Everywhere there were the dealers, dour and serious, smug and secure in their assessment and mentally tallying their profits. Belgians, Dutch, French-yes, of course! thought St-Cyr angrily-Swiss and Norwegians-Italians. From all over Axis Europe they had flocked to haggle, to buy and cart home the plundered treasures of France, or to sell.
Dismayed-taken aback by the wealth of art that had been assembled-he clutched Denise St. Onge all the harder by the left arm and felt an utter fool, utterly helpless.
Never in his wildest imagination had he believed the theft so great, the rape so deep. ‘It’s the sale of the century, Hermann,’ he said, his voice but a desperate whisper.
‘The Einsatzstab-Reichleiter Rosenberg, Louis, with offices at 54 avenue d’lena and warehouses wherever they need them. The whole of the Leviton department store in the Faubourg Saint-Martin is being used as a storehouse!’
There were stacks of paintings in addition to those that hung on the walls, stacks of everything. Set up by Hitler primarily to acquire works of art for the Linz Project, his pet dream of creating the world’s leading art museum on the banks of the Danube, the ERR handled mostly confiscated works of art. Jews, Freemasons, Communists and other political undesirables, all had to forfeit everything. So, too, uncooperative businessmen, industrialists, private collectors and dealers who refused to sell when they should or who had not listed all their valuables as required by law.
Goering bought in bulk by the railway truckload, traded avidly, selling what he didn’t want for Karinhall, his huge country estate just to the north of Berlin. Others bought for the institutes of higher learning in the Reich and for its museums and galleries. Still others bought for themselves or sold, and always the dealers, anxious to burn up the grossly inflated new francs of the Occupation, bought so as to send the money home in the form of something tangible they could then flog to one of the Nazi bigwigs at a hundred per cent profit or more.
‘Rembrandt, Goya, Frans Hals and Rubens, Hermann. Not one canvas but ten or more of each.’
‘Degas, Manet, Sisley, and Cezanne,’ spat Denise St. Onge, desperately searching the crowd for help. ‘You can’t stop it! You can only join in.’
‘Ah yes,’ said St-Cyr. ‘And isn’t that what you did, mademoiselle?’
‘I … I don’t know what you mean?’
Frantically she tried to find a way out for herself. A Luftwaffe waiter, one of many, passed with a tray of champagne in tall glasses. ‘The Dom Perignon, mademoiselle, the Piper-Heidsieck or the Krug?’
She could throw it into St-Cyr’s face and run. ‘The Dom Perignon, please,’ she said.
‘Messieurs?’ asked the waiter.
Louis shook his head, Kohler said, ‘It’s too acid for the stomach. Beer is my drink, his is pastis and the lady isn’t drinking because she would only have to visit the toilets and I would have to sit with her.’
‘Batard!’ she hissed. ‘Franz will be here and so will the Reichsmarschall Goering who is his cousin and mine! Yes, mine! you fools. Franz and I are cousins.’
There were Luftwaffe guards at the entrance and at all other doors. There were Luftwaffe security officers everywhere. Hell, the Reichsmarschall’s air force handled all transport for the ERR to and from the Reich, thereby ensuring total control of all sales and a first look at all items.
‘A moment, mon vieux. Don’t let her out of your sight. I must find the one who purchased the forged papers,’ said St-Cyr.
‘The forged papers …?’ began Mademoiselle St. Onge. ‘For whom? What forged papers? Who has done such a thing?’
Kohler dragged out his bracelets and put one around her right wrist since she was right-handed and would hit first and hardest with that fist. ‘Now my own,’ he said. ‘Hey, they look good with your gloves. Maybe the two of us will start a new fad and the next owner of your shop can put some in the window.’
‘Who did he mean?’ she asked, pleading with her eyes. ‘Was it Marie-Claire …?’ She gasped and held her stomach. ‘Marie for Franz and Michel … ah no. No!’
She swung hard. Kohler grabbed her by the wrist. She spat in his face and tried to knee him in the groin. He forced her left arm back and down until, in shock, disconcerted and wanting to keep their distance, the crowd around them cleared and a small space was left.
She knelt on the floor at his feet, head bowed in despair. ‘Franz …’ she blurted. ‘Franz, please help me!’
Kohler wanted to let her stay there so that everyone could see her but knew the scene would only bring trouble. ‘Get up. We’ll find a place for you to tidy your face, eh? and you can tell me all about it’ Louis … where was Louis?
Several people passed in front of St-Cyr and for a moment his view of Marie-Clarie de Brisson was obstructed, then there she was again. Nervously she jotted down a last note, only to hesitate as if not certain she had written enough. The bared breasts of the painting … the hat with its red flowers … the shoulders … the expression of the woman … was it not one of, ‘He does not like what he sees of me?’
The breasts were full and round but as to why the woman in the painting was partially disrobed, ah, who was to say? ‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’ said St-Cyr pleasantly, the man on holiday.
‘You? Ah! Why … why are you here, Inspector?’
Was it so terrible? ‘Why, to view the paintings like everyone else.’
Her green eyes darted away to the floor, to the pad and pencil in her hands, to the painting on the wall … the painting. ‘It’s what men look at,’ she said sharply. ‘Please excuse me!’
‘A moment, mademoiselle.’ Their eyes met. She trembled. ‘Are you planning to bid on this one,’ he asked, ‘or on the other pieces for which you have made notes?’
‘I … I was just curious. It’s … it’s a thing I often do.’
‘Then you won’t mind my glancing over your notes.’
She felt him tug the little notepad from her. She tried not to cry and wished he wouldn’t spoil everything for her. Everything!
The golden yellow mohair dress was perfect for her, sharpening as it did the rapidly misting eyes, the dark red hair with its pixie cut, the tenseness of cheek, chin and brow. ‘A Durer,’ he said of the list, ‘a Cranach … the two Vermeers, a fifteenth-century, all but life-sized sculpture of Eve, the two Gobelin tapestries that are now hanging in the third gallery or was it the fourth? The painting by Manet of a girl and her mother at a railway station, this study of a woman done perhaps in …’ He examined the little card on the wall and said, ‘Yes, of course, in 1878.’
‘Inspector, what is it you want of me?’
Her expression was one of devastation and he knew she didn’t wish him to spoil things for her. ‘Want? Why nothing for the moment. Will you be attending the sale?’
‘Yes, to …’
‘To record the prices or to bid?’
‘To record. It … it’s all I can do.’
Excusing himself, he drifted amiably off through the crowd and she was left to stare at his broad back and shoulders until, at last, he was gone but then a woman stood close by and she heard her saying, ‘Ah, Sainte-Mere, it’s magnificent, isn’t it? The tone, the way the flowers are clustered in the hatband to one side, their colour offsetting everything. What will it fetch, do you think?’