Deceptions by Anna Porter (pride and prejudice read .txt) 📕

Helena turned from the painting with difficulty. A slim, platinum-blonde wearing an elegant white suit, a matching fur stole, and high-heeled black pumps stood in the doorway. “I am Gizella Vaszary,” she said. “You prefer English or French?”

“Whatever suits you,” Helena said.

Gizella continued in English. She didn’t offer to shake hands. “So glad you could make it. After all that’s happened.” She proceeded to the white leather sofa and sat, carefully aligning her legs side by side with the knees touching. She must have been aware of her skirt riding up on her thighs. “Hilda will fetch us some coffee. Unless you would prefer something stronger. . . .”

“Coffee is fine,” Helena said. “Your lawyer . . .”

“He is dead,” Gizella affirmed. “But you know that, don’t you?”

“I didn’t wait to find out,” Helena said.

“Of course not.”

“The police have been here?”

Gizella shook her head. “I was not Mr. Magoci’s only client, and it will take them a long time to interview every one of them. He was from Moldova. Specialized in corruption cases.” She shrugged and waved her hands palm up to show she had every reason to believe that most people from Moldova wallowed in corruption. “I was maybe his least important client.”

“How did you know he was killed?”

“It was on the news,” Gizella said, sweeping a bit of fluff from her skirt. “I assure you, it had absolutely nothing to do with me.”

Hilda appeared with a silver tray, two tiny white porcelain cups and saucers, a silver sugar bowl, a silver creamer, and matching dainty tongs. Gizella proceeded to pour the coffee with great care and circumspection. “Sugar?”

“No. Why, then, did he pursue the silly charade of meeting me on a tour boat, pretending we didn’t know each other? Seems like a lot of trouble to take over what should have been a simple appointment to appraise a painting.”

“I wanted to make sure you were the right person.”

“For a tour of Strasbourg? By boat?”

Gizella laughed. “Of course not. I needed the right person to give me advice about the painting. My husband and I are divorcing. We own a bit of land near Lake Balaton and an . . . öröklakás, how you say that, flat? condominium? in Budapest. He agreed that we would split all the valuables fifty-fifty. That’s fair, since we have been married almost twenty years. We have no children. The only problem is this painting. He says it’s worth maybe a couple of thousand euros, since it is a copy, and he is willing to pay me a bit more than one thousand for my share.”

“I still don’t see a reason for meeting me on a boat and pretending not to know me. We could have met in a café. I am told there are many excellent cafés in Strasbourg. Why the elaborate charade?”

“I was concerned that my husband would find out I am consulting you. We have been very cordial over the divorce, and I thought there was no need to be unpleasant. At least not yet.” She smiled at the painting and then at Helena. “It’s a very fine copy made in the nineteenth century. That’s what he told me and my lawyer.”

“Mr. Magoci.”

“Yes. He had told me the same thing before we left Budapest.”

Helena approached the painting, this time from the shady side, so she could see more of the details. The background, which had at first appeared to be solid brown, now showed faintly lit shapes that gravitated toward the central figure, hints of distorted faces, a couple with shocked, wide-open eyes. On one side, there was some mottled orange drapery with thin blue lines and dark yellow-green paint sliding downward. The hand holding the head was pale and delicate, the full, puffy sleeve of the dress pushed up to save it from the blood, the arm with the sword strong and muscular, yet there was a gold bracelet on her wrist. The woman’s face, close-up, was even younger than at first glance: pink cheeks, smooth chin pointing up, as if there were nothing more gentle and natural than to be relaxing with a dead man’s head in her lap. Its forehead was lit by the same theatrical light as the woman’s face and her barely covered breasts.

The painting was utterly arresting. Beautiful and shocking in equal measure. The bright light that focused the viewer’s eyes on the central scene suggested that the drama of this moment had already passed.

“Judith with the head of Holofernes,” Helena said. Before she moved to Florence, Artemisia had specialized in painting heroic women. Susanna, Mary Magdalene, Lucretia, and Judith. There were several versions of each, and some of them had her own features. This painting might be one of them.

“So I’ve been told,” Gizella said. “I know nothing about art,” She added.

That did not sound right, Helena thought. She obviously knew enough to question what she had been told. “Your husband does?”

“He claims to.”

“When did you — or was it your husband — acquire this?”

“About a year ago. We bought it from a friend who needed money rather urgently. There was a business opportunity he could not let pass, he said.”

“Who was it?” Helena asked.

Gizella cupped her chin. “His name . . . ? Hmm . . . yes. It will come to me. We both thought it was an extraordinary painting. That’s why I had it hung in this room, even before the rest of our furniture arrived. Don’t you think it’s the perfect setting?”

“Perfect,” Helena said. “And you bought it as a copy?”

“Yes. For a few hundred euros.”

“Your lawyer said the original was supposedly in the Hermitage?”

“That’s what we were told. Except that it does not seem to be there. My lawyer made inquiries, and they do have one by her father, Orazio Gentileschi. It’s possible, Magoci said, that they have not catalogued all their canvases. Did you see her signature on the bed, below the fold of her dress?”

“Yes,” Helena said. Artemesia didn’t always sign her full name on her paintings,