by Mark Hebden
Nevertheless, he knew his job, and armed with the knowledge he had culled from two days’ reading, Nosjean sat down with him to find out how art thieves worked.
‘It’s nothing new,’ De Troquereau said. ‘And it’s growing. With inflation, it’s bound to. Art’s a better investment than property and has lower insurance rates than jewellery. In the Seventies, in fact, the art thefts in Italy reached such proportions the government had to call up 3000 police reservists to serve as guards at churches and museums. There were even a few suspicions that priests were involved and got a share of the loot. The same thing happened with Mayan relics in Latin America, where odd generals and engineers were caught up in it.’
‘What about this country?’
De Troquereau smiled. ‘Security’s nothing to write home about. A visitor to the Louvre a year or two back found he’d been locked in at closing time and couldn’t get out. He finally found the guards about a kilometre away down the hall, frying eggs on a hot plate. They’d no idea he was there.’
Nosjean frowned. ‘It begins to look as if the underworld’s become aware of the majesty of art,’ he said. ‘They’re not only attracted by the prices but also by the glory of light, form and colour. They’re probably debating inferior brushwork and tonal qualities these days.’
De Troquereau’s smile widened. ‘They’re probably even getting fanatic enough to start stealing from each other. Do you think the people who pulled this job are the same ones who’ve been working the châteaux?’
‘We don’t know. But there certainly seems to be a connection because in every case they made no attempt to clutter themselves up with what was available but went straight for the best. At the Château Boncey-Morin they removed one picture – one only – but it was a Vigée-Lebrun and was small and easily removed. At Boureleau, near Saulieu, they took four chairs. All Boulard, whatever that is.’
‘Boulard was a craftsman employed by Louis XIV,’ De Troquereau said, speaking with a confidence that indicated he knew what he was talking about.
Nosjean nodded, gratefully accepting the information and storing it away. ‘At Samour-Samourin it was four plates. Four only. From a case which contained twenty-four. The four were from the original set, all that remained. The other twenty were copies, good copies, of course, but more recent. I couldn’t have told the difference, but they knew. At Lamence it was a Louis XV commode, of extraordinary value, so I’m told.’
‘It would be,’ De Troquereau smiled.
‘At St Sauvigny it was one panel out of five. The centre panel which was not the most accessible but was the most valuable, because it had on it the signature of Cardinal Daunay. Whoever took it knew exactly which it was because he obviously didn’t have time to examine them all.’
‘Probably a graduate of the Ecole du Louvre,’ De Troquereau suggested.
‘What’s that?’
‘A more exclusive version of Arts-Déco – the School of Arts Décoratifs.’
‘Is that where you learned all about it?’ Nosjean asked.
De Troquereau smiled. ‘My family had a lot of books and I had suspected nephritis as a child. It meant being in bed for weeks. I read them all.’
‘Art books?’
‘My family went in for art.’
‘Teaching it?’
‘Collecting it!’
Nosjean looked puzzled. ‘They must have had some money.’
‘They did. In those days. Actually—’ De Troquereau looked sheepish ‘—I’m a baron. Did you know?’
Nosjean stared at him. He’d never worked with a baron before.
‘Sergeant Baron de Troquereau Tournay-Turenne.’ De Troquereau smiled. ‘There are more barons in France than there are stars in the firmament, of course, and it doesn’t mean a thing. I have no money. We lost everything first under the Revolution, got it back when the monarchy was restored under Louis XVIII, lost it again under Louis-Philippe, got it back under Napoléon III, and lost it again under the Third Republic. We got tired of trying.’
‘That’s the worst of French history,’ Nosjean agreed. ‘Couldn’t you use your title somehow? Get a directorship? A name like yours would look well in a letter heading.’
‘Most people wanting directors these days,’ De Troquereau said, ‘want either business experience or money. I’ve got neither. That’s why I became a cop, and I happen to like it.’
‘Well–’ Nosjean sighed ‘—at least you know something about it. I don’t. Where do we start?’
‘Round the antique shops. Have you got any here?’
‘Chiefly in the country. Most of them look like junk shops.’
De Troquereau considered. ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘it might be a good idea to visit Paris. Have a look along the Rue de Charonne and the Rue Vanoy. There’s a lot of furniture restoring and faking goes along there. The Rue St Honoré’s another good place, but it’s not a good time of year for there. In November and December antiques fetch double the prices, so everybody brings them out then. All the same, we might spot something.’
‘I think we’d need to find something here first,’ Nosjean said doubtfully.
‘Very well. Who’s your expert?’
‘There’s a Madame de Saint-Bruie, I gather. Keeps a shop at Chagnay. She might help us.’
The shop at Chagnay seemed to be run entirely by a girl in her twenties who looked more like Charlotte Rampling than the librarian back in the city. Perhaps, Nosjean thought, it was becoming a fashion and everybody was trying to look like Charlotte Rampling.
She was sitting behind a desk piled high with art books and was busy turning the leaves of a catalogue for a sale. In front of her was a small triangular piece of varnished wood bearing her name – Marie-Joséphine Lehmann. Nosjean, who was nothing if not impressionable, thought it a lovely name.
She looked up at him and smiled. It seemed to bring sunlight into the dusty disordered shop.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked.
‘I’m looking for Madame de Saint-Bruie.’
‘I’m afraid she’s not in at the moment. She won’t be long. Can’t I do anything?’
‘I don’t know.’ Nosjean produced his badge. ‘I’m from the Police Judiciaire. I’m investigating the robbery of the panel from St Sauvigny. You’ll have heard of it. I’m trying to fill in a little background, so I know what I’m looking for.’
‘You’d better sit down.’ She pushed the books aside and indicated a chair.
‘Do you know anything about it?’ Nosjean asked.
She smiled. ‘It pays us to know things like that.’
‘You’d better fill me in, then.’
She smiled again. ‘When Louis XII found himself fighting against the growing power of Venice,’ she explained, ‘his alliance with the Papacy caused him to call for volunteers for his army, and the people of St Sauvigny, being devout and ardently French, raised troops. In gratitude, the King instructed Cardinal Daunay of Paris to provide a gift of seven matching panels to present to the district.’
‘Big?’
‘Big enough. A metre and a half high by a metre wide. They arrived in St Sauvigny in 1520.’ The bright smile flickered on again. ‘They were painted in indigos, vermilions and golds, and they depicted the trial of Christ, the Crucifixion and the Descent from the Cross. Despite the subject, they were remarkably attractive and were bordered with Burgundian roses and flowers as symbols of faith. They were priceless examples of medieval craftsmanship.’
Nosjean was entranced. ‘Go on,’ he urged.
The smile came once more. ‘Their survival was quite remarkable because, not long after their arrival, the town was set on fire by the Huguenots. But the priest managed to hide them and, because the town was the backwater it was – and still is – they survived the iconoclasm of the Revolution and even the arrival of the Prussians in 1871.’
As the girl finished speaking, Nosjean remained silent, his eyes on her face. Then he became aware that she was regarding him with a quizzical, amused
– expression and he started to life.
‘Can you describe the missing one?’ he asked, more briskly than he intended.
‘I can do better than that. I can show you pictures.’ She produced an enormous art book and laid it with a thump on the table. Panneaux Et Tapisseries Ecclésiastiques De La France, it said across the jacket.
‘French Church Panels and Tapestries,’ she said. ‘It’ll all be in here.’ She opened the book at the index and ran her finger down the list.
‘Here.’ She looked up. Nosjean was a handsome young man, clean, neatly dressed, looking a little like Napoleon at the Bridge of Lodi, and she decided he was by no means the type to make a pass at her. ‘You’d better come round this side,’ she suggested. ‘It’s rather a large book.’
Nosjean joined her, trying to rivet his attention on the coloured plates. But Marie-Joséphine Lehmann was visible out of the corner of his eye and was rather a distraction. She wasn’t exactly beautiful. Not as attractive as the librarian, but there was something extra about her that appealed. Confidence. Brains. Charm. Nosjean was enchanted and was already wondering what he’d seen in the librarian, or the nurse who looked like Catherine Deneuve, who’d held his attention for a time. Even old faithful, Odile Chenandier, despite her steadfastness, seemed to fade before this vision of poised intellectuality. She even had a splendid figure and wore an elusive perfume that might well have disturbed someone much less disturbable than Nosjean.
‘Of the original seven,’ she was saying, ‘two disappeared soon after they were presented to the Church. It’s believed that the Bishop helped himself. Bishops weren’t very fussy in those days. You’ll notice the pictures – the trial of Christ, the Via Dolorosa, the Crucifixion, the descent from the Cross, and the Resurrection. The Crucifixion is the most valuable because it had on the back of it the signature of Cardinal Daunay, and the colours have remained extraordinarily good because they’ve never been subjected to a lot of sunlight.’
By this time Nosjean had come to the conclusion that he could spend the rest of his life happily investigating art frauds.
As she looked up at him, their faces were only inches apart. ‘I have other books,’ she offered. ‘Would you like to see them?’
‘No. But do you have copies of these pictures?’
‘I’m afraid not. Naturally, while we have to know about these things, they never come on the market, so we have no reason to present them to possible buyers. We often take photographs ourselves, though. I do it all the time. I’m quite skilled with a camera,’
Nosjean indicated the book. ‘Could you photograph these pictures?’
‘Of course.’
‘In colour?’
‘It’ll mean rigging up lighting.’
‘Could I help you?’ Nosjean could think of nothing pleasanter than helping her rig up lighting.
She smiled, well aware that he was smitten. ‘I think I’ll do it myself,’ she said. ‘You’ll probably get in the way. If you’d like to call back in a day or two.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Nosjean said eagerly. ‘I’ll telephone ahead. Who shall I ask for?’
She indicated the plaque on the desk. ‘That’s my name,’ she said. ‘My friends call me Mijo.’
Nosjean was just wondering how he could prolong the interview, when the girl lifted her head as a door clicked somewhere in the dim interior of the shop.
‘That sounds like Madame,’ she said. She smiled at Nosjean. ‘I think you’d better see her. She might be jealous.’
Madame Sadie de Saint-Bruie was a widow, enormously tall with elaborate green spectacles to match her eyes. Her shapeless gown and the string of amber beads she wore, that reached almost to her knees, made her look vaguely as if she had stepped out of a 1920s edition of Vogue. Her bright, artificially red hair was as frizzy as if it had been fried in olive oil, but was arranged on her cheeks in kiss-curls, and her shoes had straps across the insteps, so that Nosjean half-expected her at any moment to break into a Charleston.
She was of indeterminate age – young enough still to be called youngish, but certainly not old enough to be called middle-aged. She led Nosjean into an office cluttered with chairs, tables, lamps, plates, statuettes; busts and portraits of Napoléon by the thousand; and paintings of the Battles of Gravelotte, Mars-la-Tour and Sedan in which pale-faced French soldiers in red képis and trousers were dying in dozens as they held off the Prussians with their last cartridges.
‘Influence of Détaille,’ she said loftily. ‘After the war of 1870 it became a deplorable convention and led to numerous developments on the theme of gloria victis, so that the typical hero was not the man who beat the enemy but the one who fell protecting the retreat of his comrades. It probably led to France’s defeat in 1940. La Dernière Cartouche became a popular fad.’
She had, she said, been reading reports on thefts from country houses since 1960, and had noticed that over a period of years what were often blatant fakes had been hauled away.
‘It needs an expert, of course,’ she said, ‘to recognise the touch of an expert.’
Nosjean was faintly awed by the brain inside this strange angular, yet very feminine frame. ‘Are you an expert?’ he asked.
Madame de Saint-Bruie looked at him with the noble sadness of an aristocrat of the bluest blood obliged to live in something as vulgar as a republic.
‘Arts-Déco,’ she said. ‘Oh, yes, I studied. But then, so did many more and it might turn out to be any one of them. Their names are still in my mind. Artists stick together, you see, and don’t forget each other. They know exactly how they work, and just as artists can recognise each other’s work, whether it’s good, bad or indifferent, so art experts can recognise each other’s touches, too. I, for instance, can tell you without difficulty just who makes which fakes because, believe me, some of them are as much craftsmen as the people they copy. The only difference is that they weren’t born two hundred years ago in the Haute Epoque.’
‘It’s as easy as that?’
‘To an expert. An artist can recognise his friend’s work whether it’s signed or not, or even if it’s disguised. There are touches which always escape. It’s the same with craftsmen. Of course–’ a languid hand gestured ‘—you have to have a bit of a gift, too. There must be only as many as you can number on one hand who know exactly when a thing is “right”, when it hasn’t been tampered with.’
Nosjean permitted a look of admiration to cross his face. She seemed to expect it and, since she’d been helpful, he saw no reason not to oblige.
‘There was a period of pure error in the châteaux robberies in the Sixties,’ she went on in her strong husky voice. ‘Then the crooks took away whatever was handy. But this was followed by a period when they grew more discriminating – as if they were being advised by an expert. As indeed they were. They went to jail in the end, of course, as you know, because they became too greedy – they had found it so easy, they tried it once too often – and after that, the amateurism started again, and as much that was rubbish as was good was hauled away.’ She paused and stared at Nosjean through the big green spectacles. ‘Now, however, the pattern’s being repeated. They have someone helping them once more, someone who knows what he’s doing.’
Nosjean frowned, trying to absorb everything he’d been told. ‘This panel that’s disappeared from St Sauvigny,’ he asked. ‘Where could it be sold?’
‘Nowhere.’ Her hands lifted and dropped to her side. ‘It would be like trying to sell the Mona Lisa or the English Crown Jewels. No one would dare touch it.’
‘Not even a wealthy American? There must be a few who do not ask where such things came from.’
She gave him a bored smile. ‘They’re becoming less and less, young man. Since Van Meegheren did all those fakes about the time of the end of the war, they’ve grown more wary about what comes from Europe. American houses must be full of Canalettos, Fra Angelicos, Titians and many others that never had their origin in the Middle Ages.’
‘Are
there any other sources? I mean, where do the antiques go these days?’
‘Germany. The bombing of German cities destroyed most of what was old and valuable, and lorryloads go there every week from France. Whole shiploads from England – but they need the money more, of course. Most of what goes is rubbish, but the Germans don’t argue. They’re eager to build up their “background” again. Some of it’s “improved”, some’s sold just as it is.’
She talked for a long time about hall marks and estampilles, and offered a lot of names of craftsmen – Roentgen, Riesener, Weisweiler, van Rysen Burgh, together with a few known fakers like Vrain-Lucas and Mailfert.
‘There are plenty more,’ she said. ‘Some not as honest.’
‘Honest?’
‘Mailfert was selling fakes and he knew it. But he always made sure his fakes were classified in the catalogues as reproductions, even though he allowed his buyers – very often nouveaux riches with too much money to spend – to think that they knew better than he did. Nowadays, Paris is full of people like Mailfert. The Flea Market has workshops within metres of the stands where the fakes are sold as genuine, and there are plenty of shops behind the Eiffel Tower with small factories attached, while the Rue de Charonne and the Rue Vanoy have scores of cabinet makers – half of them making fake furniture, half restoring genuine antiques. You’re looking for someone who knows exactly what they’re after.’
She gave Nosjean the benefit of her dazzling superior smile once more. ‘And people like that,’ she ended, ‘are so clever they’ll have thought of everything – even how to evade the police.’
‘So the chances of finding them are slim?’ Nosjean said.
She smiled. ‘Very.’
It was most encouraging.
Five
Claude-Achille Cormon’s sister, Madame Clarétie, though totally devoid of sex appeal, was physically a similar type to Madame de Saint-Bruie, even to the frizzy hair.