Sacré Bleu

A moment later, Carmen looked over her shoulder. La Toilette—Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, 1889

Toulouse-Lautrec leaned the large Turner forward until he could see the painting behind it, then nearly dropped the Turner and fought to catch it.

“Oh my,” he said.

Lucien jumped to his side and gazed at the painting, a nude woman reclining on a divan draped with ultramarine satin.

“She is a large but a very fetching woman. I don’t think I would have thought of her as a redhead before, more of a chestnut brunette, but then, her hair is always up in a chignon when I see her. With it down, here, where it trails over her hip, yes, she is very fetching indeed.”

Lucien set the lantern down at Henri’s feet and snatched the lit candle from his hand, splattering wax over the painting. “Burn them,” he said, turning and walking out of the room. “Burn them all. Use some of the oil from the lamp to start them.”

“I understand your consternation, but it is very well painted,” said Henri, who had picked up the lantern and was still studying the nude.

“It’s my mother, Henri.”

“Look, it’s signed. ‘L. Lessard.’”

“Burn it.”

“Don’t you want to see the others? There may

be masterpieces here that no one has ever laid eyes on before.”

“Nor will they ever. If we see them we may not be able to do this. Burn them.” Lucien stepped out of the chamber and stood in the large vault, where blue flames were still playing across the tarry remains of the Colorman. He shivered.

Henri flipped the Turner back into place in front of the nude of Madame Lessard, then stepped back. “I killed the Colorman, I don’t think it’s fair that I have to burn the paintings, too. It seems sacrilegious.”

“You’ve always said that you come from a long line of accomplished heretics.”

“Good point. Come, hold your candle so I can see. I’m going to have to extinguish the lantern for a bit so I can pour out some oil.”

A minute later the small chamber glowed like a glassblower’s furnace, the light from the flames licking out into the large vault and dying with the snap of a serpent’s tongue. Black smoke moved across the ceiling in inky waves.

Henri read the map by the light from the fire. “If we follow this wall, it will take us to the passage and stairs that lead to the next level.”

“We should go, then.”

“What about the Colorman’s donkey?”

“There’s no telling how far he’s run, Henri. We’ve barely enough lamp oil to make it to the surface as it is. Perhaps he’ll find his own way out. He’s been down here before.”

Toulouse-Lautrec folded the map and set out along the wall, using the unloaded shotgun as a crutch and limping badly now that stealth was no longer required.

“Are you in pain?” Lucien asked, holding the lantern high so his friend could see ahead.

“Me? I’m fine. This is nothing compared to killing a man and burning a room full of masterpieces.”

“I’m sorry, Henri,” Lucien said.

“But even that is nothing compared to the possibility that you may have shagged your mother and killed your father.”

“That is not what happened.”

“Well, then, what happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think your mother would pose for me? My interest is only as a painter.”