Portrait of an Unknown Woman (Gabriel Allon #22) (55)

“Surely the police searched this place after the murder,” said Gabriel.

“Yes, of course. But fortunately they sent Inspector Clouseau.” She removed another painting, a version of Composition in Blue by Roger Bissière. “I’ve always liked this one. Do I really have to give it up?”

“Keep going.”

The next painting was a Matisse. It was followed by a Monet, a Cézanne, a Dufy, and, finally, by a second Chagall.

“Is that all of them?”

She nodded.

“Do you know what’s going to happen if I find any more?”

Sighing, she produced two additional paintings—a second Matisse and a stunning André Derain. Twelve in all, with an estimated market value of more than €200 million. Gabriel photographed them with his phone, along with the Chagall in the sitting room. Then he removed all thirteen canvases from their stretchers and piled them on the grate. Christopher handed over his gold Dunhill lighter.

“Please don’t,” said Fran?oise Vionnet.

“Would you rather I give them to the French police?” Gabriel ignited the lighter and touched the flame to the canvases. “I suppose you’ll have to make do with the thirty-four million.”

“There’s only twenty-five left.”

“And you can keep it so long as you never tell anyone that I was here.”

Fran?oise Vionnet saw Gabriel and Christopher to the door and waited until they were nearly inside the Renault before unleashing the dog. They made their escape without resort to violence.

“Tell me something,” said Christopher as they sped across the picturesque valley. “When did you realize that you were going to do that Herr Ziegler routine?”

“It came to me while you were needlessly lecturing me about the likelihood that Fran?oise Vionnet might have been Lucien’s front woman.”

“I have to say, it was one of your better performances. You did, however, make one serious tactical mistake.”

“What’s that?”

“You burned the bloody evidence.”

“Not all of it.”

“The Cézanne?”

“Idiot,” murmured Gabriel.





35

Le Train Bleu




They jettisoned the rented Peugeot in Marseilles and caught the two o’clock TGV from the Gare Saint-Charles to Paris. An hour before they were due to arrive, Gabriel dialed the number for Antiquités Scientifiques on the rue de Miromesnil. Receiving no answer, he checked the time, then rang a nearby shop that sold antique glassware and figurines. Its proprietor, a woman named Angélique Brossard, seemed slightly out of breath when she picked up the phone. She offered no expression of surprise or evasiveness when Gabriel asked to speak to Maurice Durand. Their longtime cinq à sept was one of the worst-kept secrets in the Eighth Arrondissement.

“Enjoying yourself?” asked Gabriel when Durand came on the line.

“I was,” answered the Frenchman. “I hope this is important.”

“I was wondering whether you might be free for a drink at, say, half past five.”

“I believe I’m having open-heart surgery then. Let me check my schedule.”

“Meet me at Le Train Bleu.”

“If you insist.”

The iconic Paris restaurant, with its garish gilded mirrors and painted ceilings, overlooked the ticket hall of the Gare de Lyon. At five thirty Maurice Durand was seated in a plush royal-blue chair in the lounge area before an open bottle of champagne. Rising, he hesitantly shook Christopher’s hand.

“If it isn’t my old friend Monsieur Bartholomew. Still caring for widows and orphans, or have you managed to find honest work?” Durand turned to Gabriel. “And what brings you back to Paris, Monsieur Allon? Another bombing in the works?” He smiled. “That’s certainly one way to put a dirty gallery out of business.”

Gabriel sat down and handed Durand his mobile phone. The diminutive Frenchman slipped on a pair of gold half-moon reading glasses and contemplated the screen. “A rather interesting reinterpretation of Braque’s Houses at L’Estaque.”

“Swipe to the next one.”

Durand did as he was told. “Roger Bissière.”

“Keep going.”

Durand dragged the tip of his forefinger horizontally across the screen and smiled. “I’ve always had a soft spot for Fernand Léger. He was one of my first.”

“How about the next one?”

“My old friend Picasso. Quite a good one, in fact.”

“The Chagalls are better. The Monet, the Cézanne, and the two Matisses aren’t bad, either.”

“Where did you find them?”

“In Roussillon,” answered Gabriel. “In the atelier of a failed painter named—”

“Lucien Marchand?”

“You knew him?”

“Lucien and I weren’t acquainted, but I knew of his work.”

“How?”

“We both did business with the same gallery in Nice.”

“Galerie Edmond Toussaint?”

“Oui. Quite possibly the dirtiest art gallery in France, if not the Western world. Only a fool would buy a painting there.”