Authors: Rhys Bowen
Naughty In Nice (36 page)
“Just play along and nod occasionally,” I said.
We walked together to the Gropers’ villa. Johnson opened the door. By now he was looking decidedly white-faced and ill at ease.
“Your mistress is here?” Lafite asked.
“No, sir. She hasn’t shown up today yet. It’s just me. I’m all alone here and frankly I don’t like it. Can you tell me when I can leave? I’d just as soon go back to England.”
“Soon, my boy. Courage. You are doing a splendid job,” Lafite said. “These gentlemen are art experts. I asked you before whether anything had been stolen from this house and you said you noticed nothing missing. Now it seems possible that something was replaced with a forgery. These two men will look around and you will assist them.”
“Very good, sir,” Johnson said, “although, as I say, Sir Toby might have kept the most valuable stuff locked away.”
“We shall see,” Lafite said. He indicated that Germain and my grandfather were at liberty to look around.
“He appreciates the modern art, I can see,” Germain said. “Matisse, Renoir and two Van Goghs. He was an astute man. These paintings are growing in value daily.” He paused beside one of the paintings, put his face close to it and sniffed. “Interesting,” he said. “The paint on this one appears to be fresh, but that is not possible because Van Gogh has been dead for forty years.”
We gathered around to look. It was a very ordinary sort of painting, not something I’d have wanted in my own drawing room—a crudely executed kitchen chair. That was all. Just one chair done in bold, uneven strokes. Next to it the painting of some sunflowers was a little better—more cheerful if not more skillfully done. I couldn’t see why anyone would want to steal or forge such a painting when there were some exquisite classical landscapes on other walls. I walked away and joined Granddad, who was staring out through the French doors at the pool.
“Anyone could have clambered down that cliff and clobbered him,” he muttered. “Or come up from the beach. And you say nothing was touched in the house?”
“Not that I could see.”
“Then I don’t know why we’re wasting our time looking at pictures. It obviously wasn’t a burglary in progress. It was someone who wanted him dead and knew he’d be alone.”
“I don’t know who that could be,” I said. “Everyone thought he was on his yacht or in Nice.”
“So it probably wasn’t planned then. Someone showed up, found him alone and took their chance. Or someone followed him here. Do you have any ideas about suspects?”
“Well,” I began, looking around to see how far away the others were, “my money would be on his mistress. A flamboyant Russian who left in a huff and swore vengeance.”
Granddad smiled. “That type is usually all bark and no bite. Who else?”
“There is Sir Toby’s wife. She wanted to divorce him, from what I overheard, but he was threatening to expose her liaison with someone important. And there’s his son, who didn’t want his father to find out—”
I broke off as Lady Groper herself swept into the room. She looked around in annoyance.
“What on earth is going on here now? Surely you men have done everything there is to be done here!”
“I’ve brought in art experts to examine your husband’s possessions,
Madame
,” Lafite said. “It appears that someone may recently have substituted one of your husband’s paintings with a forgery.”
Madame
,” Lafite said. “It appears that someone may recently have substituted one of your husband’s paintings with a forgery.”
“Good God. Which one?”
“This one,
Madame
. The painting of the chair.”
Madame
. The painting of the chair.”
“That awful thing? Who’d possibly want it? I was going to have the lot of them thrown on a bonfire.”
“But no,
Madame
,” Germain said. “The impressionist painters are becoming more desirable for collectors every day. Mark my words—these paintings will be worth a fortune, given time.”
Madame
,” Germain said. “The impressionist painters are becoming more desirable for collectors every day. Mark my words—these paintings will be worth a fortune, given time.”
“Really? So it would seem that my husband was killed while someone switched the real painting for a forgery? How extraordinary.”
“You left your bag in the car, Mama.” Bobby Groper ambled into the room, wearing an open-necked check shirt and white flannels. He started visibly at finding the drawing room full of people. “Oh, hello,” he said. “What’s going on here? A party?”
“This is my son, Bobby,” Lady Groper said. “He arrived on this morning’s train. Came straight from England as soon as he heard the news. He’s devastated, poor boy. Worshipped his father.”
Bobby looked around and caught my eye. I saw him swallow hard, his Adam’s apple jerking up and down, then he shot me a warning glance—presumably to keep quiet.
“I’ll go and find somewhere to put our bags,” he said.
I followed him into the hallway.
“For God’s sake don’t tell them I’ve been here a while, will you?” he whispered to me.
“Why not? Why are you lying?”
He glanced in at the open doorway, then put his lips close to my ear. “Because it wouldn’t look good for me, would it? Son gets sent down from Oxford in disgrace. Skips off to Riviera. Tries to keep disgrace from father for as long as possible.”
“But surely people don’t kill their fathers because they’ve been sent down from university?”
“I’ve also accumulated a large pile of debts,” he said. “It’s actually quite convenient that the old man is out of the way. Now I inherit the money and the title. Ergo, the slate wiped clean. You could say that’s a pretty good motive for bumping someone off.”
“You aren’t sad your father’s been killed?”
He shrugged. “I expect I will be, when I’ve had time to think about it,” he said. “At present my only thoughts are about saving my own skin. Not very honorable and all that, but then I’m not the honorable type. Take after him too much, I suppose. He didn’t care whom he walked over. I don’t want to walk over people, but I do tend to put myself first.”
“Did you hear that the necklace that was stolen from me showed up last night?” I asked.
“No—did it? That’s a stroke of luck, isn’t it?”
“Only it was a forgery. A clever duplicate. And it appears that one of your father’s paintings has been substituted with a forgery.” I watched his face as I said this. He was, after all, the only person who helped me up and then slipped out of the room before the police searched everyone at the casino. But did he have the skill or the contacts to create a perfect replica of the necklace so quickly? And as for the painting . . .
Bobby grinned. “I can tell what you’re thinking. But I’d hardly be likely to steal one of my father’s paintings, would I? Especially since I’ve now inherited the whole bally lot.” He picked up a bag he’d left in the foyer. “I don’t know why you suspect me of anything,” he said, looking back over his shoulder as he made his way down the hall. “I’m a perfectly nice chap, actually.”
Chapter 31
January 28, 1933
We made our way back up the drive again, leaving Lafite with the Gropers.
“So that painting really was a forgery?” Vera asked. “You didn’t just say that?”
“No. I’ve actually had quite a lot of experience with art forgery,” Germain said, “and one can still smell the odor of fresh paint on that one. Maybe I am wrong. Only a true expert could tell if the brushwork was not that of Van Gogh, but I am not usually wrong.”
“Then we must find the girl who posed as me,” I said.
“I agree,” Germain said. “But do we have any other suspects in this case?”
“Georgie suggests his mistress, who left in a bit of a two and eight,” Granddad said.
“A what?” the others said in unison.
“Sorry.” Granddad chuckled. “A two and eight—that’s rhyming slang for ‘a state.’ She left in a bit of a state.”
“And this mistress might be found where?”
“I’ve no idea,” I said. “Her name is Olga and she was a dancer.”
“Easy enough to locate, then. And who else?”
“His wife and son both had reasons for wanting him out of the way,” I said, “and his son just lied about arriving on this morning’s train. He’s been here a few days.”
“Interesting.” Germain nodded. “So we have enough to keep us busy.”
“Apart from his family, who do not seem to be mourning his death,” I said, “everything one heard about Sir Toby suggested that he was a man who was ruthless, who didn’t play by the rules and who made enemies.”
Granddad nodded. “I remember his name now. I was wondering where I’d come across it before and it’s just come to me. It was that big trial.”
“He was involved in criminal activity?” Germain asked.
Granddad shook his head. “No. It was a civil suit. Made all the headlines.”
“What was it about?”
“If I remember right it was a motorcar engine,” Granddad said. “Some bloke took Sir Toby to court, claiming that they had designed a motorcar engine together and then Sir Toby had claimed the whole thing as his own and cut the other bloke out. Sir Toby hired a top-notch barrister who proved that the other bloke had been driven off his rocker by being in the trenches and had delusions. Might have been true, of course. The war did strange things to a lot of blokes. Anyway, this bloke lost the case and hanged himself.”
“Do you remember what his name was?” I asked.
Granddad sucked through his teeth as he did when he was thinking. “Some German type of name. That’s why there was little sympathy for him, even though he’d been in the trenches like all the other poor blokes. Sherman? That’s what it was. Johann Sherman. He was a Jew, I believe, who’d left Germany as a young man.”
“Then that’s it. The man who was threatening Sir Toby. I think his name was Schumann,” I said. “That’s close enough, isn’t it?”
“Which man was this?” Germain asked sharply.
I told them about what I had overheard and how Johnson had said it was some kind of business deal gone wrong.
“Again he should be easy enough to locate—businessman or crook, perhaps. I will have a private word with the commissioner down here and maybe put some of my men from the Sûreté on to tracking this Schumann.”
“Hang on a minute,” Granddad said, making us all pause in our tracks. “When that necklace was stolen—you said the flashbulbs went off, right?”
I nodded.
“Before or after you fell?”
“Both, I think.”
“If someone took a picture of you being helped up, then it’s possible that one of the cameras caught the robbery.”
“Excellent,” Germain said. “Why don’t you and Lady Georgiana make a tour of the newspapers and press services here, while I confer with my colleagues and decide how best to intervene here without it looking like intervention.”
“I’m anxious to find the girl who impersonated me,” I said. “Don’t you think that should come first?”
“I will take your charming grandfather,” Coco said. “It will help to have a person like me who is used to dealing with these photographers. I know many of them and I am known to them all.”
“Bob’s yer uncle,” Granddad said.
“What has my uncle got to do with this?” Coco asked, looking bewildered.
He laughed. “Sorry. Another bit of Cockney slipped out. It means that it’s all right with me.” Granddad blushed as Madame Chanel slipped her arm through his. “I never thought the day would come when I’d be escorting a charming French lady around the Riviera. Me, of all people.”
“I am delighted to have such a debonair Englishman to protect me,” Coco said gallantly. “Let us go and ask Claire if we may borrow the car and the delightful Franz.”
Mummy had just surfaced as we entered the house and she looked decidedly the worse for wear.
“Remind me not to drink gin,” she said. “It doesn’t agree with me. I should stick with champagne.” She frowned to focus on the men in our party. “Good heavens, Daddy. You came.”
“Wasn’t going to let my little girl get into trouble now, was I?” he said. “And now that I’m here, I can’t say that France looks as bad as I thought it would. Quite nice, in fact, especially after gray old England.”
Mummy gave me a knowing smile. “So what’s the plan then?”
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