by Aaron Elkins
Calvin finished his omelet and slid the plate aside. "Yeah, but would she tell? She's really loyal to the guy, Chris. If you want, I could talk to her tomorrow and see."
"Let me do it, Calvin. I'll catch her in the morning, before I go to Paris and hunt down that junk shop. You know what you can do, though; you can get hold of Les Echos Quotidiens and set them straight on our actual position on the Rembrandt." I smiled. "Which is no position at all, of course."
He nodded. "Will do. Tony already asked me to talk to them. The rest of the press too. My instructions are to stonewall. I'm real good at that."
"Tony? When did you talk to him?"
"This afternoon. The Echos Quotidiens people tried to get a statement out of him, and he didn't know what they were talking about." He raised his eyebrows. "He knows now."
"You filled him in on everything?"
He nodded. "Oh, except about your getting sloshed, and sneaking into Vachey's study, and falling out the window. I forgot that part."
"Thank you, I owe you. What did he say?"
"Well, you know Tony; it's hard to fluster him. But he needs to talk to you."
"I need to talk to him. It's eight o'clock," I said, looking at a wall clock. "Eleven in Seattle. If I call him right now, I can probably get him before he goes to lunch." I signaled the waiter for our check.
"Go ahead," Calvin said, "I'll get the check. And if I were you, I'd hit the sack early. You look bushed."
I stood up. "I think I'll do that. Thanks, Calvin." I started for the door, then turned with a laugh. "And thanks again for forgetting the part about Vachey's study."
He grinned back at me. "Hell, he wouldn't have believed it anyway."
Chapter 14
I reached Tony at 11:20 a.m. Seattle time. The call was forwarded to him by his secretary.
"Well, well, Chris, how's everything in France?" he asked jovially. "Things going well?"
Tony Whitehead was a man of more than one telephone voice. I recognized this particular persona as the avuncular one that he used when speaking with staff members while important people—board members, donors, journalists—were within earshot. It was meant, I believe, to convey the impression (more or less accurate, give or take the occasional crisis) that we were one big, happy, problem-free family.
"Call me when you're free," I said. "I'll be in the rest of the night."
"I'll certainly do that," Tony boomed. "Wonderful hearing from you, Chris. Keep up the good work."
Sixty seconds later my phone chirped. "Calvin tells me you've run into some problems." He sounded like Tony again, not like Santa Claus. "Sorry to hear it."
"Well, you did tell me it'd be interesting."
"Do they know who killed Vachey?" "I don't think so."
I heard a familiar crik-crak over the line; the sound that my office chair made when it was tipped back. Tony had gone down the hall to make the call from my office. I imagined him leaning back, looking out over Elliott Bay, watching the green-and-white ferries pull into Colman dock.
"Calvin says you like the picture."
"It's beautiful," I told him enthusiastically. "It's a portrait of the old man they used to call Rembrandt's father. It's just about as fine as the one in Malibu, Tony."
"That's saying a lot," he said, and I could hear the suppressed excitement. "So—is it by Rembrandt?"
"Maybe. Probably."
"Not by Govert Flinck?"
"I don't think so, but that's not the main issue anymore, Tony. Now there are Vachey's wartime activities to think about. Even if this isn't the painting Julien Mann's talking about, it's still possible Vachey got it the same way. If he did, I don't think we'd want to touch it . . . would we?"
"Absolutely not," Tony said without hesitation. "I'd want to see it back where it belongs. "However—" He let out a long sigh. "I want to ask a big favor of you, Chris."
He paused for an affirmative response, but I held my tongue. When Tony skips the flimflamming and tells you right up front that he's about to ask you for a big favor—you can count on it being a big one, all right.
"We don't have to sign for it until Friday, is that right?" he asked when I didn't reply. "Three more days?"
"That's right. Vachey extended the time limit."
"Now, I know you want to fly home tomorrow—no, don't stop me—and I know how long it's been since you've seen Anne, and that she's only going to be here until Saturday, but. . . well, I'd like you to stay on in France a few more days."
"Tony—"
"I know, and, believe me, I hate to ask it. But this could be the most significant acquisition—"
"If it's authentic. And if it hasn't been extorted from Mann's father or anyone else."
"Right. Exactly. And that's my point. We still have three days. I'd like you to see if you can dig up anything at all on its provenance, look into Mann's claim, find out if there's anything else in the woodwork we need to worry about. Maybe you can find the junk shop where Vachey says he bought it. Go to Paris if you have to . . . uh, Chris, are you there?"
I was there. I was just wondering whether I ought to mention to Tony that Inspector Lefevre had made it plain that I wasn't leaving France for the next several days in any case, and that I had in fact already learned the name of the junk shop, and had made plans to go to Paris. Hearing this would certainly ease Tony's conscience. On the other hand, it would have been nice to have him thinking he owed me a favor.
It was an ethical dilemma, over which I agonized for almost two nanoseconds.
"Yes, I'm here, Tony," I said stoically. "All right, if you think it's for the best . . . I'll stick around."
"Thanks, Chris," he said warmly. "I knew you'd come through."
"Forget it." Now he was starting to make me feel guilty. "Anything else?"
"Just one suggestion. You might want to look up Ferdinand Oscar de Quincy and see what light he can throw on things."
I blinked stupidly at the receiver. "Ferdinand de Quincy is still alive?"
De Quincy was the man who had been the director of SAM in the early 1950s, the man who, a decade before that, had supposedly located and returned some of Vachey's paintings to him after they had disappeared eastward with the Nazis, the man because of whom Vachey was giving us the Rembrandt in the first place. It had never occurred to me that he might still be around.
"Yeah, I was surprised too. But it suddenly dawned on me that he was only about thirty in 1945, which would put him in his seventies now, so I asked Lloyd to see what he could find out. And it turns out he lives just outside of Paris."
"But—then why wasn't he at the reception? Surely Vachey would have invited him, surely he'd have wanted to come—"
"I have no idea. Why don't you go find out? He's bound to have information on Vachey. His number's—"
"Wait. Pen. Okay, go ahead."
"His number's 43-54-23-31."
I wrote it on the flyleaf of a Wallace Stegner paperback I'd brought with me to pass the time when things got dull. Needless to say, this was the first time I'd opened it.
* * *
After I hung up, I sat on the edge of the bed and stared moodily at the telephone. My mind was still in Seattle, but not on Tony or SAM. I was thinking about the house I rented in Magnolia, about two miles from the museum. Anne would be arriving tonight, and I wanted to talk to her. It looked as if I was going to be stuck here until Friday, which meant I couldn't be back in Seattle until Saturday, which would leave us just a single day together. One day—and no nights; a dismal yield after all those months of anticipation and planning.
But I had an idea for salvaging something. Anne's conference was a one-day affair. It would be over at the end of tomorrow, Wednesday. What if she arranged for a military flight back to Europe tomorrow night? There were plenty of them to England, Germany, and Holland. She could be here in Dijon late Thursday. That would give us Friday together, and Saturday, and even a bonus of Sunday, because Kaiserslautern was only three hours from Dijon, and she wouldn't have
to leave until late afternoon. What's more, my time limit for coming to a decision on the painting was the close of business Friday, so one way or another my work would be done the day after she got here. We could go back up to Paris for a couple of days, or rent a car and drive through Provence, or do whatever she wanted.
The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. If she couldn't get on a military flight, we'd get her a commercial one. Maybe we'd do that anyway, and book her first class. It'd be my treat. What better way did I have to splurge?
But it was barely afternoon in Seattle, so she was still somewhere on the road, probably on the Olympic Peninsula near Kalaloch or Ruby Beach if she was taking the route we'd planned. It hurt to think of how much pleasure there would have been in showing her those wild, magical places. Still, something was better than nothing.
I sighed, punched in my own telephone number, and waited for my voice to come on. When she arrived, she would turn on the answering machine to see if I had left anything for her.
"Hello," said a sepulchral voice. "This is Chris Norgren." It paused to allow this complex message to be grasped, and proceeded somberly. "I'm sorry I can't come to the phone now, but if you will wait for the signal and leave a message, I will . . ."
I tapped my foot impatiently. Was that really what I sounded like, or was it some mysterious quirk of answering-machines that made everybody sound like a zombie?
Finally, the beep came. "Hi, Anne," I said, making an all-out effort to sound like a living person, "welcome to the Emerald City, and hope you had a wonderful drive. There are lots of good things in the freezer, and you know where the booze is. Everything in the fridge should be fresh, more or less. Listen, I just had a terrific idea. Call me when you get in. Don't worry about the time—"
Click. "Chris?"
It was a moment before I could reverse gears and get my voice going again. "Anne? What are you doing there?"
"I got in early. I swung over to Highway 5 at Portland. I wanted to save the Peninsula to see with you."
And bless you for it, I thought warmly. "Listen, I'm glad I caught you early. I'm going to have to stay over in France for another two or three days—"
"Three days! But that'd only leave us— Why do you have to stay three more days?
"Well, the police asked me to—"
"Police? What's going on there?"
And so I had to shift gears again and explain, which took some time; it had been an eventful couple of days. I even told her about getting pitched out the window, managing to minimize the more ludicrous aspects of it without playing down the dramatic, brush-with-death elements.
"My God, Chris," she said, gratifyingly shocked, "I'm just glad you're all right. You are all right?"
"I'm fine. And I have a great idea. I want you to come here to Dijon. Fly back to Europe early."
I told her about the marvelous fall weather northern Europe was having. I suggested driving to Languedoc and spending a night in one of the old inns in the walled city of Carcassonne, something she'd talked about wanting to do. I pointed out that the new plan would give us Sunday together, which we wouldn't get otherwise.
"Can't," she said.
"Why not?"
"If you knew the strings I had to pull to get my nights, you wouldn't ask me to change them."
"Well, don't change them. Come commercial. I'll arrange your tickets from here."
"Chris, I just can't. It would be too—well, too embarrassing to cancel, after the trouble I put them to. I just can't do it. They bumped people to get me on."
"Well, couldn't you—" But I didn't have anything to offer. "Oh, hell." I was feeling good and sorry for myself.
"Chris, it's not the end of the world. It's just a logistical snag, that's all. We've had them before."
I smiled. "That's what I was telling you last week." A snatch of that conversation came back to me. "Did you have a chance to do your thinking?" I asked.
She hesitated. "Did I tell you I wanted to do some thinking?"
"Yes." Now I hesitated. "You didn't say about what, though."
I heard her swallow some wine. "I think you know."
"Your commission," I said.
Anne was at a crossroads of her career. After ten years in the Air Force, she had been thinking about the possibility of resigning her commission and coming back to civilian life. But she was also up for early promotion to major, and I knew how much that meant to her.
"Yes, my commission."
"And?"
"And I came to a decision. Sort of." I heard her drink some more. I heard her put the glass down.
"And are you planning to let me in on it?"
"Well, it's still not completely made. I have to . . . there's more to it."
"Do I get a hint?"
"No, you don't get a hint," she said with sudden sharpness, "because if I discuss it with you, you get all self-sacrificing and reasonable, and then I start taking your needs into consideration, and I just think that this is one decision I ought to be making for myself."
"It's important to me, too, Anne, that's all I'm saying," I said. Reasonably, of course.
"Ah, Chris, I know that." I could tell that she was already sorry about the flare-up. "But let's drop it for now. I don't want to talk about it on the telephone."
"Of course," I said, "if that's what you want."
I was being so reasonable that I was starting to irritate me. But underneath, I wasn't feeling reasonable at all, and both of us knew it. I wanted her to resign. I wanted her to come back to the States and find a real job. I wanted her to live near me, where she belonged damnit. I wanted her to live with me.
But apparently it wasn't going to work out that way. Why would she worry about breaking that to me on the telephone? I didn't say anything more for a long time, for fear of saying something decidedly unreasonable and not in the least self-sacrificing.
Finally, she spoke, very quietly. "Well, then, I guess I'll see you Saturday?"
"Yes. I'll get back earlier if I possibly can. I—I love you." "I love you, Chris."
There was a click and a hum, and I was sitting alone on a hotel bed in a room "lit" by three 25-watt bulbs, six thousand miles from home and from the only person who really mattered to me. I put the receiver back in its cradle.
All things considered, I didn't think it was going to go down as one of my better nights.
* * *
Clotilde Guyot's eyes were bright and brimming. "René Vachey was a saint."
I had brought this jolly, affable woman close to indignant tears with what I'd thought was a reasonably innocuous question: Could she tell me anything that might throw some light on Julien Mann's charges?
"Can you have any idea," she asked, "what it was for him to hide a family wanted by the Nazis? It wasn't only the risk of our being heard or seen, or of a surprise visit by the Gestapo, you see. It was the number of people whose goodness had to be relied on—the milkman who pretended to take no notice when a bachelor began buying three liters of milk a week, the doctor who asked no questions about a six-year-old 'nephew' never seen before, who had come down with whooping cough. We never knew when someone might take offense at a fancied slight and drop a vindictive word to some petty functionary. There was never a knock on the door when our hearts wouldn't stop."
She looked at me accusingly. "And he didn't have to do it, monsieur. He did it out of pity, out of kindness."
"I'm sorry, madame," I said sincerely. "I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I'm only trying to find out whatever I can about the Rembrandt and where it came from."
She shrugged. "I wouldn't know anything about his private purchases. I know where he bought it, that's all, as I told your friend."
"Yes," I said, careful not to tread too heavily, "but Julien Mann says it's actually a Flinck that—"
"I know what he says," she said tightly. She folded her hands on her desk. "I am quite sure he is mistaken."
"I think so, too, but I thought perhaps you might remember some
thing about him—about his father, I mean—"
She jerked her head no. The tears were very close now. "It was fifty years ago, monsieur," she said through a throat that had all but closed up. "I don't recollect him at all."
"Well, then, anything at all that you can tell me about—about the way Monsieur Vachey conducted the business of the Galerie Royale, anything that might—"
The brilliant eyes finally overflowed, the tears running copiously down her cheeks and dripping from her soft chin. A crumpled handkerchief was pulled from somewhere to mop up, but the flood kept coming. She cried without sobs or snuffles, silently except for the accompaniment of long, hollow sighs. I began to apologize and get to my feet, but she waved me back into my chair, and after a while she was able to take a final dab at her reddened nose and tuck the handkerchief away again. A last, shaky sigh, and then came the flood of words.
What Julien Mann had told Les Echos Quotidiens was an unfounded distortion of a patriot's life. Yes, Vachey had worked with the Nazis, all right, but not for them, never for them. Yes, he had bought up Jewish collections that he'd known the Nazis would be interested in. No, he couldn't pay what they were worth, how could he? He paid what he could. And yes, he sold them to the Nazis, if you can call such transactions sales— sometimes he was paid a few francs more than he had paid himself. Just as often, not as much. And sometimes, if they felt like it, they would "pay" him with worthless modern paintings that even Hitler didn't want. One did not try to negotiate with the Nazis.
"I know these things for facts, monsieur. I was there." "I'm sure you do," I said humbly.
"And if he hadn't done this, then what?" Madame Guyot went steadily on, her voice dignified and steady now. "Goering and Rosenberg and the rest of them would have seized the art directly from the Jews, simply walked in with their hooligans and taken it away, as they did in so many other cases, with no thought of paying anything at all for it. What René Vachey did in these matters, he did for the Jews, and for France, not for the Nazis. Because of him, many received the money they needed to flee, to save themselves. My own mother, my small brother ..." Her eyes shone.