The Mystery of the Lost Cezanne (22 page)

Apartments

H
ippolyte Thébaud's apartment was just as thrilling, and weird, as Verlaque had remembered it. It was every bit as busy as his parents' house, but he liked it here; the colors and textures interested him. He sat on an ancient sculpted wooden sofa, its cushioned back and seat upholstered in bright-red silk. Opposite was a blue chair whose base was made of fine stainless steel wires, like a cage. Verlaque thought it was American, and from the '50s, but he wasn't sure. Beside the chair was a backless green velvet sofa, all curves, and probably Venetian. The room's colors were bold, with accents in black and white.

“Say, Hippolyte,” he called toward the kitchen.

“Yes, dear Judge?”

“Is this green sofa Venetian?”

“Yes, indeed!” Hippolyte answered. He arrived in the doorway, carrying a black lacquered tray with crystal flutes.
“The chandelier is Venetian, too. And later we'll drink the coffee out of Italian earthenware.”

“Deruta.”

“Ooh la la, I can't teach you anything.”

“Sorry; I've been to Deruta,” Verlaque said. “A few cases back. It also involved art.”

Hippolyte set the flutes down on the table and gestured for Verlaque to open the champagne. He said, “I must say, I'm a little surprised that you'd show up here with chilled champagne.”

“I passed a wine shop on my way over,” Verlaque said, carefully turning the bottle as he held on to the top. “I can't resist a small, chock-f wine shop. And it's almost noon.”

Hippolyte smiled. “Somewhere.” He crossed his long, thin legs, dressed in a winter favorite: checked wool, but in bright colors—pink, orange, and green—that he could find only from one tailor, who worked out of a tiny studio in Batignolles, and who was covered in tattoos that bore the names of his favorite Saville Row mentors. They had been in jail together, the tailor having refused to pay income tax. “As much as I'm pleased for your visit,” Hippolyte said, “and thrilled to be drinking a 1990 Pol Roger, you must be here on business.”

The cork popped, and Verlaque filled their glasses. “I am,” he said, sounding as serious as he could make it. He certainly hoped that Hippolyte didn't have a crush on him. “Will your friend Hervé soon be here?”

“He's on his way,” Hippolyte said
. Oh dear God
, he thought.
Does the judge actually think I'm interested in him? He's gained so much weight. Not at all my type . . .

Verlaque said, “I know that wine theft is—was—your domain—”

“Oh, it still is,” Hippolyte said. “Chin-chin.”

“Cheers,” Verlaque replied in English, touching his flute to Hippolyte's.

“I'm still consulting with the Parisian police,” Hippolyte said. He took a sip of the champagne and beamed. “
Très, très bon
,” he said.

“Well, I come to you with a question not about wine theft, but art theft.”

Hippolyte sat back, a sign for the judge to continue.

“Last week, an old man in Aix was murdered, just days after he had discovered what may be a Cézanne in his apartment.” Verlaque went on to explain that Rouquet had lived at 23 rue Boulegon, Cézanne's last dwelling. “The canvas has gone missing,” Verlaque continued, “and I think it may be here, in Paris.”

“And you want me, or Hervé, to suggest where the thief may have taken it.”

Verlaque refilled their glasses, relieved that Hippoylte had not asked how the canvas had disappeared. “Yes, more or less. Where would a thief—perhaps a novice—take a canvas of questionable origins and try to sell it, or at least get it estimated?”

The doorbell rang and Hippolyte bounced up out of his chair. “Hervé will be able to answer your question.”

Hippolyte opened the door and a middle-aged man walked in, every bit Hippolyte Thébaud's opposite. Hervé Lunel was balding, overweight, and dressed in dirty, baggy blue jeans and a well-worn blue overcoat. And yet the two men seemed overjoyed to see each other, Hervé removing his out-of-fashion gold-rimmed eyeglasses—which Verlaque could see, even from across the room, were filthy—to exchange the
bise
with Hippolyte. Hervé pulled at his overcoat as if desperate to get it off, handing it to Hippolyte. “The bloody metro was packed,” he
grumbled with an accent that Verlaque had trouble understanding.

“Thank you for coming,” Verlaque said, stepping forward and offering his hand.

Hervé Lunel looked at the judge's hand as if confused, and then shook it.

“Champagne?” Verlaque asked.

Hippolyte strolled back in, having disposed of the coat, and said, “Oh, Hervé doesn't touch the stuff, do you, Hervé?”

Lunel once again mumbled something, and Hippolyte replied, “Coming right up!” Verlaque had been able to make out only one word, and that was “Paris.”

Hippolyte returned, carrying a glass with what looked like water, and handed it to his friend, who drank the liquid in one gulp. Verlaque then wondered if in fact it had been vodka, or gin, but this time he understood the accent: “Paris tap water is fine for me, always has been,” Lunel said, placing the glass, roughly, on a delicate side table.

Verlaque asked, “Are you from Lille?”

“I'm a Ch'ti, yep,” Lunel replied. “So is he,” he said, pointing at Thébaud. “Although he pretends not to be.”

Hippolyte quickly drained his champagne and said, “Judge Verlaque has some questions for you, Hervé. They found a possible Cézanne painting, down in Aix-en-Provence, but now it's gone . . . missing.”

Hervé whistled.

“I understand that you once stole artworks, but now you've come clean,” Verlaque said.

“Yep. I was tired.” Hervé yawned and looked at the floor. Verlaque imagined that just getting out of bed made this man tired.

“And now you give advice to the police?” Verlaque asked, holding out his glass as Hippolyte served him more champagne. “Like M. Thébaud does with stolen fine wines.”

Hervé nodded in the affirmative.

“Do you work with Commandante Barrès?”

Hervé smiled and slapped his knees with both hands. “She had a baby! A girl!”

Excited to have found the subject that might help the Ch'ti to talk, Verlaque went on. “Yes!” he exclaimed, trying to match Hervé's enthusiasm. “Jeanne! I saw her yesterday.”

“Well, well,” Hervé said, still smiling.

“So, if one had a Cézanne, a painting never having been seen before, how could one legally sell it?” Verlaque quickly asked.

Hervé replied, and Verlaque caught the word “loss.”

“I'm sorry . . .”

Hervé spoke more slowly this time, and Hippolyte mumbled about finding something to eat. “If the painting has never been seen before, I'd report it. To. The Art Loss. Registry,” he said slowly, as if Verlaque was simpleton.

“You'd report it?” Verlaque asked, confused.

“It's a database of stolen goods,” Hippolyte explained. “Police use it all over the world. The new owner of a stolen painting, sometimes a reputable gallery, will send in a photo of the painting. If it's not in the database as being reported stolen—which the thief, or crooked gallery owner knows darn well it won't be—then the database folks send a letter that says, in brief, ‘It doesn't match our archives.' It works especially well for artworks that have been stolen, literally, right out of the ground, like in the Middle East.”

“And with that stamped letter,” Verlaque said, “they can sell it legally.”

“You've listed it as stolen, right?” Hervé asked. This time, Verlaque understood every word, and he was sure the look of panic could be seen by at least Hippolyte, who jumped up and poured the rest of the champagne in Verlaque's flute.

 • • • 

Marine had been reminded of Mme Michaud's legal surname—Bruissane—as it was written on a brass plaque beside the simple wooden entrance door, on the rue des Bernardines. They now sat in the old woman's living room, surrounded by Provençal antiques. Mme Michaud still dressed in vintage Chanel, and still dyed her hair a strawberry blond. It had been that color for as long as Marine could remember, and although she preferred that women let their hair go gray naturally, as her mother did, she admired the energy and discipline it took to get to the hairdresser's every four weeks, especially when one was so elderly. It hadn't been necessary to try to guess Mme Michaud's age, as the old woman had proudly announced it as soon as Marine and her father had taken off their coats and been seated. “I just turned ninety-two,” she said to Marine, guiding her to a centuries-old sofa covered in a floral print. “But your father, and my children, thought it best I stop working when I began my tenth decade.”

Anatole Bonnet smiled. “Madame, you could have kept working at the bakery,” he said. “But you were standing all day, and worrying too much. Working is good for the mind and soul; I'm a firm believer in that. But your body was telling you differently.”

She brushed aside his comment with her bejeweled hand. “Well, I've taken up painting,” she said. “Since you won't let me run my business, dear Doctor, would you like to see my latest attempt at modern art?”

“
Bien sûr
,” Marine and her father replied in unison.

“Come with me, then,” she said. “I've turned my late husband's office into an art studio.”

They followed Madame down a hallway that was lined with small oil paintings—mostly landscapes of Provence. Marine watched as the old woman walked, with the use of a cane; she worried that Madame Michaud might slip, as the bright terra-cotta floor tiles looked like they had just been waxed.

“These are impressively shiny tomettes,” Anatole Bonnet said—what Marine had just been thinking.

“One of my grandsons just waxed them,” Mme Michaud said, pausing to tap one of the hexagonal tiles with her cane. “He's having marital problems so comes here and gets focused on fixing things in the apartment. It didn't occur to him that I might slip.
Eh voilà . . .”

Neither Bonnet replied, and Marine was fascinated and yet slightly shocked by the old woman's frankness.

“Here we are,” Mme Michaud said, opening the door to her newly created studio. The walls were lined with built-in bookcases made in a dark wood that made the room look gloomy. But an easel stood in the middle of the room and a small wooden table had been set up that was covered with tubes of oil paints, oil pastels, and a glass jar of paintbrushes. “I have to use photographs to go by,” she said, taking an old sheet off of a painting that rested on the easel. “I'm using old photographs to paint my family history. This one is of my aunt.”

A Cubist-inspired painting stood before them and Marine looked at it in awe. It was not at all what she had expected from the tiny old woman who wore pearls and a pink Chanel suit.

“I didn't set out to paint Tante Amandine this way,” Mme Michaud said. “I wanted to paint her, but nothing was working. My art teacher finally asked me to describe my aunt, and I told him: she was ornery”—Mme Michaud reached out her hand
and tapped Dr. Bonnet on the shoulder—“even more ornery than me.”

Anatole laughed and said, “I would never say that about you.”

“My foot.” Mme Michaud looked at the painting and continued speaking. “Amandine never married, the poor dear, and took out her unhappiness on the salesgirls. My father was too busy to realize what was going on—he was the baker, so he was back in the kitchen—and Amandine terrorized the staff until she died in 1945 at a ripe old age. But she taught me the business—she was shrewd, even if half our product went into her mouth—and it was these conflicting ideas I had about her that made my art teacher suggest a Picasso-esque approach.”

“He had very good advice,” Marine said. “It's a wonderful painting.”

“Yes, indeed,” Anatole added. He was no fan of Cubism, even if, as Picasso had once famously said, it all came from
the father of us all
, Cézanne.

“So your Aunt Amandine would have been working at the bakery at the turn of the century,” Marine said, glancing at her father.

“Of course,” Mme Michaud answered. “She knew Cézanne.”

“Mme Michaud, that's partly why we're here,” Anatole said.

“Oh, not to look in at the health of your favorite patient?”

“That, too,” he said. “But Marine is doing research on Cézanne at the moment—”

“I thought you were a law professor,” Mme Michaud said, peering at Marine.

“I am,” Marine replied. “But all academics are curious. I'm researching Cézanne as sort of a hobby. I'm interested in his personal life—”

“The nitty-gritty,” Mme Michaud said, smiling. “That's a big seller. But I'm not sure Cézanne's personal life—as you call it—was very interesting.”