“We have other letters that Villeneuve wrote to D’Campion,” Paul said. “If the writing matches, they would help prove that your letters were authentic.”
She smiled, the lines it revealed adding to the beauty of her eyes. “I’m afraid that won’t help much,” she said. “I gave them away.”
Gamay’s heart sank. “To whom?”
“To the library. Along with a stack of old books. And the paintings.”
Paul glanced at his watch. “Any chance this library would be open yet?”
Madame Duchene stood and looked at the wall clock. “Any moment now,” she said. “Please, wait and I’ll pack you a lunch.”
—
The library which Camila Duchene referred them to, a four-story building, specialized in rare books and French history. It loomed up through the gray morning fog beside the canal that ran through central Rennes. Once a river, its bed had been walled in centuries ago to prevent flooding and allow for construction. Like many rivers in the old cities of Europe, there wasn’t much natural embankment left where it passed through the center of town.
Inside the library, Gamay and Paul found the staff reserved but helpful. Once they’d verified who the Trouts were, a proctor was assigned to help them. He took them to a section near the back of the building and led them to the items Madame Duchene had donated.
“The papers were given little credit,” he explained. “The paintings were not valued highly either. They seem to be amateurish re-creations of battle scenes. No one believes Villeneuve painted them because he wasn’t an artist and because they’re not signed.”
“Then why keep them?” Gamay asked.
“Because those are the conditions under which they were donated,” the proctor said. “We are to keep them for a minimum of one hundred years or return them to Madame Duchene or her heirs. And since their provenance could not be completely discredited, it seemed wise to accept them rather than allow them to end up elsewhere.”
Paul said, “Nothing like finding out something you gave away at a yard sale is worth a fortune.”
“Yard sale?” the proctor repeated, projecting the type of academic disdain the French seemed to have perfected to its highest form.
“Where you get rid of all your junk,” Paul said. “People have them all the time in America.”
“I’m sure they do.”
Gamay tried not to laugh and kept busy leafing through the books. One was a reference work on Ptolemaic Greek, the particular kind of Greek found on many trilingual inscriptions in Egypt. Which seemed promising, since Villeneuve and D’Campion were supposedly working on translations. The other was a treatise on war written by a French author she’d never heard of. Fanning through the pages, she found no notes or loose papers stuffed inside.
“What about the letters?” Gamay asked. “The writings?”
The proctor pulled out another book. This one was thin and had a modern cover that resembled a photo album. Inside, between sheets of plastic, were two-hundred-year-old papers covered in faded swirling ink lines from a fountain pen or even a quill.
“There were five letters,” the proctor explained, “a total of seventeen pages. They’re all in here.”
Gamay pulled up a chair, took a seat and switched on a light. With a notepad at her side, she began to read through the letters. It was slow-going, since they were in French and written in the style of the day, which seemed to avoid anything close to short and concise sentences.
As Gamay began her translation, Paul asked, “May I see the paintings?”
“Certainly,” the proctor said.
They moved farther down the aisle, where the proctor used a key to open a large cabinet door. Inside were a dozen framed paintings of different sizes. They were arranged in vertically slotted racks.
“Villeneuve did all of these?”
“Only three,” the proctor said. “And, I remind you, there’s no proof they were his.”
Paul understood the warning. Still, he wanted to see what Villeneuve might have done.
The proctor slid out the first of the three paintings, simply framed in hardwood, placed it on an easel and went back for the other two. All the frames looked old and worn.
“Original frames?” Paul asked.
“Of course,” the proctor said. “They’re probably worth more than the art.”