Aaron Elkins - Old Scores

"Well, then, anything at all that you can tell me about-about the way Monsieur Vachey conducted the business of the Galerie Royale, anything that might-"

The brilliant eyes finally overflowed, the tears running copiously down her cheeks and dripping from her soft chin. A crumpled handkerchief was pulled from somewhere to mop up, but the flood kept coming. She cried without sobs or snuffles, silently except for the accompaniment of long, hollow sighs. I began to apologize and get to my feet, but she waved me back into my chair, and after a while she was able to take a final dab at her reddened nose and tuck the handkerchief away again. A last, shaky sigh, and then came the flood of words.

What Julien Mann had told Les Echos Quotidiens was an unfounded distortion of a patriot's life. Yes, Vachey had worked with the Nazis, all right, but not for them, never for them. Yes, he had bought up Jewish collections that he'd known the Nazis would be interested in. No, he couldn't pay what they were worth, how could he? He paid what he could. And yes, he sold them to the Nazis, if you can call such transactions sales- sometimes he was paid a few francs more than he had paid himself. Just as often, not as much. And sometimes, if they felt like it, they would "pay" him with worthless modern paintings that even Hitler didn't want. One did not try to negotiate with the Nazis.

"I know these things for facts, monsieur. I was there." "I'm sure you do," I said humbly.

"And if he hadn't done this, then what?" Madame Guyot went steadily on, her voice dignified and steady now. "Goering and Rosenberg and the rest of them would have seized the art directly from the Jews, simply walked in with their hooligans and taken it away, as they did in so many other cases, with no thought of paying anything at all for it. What Rene Vachey did in these matters, he did for the Jews, and for France, not for the Nazis. Because of him, many received the money they needed to flee, to save themselves. My own mother, my small brother…" Her eyes shone.

"I know, madame," I said softly. "My friend told me about it." I was embarrassed: uncomfortably aware of the privileged, painless life I'd led; and aware, also, of how quickly I'd leaped to accuse Vachey, if only in my mind. It was good to hear another side of the story. I was starting to wonder how many more there were.

Madame Guyot, her face a shiny pink, seemed embarrassed too. Effusive and talkative she might be, but I didn't think that these deep, raw emotions had very often been put on public display. But she appeared to be relieved as well, purged by the deluge of memory and tears. A terminal sigh that lifted and dropped her shoulders was followed by a sweet, proud, almost playful smile, and a change of subject. "So, Monsieur Norgren, how do you like the office of the new proprietor of the Galerie Vachey?"

I looked around me, ready to change the subject myself. Clotilde Guyot's workspace made my office in SAM look like the grand ballroom at Fontainebleau. Located at the back of the house, behind the gallery, it was more like a utility room (which was probably what it had once been) than an office; a windowless, closetlike cubicle about twelve feet by twelve, with fuse boxes, fire extinguishers, and alarm system displays on the walls instead of artwork. There were metal file cabinets in two of the corners, and fiberboard storage boxes stacked up on the floor. A small table against one wall held a copier and a fax machine.

It was, in other words, still a utility room, except for the student-sized desk and two chairs that had been sandwiched between the copier and one of the cabinets.

I smiled back at her. "You must be looking forward to moving into Monsieur Vachey's office."

She goggled as if I'd made an indecent proposal. "Oh, I could never do that. I-no, that wouldn't be right at all."

But I could see that the idea simply hadn't occurred to her before, and that even while she was instinctively rejecting it, she was beginning to turn it over in her mind.

"Well, perhaps after a respectful interval," she allowed, trying the thought out on me. "Naturally, I wouldn't ask for the furnishings; they would be Christian's…" For a few seconds she floated off among bright images of Vachey's large and airy study. Then she blushed, distressed at the impropriety of such notions, and blurted: "Oh, monsieur, who would kill a man like that?"

"I don't know," I told her gently. "I know the police are doing their best to find out."

"Of course," she said without conviction.

"Madame, perhaps you can help. There are some things…"

Her eyes lit up again. "Yes?"

I leaned toward her over the cluttered desk. "There was a blue book in Monsieur Vachey's study, a scrapbook with clippings pasted into it. You know it?"

She nodded.

"You know what's in it?"

"Oh, yes."

I tried not to sound excited. "Yes? What?"

She smiled charmingly at me, her plump cheeks dimpling. "Oh, I couldn't possibly tell you that."

I stared at her. "But-is there anything about the Rembrandt?"

She shook her head.

"The Flinck, then?" I said after a moment. She shook her head.

"But it is a record of how he came by his collection, isn't that right?"

But she just went on wagging her head from side to side, sweetly smiling all the while. She wasn't saying no, she was telling me I wasn't going to get an answer out of her.

My lips were dry. I licked them. "Madame, I know that's what it is. Perhaps I haven't been clear; I think it may have had something to do with his death."

"Oh, I think not. You must trust me, I'm afraid."

"But-" I paused to settle myself down. "I think it's pretty obvious to everyone," I said with a knowing, encouraging smile, "that Monsieur Vachey had some kind of plan in mind in connection with the gallery's current exhibition. Some kind of-of game. Everything about these two paintings-the Leger, the Rembrandt-has been peculiar, right from the beginning. You must see that."

"Certainly, I see it," she agreed.

"Well, that book might give us some clue as to what that game was."

"Ah, but I already know what it was." "

You do? What?"

"Oh, I couldn't possibly tell you that either." She was being positively coy now. I tried to think just where it was that I'd lost control of the conversation. Or had I ever had it?

"But he may have been killed over it," I said.

"Oh, I doubt that very much."

"If you won't tell me, you have to tell the police."

"I have to do no such thing, Monsieur Norgren."

"Madame Guyot," I said, doing what I thought was an excellent job of keeping my voice down, "surely you see that his murder could have been related to-to whatever he was planning."

"Well, I don't see how. It hasn't happened yet."

"All the same…"I stared at her. Yet? "Do you mean that it's still going to happen?"

Her smile was at its most grandmotherly and serene. "I certainly hope so, young man."

Good work, Norgren. Your skillful interrogation, disguised by a clever facade of bumbling incoherence, had pried from the elusive Madame Guyot a significant fact: "It" hadn't happened yet.

Whether "it" really had any connection with Vachey's death, I didn't know. Despite her supreme confidence that it didn't, I was reserving judgment. As to whether it had any bearing on the Rembrandt, I didn't see that there was much room for doubt. What else was there but the Rembrandt and the Leger?

There was, of course, one little thing I hadn't quite managed to find out: What was "it"? All I knew now that I hadn't known before was that the fireworks weren't over yet. Whatever kind of stink bomb Vachey had lit, there was a delayed-action fuse on it. But for the moment, there wasn't much to be done about it. All I could do, in effect, was wait for another shoe-dropped by a dead man-to hit the floor. And something told me it was going to make a hell of a noise.