Historia nuntia vetustatis

Seeing Frederic Kothen the investigator coming in, I thought his intention was questioning me -- but I was wrong.

The investigator was with someone. His mate, the dark-bearded man in the undone overcoat, bared his teeth in a sort of a polite grin – or a predatory smile -- when seeing all of us at the table. Anton Schubert the police officer from Brumburg. Neither of the two policemen wanted me in particular, this time.

Salutations passed – with the hostess standing up and turning pale – and the visitors said that they came on business being at the top of an investigation of a special importance. They asked all the guests specify names, trades and addresses.

None of us had anything to object, even the foreign actors. The interrogation took place immediately in the dining-room where the furniture, space and lighting, all was convenient for it. Personal identification of each of us was careful, with our hostess being the last in the list. The dull routine for the interested and busy officials, it was an event too extraordinaire for the house to look dull for us, and yet it's needless to dilate. We felt excited, having no inkling what the police was getting at and what was about to happen, and not daring to object or resist – none of us dared, even I the foreigner and Kasimir-Theodor the host. When it was my Aunt Leticia's turn to be questioned, she looked quite herself, but the investigators were not about to proceed with her.

Satisfied with the identification, Anton Schubert let the guests go, and he asked my Aunt Leticia and all of us, her adult relatives, to go to a living-room for a talk.

What we learned from the talk, when we all were in our family circle, shocked each of us.

It turned out that the investigators didn't want me, because they came for Leticia.

After all of us took seats in the drawing-room, Anton Schubert, who remained standing in front of us, along with Frederic Kothen, announced, turning to Leticia, "Madame! You are charged with fraud. If I were you I'd not deny the obvious. All the more that you know the fraud is on a large scale, and your partner is taken into custody."

We all jumped up from our seats and stared at the policemen; she blushed, keeping silence. We demanded Anton Schubert's explanation. The following is what he told about this case.

Aunt Leticia learned of the clinic of Dr Jacob Bey-Nasar, last year, but she had not money for the expensive procedures. However, how exactly long ago she learned of the clinic remained unknown. No matter. Preoccupied with her aging, she suffered, but how much and how long no matter. Anyway, one day in the past winter, she found something that virtually set off the incriminated affair.

The finding was a box in the attic of the Italian Outhouse. Mossy, spider-web covered, the box had a heap of old paintings. The canvases were three dozens and they looked unquestionably old. Her friend Anna Sneghin was an artist, talented but unsuccessful, and the artist could understand the paintings better.

Remember, my reader, Anna's beloved one died after she made his portrait; his sister could not survive his death and killed herself by falling out of window; grief-stricken, the late girl's friend committed the same kind of suicide. Thus, three deaths made Anna ill-reputed in many respects, and rumour had it some bankers or businessmen commissioned somebody else's portraits at hers in order to exterminate competitors, but this last seemed a mere rumour, since Anna remained in reduced circumstances on the day, when Anna and Leticia first saw each other in Brumburg. It was the time when Leticia worked on her first book publishing. Now, seeing the old box of old canvases, Leticia decided to ask Anna's advice.

In due time, seeing the old pictures, Anna said that it was a cheap stuff by an obscure Dutch artist Verreimik. A box of daub, inartistic painting. Dutch Baroque painting landscapes, still life. Disappointment. But one of the two friends invented a new business, or it was someone, whom they tried to sell the box, hinted about the profitable business. A person of the instigator remained obscure for the investigation thus far. Their designed business was in the following.

Each of the old paintings was to be remade by Anna Sneghin, with the real signature of the forgotten Dutch artist remaining. Then the transformed canvas got to hands of experts. The experts were found via Leticia's old friend Mr Lundstrom. He and the King of Cyprus, Jacques de Lusignan were chief experts of the Affair --virtually, both the old men were experts with a world reputation; merely, few people in the world knew that Mr Lundstrom was in ward of his far cousin, being mentally ill. (Few people again knew that his illness didn't prevent him to remain an excellent professional, in fact, as I learned later. Mr Lundstrom could realize that he participated at a fraud, but the remakes looked a work so beautiful and verisimilar to the past epoch that he did his work anyway. However, his reason could be the other, more fanciful.) The third expert was one negotiator whose name told me that it was the very fat guy Hektor, my mate in the smoking room of the Monocle Club on the Island Shardana. Hearing his name, I thought to myself, "Why not? I knew the fat man was a fine art negotiator from Russian Empire." Mr Lundstrom was the very one who signed all the documents concerning examination of the paintings. The King… De Lusignan stated that he only did commendations, which evidence made arrest of all the accomplices difficult, for the time being. Summing up:

the old paintings + Anna's talent + experts = a great deal of money.

The discovery of the "forgotten old master" made a world wide sensation. The fine art market had been flooded with the faked masterpieces. The corporation of the five sharers profited from the affair. One of them, Aunt Leticia had the money for the expensive procedures. Things went smoothly. But it could not be for long.

In case if Leticia Lisnyak kept silence in the course of the investigation, on the day of the visit of the police to the Lisnyaks, the only one who could give his evidence about everything in the affair was one Mr Shvets, the negotiator, who could have all threads of the case in his hands and whom the Police of several countries wanted most of all. Hearing the name, I thought to myself, "Perhaps, we've had a chance to see the man today. Shvets – Taylor. One word in two different languages." But I didn't share my linguistic conclusion and I was not about to do it.

To assist the investigation whose task was catching my Aunt Leticia, who virtually killed nobody? Why on earth? Her thievery was solely to the rich, after all. Big money, but nothing wrong was caused to anybody of the poor or my friends. Needless to say that all the sharers at the Verreimik Affair had had time to take enough to be able to flee far away or hire good lawyers.

The next act of the play in our drawing-room was predicable and artless as life itself, looking old as the world.

As soon as the investigator finished, Leticia's sons turned to her, praying to say that the policemen were mistaken, that it's someone's error or a mere misunderstanding. But she kept silence, frozen in her chair, and never glancing at her sons. Then Anton Schubert said, "…Time will not palter with the real state of the case… We know that you, Madame, were enforced to participate at the fraud. Be genuine and you can expect leniency. Meanwhile, get ready to go along with us."

She rose and said, "I have to go to my room."

It went without saying. Accompanied by her sons, she went to her room, where she asked her sons to leave her alone for a while. The investigators showed their intention to stay at her closed room door, and we joined them.

A quarter later, Anton Schubert looked at his watch and asked us to knock at the door.

Knocking on the room door of my Aunt, and not receiving a reply, I gave place to Kasimir-Theodor. He opened the door a crack and peeped inside.

Silence in reply to his call. Then we came in, and saw Leticia was nowhere in her room.

The investigators dashed in the room and saw the opened window with curtains flying in the wind.

Clem picked up a white cambric handkerchief and stared at the embroidery, the familiar letters LL in the centre of a circle of the cabbalistic word "abracadabra" known as a strong amulet. Nothing enigmatic, it was his mother's thing.

When my eyes swept her room for the final time, I said the poem in French known from my childhood --

"Dans ma cabane obscure

Toujours soucis nouveaux;

Vent, soleil, ou froidure,

Toujours peine et travaux!"

(In my dim hut, new chores all alone; wind, sunshine or cold, anyway, chores and labour!) Meaning nothing in particular, or something of the following: Clem's past misfortunes, or his future, or his elder brother's chores, or their mother, who proved to be much more busy and gumptious than we believed – not sure. In the meantime, after a careful search, the investigators saw Leticia nowhere in the Lesyinesmagi Manor Estate.

Taking some of her clothes, the lady had fled -- again. None of us was a sulky child who hugged his miseries, but my cousins were somewhat motherless once again -- merely, we knew her possible hiding places this time, with none of us about to let know the police.

Quiet, as though burnt in a pink flame, the clouds, gossamer in the air, the icy blue waters of the Lake like a young sea, all promised bad weather and light night frost.

At the sunset, the Lake looked red and the forest black. Mews and swifts flew cutting the air, with the mews white and loud as day, and the swifts black and silent as night… However, the black birds could be others, not swifts.

"When you are at home, even the walls help."

The stranger, who arrived after dark, introduced himself, "Valerian Anselm de Noitre, friend of Bruno Schwarzwälder."