still take their smoking seriously.
'Jean-Luc…'
He turned toward me, sucking on his teeth. 'Um?'
'I was just wondering something. I understand that everything points to that painting being a genuine Leger, and yet-well, with what you've told me about Vachey having painted in the Cubist style, well-is there any possibility-'
I was searching for a delicate way to put it to the prickly Charpentier, but couldn't think of any. '- any possibility that the painting is a fake after all?'
The tangled eyebrows drew ominously together. 'Fake?'
'By Vachey.'
The eyebrows sprang apart. 'Vachey?' His jaw dropped. The cigarette, pasted to his lower lip, stayed put. 'Haven't you heard one damned thing I've said?'
'Yes, of course, it's just that I can't help feeling-'
He waved me quiet. 'I know, I feel it too. Rene was up to something, but what? He was playing a game of cat-and-mouse, how can we have any doubt about that? But with whom?' He walked along without saying anything for a few steps. 'And in the end,' he said with a meaningful sidewise glance, 'did the mouse turn upon the cat and rend it?'
He took the cigarette out of his mouth long enough to use a finger to work at some food stuck between his molars. 'All I can tell you is this: 'Whatever he was up to, it did not involve a counterfeit Leger. The Violon et Cruche is authentic, Christopher, infinitely beyond the capacities of Rene Vachey. Besides, you must remember that he hasn't painted in more than fifteen years.'
'But who's to say when this was painted?'
He shook his head tolerantly, marveling at my persistence. 'Tell me, what would you say is the possibility that Vachey himself painted your Rembrandt?'
'Are you serious? None at all. One in a billion.'
'Well, then, why is it so hard to believe me when I tell you the same thing about the other? Of course, I realize that you are not a great admirer of Leger's works-'
'I never said-'
'You hardly need to say it,' he said, 'but even you must admit that his technical command, even in an artistically unfulfilled work like Violon et Cruche, is staggering. The idea that any forger, let alone a sophomoric dauber like Vachey, would be capable of having fabricated it is simply… No, as amusing as your theory is, it's beyond the realm of possibility. I'm afraid we need another one.'
We were at the entrance of the Barillot. Charpentier tossed away the cigarette stub and clapped me bearishly on the shoulder. 'Come, into the lion's den.'
The Barillot, as I've suggested before, was the kind of museum that gives museums a bad name, the kind whose main excuse for existing is that the original donor bequeathed the building-and the collection-to the city and left a modest fund to keep it afloat. There were perhaps three good pieces in the place (four, including the Goya charcoal Vachey had donated after his all-in-fun-no-hard-feelings theft), but it would have been too depressing to hunt for them in the tiny, badly lit rooms jammed with somber, dark paintings, sometimes literally from floor to ceiling.
Many of the pictures had placards like ATTRIBUE A ABRAHAM VAN DEN TEMPEL or D'APRES JEROME BOSCH beside them; less than emphatic, as labels go. We have some at SAM too-every museum does-but most of the ones here were very obviously no more than amateur efforts, or student exercises at best, some of them flat- out dreadful. The more boldly identified paintings, and there were some by bona fide Old Masters, were almost as bad. Every artist has off-days, of course, and the Barillot offered living proof. In a way, it was unmatched in that respect. It had a bad Murillo, a bad Steen, a bad Tintoretto, and a bad Fragonard, and how many museums can you say that about? There was even a bad Velazquez, and that might just be unique.
And now, it seemed, they would be getting a bad Leger for company.
The building itself, an eighteenth-century townhouse, was still impressive, but it hurt me to see the once- delicate decorative moldings on lintels, jambs, doors, and ceilings buried under so many layers of thick white paint that they were no more than lumpy globs. Fortunately, there wasn't too much anyone could do to the central staircase, an austerely handsome stone spiral that Charpentier and I took upstairs, to where Froger's office was.
At the top, Charpentier put a hand on my arm. 'Would you care to make a wager?' he asked. 'Froger's first words will be to the effect that the demise of his dear friend Rene Vachey has shocked him to his soul, and that he himself will go to any lengths to see that justice is done. He may even have tears in his eyes. In fact, I'll include that in the wager.'
I smiled. 'No bet.'
Froger had plenty of warning that we were coming, because we had to walk through three tiny 'galleries' with wooden floors so squeaky that we sounded like an army. And we were the only visitors, this being the off- season as far as tourists were concerned, and the people of Dijon having better sense.
Froger's office was larger than most of the gallery rooms. It had no paintings in it, but there was a pedestal bearing an early version of Houdon's marble bust of Mirabeau in one corner, three good Sevres vases in a wall cupboard, and on one wall a large, faded Gobelin tapestry of hunting goddesses and deer, which hadn't been cleaned in two hundred years. Otherwise, there was just an elegant desk in the center of the room, actually a converted, drop-leaf gaming table from the early eighteenth century, and a couple of superb Empire chairs. Funny kind of a museum, I thought, where the classiest objets d'art in the place were in the director's office.
Seated behind the desk, facing us as we entered, was Froger himself, his hands folded on his belly, and his beefy face grave and composed.
'So somebody's finally killed the arrogant son of a bitch,' he said.
I promised myself that the next time Charpentier offered me a bet, I'd take him up on it.
'Do they know who did it?' he asked me.
'How would I know that?'
'You went outside this morning. You had a talk with the inspector.'
I'd forgotten he'd been there for the session on Vachey's will. 'Well, if he knows, he didn't tell me,' I said.
He waved us into the Empire chairs. 'There shouldn't be any shortage of suspects, God knows.'
There, at least, he, Charpentier, and I were all in agreement. I wondered if it had occurred to him that he was likely to be on the list himself. His feud with Vachey had been long and bitter, and last night's spiky, highly public encounter hadn't improved things.
'Beginning with me,' he said with a rumbling laugh.
I was starting to have a bit more respect for Froger. He might be a horse's ass, but he wasn't a hundred percent horse's ass.
'Well, Jean-Luc,' he said, 'you've examined the painting again?'
'I have.'
'And?'
'And it is still a Leger. Still an extremely poor one.'
Froger's chin came off his chest. 'Extremely poor? Last night it was merely not so good.'
Charpentier pursed his lips. 'I was being charitable. I may have been carried away.'
Froger glowered momentarily, then rearranged his face and smiled. Clearly, he had resolved not to let Charpentier get his goat this time. 'In any case,' he said, moistening his lips, 'you advise me to accept it?'
'I advise nothing. I'm not being paid to advise.'
'But it is a Leger? You're sure of that?'
'It is a Leger,' Charpentier said with truly amazing patience, given the fact that he had to be pretty tired of having his expertise questioned by now. 'If that's all that matters to you, accept it.'
Froger got his fingers into his collar, under the rolls of flesh, and tugged at it. 'Look, Jean-Luc, no offense, but
