Murder in the Bastille

outside Paris.

This visit was different from those on which he’d accompanied his father. The Comte, gaunt, wearing worn corduroys and an ascot tucked into his old wool Shetland vest, had aged. His nose seemed more prominent and the broken capillaries in his face more pronounced.

“Let’s hurry, there’s not much time,” the Comte had said, his look furtive. Then he commenced complaining that he couldn’t afford to heat the chateau, much less dwell in it. So he lived in the Orangerie, a stone and glass construction nestled among the outbuildings housing rusted farm equipment.

The catering firm that had rented out the chateau for parties and weddings had vacated, as evidenced by the dry fountains and overgrown gardens. Wild hyacinths peeked from between the columns. Now, only the municipality rented the ground floor and ballroom for adult evening classes.

The Comte shuffled down the musty stone cellar steps of the Orangerie, which was dug into the slope below the chateau. Flanked by steep staircases, it anchored the slope and remained perfectly sheltered, facing due south, its windows double glazed.

“The temperature in here remains stable, between 15° and 18° centigrade,*” the Comte said. “Even in winter.”

Mathieu felt an even, dry warmth. Remarkable.

“These vaults once housed orange trees from Portugal, Spain, and Italy; lemon and pomegranate trees; a winter Bon-Chretien pear tree; even a Hungarian blue pumpkin plant.”

The Comte lifted a glistening dried orange from a basket and handed it to him.

“The trees produced little fruit. Most of them were decoratively pruned into topiary balls. The gardeners wheeled the boxed trees outdoors for the summer months in mid-May, returning them to the Orangerie in mid- October. They were quite sophisticated about climate control back then. They force-ripened the oranges.”

He led Mathieu to a vaulted warren of rooms filled with furniture covered by sagging old dust-laden sheets.

“This was how they hid the Mona Lisa from the Germans,” the Comte said.

The hair rose on Mathieu’s neck.

“Do you mean here?”

“In the Orangerie at Cheverny,“

Mathieu knew the famous chateau on the Loire.

“I’ll tell you the story,” the Comte said, glancing at his watch. “Not now, another time.”

But there had been no other time. The Comte had left unsaid more than he had told him. Mathieu felt it, and was sure of it when the Comte lifted the sheets and he saw the furniture. Pieces that took his breath away.

“Restore these pieces and sell them,” the Comte said. “Find a buyer, auction them off en catimini—on the sly. Take your cut, but there must be no way to trace any piece back to me. I know I can trust you.”

Mathieu bent over the mahogany piece, with its silver-framed doors, grooved and cabled, and small, rounded tapering legs. A pieta dura commode. One of three known to be in existence.

Exquisite.

Beautiful striations of wood grain. Veined white and grey marble. The interior with its seven paperboards in red morocco leather bore the estampille of WEISWEILLER. A piece from the period of Louis XVI.

He got to his knees, touching the wood with his fingertips like a young boy’s hesitant first caress. Even if blinded, he’d know the velvety texture of the rare wood, the unique curve and supple delineation, the trademark of Weisweiler. Weis-weiler had worked for Jean-Henri Riesener, furniture- and cabinetmaker to the French monarchs.

Mathieu’s heart jumped. The only other eighteenth-century Weisweiler commode sold after World War II had fetched close to 70 million French francs,* co-bought by a millionaire and the French State, to be returned to Versailles where it had stood in the library before the French Revolution.

The next piece, stamped DELAITRE, was from 1738, epoque Louis XV. It was a chest with two rows of drawers, in purple wood veneers with handles gilded in faille and bronze decorative hardware.

Would the Comte reveal their history to him?

“And the provenance . . . ?” Mathieu asked.

“Sell them anonymously. Don’t worry, do a little work on them and they’ll sell.”

But Mathieu had seen the telltale red G. The characteristic mark of the Gruenthal collections. And he understood.

He might as well put the soles of his feet into the flames. Handling these would be the equivalent of waltzing with fire. All the items must be pieces the Gruenthal family had acquired from the Nazis—pieces that by rights should have been handed over to the French government for return to the original owners or their heirs. A long time ago.

And the Comte, where had he gotten these pieces . . . was he working for himself or them . . . or both? What could have reduced him to this?

The Orangerie’s even climate was a perfect storeroom. He wondered how long they’d been here. And he knew he’d risk everything if he helped the Comte. But he’d be a fool if he didn’t.

The Comte, he figured, couldn’t risk using a compagnard de travail—a prestigious master craftsman apprenticed in the seven-year program that dated back to the Middle Ages. A compagnard wouldn’t touch unprovenanced pieces. Not even with a barge pole.

Envy . . . yes, Mathieu felt a soupcon of envy for the compagnards. But after years of working with his father, even though he stayed a faubourg artisan, he knew his craft rivaled that of a compagnard.

The Comte would know that someone like Mathieu, an ebeniste from the Bastille quartier, would remain discreet, too glad of the work to raise questions. And the Comte had trusted his father, knew the Cavour tradition.

So he had to play this right. Not appear anxious. The Comte needed him. And Mathieu needed the francs to buy his building in order to save it.

“Me, I repair. There’s a lot of this work,” he shrugged. “You expect me to sell it, too?“

“You know people who can,” the Comte said. “And even you can see it’s Louis XVI . . . worth, well, a lot.”

“What’s in it for me?” he said.

“Your father wasn’t this difficult,” the Comte said. “Or didn’t you know?”

Mathieu hadn’t.

“Listen,” the Comte said, understanding in his eyes. “Once, sometime ago, your father helped me. He benefited. It’s not complicated.”

Mathieu remembered the Comte visiting the shop, his servant in tow, and how they’d gone out for Bertillon creme glacee, the best ice cream in Paris. His father had bought the truck afterward. A Renault, top of the line. Still in perfect shape.

“Don’t think I won’t be generous. Back the truck up, take whatever fits inside,” the Comte said, as if referring to sides of beef. “I count on you.”

Mathieu noticed the once-manicured, now overgrown, lime trees in planters lining the vaulted walls as he carefully wrapped and dollied several pieces of furniture to the truck. When he drove out, the Comte waved to him as if they were friends.

In the rearview mirror, the Comte, standing in the graveled court, looked solitary and sad, as if diminished by the furniture’s departure. How pathetic even very rich people could look, Mathieu thought. Even a count with a chateau, who had only a magnificent collection of priceless antique furniture left.

Mathieu would need help to sell the pieces. And he knew where to go.

The thudding sound of a flic pounding on the glass-paned courtyard door brought him back to the present. He dropped the flat-edged scraper, swore, and took a step back.

Get a grip. Don’t lose control, he told himself.