The Paris Secret by Karen Swan Read Free Book Online

walls were lined with duck-egg flocked wallpaper, an elaborate marble fireplace was topped with an ornate gilded mirror which was as stippled with age spots as an
old man’s hand. But it was the stuffed ostrich Flora couldn’t help staring at – it was seven feet tall on spindled legs, and its glassy eyes and open beak gave the impression it
was laughing, as though amused by the ivory satin bed-jacket draped insouciantly over its feathered back. Her eyes wandered obediently, professionally, to the finer details of the room: the crystal
chandelier, blackamoor lamps, gold candlesticks, Aubusson rug, but it was the ostrich to which they kept returning – it invested the room with whimsy and glamour, bringing to her ear the
sounds of long-faded laughter and conversation, the tinkle of crystal and jewels, the crackle of a fire and the sinuous sliding of silk. She could feel the lives that had once pulsed here, the
social gaiety that must have been enjoyed in this very room before the horrors of war and then the enduring silence afterwards. She walked over and reached out a hand to touch the bird’s
plumage—
    ‘Flora!’ Angus’s voice was muffled but she caught the tone of it, the slice of excitement. ‘In here.’
    ‘Coming.’ Her hand dropped down and she crossed the hall into the dining room, a carmine-red salon with twelve chairs pushed around a large rectangular table and dressed with a
jacquard cloth. The tabletop was strewn with scattered
objets
and ornaments – a pair of china swans, Lalique crystal figurines, burnished silverware, balloon decanters . . . Angus was
waiting for her, his feet hidden from view by the sheer number of boxes on the floor, and holding in his arms a large framed portrait of a young girl.
    ‘Stream of consciousness, tell me what you think. What do you see?’
    Flora frowned in concentration, taking in the rose tint on the girl’s cheeks, the paleness of her grey eyes, the high sash of her silk dress and the precise undulations of her bonnet. She
saw the formal pose – the girl’s body turned slightly away, a closed parasol in her hand – and the stately manse in the background, horses nosing the grass, with softly whipped,
sun-tinted clouds in the summer sky, hints of cadmium yellow. ‘It looks like Faucheux to me,’ she said with a breath of amazement.
    ‘Exactly.’
    Faucheux had not been a prolific artist, dying of syphilis when he was only twenty-five, but he had already painted for some of France’s noblest families by the time of his death in 1811
and almost all his works were held in private collections.
    ‘God, when was the last time a Faucheux came onto the open market?’ she mused as Angus turned the painting around and propped it on a chair by the wall so that they could both look
at it. ‘It was the fifties, wasn’t it?’
    ‘Something like that. I do know for a fact only two others have been sold since the artist’s death.’
    Flora felt a spike of excitement. The painting was a good size, handsome, and the rarity factor meant there would be significant buzz around it. ‘What do you think for the
reserve?’
    Angus tapped his chin, eyes screwed tight. ‘Two hundred and fifty?’
    She nodded. ‘I agree. I can think of four buyers off the bat who’d be interested.’
    ‘And I’ve got some contacts in the States who I know would sit up and beg for this.’
    Flora felt her breath quicken. She looked around the room. Even apart from the pieces littering the table, there must be another five dozen paintings stacked in piles against the walls. The
sheer volume of art and artefacts was staggering. There was far more, surely, than could ever have been hung on the walls here; the apartment was not grand or built on the lofty scale of the
Haussmann town houses. What were they all doing here?
    ‘What else have you found?’ she asked, wandering over to the nearest lot and beginning to flick through them.
    ‘A lot of modernism, actually,’ Angus