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With an effort he remembered Popil’s instructions. If it is your painting, touch your chin.
He took a deep breath at last and gave the signal.
“This is Mischa’s hand,” he told Lady Murasaki. “When I was eight they were whitewashing upstairs. This painting and its partner were moved to a divan in my mother’s room and draped with a sheet. Mischa and I got under the sheet with the paintings; it was our tent, we were nomads in the desert. I took a chalk from my pocket and traced around her hand to keep away the evil eye. My parents were angry but the painting wasn’t hurt, and finally they were amused, I think.”
A man in a homburg hat was coming, hurrying, identification swinging from a string around his neck.
The Monuments man will take a tone with you, quickly be at odds with him, Popil had instructed.
“Please don’t do that. Please don’t touch,” the official said.
“I wouldn’t touch it if it didn’t belong to me,” Hannibal said.
“Until you prove ownership don’t touch it or I’ll have you escorted from the building. Let me get someone from Registry.”
As soon as the official left them, the man in the English suit was at their elbow. “I’m Alec Trebelaux,” he said. “I can be of some assistance to you.”
Inspector Popil and Leet watched from twenty meters away.
“Do you know him?” Popil said.
“No,” Leet said.
Trebelaux invited Hannibal and Lady Murasaki into the shelter of a recessed casement window. He was in his fifties, his bald head deeply suntanned, as were his hands. In the good light of the window, flakes were visible in his eyebrows. Hannibal had never seen him before.
Most men are happy to see Lady Murasaki. Trebelaux was not and she sensed it at once, though his manner was unctuous.
“I’m delighted to meet you, Madame. Is there a question of guardianship?”
“Madame is my valued advisor,” Hannibal said. “You deal with me.”
Be greedy, Popil said. Lady Murasaki will be the voice of moderation.
“There is a question of guardianship, Monsieur,” Lady Murasaki said.
“But it’s my painting,” Hannibal said.
“You’ll have to present your claim at a hearing before the commissioners, and they are booked solid for a year and a half. The painting will be impounded until then.”
“I am in school, Monsieur Trebelaux, I had counted on being able to—”
“I can help you,” Trebelaux said.
“Tell me how, Monsieur.”
“I have a hearing scheduled on another matter in three weeks.”
“You are a dealer, Monsieur?” Lady Murasaki asked.
“I would be a collector if I could, Madame. But to buy, I must sell. It’s a pleasure to have beautiful things in my hands if only for a little while. Your family’s collection at Lecter Castle was small but exquisite.”
“You knew the collection?” Lady Murasaki said.
“The Lecter Castle losses were listed with the MFAA by your late—by Robert Lecter, I believe.”
“And you could present my case at your hearing?” Hannibal said.
“I would claim it for you under the Hague Convention of 1907; let me explain it to you—”
