All the Devils Are Here(94)

Professor de la Coutu rested his critical gaze on them. “I take it you asked me here for an evaluation. In the event of his death.”

Armand remained silent.

“I’m afraid these are all copies. Excellent ones, certainly. Able to fool most people, though I’m surprised they fooled Monsieur Horowitz. Worth thousands each, even as copies, but not tens of millions. Not priceless as I first thought.”

“All of them?” Reine-Marie looked at Armand and saw that he looked grim, though not surprised. “You knew?”

“I suspected. I knew that most originals from the Renaissance, as many of these would be, don’t have framing paper at the back. And the frames themselves, while clearly good, aren’t old. Even if Stephen had them reframed, he’d make sure they were from the same era.”

“That’s what made me suspicious, too,” said the curator. “The fake Vermeer has a staple in its frame. Monsieur Horowitz would never stand for that, for an original.”

Armand walked over to the smallest painting and, taking it off the wall, handed it to the curator. “Is this original?”

“It’s nice,” said de la Coutu, bending close to it. “Watercolor. Landscape. Probably from the early to mid-twentieth century. Signed VM Whitehead.” The professor turned it around. “Funny that it has a nylon thread at the back and plastic eye hooks.” He handed it back to Gamache. “Probably original, but worthless.”

“Not completely,” said Armand as he replaced it on the screw.

“What a shame,” said the curator. “Someone must’ve come in while Monsieur Horowitz was away from Paris, and methodically replaced originals with copies. Probably done over time. I’ve never seen anything like it. What a loss. Did the dead man surprise the forger, do you think?”

“And was killed,” said Armand. “Could be. Any idea how much this would all be worth, if they were originals?”

The curator frowned, thinking. “Vermeer did very few paintings. This one? In London or Hong Kong, probably close to a hundred million.” He turned full circle. “All told, there might be half a billion dollars’ worth just here, never mind what he must have in his other homes and offices.” Now he turned shocked eyes on Armand. “You don’t think—”

“That they’re all fake?” Armand nodded. “I’ve asked his assistant to have them evaluated. She’s at his home now with the curator from the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal. When they’re finished there, they’ll look at the art in his office.”

“Mon Dieu,” whispered the curator. Feeling light-headed again, he sat down and gazed around the room.

Then his expression turned quizzical.

“Have you noticed that all the works are either pastoral or domestic? Peaceful. No torture, no death. Not even any hunting scenes. Huh. It can’t be a coincidence. I wonder why.”

Armand was so used to the paintings that he hadn’t actually noticed this. Neither had Reine-Marie.

But now that the curator had pointed it out, they saw it. Stephen, the exorcist, had covered his walls floor to ceiling with scenes of peace.

“I’m sorry to have given you this bad news,” said de la Coutu. “Will you alert the authorities, or should I?”

“I will. Could you keep this to yourself for now?”

“Of course. Clara told me you’re a senior officer with the S?reté du Québec. I hope you find out who did this. And, more to the point, who did that.”

He looked at the drawing on the floor.

They put Professor de la Coutu into a taxi and watched as it headed back to the Louvre.

“Poor Stephen,” said Reine-Marie as Armand took her hand. “He’s going to be devastated.”

“I doubt it,” he said, quietly.

She looked at him. Armand was coming to terms, she thought, with the reality that Stephen would almost certainly never return home, and never find out that his collection, the work of a lifetime, had been stolen.

They waited for a gap in the traffic on rue des Sèvres, then darted across the street.

Jacques led them to a secluded table in bar Joséphine. But Armand pointed to a table right beside a rowdy group of visitors speaking Spanish. “Over there, perhaps?”

The ma?tre d’ raised a brow but showed them to the table.

Reine-Marie found herself glancing around the bar, trying to make out where those photographs she’d seen in the archives, from the war, had been taken. She felt a knot in her stomach and understood why Zora had loathed the place.

Was she one of the ones who’d been brought here straight out of the concentration camp? Had she searched for her family through these corridors? In the grand ballroom, in bars and restaurants, in guest rooms? In vain.

Once Jacques had taken their orders, Armand leaned close to Reine-Marie. But just as he opened his mouth to speak, another text came in.

His phone was on the table, and she could see it, too. It was from Mrs. McGillicuddy. At office now. We were right.

Armand typed. Same here.

“His whole collection is fake?” asked Reine-Marie, eyes wide. “Even the ones in Montréal? All of it stolen? What happened to it?”

“I don’t think those paintings were stolen,” he said, leaning close to her and keeping his voice low. “I think Stephen sold them.”