The Medusa Amulet

Chapter 22

“How hard was it?” Escher said, as they approached the main courtyard of the Louvre. “You call yourself a doctor, you had one simple thing to do, and you couldn’t get even that much right.”

Julius’s face scrunched up like he’d just had to eat something sour. “But I did do it right,” he replied in a last-ditch attempt to defend himself. “If the dosage had been any higher, they’d have keeled over in the dining car.”

Escher was sick of discussing it. He wasn’t used to working with amateurs.

“Maybe it would help,” Julius ventured, “if I knew what this was all about. First you run me out of Florence-if I go back to my place, some Turk is going to try to kill me-and now I’m in Paris, chasing after God knows what. Is there a point to all this?”

“The less you know, the better off you’ll be.” Escher knew, from experience, just how annoying it was to be told that.

“Well, then I should be in very good shape, because I haven’t got a clue.”

“Keep it that way,” Escher said, “and wait here, out of sight, until I call you.” He straightened his alpine, badger-bristle hat, and took the glasses and guidebook from his pocket. Now he looked pretty much like the other provincial German tourists who had just arrived, in a busload, at the museum. He left Jantzen standing by the glass pyramid erected in the forecourt and mixed in with the crowd.

David Franco and that friend of his, Olivia Levi, were just hurrying in through the main doors.

Escher, smiling benignly at the guards and the other tourists, passed through the security check and paid for his ticket while keeping a safe distance from his quarry. David had that damned valise slung over one shoulder, and though Escher fully expected the guards to force him to check it before going through the turnstile, he could see a conversation going on, in which Olivia seemed to be pitching in. A senior guard was called over, and after glancing at the contents, and exchanging some additional words, he spoke into his walkie-talkie, waited, then nodded.

A roll of tape was produced and wrapped twice in an unbroken string around the bag, sealing it closed. Then Escher could see the guard glancing at his watch, pointing up the main staircase, and off to the left. David and Olivia were nodding appreciatively before thanking the guards and heading off toward something that Escher saw was called the Galerie d’Apollon. He quickly consulted his own guide to see why.

It had been several years since David had last been in the Louvre, but he hadn’t forgotten how vast it was. When he’d been a student, traveling on his Fulbright, it had been an easy way to spend an entire day, simply wandering from one gallery or exhibition to another. You could do it for months and still find something new to see each time.

But today, there was no time to waste. He had an appointment in twenty minutes with the Louvre’s Director of Decorative Arts-a close personal friend, thank God, of Dr. Armbruster at the Newberry. He’d put in a call to her office the night before, while it was still day in Chicago, and Dr. Armbruster had assured him she would pave the way. “If anyone knows where this Medusa might be, it will be Genevieve Solange. Go and see her, and good luck!”

In the meantime, he had an entire exhibition hall to check out.

Although the museum was thronged as usual, he and Olivia cut through the crowd like a pair of barracudas, climbing up the broad central stairs and heading for one of the most popular sites in the entire Louvre-the opulently decorated Gallery of Apollo, where the crown jewels of France were displayed.

Or what remained of them.

Over the centuries, what had once been a magnificent collection had been decimated by thefts, national fire sales, dismantlings, recuttings, and sheer disorganization, reflecting the turbulent history of France itself. Starting with the French Revolution in 1789, the crown jewels had been a bone of contention fought over by Royalists and revolutionaries, aristocrats and Communards, pretenders, conspirators, and kings. Even the imperial crowns, used in coronation ceremonies at Notre Dame de Reims ever since the cathedral had been completed in the late thirteenth century, had had their precious gems removed and replaced with colored glass. It was almost as if the nation feared that the royal jewels held some mystical power, that if they were allowed to remain intact, the monarchy-which had once been so ruthlessly expunged on the scaffold of the guillotine-might rise from the dead to reclaim them.

But if La Medusa -bequeathed to the French royal family-still existed, this might be its home.

David and Olivia split up on entering, in order to study the remaining trove that had been assembled around the room-and it was still enough to dazzle the eye and the mind. There was the golden, laurel-leaf crown commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte, and from the Second Empire the glittering tiara of the Empress Eugenie. There were diamond and sapphire parures worn by Marie Amalie, wife of Louis Philippe, the last king of France, and an emerald-encrusted tiara for the Duchesse d’Angouleme, the only child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to survive the bloodbath of the Revolution. (The heir apparent, little Louis-Charles, had died at only ten under the less-than-tender care of the National Assembly.) There were several of the world’s most famous and priceless diamonds, including the shield-shaped Sancy, the peach-colored Hortensia, and the much-storied Regent, which over the years had adorned everything from an aigrette in Marie Antoinette’s coiffeur to the hilt of Napoleon’s coronation sword.

But there was nothing bearing the aegis of Zeus motif. And nothing so comparatively humble as a small, silver hand mirror.

Meeting at the far end of the gallery, David and Olivia hurried on toward the Richelieu Wing, where the Decorative Arts department was located. Passing through its discreetly marked doors was like passing from one century to the next, from the gilded excesses of a palace, which the Louvre had originally been, to a sleek, twenty-first-century office complex, with windowed cubicles aglow with computer screens. Madame Solange’s office was at one end, overlooking an inner courtyard, and she greeted them warmly.

“Patricia and I studied together at Cambridge,” she said, and it took David a second to realize that she was speaking of Dr. Armbruster. “It was delightful to hear from her again.”

As David and Olivia sat down across from her neatly organized desk, she said, “And she tells me you have something quite remarkable to show me.” She extended one hand toward his sealed valise.

“I do,” he replied, handing it across the desk.

With practiced fingers and an X-acto knife, she cut through the sealed tape and allowed David to proceed. He carefully extracted the fine copy of the red-and-black sketch and laid it out in front of her. “It’s called, as you can see, La Medusa.”

He could tell, from her intake of breath, that she was impressed with what she saw. She whipped off her glasses, bent close to the paper, and studied the drawing. Finally, she said, “It’s beautiful, but unsigned, I see. Do you know who the artist was?”

“Benvenuto Cellini,” David replied.

“Cellini?” she said, surprised but not dismissive. “And how would you know this?”

“It’s what we were told when the original was presented to the Newberry, and since then we have studied it extensively-from the handwriting to the paper and the ink. All the results indicate that it is authentic.”

He reached into the valise and started to show her the lab reports, but she waved them away. “I will take your word for it, for the time being.” She put it back on the desk, her hands idly twirling the ends of the Hermes scarf knotted around her neck. In Paris, David noted, even the museum curators were chic.

“Was it an early sketch for the Perseus in Florence?” she wondered aloud.

“No,” David said, pointing out the view of its reverse and the annotations. “It appears to have been the design for a small hand mirror. Silver, with a niello finish.”

Mme. Solange frowned and said, “I know of nothing like this from Cellini, or anyone in his workshop.”

“Neither do we,” Olivia interjected, “but that’s why we’re here.”

“We found documents in the Medici archives that indicate the piece was given to the Queen of France in the mid-1500s,” David explained. “We need to know if it might be part of the Louvre’s collection.”

Mme. Solange looked highly dubious but swiveled toward her computer screen and said, “We have such an extensive collection here that only a fraction can ever be properly displayed, but let’s check.” With rapid-fire strokes, she logged into what she explained was the Atlas database. “If there’s anything fitting this description, Atlas will tell us.”

With David hovering behind her chair, and Olivia perched on the edge of hers, she first entered Cellini himself, but apart from all the references to his most famous statue, there was nothing to match. Then she entered “Medusa” as a key word, and while several hundred objects showed up, everything from urns to coins to ewers, none was a mirror, or a piece of lady’s jewelry. Switching to another database, with the improbable name of LORIS/DORIS, she entered the information again, in several different configurations, without coming up with a hit.

Leaning back, her fingers leaving the keyboard, she said, “I can’t be the first one to suggest this, but the piece might be lost to the ages. Even if the monarchy still possessed it, it might have been stolen in 1792, when the royal treasury was burglarized.”

“But the thieves were caught, weren’t they?” Olivia said.

“Yes, they were-and before they were beheaded, one of them, named Depeyron if memory serves, admitted that he had hidden some gold and gems in an attic in the district of Les Halles. But a piece like this,” Mme. Solange said, touching her fingers to the border of the sketch, “would probably not have been so appealing to them. You say it was only silver, and niello at that. They would have overlooked it.”

“Even with ruby eyes?” David said.

“There’s nothing about rubies in that sketch.”

“I know,” David said, “but in the records I read at the Accademia in Florence, it was mentioned.”

“Oh well, in that case, there’s always a chance it’s in the mineralogical collection at the Paris Museum of Natural History.”

“Mineralogy?”

“In 1887, when the government was afraid of an insurrection from the Bonapartists, the Finance ministry was instructed to auction off whatever crown jewels were still under its control. But if something was deemed a naturally occurring gem, it got a reprieve and was handed over to the Natural History Museum. They’ve got all kinds of things, from mesmerism crystals to some diamond and pearl pins that belonged to Marie Antoinette. For all we know, the ruby eyes might have saved this mirror. It’s not very likely, but then again, who can tell?”

David glanced over at Olivia, who shrugged as if to say, it’s worth trying.

“But let me look at their records,” the director said. After a few minutes of rapid work at the keyboard, she exhaled in disgust, and David, glancing at her computer screen, read, in bold black type, “ Aucune approche disponible a ce temps.”

“They are forever experiencing… what do you call them in the States?”

“Technical difficulties?”

“Yes, that would be it. Their records are not currently accessible online. I suggest you go over there tomorrow and ask for the director, Professor Vernet.”

“It has to be today,” David said, already slipping the sketch back into the valise.

“But they’re closed today.”

“Could you call him?” he said. “It’s really very urgent.”

“Urgent?” Madame Solange said, perplexed.

“I know Dr. Armbruster would greatly appreciate it,” David said. “And so would I.”

He was afraid he’d offended her, but after a pause, she said, “All right,” and picked up her phone. “But when you get there, tell him I said that it was time he got his damn files up and running!”