The Paris Time Capsule (6 page)

Loic
appeared through the door. “I have to do something. I can’t do nothing.”

Cat blew out a breath.
“What did you have in mind?”

“
The painting.”

Cat watched him. He seemed in control
, but she knew this was probably a front.

“
Yes?”

“
We need to get an expert out to look at it. Now. Now that the apartment is opened.”

“
It’s incredible that it’s sat here all these years. I’m speechless,” Cat whispered.

“
I’m going to ring Gerard Lapointe. That okay with you?”

“
Go ahead,” Cat nodded. “Good idea.”

Loic
took out his phone; spoke in rapid French to Monsieur Lapointe.

Loic
hung up. “He’ll be here with an art expert within the hour. I just told him about the painting. He’ll see the rest of it soon enough.”

Cat nodded. She gazed around the exquisite dining room.
For some reason, she wanted to protect it. It was all about to be sorted. Of course it was. But, just for now, just for a moment, it had been like walking into Sleeping Beauty’s apartment. Somehow, it seemed awful to disturb it all, sacrilegious, almost. Cat couldn’t shake off the sense that these ghostly, beautiful rooms were waiting for their proper owner to return.

“Monsieur Pascale Colbert.” Monsieur Lapointe stood outside the door with a man wearing red-framed glasses. “Monsieur Colbert is a specialist in the Belle Époque. He consults for the Musee d’Orsay and the Orangerie.”

“
Bonjour Madame, Monsieur,” Monsieur Colbert said, holding out a white manicured hand.

“
Bonjour,” Cat took his hand.

Loic
was behind her. He had one hand resting on the top of the apartment’s front door, and he stood close to Cat. “How much is this going to cost?”

“
I charge one hundred euros per hour.”

“
I’ll pay.”

Cat was about to open her mouth, but Monsieur Lapointe spoke first.
“Oui, oui. These are details that Monsieur Colbert is used to dealing with. It is the same all the time … all the time.”

“
I’m glad we’ve got that settled.” Loic stayed where he was.

“
Monsieur, there is something you ought to know about this particular apartment,” Cat began.

“
There is something wrong with the apartment?” Monsieur Lapointe asked.

“
Well …”

“
You may as well come on in.” Loic opened the door.

Pascale Colbert slipped past
Loic. He walked a little into the room, and then stopped still on the spot. He covered his eyes with his hands, and then pulled them away again, gazing around the room as if in a trance, his eyes wandering slowly over every single thing.

Monsieur Lapointe was right behind him.

“Mon Dieu!” he said. “This is disaster!”

“
I cannot believe what I am seeing!” Pascale Colbert said. “Is like a forest that no-one has entered since …”

“
1940,” Loic supplied. “Apparently.”

Pascale C
olbert turned to him. “And you and Madame Jordan own this?”

“
Madame Jordan owns it,” Loic said.

“
It belongs to Monsieur … oh … Loic’s family,” Cat spoke hurriedly. “Would you like to see the painting, Monsieur Colbert?”

“
Pascale,” he muttered, coming to a sudden halt at Mickey Mouse.

It took several minutes to move him out of the first room. Wonder emanated from Pascale like heat of a molten rock. When they entered the bedroom, he went straight to the painting and removed his red glasses. For what seemed like an age, he did not move.

“
Mon Dieu.”

“
Oui,” Monsieur Lapointe said, sounding professional now.

“
I will have to do the necessary verifications.” Pascale Colbert addressed Monsieur Lapointe.

“
Of course.” Monsieur Lapointe had a handkerchief in his hand, was wiping his brow.

Suddenly, Pascale sat down, hard, upon the old bed. Dust flew up all around him.

“Pardon!” he said, standing up again. “But, Mon Dieu!” he moved right up to the painting again, ran a hand over his head. “Sort of thing happens once in a hundred years.”

Cat sensed
Loic shift beside her.

Pascale pulled out his mobile.
“We cannot leave it here. This painting has to go straight to the Musee d’Orsay.”

There was a silence.

“I cannot say anymore.” Pascale held out his card. “I will return in the morning. I will bring a team to look over the entire apartment. Meanwhile, the Musee d’Orsay will be here within the half hour, to pick the painting up. It will be kept with the utmost care. We will arrange all the necessary forms for you to sign and we will arrange immediate insurance. That is, until we are certain … I do not wish to say anything more now. I cannot.”

“
Monsieur Colbert is the best expert on Belle Époque in Paris,” Monsieur Lapointe said. “You have my word.”

Cat caught
Loic’s gaze. He raised an eyebrow.

“
Okay, then,” Cat said.

Pascale moved towards the beautif
ul dressing table in the corner by the window, looked at the delicate scent bottles, the silver brushes.

“
If you would mind not touching anything, I would appreciate this. Until tomorrow.”

Pascale peered at the painting again. He had a small
eyeglass and he mumbled to himself in low, repetitive French.

Monsieur Lapointe took Cat by the arm.
“Have you any indication that Monsieur Archer’s mother will claim her inheritance?” he whispered, once they were in the next room. “Because under French law, it will go automatically to her, unless she refuses it.”

“
I can’t possibly keep all of this,” Cat said.

“
I have done even more checks, although I was certain before, of course. He is definitely the grandson. Do not say anything without thought.”

“
Oh,” Cat said. She had spoken as she felt. She would do what was right. And what was right seemed obvious. There had been a terrible mistake. And if Loic and his family wouldn’t take what was theirs, she would find a way to convince them to do so.

The young woman whom Monsieur Pascale Colbert had sent to examine the apartment stood outside the building in Rue Blanche the next morning when Cat arrived at nine o’clock. The girl wore a red scarf and a smart black coat, with a beret perched on top of her dark curls.

She held out a black-gloved hand to Cat.
“Bonjour. Anouk Tailler. I will be looking at your apartment today. Enchantee.” Anouk handed Cat her business card.

Cat
shook Anouk’s hand, just as Loic appeared next to them. It was not hard to miss the admiration in Anouk’s eyes as she took him in.

Anouk’s face turned pale when she entered the apartment.

“I have the goose bumps.”

Even without
the magnificent painting, now that was being safely analyzed at the Musee d’Orsay, the ghostly silent atmosphere of the rooms hit Cat again just as hard as it had the day before. It was impossible to know where to start. After several minutes spent wandering around, Anouk almost speechless, Cat decided it was time to make a start.

“
How about we start in the bedroom, Anouk?” she asked. There were papers in there in stacks on the floor, bound up with ribbon, which she had noticed yesterday. In spite of the fact that there were some far more beautiful items in the apartment to study, Cat was lured to the wrapped yellow papers more than anything else. They would tell her something. They had to.

But Anouk shook her head.
“I am going to do this logically, starting from the entrance.”

“
Would you mind if I had a look through some of the papers in the bedroom?” Cat sensed Loic watching her.

“
Of course. I will work as I always do.” Anouk opened up the black suitcase at her feet. She pulled out a pair of white gloves and a laptop. “Madame, we are also looking at the possibility that you had an important late nineteenth century work in here yesterday. So, please, do not take any papers out of the apartment, even if they do not seem relevant to art.”

“
Do you know anything about that?”

“
Do not remove anything, that is all. I can tell you, they are working around the clock.”

Cat turned and walked towards the bedroom. She almost jumped when she sensed
Loic right behind her.

“
Mind if I work with you?” he asked.

“
You seem very calm.”

“
Oh, as soon as the windfall hits, I’ll be right onto you.”

Cat chuckled. She turned to the pile of papers on the shelves against the wall.
“Shall we, then?”

“
After you.”

It felt almost sacrilegious to touch the cracked yellowing papers that were stacked on a small shelf in the bedroom. Someone had tied ribbons around each pile. But, unlike the smooth silk that Monsieur Lapointe had used to wrap his parcel to New York, this ribbon was frayed, stained with the accumulation of damp or perhaps years of reading, and re-reading, over and over again. And the reason it seemed intrusive to read the papers was because the papers were letters.

“
Would you like me to translate them to you, aloud, Cat?” Loic asked.

Anouk appeared at the door.
“Monsieur, Madame. I have a problem. I am told this apartment was left in 1940. But, you know, everything I have seen is from fifty years before then.”

Cat looked at
Loic. Silently, she hoped Anouk wouldn’t ask her if she knew why.

“
In fact,” Anouk went on, “I think that everything in here looks as if it were from the period between 1890 and 1900. It is, as if it had been set up then. There were apartments, you know, set up for women, certain women who …”

“
What are you saying?” Loic sounded sharp.

Anouk pressed her bright red lips together.
“Monsieur Archer given what I have seen - well. It is almost very clear to me that we are dealing with an apartment that belonged to a demimondaine, a courtesan. You know what I am saying.”

Cat’s mind went off on a tangent. So, what did this mean for her grandmother? Had Virginia worked in the house too? She sat back down on the floor with a thump.

Anouk indicated around the bedroom. “The decorations, the seating, the chaise lounges; the… paintings, everything in this apartment to me look like gifts: now, the ostentation is not untypical of the Fin de Siecle in Paris, the Belle Époque. But I think we have something more going on here. Demimondaines were at center stage during the Belle Époque. It was they, not the demure, upper class girls who were the true representatives of the new beau monde.”

“
Monsieur, your grandmother’s apartment appears to me to be a perfect and complete representation of the life of a demimondaine. Even without the portrait, the apartment is extraordinary, to say the least. These courtesans were always women from the lower classes who masqueraded as members of high society. They went to the theatre, shopping, sat for portraits, visited fashion couturiers. Some of these courtesans were known to the public by name.”

“
Of course, prostitution, then, as it is now, was a sensitive subject. The courtesan would never be invited into certain homes, for example, she had multiple roles, and she pretended to be honest. But, in reality, everything about the courtesan was make believe. She was an illusion, she created her own artifice.”

“
I’ve scanned the letters. From what I can see, they all appear to be about … love,” Loic said.

“
They will be extremely important evidence.”

“
It makes no sense,” Loic growled. “My grandmother Isabelle wasn’t born until 1919.”

“
The past generations never do make sense, Monsieur Archer.” Anouk moved back towards the bedroom door. “I would say we are talking about someone further back, perhaps another of your ancestors. She was not a common prostitute, Monsieur.”

“
Handy to know,” Loic muttered.

“
What she is saying,” Monsieur Pascale Colbert appeared in the bedroom door.  He had on a different pair of glasses today, absinthe green. “What Anouk is telling you is that “la demimondaine” only would have attended to very … wealthy men. Her primary force was beauty, her role was to seduce, the theatre was growing in significance at the turn of the century and the demimondaine played on theatricality to create her own artifice.”

“
Excellent.”

Pascale Colbert
took a turn around the room. “One of the demimondaine’s lovers would have bought this apartment, Monsieur. Other wealthy gentlemen clients would have bought her the exotic gifts, the stuffed ostrich from Africa. Typically ostentatious, and wonderful. The vast collection of glass bottles of couture perfume, all her clothes, the paintings, the glassware. Have you looked through the clothes, Madame Catherine?” Pascale eyed Cat’s vintage outfit.

“
No, I haven’t, honestly, none of it’s mine.”

“
Yes, it is,” Loic muttered.

Anouk cleared her throat.
“The painting, Pascale?”

Pascale loo
ked triumphant. “We think that the subject was the owner of this apartment, and,” he turned to Loic, “Your grandmother Isabelle de Florian’s grandmother. Monsieur Archer, your ancestor was one of the most famous members of the demimonde. She was, as Anouk suspected, both an actress, and a courtesan. Her name was Marthe de Florian.”

“
Your grandmother never mentioned her?” Anouk turned to Loic.

Cat closed her eyes.

“
My grandmother never talked about the past. I know her parents died when she was young. She’d clam up about anything else. We only have one photograph of her that was taken when she was in her twenties. Sorry, but I can’t believe this.”

“
Well, Monsieur,” Pascale went on, “We
have
discovered that Marthe de Florian’s real name was Mathilde Heloise Beaugiron. Mathilde was a seamstress before she … well, changed her profession, and her name. She reinvented herself. Madame Beaugiron no longer existed and the name died out. She never referred to it or anything other than de Florian again. She had two sons, one died young, the other was your grandmother Isabelle de Florian’s father, Monsieur Archer.”

Cat chewed on her lip.

“But there is more,” Pascale said. “Brace yourself, mes amies.”

“
My great grandfather was an axe murderer?”

Pascale Colbert shot Loic a look.
“Monsieur. We think that Marthe de Florian’s portrait was painted by none other than Giovanni Boldini.”

“
Who?” Loic asked.

“
Exactly,” Pascale nodded. “Boldini is not seen as an important artist in history. He is not world famous. He has been a little, how do you put it, disregarded?”

“
So, this is exciting, because?” Loic spoke quietly.

“
For a long time, he was only viewed as the recorder of an era that disappeared in 1914. An era that was quaint, superficial, and best left in the past. Moreover, Boldini’s work was regarded in the same way. Superficial. But, there was more to him than that.”

“
We know that Boldini worked fast. His wife wrote in her journals that he embraced the period of change in the early twentieth century. He was known as the master of swish.”

“
Really?” Cat asked. The master of swish. Well. There was a certain amount of … swish … about the painting.

“
Oui. Boldini was on good terms with John Singer Sargent, but Sargent became far better known than Boldini, especially in the English-speaking world. Sargent did not break the rules, you see. He painted debutantes. His work is refined. But Boldini’s work was more edgy, more sensual, and more explicit. He did not express gentility, he expressed Belle Époque Paris.”

“
The painting does look like an event,” Cat said.

“
Superficiality was his specialty,” Pascale said. “He turned his subjects into exotic creatures. You could say that he was associated with the early idea of the femme fatale. He wanted to give the viewer an eyeful.”

“Boldini’s women were a party to their objectification,” Pascale said. “They were displayed in his dishabille style. Their hair looked as if it were about to fall out, their gowns seemed as if they were slapped onto the page. But their faces were without mystique, he was not interested in their worries. He denies them this.”

“
Do you think they denied it to themselves?” Cat asked.

Monsieur Pascale shrugged.
“It was all, you could say, stereotyped. He lived in the same world as them. He was commercial, in a time when commerciality was replacing the traditions of the landed aristocracy faster than you could blink. He has been called kitsch.”

“
But the painting’s glamorous, don’t you think?” Cat asked.

“
Mais, oui. It has been said that he played a role in creating glamour. Think about portraits of Hollywood stars. Think about how they were portrayed in the thirties. The thing about Boldini is that he embraced the new mix between classes. Boldini embraced courtesans and the theatre as uprising stars. It was the start of the dream world that exists around them today.”

“
So, this Boldini was one of Marthe’s lovers, Pascale?” Loic’s voice sounded dry.

“
Boldini did not marry until very late in his life. He had a reputation for being a little … risqué with his female subjects. Marthe and Boldini could have been lovers. We have people going through Boldini’s wife’s writings now. She kept extensive diaries. If this were a Boldini, you would do very well at auction.”

“
That would be up to Loic.”

“
No, it damn well wouldn’t.”

Pascale held up a hand.
“Anouk will continue with her inventory. We will read through the letters, and search the entire apartment for any evidence of a connection with Giovanni Boldini, and we will take it from there.”

“
I’m going out for some fresh air.” Loic strode towards the front door.

“
It is a lot to come to terms with,” Pascale said.

“
I don’t know what to say,” Cat said.

“
Well.” Pascale picked up a bundle of letters. “We must, nevertheless, make a start.”

“
Of course,” Cat sat down next to him. Right then her phone buzzed. It was a text.

Christian
was flying out of Heathrow. He would meet her at her hotel this evening.

Cat put the phone back down.

At half past five precisely, Anouk came into the bedroom. Pascale and Anouk had not taken an extended
lunch; in fact, they had not taken one at all. Pascale had slipped out for coffee several times, and now, Cat’s back and legs were stiff. She had hardly moved all day from one of the dining chairs that had been the quickest to dust down. Entranced, she had listened while Pascale read out letter after letter.

He and Anouk had been right. Marthe de Florian had countless admirers. All wealthy. There were aristocratic names,
businessmen, all writing about a theatrical and exotic Paris that had been smashed by the hurricanes that were the First and Second World Wars.

“
We will be back on Monday,” Anouk said, wrapping herself in her coat.

“
Given the nature of this investigation,” Pascale Colbert said, “I must request that you don’t move anything over the weekend.”

“
It’s not mine to move.” Cat put the letter that she had been holding back on a side table. Suddenly, she was aware of traffic noise on the street outside. Christian would be waiting for her at the hotel.

She let Pascale and Anouk out the door, walked through the apartment, closed the shutters tight. It was easy to wonder whether she,
Cat, was half envious of those who lived during the Belle Époque. It was the cusp of a period when things were about to change for everyone, so much, that the world as people knew it at the turn of the nineteenth century would almost have been unrecognizable to those who lived thirty or forty years later.

Was she yearning for the past?
Although, it was never the wild, licentious past that attracted her, but perhaps it was the slower way of life, having more time to do things that mattered, the romance of it all. If one was fortunate enough to have been born in the upper classes, of course. But by all accounts Marthe had been both a victim and a product of her time. Her tale seemed to be a curious mix between that of a woman who was beginning to emerge as a force in her own right, while still having to live in a world dominated by men.

Cat locked the apartment door. Halfway down the building’s silent stairs, she
dialed Loic’s mobile. It was no surprise when he did not return her call. She kept her message brief. If he would like to come on Monday, she would be there at nine o’clock.

Cat wandered out into the chill Paris evening. How had the street looked when Marthe
de Florian had walked out this very door?

Instead of going straight back to the hotel, Cat found herself wanderin
g up through the Pigalle district towards the Moulin Rouge. Had Marthe performed here? There were still small theatres dotted around the surrounding streets. And outside that one famous old theatre with its iconic windmill, there was a small line gathering on the pavement.

Cat shook her head. Christian would be waiting.

Christian
was in a wing-backed chair just inside the hotel lobby, cradling a whiskey and reading the New York Times. He looked up just as Cat came through the glass front doors.