They take less than an hour. He steps back to survey his work. Although he’s drawn them with a crayon of dull gray lead—he casts the crayons himself by melting down fishing weights—the images are bold and energetic. They’re just the sort of studies, he feels sure, that a cocky twenty-two-year-old Botticelli might dash off, brimming with confidence after eight years of grueling apprenticeship.
Satisfied with the images, and with his own chameleon-like transformation from an aging Frenchman to a youthful Botticelli, Dubois exchanges the lead crayon for a broad brush. He dips it in white lead, and in minutes the sketches have vanished, covered by another silky coat of primer: the foundation for the painting itself. Thanks to a series of extensive, expensive experiments he performed years before in Rome, Dubois knows that if the finished painting is X-rayed—as he’ll earnestly suggest that it be, for everyone’s peace of mind—the London dealer and her American client will be astonished. Beneath the lovely Madonna and Child, their eyes will behold a hidden treasure: the ghostly image of Botticelli’s own preliminary study for the finished work. The panel, they’ll realize, is a miraculous two-for-one deal, easily worth ten times the paltry five million pounds Dubois has settled for! It’s a steal, they’ll congratulate each other. All parties to the transaction will be delighted, including Dubois, who earmarked part of the five million for a secure, climate-controlled vault in Switzerland, where the genuine Botticelli—the genuine genuine Botticelli—awaits him, safe, sound, and spectacular.
Only the final piece of his plan remains to be set in motion.
Chapter 7
Descartes
Six weeks after Madame Clergue’s “original” Botticelli was restored to its prominent spot in Gallery 11—six weeks after the lead-signed fake was consigned to an ignominious storage bin—Descartes received a call from Detective Sergeant Reginald Smythe of New Scotland Yard. According to the excruciatingly courteous Smythe, London’s National Gallery was having serious doubts about the authenticity of one of its prize paintings. The painting was Caravaggio’s Salome Receives the Head of John the Baptist, which had passed through the hands of an art restorer in Avignon, a Jacques Dubois, several years before. Before Smythe traveled all the way from London, he wondered, might Inspector Descartes be so very kind as to determine, by discreet observation, whether Dubois was, in fact, still in residence and available for interrogation? Of course, Descartes assured the British detective, he’d handle it immediately.
Descartes tried Dubois throughout that morning and afternoon—a dozen calls—with no answer. Finally, as darkness fell, he decided to take a drive out to Barthelasse Island. It was possible the artist was away, but it was equally possible that he was simply absorbed in painting.
The day had been gray and cool, and as he crossed the bridge to the island in the deepening dusk, Descartes noticed fog spooling down the river, blanketing the emerald-green waters, spilling onto the low-lying farmland, triggering—for some inexplicable reason—his lifelong fear of drowning. By the time he descended the exit ramp, the road was dark and blanketed in mist. If Descartes hadn’t saved the GPS track from his prior visit, he’d never have found his way back to the narrow lane that led to Dubois’s place.
Halfway up the narrow, walled lane—all the more claustrophobic in the darkness and fog—Descartes felt the hairs on his neck prickle. At first he could not attach the sensation to anything but the looming walls and blinding fog. As he approached the house, though, he realized that the mist ahead was glowing red-orange, the light flickering and throbbing, rapidly growing higher and brighter. He punched the throttle, heedless of danger, careening between the high, narrow walls. Suddenly, with a crack like a gunshot, his left mirror snapped against one wall. Reflexively he swerved slightly, and with another sharp crack, his right mirror shattered.
By the time he reached the house, the foggy glow had resolved into flames—soaring, roaring flames—and he saw that behind the house, the studio was ablaze, the inferno fueled by turpentine, oil, and God only knew what other flammables. Skidding to a stop behind Dubois’s old Citro?n—he’s home? he wondered with a mixture of surprise and concern—he leaped from the car and raced through the gate, not even slowing to glance at the incongruous object propped against the fence.