The Forgotten Room(37)

“In Cuba,” said Mr. Ravenel, “my father became known for his realism, for painting what he saw as he saw it. These are . . . I guess you could call them allegorical. Fairy-tale scenes. Knights and ladies and Arthurian legendry.”

A knight raised his sword in the mural on Lucy’s wall. Brave Saint George, perpetually poised to rescue the maiden, eternally chained to the rock.

Lucy felt a sudden surge of frustration with it, with all of it. Why didn’t the maiden just break her chains and save herself? Why hadn’t her mother said anything, done anything?

“Miss Young?” Mr. Ravenel was regarding her with a little too much interest.

Flushing, Lucy recalled herself to the present. “That was a popular subject,” she said quickly. “But if these are so different from your father’s other works, can you be sure . . . ?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Ravenel. “Do you remember that I mentioned that I had one of my father’s early works? It’s a miniature. A portrait miniature. One of these new paintings—the lady in the painting is the same as the lady in that miniature. I would know her anywhere. In fact . . . Well, let’s just say it’s a distinctive face.”

Lucy looked keenly at Mr. Ravenel, intrigued despite herself. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Those paintings.”

The waiter slipped silently between them, taking their empty plates away, but Lucy didn’t need Mr. Ravenel’s nod of corroboration to know she was right.

The waiter brought them coffee in delicate china cups. Lucy toyed with the handle. “Are there details in the paintings, physical objects, that might give you a clue as to where your father came from?”

“I’m hoping I can do better than that. I’m hoping that if I can trace the paintings themselves, find out where they came from, I might be able to learn something about my father’s secret life.” His lips twisted wryly. “You must think it sounds absurd, a grown man chasing after a ghost. I’ve been told as much before.”

He didn’t specify by whom.

“No,” said Lucy. “No. It’s not absurd at all. Sometimes . . . sometimes knowing matters. Knowing where you came from.” Father . . . Legacy. Taking a quick sip of coffee, Lucy said, “Shouldn’t it be simple enough, though? All you have to do is find the seller and find out where he acquired the paintings.”

Mr. Ravenel’s lips set in a grim line. “You would think. But these paintings weren’t sold through conventional channels. There are men in the art world who deal with . . . well, they call them works of dubious provenance.”

“What do you call them?”

“Stolen,” said Mr. Ravenel bluntly. “It doesn’t look like the seller knew what they were—they weren’t marketed as Ravenels—but there’s something about the business that smells wrong. You don’t go under the table unless you have something to hide.”

Lucy hated to say it, but . . . “It sounds to me that what you need is a private investigator, not a lawyer. I am sure that Mr. Schuyler could provide a referral for you.”

For a moment, she saw the shrewd businessman behind Mr. Ravenel’s easy fa?ade. “I have one of those. He’s located the seller.”

“And you need Mr. Schuyler to put the fear of the law into him?”

“Something like that,” said Mr. Ravenel. He drained his coffee. “I’d meant to discuss it with him tonight, over dinner . . .”

“But you got me instead.” Lucy felt wretched, thinking of Mr. Ravenel expecting Mr. Schuyler, hoping for answers, and seeing her walk out of that elevator instead. Given how disappointed he must be, he’d been more than decent about it. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.” The waiter came with the bill. Before Lucy could tell him to put it on Mr. Schuyler’s account, Mr. Ravenel dropped what seemed an alarming number of bills on the table.

“You mustn’t. Mr. Schuyler—”

“Isn’t here,” said Mr. Ravenel firmly, and came around the table to pull out her chair for her before the waiter could reach it. “And it’s my pleasure.”

“He really was unavoidably detained. I’m sure if he’d known, he wouldn’t . . .” Lucy floundered, torn between loyalty to her employer and guilt. “I can clear a space on his calendar for you on Wednesday. If that wouldn’t be too long?”

“That wouldn’t be too long at all.” When Mr. Ravenel offered Lucy his arm, it would have seemed churlish not to take it. “It may take some time to arrange a meeting with the seller of those paintings. And . . . I’m rather taken with the idea of spending a little time here in New York.”

Lucy glanced up at him. “Getting to know your father’s city?”

“Something like that.” They paused before the cage of the elevator, beneath the great gilded wheel that slowly revolved as the elevator clanked and groaned its way from one floor to the next. Mr. Ravenel studied Lucy’s face as though it were one of his father’s paintings, until Lucy was sure he could read all of her guilty secrets beneath the brushstrokes, that he knew that Mr. Schuyler was currently training his opera glasses on the second act of Tosca, and all of that rubbish about an emergency was just that, rubbish. “Miss Young, I know this is presumptuous of me. I don’t want to impose—”