Read Chapter 24: The Devil's Advocate

The gallery smelled of turpentine and cold coffee. Julien stood at the window, watching the streetlamps flicker on along the Rue de Seine, the last of the evening light bleeding out of the sky. Behind him, Inès sat cross-legged on the floor with the microdot reader balanced on her knee, and Claire leaned against the doorframe with her arms crossed, the silence between them thick as oil paint.

“He said anonymous photographs,” Julien said, turning from the window. “Plural. Both paintings. In my possession.”

“Which means someone knew about the copy before we did,” Inès said, not looking up. “Someone who watched you pull it from Anton’s attic, or watched you test it, or watched you pack it for Zurich.”

“Or watched us the whole time,” Claire said quietly.

Julien rubbed his jaw. He hadn’t shaved in two days. The stubble felt like sandpaper against his palm. “Keller called it a manipulation. He thinks someone is trying to force the sale.”

“Maybe someone is,” Inès said. She set the reader down and looked at him. “Who benefits from you being cornered?”

“Dupont. But Dupont doesn’t have photographs of my workshop.”

“Then someone who knows your workshop.”

Julien thought about that. The workshop in the Marais, the one he’d rented under a false name three months ago, where he’d practiced the crackle pattern on a dozen discarded canvases before attempting the copy. The only people who knew about it were the ones in this room, and Anton, and—

He stopped.

“The collectors,” he said.

Claire frowned. “What collectors?”

“Keller’s father wasn’t the only annex supervisor who kept a ledger.” Julien moved to the table, swept aside a stack of auction catalogs, and pulled out the photocopied pages from Vogel’s microdot. He spread them flat, tracing the columns with his finger. “Look at the names. Keller. Von Brandt. Delacroix. Four others I don’t recognize. These aren’t buyers. These are the families who parked their loot in that vault while the war was still burning.”

Inès came over, peering at the columns. “You think they’re still working together?”

“I think they never stopped.” Julien tapped the page. “The provenance market runs on silence. A painting disappears in 1944, resurfaces in 1960 with a clean bill of health, sells at auction for three times its value. The buyer knows it’s looted. The seller knows the buyer knows. Everyone keeps their mouths shut because everyone has something to hide.”

Claire stepped forward. “And when one of those paintings threatens to surface with questions attached?”

“They circle the wagons.” Julien looked at her. “Keller said the photographs were anonymous. But who would send them? Someone with access to my workshop, or to the Zurich bank, or to the microdot itself. Someone who knew the painting in my possession was a copy before I did.”

“That narrows it to about four people on the planet,” Inès said dryly.

“Or zero,” Julien said. “If they were the ones who made the copy in the first place.”

The room went quiet.

Claire was the first to speak. “You think the copy wasn’t left in Anton’s attic by accident?”

“Anton said he found it in a storage locker bought at auction. He didn’t know what he had. But who put it there?” Julien’s mind was racing now, pieces falling into place like tumblers in a lock. “The original vanished from the monastery in 1943. The Vatican said it was destroyed. But Keller’s father logged it into the annex vault. Which means someone with access to the monastery took it, sold it to the bank, and replaced it with a copy good enough to fool the monks for forty years.”

“The cabal,” Inès said.

“They’ve been doing this for decades,” Julien said. “Steal a masterpiece, sell it to themselves on paper, stash the original in Zurich, and put a copy back where the public expects it. When the market heats up, they rotate a piece out of the vault, sell it at a record price, and the museum or church gets the copy back as a ‘recovered treasure.’ Everyone celebrates. The provenance is clean because the paper trail says it’s clean. And the copy they return is so good that nobody checks too closely.”

Claire’s face had gone pale. “Your father.”

Julien nodded slowly. “Paul Moreau, Ministry of Culture liaison to the Comité de Récupération. He had access to every restitution file in France. If someone wanted to move a painting through the system without questions, they’d need a man like him.”

“You think he was working for them?”

“I think he was one of them.” The words tasted bitter in his mouth. “The joint account in Zurich, the P. Mariani alias—he wasn’t just helping them. He was invested.”

Inès folded her arms. “So when your brother started asking questions about where the Caravaggio really was, they didn’t just threaten him. They made him disappear.”

“And they put a copy in Anton’s attic,” Julien said. “Maybe they knew Anton would find it. Maybe they knew he’d bring it to me. A lure, sent out to see who would bite.”

“But you didn’t bite,” Claire said. “You swallowed the hook.”

Julien looked at her. “That’s the thing about hooks. You can always cut the line.”

He moved to the wall where he’d pinned the auction catalog mock-up, the one showing the Caravaggio Crucifixion as the centerpiece of next week’s sale. The printing was fresh, the typography elegant, the estimated price printed bold beneath the title: 80–120 million francs. It was everything he’d dreamed of when he started this con.

“Keller wants a private sale by morning,” he said. “He thinks he has leverage. But he doesn’t know who sent those photographs any more than I do. Which makes him a liability to whoever is pulling the strings.”

“He’s also their mouthpiece,” Inès said. “He’s the one who warned you off. Which means they want this painting off the market before it goes public.”

Julien nodded. “They don’t care about the money. They care about exposure. If the Caravaggio goes to auction with a contested provenance, the press will start digging. The microdot, the ledgers, the names—it all comes out. They can’t afford that.”

“So what do you do?” Claire asked.

“I stop running from them,” Julien said. “And I turn the auction into a trap.”

He pulled the mock-up off the wall and laid it flat on the table. With a pencil from his pocket, he began circling names in the planned bidder list. “Keller. Von Brandt. Their proxies. I don’t know all of them, but I know that any of them showing up to bid on a painting that should still be in Zurich means they know something they shouldn’t.”

“You’re going to flush them out by offering the prize.”

“I’m going to make them come to me.” Julien looked up. “The provenance is forged, but it’s good. Good enough that Keller’s people had to examine the physical painting to prove it wasn’t real. But the painting I’m auctioning now—the one that will be on the block—isn’t the copy. It’s the original. There is no forensic test in the world that will prove the original is a fake, because it isn’t one.”

“But the provenance is still false,” Claire said. “They can expose that.”

“Let them try.” Julien’s voice was flat, steady. “If they expose the provenance, they have to explain how they know it’s forged. And the only way they know that is if they have access to the original records. Which means they have to admit the painting was in their vault in the first place.”

A slow smile spread across Inès’s face. “They can’t attack the provenance without confessing to the theft.”

“And if they don’t attack, they have to bid.” Julien tapped the catalog. “If the painting sells publicly, the story gets written by me. The discovery, the authentication, the triumph of restitution. Their names never come into it. They can sit quietly and let it pass, or they can play and risk the exposure.”

“What if they don’t play?” Claire asked.

“They will.” Julien set the pencil down. “Keller came to threaten me tonight. That means he’s scared. And the cabal doesn’t send a man like Keller unless they’re scared too. They can’t afford to let this painting leave their control. So they’ll bid. They’ll fight. And when they do, I’ll have the evidence of their involvement on record.”

“Evidence of what, exactly?” Claire pressed. “A bidding war isn’t a confession.”

“No,” Julien agreed. “But the wire transfers will be traceable. The accounts they use to pay will lead back to the Zurich vault. And I have the microdot that puts their fathers’ names on the storage records. One good forensic accountant can connect the dots.”

“You’re going to need more than an accountant,” Inès said. “These people have lawyers. Politicians. Connections.”

“I know.” Julien’s voice softened. “Which is why I need something else first.”

The bell above the gallery door rang.

They all froze. Julien glanced at the clock. Nearly nine. The gallery had been closed for hours.

“Expecting someone?” Claire whispered.

Julien shook his head. He moved to the door, peered through the slats of the wooden blind. A figure stood on the pavement outside, wrapped in a dark coat, a scarf pulled up against the evening chill. The face was obscured, but the posture was familiar—the slight tilt of the head, the way she held herself like she was stepping into a courtroom.

Geneviève de la Roche.

Julien unlocked the door and pulled it open. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I know.” Geneviève stepped past him, shaking the chill from her shoulders. Her eyes swept the room, taking in the chaotic table, the microdot reader, the three faces staring back at her. “But you have something that belongs to my family. And I think you finally understand what you’re holding.”

She reached into her pocket and drew out a folded envelope, worn at the edges, the paper yellowed with age.

“It’s time you knew the truth about your brother,” she said.

Julien looked at the envelope. For a long moment, he didn’t reach for it.

Then he took it.