Charlotte in Paris (10 page)

“Oh, it’s just perfect. Isn’t it? It will look
génial
with my new black gown!” Sophie exclaimed.

“Uh…yeah. It’s beautiful.” I tried unsuccessfully to smother a laugh.

“May I help you, miss?” the man behind the counter asked me.

“Oh, no,
merci beaucoup
,” I replied quickly.

Sophie looked appalled. “Nonsense,
mon amie
, you must try on that sapphire ring. Your father said he would buy you anything you wanted for your thirteenth birthday.” Sophie caught my eye and I stifled another giggle.

The man behind the counter suddenly seemed more interested in helping us. He pulled out an enormous sapphire ring and slipped it on my left ring finger.

I let out a gasp but covered it up with a cough when Sophie poked me in the side. The ring was outrageous…a huge, sparkling blue stone. I’d never worn anything so expensive in my entire life.

“Ah! Look at the time.” Sophie pointed to a clock on the wall. “We must be going. Thank you so much for your
help,
monsieur
,” she said, holding out her wrist so he could unclasp the bracelet. I took off the ring and put it back in the box.

“We will have to think about it and come back another day,” Sophie told the man, smiling and waving as she hurried out the door.

“
Merci
,” I said to the man, who looked quite annoyed, and followed Sophie.

We hurried around the corner before collapsing into a fit of giggles.

“Sophie, I can’t believe you…have you done that before?” I asked. I was impressed with her boldness and felt that I had to learn to be a little more bold. After all, world travelers can’t be shy.

“A few times,” she admitted. “But it was the most fun with you here.
Viens,
Charlotte. It really is time to go.”

All day long it had rained steadily, and the gutters were filled with water rushing toward the Seine. I looked back a few times, unable to shake the creepy feeling that we were being followed. Sometimes I saw nothing; other times I could have sworn I caught a glimpse of a brown raincoat. On such a rainy day, there were many men walking around in brown raincoats.
Maybe it wasn’t the same man you saw before
, I told myself.
Perhaps I am just being paranoid
.

There were lights on in the houseboat when we returned to the docks, but the curtains were shut, so we couldn’t see in. We picked up my pictures at the photo lab and headed back to Sophie’s apartment. We were soaked
to the bone and exhausted from our long, unsuccessful day of Orangina-hunting.

Even though the day had been fun, I couldn’t shake the sinking feeling I had in my stomach. What if it rained like this tomorrow? And on Friday? I might never find Orangina! I had come so far. I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing my orange friend again.

THE DISCOVERY

B
y the time we got home, both Sophie and I were chilled. I looked like a major fashion disaster—my hair was stringy, my pants were baggy, and my nose was running. Sophie, on the other hand, looked like a chic ad for a raincoat. How did she manage this?

When Madame Morel saw us, she rushed us into the bedroom to change our clothes. After dinner, Sophie settled in to do some homework and I opened up the pictures we’d picked up at the photo lab. They were a little dark, but I could still make out most of them, except the last picture, which didn’t turn out too well. It was the darkest of the group—with a blurry band across the middle. There was an artistic quality about it that reminded me of some of the paintings at the Picasso museum. It was so interesting that I decided to save the strange photo to show Isabel when I got home. She would definitely appreciate my accidental artwork.

Now that we were back at Sophie’s, I was anxious to e-mail the BSG. I was sure that they would love to hear all about the wonderful museums, our adventure at the jewelry store, and my missing bag. But as soon as I started writing, I felt guilty that I had been enjoying Paris too much. Suddenly, it dawned on me that my stay in Paris was more than half over and there was still no sign of Orangina. This wasn’t really a vacation. It was supposed to be a quest, and even though I was having fun I felt like I wasn’t working hard enough. What if I never even got a glimpse of Orangina? I was about to ask Sophie again if she was sure she really saw Orangina, but I saw her head bent over her homework.

Everyone complained about the homework at Abigail Adams Junior High, but going to school in Paris was much worse—in France, kids had almost twice the amount of homework. I tried to be quiet while Sophie worked, since I knew how much she had to do. I wrote in my journal for a while and then looked at the calendar I’d bought for Isabel. I couldn’t wait to tell her everything I’d learned about Picasso at the museum that day.

That reminded me…for the first time since I left Boston, I got out the coloring book Isabel had given me. As I opened it, I noticed there was a loose picture inserted in the middle of the pages. Encased in a stiff, old mat, it looked out of place amidst the other shiny photos in the book.
How odd! Where did this come from
? I wondered why I’d never noticed it before.

The picture looked so familiar to me. I examined it more
carefully. It was a sketch of a woman, beautifully depicted with bright shapes and colors. Had I seen it at the Picasso museum that day? I really wanted to interrupt Sophie to ask her, but her head was bent over her notebook and she was scribbling away. I looked through Isabel’s Picasso calendar again to see if I could find it, but it wasn’t there.

My curiosity eventually got the better of me, and I tapped Sophie on the shoulder and showed her the picture. “Sophie, do you remember this picture from the museum?” I handed her the sketch.

She took the picture and studied it. “
Non
, I don’t think I’ve seen this before. Where did you get it?”

“It was stuck inside the Picasso coloring book that Isabel gave me before I left…you know, the one I was telling you about? It must be a little freebie or giveaway or something.”

Sophie laughed. “
C’est quoi
‘freebie’? That is a very funny word.”

“Just like it sounds,” I replied. “Something that costs nothing, something you get for free. A
freebie
,” I pronounced, trying to imagine I was hearing the word for the first time. I guess it did sound kind of funny.

“Hmm.” Sophie turned her attention back to the picture. “
C’est bizarre
, odd…this paper looks so old and faded, Charlotte. It doesn’t look new.”

“It’s strange,” I agreed. “Maybe they were trying to make it look authentic. It looks familiar, though. It’s almost as if I’ve seen this same picture somewhere before. You’re sure you don’t remember it?”

“It was the sketch of a woman, beautifully depicted in bright shapes and colors.”
~ pg. 130

Sophie shook her head.

“I’ll e-mail Isabel…maybe she’ll know more about it.”

I signed on and wrote a quick e-mail while Sophie continued her homework.

It had been so wet in Paris that I wondered what the weather was like back in Boston. I went to the
Boston Globe
website to check, and as I glanced at the homepage, again the word “Picasso” caught my eye.

I clicked on the link to the article and a picture of the missing sketch popped onto the screen. Although I loved to write, sometimes I thought about becoming a detective when I grew up. Being a detective meant paying close attention to all the details and putting the pieces of the puzzle together…I’m good at that kind of thing. Maybe Katani could even design an investigator outfit for me—complete with a trench coat. For now, I just had to wonder…how would real detectives ever crack “The Case of the Stolen Picasso Sketch”?

I scanned the article to see if there were any new developments and then looked more carefully at the image of the stolen sketch. A sketch of a lovely woman.

I looked down at the picture in my hand.

I looked back at the picture on the screen.

I looked back and forth, back and forth between the picture in my hand and the picture on the screen.

They were EXACTLY the same.

I gasped and my hands began to tremble. Could it be that I was holding an original Picasso drawing that could be worth millions of dollars? And, if so, how did it get here? It all seemed too weird to be true. But then again…what if it were?

IS IT TRUE?

S
ophie and I studied the
Boston Globe
story that I’d printed out.

“Let’s review the facts,” I said, getting into my investigative reporter state of mind. As a feature writer for
The Sentinel
, I was used to gathering information and making sense of it all so I could write my articles. “Number one: The sketch was stolen on Friday night. Number two: Isabel bought the coloring book Saturday morning—the morning AFTER the sketch was stolen. Perhaps it was in the coloring book when Isabel bought it.”

Sophie picked up the sketch and stared at it. “A thief put a valuable Picasso sketch in a coloring book?
Je ne comprends pas
…”

“I don’t understand either. Maybe someone else was supposed to buy it—a ‘fence’—you know, someone who deals stolen goods.” I’d read enough detective books to know the lingo. “Or maybe the thief was being followed
and he needed to hide it quickly, and the book was the easiest place to stash it.”

“Charlotte—
quelle imagination
! We do not know if this is a real Picasso—if it is the one in the newspaper article. You are probably right,
mon amie
. It is a free picture—how did you say—a costie?” Sophie asked.

“A freebie. But this all seems too crazy to be just a coincidence. Like you said, it looks old. Besides…it says right here in the article that it was a ‘previously unknown, un-catalogued sketch.’ How could a copy have been made? This
has
to be the original,” I reasoned.

“Oh, Charlotte.
Ce n’est pas vrai
—it can’t be true. I truly do not think a thief would put something so valuable in a coloring book,” Sophie declared. “It’s after school now back home,
n’est-ce pas
? Why don’t you check your e-mail? I’m sure Isabel will tell you it was a
freebie
.” Sophie emphasized the new English word I taught her.

I logged on to my e-mail account and my heart thumped rapidly as I clicked on a reply from Isabel.

I gulped. Not only had I not found my cat, but I apparently had a real live Picasso drawing in my hands. The e-mail clinched it. Sophie read over my shoulder, and her silence told me she too was finally convinced that something very strange was going on.

I cleared my throat and tried to remain calm. “Okay. So most likely, the sketch wasn’t in the coloring book when Isabel bought it. The question is how did it get there?”

“Where have you taken the book since you got it?” Sophie asked.

“It was on my lap on the plane. Besides that, it was in my messenger bag until I took it out and left it in your room on Monday. Right before the bag was stolen.”

“Did you ask anyone to carry your bag for you while you were traveling?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Think, Charlotte…it would have taken only a moment to slip the picture in the book.”

“Well, I definitely carried it onto the plane myself. But Mr. Peckham—”

Sophie’s eyes widened. “
Oui!
And what about this man, this Mr. Peckham?”

“He helped me put it in the overhead bin. He’s the sweetest old man though, like a grandfather. He’s a friend of Madame Giroux’s. She goes out to dinner at his pub all the time. Mr. Peckham’s just a normal, regular guy. There’s no way he could be an art thief.”

“Did he tell you why he was in Boston?”

“He said he was on vacation…on holidays.”

“I see,” Sophie said, and then paused for a moment to think. “But didn’t Mr. Peckham say he once met Picasso?”

“Yes.”

“Wasn’t he the one who said he saw Picasso sketching in a pub?”

“Yes…”

“Hmmm. Let me see the sketch again.” Sophie carefully slid the thin piece of paper from the protection of the mat and examined it.

“Charlotte! Look at this!”

I looked over her shoulder, and there, right on the back of the sketch, was a bar bill from the Churchill Pub.

For the next hour, Sophie and I argued about Harold G. Peckham, Esquire.

“You must tell someone! Don’t you see? He’s a thief! A scoundrel!” Sophie insisted.

I didn’t know what to think. Maybe Sophie was right. Mr. Peckham had to be involved with this mess, even if he wasn’t the thief. It was too much of a coincidence. He was in Boston when the sketch was stolen. He told me about
watching Pablo Picasso sketch at the Churchill Pub, so I know he was familiar with this picture—a “previously unknown” work of art that almost no one else knew about. He had put my coloring book back in my messenger bag at the end of our flight. There would have been enough time for him to quickly slip the sketch into the book. But I couldn’t get over the fact that he seemed so nice, so sweet and genuine. Why would he do such a thing? And, if he was the crook, why did he tell me all about his connection to Picasso? Surely if he were an accomplished thief he wouldn’t want to leave a trail. It just didn’t add up.

“There is something missing here,” I said.

“Yes. The missing sketch! You must go
à la gendarmerie
—to the police!”

“The police? No! What if they think I did it?”

Sophie shook her head. “Not if you explain the whole story. Oh, Charlotte! It’s your only choice. You can’t take it back to Boston.”

“I know. I don’t want to keep it any longer than I have to. What if someone steals my bag again?”

“Your bag! That explains it! Mr. Peckham!
He
stole your bag.” Sophie was convinced.

“What? No way! He wouldn’t do that to me. And he doesn’t know where you live, anyway…the person who stole my bag must have been following us around these past few days.”

“And what makes you think Mr. Peckham wasn’t the man following us around? Didn’t you say that the suspicious man at Berthillon looked like Mr. Peckham?
Charlotte, you are too soft-hearted. You
must
turn him in!” Sophie insisted.

“He must have thought the coloring book with the sketch in it was still in the bag,” I said softly. “But it wasn’t…it was in your room the whole time. He brought the bag back with everything in it, though. He didn’t take a cent. Does that sound like a thief to you?” I asked.

Neither Sophie nor I could answer that question. It was all so confusing, and it was really late and we were getting tired. We decided to wait until morning to decide what to do. Sophie fell asleep right away. I, on the other hand, was wide awake. I stared out the window at the full moon. My heart was racing. What was going on? All I’d wanted to do was come to Paris, find Orangina, and visit with Sophie, and now I was embroiled in an international art theft. This was too much! What was I going to do?

I took out my flashlight and compared the
Boston Globe
article to some of my journal entries. The real owner of the sketch, Mr. Doyle, was originally from Staithes, England. Mr. Peckham had said he was from England—I looked back in my journal—Staithes. Mr. Peckham was from Staithes, too. He said that Staithes was a very small town. The two men must have known each other.

I thought about Mr. Peckham and how kind he had been to me. I thought of his thick white hair and his neatly trimmed mustache. Something pinged inside of me. I knew all of the evidence added up to Mr. Peckham being the thief, but I wasn’t yet willing to believe that he was a criminal. But I knew one thing: There was a mystery to be solved.