Page 83 of Portrait of an Unknown Woman

“But of course,” murmured Gabriel.

“Better a canine than a caprine.”

“Caprines don’t bite.”

“Wherever did you get an idea like that?” asked Christopher, and turned into the drive. Instantly a barrel-shaped dog with the jaws of a Rottweiler shot from the front door. Next there appeared a languorous barefoot girl in her early twenties. She wore leggings and a wrinkled cotton pullover. Her light brown hair swung long and loose in the Provençal light.

“She’s too young,” said Gabriel.

“What about that one?” asked Christopher as an older version of the girl emerged from the villa.

“She looks like a Françoise to me.”

“I agree. But how are you going to play it?”

“I’m going to wait for one of them to get that dog under control.”

“And then?”

“I thought I’d start withbonjourand hope for the best.”

“Brilliant,” said Christopher.

By the time Gabriel opened his door and extended his hand, he was once again, in aspect and accent, Ludwig Ziegler of Berlin. But thisversion of Herr Ziegler was not an art adviser with a single famous client. He was a runner—a dealer without a gallery or inventory—who specialized in finding works by undervalued contemporary painters and bringing them to market. He claimed to have heard about Lucien Marchand through a contact and was intrigued by the terrible story of his disappearance and death. He introduced Christopher as Benjamin Reckless, his London representative.

“Reckless?” asked Françoise Vionnet skeptically.

“It’s an old English name,” explained Christopher.

“You speak French like a native.”

“My mother was French.”

In the villa’s rustic kitchen, they all four gathered around a pot of tar-black coffee and a pitcher of steamed milk. Françoise Vionnet and the barefoot girl each lit a cigarette from the same packet of Gitanes. They had the same drowsy, heavy-lidded eyes. Beneath the girl’s were puffy half-moons of unlined flesh.

“Her name is Chloé,” said Françoise Vionnet, as though the girl were incapable of speech. “Her father was a struggling sculptor from Lacoste who walked out on us not long after she was born. Fortunately, Lucien agreed to take us in. We were hardly a traditional family, but we were happy. Chloé was seventeen when Lucien was murdered. His death was very hard on her. He was the only father she ever knew.”

The girl yawned and stretched elaborately and then withdrew. A moment later came the sound of a slender female body entering the water of a swimming pool. Frowning, Françoise Vionnet crushed out her cigarette.

“You must excuse my daughter’s behavior. I wanted to move to Paris after Lucien’s death, but Chloé refused to leave the Lubéron. It was a terrible mistake to raise her here.”

“It’s very beautiful,” said Gabriel in Herr Ziegler’s German-accented French.

“Oui,” said Françoise Vionnet. “The tourists and rich foreignersadore Provence. Especially the English,” she added, glancing at Christopher. “But for girls like Chloé who lack a university education or ambition, the Lubéron can be a trap with no escape. She spends her summers waiting tables at a restaurant in thecentre villeand her winters working at a hotel in Chamonix.”

“And you?” asked Gabriel.

She shrugged. “I make do with the modest estate that Lucien was able to leave me.”

“You were married?”

“A civil solidarity pact. The French equivalent of a common-law marriage. Chloé and I inherited the villa after Lucien was murdered. And his paintings, of course.” She rose suddenly. “Would you like to see some of them?”

“I’d love nothing more.”

They filed into the sitting room. Several unframed paintings—Surrealist, Cubist, Abstract Expressionist—hung on the walls. They lacked originality but were competently executed.

“Where was he trained?” asked Gabriel.