Gabriel wasn’t sure what to say to that.
“I’m sorry. Never mind my ramblings. Do you think your family would like the painting returned?” she asked. “Perhaps it has some sentimental value?”
“I appreciate the gesture, but this obviously belonged to your grandmother. It is yours to do with as you wish.” He handed the little landscape back to her, wondering how best to broach the subject of the nude painting. Because he was damned if he was leaving here without taking a good look at it. “May I ask how you found me?”
“Your website.” Intelligent hazel eyes considered him. “You’re an art appraiser.”
“Yes. For over a decade. I also specialize in restoration work.” If she had read his website, she would know that too.
“Of paintings,” she confirmed. “Early modernist works are your specialty.”
“Yes. But I have experience with works dating from the fifteenth century onward. I also do mosaics and murals, though I usually recommend a specialist to my clients for more valuable pieces. I know enough to know what I don’t know.”
“Mmm. Tell me about your clients.”
Gabriel was suddenly revising his original assessment of what this woman might or might not know about art. Because this conversation was starting to sound less like a conversation and more and more like an interview.
“Insurance agencies. Auction houses. Museums.” He crossed his arms. “Do you wish to call any of them for a reference?” he asked dryly.
She clasped her hands in front of her and looked down. “I, um, kind of already did.”
He hadn’t expected that. “Which one?”
“All of them.”
“Oh.” He hadn’t expected that either.
“You come very highly recommended. And I’m reasonably sure you’re not a serial killer.”
“Thank you, I think.”
“I have a confession.”
“A confession?”
She set the little landscape back down. “I didn’t really ask you here to look at your grandfather’s painting. Not entirely.”
The irony of that confession nearly made him laugh out loud.
“I did search for your name at the beginning,” Lia continued, looking back up. “Because, strangely enough, this particular landscape was kept in a safety deposit box I knew nothing about until after my grandmère’s death. And I have no idea why. No offense meant to your grandfather,” she added hastily.
“None taken.”
“In her will, she specifically directed that this painting go to me.”
“I see.” He didn’t know what else to say.
“Searching out your family seemed like a good first step in my search for answers. I have so many questions, and I thought maybe one of you could help me fill in some blanks. But then when I saw what you did for a living, it seemed like fate, and I thought that maybe—” She stopped. “There are others. I’m trying to identify them and catalogue them but I—” She took a deep breath. “I’m not making sense. Let me start over. I know enough to know what I don’t know.” She stole his words. “I have a number of paintings that need to be appraised. I was hoping that I might be able to hire you to do so.”
Gabriel tried to temper the elation that bubbled up. He was positively desperate to take a better look at the nude—would have looked at that canvas for free—but the idea of being paid to do so was almost too good to believe. “Why not take these paintings to an appraiser in Paris?” he asked reasonably, trying to understand exactly what was going on here. “Not,” he added, “that I’m not happy to be here.”
“I can’t really take them anywhere. Not easily.”
“I don’t understand.”
She gave him a funny look. “I think I just need to show you.”
“All right.”
“Follow me.” Lia led him into the apartment.
Except it wasn’t so much an apartment as a dazzling time capsule from a different century. It was a residence straight out of a history book, filled with luxury and opulence, and meant to impress. The exquisite furnishings and rugs were of the quality that was currently in demand at high-end auctions. At the far end of the room, over a wide hearth, a marble mantel was lined with antique jade sculpture. The hearth itself was flanked by two towering bookcases that rose all the way to the ceiling. The light caught the gilded print on the leather spines, and Gabriel couldn’t help but wonder how many first editions existed in the ordered rows.
And on almost every wall, there was art.
“This is…” He struggled for a word, taking in the space, all awash in sunlight and tiny rainbows cast by the chandelier above their heads.
“Overwhelming?”
“That’s an understatement.”
“I found it like this,” she told him. “It was, of course, significantly dustier and mustier, but the curtains had been drawn and nothing had faded much. I’ve cleaned since then. Carefully and extensively. But I haven’t touched the paintings. This is the first group that I need appraised.”
Gabriel moved toward the collection of landscapes and seascapes on the wall opposite the windows. His practiced eye easily picked out two compositions that had all the hallmarks that had made John Constable so famous. There was likely a significant fortune hanging on this wall alone.
“What do you mean you found it like this?” he asked, her words finally registering.
“I inherited this apartment,” she explained. “Grandmère willed it to me. It seems she lived here during the late twenties, throughout the thirties, and into the early forties. I found correspondence dated up until 1943.”
“And no one in your family has lived here since?”
“No one in my family knew it existed,” she corrected. She swiped an errant hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “Until recently, I believed Grandmère had lived in Marseille her entire life.”
“I see,” Gabriel said again, not seeing anything at all.
“This is her.” Lia moved away from him and picked up a photo from a carved table, holding it out to Gabriel. “Estelle Allard.”
Gabriel reluctantly left the paintings and took the photo from her, examining the image. He’d seen old movie posters of film stars like Olivia de Havilland or Ingrid Bergman, and they had nothing on the woman in this photo leaning against a lamppost.
“She was stunning,” he said honestly.
“She was,” her granddaughter agreed with little enthusiasm.
There were other photos of Estelle Allard. One had her in the driver’s seat of a low-slung car, another mounted on a sleek horse.
“Looks as though she was quite the daredevil too,” Gabriel remarked.
“No,” Lia mumbled. “She wasn’t. The Grandmère I knew grew lilies, fed the feral cats in the park across the way, and walked the same stretch of beach alone every morning. All of her neighbours played bocce ball on the last Tuesday of every month, but she always declined their invitations. She said she didn’t need the company, and aside from that, she found the noise intolerable. She didn’t drive, she didn’t smoke, she didn’t drink. She was in bed by eight p.m. sharp. She favoured high collars, sensible shoes, and polyester slacks.”