• Пожаловаться

Aaron Elkins: A Deceptive Clarity

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Aaron Elkins: A Deceptive Clarity» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию). В некоторых случаях присутствует краткое содержание. категория: Классический детектив / на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале. Библиотека «Либ Кат» — LibCat.ru создана для любителей полистать хорошую книжку и предлагает широкий выбор жанров:

любовные романы фантастика и фэнтези приключения детективы и триллеры эротика документальные научные юмористические анекдоты о бизнесе проза детские сказки о религиии новинки православные старинные про компьютеры программирование на английском домоводство поэзия

Выбрав категорию по душе Вы сможете найти действительно стоящие книги и насладиться погружением в мир воображения, прочувствовать переживания героев или узнать для себя что-то новое, совершить внутреннее открытие. Подробная информация для ознакомления по текущему запросу представлена ниже:

Aaron Elkins A Deceptive Clarity

A Deceptive Clarity: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «A Deceptive Clarity»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

Aaron Elkins: другие книги автора


Кто написал A Deceptive Clarity? Узнайте фамилию, как зовут автора книги и список всех его произведений по сериям.

A Deceptive Clarity — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «A Deceptive Clarity», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Peter smiled. "I'm afraid I'm not much of a shuttle diplomat. No, I prefer to arrive the evening before, have a good dinner, relax at a decent hotel-and be fresh and rested when it comes to business the next day. It makes good sense."

So he had told me before. So Tony reminded me whenever I was reluctant to spend too much of the museum's money when traveling. I must be the only person in the world who gets chewed out regularly because his expense account isn't extravagant enough.

"Anyway," Peter said, sipping the wine, which had just been placed before him, and according it a brief nod of acceptance, "I'd like to stay in Frankfurt through Friday and do a little museum-hopping. Can you believe that I've been here five months and I've yet to visit the Stadel? Can you manage without me until Saturday?"

"Sure." I took a long swallow of my Schultheiss, rediscovering with pleasure how large a large beer is in Germany. "Now how about telling me about this forgery-"

This time it was the waitress Who interrupted, setting down our lunches.

"Ah," Peter said, "shall we tuck in? I'm hungry myself."

I was happy to. The veal was succulent and tender, like nothing you can get in the States except at restaurants I can't afford. The potatoes were crisp, the gemischter Salat aggressively Teutonic-not thrown together willy-nilly, French-style, but with the marinated vegetables set in orderly ranks, each in its place. For a while we were content to attend to our food, chatting easily while Peter filled me in on some of the routine aspects of The Plundered Past.

"Well," he said, leaning back expansively a few minutes after we'd been served coffee, "that was splendid, and I can't tell you how glad I am to have you here with me. It's been wonderful-".

"Now hold it, Peter. You don't have to leave for half an hour yet. You're being evasive."

He looked at me benignly. "I, evasive? What a thing to say. What would you like to know?"

"You told me-I think you told me-that there's a forgery in the show." He continued to regard me tranquilly. "Well," I said, "that just isn't possible."

"Is it not?" Peter's occasional and uncharacteristic excursions into archness were not among his most endearing habits. "Then I suppose I must have made a mistake."

'That I doubt."

"But you just said-"

"Never mind what I just said. Which one is it?"

He shifted his coffee to one side with the back of his hand and leaned closer over the table, suddenly excited, his eyes glowing. "I may be wrong, you understand. I'm not a hundred percent certain. In fact, I'd like your opinion before we go any further. It's right down your alley, Chris."

"My alley? Peter, I'm no forgery expert. You know that."

He chose to remain irritatingly silent, merely smiling enigmatically. It was all very much unlike him. I opened the exhibition catalog that Tony had given me to study on the airplane, and began to leaf through it, reading aloud.

"Hals, Portrait of the Saint George Militia Company, 1633; Reynolds, Lady Raeburn and Her Son, 1777; Corot, Quai at Honfleur, 1830… This doesn't make any sense. Everything here has a provenance a page long."

"Really? Then it looks like I am wrong."

"Come on, Peter," I said in a rare flash of annoyance at him, "how can… Wait a minute! It's got to be from the new cache, doesn't it? They've been out of sight for forty years-the Rubens, the Titian, the Vermeer…"

But he only smiled some more and shook his head, amused. "How unlike you to leap to conclusions, Chris."

I frowned. "But the others-there isn't one of them that hasn't been authenticated a dozen times."

"Surely it isn't necessary for me to point out to you that authenticity and authentication have not been invariably correlated where art is concerned. But that's beside the point."

He poured the last of the coffee from his kannchen and turned serious at last. "I apologize; I've been enjoying myself at your expense, haven't I? But what I found last week is so remarkable that

… so fantastic… so…" For the first time that I could remember, the suave and articulate Peter was too excited to finish a sentence that he'd started. And if he'd really come upon a fake among the previously uncontested masterpieces of the Bolzano collection, I could hardly blame him.

"You're serious, then?" I said.

"Oh, certainly! And, truly, I haven't been trying to tease you." He collected himself, sipped his coffee, and smiled. "Well, maybe just a little. In any case, here's what I'd like: You'll need the next two days to get oriented, so just go ahead and do that. Then, after I come back, you and I will walk through the collection, and I'd like you simply to look it over and see if something doesn't strike you very, very peculiarly indeed. Really, I'd tell you more, but I want your unbiased opinion before we take it any further. Will you do that?"

"Of course, if that's what you want. Tell me one thing, though. Are you suggesting that Claudio Bolzano himself is aware of this? That he's-"

"Perpetrating a fraud?" Peter looked scandalized. "Definitely not. I should say that of all the people in the world he's the last person likely to know about it. And his son is equally above suspicion-the scholarly Lorenzo, whom I believe you know."

"I'm not sure I understand," I said, understating greatly. "If you think Bolzano has a fake in his collection and he doesn't know it, don't you owe it to him to tell him?"

"Of course, but it isn't as simple as that. He's not very well, you know. He's been having a terrific time of it with gallstones, has finally had them out, and hasn't been having a very smooth recovery. I don't want to excite him until I'm absolutely sure of my facts. With your help, that should be only a few days more."

He finished his coffee reflectively. "You know, I just might call him from Frankfurt, though, and ask a pertinent question or two-in a subtle way, of course." He nodded to himself. "That might be a good idea." He dabbed at his lips with his napkin and tossed it on the table in a way that indicated lunch was over.

I was far from satisfied. "I don't understand why Tony didn't tell me about this."

"Possibly it seemed unimportant."

"Unimportant?"

"But he had nothing to tell, you see. I told him no more than I've told you-quite a bit less, actually, and only in passing. In fact, no one has any idea what I've found… what I think I've found." His eyes flashed briefly with private excitement. "I'll see you when I get back, and we'll go over it at length."

Like it or not, I had to settle for that. Peter left for Tegel Airport, and I took a taxi back to Tempelhof through the intervening miles of gray, blank-faced apartment buildings.

Chapter 3

A driving, sleety rain had begun to fall by the time we reached the Platz der Luftbrucke. I gave the driver a ten-mark note and dashed under the elegant blue canopy that stretched from the curb to the building. Columbia House, U.S. Air Force Open Mess, it said in English, Tempelhof Central Airport.

I threaded my way between staggered rows of waist-high marigold-planters-cum-car-bomb-barriers and approached the bullet-proof sliding glass doors for the second time that day. Fortunately, the same guard was still on duty, and he not only let me in, he saluted. Heady stuff for a mild-mannered thirty-four-year-old museum curator who'd been rejected by the army during Vietnam (heart murmur) and who'd had no dealings with the military since.

I was itching to see the show, of course, and I went directly to the Clipper Room, the big room on the ground floor where it was to be held, but there were no pictures, only a couple of carpenters nailing up partitions. One of them told me that the paintings were still in the storage room, and as far as he knew, they hadn't been uncrated yet, or then again maybe they had. I could find the storage room by taking the elevator to the basement and turning right.

Читать дальше

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «A Deceptive Clarity»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «A Deceptive Clarity» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё не прочитанные произведения.


Aaron Elkins: Old Bones
Old Bones
Aaron Elkins
Aaron Elkins: Curses!
Curses!
Aaron Elkins
Aaron Elkins: Icy Clutches
Icy Clutches
Aaron Elkins
Aaron Elkins: Good Blood
Good Blood
Aaron Elkins
Aaron Elkins: Where there's a will
Where there's a will
Aaron Elkins
Aaron Elkins: Old Scores
Old Scores
Aaron Elkins
Отзывы о книге «A Deceptive Clarity»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «A Deceptive Clarity» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.