The Mystery of the Lost Cezanne (14 page)

“It's so much lovelier from afar than when you're in the middle of it,” Marine said, sitting back and gazing upon the medieval village clinging to the cliffs. “It's too busy now.”

“So, good thing we didn't buy that house,” her father said, smiling.

Verlaque looked ahead, trying to count how many of the coveted village houses had swimming pools.

M
arine looked at the directions from Edmund Lydgate that she had printed out. “I think we're here,” she said, folding the paper in half. Her father slowed the car down and pulled into a drive. “The
borie
must be on Lydgate's property,” she continued. “I've never seen such a perfectly rounded one. To think that someone spent weeks, many decades ago, building that with fieldstones and no mortar. Just to store grain or hay in. It's so beautifully built and so well proportioned that it becomes a work of art.”

“
Mas des Lilas
,” Anatole Bonnet muttered as he strained to read the wooden sign above the mailbox. “I don't believe it. This was the house, Marine.”

“What do you mean?” Verlaque asked. “Is this the place you almost bought?” He refrained from saying “should have,” for he could see the stone house at the end of the drive. It was a rambling two-story eighteenth-century house, built in the white
stone that made Gordes famous—and unbearably busy in summer—and its multipaned windows were framed by pale-green shutters. Ivy crept up half of the building, and the wooden front door was crowned by a thick, twisting trunk that wrapped its way around the door and spread out in both directions above it. No plant expert, especially during the winter months, Verlaque thought it was wisteria.

“Yes, this is it,” Dr. Bonnet said. “Even the name is the same. Your mother loved the
borie
, Marine.”

“I can see why,” Marine said.

Dr. Bonnet drove cautiously up the stony drive and Verlaque was tempted to swing open his sliding door and jump out.

“See those lilac trees? That's where the house gets its name from,” Dr. Bonnet said, pointing to his right. “Although they're dormant now. They were in full bloom when we visited the house. There were white ones, too.”

“And there's M. Lydgate,” Marine said. “With a full head of white hair to match the lilacs.”

Edmund Lydgate had heard the Kangoo on the drive and was thankful his guests were on time. He had a chicken from Bresse in the oven and didn't want to serve a dry, overcooked
poulet
. He gestured for them to park beside his battered Clio, which he could no longer drive. “Welcome!” he cried, hoping he wasn't putting it on too thick. He didn't like visitors.

He held out his hand and firmly shook Anatole Bonnet's hand, then Marine's, and finally Verlaque's. Marine smiled at Verlaque and winked; she liked the look of Edmund Lydgate. He wasn't tall, thin, and distinguished as she had imagined a retired English art auctioneer to be; he was instead short and portly, with thick white hair and a white handlebar moustache. He wore a loudly colored jacket of thick yellow, red, and blue
stripes, and navy wool pants. His bow tie was crooked—pink with light blue polka dots.

“
Allez, allez
,” he called out, waving his arms in the air. “We'll positively
freeze
out here.”

“We almost bought this house, Monsieur Lydgate,” Dr. Bonnet said while Lydgate hurriedly hung their coats up in the hallway.

“Really?” Lydgate said. “How extraordinary. I've owned it for more than a half century. And lucky thing, too. I couldn't afford it now. Come into the salon.”

Verlaque looked at Marine and raised an eyebrow; Lydgate didn't seem the bit interested in the odd coincidence that Marine's father knew the house. But if M. Lydgate did not physically resemble what Marine thought an English auctioneer should look like, his furnishings fit the bill. Every spare inch of the living and dining rooms was filled with art and antiques, from Napoleon-era writing desks and commodes to 1950s Italian lighting. The walls were covered in framed paintings, and, like the furniture, they seemed to be from various eras.

“Please sit,” Lydgate instructed, again flapping his arms. “I'll serve some sherry, and then I'll look at your treasure. Unless you'd care for something stronger. Single-malt whiskey, perhaps?”

“Yes, thank you,” Verlaque said as he looked around the room.

“Oh good,” Lydgate said. “I'll join you in one.”

As Lydgate busied himself with the drinks, Marine said, “Your paintings, M. Lydgate. They're all portraits.”

“Yes, indeed,” he answered, handing Marine and her father a glass each of sherry. “I'm a sucker for them. I think it's because I like being alone. They keep me company.”

“Then I'm glad you agreed to meet us,” Verlaque said. “Thank you.”

“Of course your commissioner didn't give me much of a choice, seeing as someone was killed over this piece of canvas.”

“When did M. Rouquet call you?” Verlaque asked.

Lydgate raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Hmm, a few days ago. Wednesday? Thursday? It was hard to understand him, and I'm proud of my French. He was very excited.”

“Do you know how he got your phone number?” Verlaque asked.

“That's a good question,” Lydgate replied. “No, I don't know. My license has been temporarily suspended, so I couldn't drive to Aix, and it seems he couldn't drive up here. He blathered on about an old scooter.”

Verlaque nodded; Pierre had told him that René got around on an old, disused post office scooter, still yellow but missing one of the panniers. “Did Rouquet sound frigthened?”

Lydgate thought for a moment with his hand on his chin. “No,” he replied. “Just excited.”

“And he didn't mention any names? Anyone who might be following him?”

“No. The only name he mentioned was Cézanne's. Well, now that we've all been served drinks, how about a peek at this canvas?” Lydgate asked.

Verlaque stood up, took the canvas out of its bag, and unraveled the bath towel that he had brought from his apartment to protect it.

“Oh dear,” Lydgate said, pointing to the towel.

“What?” Verlaque asked.

“Fibers, dear boy, fibers. Never mind; lay it over there,” Lydgate said, motioning to a polished mahogany table. “I say, how
did you manage to sneak the painting away from the Palais de Justice?”

“Authority,” Verlaque said. “Plus, I didn't tell anyone. But I did bring gloves,” he went on, taking a pair out of his tweed jacket.

“You can wear those,” Lydgate said, also pulling a pair out of his jacket pocket. “I'll wear my own.”

Verlaque unrolled the canvas and Lydgate immediately put a hand to his mouth, gasping, “Oh my! It's a beauty.” He quickly put on the gloves and looked at the painting for some minutes, humming quietly to himself. Anatole Bonnet paced the room; Marine stayed quietly sitting, watching Lydgate; and Verlaque stood beside him, his hands folded behind his back. The only sound, when Lydgate wasn't humming, was the ticking of a clock.

“Fine blues and greens,” Lydgate finally said.

“Are they Cézanne blues and greens?” Verlaque asked, smiling.

“Oh yes. And they're repeated throughout the painting, just as he would have done.”

“But other painters did that, too, right?” Marine asked. “Repeated the colors, I mean. Put the green from the grass also in the sky, that kind of thing.”

“Quite so, like Vermeer,” Lydgate replied. “But Cézanne did more than repeat color. He didn't just delineate shapes—cubes, cylinders—by outlines; he did it by meticulous use of color changes.” Lydgate pointed to the girl's large buttons on her blue blouse. “Look,” he said. “Here, a series of color gradations determined the roundness of this button. Normally it's easiest to see with fruit in his still lifes. But he did it with flat shapes, too—like the back of her chair. They are not uniformly colored,
as we imagine that this classic cane-seated chair was—a dreary kind of brown oak.” Lydgate shook his shoulders. “Oh, how I detest oak!”

“I agree,” Verlaque said. Anatole Bonnet looked at his daughter with a puzzled look. Some people had preferences for different kinds of wood? He and Florence had bought most of their furniture from the Camif catalogue.

Dr. Bonnet said, “To Cézanne the chair is a series of planes, not just an object to sit on. The chair is subject to the same kinds of color variations as clouds and water.”

“As is the wall behind the girl,” Verlaque said.

“Ah yes,” Lydgate quickly answered. “Again, so many color variations. All painstakingly done by small parallel brushstrokes. No wonder Cézanne was always in a bad mood!”

“There's something that amazes me when I look at a Cézanne,” Dr. Bonnet said. “Not one element stands out. A mountain, a cabanon, a pine tree: all equally important.”

“Normally yes,” Lydgate said. “Harmony.”

“The poet Rilke wrote, ‘It's as if every place were aware of all the other places,'” Dr. Bonnet said. “Cézanne called it ‘joining hands.'”

“That's lovely,” Marine said. She leaned over the painting and looked at it. “But this painting—” she said. “The girl is more important than the other elements, isn't she? I see her first, more than the wall, or the chair. She shimmers.”

“Ah yes,” Lydgate said. “
Quel
dommage
.”

“What do you mean? Are you saying because of the girl it's not a real Cézanne?” Verlaque asked.

“I don't think it is, no,” Lydgate said. “But it's a master copy.”

“Are you sure?” Marine asked. Lydgate had seemed taken with it.

“It's awfully well done. I'll need more time with it. But first, we must eat. I had the butcher in Apt deliver this
poulet de Bresse
.” Lydgate ushered them into the adjoining dining room.

Verlaque smiled at the thought of buying meat a few towns away, liking Lydgate more and more. The table had been set with much polished silver and pressed white linens, and Marine followed their host into the kitchen to help serve. “You can take the
gratin dauphinois
, dear,” Lydgate said, handing Marine a pair of oven mitts and gesturing to the oven. “I swear there's no cream in it!” he said. “Just oodles of butter!”

Much admiration of the golden
poulet
was expressed as Lydgate proudly opened a 1989 Domaine Leroy. “You're being very generous, Mr. Lydgate,” Verlaque said in English. “I've never had Lalou Bize-Leroy's wines; only read about them.”

Lydgate looked at the bottle as if confused. He then said, “Working in an auction house for so many years did have its advantages,” as he poured a little wine into Verlaque's glass to taste.

“It's delicious,” Verlaque said.

Lydgate smiled and filled the rest of the glasses. “Velour,” Marine said after tasting it. “Silky, but thicker, like velour.”

“So, Mr. Lydgate,” Verlaque said after they had begun eating, “have you ever come across the fact that Cézanne had a mistress—an Aixoise—in 1885?”

“No,” Lydgate said—almost too quickly, Marine thought. “But I'm not an expert in the biographies of artists.”

“Who is?”

“Well,” Lydgate said, setting down his fork, “Rebecca Schultz from Yale, for one.”

“Unfortunately she has disappeared from her hotel,” Anatole Bonnet said, helping himself to more gratin.

“What say you?” Lydgate asked. “What hotel? Is the eminent professor here? In Provence?”

Verlaque glared at Anatole, who shrunk down in his chair.

“Yes, she is,” Verlaque answered. “She was the one who found M. Rouquet's body, in Cézanne's old flat.”

“Oooh, suspect number one, and now she's flown the coop,” Lydgate said, pressing his two hands together, the tips of his fingers meeting. “Of course she has her own motives.”

“Pardon me?” Marine asked.

“The Schultz collection,” Lydgate said, carving more chicken. “I'm surprised you haven't heard of it.”

“That's why her name rang a bell!” Dr. Bonnet said, slapping his forehead. “I knew she was a historian, but there was something about her past that I kept trying to remember.”

“Would you two care to fill us in?” Marine asked.

Lydgate opened another bottle of Leroy and poured it out. “Imagine this: 1961. A young Jewish couple—she's a high school teacher and he runs his family's fruit and vegetable delivery company in lower Manhattan. They live in a rent-controlled apartment and cannot have children. One evening he—Isaac Schultz—sees a small Cézanne in a gallery window on his way home from work. It costs five thousand dollars. More than two years' rent. He goes home and talks to his wife—Judy—and they decide to buy it. In installments. It takes them two years. Five years on, they own four Cézannes, two Picassos, and a Duchamp sculpture that they put in the middle of the living room. The fruit company flourishes when people in Montana and Kansas insist on having clementines and avocados all year round, and Isaac's brother Irv turns out to be a whiz at trucking and logistics. They become comfortably well-off, but never billionaires, like today's collectors. Everything
the Schultzes earn from then on is spent on buying art. They seldom go to Europe, never dine out. She doesn't wear furs or jewels; he patches his broken eyeglasses with masking tape. They never buy a car. Yet by the early '70s they own almost thirty Cézannes of Mont Sainte Victoire alone. Only one thing is missing.”