“Katya, dear, this is a new client of mine: Monsieur Grimod de La Reynière. Monsieur Grimod, my granddaughter, Kate. You got home at just the right time, dear. Could you carry this painting up the stairs to my studio? I’m afraid it’s too big to put on the elevator.”
Jean-Baptiste continued staring at me in amusement while Mamie opened the door to the tiny elevator. I could feel my anger mounting as he lifted a smug eyebrow. His trespassing into my world felt like a violation.
As in many Parisian apartment buildings, our elevator was tiny. It barely held two people standing side by side, but a third, or a large painting in this case, was impossible.
I lifted the paper-wrapped painting carefully by the edges and began inching my way up the remaining three flights of stairs. The painting was about half my size in height, but the frame had been removed, so it wasn’t heavy.
I got to the top of the stairs just as Mamie unlocked her studio door, chatting animatedly with Jean-Baptiste as they entered. I stared at the back of his stiffly held form and wondered just what Vincent’s “uncle” was doing here in my house. First Jules, now Jean-Baptiste! I thought. How could I move on if Vincent’s “family” kept popping up in my life? My emotions had been in roller-coaster mode since talking with Jules, but I was determined to stick with my original decision—I was putting my heart at risk if I continued to see Vincent.
As I stepped through the doorway, I breathed the comforting odor of oil paints and varnish deeply into my lungs. Mamie’s studio had always been one of my favorite places to hang out.
Six maids’ rooms that took up the entire top floor of our building had been combined to make one large workspace, and most of the ceiling and roof had been knocked through to install frosted-glass skylights, which flooded the room with diffused sunlight.
Mamie’s current restoration projects were scattered around the room on easels. A time-darkened old master painting of a herd of cows in a meadow sat across from a brightly colored Postimpressionist painting of cancan girls high-kicking their petticoats in a dance hall line, seemingly shocking a Spanish woman dressed in black, who prudishly held a fan in front of her lips on a nearby canvas.
“Let’s have a look at this,” Mamie said, taking the package from me and laying it down on a large worktable standing in the center of the room. She carefully removed the paper, and then turned the painting over and held it up to inspect it. It was a life-size portrait of a young man from the waist up, wearing a dark blue Napoleonic-looking soldier’s uniform and a tall black plumed hat. The sitter was obviously Jean-Baptiste himself.
“My, you can certainly see the family resemblance,” Mamie said in awe, looking from the painting to her client and back again.
Leaning forward, he touched a small rip in the canvas, at the level of the man’s forehead. “The tear is here,” he said.
“Well, it’s a clean slice, so it will be easy to repair. Just a patch to the back, and we may not even need to touch it up. What did you say made the incision?”
“I didn’t say, but it was a knife.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Mamie in surprise.
“Nothing to worry about. Grandkids roughhousing, you know. They’ve been banned from playing in the study from now on,” he said, looking calmly at me as he spoke.
“Well, if you could just wait here, I’ve left my receipt book down in the apartment. Kate, could you please make Monsieur Grimod a coffee?” She nodded toward a coffeepot set up on a corner table and bustled out the door, leaving it open behind her.
The elderly revenant and I stood motionless until we heard the sound of the antique elevator lurching into motion. Then he took a step toward me.
“What are you doing here?”
“We must talk,” he said, his authoritative voice grating on my nerves. “Jules tells me you saw Charles. Please tell me where.”
I decided that the sooner I told Jean-Baptiste what he wanted to hear, the sooner he would leave. “He was standing outside a club I went to near Oberkampf. It was Friday, around midnight.”
“Who was he there with?” Although he seemed nothing but composed on the surface, I could tell from a twitch at the corner of his mouth that things were not well.
“It looked like he had come there alone. Why?”
He glanced toward the door as if calculating the time he had to speak.
“I came here for two reasons.” He spoke softly and quickly. “The first was to ask you about Charles. He disappeared a few days ago after”—he glanced at his portrait with distaste—“boning up on his knife-throwing skills.
“And the second was to pay an inconspicuous visit to your family. I needed to see where you were from.”
My anger returned in a second. “What, you’re spying on me? What do you mean ‘where I’m from’? If my grandparents have money?” I shook my head in disgust. “Well, they do, but not as much as you. I don’t see why it matters anyway.” I began walking away from him, toward the door.
“Stop!” he commanded, and I did. “Money doesn’t matter to me. Character does. Your grandparents are honorable. And safe.”