The Paris Secret (12 page)

Flora pulled a face. ‘No, but it was stuffed to the rafters with paintings, ornaments, you name it. And Gertie the ostrich of course. That’s where we had the fight.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ Ines murmured.

‘Nor could we. Nor could
they
, to be honest. We presented them with the inventory today. There’s hundreds of pieces in there.’

‘What are they going to do with it all?’

Flora shrugged. ‘Sell it, probably.’

‘I can’t believe they forgot they had an entire apartment. God, don’t let Bruno hear about it!’

‘Actually, two apartments. It turns out they own the apartment downstairs too – although that one was pretty much empty. The only things in it are a bed and a painting. Here, have a
look.’ She brought up a photo of the portrait on her phone.

‘Wow!’ Ines murmured. ‘I love the colour of that dress. It would look so great in a bra.’

Flora chuckled, pocketing the phone again.

‘So, they forgot about
two
apartments. How careless.’ Ines tucked her legs into her chest, curling up like a hedgehog, and Flora automatically took over swinging the hammock
with her foot.

‘The weird thing is, I get the impression the family doesn’t know there are two apartments. I mean, they will now of course – Natascha’s hardly likely to keep shtum
– but it wasn’t mentioned in our meeting yesterday. They only ever talked about one.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Don’t you think that’s odd?’

‘Mmmm.’ Ines thought for a moment. ‘But you said one was empty, right?’

Flora nodded.

‘Well, if you were called in to assess the art inside, there wouldn’t have been any point discussing the one
without
any art in it, would there?’

‘It had the portrait in it.’

‘Yeah. Just one painting. Not worth mentioning.’

‘I guess.’ Flora sighed and they swung in easy silence for a few moments. ‘Did I mention there was a codicil in the grandfather’s will saying no one in the family was to
even know about the apartment until his wife dies?’

‘No! Is she dead?’

‘Nope, alive and well and living in Antibes apparently. And she’s forbidden them all from going to the apartment.’

‘Oh!’ Ines said, catching on. ‘So
that’s
why they called you in – you’re their “eyes”.’

‘Exactly.’

Ines chewed her inner cheek thoughtfully. ‘Well, that explains why Natascha kidnapped you. As soon as she’s told she can’t do something, you can bet it’s all she wants to
do.’

She knew her friend was right. Natascha had admitted she had been listening at the door; she would have heard that Flora was leaving separately, alone and in the family’s own car; and she
would have known that she needed Flora – as one of the only two people authorized to enter the property – to help her get the key. Little had she realized she’d gone about it the
hard way. Flora had had her own copy of the key in her bag. If only Natascha had thought to ask and not grab . . .

Flora watched as a raven landed on a chimney stack and began cleaning its ruffled feathers, her mind still on the key. She was certain the assistant had thought he was giving her the spare, as
though there was only one apartment.

She remembered something suddenly. ‘Oh! I nearly forgot . . . Wait there.’

Flora wriggled out of the hammock and ran over the roof terrace into the apartment. A moment later she returned with the letter in her hand. ‘I found it in the apartment yesterday. I meant
to give it to Angus but I forgot.’

Ines looked at the tatty sheet. ‘It’s in German.’

‘I know,’ Flora nodded, climbing back into the hammock again. ‘Can you read it?’

Ines cast her eye over it. ‘Not well. It’s not Swiss German, anyway, which is about the
only
thing I learnt at that school.’

Flora shrugged. ‘Whatever you can tell me would help.’

Ines blew out through her cheeks. ‘OK, well, here we go,’ she said, her eyes travelling over the page. ‘It’s sent from Amsterdam, in October 1940.’

‘Ooh,’ Flora said, resting her cheek on Ines’s shoulder.

‘“. . . Dearest Sister, thank you for your nice words. Edmund and I are both . . .
faring
well, in spite of the increasing . . . scarcity of food. It has been one hundred and
twenty days now since the Germans occupied the city and I think we cannot pretend any longer that the situation is a peaceful one, or even civilized. There have been rumours that the Germans are
deliberately blockading supplies but I do not believe this myself. It is too much to believe they would resort to these tactics, starving us like dogs. Isn’t it?”’

Ines cocked a sad eyebrow at Flora before continuing to read.

‘“I pray things are easier with you. I wish you were here. I feel, even as hard as things are here, they must surely be better than Paris. I think I could bear it so much more to
have you here with me. We could walk, like we always used to as girls. You could talk to me too, confide in me all your cares. I was . . . dismayed to read your unhappiness in your last letter and
spent many nights . . . fretting about you, not just about your most recent loss – for which I cried for you, sister, truly I did – but also your worries for your marriage. If you will
permit, I will speak frankly – your husband is still the man you married. He always has been a
bon viveur
who loves the limelight; indeed, was it not his vitality that drew you to him
first? It is no surprise to me that his vanity has grown with his success – perhaps it was even to be expected. Every man has his pride and Daddy didn’t make it easy for him asking for
your hand, so now that he has both money and power, of course women laugh more easily in his company. But does this mean his love for you has dimmed? On the contrary, I am certain that much of his
flamboyance can be attributed to a desire to provide a better life for you. He is an ambitious man, simply playing the game. Just remember – he plays it for you.

‘“My advice to you is simple – turn the other cheek when he comes in late from the opera, ignore the scent of perfume on his coat, put out his meals with your best smile and
ensure he visits you nightly. You can be sure he will settle down once he has a family. Take it from me, fatherhood sobers the flightiest of men. Write soon. Your loving sister always,
Birgita.”’

Ines folded the letter with pursed lips. ‘Having a baby to save a marriage?’ she tutted. ‘Thank God I am a modern woman. They would have had me shot for insubordination to my
husband, I can tell you,’ she cackled.

‘Hmm,’ Flora smiled wanly, putting the letter back in her pocket and feeling slightly disappointed. She had hoped the fact that the letter had been hidden under the bed had meant it
might concern more specific secrets – such as why an apartment full of treasure had been locked up and left for over seventy years.

‘Do you think Angus has got my messages yet?’ she asked, biting her lip anxiously. ‘Maybe there’s Wi-Fi on his plane.’

‘Well, you’ve only sent seven hundred so far. You’d better send another just in case.’ Ines took one look at Flora’s stricken face. ‘I’m joking! Hey,
listen, you need to relax. Remember we’ve got the Hermès party tomorrow night. They always serve the best champagne.’

‘Sure,’ Flora replied distractedly, clearly not hearing a word.

Ines jogged her with her arm. ‘We’re going to Île de Ré this weekend. I can’t stay in the city in this heat. You should come.’

Flora turned her head to look at her. ‘Thanks, but if Angus fires me, I’ll have to go back to London, and if by some freak miracle he doesn’t, I’ll probably need to make
it up to him and work through.’

‘Really? Stefan’s coming.’

Flora arched an eyebrow. ‘And you’re mentioning that because . . . ?’

‘I’m just saying,’ Ines shrugged carelessly. ‘You two rub along nicely together, that’s all.’

‘He’s a friend. That’s it.’

Ines smirked – she knew full well that the two of them had hooked up once before – but Flora swiped her lightly on the arm.

‘I’m telling you, that’s all we are. Friends.’

Ines shrugged again. ‘OK. I just thought you could do with a bit of fun. All work and no play . . .’

‘Excuse me! I am
not
dull,’ Flora pouted. ‘We can’t all be having sex on the stairs, you know.’

But Ines didn’t reply. She simply squeezed Flora’s hand as they swung in the hammock and watched the stars begin to stud the night sky.

Paris sparkled in the sun, golden statues glinting on the bridges, the river below gleaming as boats laden with tourists passed up and down on well-worn routes that would have
long since carved out gorges on dry land. Flora walked past them with the unseeing eyes and briskness of a local, oblivious to the heavy-headed swaying of the plane tree canopies or the amusing
sight of a couple of policemen on rollerblades, drinking frappés. She didn’t care that the Eiffel Tower had suddenly come into view in a gap between the buildings as she walked down
the street, nor was she moved by the sight of a
Sale
sign outside the Caravane store. She had forgotten all about the blister that had been threatening to form on her heel with these new
shoes; she had forgotten about the macaroons she had intended to pick up as a farewell gift for Ines on her way past this afternoon.

Angus still hadn’t rung and she was so distracted with nerves that she was scarcely conscious of where she was and why. In the absence of a call, she had bullishly decided to continue as
normal. If he was ruminating on whether or not to fire her, he might be appeased if she achieved something productive today.

And so she had. This morning’s appointment at Bernheim-Jeune (the recognized authority on Renoir’s official works) had been wearying and time-consuming, but ultimately successful.
She had sifted through every page of Renoir’s
catalogue raisonné
– no mean feat for an artist who had produced more than 4,000 works of art during his lifetime – but
she had eventually found the image of the Vermeils’ picture. It was officially called
Yellow Dress, Sitting
, as per the sticker on the back, but not only that; it had a companion
piece:
Yellow Dress, Walking
.

She had taken photographs and details of both entries, and with a brisk handshake had left, eager to get back to the office and feed the details into the various databases that could get their
search well and truly off the ground.

The Paris office wasn’t anywhere near as splashy as the New York headquarters, a vast converted warehouse in Tribeca with a newly purchased Pollock in the reception area; nor did it match
the muted old-school splendour of the London base in Mayfair where their European operations were based and which she now headed up. Rather, it was a lone outpost in the Marais which Angus had
rented for his fleeting visits through the capital, just a single room above an old
papeterie
, with little in it apart from a Napoleon desk, a chair, a plug socket and a view into the nail
bar opposite.

She let herself in and without even opening the windows – and it was stiflingly hot in there – logged on to the Getty Provenance Index, her eyes flickering every few seconds up to
the huge former stationmaster’s clock which she had bought at Clignancourt flea market.

Ten minutes till New York opened. She and Angus always touched base at 9 a.m. his time. He might have ignored her messages last night but he couldn’t avoid her for much longer now. If he
was planning on firing her, he was going to have to do it to her face and she didn’t intend to make it easy for him. In the space of the twenty-four hours since he’d left, yes,
she’d had a fracas with the clients’ daughter but she had also established that their prize Renoir was officially recognized in the
catalogue raisonné
and she had a title
and date for it. If she could just establish the chain of ownership, or provenance, from the artist through to the Vermeils, before he called . . .

Her fingers flitted over the keypad, her eyes scanning the screen quickly, dispassionately, as the information uploaded. She wrote down the pertinent details:
Yellow Dress, Sitting
had
been painted in 1908 and sold to Renoir’s renowned dealer Ambroise Vollard in May that same year. It was sold in London in 1910 to a man called Fritz Haas who kept it until his death, when it
was sold by his daughter in 1943 to—

Flora stopped scribbling as she saw the next name to acquire it: Franz Von Taschelt. She knew the name; any decent industry professional would. Von Taschelt had been a prominent dealer of
modernism in Paris, with a successful gallery on Place Valhubert. But when the Nazis occupied Paris, Von Taschelt had collaborated with them, becoming complicit in systematically plundering wealthy
Jewish families’ private collections in which sales were forced and their assets seized. The worst part of it all? He was Jewish himself.

The fact that there wasn’t a name below his on the Provenance Index worried her –Von Taschelt was rightly reviled for what he’d done and even all these years later, the mere
mention of his name inspired contempt in those who knew of such things. Factor in that the Vermeils were an influential family with a high philanthropic profile, and it would be terrible PR for
them if it transpired they had bought it from him – no doubt for a song. There had been practically no art market in Europe during the war and the Third Reich’s crackdown on what they
considered to be modernist ‘degenerate’ art meant works by Dalí, Cézanne, Picasso and the like were almost unsaleable. The opposite had been true in North America, by
contrast, with many of the most venerable institutions buying the grand-master and modernist stocks that the Nazis didn’t want, via the regime’s small network of six dealers who were
authorized to trade on this free market, with all proceeds going straight from the art to the Third Reich’s armaments programme. There had even been a bureau dedicated to these wartime
‘deals’ – the ERR, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg; to maintain an appearance of legality, its purported goal was to ‘safeguard the works’ belonging to wealthy
Jews but no one was fooled by that and this plundering of art had been declared a war crime in the Nuremberg Trials immediately following the end of the war. It was art history’s darkest hour
and Flora wasn’t pleased to see that her clients had been brushed by it.