Stealing the Mystic Lamb (27 page)

Goedertier did not live long enough to send this final letter. But in his last several correspondences he had provided tantalizing information. The panel was hidden somewhere prominent, in a public place. It was
not in his direct possession, nor could any potential accomplices reach it without attracting public attention. Perhaps it was even hidden in plain sight.

The other clues in Goedertier’s dying words, his mention of “armoire” and “keys,” did not yield any results. De Vos claimed to have found no other papers or clues of any kind in the house regarding
The Lamb
.

Or did he? Can it be believed that de Vos did, in fact, discover carbon copies of the ransom letters and the final unsent letter? No one double-checked or even followed up his claims. De Vos was in the death chamber of Arsène Goedertier for more than fifteen minutes. Surely the dying man whispered more than the abbreviated, melodramatic fragments that de Vos reported.

The elegant, well-spoken Georges de Vos was born in 1889 in the Belgian town of Schoten. He received a doctorate in law, worked as a respected attorney, and would serve as a senator, representing the Catholic Party from the district of Sint Niklaas, Dendermonde. Conspiracy theorists have long believed that de Vos was covering up the truth, that Goedertier himself may have been a red herring. What de Vos did next is even more suspicious.

Instead of notifying the police, de Vos went directly from Goedertier’s house to meet with four colleagues, legal magistrates of Dendermonde: Joseph van Ginderachter, the president of the Tribunal of Dendermonde Court of Appeals, who would soon after confiscate Goedertier’s library as evidence; Chevalier de Haerne, president of the Ghent Court of Appeals; District Attorney van Elewijk; and the chief prosecuting attorney to the king, Franz de Heem, the man who had taken over the ransom negotiations from Bishop Coppieters.

These peers of the realm met privately and decided to conduct their own investigation, without involving or informing the police in any way. While magistrates could be charged with preliminary investigation of minor crimes, it was irregular for them undertake the investigation of a major theft without police collaboration or consultation. They investigated for one full month before the police, led by de Heem, began their own inquiry into Goedertier’s involvement.

This unusual behavior has never been explained. Why would the police stand aside and wait for the private investigation of a group of lawyers, albeit one led by the crown prosecuting attorney? Why didn’t Georges de Vos go directly to the police if he believed that his deceased client had been involved in the theft of a piece of Belgium’s national treasure? If not de Vos, then de Heem should surely have involved the police, as soon as he learned of this development. Even at the time, the strange procedure smacked of conspiracy.

The lawyers announced their findings after one month.

Beyond that, they found nothing of clear relevance.

But one bizarre decision followed another. The investigating magistrates began to use the very same Royal Portable typewriter that had written the ransom notes and had been seized as evidence from the rail station as their office typewriter, because they did not have one of their own.

The only other item that the magistrates cited was the discovery of an “odd key, recognized by no one, that fit no lock in the house.” This key may indeed be relevant, if we believe that Goedertier’s whispered dying words included “armoire . . . key.” This key was of a generic type that opened many basic locks. It was discovered years later that the key fit the door to the rood loft of Saint Bavo Cathedral—the probable method of entry during the theft.

Only after the magistrates announced their findings did the police begin their investigation of Arsène Goedertier, in late December 1934. Goedertier’s death, and the discovery of the carbon copies of the ransom notes, had been unknown to the police until this time. Now a month after the fact, the house pored over by the lawyers, the chances of the police discovering a meaningful clue were thin. They dismantled the house and garden and interviewed Goedertier’s friends and relatives. They learned almost nothing. Some of his work colleagues said that Goedertier had many debts, but the police also found the 3 million francs in his bank account.

Neither his family nor his wife ever affirmed or denied that he had been the ransomer—they only claimed not to know. But they stuck to a story that, if Goedertier was indeed the ransomer, he was doing it on behalf of an important person in debt. No, they wouldn’t say who that person might be.

If this is true, the lawyers whom Georges de Vos consulted may inadvertently have provided a clue. As crown prosecuting attorney, Franz de Heem had represented the recently deceased Belgian king, Albert I. Could the king have been in any way involved? It is hard to believe that someone would risk imprisonment for a 1 million franc ransom, a sum so relatively paltry (approximately $300,000 today) that it would hardly affect a wealthy personage like the king. And if Goedertier wanted to help the Belgian royal house, why not use some of his own 3 million franc savings? Might there have been some larger conspiracy of which this incident was a part? King Albert I died while hiking, which contemporaries considered highly suspicious of foul play. Was there some link?

Goedertier’s résumé further suggests that stealing from a Catholic institution would have been his least likely course of action, even in desperation. As the president of several Catholic charitable societies, and the recipient of public honors for years of participation, Goedertier was a model citizen and model Catholic. A skeptic might say that his elevated status would give him unusual access to, and connections within, the Catholic Church of Belgium. Did he use his status as the perfect cover
to infiltrate and steal from the cathedral? Then there was a separate problem of logistics, if Goedertier was the thief. The size and weight of the panels meant that Goedertier could not have acted alone.

The following year, on 9 May 1935, Crown Prosecutor De Heem placed a placard on a wall in Ghent requesting information that might lead to the recovery of the panel and offering a reward of 25,000 Belgian francs (about $7,500 today). This public appeal, months after the fact, was considered by contemporaries to be insufficient and belated.

To make matters odder, it was only at the end of April 1935 that the police and the magistrates informed the diocese of Ghent about Goedertier’s deathbed confession—five months after it had occurred. The diocese welcomed this news—finally someone whom they could blame, albeit a deceased peer of the secular arm of Catholic politics and one who seemed to be something of a deus ex machina. But why had neither the secretive magistrates nor the ineffectual police informed the diocese sooner? One can only assume that members of the diocese were suspected of involvement in the crime but ultimately dismissed as innocent—whether or not they truly were.

Six days later, when word of Goedertier and the ransom notes had leaked to the press, Dr. de Cock was asked about his late friend by a journalist for the Flemish daily newspaper
De Standaard.
He said:

An enigmatic way to describe one’s deceased friend, suggesting that even those close to Goedertier were at a loss.

The only promising lead that seemed free of conspiratorial subterfuge came after the placement of Attorney de Heem’s placard.
De Standaard
published their first of many articles about the theft on 27 July 1935. The next day they published a second article, written by the paper’s editor in chief, Jan Boon. It referred to the placard hung in May and included the following:

It was a reverse blackmail. The newspaper threatened to reveal the names and facts about the theft, particularly the panel’s removal from a public hiding place, if the panel were not returned.

But why wouldn’t the newspaper’s editor simply take his information to the police? Why not let the officials handle matters? Probably he lacked confidence that the officials would follow through appropriately, or he believed they were involved in the conspiracy. Or was it all a bluff?

The published threat was never followed up. It may indeed have been one of many false leads that sprung up in the months, and years, after the theft. On another occasion, anonymous letters were sent to a variety of Belgian journalists, telling them to gather at the cathedral, where the hiding place of the Judges would be revealed—the anonymous host never showed up on the night prescribed.

The police gave up officially in 1937. Their closure of the case included the following conclusions:

In police files, the panel was—and still is—labeled “lost.” In art terms,
lost
means that the work may have been destroyed or damaged, or simply that its location is unknown. In police terms, it indicates that the authorities have given up trying.

An array of theories, ranging from the plausible to the wildly conspiratorial, would come from a number of “weekend” detectives—amateurs fascinated by the case. In several instances such investigators were able to make progress where the suspiciously ineffectual official investigation fell short, often noticing glaring oversights missed, or overlooked, by the police. In the end, one theory, regarding a failed investment group, appears the most plausible in a case that is still unsolved and very much alive to the people of Belgium to this day. The various theories are worth examining, because even the most imaginative succeeded in advancing the case.

The first conspiracy theorist regarding the Righteous Judges was the fantasy novelist Jean Ray (the pseudonym of John Flanders). In 1934, mere months after the theft took place, he noted an important clue, and yet another one overlooked by the police, either intentionally or through incompetence. Goedertier had rented the typewriter de Vos found at his home, the one that matched the type on the thirteen letters of ransom from D.U.A., under a false name: Arsène van Damme. He pointed out that the initials of this false name, A.V.D., when reversed, could look like D.U.A. Was it a real break in the case, or was Ray looking too hard for an answer that would fit?

Journalist Patrick Bernauw was intrigued by the unsolved crime and began his own informal investigation in the 1990s. Bernauw suspected that Goedertier may have been the ransomer and mastermind but not the thief. He also found the manner and sudden nature of Goedertier’s death suspicious. Might Goedertier have been murdered? After the heart attack, Goedertier was lying prostrate on a couch at his brother-in-law’s house. Georges de Vos spent fifteen minutes alone with Goedertier, during which time he expired. The police did not conduct an autopsy as, at the time, a natural heart attack seemed the obvious cause of death.

Bernauw thought that Goedertier may have been murdered, perhaps by de Vos or perhaps by two men whom Bernauw suspected had done the stealing on Goedertier’s behalf: Achiel de Swaef and Oscar Lievens. Both had been born in the town of Lede, as had Goedertier. Childhood friends, all three sported nearly identical moustaches and goatees; Bernauw likened them to the three Musketeers. De Swaef and Lievens died suddenly within a few years of Goedertier’s death, and both were suspected of having been German spies. No homicide inquiries were made into any of the deaths.