Aaron Elkins: Old Scores

Charpentier bellowed, more surprised than hurt, and with an almost casual flick of the pike caught the wood in the hook and jerked it out of my hands and over his shoulder.

Stunned, I watched it go flying end over end down the corridor. Did he actually know how to handle that thing, or had he been lucky?

Fortunately, he'd been lucky. His next thrust was clumsy and badly aimed. The rusty point grated against the stone wall a foot from my head. I even managed to grab hold of it as he pulled it back, but only got a couple of fingers on it, and he dragged it back out of my grasp. His clumsiness I saw as no particular cause for optimism. How many more times could he miss?

I was wedged into the corner with no way around him, and not much room for maneuvering. As for reasoning with him, the look in his eyes made the issue moot. I was groping blindly in back of me, trying to find another upright piece of wood when he feinted again, this time at my midsection. I flinched sideways and he came sharply around with the butt end of the pike, clubbing me alongside the right eye. I saw a pinpoint shower of sparks and at the edges of my vision a sudden, queer, wavering blackness like the fluttering specks and smudges in an old movie. For a horrible instant the darkness closed in entirely, but by the time my shoulders sagged against the rough wall I could more or less see again, but I was queasy and weak.

Charpentier was peering at me, as if to see how bad off I was. My appearance must have been satisfactorily dismal, because he raised the pike, tightened his grip, and set himself for a final thrust. When I'd gotten hold of another one of those one by twos I didn't remember, but it was in my hand, and almost automatically I swung it up and around, as hard as I could, cracking him on the side of the head just over the left ear.

I must have been improving with experience because he froze this time, then growled and shook himself-not just his head, but all over, like a bear. And he fell back-a single uncertain step to keep his balance. If I was going to get myself out of this alive, now was the time to do it. I dropped what was left of the one-by-two-it had broken when I hit him-and made a grab for the pike. This time I managed to wrench it out of his hands and had already started to bring the butt end around for another whack at his head when I sensed a change in him.

The heart had gone out of him. His shoulders drooped, his eyes had lost their crazy brilliance and turned opaque. I couldn't begin to read his expression except to know he had given up the fight. There was blood welling from his ear, where the skin had split. He touched it abstractedly but never bothered to look at his fingers, then turned his back on me and walked into the kitchen, heading for a back door that opened onto a row of off-the-street vegetable and flower gardens running the length of the block.

No, I didn't try to stop him. What was I supposed to do, yell at him to halt? And if he didn't (and he wouldn't have), what then? Run up and club him unconscious with the butt of the damn pike? Impale him with the point, perhaps transfixing him to one of the heavy wooden tables for safekeeping? Sorry, not my metier. Besides, the fight had gone out of me, too. I was woozy and nauseated, and my head had started hammering, and I'd had enough.

When he disappeared through the back door, leaving it open behind him, I sank back against the stone wall of the corridor and closed my eyes. I realized that I'd been hearing the sounds of pounding feet for the last few seconds-people running down the stairs-and opened my eyes to see Inspector Lefevre, accompanied by Sergeant Huvet and another man, burst into the corridor and practically skid to a standstill when they saw me.

I gestured toward the kitchen. "Jean-Luc Charpentier," I said, surprised to find myself short of breath. "He just went… out the back. He's your murderer."

Lefevre and Huvet looked at each other.

"… tried to burn the painting," I said, or rather panted. "… caught him… tried to kill me with this… this…"

But I couldn't think of the word for it, and besides, the blackness had begun to dance at the edges of my sight again, and with it came another sickly wave of dizziness. I tipped my head back against the wall, closed my eyes, and tried to steady myself. I would have put my head between my knees but I didn't want to do it in front of Lefevre.

"All right, have a look out there for him," I heard him tell his subordinates.

"… gone by now," I said.

"If he's not there," Lefevre told them, "go to his hotel."

After a few more seconds the queasiness passed. I opened my eyes to find Lefevre silently studying the litter of wood strewn across the floor. Then he looked at the painting lying on its face, its frame knocked awry. Finally, he looked at me, clutching my medieval pike and leaning, bruised and battle-weary, against the stone wall.

He sighed. "Some things don't change, do they, Mr. Norgren?"

Lefevre led me a few steps down the corridor into Pepin's office, sat me down in Pepin's padded, high-backed chair behind the desk, and took a wooden armchair for himself. He telephoned upstairs to ask Madame Guyot to see that we weren't disturbed, and to request a cup of coffee laced with cognac for me, then waited for it to come before starting in on the inevitable grilling. He'd been upstairs himself, talking to the domestic staff, when he'd heard the commotion down below, he said. Now, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, perhaps I would tell him what all this was about?

"And I think you can put your pikestaff down now. You're safe with me."

I wasn't so sure about that, but I put it down anyway, surprised to find that I'd hung on to it all this time.

"Are you all right?" he asked when I took another sip without speaking.

I was all right-the brandied coffee was helping considerably-I was just trying to figure out where to begin. It had been no more than fifteen minutes since I'd put all the pieces together myself, and I didn't know yet what kind of a fit they made.

"Let's start with the painting," I said.

"The Leger?"

"It's not a Leger. It's two paintings, one on top of the other, and neither one of them is a Leger."

"Not a Leger?" Frowning, he went out to the corridor and brought the picture back, laying it on the desk and leaning over to study it. In addition to its being twisted from the rough treatment, some more of the overpainting had flecked away, and much of it had slipped an inch or two, crinkling up like the skin on a pan of scalded milk. The violon could have passed for an accordeon.

Gingerly, Lefevre pushed at the film of paint. "Let us hope you're right," he said. "No one could repair this." He looked up. "It's a forgery, then?"

"An extremely good forgery-painted on top of another extremely good forgery."

He leaned back in his chair, pulled a pack of Gauloises from his pocket, and lit up. "I feel confident that there is a reason for this, and that you are going to tell me what it is."

"I can tell you what I think it is." I had another swig of the fortifying liquid and told him what I believed had happened. The underlying painting had been covered with a coat of gesso to create a satisfactory working surface for the Violon et Cruche that would be painted on top, a common enough procedure in overpainting. The difference was that this particular gesso had been purposely made to slough off. My guess was that a thin coating of linseed oil had been put on the surface of the original painting before brushing on the gesso, which would tend to make the gesso slip. Then, the gesso itself had been applied as a single, thick layer instead of building it up in several thin coats, which would make it tend to split and curl-especially in a warm environment, as many a fledgling artist has discovered to his grief.