The English Assassin   ::   Silva Daniel

Though Julian Isherwood clung unwisely to the paintingsin his inventory, he did not do the same with the girls who answered his telephones and kept his appalling files. He hired and drove them away with seasonal regularity. So Gabriel was surprised to see Irina, a black-haired leopard of a girl whom Isherwood had taken on six months ago, still at her post behind the desk in the anteroom.

The door separating the anteroom and Isherwood’s office stood slightly ajar. Isherwood was with a client. Gabriel could see a painting propped on the black, felt-covered viewing pedestal. Italian Old Master by the look of it; no one Gabriel recognized. Isherwood paced the carpet slowly behind it, hand on his chin, eyes on the floor, like a barrister awaiting an answer from a hostile witness.

“He’d like you to wait upstairs in the exhibition room,” the girl purred. “I assume you know the way.”

Gabriel entered the tiny lift and rode it upward. The exposition room was a place of shadows, quiet except for the rain pattering on the skylight. Large Old Masters canvases hung on each of the walls: a Venus by Luini, a nativity by del Vaga, a baptism of Christ by Bordone, a luminous landscape by Claude. Gabriel left the lights off and sank heavily onto the velvet-covered divan. He loved this room. It had always been a sanctuary; an island of peace. He had once made love to his wife in this room. Years later, he had plotted the death of the man who had taken her away from him.

The door of the lift opened and Isherwood entered.

“My God, Gabriel, but you look like complete hell.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“What the hell’s going on? Why aren’t you in Zurich?”

“The owner of the painting you sent me to clean was a man named Augustus Rolfe. Ever heard of him?”

“Oh, good Lord-the one who was murdered last week?”

Gabriel closed his eyes and nodded. “I found his body.”

Isherwood noticed the bandages. “What happened to your hands?”

“You heard about the explosion at the gallery in Paris yesterday?”

“Of course-this place is buzzing about it. Surely you weren’t involved in that?”

“No, I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ll tell you everything, Julian, but first I need your help.”

“What sort of help?” Isherwood asked cautiously.

“Nothing like the old days. I just need you to explain why an aging Swiss banker might have kept a very impressive collection of French Impressionist and Modern paintings hidden from the world in an underground vault.