sensation deep in my chest, as if my stomach had shifted up where it didn't belong. The Rembrandt-the Flinck?-had been fishy enough from the beginning, and getting myself shoved out of a window hadn't improved my attitude about it. But now it was tainted with something genuinely repugnant. As much as I didn't want to believe Mann's story, it sounded like the truth. I didn't want to be involved in it, and I didn't want my museum involved.
'I'm going to call Tony and recommend that we forget it,' I said.
'Well, you're not going to call him now. It's the middle of the night in Seattle. Listen, we were going to see Vachey this morning anyway. Why not put this Nazi thing to him and see what he says?'
'Calvin, it doesn't make any difference what he says. There's too much. I just want out. I have a lousy feeling about the whole-'
'Christ, give the guy a chance to defend himself, Chris. What can it hurt?'
I shrugged. He was right, I supposed. 'All right, you're-' The telephone rang.
'This is Monsieur Norgren?' the unfamiliar voice asked in French.
I said it was.
'Of the art museum in Seattle?' I said it was.
'Very good. I am Sergeant Huvet of the Police Nationale. It would be helpful if you could come to the Galerie Vachey on the Rue de la Prefecture at ten o'clock. Is this convenient?'
I frowned. 'Does this have something to do with-with what happened last night?'
'Pardon?'
'What is this about, please?'
'It is concerned,' the sergeant said with businesslike detachment, 'with matters proceeding from the death of Monsieur Rene Vachey.'
Vachey had been found dead early that morning, the sergeant explained, in the Place Darcy, a small park near the center of town. The cause of death appeared to be a gunshot wound.
'You don't mean-do you mean he was murdered?'
'So it would appear.'
That was as much as the sergeant would tell me. 'You will be there at ten o'clock, monsieur?'
I told him I would.
'Your associate, Monsieur Calvin Boyer-he doesn't answer his telephone. Perhaps you know where we could reach him?'
'I'll have him there for you,' I said numbly.
'Very good.'
I sat slowly down on the bed, my thoughts tumbling.
'Who's murdered?' Calvin asked.
'Vachey,' I said. I told him what little I knew, and sat there staring at my clunky jogging shoes.
'We better get going,' Calvin said when I'd finished. 'It's nine-fifteen.
We talked about the murder on our walk to Vachey's house, of course. Not that I remember much of it. I seemed to be functioning in a near stupor; a sort of jumble-headed reverie. How could he be dead, I kept thinking. Hadn't I seen him only last night-what, nine, ten hours ago?-and hadn't he been sparkling with life, rascally and genial? How could he be dead this morning? I found myself mouthing the question without meaning to: How could he be dead, how could he be dead?
'Look, Chris,' Calvin said with some exasperation, 'that's the way it works. A guy's alive, and then he's dead.'
'I know, but-yeah, I know.'
We stopped at a cafe on the Rue Musette for another cafe au lait and some croissants, which helped to settle my thoughts, but still left me sick and empty, dreading having to talk to the police. I suppose some of my reluctance came from realizing that I was going to have to tell them about my ill-thought-out incursion into Vachey's study; mostly, though, I just hated to think about him dead. Shot. I didn't know where he'd been shot, or how many times, or anything else about it, and I didn't want to know. I hadn't thought to ask if an arrest had been made. I just didn't want to accept it.
I had finished eating before something dawned belatedly on me. It didn't matter what I recommended to Tony; the business with the Rembrandt was over. Vachey had died without our meeting his conditions, so the gift could be valid. The picture belonged to whoever would have gotten it on Vachey's death if he hadn't decided to give it to us. The same went for the Leger. If that meant his son, Christian, which I supposed it did, then somehow I didn't think they were ever going to wind up on the walls of the Barillot or SAM.
Calvin nodded his agreement. 'I think you're right. Unaccepted offer dies with the offerer, that's the way it works. Let's hope the Louvre has something on paper for its share.'
'I hope so.'
Actually, at this point I didn't much give a damn. I felt rotten.
At my instigation we dawdled-well, procrastinated-over a moody second cup of coffee, and arrived at the gallery five minutes late.
Chapter 10
We had assumed we were coming in for interrogation, but that wasn't it at all. This was a group affair, held in a large, sparsely furnished room at the back of the daylight basement, below Vachey's living quarters. Part storage area, part office for Marius Pepin, Vachey's secretary, the room had several irregular recesses in which were objects ranging from mattresses on their sides and folded card tables to broken Roman statuary. In the central area seven people sat in assorted chairs that had been arranged in a rough semicircle to face a plain wooden desk. A spare, balding man sitting to one side and a little behind the others motioned us with an imperious little snap of his fingers toward the only available seats, two folding metal chairs on the far right.
I nodded to Clotilde Guyot, Vachey's gallery manager, who was sitting next to me clutching a balled handkerchief, her round face blotchy from weeping. Next to her was Froger, showing no signs of tears over the demise of his old adversary. He did look a little sickly, however; probably because he'd come to the same conclusion we had about the fate of the two paintings and was mourning his lost Leger. Beyond him was Vachey's son, Christian, looking like a man nursing a hangover. He had taken a bottle of mineral water from a side tray and was rolling it, unopened, against his temple. Pepin was next to him, jumpy and distracted, and after him was a man I didn't know but whom I'd seen at the head table the previous evening.
Gisele Gremonde, without her wig, without her gaudy makeup, rounded out the half circle. She was vacantly twisting her fingers, looking utterly shaken. Of course, she had drunk enough cognac to shake an elephant not so many hours before, but it went beyond that. I barely recognized the former opera star. She sat like a heap of old meat, boneless and shrunken. With her thin gray hair and gray, collapsed face she looked a hundred years old.
'I think we can begin now,' the balding man said in a cool, nasal voice when we'd sat down. 'Everyone speaks French? Good. I am Chief Inspector Lefevre of the Office of Judicial Police. I shall be in charge of conducting the investigation into the death of Monsieur Rene Vachey, as most of you already know.'
'I want to know why I was summoned here,' Froger said.
Lefevre ignored him. 'When I learned that Monsieur Sully planned to meet with the legatees of Monsieur Vachey's will before some of them-that is to say, some of you-found it necessary to leave the area, I asked to attend. I apologize for the necessity of intruding at this sad time.'
He crossed his legs and settled back. 'Monsieur Sully-if you please?'
Monsieur Sully was seated behind the desk. Plump, capon-breasted and silver-haired, he wore an expression suggestive of feathers that had been severely ruffled.
'That is not quite accurate, Inspector,' he said, irritably fingering a few handwritten sheets of lined white paper in front of him. 'I would like it to be understood that this gathering was instigated by you. I am complying with your instructions, but I wish it to be known that I consider it premature and highly irregular.'
