by Noah Charney
“So, in the Gardner Museum case, we’re likely dealing with a wealthy Caucasian male, old enough to have made his fortune, say over age thirty-five, who grew up in the Boston area, probably does not live there now, and who has collected art legitimately.
“What has he collected? Well, let’s examine what he chose to steal. This is a crime of love, not money. He ignored the Titian, the Fra Angelico, the Raphael. He could have had those, too. They were sitting on the walls right beside the pieces he took. They are of greater monetary value and prestige than many of the pieces he did want taken. So why not take them, as well?
“This man has morals, as much as can be said for a wanted criminal. I’ve always felt that there is an honor among thieves, a quiet dignity and elegance to a beautifully executed, nonviolent piece of clockwork thievery. The best thieves are honest and professional, never mistreating unless mistreated, cautious but never rude. High-class thieves are self-righteous; recognize their own value and the value of trust, even in crime. Of the thieves at Golgotha, the honest thief was saved. An honest crime is successful, because it does not stray from its purpose. Honest crimes are sleek and designed. They are a pleasure to watch, their profession an intellectual and physical chess match. The greater pleasure still is cracking the hole in the clockwork mechanism, and that is why I love my job.
“But you must admire certain qualities of our theft patron. He is not gluttonous. He took exactly what he wanted, a prescribed shopping list, and nothing more. He liked Rembrandt, Manet, Vermeer, and Degas. Two French, two Dutch. He wanted a Napoleonic battle flag, and took a Chinese bronze beaker. He also is humane. The thieves did not carry weapons and did not harm the guards. They did not break the container that held the battle flag, giving up when they could not unscrew the hinges. They strove for grace.
“The patron. Let’s profile his interests. It is safe to say that he has not bought a Vermeer legitimately, as there are only thirty-six known paintings by that artist, and they are all accounted for. Rembrandt and Manet would come at considerable cost. I would check the auction records for both artists. If he did, indeed, buy the work of such artists, it would be that much easier to tighten the noose around him because his income bracket would rise further. There are a finite number of people in this world who can spend millions on a Manet or a Rembrandt, and commission an art theft.
“The Degas works on paper intrigue me. They would normally be kept in special containers in the museum, filed away in Solander boxes for protection from light when they’re not on display. They were on special display when this theft took place, and that is noteworthy. They are not on display regularly, so he may have requested to see them personally at some point, in which case his name would be in the museum records. But of the objects stolen, Degas pastels on paper are the most affordable, and so that is probably the best bet for something that he already collected.
“Question everything, trust nothing. In the words of my exemplar, Sherlock Holmes, ‘Eliminate the impossible. Whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth.’”
“In there?”
Barrow swallowed as he stepped out of the car, suited men on either side of him. He looked to left and right along the endless empty street. Warehouse canyon walls rose up and seemed to lean in. There was no one in sight, just a forest of metal and stone. Barrow stopped moving.
“Professor Barrow, this can be very easy. Or not. Decide now.” Barrow resumed movement.
One of the men entered a code into a panel on the outside wall, and a corrugated red metal gate slowly jerked into motion. Another dialed his mobile phone, and murmured only “We’re here,” before flicking the phone shut.
Inside, the men led Barrow past dormant wheeled and geared machines, like sleeping skeletons of iron dinosaurs in the inky sfumato warehouse darkness. They made their way to an elevator at the rear and climbed three floors.
The doors opened to reveal a hushed hallway, with offices on either side. There was a light seen through the glass in the office at the end of the hall.
“You go first.”
The men pushed Barrow out of the elevator and then followed behind him.
Barrow stepped slowly along the length of the hall, which seemed simultaneously to grow and close in around him. The illuminated doorway glowed through frosted glass.
The suited men stopped outside the closed door.
“I suppose you expect me to…”
The men stood cross-armed.
“Right.”
Barrow extended his hand toward the doorknob. His perspiring palm closed around the cool grip. He twisted. Barrow heard the latch click open. The door swung in.
Before him sprawled an office, decorated in somber wood panel and marble, a striking departure from the cavernous metal anonymity of the warehouse hull.
The only light in the room shone from a silver-necked halogen lamp, like a crane, on the mahogany desk. Black Mies Barcelona chairs sat in the peripheral haze behind a glass coffee table to the left, and a gold-framed Fauvist painting hung spotlit on the walnut wall to the right. Debussy was playing on a radio.
“Come in, Dr…. Dr. Barrow.”
Barrow could not see the man sitting behind the mahogany desk, as the light cast forward, and he glimpsed the face in shadow. Only ironed-crisp cuff-linked wrists and the arms of a pale gray suit were visible. Barrow stepped forward slowly, and the door was closed behind him.
“You must forgive the intimidation. And the melodrama. I say forgive, but I retract neither the former, nor the latter. I know all about you, Dr. Barrow, and about what happened with the museum…in the United States. I have a business pro-proposition for you. You, of course, have the right to refuse, but it is not in your interest to do so. You will be rewarded for cooperation, or pu-punished for disobedience in this matter. I have read Pavlov…”
“But what is this…”
“Dr. Barrow, you are a renowned scholar of the history of art. I am in need…in need of your professional assistance.” He leaned forward severely.
“Would you like a cappuccino?”
“We’re homing in on our target, but can do so further,” Coffin continued. “The Degas and Manet, combined with the Napoleonic battle flag, suggest a French connection, a sense of patriotism. Sure, Vermeer and Rembrandt were both Dutch, but that seems incidental, as does the Chinese beaker, while the French pieces seem coincidental.
“Imagine you are about to commission this robbery. I would do what most shoppers would: browse the store. There is a strong possibility that the patron wandered through the museum, gathering a mental ‘shopping list’ of items that he wanted. And there had to be a reason for each. He’s not able to show his prizes off to his friends. These are carefully selected objects of private admiration now. They’re in his bedroom closet, under his sofa, behind the secret panel in the attic, in a safe-deposit box in a Swiss bank. If they are ever seen, then all is lost, as they are unique and recognizable. So, I say that this is a crime of passion, and there is something drawing our patron to these specific artworks. I infer that this patron has a French connection.
“What have we now in our profile? Caucasian male, aged thirty-five or older, grew up or lived in the Boston area, currently lives elsewhere, very wealthy, art collector, perhaps of Degas pastels, a family connection to France, moral and exacting, not gluttonous, nonviolent and intelligent, probably involved in the art world on some legitimate level, not interested in Italian art, and perhaps with some connection to Myles Connor and William Youngworth III, the men responsible for the most promising lead to surface in the case thus far.
“What we have accomplished in the last ten minutes is substantial. You all hold witness, I use no notes, I lecture impromptu, and together we have developed an impressive profile based only on logical deduction and observation, two characteristics in every man’s arsenal. We should all propose ourselves to the Boston police as special investigators. We have profiled the patron with exacting measurements. We must also keep in
mind the possibility of multiple patrons. Of course there will be anomalies inevitably that throw off profiles, but these discrepancies are few and far between. Just as ninety-nine percent of all serial killers have been Caucasian males between the age of thirty-five and sixty, quietly intelligent and reclusive, who have strained relationships with the women in their lives, art collectors are a finite and identifiable portion of the population.
“From within this incestuous circle of wealth and high society, art detectives work against criminals of infinite power and means, and some of the time, we are even successful. While most art crimes are perpetrated by organized crime syndicates, we must examine carefully incidents which suggest either a private crime, or a crime carried out by a syndicate on behalf of an individual who will end up with the stolen object. I feel certain that this latter instance is the case here.
“I hope that this brief case study has whetted your appetite for the rest of the conference. Thank you very much.”
The crowd applauded vigorously, as Coffin nodded in thanks and returned to his seat. The other presenters for the day’s programming sat along the wall beside him, all faces that he knew well.
The conference host approached the podium once more.
“Thank you to Dr. Coffin, for that wonderful introduction to art crime and detection. Our next speaker is a renowned scholar from Florence, Professoressa Carrabino…”
As day outweighed the night and sank over the horizon, a train slid along its rail, like a drop of mercury in glass. Coffin sat on the train on his way back to Rome, his knee bent, chin on fist, in thoughtless reflection, as dimming blurs scuttled by the window and his sleepless dreaming eyes.
Across from him, a man folded his newspaper. Unsatisfied, he unfolded it, but the bends worked against him, and he began slapping the paper into form, muttering to himself. Coffin looked to the ringed finger on the man’s left hand, and nodded indiscernibly. Beside Coffin sat the crisply halved, then smooth-quartered International Herald Tribune. To his left, a small girl sat on her mother’s lap, absorbed in the fleeting images outside. The mother ran her fingers along her daughter’s back, utterly absorbed in the girl’s porcelain face, on which the sundown dance dappled.
Coffin looked away, lost into the window of the train. His job was to protect art from the wicked, the criminal. To hunt down thieves. But could there be a good thief? One thief had been saved. Up there, on Golgotha. If you sin and then repent…or if you steal for the right reason? His mind meandered.
He had been both honored and angered to be introduced that way at the conference earlier in the day. He had not been back since the funeral, not so long ago. Both of them. The day before his thirty-fourth birthday. He had found out the next day. Phone rang, he picked it up, and could hear only breathing in the receiver, followed by a slow inward breath, and…He did not miss home too much. Always preferred the Continent. The farthest north he’d been willing to venture was Cambridge, really. That seemed close enough. It might have been bearable, if only he’d had siblings. But, never a saint took pity.
He stretched his fingers. Empty. Oh, well. Maybe. Soon. There is nothing that cannot be thought into being. When one has too much time. Time is all the luck you need. I wonder what time it is? he thought. He tipped his wrist to read his 1920 Rolex watch with a brown band, which he’d been handed down for…oh, he didn’t remember which birthday. That, and the mahogany James Smith and Sons umbrella that used to belong to his…well, those were the only things he allowed himself to keep.
Coffin fingered the nick on the underside of the umbrella handle. At least I can sublimate my obsessive-compulsive tendencies, he thought. He looked over to his newspaper and smoothed it once more.
CHAPTER 7
The marble-white facade of the Malevich Society clung up, flanked between two buildings of considerably larger size, along the narrow street, rue d’Israël. Inspector Jean-Jacques Bizot considered that it looked like the last slice of wedding cake, as he walked up to the wooden brass-plated door.
He pushed, but it did not open. Then he pushed again, with similar results. Confused, Bizot pushed again. Then he knocked. No answer. Were they closed up for the evening? Bizot checked his watch. It was ten in the morning. He leaned his low center of gravity to gaze in through the window that trailed vertically along the side of the door. Someone was seated at a desk inside. Then they hadn’t closed for the evening.
Bizot was about to knock again, when the door opened toward him. A young woman in a dark suit looked out. She was a full head taller than he, and much prettier.
“Monsieur?”
“Bonjour, mademoiselle, if you will permit me, my name is Jean-Jacques Bizot. I phoned earlier. I am investigating the theft of a work of art from these premises. I am with La Sûreté.”
“Ah, oui. Merci, monsieur, entrez, s’il vous plaît.”
She stood aside to allow Bizot to roll in. The ground-floor hall shone in white marble; gilt-framed mirrors and elaborate filigree stood in stark contrast to the framed Malevich posters on the wall. He admired the art on the walls around him. I should get some of these, he thought. Then he noticed that they were not posters.
“Bonjour, monsieur. I see that you are an admirer of Kasimir Malevich.”
Bizot swung his fat neck around, to meet eyes with the chest of a woman in a lilac blouse. Then he craned his neck up a bit more. She was beautiful, in a handsome sort of way, but probably the domineering type, he thought. Hair in a tight bun and all. Too much success and not enough sex will do that to a woman. Or so he had heard.
“My name is Geneviève Delacloche.” She extended her hand. A moment later, he realized, and shook it.
“Inspector Jean-Jacques Bizot, madame. I’m here about the…”
“…Yes, monsieur, I’m aware of the reason that I called you. It is most distressing. Shall I show you where it was taken, or…I’m sorry. Where would you like to begin?”
“Madame Delacloche, you are the…”
“…The vice president and chief investigator of the Malevich Society. It is my job to hunt down forgeries and misattributions that might hurt the Malevich name. That’s what I do, in the main…”
“And what else?” Bizot was fumbling once again with the elastic on his notebook, which kept snapping shut before he could get it fully opened.
“Would you like some help with that, Inspector?”
“What? No, no. Continue, please.”
“I’m also called upon to verify supposed works by Malevich, autograph manuscripts, and such. Shall I show you the…”
“And when was the last time that this piece, that has now gone missing, was seen?”
“It had been lent out to the Guggenheim in New York for an exhibition two years ago, and it had otherwise remained here. There was a scholar who came in to look at it a few months ago, but…”
“I will need all of the information regarding that inquiry, madame. Now, if you would show me the scene of the crime?”
Delacloche led him down the spiral stairs, whitewashed walls curling up as they descended, and the rail cast an iron shadow from a light below.
“You see, Inspector, a key and password are required to access the vaults down here. There are only three of us who have both. Myself, the president of the Malevich Society—he is away on business—and…”
“…and who?”
“The third is kept in a bank safety deposit box, along with the password.”
“And who has access to the safety-deposit box?”
“It’s taken out under the Society’s name, so it’s just the president and myself.”
“So it’s actually just two of you who have them.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“Let’s go inside. Show me how it’s done.”
They had stopped outside a brushed-steel door, with a panel of white numerical keys to its left, below which yawned a narrow keyhole.
Delacloche inserted a key and typed in a series of numbers. Bizot noticed that she shie
lded her fingers with the back of her hand, but he counted ten moments of pressure along the index finger. With each, the knuckle fell forward, and the ligament tightened and raised. This is pretty serious stuff, he thought. I can’t even remember the three-digit code to my bicycle lock.
A metal sound came from behind the steel door, and Delacloche swung down the handle, pulling it open. Automatic lights flickered on inside. Bizot stepped in, careful to turn sideways a bit, to better fit through the door.
The room was long and narrow, and looked like the digestive tract of a computer. Vertical display walls on sliding rails were lined up, like loosely stacked playing cards. Paintings hung on either side of each, too many to count. At the end of the room, a black metal cabinet contained a tower of shallow drawers. For works on paper, he reasoned.
Delacloche had walked on ahead of him, down to the last of the display walls. She slid it out. The cross-hatch metal wall shivered to a stop inches before Bizot’s corpulence. He took a step back, then wiped his brow, as he saw the slender Delacloche suck in her lovely chest to move between two of the sliding walls. Pale skin, dusting of freckles along the nose, watery blue eyes, tight black hair with a pencil stuck through it, and those thin-framed square metal glasses.
“It was right here,” she called, just out of sight down a valley of art and metal.
“Do I…I mean, must I join you in there, madame?”
“It’s mademoiselle, and I think you can probably see from…wait a moment.” She pushed the wall out a few more feet, and it sank into locked position with a satisfying click.
Bizot surveyed the wall of abstract oil paintings, some framed, some merely hanging from their stretchers, like meat on hooks. A conspicuous space was empty. The note beside the void read “Untitled Suprematist White on White, 119.”