Aaron Elkins - Old Scores

"Don't forget to call me," Calvin said.

I leaned on the doorframe. "Look, Calvin, nobody's going to try to kill me tomorrow morning, if that's what you're worried about. There's no reason to. And I think I'd do better talking to Vachey alone."

Calvin heard me out. "Just call me, okay? Better yet, I'll call you. Ten o'clock."

"Okay, all right." I straightened up. "Tell me something, will you? Did Tony ask you to watch out for me or something? To make sure I didn't do anything dumb?"

Calvin tilted his head to one side and gave me his most rabbity grin. "You got it," he said.

Ordinarily, I kept clear of the hotel elevator, a rickety birdcage high on charm but low on everything else. Tonight, however, I was grateful to clank falteringly up to the fourth floor in it. Once in my room, I took a couple of aspirin, checked myself over for cuts (none) and abrasions (some), and got into a hot bath in which I soaked dreamily for three-quarters of an hour, drifting in and out of a doze.

It was after 1:00 a.m. when I climbed out, soothed but utterly washed out. I left a wake-up call for 9:30, and sank into the pillows.

At 7:50 the telephone rang. I got one eye open and glowered at it. On the fourth ring I got my muscles working and reached for it, growling something into the mouthpiece.

"Hiya, Chris." It was Calvin. "Did I wake you up?"

"It's not ten o'clock," I said.

"Listen," he said, "there's something in the paper I want to show you."

"Show me at ten."

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes, okay?" I gave up.

"Okay, but bring some-"

" 'Bye."

The telephone clicked. "-coffee," I finished lamely.

I took another couple of aspirin from the bottle on the nightstand, got into a hot shower to loosen up my creaky joints, and shaved and dressed. Physically, I was feeling better than expected; aside from the predictable stiffness, the only parts of me that were still really sore were my insteps, just in front of the ankles, where, pressed and scraped against the wrought-iron grillwork, they'd borne most of my weight. It felt as if the bones themselves were bruised, and no wonder. I was sitting on the sofa, babying them by slipping my feet into a pair of disreputable but roomy jogging shoes, when Calvin came in.

"Well, nobody's going to have any trouble telling you're an American," he said, eyeing the shoes. "As far as I know, Velcro straps have yet to make it to the French fashion scene."

"Nobody has any trouble anyway," I said sourly. "What's up? What am I doing awake at 8:15?"

"Here," Calvin said brightly. "I figured you'd need a fix." He handed me a huge cardboard cup, milk shake-sized, of cafe au lait. "Picked it up on the way." He'd brought a smaller one for himself.

I brightened immediately. "Calvin, I apologize for what I was thinking about you."

"No problem," he said, and sat in the single wooden side chair with his cup while I got the lid off mine, inhaled the aroma, and had a long, milky, rehabilitative swallow.

"Now," I said, restored to my usual good humor, "what did you want me to see in the paper?"

He handed me a copy of Echos Quotidiens-The Daily Gossip- one of the livelier French tabloids. "Page one, bottom right. You're going to love it."

From his tone, I had my doubts. I turned to the article.

"PEINTURE DE MON PERE VOLEE PAR COLLECTIONNEUR!" the headline blared. My Father's Painting Stolen by Collector! Underneath, the subheading was: Rene Vachey a Tool of the Nazis, Saint-Denis Man Claims.

"Christ," I muttered. "What a hell of a time for this to happen."

"It gets better," Calvin assured me. "More pertinent, you might say."

My misgivings increased. I read on.

In an exclusive interview with Les Echos Quotidiens, Mr. Julien Mann, a Paris Metro worker, has made a series of sensational charges against controversial Dijon art dealer and philanthropist Rene Vachey. Chief among them is the allegation that a Rembrandt painting recently donated by Mr. Vachey to the Seattle Art Museum is in reality a painting by Govert Flinck, which Mr. Vachey appropriated from Mr. Mann's father under conditions of extreme duress, during the German Occupation of World War II.

"Aargh," I said.

Calvin shrugged. "Told you."

With a sigh I leaned back against the sofa, took another draught of the coffee, and continued.

According to Mr. Mann, Mr. Vachey was at that time the owner of the Galerie Royale, located in Paris's Place des Vosges. As such, he bought up Jewish art collections at forced, greatly depressed prices, then sold them to Nazi buyers for removal to Germany at substantial profits to himself.

I lowered the paper. A slow shudder slithered down between my shoulder blades. Rene Vachey a Nazi collaborator, and a particularly vile one at that? I could hardly make myself think about it. A rogue, sure; a con man, no doubt about it; a humbug, well, yes, a little of that too-but a beast who would fatten on the horrible plight of the Jews under the Nazis? With all my heart I hoped it wasn't so. I turned back to the article.

Mr. Mann claims that the alleged Rembrandt painting now in the possession of the Seattle Art Museum was purchased in this way from his father in 1942 for a price of 20,000 Occupation francs, less than one-hundreth of its actual value. This is in sharp contrast to Mr. Vachey's assertion that he purchased the painting at a Paris antique shop in 1992.

"It was the same thing as stealing it," Mr. Mann told our reporter bitterly. "Like Jewish families throughout France, we were desperate and persecuted, our rights gone, our possessions stripped. What choice did we have? If we had not 'sold' the painting to Mr. Vachey, the Nazis would have taken it at will. It broke my father's heart to part with it. My father was not a rich man, not a collector. He was, like me, a government employee. The picture was the only thing of value we owned. It had been left to him in 1936 by an aunt in the Netherlands. It hung in our living room. I grew up with it."

The painting, according to Mr. Mann, who was a child of seven at the time, is a portrait of an old soldier known to be by the seventeenth-century minor painter Govert Flinck. When asked how it was that Mr. Vachey and the Seattle Art Museum were now ascribing it to Rembrandt van Rijn, he replied: "You would have to ask them that."

Mr. Mann says he believes that the painting rightfully belongs to his family, and that he plans to press charges against Mr. Vachey in criminal court and to vigorously pursue the recovery of his property. He says he will gladly refund Mr. Vachey the 20,000 Occupation francs. In today's currency this would amount to 125 francs.

Our investigators have confirmed that it is also true that Mr. Vachey managed the now-defunct Galerie Royale during the German Occupation. Rumors of his dealings with Nazi officials have been heard before, but Les Echos Quotidiens believes that this is the first time specific allegations by an aggrieved party have been made. Whether proof is forthcoming is yet to be seen.

Proof. I raised my head. "That scrapbook," I said slowly. "It would have covered the acquisitions he made during the Occupation. It would have covered this."

"Maybe, maybe not," Calvin said. "You're not going to know until you talk to Vachey."

"Maybe that's what somebody didn't want me to see."

Calvin spread his hands. I lifted the paper again.

Mr. Vachey, who was involved some years ago in a spectacular court case stemming from his admitted theft of paintings from the Musee Barillot in Dijon, has refused comment to our reporters. Seattle Art Museum officials in the United States have likewise been unavailable for comment.

Les Echos Quotidiens believes it is in the public interest to continue its investigation into this matter. Mr. Mann's accusations raise serious questions about Mr. Vachey's recent gift to the Louvre of 34 paintings purported to be by various French and Dutch masters from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries.