Burning (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #1) (22 page)

I nodded, taking my cell phone out of my bag. It was as easy to make notes on as a notepad, and I wasn’t as likely to lose it. “So, Mr. Sampson—”

“Niall, please.”

“
Niall, what can you tell me about what happened here? I know you must have been through it with the police, but I’ll need to put it in my preliminary report to the insurers, and any detail that you can remember might be important.”

“
There isn’t much to say.” He looked over at me apologetically. “I had been out of the house for a few hours at a business meeting. My staff remained behind at home, but they were apparently caught up with their individual jobs, and so didn’t go into the collection gallery for several hours. When I got back, I discovered my Escher had been taken. I called the police and my insurers straight away.”

I needed more details. “I’ll need to hear more about your security arrangements. The make and model of your alarm system, the locks on the doors, and so on.”

Niall smiled. “With that, I mostly followed the arrangements the insurance company suggested.”

“
Mostly?”
Mostly
wasn’t a good word when it came to doing things right.

“
They wanted me to shut away my collection in a climate-controlled vault.”

I looked at him, trying to gauge him. Trying to get a sense of his emotions. The mixture right then was too complex to get a firm grip on, though. “Why didn’t you?”

“Beauty locked away in a vault would be only a fraction of what it was meant to be. Can you understand that, Elle? That beauty can only be appreciated if it is truly fulfilling what it is meant to be?”

“
Of course.”

“
This is my home and I like to look at my pieces in a living environment, where I can enjoy them as I wish. Art is about the emotions it produces. There is nothing worse than having a piece of art you have to visit by unlocking a steel door, turning on florescent lights and then standing in a vault to look at it.”

“
That environment doesn’t seem do them justice,” I agreed.

“
I see you love art, too,” Niall remarked.

“
But you don’t put your art out in a public gallery,” I pointed out.

“
What can I say?” Niall asked. “I like to enjoy what is mine. A museum, with its opening hours and its restrictions, would make that difficult.”

I smiled, knowing that there was a game behind the words, but not wanting to get caught up in it. I had work to do.

“As an art lover, I do respect your position on security. However, as an insurance investigator, well, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that both a vault and a museum would have been more secure.”

“
Of course, I see your point. Tell me though, Elle, could
you
do that?”

Since I was working for his insurers, there should really only have been one answer to that. Yet, it wouldn’t have been the truth, and I got the feeling that not telling the truth would cost me a lot of Niall Sampson’s respect.

“I like art where I can look at it,” I admitted. “It feels…dead, in a vault. But it’s hard to look at when it has been stolen.”

Niall shrugged, making the movement somehow graceful. “I was hoping you would be able to help me with that part. The loss of the Escher is a grave blow to my collection. I feel like a child has been kidnapped.”

“So, you want me to succeed where the police can’t?”

“
I suspect that you are capable of far more than they are. Far more than you let yourself believe, maybe.”

I didn’t know what to make of that. Maybe I
would
be able to do things the police couldn’t. I could talk directly to criminals, for one thing. I could act without having to worry about how it would look at a trial, too. As an insurance investigator, I had fewer rules in my way than the police. My employer didn’t mind about chains of evidence, as long as cases got solved. So long as they didn’t have to pay on the claim, the rest didn’t matter so much. And I had my magic. Not that Niall Sampson would know anything about that. Or would he?

“
When did you discover the artwork was missing? I mean, all the steps that led up to you noticing that it was gone.”

“
Right after I came home from my business meeting.”

I could picture him, coming home after a stressful meeting, wanting to go to his private collection to unwind. I forced myself to focus. “I have a photograph of the Escher of course, from the insurer. Do you have other photos besides the ones for the policy?”

“I’ll have to dig them up and email them to you.”

“
Thank you.” I took a sip of the coffee and held in a groan of pleasure. It was
good
coffee.

“
What else would you like to know?”

“
A little history on the artwork would be nice. I like Escher’s graphic design pieces, but I don’t know this one.”

“
It’s somewhat…different to his usual work,” Niall said.

I looked at him over my coffee mug. “Tell me.”

“In 1931 or thereabouts, Escher was illustrating a Dutch horror novel for an acquaintance.” He paused, looking at me carefully as he said, “In English, the title is
The Terrible Adventures of Scholastica
—it was about a woman who was accused of witchcraft in the sixteenth century.”

I kept my expression deliberately blank and waited for him to go on.

“Back then, one of the methods they used to determine guilt were scales that were used to weigh accused witches. If they failed to weigh in correctly, then they would be killed, usually burned. The scales in the story were, unusually, not rigged. They were honest scales, and in the end, the suspected witch was found innocent.”

“
I love a happy ending,” I said, although I was having a harder time letting nothing show on my face. “So, the Escher is what?”

“
Escher made woodcuts that were used to make illustrations for the book, as well as illuminated letters.”

I nodded. I’d always enjoyed the richness of those.

Niall kept going. “
The Terrible Adventures of Scholastica
was only printed in Dutch, in a limited edition of 300. There were nineteen or so woodcuts of Escher’s for the book. He made at least one woodcut that was never used in the book. The letter A. That was what was stolen from my collection.”

“
Just that. A print of the letter A?” Being a professional, I didn’t point out that it sounded like Sesame Street might be responsible for the crime.

“
Not a print,” Niall corrected me. “The actual woodcut block Escher made. It is so rare there is not even a print available of the letter. It is a one-of-a-kind artifact.”

“
Even so, to be insured for a million…” I said, stopping only because I suspected Niall wouldn’t like being told that I couldn’t see how his precious artwork could possibly be worth the money.

“
There is more that is not public about the woodcut block.” Niall paused. “I have examined it many times. There are mystical symbols carved into it, so densely that it is hard to read them. There are those who say the woodcut is…magical.”

I had a special laugh for those moments when people brought up the idea of magic. One that said
oh, but we don’t believe in nonsense like that, do we
as clearly as possible. I deployed it then and Niall looked at me carefully.

“
I have one of just 300 original copies of
De vreeselijke avonturen van Scholastica
. I was intrigued enough by the story to set about trying to obtain the illustrations in other forms. I found that I could purchase prints from the book. But not of the letter A, you see?”

“
That’s why you had to have the wood carving. It’s one of a kind.”

“
Yes. I prize one-of-a-kind things.” He shot another smile my way. “I trust you will be discreet with your report to the insurers? All of this…”

“
I am very discreet,” I assured him. “Trust me, my insurers aren’t interested in anything beyond whether I recover a stolen object.”

Niall let out a sigh. “That’s good.”

“Has anyone ever shown interest in the Escher woodcut block? Collectors?”

“
Almost no one. It’s so obscure that I doubt most people would even understand its value.”

He had a point there. “Who knows the history?”

“
My staff knows bits and pieces. Perhaps there are scholars who might know of the strange hidden symbols, or the rarity value of the block.”

“
Who framed it?” I asked, casting around for possible connections to the art world. A framer would often research a piece when he or she worked on it.

“
I did it myself.”

So much for that. I closed my eyes for a minute. A vague memory of art history came to me. “Who was Escher’s mentor?”

“Why?”

“
Sometimes, the best way to find something stolen is to find the
reason
it was stolen. Indulge me, Niall.”

“
Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita was his graphic arts teacher and also was a woodcut artist of many beautiful prints,” Niall said. “He died with his wife and son, in Auschwitz.”

I swallowed, trying to imagine the horror of that and knowing that I couldn’t.

“If Samuel had the block—perhaps as a gift or memento from Escher—that would explain why no prints were ever made from it,” I said.

“
What an interesting idea. The provenance is…well,
difficult
with that piece,” Niall admitted. “Could my woodcut block have been stolen Nazi booty?”

“
It’s just a theory.”

“
One that provides us with a possible reason for someone to try to steal it back,” Niall said.

I shrugged. “Possibly. Or it could be nothing to do with that. It could just be that someone wanted it, or that they found out what it might be worth. I’d like to believe that it was something more…”

“Romantic?” Niall suggested.

“
Worthy of it,” I corrected him, “but the truth is that until I find it, we won’t know.”

“
And you will find the woodcut?” Niall asked, reaching out, his fingers just brushing my arm.

I nodded. “You can bet on that. I’m very good at my job.”

“Oh, I guessed that,” Niall assured me. “You are a true art aficionado and a very interesting insurance investigator. I don’t often meet women as clever as you…Elle.”

I liked the way he said my name. It sent a wave of warmth through me.

“Thank you. On that note, I should finish my investigation and go back to my office.”

He smiled and nodded to a plate at the center of the table. “Yes. You should. Although not before you try the shortbread.”

I finished my coffee and tasted it, just to be polite. I finished it with a wide smile on my face. “This is good. You should pass on my compliments to your cook.”

Niall shook his head. “This is one small triumph I can call my own.”

Okay.
This
man baked? “Thank you, Niall. You are a man of many talents.”

“
Well, you can’t eat art, now, can you?”

I laughed. “You are an amazing baker. Do you make art, too?”

“I do.” Niall gestured in a way that seemed to take in the piano, the shortbread, the whole room. “I try to explore all the ways there are to touch the emotions of those around me. So far, my art is not very good, but it pleases me.”

“
So, is there a room like the other one, a gallery, except filled with only your own art?”

Niall smiled like he might not answer, but then nodded. “There is. Only the staff know of it. And one or two close friends.”

That sounded like an invitation. “Maybe another time, after I solve the case of the missing Escher, you’ll show me some of your own artwork.”

“
I’d like that,” he said warmly. “Very much so, in fact. Perhaps I will even have to work on some etchings, just so I can say that I have shown you them.”

It was an old joke, but the promise behind it seemed real. A thread of joy spiraled through me and I cloaked my reaction carefully, so I could return to being a professional insurance investigator.

“I think I’d better get on with interviewing your staff now,” I said, reluctantly standing.

I caught a thread of something that was almost disappointment, coming from Niall, as if I had failed some sort of test by shutting the conversation down like that. Even so, he stood with me. His eyes were latched onto mine and warmth bloomed in my body. Embarrassingly so.

“My staff will offer any assistance you require,” he assured me. He opened a drawer of a side table and handed me a business card and uncapped a gorgeous Waterman fountain pen. He turned over the business card and wrote a phone number. His script was very artistic, with grand loops and the European hash mark through the number seven.