“She will be thrilled to assist us. You know, she is quite fond of you.”
I paid the attendant at the telegraph office extra to send the message off immediately.
“Planning a wedding is most exciting,” I told him in French as an added element, to not stir undue curiosity.
“Oui, madame.”
“I will have to remember that ye are given to a stretch of the truth from time to time,” Brodie commented as we found a driver.
The Museum of Fine Arts had originally opened in the former palace of Charles of Lorraine, according to the slightly blood-stained handbill we had discovered in that apartment in Paris.
It had gone through several locations until 1881, when the first rooms of the new location were opened. It had since expanded, along with the other museums that dominated the site—five in total, with another soon planned, according to additional information we received as we were joined by Munro and Alex, and entered the museum.
“This is most impressive,” Alex commented as we joined the queue with other patrons who had come to view the works of living artists.
“What are we lookin’ for?” Munro asked.
It was actually a very good question. I had no idea, although we had explained how we had learned about the exhibition that had seemed important to Monsieur Dornay.
“Perhaps a conversation that is overheard,” Brodie suggested. “With the names we spoke of and accents that yedinna recognize. It might be useful to move apart. The event seemed to have importance for the man we found.”
“A conversation, those two names, and an accent in a room full of accents,” Munro commented. “Is there anythin’ else?”
“I didn’t realize that sarcasm was a Scottish trait,” I commented in lowered voice as he and Alex both moved away from us as if casually inspecting the artwork on display.
“He’s used to more obvious clues,” Brodie replied.
“Stolen goods? The obvious criminal sort, with a mask, hat pulled low? Perhaps some blood?” I suggested.
“Let us say that art is not how he would choose to spend an afternoon.”
“Nor yourself for that matter?”
“I leave the art to ye and yer sister,” Brodie commented as he stepped across the aisle, while I continued in the line of patrons as we slowly moved through the hall, observing the works of living artists.
Living artists? The thought came back.
Was it possible that Monsieur Dornay’s plans to travel to Brussels were in fact because he was to have one of his works on display?
I looked for Brodie as the thought persisted. While I was no expert in the works of artists, I did recognize genuine talent. And in spite of the circumstances in that apartment, it was obvious that Monsieur Dornay was quite talented.
We had received a list of artists whose works were on display as we arrived. I quickly scanned the list and found his name.
According to the brochure, he had two paintings on display. One was called ‘Fin De Journée,’translated from French for ‘End of Day,’ the second one was simply‘La Fille,’‘The Girl.’
I looked again for Brodie but he had disappeared into the crowd. I then looked for either Alex or Munro, but had no success there. Unable to find any one of them, I continuedthrough the crowd with a new urgency, quickly scanning the placards in front of each artist’s works, then moving to the next.
I found the display I was looking for and stared at them. Both were in a similar style as Monet.
The first one,La Fille,was a portrait of a young girl standing in a garden with a bouquet in her hand. The second painting, Fin de Journée,was of a young woman with golden blonde hair drawn back from her face as she turned, dark eyes staring back over her shoulder at the artist, with a tentative smile on vivid red lips.
I glanced back at the first one, studying it. Then at the second one once more. The subject was the same, only painted perhaps a few years apart! As a young girl with a look of innocence upon her face, and then the somewhat older young woman. The expression on her face and in her eyes told a different story. The innocent young girl no longer existed.
In addition to the fact that the two were obviously the same person, what was I looking at?
Artistic talent to be certain, a beautiful young model...I then realized what it was.
The young woman in both paintings was identical to the model in that painting at Dornay’s studio! In both paintings, at the studio and the young woman I now looked at, the subject wore bright red lipstick! A shade I had seen before, on that cigar and in Collingwood’s bedchamber, at Sandringham.
