Treasure of Saint-Lazare (23 page)

He called Philippe as he waited in the hotel room for Jen to arrive. It was ten p.m. in Paris and Eddie found him at dinner at a restaurant on Rue de Sèvres, just a few blocks from Aurélie’s apartment. Philippe took his portable into the street.

“We’re just finishing, and I don’t mind a bit skipping the coffee. It’s lousy here. It’s just an informal dinner with Aurélie and the Sorbonne friend she’s been seeing.” Eddie felt a momentary twinge. “Also, I had dinner with Margaux last night and she’d like to hear from you.”

“Philippe, I know I should call her but I don’t know what to tell her at this point. I’ll try to think of something.

“Also, the local prosecutor has delegated me to give you some information that may help on your end. And, he’d like help finding the man who was driving that night outside the Chopin. It already seems like a hundred years ago, but it was just last week. We — they — think he was the man who grabbed Roy Castor.”

He went on to explain his own suspicion that Erich Kraft was responsible for Artie’s death, aided by Dmitri. He went through Erich’s immigration story and Jen’s help in getting him American citizenship.

“And I don’t know if she was directly involved in setting up Roy’s
kidnapping, but she certainly introduced Kraft and Sommers shortly before Artie was killed. If I had to guess I’d say she did stupid things with consequences she never imagined, but the police may find it’s more than that. Bottom line, I don’t think we can count on her for help because it’s going to be a full-time job for her just to stay out of jail. And I have serious doubts about her loyalties.”

Philippe heard Eddie out then asked, “What are you going to do? You’d certainly be justified in coming home and dropping the matter.”

“Until I re-interviewed Woody Matthews this afternoon that’s exactly what I intended. No, I’ll be back in a couple of days to work on it there. I’ll call you so we can talk about the next step. I’m beginning to take this personally. And it’s time I re-engaged with my own life.

“Do you think Aurélie would like to be involved? I haven’t responded very well to the stuff she’s sent me. I hoped I wouldn’t have to pursue it.”

“You should ask her yourself.”

“I will. Please tell her I’m reading her information right now.”

He placed the phone carefully back on the table and plugged in its charger. Then he opened the MacBook Air and waited for his inbox to synchronize with French Gmail. There, among messages from his accountant and the manager of his language school, he found two long messages from Aurélie — one he’d already read, and a new one dated today, which he opened.

From: Aurélie Cabillaud

Subject: History of the lost painting

Cher Édouard,

This is what we know so far, including the material I sent you earlier. I’ve put it into English in case you need to give it to someone else there.

The missing painting is almost certainly “Portrait of a Young Man,” a self-portrait by one of the great masters of the High Renaissance, Raphael (or more completely Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino), who did his best-known work in Rome 1509-1520, mainly working for two popes, Julius II and Leo X (one of the Medicis).

I’ve talked to several art historians and a couple of gallery people and they tell me it’s the most valuable painting still missing from the war. When “The Rape of Europa” came out in 1995 the general estimate was it would be worth $100 million. I don’t know who would buy it, unless they wanted to hang it in a cave somewhere and admire it privately, but there are people like that. Maybe a rich investor in Russia, China or one of the Gulf countries.

Raphael lived in a time when patronage of the nobles was the source of all money, and he went right to the top. He trained in Urbino and then in Florence, but moved to Rome where he was introduced to Pope Julius, who put him to work immediately. Michelangelo, on the other hand, had to w
ait around for months before he could start his work.

The highlight of Raphael’s relatively brief career is the first room he did for Julius, known as the Stanza della Segnatura. It contains a sequence of paintings, one of which is called “The School of Athens.” I mention this much detail only because “Athens” contains his only undisputed self-portrait, and it is the similarity of the missing painting that convinces most experts it is Raphael’s own portrait of himself. This is the art world, of course, so there are other opinions, but the majority vote seems to be that it’s the real thing.

Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling at the same time. One story holds that Raphael had the Vatican guards let him go into the chapel after hours so he could admire the painting. It seems to have had some impact on his work. Michelangelo called him a plagiarist.

He was also an architect, and at one time had a contract for the design of St. Peters, but after his death Michelangelo’s work was kept instead.

Raphael was born in Urbino, a town with a long artistic tradition, where his father was court painter to the local duke. He died young in Rome, at age 37. One popular rumor is that he died of a fever brought on by too much sex with his long-time mistress, but the truth is probably something absolutely pedestrian and in any case it doesn’t matter now and that story isn’t very likely, as we know.

The Portrait was painted in 1513-14, when he was 30 years old. It’s not very large, about 22 inches wide and 28 inches high, and it’s painted in oil (which was a relatively new medium at the time) on a wood panel, which means it couldn’t just be rolled up and stuffed in the corner of a suitcase. It would require some protection and would take up some space.

There doesn’t seem to be much if any record of who his client was or what happened to the painting after his death. But almost three hundred years later a young Polish prince, Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, traveled to Italy and bought it, along with Leonardo’s “Lady with an Ermine” and some Roman antiquities.

He took his purchases back to Cracow, where they became the center of the Czartoryski family museum, except for a period during some political unpleasantness when they were in Paris. Just before the Germans attacked in 1939 the painting
s
were sealed up in the basement of a country house in the vicinity, but the Germans found out about them anyway. Hans Frank, the governor general of Poland, confiscated the Raphael, the Leonardo, and a Rembrandt. There was an internal squabble with Göring over all three, but they wound up hanging on the wall of Frank’s home in Wawel Castle in Krakow.

Here’s where it gets interesting. As the Russians were closing in on Krakow early in 1945, Frank wrapped up his looted treasures and sent them off to his home in southern Germany, not too far from Munich. All three of the famous paintings were on the travel manifests — you know how the Germans had to document everything — but when the shipment arrived there was no Raphael. For a long time the prevailing theory was that Frank’s personal curator had stolen it, but he denied it. Frank’s own son wrote a bitter book well after the end of the war and speculated that his mother traded it for butter, and that it still hangs on some farmer’s wall. We can’t ask Frank, of course, because he was hanged by the Nuremberg tribunal in 1946.

One of my colleagues has made a special study of the Nazis’ thefts and says he’s never seen evidence that the painting was in Frank’s house in the year or so before he moved — or that it wasn’t. That doesn’t prove anything, but it holds out the possibility that the painting could have been moved long before Frank took the others to Munich, in which case it could be just about anywhere.

Always,

Aurélie

The door hummed, then opened slowly. Jen entered with a bright smile that looked forced.

“I just came from the house,” she said. “Jim was able to start this afternoon so we went over details for a couple of hours.”

“You’ll be glad when the work is done and you can move back in.”

“I suppose we could go there now if it weren’t for the fire. I heard on the radio that the police have arrested Al Sommers and poor Sonny Perry, and that Dmitri is dead. Is that why I didn’t hear from you last night?”

“More or less. I was pulling into the hotel lot last night when Sonny and Dmitri kidnapped me at gunpoint. It was a close call. Let’s go down to dinner and I’ll tell you more.” She did not look surprised.

Paul waited for them at a table for four in a remote corner of the dining room, Eddie pointed the way there.

“Jen, this is Paul Fitzhugh, who works with me in Paris. We served in the Army together and he’s been part of our group since. And he’s the main reason I’m still alive to talk to you tonight.”

She sat without a word, her face rigid. “What’s going on here?”

Eddie spoke plainly. He didn’t want to leave room for misunderstanding. “Paul and I are returning to Paris to do some serious rat hunting. I thought this whole affair started when your father was killed, but the things I’ve learned in the last couple of
days make me think it may have started with the death of my own father in 2001, or before.”

“How could that be?”

Paul put his hand on Eddie’s arm and picked up the story. “Ma’am, the dead Russian — Dmitri — was a known member of the Russian Mafia, an enforcer who worked mainly in Miami. We know he went to Rennes in June 2001 and was there the day Eddie’s father died. We now know — and Eddie, you haven’t heard this before — that Sonny was there, too. Artie Grant was kidnapped, interrogated and murdered, just as it’s clear your father was murdered. The difference is that he died before they could question him. They would have done the same thing to Eddie if he hadn’t outsmarted Dmitri and killed him.”

Jen looked at Eddie with surprise. “You killed Dmitri?”

“I electrocuted him. He shot himself at the same time and probably would have died from that, but I did kill him.”

Paul continued, “Artie was almost 90 years old at the time, and his heart just couldn’t take the beating. Finally, they put a plastic bag over his head to frighten him, make him believe he would suffocate, and he had a heart attack. They put his body in his car to fake an accident, then doused it with gasoline.”

Eddie asked, “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” Paul said, “The police and prosecutors have opened up to me, I think completely. They have a full confession from Sonny. I am sorry.

“Sonny also explained the long delay between 2001 and Mr. Castor’s death. Sommers thought things would go smoothly when your father was kidnapped, because Erich Kraft was experienced in such things, according to a reference he gave Sommers. Kraft would question Mr. Grant, using intimidation if necessary, he would tell them where to find the painting and everyone would leave as friends. It was a major miscalculation on his part, just like it was a major error to trust a thug like Kraft.

“He was so bummed by Mr. Grant’s death that he called off the entire project. Then he ran short of cash and the price of gold started to shoot up, so he reactivated it. He thought he could control the Germans but he was wrong there, too. He should never have tried to snatch Mr. Castor off the street.”

Jen started to push back her chair but Eddie told her sharply to stop.

“I don’t need to know much from you, but I do need a few things, and we’re not leaving until I have them. First, tell me about your fake brother, Erich Wetzmuller. And I do know he’s fake, that he’s Erich Kraft, and he was involved in Artie’s death and Roy’s. And I know you sponsored him for citizenship. I just don’t know why.”

“Why? Why?” Jen’s demeanor shifted in an instant from resignation to rage. “You saw those blackmail letters. When Roy didn’t come up with what the bastard wanted he came to see me. He told me he’d kill both me and Roy if I didn’t. And he raped me. Not once, but repeatedly. Every time he came to town. He made me introduce him to Al Sommers. But I didn’t know he killed Roy. I would never have done that. God knows I’m no saint, but I wouldn’t kill my own father.”

Her shoulders slumped. She reached for her purse, but Paul snatched it quickly from the table and looked inside. Then he handed it across the table and she took out a tissue and dabbed at her eyes.

“Did you think I’d have a gun? That’s not me, but I wish I’d killed that bastard and his father when I was a kid, or when he came back into my life.

“I was happily working in the shop when he came through the front door one day. He’s a big man and I like big men…” A wan smile for Eddie. “Then a second later I saw his ear. It was missing a notch. I’d seen it before on my mother’s East German husband and I knew instantly I was in trouble.

“He was nothing but sweetness and light at first, entirely different from the vicious teenager I remembered. We went to dinner and he told me his father had died. I knew it already, from Roy, but I didn’t tell him. He came home with me and I gave him my second bedroom, but in the middle of the night he came into my room and raped me. And it wasn’t just sorta rape, I didn’t want him at all but he forced me.