The Mystery of the Vanished van Gogh
(Part One)
by Ron Katz
“If we squeeze the soup stains out of that tie,” jibed Al Jordan, the head of investigations at the Alpha Insurance Company, “we could skip lunch.”
“I admit it was in our giveaway pile,” rejoined Bernie Silver, who, with his wife, Barb, used to work for Jordan. “But I haven’t worn a tie in five years, and I wasn’t going to buy one just to have lunch with you.”
Barb, who was also Bernie’s business partner in Silver Investigations, added “Why did you ask us to dress up, Al? What’s the special occasion?”
“Hard to believe,” answered Al, “but Alpha’s CEO, who is the boss of the boss of my boss’s boss, has expressed a desire to meet with you.”
“And he likes ties?” queried Bernie.
“It’s a she, Bernie,” said Al. “You really need to think about your pronouns a little more. Her name’s Maureen Riley, and I’ve only met her once to shake her hand at a reception, so I’m not sure about the ties. But, until I saw that thing that appears to be strangling you today, I didn’t think there was a downside to dressing up.”
“How old is she?” inquired Barb.
“Mid-fifties, I would say,” responded Al.
Pulling off his tie, Bernie said, “A young woman like that will no doubt prefer the casual look.”
***
The penthouse office of the Alpha Insurance building in San Francisco’s financial district had a spectacular view of the bay. As Barb, Bernie and Al were ushered into the office, an attractive redhead in a well-tailored pantsuit rose to greet them. She went straight to Barb.
“Mrs. Silver, so nice to meet you. Simone Rousseau has told me so much about you.” Rousseau was the new director of the Louvre Museum. Barb had met her as part of Silver Investigations’ last assignment regarding the Mona Lisa.
Somewhat taken aback, Barb responded, “Nice to meet you also, Ms. Riley. How do you know Simone?”
“I met Simone at the recent World Economic Conference in Davos, Switzerland. And please call me ‘Mo.’ Despite these palatial surroundings, I’m trying to keep it informal around here.”
Bernie glanced sideways at Al while making a tugging motion at an imaginary necktie. That caught Riley’s eye, and she said, “You must be Mr. Silver. Did you also meet Simone?”
Perking up, Bernie said, “No, I had to stay in Italy to guard what we thought was the original Mona Lisa.”
Patting him on the back, Riley said, “Good for you, Mr. Silver. They also serve who only stand and wait.
“Thank you for bringing Barb and Bernie today,” Riley said to Jordan. “I have an important assignment that I’d like to discuss with them, and I was hoping you would all join me for lunch.”
As she spoke, a white-jacketed steward rolled a cart of steaming Chinese delicacies into the room, including some Chinese white wine.
“No problem,” said Bernie. “I love this brand of informality."
***
“May I offer you some wine?” Riley inquired. “Vintages from the Ningxia region of China go particularly well with dim sum.”
“No, thanks,” said Barb, “not while we’re on duty.”
“I’ll pass too,” added Bernie. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and I’m sure this is no exception.”
Riley turned to Al. “Mr. Silver is right about that, Al. Please tell me a bit about how you use the Silvers now that they are no longer Alpha employees and have their own agency."
Jordan responded, “Well, with the aging population, we have a number of cases involving an older demographic. Barb and Bernie are perfect for those because they are semi-retired and take only cases where their age gives them an edge, for example a recent undercover operation at a retirement facility.”
“Silver Investigations has actually modified its intake policy recently,” interjected Bernie. “Because we’ve been getting so many art-related cases, we’ve teamed up with a younger colleague, an art history professor at Stanford.”
“Yes,” continued Barb, “We’re finding that ‘Intergenerational Ingenuity’ might be a better motto for our agency than ‘Where Age Is an Edge.’”
“I agree,” said Riley. “I encourage intergenerational cooperation at Alpha, because it’s far more productive than the usual intergenerational mockery. And that leads directly to the assignment I have in mind for you, because you will definitely need the assistance of your younger art professor colleague.”
“He is a good example of the point you just made,” said Bernie. “He used to mock my old-school ideas and I used to mock his professorial airs and his condescension to elders…then he saved my life.”
***
As they tucked into the wide variety of dim sum, Riley began: “We have an assignment that relates to one person you’ve no doubt heard of—Vincent van Gogh—and one you probably haven’t heard of—Gerard Lheritier.”
“You’re right about van Gogh,” said Bernie. “We just saw the Immersive van Gogh show in San Francisco, and it was fantastic. I hope the assignment doesn’t involve his missing ear.”
“Joking aside,” added Barb, looking unamused, “I’ve also heard of Lheritier, the so-called ‘Bernie Madoff of France.’”
“Kudos to you, Barb,” said Riley. “How do you know about him?”
“Investigating fraud is a big part of our business,” responded Barb. “Frauds are often quite clever, so we have to keep up with the latest. I give full marks to Mr. Lheritier for his cleverness.”
“Ah, yes,” said Bernie, turning serious. “He’s the one with the Ponzi scheme involving old documents, like letters from Einstein. If memory serves, he buys them from respectable dealers, gets the dealers to give a high valuation for them, and then divides them up into shares, which he sells to investors with a promise that he’ll buy the shares back later for at least 40% more than the investor paid. Then he gets more investors in order to pay off the old investors. The cleverness of it, according to the French press, is that he turns paper into gold, at least for himself. But what does this classic Ponzi scheme have to do with van Gogh?”
“If you recently saw Immersive van Gogh,” answered Riley, “you know that van Gogh was not very successful in his lifetime. He sold only one painting and had only one good review of his work. He did, however, write a lot of letters, many of which survive. One of them was an effusively grateful letter to the one reviewer who liked his work, and that letter was bought by Lheritier’s company, Aristophil.”
“Let me guess,” said Bernie. “That letter was worth $50,000.”
“Not even close, Mr. Silver,” responded Riley. “$130,000, and Alpha, through one of its European affiliates had to compensate several of the investors in the letter. If you added up all the investments in that one van Gogh letter, they totaled more than $1 million. Although Mr. Lheritier has been accused of many things, thinking small is not one of them.”
“I don’t want to minimize those amounts,” said Barb, “but I’m not sure they rise to the level of attention from Alpha’s CEO. We know that even Al here has more signature authority than $1 million.”
“True,” said Riley, “but what I’ve told you is not the problem; it just led to the problem. We interviewed one of our insureds, a wealthy Dutchman living in Paris named Albert Janssen. His discussion of the letter, in which he was one of the unlucky investors, brought out the fact that he also owns what purports to be an insurance policy dated May, 1890. That policy insures all the van Gogh paintings in existence at the painter’s death, which occurred in July, 1890.”
“Very timely insurance policy,” observed Bernie, “sort of like an early homeowners policy.”
“Theo van Gogh possessed hundreds of his brother’s paintings,” observed Riley, “so it makes sense from that perspective.”
“I assume that all those paintings have been long since accounted for,” rejoined Bernie.
“All but possibly one,” responded Riley, “the one on which van Gogh was working on the day he either committed suicide or was shot—nobody definitively knows which.”
“And, if it exists, how much do you think it’s worth?” Al asked, suddenly seeing why he was eating lunch with Alpha’s highest officer.
“Let’s put it this way,” said Riley. “The one painting van Gogh sold during his lifetime went for the equivalent of $2000, valued in the currency of 2021. The last van Gogh publicly sold was auctioned in 1990 for what today would be the equivalent of $150 million.”
“I think I will have some of that wine,” said Bernie.
***
After lunch, back in Jordan’s office, Bernie said, “Mo is a very impressive person, but, quite frankly, she knew less about this potentially $150 million problem than I would have thought.”
“CEOs of major companies,“ answered Al, “don’t have time to focus on the details. If $150 million is at stake, she’s on it, but you can bet she’s already dealing with another $150 million problem right now. She has to depend on her teams--in this case the three of us--to work out everything else. Which is great…but don’t mess up.”
“And does she expect us to investigate this 131-year-old mystery for our normal hourly rates?” asked Bernie.
“If you save the company $150 million, you will definitely get a noticeable bonus, but why don’t we leave that detail ‘til we know a little more. In the meantime, you’re authorized to bring on board your professor chum, and anyone else you think would be helpful.”
“The mystery of the vanished van Gogh,” intoned Barb. “I love it! Please send us a copy of this purported insurance policy and the contact information of the person who possesses it. After we get some basic background information, interviewing that person is probably a good place to start.”
“Will do,” said Al. “I hate to say this, but your expense budget for this case is unlimited.”
“Great!” exclaimed Bernie. “I hope we don’t exceed it.”
***
“Ah, follow the money,” observed Vladimir Osofsky, the Silvers’ friend and sometimes collaborator, who headed the art history department at Stanford, “which, in this case, may come from an old insurance policy. That is the best way to solve the mystery of van Gogh’s death. It’s all too clear that unpaid academic research has not solved what might be the crime of the century.”
“Yes,” responded Bernie, “the nineteenth century, which could present some problems.”
“Talking to eyewitnesses will definitely be out,” noted Barb, as she brought in a plate of paella for the informal dinner to which they’d invited Osofsky in order to seek his help. “It could be worse—we could have been asked to investigate the whereabouts of the Ark of the Covenant.”
“That’s actually not a mystery,” joked Bernie, “since Indiana Jones found it. And, Ozzie”--his nickname for Osofsky--“I don’t understand why the van Gogh thing is a mystery either. I thought it was pretty well established that van Gogh committed suicide. I even witnessed that in the 1956 movie of van Gogh’s life, Lust for Life, starring Kirk Douglas.”
“That was made before I was born,” answered Osofsky, “but I have seen it on the Classic Movie Channel, and it is definitely part of the problem.”
“What problem is that?” asked Barb.
“The myth of van Gogh, the starving artist who cut off his ear; was totally financially dependent on his art dealer brother, Theo; and who tragically committed suicide to escape his misery. The end of the movie is an example. It shows van Gogh under a tree in a wheat field scribbling a note saying ‘I am desperate. I see no way out.’ There’s one big problem with that scene, however: there was no such note.”
“That does sound a bit odd,” said Barb. “Didn’t van Gogh write hundreds of letters?”
“He did,” Ozzie responded. “That is actually what made him famous, because he truly was an unknown, poverty-stricken artist during his lifetime. His brother Theo’s wife, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, actually was the one who made van Gogh famous, mainly by publishing, years after his and Theo’s deaths, hundreds of letters between them. Those formed the core van Gogh myth, but, when you think about it, how credible are letters written by a mentally ill person who is desperate to get money from the person to whom he is writing?”
“Let me ask a detective question,” said Bernie. “Was anything other than a suicide note missing from the scene of van Gogh’s death?”
“Not so fast, Bernie,” responded Ozzie. “You’re assuming we know the location of the suicide scene, but that is also in question. After supposedly shooting himself--non-fatally--instead of doing the logical thing--picking up the gun and finishing the job--van Gogh supposedly somehow got himself back to the inn where he was staying over steep, rough ground and then he lived for another 30 hours before dying. To answer your specific question, however, there were some very significant missing items from the supposed scene of the suicide. The gun was never found, and the easel, canvas and paints van Gogh took with him when he left the inn a few hours before were never found.”
“Hmmm,” mused Barb. “If I wanted to commit suicide, I’m not sure I would lug a canvas, easel and paints with me.“
“Definitely not a good day for a self-portrait,” added Bernie. “And what was on that canvas, if anything, is what may or may not be insured by Alpha. Is it possible that van Gogh finished a painting in just a few hours?”
“Van Gogh painted amazingly fast,” answered Ozzie. “He spent the 60 last days of his life in Auvers-sur-Oise, about 30 miles from Paris, but, during that time, he completed 70 paintings that we know of, many of them masterpieces.”
“And perhaps one that we don’t know of,” observed Bernie, “which is why we invited you over, Ozzie. Are you in?”
“Are you kidding?” responded Ozzie. “This assignment is beyond my wildest dreams, and, when I am doing my usual scholarly research, I don’t have many of those.”
***
“Hi, Mom, hi Dad,” greeted Melanie Silver. She was a petite woman with the black hair that Bernie used to have and Barb’s blue eyes and even features.
“You look so tired, dear,” said Barb, “but a two-year-old and a three-month-old will do that to you.”
“Lizzie is sleeping through the night now, so that’s huge,” said Melanie, who was a history professor at the local junior college. “But Bobby has stopped taking any naps, which more than makes up for Lizzie’s extended sleep.”
“Can we see them?” asked Bernie.
“So sorry, Dad, but they’re both napping, which is sacred time around here. How about a cup of coffee?”
“Sure,” responded Bernie, “and if you’re looking for a little non-child-care activity during the last part of your maternity leave, your history expertise might help us on our current project.”
They proceeded to the kitchen of the small Palo Alto home Melanie and her husband, Zeke, had been able to buy because a start-up company he worked at had gone public. Melanie made some cappuccinos and said, “I’m not much for detective work, as you know, and specializing in 19th-century European history has pretty much settled that forever. I strongly suspect that all the 19th-century European mysteries have been solved.”
“Let us tell you about one that still may be pending,” said Barb.
After hearing Barb’s account of what they knew about van Gogh’s mysterious death, Melanie said, “Color me skeptical that you can find out anything more than 130 years after the fact, and even more skeptical that I can access my research materials through all the baby paraphernalia. But, in my research on unrecognized females born in 19th-century Europe, I have come across Jo van Gogh-Bonger, who was quite a complex person, very unusual for her time. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
“Keep track of your time,” said Bernie. “Our client has given us an unlimited budget, and mom and I will provide a personal supplement to your pay for the childrens’ college funds.”
“Right now I would be happy to get them into pre-school,” responded Melanie, “which costs more than your college tuition in the ‘60’s.”
***
“We have a new suspect,” said Barb, sitting on the balcony of the condo she and Bernie owned in Olympic Valley, near Lake Tahoe. They had travelled there to take a few scenic hikes while formulating a strategy for finding, if it existed, the vanished van Gogh.
“I’m sure he’s not alive,” said Bernie, “but hopefully he at least died in my favorite century, the twentieth.”
“1956,” responded Barb.
“He had to be fairly young in 1890,” observed Bernie.
“Good deduction!” she said. “In fact, he was a 16-year-old student then. He was from a wealthy family that summered in Auvers-sur-Oise, where van Gogh died.”
“Okay,” said Bernie, “that gives him the opportunity to shoot van Gogh. How about the motive and the means?”
“’Moron’ may be a better word than ‘motive’ in this case,” responded Barb. “This student appears to have been an impulsive fellow, prone to idiotic behavior. Most likely, according to this theory, the shooting was accidental.”
“How so?”
“Well, this spoiled young man--Rene Secretan was his name--had a strange relationship with van Gogh. On the one hand he publicly tormented van Gogh--for example, putting a snake in van Gogh’s paint box--who was an easy target because of his alcoholism, mental illness and eccentricities. On the other hand, Rene did socialize with van Gogh from time to time, usually drinking. Also, Rene occasionally brought to Auvers young women from the Moulin Rouge in Paris--‘cantinieres’ he called them, ‘canteen girls’ in English--and he sometimes introduced these young women to van Gogh.”
“Did Secretan have a gun?” asked Bernie.
“More than that. Secretan had attended the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, which was touring Europe at that time, and he had become obsessed with it. He walked around town in a Buffalo Bill outfit--fringed buckskin tunic and all--which included a small .38 caliber gun.”
“Did the police question Secretan after van Gogh was killed?” Bernie asked.
“The police did not investigate this death very thoroughly. Van Gogh was the local eccentric, and the police bought into the suicide story, probably influenced by Rene Secretan’s father, a prosperous pharmacist. Interestingly, the police couldn’t have questioned Rene, because he disappeared after the shooting, along with the gun, the easel, the paints and the canvas.”
“So, you think it was an accidental homicide and a cover-up for the benefit of the rich teenager, who accidentally killed the town oddball?”
“That’s what’s implied in this book I brought up here,” Barb responded, “a 950-page biography of van Gogh, published in 2012, by two Pulitzer Prize winners. The authors of that book did not buy into the myth created by Jo van Gogh-Bonger. They researched far beyond the letters between Vincent and Theo van Gogh, and they were the ones who advanced this alternate theory of van Gogh’s death.”
Bernie continued his questioning: “Was the community of van Gogh scholars grateful for this new view of the evidence?”
“Not at all. They had all bought into the suicide theory and had been supporting each others’ intellectual theories for years. They viciously attacked the new theory without really refuting any of the evidence. For example, the fatal bullet was lodged in van Gogh’s abdomen at an odd angle. Usually suicides don’t shoot themselves in the stomach, and van Gogh would have had to contort himself to have fired this shot at this angle. Also, the fact that the bullet did not go through van Gogh’s body indicates it was shot from more than an arms-length away, that is, by another person.”
“Then, what does support the suicide theory?”
“Not much,” answered Barb. “Aside from what appears to be a cover-up by one of the richest families in town, there were two statements by van Gogh to the police when he was in a state of delirium.
“The first was in response to the question whether he wanted to commit suicide: ‘Yes, I believe so.’
“The second was in response to the question whether he realized that that was a crime: ‘Do not accuse anyone. It is I who wanted to kill myself.’”
“Those statements are ambiguous at best,” Bernie observed, “Or nonsensical or the products of a delirious mind. So, which theory do you think is right?”
“I guess that’s what we’ve been hired to find out. Whether van Gogh was killed or committed suicide might have implications for where that missing canvas might be, which might make a huge financial difference to Alpha. ‘Follow the money,’ wasn’t that Vlad’s first reaction?”
“We can discuss that with him in a few minutes,” Bernie responded. "He took the tram to the top of the mountain earlier to see the sunset, and he is meeting us at the restaurant up there for dinner.”
***
As Barb and Bernie navigated the big rocks embedded around the approach to the mountaintop restaurant, Ozzie observed them from the entrance. Looking at Bernie, he said “You’re looking spry tonight, Silver.”
Struggling to keep his balance, Bernie replied, “Are you starting again?”
“’Spry’ is a compliment,” rejoined Ozzie.
“Do you call any of your young friends ‘spry’?” asked Bernie.
“You may have a point, Bernie,” responded Ozzie. “What do you think, Barb?”
“’Spry’ is probably a microaggression,” she responded, “something in a particular context that sounds nice but isn’t. Like when you say ‘you look good’ to an elderly person, you might really be thinking ‘I thought you’d be more deteriorated by now.’”
“And,” Bernie added, “as you will find out soon enough, Ozzie, the three ages of man are youth, middle age, and ‘you look good.’”
“I think we all would look good,” said Ozzie, “at the bar on the veranda, under this incredible blanket of stars, undimmed by city lights. To make up for my microaggression, drinks are on me.”
***
“Does this remind you of anything?” Ozzie asked Barb and Bernie as they took in the night sky from the veranda bar while sipping hot buttered rum to counteract the cool mountain air.
“You’re going to have to come up with a harder question if you want to retain your professorship, Vlad,” responded Barb.
“I agree with Barb,” added Bernie. “Even I can guess, given our current investigation, that you have to be referring to van Gogh’s famous painting, ‘Starry Night.’”
“Alpha is lucky that that is not the painting at issue,” said Ozzie. “It’s van Gogh’s most famous work, probably worth more than $250 million.”
“For all we know,” said Barb, “the potentially missing painting is 'Starry Night II', worth even more. Did Bernie mention to you that we learned about a new suspect?”
“He briefly mentioned Rene Secretan, who I agree is a suspicious character,” observed Ozzie. “Secretan gave an interview in 1956, shortly before his death, in which he admitted to abusing van Gogh but did not admit to shooting him. However, the problem is not only that dead men tell no tales, but also that there is no shortage of other suspects.”
“Who might those be?” inquired Bernie.
“Van Gogh’s doctor, for example,” answered Ozzie. “Dr. Gachet--whose famous portrait by van Gogh sold for tens of millions of dollars--did not do much to save his patient after van Gogh returned to the inn where he was staying and where he died. Gachet and his son also reportedly stole six of van Gogh’s paintings that were near his deathbed, something Gachet couldn’t have done had van Gogh survived.”
“Any other suspects?”
“How about the local cleric, Abbot Tessier?” asked Ozzie. “He refused to give van Gogh a Christian burial, supposedly because of the mortal sin of suicide. But keep in mind that van Gogh’s post-impressionist style of painting was very different from the classical tradition, which had very formal rules intended to uphold Christian ideals. The abbot could have been enraged by what appeared to him as van Gogh’s blasphemy, and then the abbot could have engaged in his own private crusade. The abbot’s refusal to allow the funeral to take place in the church meant that van Gogh had to lay in state on a billiard table at the inn where he had been staying.”
“The cleric theory sounds a bit far-fetched,” said Barb.
“Right,” retorted Ozzie, arching his eyebrows, “I forgot that no one has ever killed for religious reasons. Okay, if you don’t like my abbot theory, I have another suspect that you might think is even more far-fetched—Vincent’s brother, Theo.”
“I thought the two brothers were devoted to each other,” said Bernie, “to the extent of hundreds of letters exchanged between them during their short lives, Theo’s financial support of Vincent, and the fact that they’re buried side by side in Auvers-sur-Oise.”
“That’s a fair statement,” said Ozzie, “until Theo married Jo Bonger and started a family. Theo appears to have taken a dimmer view of supporting Vincent when Theo’s own family was in need. And their last meetings and letters demonstrated a lot of family tension. Also, the burial togetherness is a little misleading. Jo van Gogh-Bonger initially had her husband buried in Utrecht in the Netherlands. Only 23 years later did she have his remains exhumed and transferred to be next to Vincent.”
“Your theories are fascinating, Vlad,” said Bernie, “great for a college lecture. Unfortunately, we have to solve this mystery in the real world.”
“Are you starting again, Silver?” asked Ozzie.
“Now, now boys,” interrupted Barb. “I love the history, but, if we’re going to solve this cold case, we need to find some living people to speak with and either some new evidence or some old evidence viewed in a new light.”
Ozzie leaned back, took a sip of his drink and murmured with a smile, “Paris is lovely this time of year.”
***
“I can see why Alpha is concerned,” said Barb, as she walked into the Silvers’ kitchen in Palo Alto carrying a printout.
“Insurance companies are always concerned when they think they might have to pay a claim,” responded Bernie. “What else is new?”
“What’s new,” Barb said, handing the printout to Bernie, “is that Al sent us this insurance policy dated May 30, 1890, two months before Vincent died. It’s much more sophisticated than you would expect, given the relatively lowly state of the van Gogh family at the time.”
“How so?”
“First,” Barb noted, “when the policy was written, Vincent’s 400 or so paintings would have been worth peanuts.”
“Yes,” Bernie agreed, "someone would have had to have a lot of confidence in Vincent, which was totally unjustified at the time.”
“Second,” continued Barb, “the paintings are insured for their replacement value, which is literally millions of times more now than they were worth at the time.”
“Agree again,” said Bernie. “That is the equivalent of buying Apple stock at $1.”
“Third,” Barb added, “although the policy has a ten-year time limit, that time runs only from the time a painting is discovered to be missing.”
“Now that is suspicious,” observed Bernie. “I suppose that the current owner of the policy, Mr. Janssen, can make the case that the painting Vincent was, possibly, working on when he died was not discovered until 2012, when the book came out with strong arguments and proof that Vincent died as a result of homicide, not suicide. Who could have written such a risky policy?”
“I can’t make out the first name, except that it starts with an ‘A,’ because the document has faded with age, but the last name appears to be ‘Bonger.’”
“As in Jo van Gogh-Bonger, Vincent’s sister-in-law?” Bernie inquired.
“I doubt that a female would be selling insurance in 1890,” said Barb, “but there are not enough Bongers in the world to make me think that this is a coincidence.”
“Remind me how Albert Janssen came to possess this policy?” inquired Bernie.
“We don’t know that yet. All we know from Mo Riley is that Janssen had bought a share of the van Gogh letter that was part of Gerard Lhetrier’s Ponzi scheme. Therefore, Janssen’s already collected some insurance money from Alpha. That, no doubt, is why Mo Riley is so concerned with this case.”
“Let’s give Janssen a call,” said Bernie, looking at his watch. “It’s only 9 p.m. in Paris, so he is probably just getting ready for dinner. Great opportunity to practice your college French.”
Barb dialed on her cellphone, and a male voice answered.
“Monsieur Janssen?”
“Oui.”
“Parlez-vous anglais?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Barb Silver. I am doing an investigation into your potential claim against Alpha Insurance Company, and I was hoping you had a moment to speak about that.”
After a moment’s pause, Barb heard a click. “I guess it was too close to his dinnertime,” she said.
***
“Are you sure this isn’t the Palace of Versailles?” asked Bernie, agape at the adjoining suites he, Barb and Ozzie had just checked into at the Hotel de Crillon in Paris. The hotel was an imposing stone edifice, built in 1758, with 15-foot ceilings, fine art, silk draperies and gilded four-poster beds covered with linens exceeding thread counts of 1000.
“In fact,” answered Ozzie, “you’re not too far off. Marie Antoinette stayed here for the last two years of her life.”
“That gives me pause,” said Barb. “Wasn’t she guillotined nearby?”
“Right out front, at the Place de la Concorde,” answered Ozzie, “so, if you see any revolutionaries outside, you should walk the other way. Now that I’ve answered your historical questions, let me ask you an intensely practical one: Are you sure we don’t have to pay for these suites out of our own pockets?”
“When Al Jordan heard we thought a trip to Paris was necessary for our investigation,” responded Bernie, “he reported that to Mo Riley. Not only did she approve, but she had her administrative assistant make the reservations at the Crillon.”
“She called me,” added Barb, “with the suggestion that we meet Simone Rousseau to discuss the case. I guess she wanted Simone to be hosted in style. She’s due here in a few minutes.”
At that point, Barb’s cell phone rang. Looking at the screen, Barb said, “It’s Melanie. Probably a report on Bobby’s first day of pre-school.
“Hello, dear,” she said. “How are the children?” She paused for a moment and then put the phone on speaker, mouthing to Bernie and Ozzie, “She’s calling about the investigation.
“Your dad is here, Melanie, and so is our colleague, Vladimir Osofsky. I didn’t think you had time to help our investigation.”
“The first day of pre-school coincided with the little one miraculously deciding to nap. That gave me a couple of hours, and, as I mentioned earlier, I had done a little research on Jo van Gogh-Bonger as part of my project on females born in the 19th century whose accomplishments have received insufficient recognition. I’ve now looked at that research through the lens of your investigation, and I did find a couple of factoids that you might find of interest.”
“Do tell.”
“Well, I know that your investigation stems from an insurance policy, so I thought it was interesting that Jo van Gogh-Bonger’s father, Johann, was an executive in an insurance company and one of her brothers, Andries, also worked in the insurance business.”
“That is very interesting and helpful, dear,” said Barb. “Anything else?”
“Yes. Andries was living with Theo and Jo in Paris at the time that Theo’s continued support of Vincent was creating tremendous family stress. His proximity actually enabled him to be one of the few attendees at Vincent’s funeral in Auvers-sur-Oise.”
“Wow,” exclaimed Bernie, “just two days ago we were trying to decipher the signature ‘A. Bonger’ on the insurance policy we’re investigating. This is our best clue yet, sweetie. Thank you so much.”
“One more thing, which may or may not be significant,” added Melanie. “Jo had another brother, named Willem.”
“Was he in the insurance business too?” inquired Ozzie.
“No. He was one of the most distinguished criminologists of his time.”
***
Magically, a few moments later, several butlers appeared with elaborate trays of hors d’oeuvres and several bottles of Dom Perignon Rose Champagne. When the doorbell to the Silvers’ suite rang a few minutes later, Barb got up to respond but was not nearly as fast as one of the young butlers, who escorted Simone Rousseau into the suite and announced her name with great dignity.
Barb and she embraced and kissed each other's cheeks. Simone did the same with Ozzie, whom she had known for years and whom she had retained for the previous investigation concerning the Mona Lisa.
Barb then said, “So nice to see you, Simone. Allow me to introduce my husband and business partner, Bernard.”
Shaking Bernie’s hand, Rousseau said, “What a pleasure to meet the guardian of the Mona Lisa. But your friends call you Bernie, no?”
“Please do that,” said Bernie. “May I pour you some champagne?”
As she took a glass from a waiting butler, she smiled and said, “What would be great is if you could tell me how I can be of help to what I understand is a very interesting investigation. The combination of your help to me on the Mona Lisa case and my high respect for Maureen Riley makes me want to offer any assistance I can.”
They recounted what they knew, culminating with the abrupt end to their phone conversation with Albert Janssen that brought them to Paris.
“Ah, Albert,” Rousseau said. “You have to keep your eye on him.”
“You know him?” asked Barb.
“There are many people who want to associate in one way or the other with the Louvre, my dear, and, being the Director, I meet them all—or, at least, the most wealthy—at one time or another. Albert is quite wealthy, which is why he can afford to live just a few blocks from your elegant hotel.”
“Great,” said Ozzie. “We can go over there and have a stimulating discussion about van Gogh’s last painting.”
“That will probably go as well as Barb’s telephone call,” said Rousseau. “Why don’t I invite him to my office—an invitation that is never declined—and you three can, coincidentally, be there when he arrives. In the meantime, your investigation has stimulated some thoughts about Jo van Gogh-Bonger, who was a very complicated woman. Would you like me to share them with you?”
“Wonderful,” said Barb, as Rousseau took some papers out of her Hermes handbag, spilling a little of her champagne in the process.
Trying to be gallant, Bernie bent over with his napkin to wipe the spill, but was several seconds behind one of the ever-vigilant butlers. “Pardon,” said Rousseau. “Knowing the champagne they serve here, that spill probably cost several hundred francs.”
“If we discover a new van Gogh,” said Bernie, “the cost of 100 magnums of this champagne won’t even be a rounding error. What we know so far about Jo van Gogh-Bonger is somewhat suspicious, so we are anxious for a true scholar like yourself to add to our knowledge.”
“She is highly unusual,” responded Rousseau, “very much a creature of her times in some ways and not in others. We didn’t know much about her until 2009, when her diaries were released by her family to a Dutch scholar, who has now written a book, in Dutch, about her.”
“What took so long?” asked Barb.
“Of course, we can’t really know,” answered Rousseau, “but keep in mind that she lived in Victorian times. While a widow, she had had a romantic relationship with an artist, Isaac Israels, and her family may not have wanted the details of that to be public.”
”One can hardly blame her,” Ozzie chimed in, “Theo had died from syphilis many years before.”
“True,” said Rousseau. “After Theo’s death in 1891 from that disease, which was all too common at that time, she was a poor widow, with an infant child, whom, to make this case even more bizarre, she and Theo named Vincent. The art world at that time was completely male-dominated. When she started to try to promote Vincent’s art, one person she went to was a well-known artist named Richard Holst. I am sure that his reaction to her, recorded in one of his letters, was typical: ‘Mrs. van Gogh is a charming woman, but it irritates me when someone fanatically raves about something they don’t understand.’”
“Things haven’t changed all that much,” noted Ozzie.
“Correct,” responded Rousseau, “but, against all odds, she succeeded in creating Vincent’s legend, in large part because of the hundreds of Vincent’s letters that she published. She insured that the brothers would be side by side for eternity by burying Theo next to Vincent.”
“But didn’t that happen much later?” asked Barb.
“23 years after Theo died,” said Rousseau, “ and after Vincent had posthumously become famous.”
“We should take a look at those graves,” said Barb.
“I doubt that we’ll find fresh footprints,” said Ozzie.
“Nothing is fresh in this cold case,” said Bernie. “In fact, nothing is colder than a case that everyone thinks was solved in 1890. But one sliver of hope is that all the suspects—Jo, Theo, Rene Secretan, the priest, Dr. Gachet—are amateurs. It’d be unusual for them to commit homicide—especially accidental homicide—without leaving a clue.”
“I admire your boldness, Mr. Silver,” said Rousseau, holding up her glass. “Here’s to the world’s oldest clue, wherever it is. Also, you might want to add to your suspect list Rene Secretan’s older brother, Gaston.”
“Did he dress up as a cowboy too?” asked Bernie.
“No,” answered Rousseau. Rene was the wild, macho one and Gaston was the sensitive, gentle one. Vincent caroused with Rene and had soulful conversations with Gaston, who did not end up, like Rene, as a successful businessman, but rather as a cabaret singer. Like Jo, perhaps he would have been better off not having been born in the Victorian era.”
“Was Gaston in Auvers-sur-Oise that summer and did he also disappear after Vincent’s death?” asked Barb.
“Yes,” replied Rousseau. “…and I’ve read enough American detective stories to know that you always have to watch out for the quiet ones.”
***
To call Simone Rousseau’s workplace at the Louvre an office was like calling the Champs-Elysees a country road. The office was at least 25 yards long, adorned with masterpieces from every era.
“This is not an office,” said Bernie, wide-mouthed. “I have an office in our home, and it barely fits pictures drawn for us by our grandchildren.”
Rousseau beamed, as she explicated some of the paintings and sculptures. “I would love to teach a seminar here,” said Ozzie.
“We can arrange that,” responded Rousseau, “…if you find the vanished van Gogh.”
“Probably the best thing for our insurance company client,” said Barb, “is if that vanished van Gogh never existed in the first place. Then they owe Mr. Albert Janssen nothing.”
“Ah, but if you find it,” observed Rousseau, “the insurance company also owes nothing. The owner of the policy at that point just owns a piece of old paper, and the painting will go to the museum where the Bonger family left the rest of the paintings that they owned, The van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. I am hopeful that The van Gogh Museum will loan it to the Louvre for a while in gratitude for our help In this matter.”
At that point, Rousseau’s intercom buzzed, and her secretary announced, “Monsieur Janssen to see you, Madame.”
“Bring him in,” she said. Then, to Barb, Bernie and Ozzie she added, “Hold on to your wallets. This fellow’s a real operator.”
***
Albert Janssen—pale, with slicked-back salt and pepper hair—was surprised when he saw that Rousseau had three other guests. Barb, Bernie and Ozzie were also surprised because they had expected an older person in a suit and tie, not someone with a youthful appearance wearing designer jeans and an expensive leather jacket over a midnight blue silk shirt. As Janssen bent to kiss Rousseau’s hand, Bernie mouthed the words “nouveau riche” to Barb and Ozzie.
“I thought that I would have the pleasure of meeting with you alone, Madame Director,” Janssen said to Rousseau in French.
“I thought you would want to meet some dear American friends of mine,” she replied in English, “Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Silver and Professor Vladimir Osofsky of Stanford University.”
“Of course, I know of Professor Osofsky through his incisive publications on abstract impressionism,” Janssen responded with great formality, shifting to English.
“Thank you,” said Ozzie. “I’m now doing some research on van Gogh.”
As the penny dropped, Janssen began waging a losing battle to maintain his hauteur. He said, “I don’t believe, however, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting the…”
“…Silvers,” said Rousseau. “Actually, I think you may have had a short telephone conversation with Mrs. Silver.”
Janssen now dropped all pretense of cordiality. “If you have trapped me here to talk about the insurance policy I own, I have to tell you that I have been advised by my lawyers to say nothing about it.”
“If that is the case,” rejoined Rousseau, “I regret to inform you that my lawyers have advised me not to continue negotiating the purchase of that Rembrandt etching you and I have been discussing.”
Obviously discomfited--because he had been negotiating an excellent price for the Rembrandt--Janssen said, “Perhaps we shouldn’t be so hasty. I might be willing to answer a non-legal question or two about this insurance policy.”
Bernie broke in immediately. “How did you come to possess the policy?”
“That’s an easy question,” responded Janssen, “one I’m sure my lawyers would not mind me answering. I am a distant relative of Jo van Gogh-Bonger. That is why I purchased a share—I thought a tenth, but it turned out to be a hundredth—of the van Gogh letter that Mr. Lheritier was offering as part of what appears to have been his Ponzi scheme. When I saw how highly that letter was valued, I took some time to go through some dusty bins in my attic, and—voila—I found this policy around 2010.”
“What made you think it had any value?” asked Barb.
“Nothing. I thought it was a curiosity and nothing more until last year, when I finally got around to reading that recent biography of Vincent that raised what seemed like legitimate questions about his death, including the fact that the canvas he was carrying with him at the time of his death was never found. Then I tried to contact the original insurance company, which had been acquired several times over since 1890, most recently by Alpha Insurance Company. When I contacted a claims person at Alpha, his alarmed reaction told me that I was onto something.”
“I would say you are onto nothing,” said Bernie. “There’s no painting.”
“Nice gambit, Mr. Silver,” said Janssen as he rose to leave the office. “But no one knows that with certainty. I agree that, if the painting existed, I would not have a claim. What I have is much better: circumstantial evidence that a painting did exist and cannot be found. Given how fast Vincent worked, it is likely that that canvas turned into his last painting on that fateful day. As my good friend, Simone here would, I am sure, agree, such evidence would likely persuade a French court in a case brought by a French citizen against an American insurance company.”
“But—” Bernie started to reply, as Janssen approached the office door.
“I think my claim is worth $150 million,” Janssen said as he strode toward the door, "but please tell Alpha that I’d accept $100 million to end the matter now, with no questions asked.
“A great pleasure to meet you,” he concluded, as he closed the office door firmly behind him.
***
To be concluded with Part II, which will be published October 25, 2021
Copyright Ron Katz, 2021
