Chapter 28

A quick forage through Rose’s kitchen cupboards later and James and Fen had found something to stave off the stomach rumbles. It was gone 3 p.m. by the time they had finished, and Fen decided that she should go and tell Henri the news of his inheritance. James thought it an opportune moment to head back to his hotel, so it was Fen alone who had donned her hat and coat again and headed out into the streets of Paris.

By now Fen knew her way through the labyrinthine corridors of the Louvre palace rather well. She was still astounded, though, that the little door at the side of the vast building was never kept locked. Using people like Gervais to cart their treasures around the chateaux of France to save them from the Nazis was one thing; just letting someone walk out with them via the back door was quite another.

Fen fantasised for just one moment about nonchalantly walking out of the museum with her own stolen masterpiece…a Vermeer perhaps or a small Byzantine icon? Either would look super above the mantelpiece in Father’s study. The notion made her smile, but then she frowned. How easy it was to imagine these things…how easy would it actually be to follow through on an idea like this? And take your opportunity when it was presented?

Fen still felt uncomfortable doubting the integrity of her friend, but she had to get to the bottom of who killed her and she felt that Henri, despite needing to know about his inheritance, might be able to shed some light on her questions. But how much should she reveal to Rose’s partner? The worry being that if Rose was being blackmailed, was Henri being targeted too?

Sadly for Fen, her trip to the Louvre was a waste of time. The secretary who sat in the office next to Henri’s informed her that it wasn’t his day to be in the gallery and that he was no doubt at his own premises. The secretary handed Fen a note of the address and wished her good day.

Luckily, the address of Henri’s gallery, the eponymous Galerie Renaud, was in the arcades of the Jardin du Palais Royale, only a few hundred yards from the Louvre.

Fen walked the route confidently and navigated her way through the colonnaded gardens, remembering her history lesson on how the arcades had been some of the first in Paris to have glazed windows, to help the emerging middle class of the eighteenth century to window-shop. The area had always been associated with luxury goods, and a high-end private art gallery like Henri’s fitted right in with the feel of the area.

Fen, like many Parisiennes before her, couldn’t help but be attracted by the expensive wares in the windows and wondered how these shops had kept their doors open during the occupation. James’s words about his new friends and some of their black-market dealings echoed in her mind. Before she could ponder too long on the provenance of a rather lovely pair of red leather gloves, Fen saw the shopfront she was looking for. Like the others in the arcade, the Galerie Renaud had one large deep-silled window with a door next to it. In the window, there were various watercolours, framed in thin gold frames and hung, suspended in the air, by wires.

Fen took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

‘Ah Fenella,’ Henri greeted her from behind a desk at the back of the gallery. ‘I must say it is a pleasure to see you. You remind me of my dear friend, even if you have decided not to carry on the tradition of those flamboyant turbans of hers.’

Fen smiled, Henri’s stab at humour had hit the spot and relaxed her somewhat. ‘I don’t think they’d look so chic on Midhurst’s High Street. We’re more tweed skirt than silk turban there, I’m afraid.’

‘True, true. Come, sit yourself down. What can I do for you?’ Henri gestured to a chair in front of his desk. Unlike the ones in his Louvre office, these were modern and far less fussy. In fact, the whole gallery, even though it was situated in an old building, had a real air of modernity to it. The walls were painted white and the paintings were mostly very contemporary: works by the Fauves, Cubists and abstract artists hung from thin chains and made striking statements against the stark white of the walls.

Fen glanced around and then addressed the matter at hand. ‘Monsieur Renaud, Henri…I come bearing news in a way. About Rose, actually. You see, I hope you don’t mind, but I called her solicitor, a Monsieur Blanquer, who was able to come over to the apartment pretty smartish and let me know the contents of her will.’

‘Ah…’ Henri pressed his hands together and rested his chin against his fingers for a moment. Then he said something that surprised Fen a little. ‘The apartment that is now mine, I take it.’

‘Oh. You knew?’

‘As I said before, Rose and I had no secrets, well, until recently it seems. When you lived like we did, on a knife-edge, you have to absolutely trust the other person. We decided, during the war and at the height of our work, that we would bequeath each other our estates. It was the ultimate sign of faith in each other. Of course, it helped that neither Rose or I have any immediate family.’

‘I see. Well, there you go. I’m sure Monsieur Blanquer will be in touch officially, but, Henri, may I ask you a small favour?’

‘Of course, dear girl, what is it?’

‘It’s not so much for me, I can be on the next train out of here, if I must, although I do want to find out what happened to Rose…but me aside, would you allow Simone to carry on living in the apartment? I know she hasn’t much in the way of family left and, from what she’s said, they never had more than a bean to rub together anyway…’

Henri pressed his chin to his hands again, so that he could have been mistaken for praying as much as thinking. He barely took a moment’s contemplation, however, before replying, ‘I see, I see. Yes, she must stay on. A young woman like that cannot be ousted onto the streets. I shall speak to Blanquer and arrange an agreement with her, some sort of rental contract. Dear Rose, she was always so kind and I feel like I should do my best to honour her – in all aspects of her work.’

Fen smiled in relief. She would be able to tell Simone the good news this evening at least now. And from what Henri was saying about Rose, how kind and generous she was, well, it sounded like she really couldn’t have been implicated in what the blackmailer had written about. Fen made a hasty decision to talk to Henri about it. ‘One more thing, while I’m here. Henri, I have to admit something to you.’

‘Taking that hideous carpetbag of hers home with you after all, dear girl?’

Fen smiled again, and carried on, reassured that Henri’s good humour would help them both to come to terms with what she was about to say. So she told him about finding the letter from the blackmailer as he sat there, his hands pressed against his chin again in his prayer-like pose. He listened carefully as Fen described not only the contents of the letter but the envelope in which it had arrived.

‘So, you see,’ Fen finished explaining, ‘I just couldn’t equate it in my head with the woman I knew. And I wondered, assuming you’re the “HR” the author is referring to, if you knew anything about it?’

‘I’m afraid I did, yes. But I can tell you absolutely that it is unfounded lies. As I said, Rose and I had no secrets, but I must own up to keeping this little one from you last time we spoke.’

Fen frowned a little in consternation, but didn’t interrupt Henri.

‘You see, she came to me when she received a similar letter a week or so ago. I advised her we should both do the same: ignore them.’

‘You received one too?’

‘Yes, about a week ago and again today in fact.’ He sat upright and then pulled one of the desk drawers open. From it, he retrieved an envelope that looked identical to the one that Fen had found in Rose’s mailbox. It was slightly grubby and had a handwritten address on the front. Most notably, it had also been hand-delivered as there was no stamp or franking mark on it at all. Henri carried on talking, ‘It’s nothing but a work of fiction from a racketeer who thinks he can extract a fast buck from us.’

‘I get the impression you have an idea who it’s from?’

‘I’m afraid I have my suspicions.’ He paused. ‘As I said last time we spoke, Rose had had dealings with the Arnault brothers. The oily, grubby marks on the envelope confirms it in my mind. Are these not the greasy fingerprints of a mechanic? I would wager my life that the author of these letters is Gervais “The Wrench” Arnault.’

Fen frowned in thought. She had so wanted the blackmailer to be The Chameleon, even if that hadn’t really made a lot of sense. But there was no doubting Henri’s logic and deduction – the letter he had shown her, and the one she had back in the apartment, bore signs of grease and oil. And she really didn’t think Gervais ‘The Wrench’ Arnault was also the master of disguise and double agenting that The Chameleon purported to be.

‘Thank you, Henri, and again for letting Simone and me stay on. I’ll let her know the news.’ Fen got up to leave.

‘Farewell and take care, dear girl. Perhaps as a thank you to me you can both start to clear away Rose’s belongings? Send them to the Red Cross or whatever, I don’t think I’ll find a use for her dresses and beads. Or indeed that damned list any more.’

‘The list? You really want us to just throw it away?’ Fen asked, her obvious confusion showing.

‘My dear, what use is it now? I don’t have the cipher for Rose’s code. Without it, the list is useless. Our Jewish friends might be able to spot their paintings from the descriptions, but without the cipher there is no proof. Antoine and Gervais, under Rose’s instruction, labelled each painting with that code of hers. What is the point of the list if we can’t decode it?’

‘So you’re just going to give up? After all you risked?’

‘I don’t see what else I can do?’

Fen thought for a moment. ‘Do you know how I can contact Michel Lazard?’

‘Rose’s art dealer? Yes, why?’

‘I just think that he’s a missing cog in the wheel. Someone I’d like to speak to, see if he knew if Rose had any enemies.’ Or if he was one of them… Fen thought to herself.

‘I’m not sure what use Lazard would be to you, to be honest, Fenella. He is good for two things in this world, and two things only. One is selling almost any picture you give him, and the second is that he will try to charm the stockings off almost every woman he encounters, with varied results.’

‘I thought you barely knew him?’

‘I really don’t. But the man has a certain reputation…Look, why don’t you join me at a drinks reception tonight, at the Louvre. It’s a sort of benefit for the wealthy patrons to see that the art they fundraise for so generously has been restored to the museum. You won’t look out of place in one of Rose’s fabulous outfits. Do come, it will be something to cheer you up.’

‘If by fabulous you mean outrageous,’ Fen bit her lower lip. Rose had been such a massive personality she’d been able to pull off velvet turbans and floor-length patchwork coats with aplomb. Fen wasn’t sure if there would really be anything appropriate for her to wear and she wasn’t even sure if she was in the mood for a grand gala. Henri could obviously read these thoughts as they played across her face.

‘I’m sure you’ll find something as chic as you, my dear,’ he said, and then added, ‘and it really would be such a shame for you to miss tonight. Rose was invited, you know, and I think if she could look down on us now and perhaps flick some ash from her cigarette at us…’ he paused, gauging Fen’s smile perhaps. ‘Well, I think she would tell you to come.’

Fen looked up at the ceiling and considered the idea. The thought of a party was indeed rather exciting and if nothing else it would give her another chance to double-check with Henri that he really did intend for her and Simone to destroy the list Rose had made. She sighed and then smiled at Henri.

‘Until tonight then.’

‘Wonderful, wonderful,’ Henri clapped her on the back as Fen took her leave and left the gallery. She decided that it would do her pocketbook no good at all to linger in the arcade, plus she was in no mood now for shopping, real or of the window variety. Instead she was still running the question of Henri and the list over and over in her mind. Was he really going to give up so easily on his and Rose’s mission? If the cipher is so important, she thought, I really must try to find it.

Fen was just leaving the colonnade when a flash of colour caught her eye on the other side of the courtyard. She paused and looked, waiting for the chance to see it again. It might have been the speed at which the person was moving, or perhaps Fen was just on edge after the events of the last few days, but something told her to wait and see what it was that had captured her attention.

She moved slowly along the colonnade until she was hidden behind one of the columns, and was almost instantly rewarded by seeing the colourful fabric again. This time she could make out what it was: a boating blazer. Paired with summery cream slacks, as if the wearer was dressed for a regatta on a riviera rather than an autumnal day in the city. Fen had seen that jacket before, its old-school stripes giving the game away immediately. This man, darting between the columns the other side of the courtyard was the same man she’d seen Rose arguing with just before she was killed.

‘Lazard…’ Fen whispered to herself, holding onto the rough stone of the column, letting its width conceal her in case he turned around. Watching from her spot, she tracked him as he half ran, half walked along the street until he slipped inside one of the galleries and out of sight.

Fen emerged from behind her hiding place and nodded a confirmation to herself. The gallery she had just seen him enter was none other than Galerie Renaud.