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Verlaque thought that the features “short” and “bald” described half the men in his cigar club. Schultz then pointed to the wall she had been staring at earlier. The dusty outline of a painting remained above the sofa. “I would imagine he was carrying the painting that had been hanging there.”
    â€œThat sounds like a good guess,” Verlaque said, looking at the bare spot. “But M. Rouquet wouldn’t have had an expensive painting on his wall. He was a retired postman. Why would a thief steal some cheap painting owned by an old man living off his meager pension?”
    â€œDo you know for sure that it was a cheap painting?” Dr. Schultz asked. “I’ve seen some strange art collectors in my day.”
    Verlaque gestured around the room. “Look around you,” he said.
    â€œStill—”
    â€œYou haven’t told me why you came into the apartment.”
    â€œCuriosity. And because I had just witnessed a theft. I speak French—I come to France often—and I love this town, so I thought I might be able to help in some way.”
    Verlaque made a mental note to have Alain Flamant, one of his sergeants, check the dates of Dr. Schultz’s previous trips to France.
    â€œSo you came in the apartment and didn’t call the police or an ambulance when you saw M. Rouquet lying there.”
    â€œI was about to,” she answered. “I didn’t have my American cell phone with me, and it took me some time to find his home phone.” She paused, and then said, “It was when the phone rang, just before you came in, that I was able to find it, buried under a heap of newspapers.” She pointed across the room and Verlaque saw a small 1960s rattan table, indeed covered in newspapers, with the phone’s black cord falling out and disappearing along the baseboards. Verlaque looked at the Beauty and knew that she could have been rehearsing her speech while he had been busy with the police and Dr. Cohen. The art historian, from where she had been sitting, sipping tea, would have had time to look around the living room and spot the table with its phone buried underneath the papers.
    â€œThat was us calling,” Verlaque finally said. “From just outside the door. But my friend Pierre said he tried, too, before we came, and there was no answer.”
    â€œIt must have been before I came in,” she replied. “And I doubt the bald thug would have picked up the phone.”
    â€œAnd the apartment was in this state when you arrived,” he suggested.
    â€œOf course,” she replied. “What would I want in an old man’s apartment?”
    â€œPerhaps you, too, were here to steal,” Verlaque said. “Even in an old man’s apartment. As you said, there are some strange art collectors.”

Chapter Six

Paul
    â€¢ JANUARY 8, 1885 •
    A s he walked into town he thought of how different his life would have been if he had followed his first dream of being a poet. Physically it would have been easier, no doubt; poets don’t have to walk across the countryside, with an easel and paints strapped to their backs. They need only carry a quill and an empty book, and can work indoors, almost anywhere. The last time he saw Zola in Paris it was clear that his old friend didn’t walk as much as he used to. Writers sit. And think.
    He couldn’t help walking. He loved it; it took him places where nature’s shapes showed him what to put on the canvas. How could he get to the Trois Sautets bridge without walking? Or the Bibémus quarries? He would never paint in town, as some of his Parisian friends did. Buildings could be present inthe scene, but only in their relation to the surrounding natural forms. They would never be the focus. The last time he was in Paris, Monet had showed him a series of canvases of the same scene in Bordighera, a fine house by the sea, painted at different times of day. He