I looked around desperately for an invisible corner, dimly aware that whoever had just driven up to the fonderie was taking care to go unnoticed. I was tempted by the darkness behind the blacksmith’s anvil—but if they turned on the overhead lights, I would be as obvious as a beetle in a bowl.

I trotted through the room to the hallway and pushed open the door to the first workers’ room, just far enough that I could slip inside if need be. But I stayed in the corridor, so I could eavesdrop on the foundry itself.

The heavy outer padlock gave a ponderous rattle. The big door creaked as one side swung open, then shut. Footsteps and low voices came—speaking English, rather than French. “I don’t want to put on the main lights, they might see them from the house.” It was hard to tell, with the voice pitched so low, but I thought it was Rafe Ainsley. Definitely not an American.

“You have a key?” This man’s low voice seemed to have an accent. Russian?

“Yes, I had a copy made.”

A torch went on, bright for a moment, before dimmed by a cupped hand.

Two sets of feet crossed the floor. I retreated as the shadows danced closer—but they had no reason to come back here, where the dust said nobody had been for years. Surely they were headed to the locked room…and yes, the footsteps ceased. A sound of fumbling, then, “Hold this” as the light spun about and went still again. I eased my head sideways just far enough to see the two figures standing at the padlocked door. Rafe Ainsley, his hands working the key.

And with the torch, Count Vasilev.

The lock clicked, the door opened, and closed after them. Voices started up again—but I could not make out the words.

Damnation.

If I pressed my ear up to the door and it came open, I would be caught. Was it worth the risk? Or, perhaps there was another way…

Back in the one-time living quarters, I aimed my shielded light at the wall. As I thought, there had originally been an opening, boarded off, rather than filled in. The old wood proved no barrier to sound—and, I noticed as I moved closer, I could even see a narrow sliver of the room beyond through the cracks.

“—not meet in the town,” the Russian was saying.

“Because I don’t think we want people to see us meeting any more than would seem natural, and who’s going to come here, in the middle of the night?”

“You have them packed? All of them?”

“They’re in the crates.”

“I wish to see one, please.”

“I don’t know why. You know what they look like. But—hold on, let me do it.”

Noises followed, remarkably similar to those Holmes and I had made in the smuggler’s cave. Then: “Here—careful, it’s heavy.”

“Yes. And rough.”

“What, you expected me to send them to the patineur?”

I moved my eye from one crack to another, until I found Count Vasilev. I couldn’t quite see what he had in his hands until he moved, and I glimpsed a dark, dull shape a foot or so tall. His arms were braced to hold it, confirming its solidity, and his left thumb was rubbing along the base.

Then the other man’s hands came into view, taking the piece and turning away with it. The rustling sounds were followed by a tapping of nails. Not a lot of nails—just enough to discourage someone from idly lifting the lid.

“You won’t have any problem, when you get them?” asked the Russian.

“The first shipment arrived with no trouble at all, and I haven’t heard of any with the second. So, unless the ship goes down, which it won’t because we’re not at war these days, it should be fine.”

“You think this is a joke?”

“No, I don’t think it’s a bloody joke. What I do think is a joke is how you expect me to manage without your friend Niko. Unless you want to get your own hands dirty, I’m going to need another five thousand, to make up for doing it on my own.”

“I will give you half that. And the other half when these are shipped.”

“Fair enough, I suppose. Another week, ten days.”

“Ten days? But these are ready now.”

“And have to pay for another lot of shipping? It’s cheaper to wait till I’ve cleaned and packed up the pieces I’m doing tomorrow.”

“Send these now. You can send your new pieces with the next ones.”

“Next ones? You mean there’s more?”

“Yes.”

“Where the devil are you getting the stuff?”

“That is of no importance.”

“I know—none of my business. But if we’re doing this again, it’ll need to be in the next month, since I have to be in New York by the middle of September. And you’ll have to come up with another distraction like those fireworks, to empty out this place. Plus, I can’t do it without another Niko.”

“I will consider a distraction. And I may have another man. One who can be trusted.”

“I liked Niko. Poor bastard. I don’t suppose you know who shot him?”

“They say it was the woman Hudson.”

“I know what they’re saying, but she really didn’t strike me as the sort. More likely it’s some other criminal. I mean, if the fellow was carrying around stuff like that for you, God knows what he was doing for other people.”

“It is true, Niko worked with criminals. Which is why it is better to ship this now, not wait.”

“You may be right. Okay, I’ll put in another layer and then write the shippers, try and have them picked up next week. Assuming I have that second money.”

“Fifty thousand francs if you ship them tomorrow.”

“Make it Thursday—I have to finish packing them, and I’ll be too busy tomorrow. Speaking of which, can we go? I have to come in early to start the oven, and I’d like a few hours of sleep first.”

The light went off in the crack. Footsteps, doors, the padlock. The men left the foundry; I heard the car start up and drive away. I waited for a time, in case they returned or Monsieur Ferrant came to investigate, but the only sound was mice in the rafters.

The shiny padlock was a simple one, and I was soon inside the locked room, looking down at six very solid wooden crates. Two were empty. The other four had their lids lightly nailed down. I prised up one of the tops.

Under the excelsior shavings was a remarkably ugly bronze lump, the shape of a large head. As modern art went, it was, as the Count had said, rough—even cruder than the Caliban pieces I had seen in Rafe’s workshop. Still, there was a certain appeal in the deliberate bluntness of the thing, as if it was a matter of design rather than lack of care. Some of that crudeness might disappear in the finishing process, I thought—the octopus-leg sprues had been hacked off, leaving ugly little stubs, but the base-like pouring funnels were still in place. The dull surface still showed signs of the plaster mould, giving little hint of the bronze patina waiting beneath. I took the next one from the crate, and found it similar—no, not similar: identical, down to the marks of the carving knife in the original. So was the third, and all the rest in that layer, and the one beneath.

That, I thought, was odd. Ten identical figures, squat and unlovely, with little detail and no finish work. Did that count as art? By a man who regarded a gallery as a necessary evil?

I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t these primitive, mass-produced hunks of bronze. The conversation I had heard made it clear that Rafe and the Count were up to something criminal. And since it involved Niko, it was most likely smuggling, but of what—and how?

The statues were statues: no seams, plugs, or openings that I could find. They were a lot heavier than the head of Sara, but then, they were nearly twice the height, and still had the bases attached.

There could be no reason to smuggle mere lumps of bronze. I looked at the crate, built of hefty reinforced boards, and sighed.

Forty minutes later, I decided that no, there was nothing in the crates but the boards, the nails holding them together, excelsior packing, and twenty identical bronze figures.

The sculptures could, I supposed, have secret pockets within, but for what purpose? I doubted cocaine or diamonds would survive those temperatures. What was I not seeing?

The piece, though crude, did resemble some modern sculptures, most notably those of the Spaniard Picasso. I’d seen the man’s studio, and privately thought his sculpting technique, like his method with oil paints, consisted of slapping and hacking at the medium for a few minutes and calling it done.

Could that resemblance be the point? Could the two be planning to sell these as Picasso originals? The Spaniard’s name had become big enough to start attracting forgeries—especially if there were an ocean between the artist and the buyer. And Rafe had said these were headed for America.

Open counterfeits did not fit my impression of Rafe Ainsley, whose ego was even greater than his talent. But odd jealousies and creative revenges were as rife in the art world as they were in finance or academia, and perhaps if the goal was to undercut the value of a genuine Picasso…

I shook my head, and shoved statues and wood-shavings back into the crate. On my way out, I took another look at the small crucible Rafe hadn’t wanted me to touch, but it was just a crucible, unused and uninformative.

I put it back, and decided that I simply didn’t know enough about bronze to tell what I was looking at. Perhaps tomorrow would remedy that.