The Gilded Seal (38 page)

“You think that it’s got something to do . . .”

“I don’t know,” said Tom. “I’ve been so caught up in stop-

ping Milo that I haven’t even thought about it until now. But

he must have taken it for a reason.”

“The date certainly fits,” Besson observed. “The painting

was in the Tuileries, out of the Louvre’s control. Napoleon’s

word was law.”

Tom nodded slowly.

“Maybe he decided to keep it.”

C H A P T E R S I X T Y- F O U R

23rd April— 4:14 p.m.

Jennifer turned the obelisk over in her hands, studying each

side carefully. Tom noted that, for now at least, her curios-

ity seemed to have provided her with a welcome distraction

from the shock of Levy’s death. She had even dropped the

slightly distant, accusing tone that had colored most of their

conversations since she’d left the police station with him.

“Do these actually mean anything?” She indicated the dense

web of hieroglyphics that decorated each of the obelisk’s

sides.

“No.” Tom shook his head. “They’re random. The service

was made in 1810, but hieroglyphics weren’t decoded until

much later.”

“Not until 1836,” Besson confirmed. “That’s when Cham-

pollion published his Egyptian grammar.”

“Did he leave anything else with it?”

“Just this—” Tom held out the envelope endorsed with

Rafael’s distinctive script. “It was empty. I thought it was

some sort of a joke. That’s why I called him up. That’s how I

found out he’d been killed.”

“Did he post all this to you?” she asked in surprise.

“No, he dropped it off in person,” Tom replied, thinking

back to what Dominique had told him.

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“So why is there a stamp on the envelope?” She pointed at

the top right-hand corner. “An Egyptian stamp.”

“She’s right!” Besson peered excitedly at the stamp through

his glasses, before looking up. “Take it off.”

Tom held the envelope over the pan of boiling water, care-

ful to keep his hand out of the steam. A minute or so later, he

carefully lifted the corner of the stamp and then gently peeled

it back.

“There’s another stamp underneath it,” Jennifer breathed

as it came away. “French this time. A woman’s head.”

“It’s the Marianne,” Besson explained. “The female sym-

bol of France.”

“Maybe we should steam that one off too,” Jennifer sug-

gested.

Nodding, Tom again held the envelope over the pan and

then slowly peeled the remaining stamp away.

“You’re right. There is something here,” he said.

They all crowded around, trying to make out the faint pen-

cil marks.

“
Tajan
,” Tom read, “
23 April
.” He looked up at the others.

“That’s today.”

“Tajan? The auction house?” Jennifer inquired.

“Must be. What’s this number at the bottom? Sixty-

three?”

“Sixty- two,” she corrected him.

“If there’s an auction to night, I’ll have the catalog next

door,” Besson volunteered. “I can’t afford anything, but they

still send them.”

They followed him through to his office and he knelt down

next to one of the piles of catalogues stacked up against the

far wall.

“Here we go.” He pulled one out from the middle of the

stack, just catching the wine glass balancing on top of the

listing pile before it toppled to the fl oor.

“Sixty- two must be the lot number,” Jennifer guessed as

Besson thumbed his way through it.

“
Lot number sixty-two
,” he read. “
Volume One of the Im-

perial Edition (1809) of the
Description de l’Égypte
, the

monumental scientific description of ancient and modern

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t w i n i n g

Egypt completed following the Emperor Napoleon’s Egyp-

tian campaign between 1798 and 1802.
”

“Napoleon and Egypt again,” Tom commented. “It all

fi ts.”

“We need to get hold of that book,” Jennifer said slowly.

“Whatever

we’re looking for, it must be in there some-

where.”

“Why didn’t Rafael write all this down rather than have us

chasing shadows?” Besson sighed.

“He did,” Tom said, remembering something Gillez had

told him in Seville. “He burned something just before he died.

A small notebook. He didn’t want Milo to learn what he’d

discovered. He was hoping that I’d be able to follow the clues

he’d left me. Only I haven’t even bothered to look at them

until now.”

The phone rang and Besson reluctantly went to answer it,

leaving Tom and Jennifer to read through the rest of the cata-

logue entry.

“It’s Archie.” He held the receiver out for Tom, who took it

off him with a nod.

“Archie?”

“I’ve got a fix on Milo. Ludo had to call in a few markers,

but it’s looking sound. A block of flats over near the canal.”

“Let’s split up,” Tom suggested. “Jen and I will head over

there. You and Henri can check out the auction.”

“What auction?”

“Rafael was on to something. Something that might just

tip the game on its head.”

C H A P T E R S I X T Y- F I V E

QUAI DE JEMMAPES, 10TH ARRONDISSEMENT, PARIS

23rd April— 6:01 p.m.

This time tomorrow there’d have been no one here.” Tom

handed the binoculars to Jennifer, pointing at where two

men were loading a large crate into the back of a van in front

of the building’s entrance. “They’re shipping out.”

They had parked on the opposite side of the canal a couple

of hundred yards up from the address Archie had given them.

The building’s façade was ice gray under a low, windless sky,

the windows glinting like sheet steel.

“How many of them are there?”

“Two people guarding the van. Another two doing the

heavy lifting. All armed. There could be more inside.”

A young couple walked past the car. Tom shielded his face

and looked away. No point in risking someone recognizing

him from their morning paper or the hourly news bulletin

that every major channel had been running on the Mona Lisa

theft since yesterday.

“Do you think Milo’s with them?”

“I doubt it,” he said, accepting the binoculars back off Jen-

nifer and training them on the building’s entrance. “After

what happened today he must figure his cover’s blown. It

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t w i n i n g

would be too risky to come back here. Then again, it might

depend on what they’re moving.”

“Or who. He could have Eva in there.”

“True.”

A pause.

“You haven’t really told me much about her.”

Tom shifted in his seat. For some reason, he felt awkward

talking to Jennifer about Eva. Perhaps because of what had

happened between them. Perhaps because of the slightly

pointed edge to her voice.

“What do you want to know?”

“She’s a friend of yours, right?”

“Yeah.” He kept the binoculars pressed to his face.

“A good friend?” she probed.

“Used to be.”

“How good? I mean, did you two used to date or some-

thing?” she asked with a laugh.

“A long time ago,” he admitted, realizing that he was only

going to regain her trust by being honest. The way her smile

faded, however, immediately made him regret his decision.

“So is that what this is all about? Rescuing your girl-

friend?”

“She’s not my girlfriend. Not for a long time now.” Still he

kept his binoculars trained on the building opposite; any ex-

cuse not to actually have to meet her accusing gaze.

Another pause.

“How did you meet?”

Tom wasn’t sure, but thought he detected a hint of petu-

lance in her voice. Was she annoyed that he’d not told her the

truth about Eva before? Possibly, but then she’d never asked.

Was she jealous? He didn’t see how she could be, not after the

way he’d used her over the past few days. Maybe this was less

about her than it was about him. Maybe he was the one imag-

ining her strained tone because part of him wanted her to be

annoyed about Eva. Perhaps part of him wanted her to care.

“Does it matter?”

“If she’s the reason I’m risking Milo sticking a gun to my

head, it matters.”

t h e g i l d e d s e a l

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“Fine,” he put the binoculars down and turned to face her.

“She’s Rafael’s daughter. We dated. It didn’t work out. I left

her. She was pissed off, but life went on. End of story.”

“Oh, so this is really all about you?” She gave a know-

ing smile. “You let her down once and you don’t want to do

it again.”

“You want to play shrink, you go ahead,” he snapped, an-

noyed at being read so easily. The truth was she was right, or

at least partly right, although not for the reason she had sug-

gested. If Tom had his own selfish motivation for pursuing

this case, it was less about assuaging his guilt for having let

Eva down before than it was in understanding her fi nal words

to him in Seville. Even now they echoed in his head.
There’s

something you should know. Something Rafael told me about

your father
.
About how he died.

He may well have first been drawn into this case by his

sense of loyalty to Rafael and Eva and by his pig-headed re-

fusal to let Milo win. Now, however, he wondered if his own

powerful urge to grasp at the truth Eva had hinted at had

grown into a far more powerful motivating factor. Not that he

would ever admit it.

“Right now, I’m more interested in the second-fl oor win-

dow. The one with the balcony.” He handed her the binocu-

lars again.

“What about it?”

“It’s open.”

“You told me that we were staying put until Archie and

Henri show up.”

“That was before we found out they were shipping out,”

Tom argued. “If Eva is inside, this could be our only chance

to get to her before Milo disappears.”

“But there’s only two of us,” she reminded him.

“One. I need you to stay here.”

“That’s not the deal,” she said firmly. “We stick together.”

“What about if they drive off? One of us has to be able to

follow them.”

“This is crazy,” she countered. “If they see you, they’ll—”

“Then I’ll have to make sure they don’t,” Tom cut her off.

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t w i n i n g

“They won’t be expecting me, so that evens the odds up a

little. Besides, it’s not like I’m going in empty-handed.” He

patted the gun on his lap.

There was a pause.

“Okay,” she finally conceded with a resigned shrug. “How

can I help?”

“Distract the guards.”

“How?”

“You’ll think of something. All I need is a couple of sec-

onds. I’ll signal when.”

Burying the gun inside his jacket pocket, Tom got out.

Jennifer shuffled over into the driver’s seat and then lowered

the window.

“You’ve got ten minutes. After that you either come out,

call me, or I’m coming in.”

“Is that ten minutes from now or from when I’m inside?

Because really that would only be seven or eight, depending

how long it takes me to get in.”

“Just go.” She smiled for the first time since Tom had bro-

ken her out of the police station. “And be careful.”

Tom turned and walked across the bridge, burying his face

in his collar so as not to be recognized. In the distance, the

sudden wail of a siren made his heart skip a beat, even though

he could tell it was moving away from him. They were out

there, he knew, thousands of police officers and informers

and agents, all of them looking for him. The thought only

increased his resolve. He had to find out what he could before

the net finally closed in.

Milo’s building was just beyond a sharp left- hand curve in

the canal, creating a blind spot that allowed him to get within

thirty or so feet of the van without being seen. When he had

got as close as possible, he glanced across to Jennifer and

nodded. Lowering the binoculars, she set off.

Tom readied himself. A few moments later there was the

sound of squealing tires and then the tortured yell of bent

metal and shattered glass. He immediately sprinted around

the side of the building to find that, as he had hoped, all Mi-

lo’s men had turned toward the opposite bank where Jennifer

had slammed the car into a large metal bollard.

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Tom leaped up and grabbed the drainpipe, hauling himself

up it hand over hand, his feet flat to the wall as if he was

walking up it. Muttering and shaking their heads, Milo’s men

turned back just as Tom disappeared from view and vaulted

over the railings on to the second-fl oor balcony.

The window ahead of him was still open. The room was

empty. He was in.

C H A P T E R S I X T Y- S I X

DROUOT AUCTION ROOMS, 9TH ARRONDISSEMENT,

PARIS

23rd April— 6:26 p.m.

Archie liked this place. Compared to the sleek, sanitized

efficiency of the larger auction houses, there was some-