The rain had stopped falling by the time I reached home.
Before coming home, I’d found an online lecture given by Dr. Graves and a press conference featuring Detective Vega, to see if either of those voices had been that of the woman who’d called Dante. They weren’t.
I’d also completed the task that brought me to the Flamels’ house in the first place: pulling Perenelle aside to tell her about how Renaissance White was worried about a competitor wanting their painting to test for paint formulations. She agreed it was best not to continue with Veronica’s art lessons until we were certain the killer wouldn’t be back.
There were two more women I was interested in. Willow Matsumoto and April Salazar from Renaissance White. But first, I needed to get Dorian caught up. I needed his help, but I didn’t want him unintentionally doing anything dangerous. In the past, he’d managed to do quite a lot while armchair detecting in the attic.
“Was that Brixton I saw riding his bike down the street?” I asked Dorian as I locked up behind me.
“He came by to check on the garden. This is what he told me, at least. I believe he was bored.”
“Because Veronica has some new art friends.”
“I would not worry too much about the boy. We have a painting to retrieve and a murder to solve.”
“About that,” I said. “I think I know what’s going on. Renaissance White has competitors, and they’re worried these competitors might have stolen their painting for their paint formulations.”
“Aha!”
“Aha?”
“It was as I suspected! Recipes are key.”
“But a paint chemist can’t simply wave a modern spectroscope—or whatever the technology is called—at a painting and know how to recreate it.”
“Of course,” said Dorian. “Recipes require training, not simply mimicking a finished product. You appear worried, mon amie.”
“I am worried. Worried that the thief took the paintings because he doesn’t know any better. If he’s an amateur rather than a big corporate competitor. He might destroy the paintings in trying to get at a paint recipe that’s impossible to figure out in isolation, or we could still be in danger when he finds out he can’t get what he’s after—which might already be the case.”
“You have seen someone who might be Arthur Finder lurking about?”
“I don’t know if it’s him,” I said, “but there’s a woman who’s been asking around about the Flamels.”
“A woman?”
“‘Arthur Finder’ might have been a clever alias after all. We were so distracted by the tongue-in-cheek name that we forgot to think about the fact that he might not be a man at all.”
“Mon dieu. You are most correct! A trap far too obvious for the great Dorian Robert-Houdin to have fallen for. I am quite ashamed.” He tucked the tips of his wings, giving much the same effect of him hanging his head.
Dorian did, indeed, think of himself as “the great” Dorian Robert-Houdin. Since he’d lived such an isolated life, I was glad for his healthy ego. As long as it didn’t go too far. So far, his ideas had served us well during our investigations. He focused his energy on cooking at the house, baking for Blue Sky Teas, and researching crimes we’d become embroiled in. I was glad he hadn’t raised the idea of publishing any of the Gothic novels he’d started writing. It’s not like he could give author interviews as a gargoyle.
“We all made that assumption,” I assured him. “A woman called the Flamels’ neighbors and said she was an art collector interested in investing in Perenelle’s artwork, but she wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything she should know about Perenelle that would lower the value of the work.”
“Intéressant.”
“I found a recording of one of Gwendolyn Graves’s lectures, and a press conference where Detective Vega spoke, and played them both for Dante, and he said it wasn’t either of them. But there are two other women involved—”
“The women of Renaissance White,” said Dorian. “I believe it is time for you to visit them once more.”