as clever. What your aunt did is quite typical.”
Needless to say, it was my aunt who’d left Sebastian and me to drown in the catacombs. And I suppose grazing me with her car on Monday had been a way of warming up – maybe deep down she already knew I’d be breat
hing down her neck by the end of the week. Like she’d told me earlier, by asking me to find Belle, she’d hoped to have me running around Paris searching for clues she thought I’d never find, rather than right under her nose figuring things out. As it turns out, I did figure things out – something she’d never expected. So she had to get me off her trail. Leaving me in the catacombs had seemed like a good way. A shiver ran down my spine as I remembered how surprised she’d been to see me last night. I’d thought it was because I was still awake – in fact, it was because I was still alive.
“But how did she learn so much about the curse?” Sebastian asked.
“Good question. I still don’t know exactly how. But my aunt always seems to know everything, so it didn’t really surprise me – until I spoke to Simone.”
“Simone Baillie?”
I nodded. “While I was talking with Simone it suddenly dawned on me that perhaps my aunt knew the La Lunes – or had known them – better than she let on. So as I turned to leave I asked Simone one last question. I wanted to know whether my aunt and Patrick had ever known each other well.”
“And she said yes…” Ellie said.
“Actually, no – she’s too discreet for that. What she said was that she was aware that not long before he married, Patrick La Lune had spent quite a bit of time with a certain well-known magazine editor. She said they’d been passionate. But after a while they cooled, and then Patrick married Fiona. My aunt can be very nosy and persuasive. I’m sure she got the entire story of the curse out of Patrick – simply out of curiosity. I think the idea of using that information only occurred to her after kidnapping Belle.”
“After kidnapping Belle? Why not before?” Sebastian asked, surprised.
“The need only came up after she encountered Belle and Darius.”
I took a sip of my hot chocolate before continuing. “My aunt has been stealing for years, right? And she’s never bumped into anyone before – I mean, that’s the point of using the catacombs and the other secret passages she’s found out about. Well, late last Saturday night or early Sunday morning, while trying to steal a tiny Giacometti sculpture from the La Lunes, she was caught by Belle – I heard Belle tell your father this,” I nodded to Sebastian, “as she was put into the ambulance.
“And then, on Monday, my aunt was cornered by Darius – alone – and found out that he knew she used the secret passages. He accused her of kidnapping Belle, so now she had to get Darius out of the way as well. She did it very quickly – he has the wound on his head to prove it – just before the five o’clock meeting. She hit him, then tied and gagged him so that during the meeting she could safely leave him in one of the house’s secret passages. After the questioning by Inspector Witt, but before we had dinner together, she dragged him into the catacombs.”
Sebastian’s phone rang.
“Yes? We’re in the reading room…uh-huh, she’s still up,” he said, looking at me. “Good. We’ll wait. À tout de suite.” He put his phone away before saying, “That was my father. He’s on his way. He wants to explain everything.”
Inspector Witt came alone – my mum and Miriam were working at the agency and Thomas, Inspector Witt’s assistant, was with my aunt and her lawyer. Sebastian’s father seemed relieved to have finished for the night. He ordered a whisky from the bar before joining us.
“Fortunately, your aunt has made a full confession,” he said. “That’ll help her – and Chic. We’ll move things along as quickly as we can, but, unfortunately, there’s no way of avoiding the press…c’est la vie.”
He took a swallow from his drink and leaned back before continuing. “First, let me say, thank you.” He was looking straight at me. “I underestimated you, Mademoiselle Anderson. You were right to follow your instincts. Keep doing it and I can retire sooner than planned. But the case is quite complex and your aunt was a clever adversary. Finally, however, her luck ran out…Belle caught her with the statue and Darius confronted her about the secret passage. And, then, of course, she never imagined her niece would catch her.”
I flushed, as guilt washed over me.
“Don’t forget,” he continued, “that you’ve helped Philippe, too. Your aunt had hoped to frame him as the nephew who avenged his wronged great-uncle.”
I nodded. “Straight away she hinted – strongly – that I should look into the possibility of there being a living Merlette.”
“By the way, she learned of the letters’ existence years ago. While confessing earlier, she told me that one afternoon – this was when she was dating Patrick – she stumbled upon the letters while searching for an earring that had slipped beneath Patrick’s bed. They were in a small ribbon-tied box underneath the mattress – just like in a clichéd police movie. Of course, she read them.”
“After hiding Darius, she remembered the letters, and formed the idea of pinning the disappearances on Philippe – but for that she needed the letters, both as proof of who Philippe really is, and of his strong motive. As luck would have it, when she searched for them before I arrived to interview them all on Monday, she found them, again, in a box under Patrick’s bed – with Patrick fast asleep in the bed.” The inspector shook his head. “Hard to believe that Patrick never put them somewhere safer.
“Incidentally, that was her one big mistake – hiding the letters in the chimney flue, I mean. The clutch handbag she was using that day was too small to accommodate the bundle of letters – besides, she’d just dragged Darius into the secret passage – he was her main concern at that moment. She quickly hid the letters behind the flue and figured she’d fetch them later – but then you found them.”
He smiled at me before continuing. “And her proof was gone. So, going on what she remembered from the letters, she began, using her David le Néanar alias, to search for Violette. She needed proof that Philippe was the heir she knew him to be.”
“And Fiona? Did she know about any of this?”
“She’d heard of the letters, years earlier, from her husband – although she didn’t know if he still had them. After Belle disappeared, she started looking for them. The noise Rose and Dom heard at night was Fiona looking for the letters.”
“But why was it so important for her to have the letters?”
“Fiona knew that her father-in-law François had stolen the designs for the Clothilde bag – Patrick had told her as much. So the chance that the letters might contain even the slightest allusion to that was enough to scare Fiona. Remember, the La Lune Fashion Design Foundation is her life’s work. And imagine: they hand out prizes for design – but their company’s success was founded on design theft. She’d never live it down! It would be ruination for her and the foundation and a huge blot on the family name.
“Furthermore, the letters were proof that Hector Merlette had an heir – and over the years her husband had hinted to her about Philippe being related to the Merlettes. She was worried that with the letters he might demand financial redress and rake up a scandal long-buried. For her children’s sake, she was willing to thwart him in any way she could. She was sure he was behind the disappearances – his motive was strongest. So Fiona’s foremost thought was to destroy those letters. It was imperative that she find them – but your aunt beat her to them.”
“Who planted Belle’s drawings in Blossom’s bag?”
Inspector Witt shook his head. “Fiona. It was a stupid ruse to lead the police away from the rumours of the curse and family scandal. By the time she realized Philippe wasn’t responsible for Belle’s disappearance, she regretted what she’d done.
“Darius came closest to solving the whole thing. Some time ago, in the course of his reading, he’d learned about the secret passages in the house, but didn’t really believe they existed – until Belle disappeared. Darius was exploring the passageway – at the same time your aunt was in it. Venetia was back in the house on Sunday night to steal a couple of small paintings. Don’t forget that Belle had interrupted your aunt’s foray the night before so Venetia went back the
next night to finish the job, so to speak. Darius saw her – although your aunt didn’t see him – just as she disappeared into the catacombs with the paintings. The next day, Monday, he found her on her own and confronted her before the meeting. She immediately felt cornered by him and lashed out. Without wasting a moment she grabbed the nearest heavy object – a paperweight, Darius told me – and hit him hard. She then hid him in the nearest secret passageway before calmly joining the others for the five o’clock meeting. Darius had known her for years, of course, but only as a chic and professional editor. Her swift and violent action took him completely by surprise.
“Their violent confrontation,” continued Inspector Witt, “culminating in Darius’s disappearance, was a real blow to us because Darius was the only one who’d made the obvious connection between Belle’s disappearance and Venetia’s suspicious presence in the passageways.”
“But Claude knew about the catacombs – he must have known about the secret passageway, too. Have you asked him about CAT?”
“I’m afraid CAT is simply the nickname of someone he’d been interviewed by for a job. Contrary to his original police statement, tonight he told me that, in fact, last Saturday night he’d slipped out of the mansion straight after dinner to meet CAT – Catherine Lafont, the well-known fashion headhunter. But because of his family’s paranoia with the curse, Claude wasn’t ready to say anything about looking for a new job. Hence, the mysterious CAT – for Catherine. By chance, Philippe had seen him, walking home.”
“Which is why Claude was so edgy at the casting. He’d lied.” I refrained from mentioning that Claude had also been cross because I’d looked at his phone.
A Crime of Fashion Page 24