The man on the screen was wearing black: black shoes, black pants, black pullover, black cap. His head was bowed and as he emerged fully onto the loading dock, he wrapped one arm across his face and then turned away from the camera. “He knows where the camera is,” Descartes said to Mme. Clergue. “Could he be one of your staff?” Using a wooden crate for a boost, the man scaled a gate and dropped into a quiet street on the other side. To Pascal, the detective said, “Back up. Let’s watch that again.”
Mme. Clergue pursed her lips and shrugged, then drew a deep breath and puffed it out, pphhtt, in answer to Descartes’s question. “From this picture, who can tell? Nine men—ten, if you count the gardener—work at the museum. One is as fat as a pig, so it’s not him.” Descartes heard Pascal suppress a snicker. “One is tall enough to be an American basketball player; another could be a circus midget. I suppose it could be any of the others.” She frowned at the screen as the man reemerged once more in playback, then turned and frowned at Descartes, her pale eyes raking him up and down. “But it could be anyone. It could be you, Inspector.”
Descartes raised his eyebrows at her. “You missed your true calling, Madame Director,” he said drily. “You should have been a detective.” He gestured at the monitor. “So, with your keen powers of observation, what other helpful deductions can you share with us?”
His sarcasm brought a flush to her cheeks and a flash to her eyes, but she dutifully studied the screen once more. Finally, sighing, she said, “I deduce that we should hide our security cameras in the bushes, so the robbers won’t know where they are.”
Descartes laughed, his irritation unexpectedly dispersed by the dry, self-deprecating joke. “Touché, Madame.” After a pause he added kindly, “Also, perhaps it’s worth noting that the man’s hands are empty?”
She drew a sharp breath, staring at the screen. “Then he’s not stolen anything? Oh, thank God!” She breathed deeply in relief.
“Well, he hasn’t stolen everything, at any rate,” the detective hedged. “Does the collection include jewelry? Gold? Gems? Other small, precious things he might have put in his pockets?”
She pursed her lips, taking mental inventory, then shook her head. “Our specialty is medieval and Renaissance paintings. We do have some artifacts, but mostly sculptures and architectural fragments—the tops of columns, effigies from tombs, that sort of thing. Nothing of much value. Certainly nothing pocket-sized.”
Descartes tapped the figure frozen once more on the screen. “Could there be a painting under his shirt? Or rolled up in the leg of his pants? Something he’s cut from the frame and tucked in his clothes?”
“Heavens, Inspector,” she sighed, “just when I’m beginning to find you reassuring, you pull the rug out from under me again.” She put a hand to her chin, a yellow, hornlike fingernail stroking thin lips as she pondered. “We have a number of small paintings. The only way to know is to check all the galleries. Shall I go and get started?”
“Not yet.” Descartes turned to the security guard, who had rolled his chair away from the counter in search of more personal space. “Pascal, can you scroll through the footage from the galleries? Starting when the alarm sounded, and going backward?”
“Of course.” The guard rolled toward the console again, parting the inspector and the director. “Starting with Gallery One?”
The inspector turned to Mme. Clergue. “Let’s think like a thief, shall we? What’s the most valuable painting in the museum, and how much is it worth?”
“Goodness, that’s a difficult question, Inspector,” she replied. “Most of our paintings were donated or loaned to us years ago, so it’s hard to say what they might fetch these days. Take that piece, for instance.” She turned and pointed through the security room’s doorway at a picture suspended from the ceiling of the entry hall—a large portrait of a couple standing side by side. “Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist. That’s just an enlargement, of course. We paid sixty thousand francs for the painting, thirty years ago. Earlier this year, a work not nearly that good fetched three million euros at auction.”
“Three million, eh?” Descartes studied the painting with growing interest. The colors were vivid and vibrant, and the couple possessed movie-star good looks—sex appeal, even, he was surprised to notice. “But I thought you specialized in medieval art,” he said. “Surely that’s more modern?”
She gave him a tolerant smile. “Actually, it’s six hundred years old,” she said. “But it looks almost contemporary, doesn’t it? Not the pinched, anemic figures you see in most medieval paintings.”
“For a religious painting, that’s pretty sexy,” Descartes remarked. “Which gallery is that one in?”
“Six,” the director said. Even before she said it, Pascal had switched the main monitor to the Gallery 6 camera. He scrolled backward rapidly, the minutes in the time-stamp box spinning down as fast as seconds.