by Noah Charney
As Bizot reached the end of the street, he turned back to look at the Malevich Society. Then his sight caught on something. He did not register what it was, at first, but he knew that it was important. He stopped walking. He looked around.
The street was empty, save for a scattering of leaves tossed in the gentle breeze off the nearby river Seine. What was it that he had seen, that jogged him? He turned slowly in a full circle. Then he realized.
CHAPTER 19
The Kasimir Malevich White on White that we bought just two days ago and was sitting in the Conservation Room! Of course that’s what was stolen! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck…” Van Der Mier paced back and forth in front of her desk, as Inspector Harry Wickenden, Toby Cohen, and an officer hid on chairs. “It was the most prominent acquisition in years, the centerpiece of a huge upcoming exhibition, and…”
”…And you say that it’s just white?” Wickenden fiddled with the pipe in his coat pocket, his nervous habit. He never smoked.
“Yes, Kasimir Malevich’s Untitled Suprematist Composition White on White, which we just bought for £6.3 million. And of course they took that one, just my crap luck. The insurance was still being dealt with, for Christ’s sake! The painting wasn’t even bolted to the wall, it was sitting on an easel. The only defense to the Conservation Room is the alarm and the lock on the door, which doesn’t work without electricity!”
“Why, Ms. Van Der…you know…,” began Wickenden. “Why was the painting in Conservation?”
“It was being examined and cleaned before the unveiling, as part of a high-profile exhibition that starts next month. The exhibition had been in the works for over a year, and we were hoping to…going to add this recent purchase to it. I mean, think of the negative publicity. We’ve already had the press conference and everything.”
“I can’t afford to consider your face, and the saving of it, Ms., uh…”
“Van Der Mier. Elizabeth Van Der Mier. It’s written on this piece of plastic on my desk.” She indicated the nameplate.
“No matter. I shan’t remember it anyway. Terrible with names. But I will find your painting. If you will cooperate with me during the investigation.”
“Inspector, have you dealt with art crimes before?”
“If you examine my illustrious career, then you will find that I have, ma’am. I am a member of Scotland Yard’s Arts and Antiquities Division. I do not have an art-historical training, but that has not dulled my success rate, which is considerable. I have confidence, ma’am…”
“…But you haven’t even heard of Malevich’s White on White…”
“Advance knowledge of the artist is not requisite to success. I can, as they say in the industry, ‘look it up.’” Wickenden spoke in a slow, monotone drone that quickly annoyed the frantic and neurotic, as in this instance.
“Detection is an act of problem-solving, not of scholarship,” he continued. “Research may be one manner of detective work, but I deal with people who are alive, and think, and act as rationally as they are capable. Mathematicians don’t need to know their multiplication tables. That’s why there are calculators. If I need to do some homework on the art of Klezmer Malich, then I shall be happy to do so. Keeps the brain from calcifying, anyway. Or I’ll ask questions of an expert. In the meantime, until I find your painting, which I shall, if you’ll just indulge me…”
Van Der Mier sat now, on the edge of her desk, arms crossed, unsure what to say. She finally settled on “All right.”
“I think I shall take a tour of the facilities. Which way?”
Cohen stepped forward. “I’ll accompany you, Inspector.”
“No,” said Wickenden, “I meant the toilet facilities. And some things, sir, are best done alone.”
Bizot stood in the middle of the street, staring at the street sign. Rue d’Israël. The address of the Malevich Society. Why did that give him pause? He could feel the coiling knot of inspiration. But what? Where was the connection? What had he just been discussing with Delacloche? Bizot tried to remember. He opened his notebook and scanned through. The address of the Galerie Sallenave…Rue de Jérusalem. What had the…and then it sifted into place.
“And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.”
“The land of Israel.” Rue d’Israël. “He returned to Jerusalem.” Rue de Jérusalem. That was it. Bizot fumbled for his mobile phone and dialed.
“Jean, c’est moi. You’re not going to believe this…”
“So that’s as much as we know, so far, sir.” Wickenden walked a step behind Cohen, who now approached a closed blond-wood door with the words CONSERVATION DEPARTMENT stamped on its chest. There was a black box on the right-hand side of the door, with a small red-and-green light on its face. There was also a thin slot running vertically along its length.
Cohen pushed the door open. Wickenden looked surprised.
“Isn’t there a lock…”
“…only with…”
“…electricity. Right. Why don’t the doors default into the locked position? Wouldn’t that make more sense?”
“Fire regulations. A fucking pain, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“I don’t.” Wickenden didn’t. They entered the Conservation Room.
The ceiling rose before them, as high as any of the galleries. The honey-colored wood-paneled walls were broken at regular intervals by large windows on one side, and hung canvases on the others. A door at the back of the room was labeled SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY. The floor was dotted with enormous easels, some of them gripping works of art. One easel in the center of the room looked particularly vacant. On the floor beside it lay an empty wooden stretcher, the edges of the cutaway canvas still nailed in place.
“It was…” Cohen began.
“I know.” Wickenden nodded toward the empty easel with three stools lined up before it. He shuffled slowly around the room, then merely stood still in its midst. He fingered the pipe in his trench coat pocket violently, as he calmly moved his gaze in horizontal sweeps, resting briefly on every object visible. His eyes caressed and digested the intricacies of shadow and shape. His breath came slowly, ruffling his low-hanging mustache tassels, which shook with each exhalation.
“What,” Wickenden asked, “is in there?” He pointed to the Science & Technology door.
“That’s, uh…” Cohen scratched his head.
“…And I can read what it says on the door. More explicative, please.”
“It contains the technical equipment employed by the Conservation and Restoration Department,” Elizabeth Van Der Mier said, walking through the open door behind them. “I want to see what you find firsthand, Inspector.”
“Pleasure, ma’am.”
“I’ll show you.”
Van Der Mier led Wickenden into the Science & Technology Room, windowless and dark. The police officer and Cohen spread flashlight beams, illuminating computers, filing cabinets, a microscope, an easel, and what looked like equipment best suited for dental hygiene.
“X-radiograph, ultraviolet light, black light, microscopes, chemical analysis stations…. Everything we use for scientific analysis of artworks for the purpose of conservation. Thousands of pounds’ worth of equipment, here for the taking. But it all looks intact.”
They withdrew from the room. Wickenden spoke. “What strikes me as initially odd is the abundance of stealables.”
“Of what?”
“Stealables, Ms. Van Dyke. Objects of value that would be easy to take. A gold ring on a bedside table is one example. A stack of fifty-pound notes wrapped in rubber bands inside the refrigerator is a stealable. A…”
“And a painting sitting on an easel in an unlocked room.”
“Precisely, ma’am. As are the hundreds of paintings, sitting on the gallery walls, that could have been taken. A thief without greed is a thief with a purpose. Focused, practical, intelligent, delibera
te, moderate, clean. We’ve already a barrage of adjectives that radically limit our suspect pool. How many people do you know who would fit all of the aforementioned? I think that ‘clean’ is the only adjective that I can apply to my circle of friends. And I myself do not claim to be possessed of that quality, in any great abundance.”
“I’m listening, Inspector.” Van Der Mier escorted the party out of the Conservation Room and toward the basement.
“It’s commissioned; otherwise the thieves would have taken more. And the commissioner knew of your recent acquisition. And it’s an inside job.”
“A what? Be careful, Inspector, before I start accusing my employees of being a party to this. Why do you think that it’s an inside job?”
“I’ll reserve absolute judgment. But the thieves knew that the painting was in Conservation.”
“But anyone could have known that it would first be in Conservation.”
“And why is that, ma’am?”
“Because I announced it at the press conference yesterday.”
“Oh.”
Wickenden continued to walk, looking down at the floor. After a long pause, he continued. “As I said, I shall reserve absolute judgment…”
In the basement of the museum, flashlights brightened the corridor that led to the utility room. Wickenden kept his eyes along the floor and walls. He stopped over the pool of broken glass. The open window, where the pane had been, sat over his left shoulder.
“Here we are.” Cohen reached out for the metal utility room door, then noticed that Wickenden was still back at the broken window, down the hall.
“Just a moment,” Wickenden mumbled. Van Der Mier tried to follow his gaze, but she could not tell what he was investigating so closely. Wickenden was muttering to himself. “This thief or thieves knows or knew what he or they were or are doing.”
“What?” Van Der Mier struggled to see what had captured Wickenden’s attention.
“Look at the glass that remains in the broken windowpane.”
Van Der Mier followed his finger to the top of the pane where, among the few remnants of glass still intact, a thin, clean vertical line could be seen.
“A glass cutter,” Wickenden made a cross-hatched wave with his still-extended finger, and giggled a bit. “And watch your feet, Ms. Van Damme.” He crumpled over onto the floor, balanced on balls of feet. Wickenden ran his hands just above the tide of glass shards on the floor. Then he looked up to the windowpanes still intact. Then back to the floor. “Why don’t you have alarm glass in these basement windows?”
Van Der Mier looked at the windowpanes. They did not have the graph of black lines built inside the glass that would have triggered the alarm if the pane were shattered, and the lines broken.
“I hadn’t even noticed, since I’ve taken over.”
Cohen approached. “Allow me, ma’am. Inspector, I’ve been here since the museum was first established, for the past two directors before Ms. Van Der Mier took over a year and a half ago. The alarm glass is only on the upper floors, because the doors that lead from the basement to the galleries are locked from both sides. So you’d need security access cards to get up to the galleries, if you were to break in through the basement windows.”
“Unless, of course, you shut the electricity off first.” Wickenden buried his tongue inside his left cheek, as he often did when both thoughtful and annoyed.
“Right.”
“That’s something that I suggest you address for future security concerns.” Wickenden stepped over the glass and toward the utility room, as he continued, “There’s no footprint in the glass.”
“How did they avoid disturbing it when they climbed in?” Cohen now looked at the glass once more.
“I have no idea,” said Wickenden without breaking stride. “But I’ll get back to you on that.”
Wickenden pushed open the utility room door and walked through.
“Don’t you want to dust for fingerprints before you touch that?” Cohen asked from behind.
Oops, thought Wickenden, and then said, “These thieves were too clever to leave prints, my good man. They would surely have been gloved.”
The utility room was silted with dust, and fragments of metal scattered the floor. As flashlights cracked the darkness that was muffled only by a few thin strips of window, Wickenden surveyed the carnage. A once-proud steel cage, with links barely a centimeter apart, now lay mangled and twisted, blown open by what must have been a significant concussion. Cohen’s light shone on the black void that once contained the fuse box.
“The problem,” Cohen began, “is that the steel cage was locked, and the key to it is in the control room. So there was no way to get past the cage, and the explosive couldn’t have been pushed through the cage links, as they’re too small. Also, the fuse box is locked with a separate key that’s also kept up at Control. That’s two locked doors.”
“I love locked-room mysteries.” Wickenden’s face was emotionless, but the space behind his eyes gave him away.
Treading cautiously, and tripping nevertheless, Wickenden threaded his way through the rubble, to the carcass on the wall that once was a fuse box. Wickenden ran his forefinger along the curve of the pipe in his pocket. His wedding ring clicked against the wood of the pipe. He craned his face right up next to the wall. Van Der Mier wasn’t sure, but it looked as though he were sniffing.
“The explosive was placed inside the fuse box.” Wickenden spoke directly into the sooty wall, mere inches from his examining eyes.
“How do you know that?” asked Van Der Mier.
Without turning around, Wickenden pointed back toward the door through which they’d come. Van Der Mier looked down at the floor by her right foot. There were the bent remnants of the fuse box door, the inside of which was charred.
“Which means,” continued Wickenden, “that the cage was also breached. Now, how? With a key, or lock pick?”
A police officer picked up his walkie-talkie.
“Sam, can you check into the control room? We’re keen to see if the keys to the utility room fuse box and the protective cage are still where they should be. And run fingerprints on that.”
“So…” Wickenden spun around now and raised his hand dramatically. “What have we, thus far? A window broken with the help of a glass cutter. No footprints. An explosion from inside the fuse box, which was locked, and which, itself, was inside a locked cage. The electricity goes. The museum is disarmed and darkened. A thief or thieves slips or slip up to the Conservation Room, and make off with a recently purchased all-white painting by Kramer Malevitsky that was being cleaned, and which they knew was there. They escape with the rolled-up canvas, probably through the same window, without detection. Now, what’s wrong with this picture?” He paused. “Tell me again what happened two nights ago, with the thing with the computer thing.”
Later the next day, Robert Grayson returned home from his brief business trip to New York. When he opened the door to his flat and carried his suitcase into the bedroom, he found the skylight shattered, glass across the floor, and the smell of night rain, which had fallen through the paneless window, onto his hardwood bedroom floor.
It was only after he’d called the police that he walked into his living room, and saw the open, empty wooden crate where once his new, ugly Suprematist painting had rested.
CHAPTER 20
Delacloche and Bizot, like an icicle and the puddle below it, stepped out of the elevator, behind a bank clerk. She led them past a security guard, and through an iron gate, along a faded mint-green-carpeted hall, through smells of must and musk and dust, and dusk slowly rose outside the barred windows.
They turned to walk between two rows of identical metal boxes, each fitted with a small keyhole. The flow of cookie-cut containers made Bizot dizzy, and he wished that he had paused for a bite to eat en route. They finally stopped, and the clerk fitted her key into the box, sliding it out part of the way.
“Voudriez-vous l’examiner dans une chambr
e privée?”
Delacloche hesitated, then Bizot replied. “No, thank you. We don’t need a private room. We can look at it here.”
“D’accord. Appellez-moi quand vous êtes prêts à partir.” The bank clerk walked away, disappearing down a parallel row of shiny metal.
Bizot turned to the box before him. It was about one meter long, one foot across and one deep. A sliding lid hid its contents. Bizot nodded Delacloche toward the lid, and she slid it open.
Inside lay neatly stacked files, a black briefcase, and a small safe with a combination lock. There was also a manila envelope, clasped with a red string. Delacloche reached for the envelope and unwound the clasp. She inverted it and the contents fell out into her hand: a piece of paper with numbers typed onto it, and one small silvery key.
“It’s here,” she whispered, with a tone that Bizot read as both relieved and confused. “What does that mean?”
“Permettez-moi, mademoiselle.” Delacloche stepped aside for Bizot, who took up the key in his short fingers. He held it in gloved hands, along its edge, up to the dull fluorescent light of the 1950s interior. Bizot rotated the key beneath the light. Then he stopped, suddenly.
“What is it?” Delacloche could not see what he saw.
Bizot turned away from the safety-deposit box, and walked over to an examination table, key in hand. He flicked on the lamp that sat on the table, and held the key up close to it. He rolled it around, to see it from all sides.
“Putain de merde…,” he whispered.
“What is it?”
“Look at this.” Bizot moved aside, as Delacloche approached. She leaned in close to the lamplight and squinted down at the key held between Bizot’s forefinger and thumb. He swiveled his wrist left, then right, then left again.