Céline and Gil in the Kitchen, Mougins 2014

GIL CAME ROARING UP ON his Ducati, not stopping when he reached the gravel parking lot. He rode right across the impeccable grassy lawns and headed straight for the renovation site of the mas.

The effect on the workmen was immediate. They were so astonished that they simply stopped what they’d been doing, and we all watched, dumbfounded, unable to take our eyes off Gil as he madly vroomed right up to the construction site, then careened to an abrupt stop right where we were standing.

Meanwhile, Aunt Matilda and Peter had arrived back at the mas, hungry for lunch. They discovered Martin on the terrace, who told them where I was. The three of them came over to fetch me to lunch, and I hastily took Aunt Matilda aside to tell her what I’d discovered—maybe.

But now I experienced a familiar pang of doubt—Lord, what if I’m completely wrong about this? My batting average so far had been spectacularly bad. Then as Gil jumped off the bike and hurried toward us, I felt a strange, defiant sense of confidence. Something that Madame Sylvie had told me now popped back into my head: Ondine didn’t do anything in the usual way. She was fearless about trying the unexpected, putting this-with-that. It not only made her a great chef; it made her a “femme très formidable”.

“Céline,” Gil said, sounding both alarmed and yet impressed by the sheer audacity of the situation, “what the hell? We’re going to break into a wall because—why?”

“Look at this cupboard. Your workman say it’s unusual, because although it’s made of wood, its interior seems to be lined with aluminum. They discovered this when they ripped off some old wood at the very top—the ‘roof’ of it, so to speak—which was badly deteriorated. That’s when they found the aluminum lining beneath it.” This, I’d realized, explained why the rain made music when it struck the exposed metal; and now the sunlight was reflecting off it.

“Odd,” Gil agreed.

“And look,” Martin piped up, scratching with his fingernail to flick off a chunk of white paint. “There’s blue paint underneath! Céline says she’s been looking for hidden treasure in a blue cupboard.”

Now I was embarrassed, but I soldiered on, saying, “Well, the point is, the whole thing is very intriguing. See right here—somebody sealed up the door of this cupboard ages ago with cement or something, the way you close up an old fireplace. So it hasn’t been used in years. Gil, I’ve just got to see what’s inside!”

But the foreman of the crew exhibited his displeasure by rapping sharply on the cupboard so that Gil could hear the hollow, empty sound behind it. “Rien. Nothing’s in there!” the man objected.

Gil looked from him to me, then made up his mind to get this over with quickly, so he crisply ordered the foreman, “Break it open.” The workman raised his eyebrows, but Gil nodded firmly.

“Carefully!” I warned. “Don’t let them just hack into it and hurt what’s inside!”

“Très doucement,” Gil told the workman who’d picked up his tools to force it open.

Seeing the resolute look on Gil’s face, the man began to carefully chip away at the sealed edges of the cupboard’s outer frame where it met the door. I watched as the wood trim splintered and gave way. Then there was some discussion about whether the men ought to break off the hinges of the door or just try to swing them open. But while they were deciding, one of the workers discovered that the wooden door was already crumbling away from the hinges, so he was able to pry it off with his crowbar.

We all stared at the interior of the cupboard, which indeed appeared to be an aluminum shaft. It didn’t really look like a cupboard at all, because it had no shelves.

“C’est vide,” the foreman said in a tone of perplexed satisfaction.

Empty, yes. No pots and pans. No leftover canisters of salt and pepper. No mops and brooms.

And no Picasso.

Gil grabbed a flashlight from a workman and shone it at the interior. I glimpsed some ropes and pulleys, until Gil suddenly blocked the whole thing with his body as he stuck his head right into the cupboard and flashed his light down it. When he spoke, his voice sounded muffled.

“Ceci n’est pas a cupboard,” he said positively. “It’s a professional, restaurant-sized dumbwaiter.”

“A dumbwaiter!” I echoed.

He withdrew his head and scanned the exterior again; then, he ran his fingers along the frame until he found what he was looking for—an embedded stainless-steel square button that had also been painted over. He pressed the button and paused expectantly, like a man waiting for an elevator.

Nothing happened. “An early electric model,” he said, sticking his head back in it, shining his flashlight below. “Nicely insulated, though.”

“If that thing starts moving now, you’ll get guillotined,” I warned.

Gil remained where he was. “It’s stuck down there. The dumbwaiter goes all the way down to the old wine and root cellar. I can see the cab sitting there at the bottom of the shaft,” he reported.

“Il s’est déplacé!” Aunt Matilda said suddenly to me. “That’s what Madame Sylvie told you. Maybe, when she passed her hand over her face and said those words, it wasn’t that a ‘cupboard’ had ‘moved’ away from the premises, as we thought. Maybe it was a dumbwaiter that had simply moved on its track, from up here in the old kitchen, down to the unfinished cellar below,” she added, nodding sagely.

“Who the hell is Madame Sylvie?” Gil pulled his head out of the dumbwaiter shaft and now stared at the two of us as if we’d completely lost our minds. I shrugged off his question.

“Never mind. We’ve got to get down there and check it out!” I insisted. “Now.”

With all the construction going on, the cellar below was a formidable, gaping black pit. The foreman warned, “The old staircase, it is not safe for you to walk on.”

“Then we’ll use that ladder over there,” Gil said decisively.

The crowd of workers parted as we reached the ladder. All the while, perhaps because of their skeptical faces, a voice in my head kept warning me, “But why would Grandmother Ondine have thrown a priceless Picasso down there?”