Chapter 19 #2
“If I was going to take something off the wall, I would be careful to replace it with a very good reproduction,” I say.
“Replace the fakes with fakes,” Stella agrees.
I look at her pointedly. “And that’s why you chose me.”
“You’re a very gifted painter, Emma,” she says.
“A forger, you mean. I’m very gifted at copying what other people have done.”
Just this morning I was painting the ocean outside the cottage, washing my brushes out with seawater so that when the paint dries you’ll see some of the salt crystals in the strokes on the canvas.
Monet’s plein air beach paintings all contain the smallest bits of sand if you look close enough, and it was one of his scenes I was replicating from memory.
I can’t help it. I always go back to my favorites.
“You’ve been doing it since you were a child,” Stella says. “Amy Fox at the Philadelphia Museum of Art says she has watched you for nearly twenty years as you’ve sketched and painted in her Impressionist galleries.”
I never thought of myself as an art forger, though I knew I was copying the masters—Renoir, Monet, Cassatt, Van Gogh—who silently taught me to paint as they unknowingly babysat me in the museum when I was a child.
First, I stared at them until I could enter them; next I sketched; and then I painted.
I know them as well as I know my own face.
“Amy recommended me for the scholarship here,” I whisper. “Amy is one of your experts.”
Stella nods.
“And the paintings you want us to steal, a Van Gogh and a Renoir. La Chambre and one of Renoir’s nudes? Two of the most expensive pieces in the museum.”
“Yes, but also on the smaller side. Easier to remove.”
“And you want me to paint them? From what?”
“I have photographs here. You can get started. And then you can visit them in the Orsay when you return to Paris.”
“You chose us very carefully.” Colette looks Stella directly in the eyes.
“One of us is an Impressionist scholar who has worked in an auction house.” I nod to Colette.
“And one of us is an insanely talented replicator of Impressionist art.” Colette nods back at me.
“And one of us is a whore,” Lucie chimes in. “Skilled in infiltrating the private spaces of wealthy men.”
“Correct on two counts,” Stella says coolly. “Lucie, I chose you because I liked your boldness, your bravery, and your art. You were the wild card. Please don’t underestimate your talents.” At this she raises a penciled-in eyebrow. “All of your talents.”
What Lucie does is skillful. She’s comfortable in the company of the richest and most powerful men in the world. And they adore her. It is a talent.
We are Stella’s long game. We are her plan B.
“We will need money,” Stella says slowly. “There will be a lot of expenses for all of this.” She pauses, meeting our eyes. “How do you ladies also feel about breaking into a safe?”
“About the same level of enthusiasm I feel for stealing two pieces of priceless art off the walls of one of the world’s most famous museums,” I say with an eye roll.
“I feel great about it,” Lucie replies at the same time.
“The safe is in the Swanson estate outside of Paris,” Stella says.
“It is a home I never thought I would lose, but my name was never on the deed, so it was one of the first things I was locked out of. I kept many things in there, including most of the jewelry that Maxwell gave me over the years. I stopped wearing it all about a decade ago. Those kinds of baubles weigh on old bones. I wasn’t able to get any of it before Louis exiled me. ”
“Don’t you think they’ve pillaged that safe by now?” Lucie says.
“If they could find the safe. But I doubt that. It’s well hidden and I am the one who had it installed years ago. It isn’t in any of the plans for the estate. I need you to get into that house. I’ll give you the combination, you’ll empty it.”
“We’re just going to stroll in?” I ask.
“You’ll be invited. There is a holiday party there soon. Matthew might enjoy having you as a guest,” Stella says with a sly smile.
“Me?” Lucie says. “You want me to seduce your grandson?”
“No. I want Emma to.”
Something occurs to me then, something that has been missing from this equation.
“Why not ask Matthew for his help? He clearly loves you. He would have done anything for you.”
“I wish that were true, my dear. But the siren call of an assured future, of limitless resources and power, will always trump any kind of familial love. I have no doubt that Matthew adored me. But he could be the next in line to inherit a company worth billions of dollars if he plays his cards right with Louis. His affection for me cannot compete with that. But he likes you. He talked about you after your lunch.”
The gears in Stella’s head turn more quickly than I can keep up with.
“I knew he would. You’re not like the flighty socialites and debutantes he typically dates.
Getting him to invite you out to the chateau will be easy.
There should also be a significant amount of cash in the safe, perhaps some bonds as well, but I don’t know if we can cash those in.
I should have kept better track of it all.
My mother and grandmother would have been horrified with how little I knew about the family’s finances.
But money can make you soft in some ways and hard in others.
You reach a point where it feels limitless and you stop paying attention.
I hate that I reached that point. And in the end Maxwell needed so much care that it became my full-time job.
Besides, I never thought I would be locked out of my own home. ”
I feel like I have to interject. “To be fair, you weren’t tossed out on the street. You were locked out of a chateau but still got to stay in a penthouse apartment in Paris.”
“Only because the Parisians have excellent laws favoring squatters. But I’m not interested in checking my privilege right now, dear,” she says with a second raised eyebrow, the other one this time.
“Matthew is grieving. He will be happy to hear from you. I know that you can find a way to obtain an invite. Tell him you’re dying to see one of the original water lilies up close. We have one in the upstairs bathroom.”
“That’s exactly where I’d keep it,” Lucie scoffs.
“Never discount how much time you spend staring at a bathroom wall,” Stella counters with her screwball heroine timing.
“And then I break open the safe?”
She interrupts. “There’s no breaking. You will have a code.”
“I open the safe, empty it, and return to, where? Paris?”
“Yes.” Stella looks pleased.
“And what then?”
“Lucie will find a way to turn the contents of the safe into cash,” she says firmly, and then turns her gaze on Colette. “At that point you will have enough money to hire an attorney and tell them you believe you discovered an old Vincent van Gogh painting.”
“Where?” Colette asks.
Stella smiles. “The basement of your family’s home.”
“My home? My family’s cottage in the country?”
“It is old, yes? And who owned it before you?”
“It was built in the middle of the eighteenth century. My family has always owned it.”
“Excellent.” Stella claps. “The house has always been your family’s. And what about during the war? Was it occupied?”
“Our village was spared.”
Colette is obviously repeating things that Stella already knows.
“So it is the perfect story. With the perfect single line of provenance for a painting. There have been things stored in that house by each generation. You have never cleaned it all out until now. It has piled up. And you are finally going through all your family’s possessions.
Lo and behold you find a dusty old painting, relegated to the basement.
Perhaps to protect it during the war, and then forgotten by the next generation. It happens all the time.”
Colette is wary of new people, particularly those who might want something from her. I don’t know what she’s going to say next.
“The application for the scholarship was sent to me at that house,” she says slowly. “You knew my address.”
“I did some due diligence about artists and art scholars in particular areas,” she confirms.
Colette surprises me with a wide smile. “You’re a genius, Stella.”
“An underappreciated one, but at least someone is recognizing it in my lifetime. Vincent never had that luxury.” She nods to our painting.
“I think you’ve thought of everything.”
“Surely not everything. That’s why the three of you are here. I need your young, brilliant minds. I need all of your talents. None of us can pull this off alone.”