The Paris Apartment, page 5
“Ms. Leclaire?” he blurted. Somehow, in their brief correspondence, he’d had a vision fixed in his mind of a dutiful, dour matron looking after estate business.
“Guilty,” she replied. “I’m Aurelia. But everyone calls me Lia. You must be Mr. Seymour.”
“Yes. But Gabriel, please.” He realized he was staring and averted his gaze, proper manners reasserting themselves. He held out a hand. “A pleasure.”
Lia shook it, her hand firm and warm in his. He released it with a peculiar sense of reluctance.
“And this is Madame Hoffmann. My neighbour.”
Gabriel inclined his head. “Also a pleasure,” he managed.
The old woman rapped her cane on the floor. “I know your type,” she snapped. She eyed his shaggy hair and the ink on his arms. “And you’re not wanted here. This is a building for upstanding citizens. Not a hovel for degenerate artists and drug addicts.”
“That’s quite a…leap,” Gabriel remarked, not sure if he was amused or irritated by the woman’s hostility.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Lia murmured beside him in English. “If a winged monkey appears, I suggest you run.”
“You think we can outrun a winged monkey?” he whispered back.
“I only have to outrun you.”
Gabriel laughed, and the sound sent the writhing dog into a renewed frenzy.
“Please come in,” Lia repeated loudly, switching back to French and stepping aside to usher Gabriel in.
He wasted no time ducking through the doorway into her apartment. The dog snarled and snapped behind him.
Lia sighed. “Have a good afternoon, Madame—”
“I can have you evicted, don’t think I can’t.” Lia’s neighbour wasn’t done yet. “I know people—”
“Good afternoon, Madame Hoffmann,” Lia said again, and then simply closed the door after them.
“She’s charming,” Gabriel commented. He could still hear muffled barking on the other side of the door.
“I’m quite sure she’s harmless. Lonely, maybe. My grandmère used to say, ‘Only beware the man who does not talk and the dog that does not bark.’” She slipped by him, a light scent of jasmine following in her wake.
“I haven’t heard that one before.” He glanced around at the small foyer with wainscoted walls.
“An American proverb, as it turns out.”
“Your grandmother was an American?”
“No.” Lia frowned briefly but did not elaborate. Then her expression cleared. “I appreciate you coming so quickly. I hope I didn’t inconvenience you.”
“Not at all.” Gabriel set down his bag. “I was intrigued.” Just not by what she thought.
“The painting is here.” She bent to retrieve the little landscape that had been propped up against the wall near the door. Of the bold, nude canvas there was no sign.
Lia handed it to him. “Do you recognize it?”
Gabriel examined the painting. It looked even more desperate to please up close than it had in the photo, but the subject matter was easily identifiable. William Seymour was signed with a flourish in the bottom right-hand corner. “This is a painting of Millbrook Hall, a property my family has owned for generations. That is my grandfather’s signature. He painted dozens and dozens of landscapes featuring Millbrook.”
“He was an artist?”
“He was a wealthy landowner with a lot of free time on his hands who loved art,” he allowed. “He always dreamed of exhibiting his work.”
“And did he?”
“Only in the manor dining room, despite his wife’s vehement objections.” He glanced up with a wry smile. “Or so the story goes.”
Lia smiled back.
Gabriel turned the painting over. Nothing was written on the back that would give any indication as to how it had ended up here.
Lia seemed to read his mind. “It belonged to my grandmother. I still have no idea how she got it.”
“Huh.” Gabriel righted the painting.
“And you’re sure the name Estelle means nothing to you? Estelle Allard?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. I called my father before I left, and he hadn’t heard the name either. He’s going to ask my grandfather at his first opportunity.”
“He’s still alive? The William who painted this?”
“Yes. And ninety-eight years might have taken their toll physically, but they have done nothing to dull his mind. Perhaps he will have an answer.” He looked up at her. “I assume Estelle Allard was your grandmother?”
“Yes. She was the same age when she passed away. Ninety-eight.”
“Were you close with her?”
Lia exhaled and played with a small oval pendant that hung at her throat. The three tiny red stones set into the enameled surface glittered as she twisted it. “I thought so. I mean, as close as one could get to a woman who wasn’t much of a people person…” She trailed off, suddenly looking distinctly uncomfortable. “I thought I knew her. But now, it seems I didn’t know her at all.”
Gabriel wasn’t sure what to say to that.
“I’m sorry. Never mind my ramblings. Do you think your family would like the painting returned?” she asked. “Perhaps it has some sentimental value?”
“I appreciate the gesture, but this obviously belonged to your grandmother. It is yours to do with as you wish.” He handed the little landscape back to her, wondering how best to broach the subject of the nude painting. Because he was damned if he was leaving here without taking a good look at it. “May I ask how you found me?”
“Your website.” Intelligent hazel eyes considered him. “You’re an art appraiser.”
“Yes. For over a decade. I also specialize in restoration work.” If she had read his website, she would know that too.
“Of paintings,” she confirmed. “Early modernist works are your specialty.”
“Yes. But I have experience with works dating from the fifteenth century onward. I also do mosaics and murals, though I usually recommend a specialist to my clients for more valuable pieces. I know enough to know what I don’t know.”
“Mmm. Tell me about your clients.”
Gabriel was suddenly revising his original assessment of what this woman might or might not know about art. Because this conversation was starting to sound less like a conversation and more and more like an interview.
“Insurance agencies. Auction houses. Museums.” He crossed his arms. “Do you wish to call any of them for a reference?” he asked dryly.
She clasped her hands in front of her and looked down. “I, um, kind of already did.”
He hadn’t expected that. “Which one?”
“All of them.”
“Oh.” He hadn’t expected that either.
“You come very highly recommended. And I’m reasonably sure you’re not a serial killer.”
“Thank you, I think.”
“I have a confession.”
“A confession?”
She set the little landscape back down. “I didn’t really ask you here to look at your grandfather’s painting. Not entirely.”
The irony of that confession nearly made him laugh out loud.
“I did search for your name at the beginning,” Lia continued, looking back up. “Because, strangely enough, this particular landscape was kept in a safety deposit box I knew nothing about until after my grandmère’s death. And I have no idea why. No offense meant to your grandfather,” she added hastily.
“None taken.”
“In her will, she specifically directed that this painting go to me.”
“I see.” He didn’t know what else to say.
“Searching out your family seemed like a good first step in my search for answers. I have so many questions, and I thought maybe one of you could help me fill in some blanks. But then when I saw what you did for a living, it seemed like fate, and I thought that maybe—” She stopped. “There are others. I’m trying to identify them and catalogue them but I—” She took a deep breath. “I’m not making sense. Let me start over. I know enough to know what I don’t know.” She stole his words. “I have a number of paintings that need to be appraised. I was hoping that I might be able to hire you to do so.”
Gabriel tried to temper the elation that bubbled up. He was positively desperate to take a better look at the nude—would have looked at that canvas for free—but the idea of being paid to do so was almost too good to believe. “Why not take these paintings to an appraiser in Paris?” he asked reasonably, trying to understand exactly what was going on here. “Not,” he added, “that I’m not happy to be here.”
“I can’t really take them anywhere. Not easily.”
“I don’t understand.”
She gave him a funny look. “I think I just need to show you.”
“All right.”
“Follow me.” Lia led him into the apartment.
Except it wasn’t so much an apartment as a dazzling time capsule from a different century. It was a residence straight out of a history book, filled with luxury and opulence, and meant to impress. The exquisite furnishings and rugs were of the quality that was currently in demand at high-end auctions. At the far end of the room, over a wide hearth, a marble mantel was lined with antique jade sculpture. The hearth itself was flanked by two towering bookcases that rose all the way to the ceiling. The light caught the gilded print on the leather spines, and Gabriel couldn’t help but wonder how many first editions existed in the ordered rows.
And on almost every wall, there was art.
“This is…” He struggled for a word, taking in the space, all awash in sunlight and tiny rainbows cast by the chandelier above their heads.
“Overwhelming?”
“That’s an understatement.”
“I found it like this,” she told him. “It was, of course, significantly dustier and mustier, but the curtains had been drawn and nothing had faded much. I’ve cleaned since then. Carefully and extensively. But I haven’t touched the paintings. This is the first group that I need appraised.”
Gabriel moved toward the collection of landscapes and seascapes on the wall opposite the windows. His practiced eye easily picked out two compositions that had all the hallmarks that had made John Constable so famous. There was likely a significant fortune hanging on this wall alone.
“What do you mean you found it like this?” he asked, her words finally registering.
“I inherited this apartment,” she explained. “Grandmère willed it to me. It seems she lived here during the late twenties, throughout the thirties, and into the early forties. I found correspondence dated up until 1943.”
“And no one in your family has lived here since?”
“No one in my family knew it existed,” she corrected. She swiped an errant hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “Until recently, I believed Grandmère had lived in Marseille her entire life.”
“I see,” Gabriel said again, not seeing anything at all.
“This is her.” Lia moved away from him and picked up a photo from a carved table, holding it out to Gabriel. “Estelle Allard.”
Gabriel reluctantly left the paintings and took the photo from her, examining the image. He’d seen old movie posters of film stars like Olivia de Havilland or Ingrid Bergman, and they had nothing on the woman in this photo leaning against a lamppost.
“She was stunning,” he said honestly.
“She was,” her granddaughter agreed with little enthusiasm.
There were other photos of Estelle Allard. One had her in the driver’s seat of a low-slung car, another mounted on a sleek horse.
“Looks as though she was quite the daredevil too,” Gabriel remarked.
“No,” Lia mumbled. “She wasn’t. The Grandmère I knew grew lilies, fed the feral cats in the park across the way, and walked the same stretch of beach alone every morning. All of her neighbours played bocce ball on the last Tuesday of every month, but she always declined their invitations. She said she didn’t need the company, and aside from that, she found the noise intolerable. She didn’t drive, she didn’t smoke, she didn’t drink. She was in bed by eight p.m. sharp. She favoured high collars, sensible shoes, and polyester slacks.”
“This picture was taken a long time ago,” Gabriel said, handing the photo back. “People can change.”
Lia made a funny sound.
“Who is this?” Gabriel picked up a photo of an officer in an old German uniform.
“I have no idea. There was nothing written on the back.” She winced. “I think…” She trailed off, her hands twisting in front of her.
“You think what?” Gabriel prompted.
“I think my grandmother was a Nazi collaborator during the war.”
Given what he still held in his hands, Gabriel wasn’t completely surprised by her words. “Because of this?”
“Partially. There were also pro-Nazi magazines. Receipts from the bars at the Paris Ritz Hotel. A postcard signed by Göring himself.”
He set the photo down. “I’m not sure you should jump to conclusions just yet,” he ventured. “There could be other explanations.”
“That’s kind of you to say, and it’s what I tried to tell myself. But experience has taught me that when one hears hooves, one does not generally look for zebras.” She tried to smile and failed. “The evidence is pretty convincing. And I think that this was why she kept this—this apartment, and everything in it—all hidden. Who in their right mind would want to admit to being a collaborator?”
A silence fell.
“And there’s more.” Lia sounded distinctly uncomfortable. “Art, that is.”
“Why don’t you show me?”
She nodded and led him deeper into the apartment, stopping in a formal dining room. She gestured wordlessly at the long wall covered in framed canvases.
Gabriel maneuvered himself past her to examine this collection. The portraits were extensive, an assortment of nineteenth- and twentieth-century compositions peppered by a handful that were far older. John Singer Sargent was represented for certain, along with at least two works that appeared to be the product of Henry Fuseli’s artistic brilliance. Gabriel didn’t even want to dare guess at the rest without proper examination.
“If these were stolen, would you be able to determine from where? And from whom?” Lia asked.
Gabriel glanced at her, trying to think of something reassuring to say. He settled on the truth. “If they were stolen—and that’s a big if—I can’t guarantee I’d be completely successful. Entire families perished during those years. Establishing rightful ownership in the cases where there is no next of kin can often prove impossible. But I would certainly try.”
“Good.” It was barely audible.
“If it makes you feel better, I haven’t yet seen anything on these walls that I recognize from lists of missing or stolen works. I’m not an authority but I’m familiar with the art world’s Most Wanted.”
Lia offered a weak smile. “I suppose that is something.”
“Are there any more paintings?” Gabriel prompted. He still hadn’t seen the nude.
“One more. It’s different from the rest.”
Gabriel tried to keep his expression neutral. “Is it here?”
Lia nodded and led him to a set of French doors, pulling them wide. Sheer, gauzy curtains let in a dreamy, diffuse light through two long windows. Gabriel had a vague impression of a wide bed and a large wardrobe opposite. But what made him freeze where he stood was the canvas that had brought him here.
And the only thing that ran through Gabriel’s mind was that, like Indiana Jones, he had found the Holy Grail.
Chapter
5
Lia
Paris, France
28 June 2017
Lia didn’t have to be an art expert to feel the emotion that had gone into each bold brushstroke. Every time she looked at this painting, she saw something new—an elusive nuance or a subtle detail previously missed. And she had spent a great deal of time looking at this painting and wondering what the woman who glared back at her might have seen in this apartment.
For now, Lia simply leaned against the wall, studying the expert who was, in turn, studying the painting. Gabriel Seymour had gone eerily still just inside the bedroom door as he had caught sight of the canvas, and Lia wasn’t even sure he was still breathing.
He was not what she had been expecting when she had sent her original message. Given the long list of degrees and scholarly accomplishments documented on his website and the impeccable, enthusiastic references she’d gotten from places like Christie’s and Sotheby’s, she’d been expecting someone older. Someone who looked more…academic. Buttoned-up. Maybe even garnished with a bow tie. The man who was currently getting down on his hands and knees in front of the evocative painting looked more like the drummer of an indie band.
“Holy shit,” he said from the floor before he seemed to catch himself. “I beg your pardon.”
“Don’t apologize,” Lia said. “Just agree to work for me. Help me identify these paintings.”
“Yes,” he breathed. “God, yes. At the risk of sounding like a serial killer, you’d require an armed tactical team to drag me out of here now.” His eyes swept the length of the painting. “I think this is a Munch.”
“I agree. His initials appear in the lower left. Though I haven’t been able to find any provenance or records for it. Or any of them, for that matter,” she muttered.
His head snapped up. “What did you say you did for a living?”
“I didn’t.” She tipped her head. “But since you asked, I’m a chemical engineer.”
“Who is well versed in art history?”
“Hardly. I’m much better at math than modernism. But the internet can be helpful from time to time,” she said. “Still, my Googling abilities certainly do not make me an expert on anything. Which is why I really contacted you. And why, I suspect, you got here as quickly as you did.”
Grey eyes pinned her where she stood. “You put this painting in the background of the picture you sent me on purpose.”
