The Paris Apartment, page 6
“Of course I did.”
“That was positively diabolical.”
“I’ve been accused of worse. It worked, didn’t it?”
“It did.”
“I need to know if this painting, like the rest, could be stolen.”
“I understand.” Gabriel remained crouched in front of the painting. “If you are agreeable, I’d like to make arrangements to take the entire collection back to my studio in London,” he said.
“But there are so many.”
“That’s no problem. I’ve arranged for transport of much larger collections before. I’ll be able to establish authenticity there and get second opinions, if need be. I’d prefer to have them stored securely until they’ve been processed and identified. At the very least, they should be insured.”
“Of course.” Lia hadn’t thought of that.
“I’d like for you to visit my studio once the paintings are there. So that we can go over exactly what I’ll be doing with each piece. There will be significant paperwork involved, and if possible, I’d like to cover that with you in person. Will you have time to come to London?”
“Yes,” Lia said. “I just finished out my last contracted position, and there is a new posting in Seville that I intend to chase but interviews don’t start for a few weeks yet. With the death of my grandmother, I didn’t try to find work in between. Which, it seems, was just as well.”
“Seville?” Gabriel lifted an eyebrow.
“I’m in consulting. Which means I go wherever the work is and stay as long as the job lasts. I don’t spend a lot of time here in Paris.”
“Well, this might make it easier for you to pick and choose your jobs. You know that if this proves to be an authentic Munch, and you wish to sell, it’ll be worth a fortune.” He ran a finger along the edge of the frame.
“It might not be mine to sell.” Her words were quiet. “And if that’s the case, I want it returned to its rightful owner.”
“Let’s cross that bridge if and when we come to it,” Gabriel said, straightening. “It’s strange though,” he mused, his eyes lingering on the canvas.
“What is?”
“That this is the only piece composed by an Expressionist. It certainly doesn’t fit with the rest of the collection in the apartment.” He turned back to her. “You didn’t find any others like this?”
Lia lifted her hands helplessly. “No.”
He turned in a slow circle. “There was no art in this room?”
“Not the painted kind. But there was an obscene amount of vintage couture clothing. Most of which I’ve donated to the Palais Galliera and the Museum of Decorative Arts.” She gestured at the arched entrance beside the wardrobe. “That dressing room was overflowing.”
Gabriel left the painting and ducked into the tiny space. “Mmm.”
“What does ‘mmm’ mean?” Lia followed him and stopped at the opening.
Gabriel was peering at the walls of the now-empty dressing room. “Artists like Munch were labeled as degenerate by the Nazis. Which didn’t prevent some Nazis from stealing their work, of course, but most works were either auctioned internationally or destroyed. Over the years, I’ve personally appraised and restored a half-dozen paintings that were found hidden from the Nazis in attics and cellars and barns.” He had his phone out now and was running the beam of the flashlight toward the back.
Lia frowned. He couldn’t possibly be suggesting what she thought he was. “I don’t have an attic or cellar or barn.”
“No. But you have an oddly short dressing room.”
“What?”
“This dressing room’s back wall is not plaster. It’s painted wood.”
“So?”
“Come here.” Without turning, he gestured for her to join him.
Lia did as he asked. He was examining a gap between the floor and the back wall.
“This wall was added,” he said. He ran his light up the wall to reveal a seam that divided the back wall into two equal panels. “I don’t know when, but it’s not original.”
“You’re seriously suggesting that there’s a hidden space behind this wall?”
“It’s likely.” He said it like she had simply asked him if he thought it might rain later on.
“For what?” she asked incredulously.
“I don’t know. Would you like to find out?”
“Um.”
He caught her hand in his and pressed his phone into her palm. “Let me fetch my tools.” He didn’t give her time to answer but simply ducked back out of the dressing room and reappeared a half minute later with his bag.
“Hold the light over my shoulder,” he instructed as he got down on his hands and knees to study the gap along the floor.
“Does this sort of thing happen to you often?” Lia asked weakly. “Secret rooms and whatnot?”
“First time.” His answer was muffled as he worked a flat bar beneath the left panel.
She crouched down beside him, feeling the warmth of his body against her bare arms. His presence was comforting. “What if—”
There was a quiet snap, and the edge of the panel abruptly released. “Ah. It just slides.”
They both got to their feet, and Gabriel slipped his fingers under the seam. He glanced at Lia with an unspoken question, waiting until she nodded before he pulled the panel free.
Lia put a hand out to steady herself, and her stomach plummeted as the beam of the flashlight exposed a hidden space—an extension of the dressing room—just as Gabriel had suggested. And inside, stacked upright on the floor and on a single shelf above that spanned the space, were dozens of paintings in a wide range of sizes. These had been removed from their frames, apparently for storage. Parts of the larger canvases were visible, and Lia could see that they were Expressionist and Impressionist works. A complete departure from what hung on the apartment walls.
Gabriel slid the second panel free and set it down behind them with the first. In the additional light, the hoard looked even more extensive.
“Oh God, Grandmère, what did you do?” Lia whispered.
“Don’t think the worst,” Gabriel said quietly, rejoining her.
“How can I not?” She looked up at him, the backs of her eyes burning. “Why else would a woman who received a goddamn thank-you note from Hermann Göring have a hidden hoard of art if it wasn’t stolen?” She thrust the phone back at Gabriel and spun, hurrying out of the dressing room and every horrible secret in it. She stopped in front of the wardrobe, trying to settle the despair and distress that were constricting her chest and making it hard to breathe.
“Lia.”
She hadn’t heard him follow her out. “I’m sorry. This is all…it’s just…” She tried to put her thoughts in order. “It’s horrifying. And unforgivable.”
“Hey.” He caught her hand in his for the second time and gently pulled her around. “Whatever this is, whatever your grandmother may or may not have done, it has nothing to do with you. You did not do this. If the worst turns out to be the truth, it is not your fault. Do you understand?”
Lia nodded miserably, looking down to where their fingers joined. “I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t be. This is a lot. For anyone.”
“I’m glad you’re here.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. It was the truth but not something she should be saying to a man she had only just met.
“Me too.” If he found her confession inappropriate or strange, he hid it well. “We’ll figure this out.”
Lia nodded again and withdrew her hand from his, trying to regain her composure.
Gabriel seemed to hesitate. “Is there anyone else…is anyone else helping you? Sibling? Parents?”
“No siblings,” Lia told him. “And when I told my parents about the apartment, they were more relieved that they were not required to return to France than interested in what it might contain. This is my problem.” She looked up at him and made an effort not to embarrass herself further. “Honestly, I’ll be fine. I’m used to dealing with things on my own.”
“You’re not on your own.” He held her gaze, his grey eyes giving none of his thoughts away. “Whatever side your grandmother may have been on, we’ll figure out the truth together.”
Chapter
6
Estelle
Paris, France
12 September 1940
The Ritz Hotel had been divided into two when the Germans had marched into Paris. In truth, it was already two edifices long before the red-and-black flags had unfurled over the city but the physical had also become the social when the Nazis commandeered the Parisian landmark. The Ritz went from simply a catch basin for the wealthy and the royal, the artistic and the intellectual, to the official headquarters of the Luftwaffe.
The side of the hotel that had once been the residence of princes and dukes, facing the stately Place Vendôme, was now the residence of high-ranking German officers, including the head of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring. On the other side of the palatial hotel, facing rue Cambon and separated by a corridor filled with shops that boasted the most expensive, most luxurious, and most unusual wares that might be purchased in Paris, lived the civilians. Or at least those civilians carefully approved by the Third Reich.
The appropriation of the hotel by the Luftwaffe did not come without its inconveniences for the longtime residents who were evicted to smaller, less glamourous rooms. Some patrons left and didn’t return at all. Those who stayed endured the frantic renovations that preceded the Luftwaffe’s occupation, the greatest of which were the changes to the Imperial Suite that Göring had selected for his own use. Though if any of the civilian residents had complaints, they did not share those in front of Estelle. Or the Luftwaffe.
At the same time, Estelle Allard was also completing renovations to her own apartment. The work was carried out with the same sort of urgency but that was where the similarities stopped. In Estelle’s apartment, the alterations had been completed surreptitiously by a single individual aside from herself, a small space annexed from the existing layout and cleverly concealed. In the Ritz’s Imperial Suite, with its multiple salons and bedrooms, its maids’ quarters and formal dining room, crews had worked tirelessly to improve the palatial atmosphere and meet the demands of its new occupant.
The men on the crews, when questioned discreetly once the work had been completed, had described the extraordinarily large bathtub Göring had ordered. The hotel staff, when questioned guilelessly after the Reichsmarschall had taken up residence, had described a great deal more. The tub, they said, on their way to the suite with stacks of towels and trays upon trays of food, was part of a cure for the Luftwaffe general’s addiction to morphine. A doctor came, they said, to submerge the man in water, give him a series of injections, and then submerge him again. But in a hotel where the staff was long used to providing unflappable, unquestioning service to exacting, difficult guests, these changes and demands seemed to be taken in stride.
That type of service, coupled with the hotel’s lavishness, had made the Ritz as popular with the occupying Germans as it had always been with its preceding clientele. Estelle’s own parents had favoured the Ritz, especially when they wished to host a soiree while staying in Paris. They liked being at the center of the social elite, and the Allard fortune, having the benefit of being both French and vast, had always been welcomed warmly, as had their daughter. Estelle, in fact, had celebrated her eighteenth birthday in the Ritz’s grand dining room, on one of the rare occasions her parents were in Paris on her birthday. They had thrown a party for their friends, treated Estelle to caviar, given her a necklace with eighteen glittering emeralds set in gold, and presented her with a dark green Mercedes roadster to match. At the end of the evening, they had toasted her with champagne, careful to ensure that a photographer for the Paris-Soir captured the moment. Appearances, after all, were paramount.
So the return of Estelle Allard, heiress, socialite, and patron of the Parisian art landscape, to the dining rooms and bars of the Ritz Hotel that September did not raise eyebrows. It was not at all remarkable that she had not been in Paris prior to the Germans’ arrival—even Coco Chanel had fled south before returning—and one could not be faulted for being prudent. And the newly installed inhabitants of the Ritz Hotel were delighted when the young Frenchwoman drifted gracefully through the grand salons. Beautiful Frenchwomen were always appreciated by the officers of the Luftwaffe.
Estelle was the recipient of that appreciation now. At the enthusiastic and insistent request of the officers crowded into the room, she stood by the piano and sang Rina Ketty’s “J’attendrai,” which never failed to please her audience. It was probably a nod to the glamour and extravagance of the hotel, or perhaps it was the lyrics or the melody, but the moment she began, all conversations stopped and every eye was upon her.
Including those of the man who sat in a chair just off to the side, as if holding himself apart from the other officers. At this distance, in the soft light, it was difficult to see the insignias on his dark uniform but the way he was looking at her made her uneasy. He was wiry in build, his face thin, his eyes close-set beneath well-coifed blond hair. While the other men generally gazed at her with expressions that ranged from admiration to lust, enchantment to indifference, this man was looking at her with what only could be described as suspicion.
It unsettled her more than she cared to admit.
Estelle finished her song to a warm round of applause, aware that the officer’s eyes had not left her. She ignored him and withdrew to the bar, taking herself out of the spotlight and away from the attention of the solitary man. Perhaps she would not linger tonight. Perhaps it would be best if she slipped away and came back another time—
“One wonders why such a beautiful woman is all alone.”
Estelle should have moved faster. Slowly she turned, pasting a blank expression on her face.
“Good evening,” she said with a vacuous smile. After letting the seconds tick away, she allowed her smile to slip. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak German,” she lied. “I don’t know what you just said.”
“I said I enjoyed your song.” The officer switched to French.
“Oh. Well, thank you.” She tipped her head flirtatiously as she noted the Gestapo uniform, the strip of black at his shoulder, and the SS runes at his collar. A sergeant, perhaps, given the absence of any sort of braid.
“I am Scharführer Schwarz,” he said, confirming her guess. “And you are?” Cold blue eyes bored into hers.
“Estelle Allard,” she replied, wondering if this was simply a lonely officer’s attempt to make conversation. She was used to the overtures of Luftwaffe officers but she found advances from those associated with the Gestapo unnerving in their intensity and directness. The Gestapo were not so easily manipulated or deflected.
“You live here? In this hotel?” he asked, leaning toward her.
She forced a gay laugh. “Alas, no.”
“Then why are you here?” He wasn’t smiling.
“I don’t understand. Why does anyone come here if not for a good time?” She giggled. “And to admire such handsome men in uniform.”
The sergeant didn’t smile. “How often do you come to the hotel?”
“Whenever I fancy putting on a pretty dress.” She cringed inwardly at such a deliberately superficial reply but it earned the reaction she had hoped for.
He scoffed with obvious disparagement but his scorn didn’t stop his questions. “And you sing each time you come?” he pressed.
Uneasily, Estelle blinked and put a hand to her chest, hating how she could feel her pulse pounding beneath her fingers. She toyed with the emerald necklace that rested against her skin. “Well, not every time. Whenever I’m asked.”
Schwarz’s eyes had followed the movement of her hand, and he was openly sneering now. “By whom?”
“Why are you asking me so many questions?” She let petulance creep into her tone.
“Because it’s my duty.”
“It’s not your duty to harass beautiful women, Scharführer Schwarz.” A new voice cut into the conversation, saving her from a reply.
Estelle turned to find a Luftwaffe officer standing behind her, holding two glasses of champagne. He wasn’t looking at Estelle. Instead, he was glaring at the sergeant.
“Colonel Meyer.” The sergeant took a half step back.
“I can’t imagine that you were doing anything other than complimenting Mademoiselle Allard on her captivating performance.” The colonel put the glasses of champagne on the polished mahogany surface of the bar. His movements were casual but the edge to his voice was anything but. “The Luftwaffe is, after all, quite selective about who we let in to this establishment. Do you understand, Scharführer Schwarz?”
Schwarz took another half step back, his jaw clenched. “Of course.”
“Excellent. You are dismissed.”
The sergeant gave Estelle one last hard look and spun, stalking away.
“Heavens, what an unpleasant man,” Estelle breathed. Her heart was only beginning to slow.
“Apologies, Mademoiselle. Please pay him no mind. The Gestapo can be a disagreeable lot, Scharführer Schwarz more so than others.” He snorted derisively. “Ambitious bastard, never pleased with anything.”
That information did not reassure Estelle at all. Instead, her unease intensified.
“If he made you feel uncomfortable in any way, I can have a further word with him—”
“Oh, no, that is not necessary,” Estelle hastened to assure him. To draw additional attention to herself from the Gestapo was the last thing she wanted. “Please do not trouble yourself. In fact, I was just getting ready to leave.”
“Leave? You can’t possibly.” He pushed one of the champagne glasses toward her. “You must sing for us again later this evening. None of us knew we had such a songbird in our midst. The Reichsmarschall was particularly taken with you the other night.”
“I’m flattered.” Estelle hoped she sounded sincere. “But I’m afraid I must depart. Curfew comes early.”
“Nonsense,” the smooth-talking Meyer scoffed, brushing at the immaculate sleeve of his uniform. “You are welcome to stay at the hotel. Spend the night as my guest, and I will see you to your home tomorrow morning.”
