Pushing aside my lonely need, I answered, “Thanks for asking. Everything’s fine.”
Better to lie than reveal a vulnerability. I wondered what my father would think about that decision.
She gestured toward the catalogue pages. “How does it look?” she asked.
“It looks great,” I said.
“Th-th-thanks,” she whispered, embarrassed. She blushed and looked down, her standard response to praise.
I pointed out the few typos I’d found, and Sasha said, “I’ll make the corrections and go to the quick-copy place.”
“Sounds good,” I told her.
I heard the click-clack of her shoes as she descended the stairs, then nothing. I was alone.
Watching the tape was upsetting. Seeing certain items, like the inlaid chess table that had belonged to Mr. Grant’s wife, triggered memories of the pleasant conversation we’d shared about its origin. I now perceived his jolly Santa Claus demeanor as a veneer disguising a big bad wolf licking his chops.
Well, I chided myself, maybe that was unfair. Just because his behavior felt like a betrayal didn’t make it so. I sighed. Mr. Grant had owed me nothing, and I had no complaint. If, as it now seemed, he was just using my appraisal to benchmark value so he could negotiate wisely with Barney, well, that was his prerogative, and in fact, was probably a savvy business move.
I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t disappointed, but I could learn from the experience. My naivete and gullibility had facilitated his research. I still believed he’d liked me. But now I understood that liking me hadn’t mattered a whit. Don’t be stupid, Josie, my father had told me once. In business, it’s all about the business. If someone won’t make money doing business with you, they won’t do business with you no matter how much they like you.
It felt good to remind myself of my father’s words. Doing so allowed me to view the tape with more objectivity than I otherwise might have been able to bring to the task.
As expected, there was no Renoir in sight, nor was there an empty space on a wall where it might have hung. Either Barney had already purchased it, as Max thought, or someone else had done so. Either Barney or Epps was lying and there was no Renoir at all, which wouldn’t surprise me a bit now that I was less naïve and gullible, or the painting was secreted somewhere.
I paused the tape to consider why Mr. Grant might have wanted the painting hidden. He had three sterling-silver tea sets dating from the eighteenth century and two mint-condition seventeenth-century Chinese square porcelain bottles on display, a Regency period dining-room set constructed of perfectly matched rosewood that he used daily, and scores of other priceless and near-priceless items all in plain sight. Why would he hide one painting? Obviously, he didn’t keep it hidden just because it was valuable. There had to be another reason.
It was hard to imagine, but maybe the painting had been stolen. Impulsively I turned to my computer and brought up an Internet browser, and then clicked on an Interpol site I’d bookmarked that was devoted to tracking stolen art. I typed in the painting’s title and “Renoir.” Nothing.
I shook my head in frustration. I had no way of knowing if it was true that Mr. Grant had ever possessed the painting, nor did I have a clue whether, if he had, discovering his reason for hiding it mattered. I warned myself not to lose sight of my goal. Whether I was being framed for murder or was an accidental victim, I needed to arm myself with knowledge.
I went through the tape again and counted twenty-three paintings. Not one was even close to a Renoir in reputation, importance, or value. None was remarkable even when compared to the other treasures in the house. The only artist whom I recognized was the nineteenth-century illustrator Jules Tavernier. Mr. Grant had three of his pastoral scenes oddly framed in contemporary-looking black boxes.
I did a quick Internet search for Tavernier prices. The paintings were lovely, but would be unlikely to fetch more than $7,000 to $8,000 each. A lot of money for a painting by some standards, but nothing compared to the millions a Renoir would bring.
The other twenty paintings were even less special than the Taverniers. Value aside, any of the paintings could hide a wall safe. The Renoir could have been taken out of its frame and rolled, fitting easily in a specially designed hole in the wall.
An hour into the tape, I was listening to my discourse on two Windsor chairs, a seventeenth-century hanging tapestry showcasing birds in a jungle, and an eighteenth-century English partners desk. I wondered if the painting could be attached to the underside of a chair via a fake cushion or tucked into a safe located behind the tapestry. And while I’d examined the desk at length and had spotted long, thin dovetail joints that had confirmed its pedigree, I realized I hadn’t discovered the hinged cabinet door frequently found at the back of the desks’ kneehole openings.
I paused the tape, and stared at the screen, my mouth opening, my mind racing. A thorough search would easily discover if there was a wall safe or if the painting was hidden in a closet or under a false bottom attached to a chair or table, but I bet I’d found the stash-a hidden cabinet in the partners desk. We needed to look. And we needed to look now.
“Max!” I exclaimed when I had him on the phone. “I think I’m on to something.”
“Tell me,” he said. I heard children’s laughter in the background.
“I’ve watched the tape. Old partners desks had kneeholes. You know, an opening where your knees go. Many of them had cabinets built in at the bottom. Not exactly secret, since the hinges and lock unit were in plain sight, but semisecret, since someone would have to be on his hands and knees to spot it.”
“And Mr. Grant’s has one of these hidden cabinets?” he asked, excited.
“No. It doesn’t seem to. But in reviewing the tape, I noticed that there’s space for one. Some of the partners desks had the cabinet secreted behind a wood panel. It’s rare, and I’m betting that Mr. Grant’s desk is one of those. Max, it would be a perfect place to stash art.”
“Let me understand,” Max said. “You’re saying that even though no cabinet hardware, like hinges, is visible, you still think there’s a cabinet there. Is that right?”
“Exactly. I’m saying it might be there. It’s worth a look. I have some other ideas of where to look, too.”
“Like where?”
“Like behind the paintings for a wall safe, and under chair cushions-it would be fairly easy to create a false bottom.”
“It sounds possible, Josie. Well done.”
“Thank you. Now what?”
I took a breath, waiting for Max’s assessment, eager, yet fearful. My thoughts were inchoate; understanding why Mr. Grant had hidden the painting, if he had done so, and what it might mean to me one way or the other, was unclear to me. I waited for Max to speak, certain another shoe would drop.
“Now we consider how knowing about the Renoir would affect your situation.”
“And your conclusion?”
He paused. “I think we should alert Alverez and see about a search.”
“Are you sure? Should we reveal what we know?”
“Alverez knows about the Renoir and Epps’s relationship with Barney Troudeaux already. It seems to me that we have nothing to lose and a lot of goodwill to gain.”
“I understand,” I said, and I did. Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle latching into place, I saw how our volunteering our idea positioned us as an ally. People with nothing to hide volunteer to help. And since we were revealing nothing new about Barney or Mr. Grant’s murder, there was no downside.
“I’ll call you back,” Max said, and hung up.
Max called me back ten minutes later, the sounds of laughter louder than before.