Paul held the frame steady as Gamay opened up the sharpest blade of the knife. “Make it quick,” he said.
Gamay began to separate the thick paper backing from the artwork, careful not to plunge the knife too deeply. When she’d gone all the way along the bottom, she reached up inside the frame.
“Well?”
She moved her hand along the inside of the bottom stretcher and then bent down and looked up into the gap. “Nothing,” she said. “Let’s try the others.”
With Paul now a willing accomplice, she separated the backing of the warship painting next. A quick check also found nothing.
“Guess the warship wasn’t the key,” Paul said.
“Very funny.”
Finally, she went to work on the painting of the small boat being rowed by the men.
“Hurry,” Paul said. “Someone’s coming.”
The clip-clop of shoes echoed off the tile floor, closing in on them. Gamay quickly closed the knife.
“Hurry.”
The proctor appeared at the end of the aisle and Paul hastily pulled the painting away from Gamay and slid it back into the rack. Instead of exclamation or rebuke, or even a look of shock, the proctor remained remarkably still.
Only then did Paul realize the proctor was stumbling stiffly forward, not even looking at them. He fell forward face-first with a knife sticking out of his back.
Another man appeared behind him. This man was younger, with slowly healing sores on his forehead and cheeks. He pulled the knife from the proctor’s back and wiped it coldly. Two more men moved in, flanking him.
“You can stop what you’re doing now,” the man with the sores said. “We’ll take it from here.”
56
“Who are you?” Paul asked.
“You can call me Scorpion,” the man replied.
He seemed proud of the name. Paul couldn’t imagine why.
“How did you find us?” Paul realized there was little point to such questions, but he was trying to stall for time. He’d never seen this Scorpion person before. Even though he could guess who Scorpion worked for, it seemed impossible that the men could know who he and Gamay were.
“We have D’Campion’s diary,” the man said. “He mentioned Villeneuve many times. From there, it was easy to choose Rennes and find Camila Duchene.”
“If you’ve hurt her…” Gamay threatened.
“Fortunately for her, you arrived before we did. It made more sense to follow you than to harass an old woman. Now, hand over the book of letters.”
Paul and Gamay exchanged a sad glance. There was little they could do. Paul stepped in front of Gamay, allowing her to palm the pocketknife, though it would do little good against the serrated nine-inch blades the men across from them were carrying.
“Here,” he said, closing the album and shoving it forward. It slid along the smooth tabletop and came to rest beside Scorpion, who grabbed it, looked through it and then put it under his arm.
“Why don’t you leave before the police arrive?” Gamay suggested.
“There are no policemen on the way,” Scorpion assured her.
“You never know,” Paul said. “Someone might have seen you—”
“What were you doing with that painting?” Scorpion demanded, cutting Paul off.
“Nothing,” Paul said. Even as the word left his mouth, Paul knew he’d spoken too quickly. He’d never been a good liar.
“Show it to me.”
Paul took a deep breath and reached back into the rack. As he slid the frame out, he realized he’d grabbed the wrong work of art. It was the warship. Maybe that was a good thing, he thought.
Rotating it to a flat position as if to lay it on the table and slide it toward Scorpion, Paul realized he now had a weapon in his hands. He twisted his body and flung the framed painting like a Frisbee. It hit Scorpion in the stomach, doubling him over.
Following up his attack, Paul lunged forward and kicked the man while he was down. “Run!” he shouted to Gamay.
Paul’s large size had many advantages and disadvantages. Because of his height, he’d rarely been in fistfights. Few people chose a six-foot-eight-inch opponent when looking for someone to tangle with. But, as a result, hand-to-hand combat wasn’t his forte.
On the other hand, when he put his weight behind it, he could deliver a powerful punch or kick. The shot from his boot sent Scorpion flying backward into his two friends. The three of them seemed particularly surprised by the assault and not a little unsure of the best way to attack this large, angry man.
Paul didn’t wait for them to figure it out. He turned and ran in the other direction. He made it around the corner and saw Gamay running for a door in the distance.
“Get them!” Scorpion shouted.
Paul caught up with Gamay as she reached the door. Only now did he realize she was carrying the painting of the rowboat.
“I thought you were moving slower than normal,” he said.
“I just had to have it,” she said in her best high-society voice.
“Let’s hope we can keep it,” he said, pushing the door open.
They’d come to a stairwell, a fire escape by the sparse look of things. Paul pushed open the heavy steel door.
“Up or down?” Gamay asked.
“I’m guessing down leads to a basement, so go up.”
They ran up the stairs, reached the next level and tried the door. It was locked.
“Keep going,” Paul shouted.
They continued up, spurred on by the sound of the door below banging open.
Beside a placard that read L3, Gamay pushed on the next door.
“It’s locked,” she said. “Aren’t these things supposed to remain open at all times?”
They went up one more level and found light streaming in through a window. “This is the roof,” Gamay said.
Paul tried the door, but it was also locked. Gamay responded by using the frame of the painting to smash the window out. Brushing away the glass, she climbed through.
Paul followed and tumbled out onto the museum’s roof. A small section around them was flat and tarred, but the rest was tiled and sloped. “There has to be another way down.”
Across the tiled section was another flat spot with a small hut on top. It looked exactly like the stairwell they’d just come out of. “That way,” he said.
Gamay went first as Paul looked around for a makeshift weapon. He saw nothing useful and charged after her. The green-tiled roof was steeply sloped on both sides, the tiles wet and worn smooth from decades in the French rain.
Paul and Gamay climbed up onto a flat section where the slopes met at the peak. It was no wider than a balance beam and one wrong step would send them tumbling.
They traversed the central section, jumped down onto the flat, tarred area and ran to the door. It was locked, but the window was quickly smashed.
Behind them, their pursuers were on the roof.
“You go,” Paul said. “I’ll hold them off.”
“No dice,” Gamay said. “That was a nice move inside, but we both know you’re no giant version of Bruce Lee. We stick together.”
“Fine,” Paul said, “but hurry.”
She handed him the painting, put her hands on the windowsill and screamed. When Paul turned, he saw that someone inside had grabbed her arms and was dragging her in. He grabbed her legs and pulled. A tug-of-war lasted a second and Gamay came flying out. There was blood on her mouth.
“You okay?” Paul asked.
“Remind me to get a tetanus shot when we get home.”
“That’s only if you get bitten,” Paul said. “Not if you do the biting.”
“Then never mind,” she said.
They were now trapped. Paul plucked a hand-sized chunk of broken tile from the rooftop, but it wasn’t much of a weapon. The man inside the second stairwell began to slam himself against the door.