“No, that would be too easy.”
She smiled, then bent closer to the painting. “Do you mind if I take some samples?”
Gamache gave them both gloves and watched as the conservator, on hands and knees, scraped a corner. Then she put on headgear, like jewelers wore, and moved farther along. Examining closely. Closely. Maryse turned on the scanner and moved it back and forth across the work.
After a few minutes, Dr. Louissaint rose, shoved the magnifying glasses up onto her head, and went over to the monitor.
“This isn’t a copy.”
“If it’s not a copy,” asked Gamache, “what is it?”
He joined them by the screen, where a ghostly image of the original Paston Treasure appeared.
“A paint-by-number.”
Gamache gave a small grunt of amusement. “A local artist, Clara Morrow, said the same thing. Thought it must be that. Not a real paint-by-number, of course, but the same idea.”
“Clara Morrow lives here?” said the Chief Conservator and her assistant, as one. Both sounded like teenage girls being told their favorite actor was next door.
“She does.”
“I’d love to meet her.” Again the women spoke in unison.
“I did my thesis on her,” said Maryse.
“I went to her first solo show at the Musée d’art contemporain,” said Dr. Louissaint, as though trying to one-up Maryse.
“Perhaps…,” suggested Gamache, and tilted his head toward the painting on the floor.
“Right, désolée. Whoever did this just painted over the copy and added their own bits.” She pulled the loupe over her eyes again and turned to Gamache as though examining him closely. “Now why would anyone do this?”
He shook his head and hoped those glasses didn’t help her see his complete and utter bafflement. Though it was hardly hidden.
Dr. Louissaint knelt down again and minutely examined the canvas before struggling back up.
Gamache helped her to her feet, and she thanked him. “Too many years kneeling on cold floors or standing on scaffolding trying to save murals.”
“I know the feeling.” He did not say what he’d spent years kneeling beside. And that they were beyond saving.
Dr. Louissaint took off her headgear and stared down at the painting. Then she stepped back, taking in the full effect of the overpainted image.
“There’s something about it, isn’t there? And not just because of the deliberately modern touches, which are bizarre, and yet seem to fit in. It’s both compelling and”—Dr. Louissaint searched for the word—“offensive. I’m not sure that’s the right word. But close. It’s not just because of the young Black man as part of the Paston collection, or the fact they’ve ruined a masterpiece. It’s something else.”
Gamache felt it too. “Offensive” was, he thought, the right word. Offensive in all its meaning. It not only offended, but there was something aggressive about it. It seemed an attack, even as it just lay there on the cold concrete floor.
Dr. Louissaint wandered the room, walking off stiff joints. She stopped at the open door to the evidence locker, stared. And turned.
“What’s that?”
Gamache joined her. “The book?” He assumed she’d seen the grimoire.
“No, the elephant. Can I see it?”
Gamache put on gloves and brought the statue out. She took his elbow in an imperious way and walked him and the elephant over to a window. Re-donning her loupe, she bent close to the bronze sculpture. Getting Gamache to turn it this way and that.
“Nice, nice,” she mumbled. “Late eighteenth century. Maybe early nineteenth. Indian, of course. Solid?”
She peered at Gamache, who nodded. It was getting heavy in his hands.
“But these markings don’t make sense,” she continued. “Any work like this I’ve seen has had almost no etching. Besides”—she leaned closer, then lifted her headgear—“it’s recent. Someone’s put them on in the last couple of years, I’d say.”
He looked at the lines more closely. Then at Dr. Louissaint. “Do they look at all familiar?”
“No. They look like Sanskrit or…” She looked closer. “No, not hieroglyphics. But they do appear to be writing of some sort.” She turned to look back at the huge canvas. “There are similar marks on the painting.”
He stared at her for a moment, then both of them almost ran back to the canvas and knelt beside it.
He couldn’t see them, but when she handed him her special glasses, they popped out. There they were, passing as wood grain. As texture in the heavy curtains. Etched into the trumpet.
What had looked like random lines to the naked eye now came into focus. They were shapes. He looked up and down, left and right. Scanning the immense canvas. They were everywhere.
It was as though the painting were screaming at him. Trying to tell him something.
CHAPTER 24
While Dr. Louissaint continued her examination, Armand placed a call to a former colleague, now retired and living in Vancouver.
Thérèse Brunel had been a senior officer in the Sûreté. She worked well past retirement, partly because she was so valuable to the force and partly because no one had the guts to have “that” conversation with her.
She’d come into policing later in life after a career as a senior curator with the Musée des beaux-arts. An investigation into art theft brought her into contact with the Sûreté, and she discovered a fascination with, and aptitude for, crime. Solving.
Over the years she and her husband had become good friends of the Gamaches.
“Thérèse? Armand.”
“Armand, it’s just after seven in the morning here.”
“Did I wake you?”
“Do you care?”
He smiled at her reply.
“Something’s happened,” she said. “What is it? The family?”
“Is fine. It’s a case. At least, I think it’s a case.”
“Could you be more vague?”
He laughed. “I need your help and probably Jérôme’s. It’s about The Paston Treasure.”
“Really? One of my favorite paintings. Now why would it be involved in a homicide case in Québec? That is what we’re talking about, isn’t it?”
“So you know the painting?”
“I do. A real curiosity.”
He explained what they’d found, and where. At first, there were sounds as people make when they’re absorbing information. But after a while, she fell silent.
“I’m glad you called in Mirlande,” said Thérèse when he’d finished. “She’ll be able to help. But I suspect the one you really want to talk to is Jérôme.”
“Eventually, yes, but I’d like to hear what you can tell me about The Paston Treasure.”
“Let me think.” There was silence down the line while she gathered her thoughts. “It was painted in the 1670s, or thereabouts, and shows many of the curios collected by the Paston family in Norfolk. That in itself would make the painting worth noticing, just as a historic record of the times. But there are a number of mysteries surrounding it, not least of which, why didn’t the artist, who clearly put a huge amount of time and effort into the thing, sign it?”
“Theories?”
“He died before he could. Or he didn’t want to be associated with it.”
“Why—”
“—wouldn’t he? I don’t know, Armand. Wish I did. It was a strange and dangerous time in England. Political unrest. Religious unrest. Talk of witches.”
“Witches?”
“Yes. One of the stranger details in the painting is almost hidden. Look closer at the roses around the neck of the cello.”
“Okay.” Armand was bending over the painting. “I don’t see anything.”