The Art of Seduction (7 page)

The smile froze on Mason's face. “Of course. Ask anything you like.”

His eyes swept down the chartreuse dress she wore. “Is it not the custom in your country to wear mourning on the loss of a family member?”

It was a detail she'd forgotten in the rush to pull off the masquerade in time. She needed to think fast.

“It's not quite as strict a custom as it is here on the Continent,” she stalled. Then the answer came to her. “Besides, my sister hated black. She considered it the
absence
of color. If you look closely at her paintings, you'll see she doesn't use black. She would have hated for me to wear something she so despised.”

He gave no response. The awkwardness continued.

Finally, he asked, “May I share a personal feeling with you?”

“Please do.”

“Mademoiselle, in the past year, my office has investigated two hundred and fourteen suicides within the Paris city limits. Of those, all but four left some sort of suicide note, or at least a final word. It seems extremely odd to me that your sister, who devoted her life toward expressing herself, would depart this world without a word…or any provision for the paintings she obviously loved so much. It simply goes against all my instincts to believe this could happen.”

The hair on the back of Mason's neck prickled. Forcing herself to assume an air of calm grief, she said, “All I can say, Inspector, is that nothing about my dear sister was conventional.”

“True, true. Artists are a world unto themselves. I hope I have not unduly alarmed you with my little observation.”

“Not at all, Inspector. I appreciate your interest.”

He took her hand and kissed it gallantly. “Let me assure you, Mademoiselle, if the death of your sister is not what it appears to be, I will find out. And if that is the case, I will prosecute the person responsible to the full extent of the law. That, Mademoiselle, is my promise to you.”

M
ason rumbled along in the coach on the Boulevard de Clichy. At any other time, she would have been enjoying its plush surroundings, reliving the ecstasy she'd experienced here the day before. But now that it was upon her, she was nervous about telling Garrett the truth. And the incident with the policeman had unsettled her.

Over breakfast, Lisette had said, “Duval knows something.”

“He doesn't know anything,” Mason had argued. “How could he?”

“He suspects something, or he wouldn't have come here.”

“The suicide note. Why didn't I think of that? It would have been so easy to scribble something.”

“Details are that man's specialty. They say he loves to sink his teeth into the little things you'd never even think of. And once he does, he never lets go. He's like a bulldog.”

Mason had lost her appetite. “I get the picture, Lisette,” she said testily.

But Lisette leaned across the table and hissed softly, “France has the toughest penalties for fraud in all of Europe. Juno knew of a man Duval nailed for cashing one of his mother's war-widow pension checks after she died. A first offense! And he ended up spending
ten years
in Santé Prison.”

Now the coach was pulling up in front of a building on Place de Clichy, close to the Hippodrome. Garrett stood in the doorway of the building shaking hands with a man. The sign on the window told her it was a realtor's office. When he saw the coach, he excused himself and hurried toward her.

She took a breath, remembering the speech she'd rehearsed, trying to quell her trepidation. When he opened the door and helped her out, she said, without preliminary, “I have something to tell you.”

“That's a coincidence. I have something to tell
you.
How's this for an idea? The Mason Caldwell Pavilion.”

He caught her completely off guard. “What?”

He was nearly vibrating with excitement. “The Mason Caldwell Pavilion—at the World's Fair.”

“But the paintings were turned down by the Exposition.”

“They'll change their minds. And even if they don't, we'll do it independently. A pavilion of our own with nothing but Mason's paintings in it.”

“But…that's impossible.”

“Far from it. Courbet did it at the 1855 Fair, and Manet again in 1867. Only our pavilion will be bigger and grander. I know plenty of people in the art world with money to spare who might very well be talked into contributing to such a noble venture. I've already put some feelers out this morning.”

Incredulously, she asked, “Is that why you were at the realtor's?”

“No, I was there to buy the building where Mason had her studio in Montmartre.”

“You
bought
the building? But…why?”

“Because it's hallowed ground. It should be preserved as a museum. A place where people can come and pay homage.”

“You're joking!”

“Not in the least. This can happen if you and I take the necessary steps and work together now. I've been up all night thinking about this. It hit me out of nowhere, like a thunderbolt, and I've never been more excited about anything.”

“But…a pavilion…buying the apartment building for a museum…isn't that a little…extreme?”

“I told you, your sister is special, unique.”

“But there are many unique artists out there.”

“You still don't understand, Amy. It's not just her art. It's her
life.
Walk with me while I explain.”

He hooked her arm through his and began to walk down the wide boulevard to where it dead-ended at the Hippodrome and Rue Caulaincourt. “Richard, I need to tell you something—”

“Wait. Let me get this out while it's still fresh in my mind. Mason worked for years without selling a single painting. She suffered crushing poverty, near starvation, and nothing but rejection. And yet she believed in herself and her vision, and nothing stopped her. She didn't care about commercial success or what the critics said about her. She always found the energy and means to put oil on canvas day after day after day, no matter what, oblivious to the opinion of the world. She was a paragon of honesty, purity, and dedication. She really
was
a Joan of Art.”

Mason squirmed beside him. It wasn't true. She'd never been that poor. She'd suffered bouts of laziness. God knew she was full of self-doubt. And she desperately wanted commercial and critical success.

“But the thing that gives a genuine epic quality to her life,” he went on, “is her death. The suicide. It breaks our hearts that anyone so talented, so courageous, could come to that point. Yet, at the same time, it gives her story a mythic power and resonance that will echo down through the ages. It's almost as if the unconscious part of her genius realized that her mission was complete, her entire life was a work of art, and the suicide was necessary to complete it with a poignant, bittersweet flourish.”

Mason's heart was sinking. He was saying that the suicide was
vital
to the legend, and the legend was vital both to the appeal of the paintings and to his fascination with them.

He guided her across Rue Caulaincourt. “What I'm trying to tell you, Amy, is that Mason is something new to art. The artist as outsider, heroic idealist, martyr. I believe this idea has the power to shake the world.
If
we make it happen—you and I. If we nurture the legend. If we present her work to the proper critics in the proper way. Above all, if we can gather her work and display it before the adjudicaters of public taste who will come to the Exposition from all over the globe this summer, then…it
can
happen. It
will
happen!”

Dear God, how can I ever tell him now?

She looked up and saw before her the gates of the Cimetière de Montmartre. What were they doing here? He led her along an uneven cobblestone path lined with gloomy mausoleums and sarcophagi. The monuments were stained black with soot, some of them cracking with age and neglect. As the walkway took them down a flight of stairs, the sun went behind a cloud and a chill wind whipped them. She felt oppressed by the macabre energy of the place and shivered with dread.

On the lower level, he finally stopped before a simple, square headstone, this one new and unstained. Mason stared in shock at its epitaph.

Ici Repose
Mason Caldwell
1864–1889

“It was all her acrobat friend could afford,” Garrett said, “but I rather like it. The simplicity of it seems to fit Mason so much better than all these gaudy monstrosities.”

Mason was staring at the headstone, stricken. She hadn't expected this. She hadn't thought about it, but of course they had to bury that poor woman from the bridge somewhere.

It was bloodcurdling, seeing her own name in a cemetery, set in stone. It seemed to give a permanence to what she'd considered only a brief charade.

As they stood there, he offered her his hand. “Will you join me in this quest, Amy? As my partner? Will you help me give Mason the immortality she deserves?”

 

Mason had left the cemetery in a kind of a trance. She hadn't taken Richard's hand and had made no commitment to him. Numb with shock, she'd babbled, “I don't know…seeing Mason this way…I have to go think.” Then she'd turned and reeled away from him, nearly running up the stairs.

But in this traumatic moment, she'd made no effort to pull off her mask the way she'd steeled herself to do.

How could she? It would ruin everything. He wouldn't understand. He was so wrapped up in the glory of her tragic young death that he'd be appalled by what she'd done. The truth would rob him of something he considered exquisite and profound. He saw her death as noble, epic, mythic. It almost seemed to be the thing about her that he loved the most.

There was no question in her mind now that, if she told him the truth, he would walk away and never forgive her.

And she would lose everything she'd always wanted in the process.

But what was the alternative? Take his hand? Be his partner? Remain Amy Caldwell?

It was impossible…just impossible.

Hours passed. She walked the streets, wrestling with her dilemma. She knew where she wanted to go, but she was trying to resist its lure. But eventually, it became too much of an effort. She couldn't stay away.

She crossed the Seine and headed down the Left Bank until she reached the Champ de Mars and the fairgrounds. The work crews had just left the various construction sites for the day. The cordoned-off area, with its signs warning her not to enter, stretched out before her like some sort of half-finished fairyland. And here—among all this rising splendor, in the midst of the glass-domed Palaces of Machines and Fine Arts; the reconstructed Cambodian village and Egyptian Bazaar; the exhibition halls; gardens and restaurants representing countries from all the corners of the earth to accommodate the culinary, scientific, and artistic appetites of the 32 million people expected to attend the fair—Richard Garrett wanted to construct a temple dedicated entirely to the art of Mason Caldwell.

Think what that would do for the family name. All those nasty people who'd looked down their pious noses at the Caldwells. How could she possibly say no? Didn't she owe it to her mother, if nothing else?

But how could she possibly say yes?

To do that, she'd have to be willing to stay dead, assume the identity of this nonexistent sister, paint in secret, pretending that whatever new work she finished had been a discovery from the past. Not just for two weeks, not just for a month, but
for the rest of her life!
To never tell the man she loved who she really was. To always have to lie to him, trick him into believing what he needed to believe.

And then there was the matter of the policeman, Duval. Who knew what he suspected? If she stopped now, if Amy disappeared and Mason resurfaced, she could likely get away with what she'd done. But if she continued the deception and got caught, as surely she would…What had Lisette said? The toughest fraud laws in Europe. Ten years for a minor offense. More shame. More humiliation. More scandal for the Caldwells of Massachusetts.

No, no, no.

It was out of the question. To even think about continuing this perilous game was madness. It would require nerves of steel. The cunning and confidence of a master criminal. The acting skills of a Sarah Bernhardt.

But if she didn't do it…

She would lose this miraculous opportunity, this answer to her prayer for help that night on the bridge.
And
she would kill any chance of keeping the only man she'd ever met who she knew could fill the empty space in her soul.

Mason…or Amy?

An impossible choice.

But…What if she
could
do it? Take the risk and seize it all. The thought gave her a tingling sensation of daring.

She walked past a Mediterranean-looking building and crossed to the middle of the plaza made by the four corners of the Tower's base to stand directly beneath it. She'd never been so close to it before. From a distance, there was no way to appreciate the massive scale of it. She looked up and felt it soaring above her, the tallest structure on Earth. The naysayers had all declared that it would never stand, that the forceful winds of the Île-de-France would send it toppling to the ground before it could be finished. But here it was, flying in the face of their ridicule, a symbol that anything that could be imagined could be accomplished.

Tomorrow, England's Prince of Wales would officially inaugurate the monument and would be granted the honor of being the first to ride the elevator to the top. Crowds would gather to celebrate the occasion. A grandstand had been built where speeches would be made and the royal party would enter the elevator.

But tonight, the Tower was hers alone.

Darkness was descending. Mason was looking all around her, marveling at the network of iron girders, at the grace and beauty of the crisscrossing ribs, when her gaze came to rest on the stairway that zigzagged its way from the north base of the Tower just behind the grandstand all the way up to the first level. Seized by an impulse, she walked to the base and found that the stairwell was unblocked. She stood there a moment, pondering it.
Do I dare?

She stepped to the opening and looked up. It was growing darker and she couldn't see very well, but it didn't look especially intimidating. Why not go up and have a look?

She began to climb the metal stairway, her heels making a hollow, clanging sound. It was a steep incline, but scaling the Montmartre butte every day for five years had made her legs strong, and she effortlessly climbed higher…higher…back and forth as the staircase shifted direction at regular intervals.

Finally, she emerged on the first observation level. It was deserted. She was amazed that she'd made it this far. Was there no one to rush out and arrest her for trespassing?