Pablo De Santis - The Paris Enigma

An immensely fat man entered the archives. He wore an administrative staff uniform, but his shirt had been mended so many times he looked like a beggar.

“Arzaky! If the doctor finds you in here, he’ll fire me. Do you want me to starve to death? ”

“That would break my heart, Brodenac.”

Arzaky signaled for me to put the box I was holding down on the desk. Brodenac examined the bottle, the cheese, and the cold meats, and smiled with satisfaction.

“There are better places to shop, but the Bordeaux isn’t bad. What are you looking for?”

“I’ve already found it.”

Brodenac studied the sheet of paper Arzaky had in his hand.

“You too?”

“Who else was here?”

“That redheaded girl… the dead guy’s sister.”

Arzaky looked at me.

“The dead guy didn’t have a sister. Someone else got here before us.”

“You already know who the dead guy is?” I asked.

Arzaky took the paper from Brodenac and showed it to me.

“Jean-Baptiste Sorel,” I read. The name meant nothing to me. “Who is he?”

“An art forger. Imprisoned for stealing paintings and for murder.”

“Did you know him?”

“I met him under unpleasant circumstances.”

Brodenac had taken out a wood-handled knife and was already cutting off a piece of cheese. “Unpleasant circumstances? Well, they were unpleasant for Sorel… It was Arzaky, the great detective, who sent him to the guillotine.”

Night had already fallen and Arzaky asked me to go with him into a narrow café that stretched out toward a smoky back area. He ordered absinthe and I was going to ask for the same, but he stopped me.

“An assistant’s mind always has to be sharp. You shouldn’t get clouded up on this poison.”

A short waiter, practically a midget, brought us our drinks: a glass of wine for me, and for Arzaky a slotted spoon, a lump of sugar wrapped in blue paper, and a glass filled with green liquid. Arzaky put the sugar in the spoon and poured water over it until it dissolved. As it lost its purity, the absinthe turned opalescent. When it was still, before the water was completely stirred in, it seemed to turn into green-veined marble.

“ Sorel was a two-bit forger,” Arzaky told me. “His specialty was academic painting, all those big canvases with mythological figures, a little tree over here, some ruins over there, and a naked lady in the middle. But that went out of style, and Sorel found there was no market for his fake Bouguereaus and Cabanels anymore. He was broke, and he spent his days growing deeper in debt in the back room of the Rugendas Café. One night Sorel met Bonetti, a Sicilian smuggler, among the other lost souls at the café. They became friends, discussing art, reciting the names of their favorite paintings, and exchanging information about which famous works in France and Italy ’s great museums were actually forgeries. Within six months Bonetti knew everything about Sorel, who was a very talkative chap, and he was able to convince him to steal a painting that hung in the house of one of Sorel ’s old clients. The former client was a textile manufacturer who had profited from the sale of overpriced uniforms to Belgian army detachments sent to the Congo. Sorel got into the house under the pretense of selling him a painting, and Bonetti, dressed as a gentleman, came in with him. Sorel introduced Bonetti as an expert from the Vatican gallery. Bonetti cased the house and discovered there was almost no security. Fifteen days later they pulled off the heist, entering through an open window.”

“That’s not enough to send somebody to the guillotine. Did they kill someone?”

“No. They were thieves, not murderers. Bonetti knew what he was after: several books had been published on The School of Athens by Raphael, and at that time, minor painters were benefiting from the renewed interest in paintings with philosophical subjects. Bonetti was planning to sell the painting to the president of the Platonic Society of Paris, but he never got the chance.”

At the back of the café, in front of a mirror, two men were arguing loudly. I looked in that direction and saw my ref lection. I barely recognized myself. At that distance and with all the smoke, unshaven and bleary eyed, I looked older. In that moment I wanted to go back to Buenos Aires and, at the same time, never wanted to go back, ever. But if I did return, who would I be? The shoemaker’s son sent by Craig with a cane and a secret, or the tired man who looked back at me from the mirror?

Arzaky waited for the men’s shouting to stop before continuing.

“ Sorel had only one serious fault: he was very jealous. Bonetti foolishly took the liberty of sleeping with Sorel ’s common-law wife, a pale, consumptive-looking woman. Sorel attacked Bonetti with the knife he used for cutting canvases and left him in the street, so that it would look like a mugging or a drunken fight. When the police found him, Bonetti was still alive and conscious, but he refused to name his attacker. Five days later Sorel sold a forged painting to one of his clients, unaware that the police were on his trail. The owner of the painting, who was abreast of the matter, asked me to examine the painting. In one corner of the canvas I found a bloody thumbprint. It was so easy to prove his guilt that I won’t even bother boring you with the details that led him to the gallows. They found the stolen painting in his studio.”

“Had he harmed the girl too?”

“No, he hadn’t even beaten her. He loved her too much. I saw her recently; she was selling violets on the street. I bought a small bouquet and paid way too much for it, leaving quickly before she could recognize me because I was afraid she would refuse to accept the money. I didn’t like sending Sorel to the guillotine, but we detectives strive to know the truth and when we find it, it no longer belongs to us. It is the other men: the police, the lawyers, the journalists, the judges, they decide what to do with that truth. I hope that young woman hasn’t found out that Sorel ’s body was defiled and burned.”

“And the stolen painting?”

“The businessman got it back, but shortly afterward went bankrupt and sold it to the Platonic Society, exactly what Bonetti had planned on doing. It still hangs there. It’s called The Four Elements and, according to what I’ve been told, it depicts Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and Pythagoras. How can anyone tell? In paintings, all philosophers look more or less the same: tunics, beards, and pensive eyes.”

When I arrived at Madame Nécart’s hotel, the assistants were all gathered there. I never saw them in groups of three or four; it was all or nothing. Perhaps they had agreed behind my back when to appear and when to disappear. Baldone shouted at me from a distance, with his Neapolitan terseness. “The Argentine, finally! Come here, come here! ”

I felt uncomfortable. I wanted to disappear but I took a seat beside the Japanese assistant, who looked at me harshly. I greeted him with a nod, which he returned, somewhat exaggeratedly. Tamayak and Dandavi were missing from the group.

“And what does Arzaky say about what happened in the Galerie des Machines?” asked Benito, the Brazilian.

I was honest: “Arzaky doesn’t know what to think.”

“Magrelli says that the two incidents are related. They both happened on a Wednesday,” Baldone said smugly.

“Your Roman detective has a distinct tendency to find serial murders in isolated cases,” interjected Linker.

“That’s our mission, isn’t it?” said Baldone. “Finding a pattern in the chaos. The police see isolated events, then the detectives connect the dots, creating constellations.”