The English Assassin

for the Linz project, or other German museums-mainly Old Masters and Northern European works-were crated and shipped off to the Fatherland.”

“And the rest of it? The Impressionists and the Modern works?”

“The Nazis considered them degenerate, but they weren’t about to let them get away without first extracting something in return. Most of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century works were sold off to raise cash or set aside to be used in exchanges.”

“What sort of exchanges?”

“Take Hermann Goring, for example. He owned a large hunting lodge south of Berlin called Carinhall in honor of his dead wife, a Swedish aristocrat named Carin von Fock. It contained one of the largest private collections in Europe, and Goring used his extraordinary power to enlarge it substantially during the war. He treated the storerooms of Jeu de Paume as though they were his private playground.”

Isherwood drained his glass and ordered another.

“Goring was a greedy bastard-he grabbed more than six hundred paintings from the Jeu de Paume alone-but he went to great lengths to make it appear as though his acquisitions were, on paper at least, legal purchases rather than outright thefts. If Goring wanted a work, he had it specially appraised at a ludicrously low level by a handpicked fonctionnaire. Then he would immediately take possession and promise to send the money into a special ERR account. In reality, he paid nothing for the paintings he took from Paris.”

“Did they end up in Carinhall?”

“Some, but not all. Goring shared Hitler’s disdain for Modern and Impressionist paintings, but he knew they could be sold off or traded for pieces more to his taste. One deal was carried out by Goring’s agents in Italy. In exchange for seven Italian Old Masters works and several other objets d’art, Goring handed over nine paintings seized from the Jeu de Paume. Van Gogh, Degas, Cezanne, Renoir, and Monet, just to name a few-all stolen from Jewish collections and galleries. Goring carried out several other similar exchanges involving dealers in Switzerland.”

“Tell me about the Swiss connection.”

“Neutrality left the dealers and collectors of Switzerland in a unique position to capitalize on the rape of Paris. The Swiss were permitted to travel throughout much of Europe, and the Swiss franc was the world’s only universally accepted currency. And don’t forget that places like Zurich were awash in the profits of collaborating with Hitler. Paris was the place to buy looted art, but Zurich, Lucerne, and Geneva were the places to unload it.”

“Or stash it?”

“But of course. The banking secrecy laws made Switzerland a natural dumping ground for looted art. So did the laws covering the receipt of stolen property.”

“Explain the laws to me.”

“They were brilliant, and thoroughly Swiss in subtlety. For example, if a person takes possession of an object in good faith, and that object happens to be stolen, it’s rightfully his after five years.”

“How convenient.”

“Wait, there’s more. If an art dealer finds himself in possession of a stolen work, it’s the responsibility of the true owner to reimburse the dealer in order to reclaim his painting.”

“So Swiss dealers and collectors could receive stolen works without any fear of the law or of losing money?”

“Exactly.”

“What happened after the war?”

“The Allies dispatched an art expert named Douglas Cooper to Switzerland to try to find the truth. Cooper determined that hundreds, if not thousands, of stolen works had entered Switzerland during the war. He was convinced that many of them were hidden in bank vaults and bonded warehouses. Paul Rosenberg went to Switzerland to have a look round for himself. In a gallery in Zurich, he was offered a Matisse that had been looted from his very own collection.”

“Remarkable,” Gabriel said. “What did the Swiss government do with this information?”

“It promised the Allies that it would cooperate in a thorough inquiry. It promised to freeze all German assets that had entered the country during the war and to conduct a nationwide census of all such assets. It implemented neither measure. Douglas Cooper suggested suspending the licenses of any dealer who traded in looted art. The Swiss government refused. Then the Swiss Federation of Art Dealers told its members not to cooperate. In short, the Swiss government did what it always does. It shielded its business and its citizens from the eyes of foreigners.”

“Did dealers like Paul Rosenberg try to reclaim their paintings in court?”

“A few tried, but the deck was stacked against them. The Swiss made it time-consuming and very expensive for a foreigner to try to reclaim property from a Swiss citizen. The Swiss usually took shelter behind a claim of good faith. And remember, most of the art in question was stolen by the Nazis in 1940. By 1945, under the five-year rule of Swiss law, the rightful owners no longer had a valid legal claim. Needless to say, most plaintiffs walked away empty-handed.”

“Do you think any of it’s still there?”

“In my opinion, Gabriel, most of it’s still there. From the little bit you’ve told me, it sounds as though some of those paintings may have been in the hands of Augustus Rolfe.”

“Not anymore.”

Isherwood finished the last of his wine, and his gaze drifted back to the fire. “I think it’s your turn to do the talking, Gabriel. Tell me everything. And no lies this time. I’m too old to be lied to anymore.”

OUTSIDE it was raining again. On the way back to the gallery they sheltered together beneath Isherwood’s umbrella like mourners in a cortege. Gabriel had told Isherwood everything, beginning with the discovery of Rolfe’s body and ending with the explosion at Werner Muller’s gallery in Paris. Isherwood had drunk two more glasses of Medoc, and his haphazard gait showed the effects.

“Shamron,” Isherwood said sotto voce, his voice dripping with scorn. “I should have known that bastard had something to do with this. I thought they’d finally put him out to pasture for good this time.”

“They always find a reason to bring him back.”

“They say she’s quite the diva, Anna Rolfe.”

“She has her moments.”

“If I can give you one piece of advice, my dear boy, assume at all times that she knows more about her father and his collection than she’s telling you. Daughters tend to be very protective of their fathers, even when they think their fathers are complete bastards.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

“It may just be an ordinary art theft.”

“They left a Raphael hanging on the wall of the parlor and blew up the art gallery belonging to the man who oversaw the collection. I don’t think there’s anything ordinary about what happened.”

“Point taken,” Isherwood said. “In fact, it sounds to me as if the only things you can trust in this whole wretched affair are the paintings themselves.”

“I hate to be the one to break this to you, Julian, but paintings can’t really talk. Besides, the collection is gone.”

“The paintings can’t talk, but their provenance can. Clearly, Augustus Rolfe took his collecting very seriously. Even if he acquired the paintings under less than perfect circumstances, he would have insisted on a provenance for each one of them.