The English Assassin

clothing, and in the dim light he could see the luminous skin of her shoulder glowing against the bedding. Gabriel dropped the newspaper on the bed next to her.
    Exhaustion pounced on him. He needed to sleep. But where? On the bed? Next to Anna? Next to the daughter of Augustus Rolfe? How much did she know? What secrets did her father keep from her? What secrets had she kept from Gabriel?
    He thought of the words Julian Isherwood had said to him in London: “Assume at all times that she knows more about her father and his collection than she’s telling you. Daughters tend to be very protective of their fathers, even when they think their fathers are complete bastards.” No, he thought—he would not be sleeping next to Anna Rolfe. In the closet he found an extra blanket and a spare pillow, and he made a crude bed for himself on the floor. It was like lying on a slab of cold marble. He reached up and blindly patted the duvet, searching for the newspaper. Quietly, so as not to wake her, he opened it. On the front page was a story about the murder in Lyons of the Swiss writer Emil Jacobi.

28
    VIENNA
     
    I T WAS DUSKwhen Eli Lavon telephoned Gabriel’s hotel room. Anna stirred, then drifted back into an uneasy sleep. During the afternoon, she had kicked away her blankets, and her body lay exposed to the cold air seeping through the half-open window. Gabriel covered her and went downstairs. Lavon was sitting in the parlor, drinking coffee. He poured some for Gabriel and handed him the cup.
    “I saw your friend Emil Jacobi on the television today,” Lavon said. “Seems someone walked into his apartment in Lyons and slashed his throat.”
    “I know. What did you hear from New York?”
    “It’s believed that between 1941 and 1944, Augustus Rolfe acquired a large number of Impressionist and Modern paintings from galleries in Lucerne and Zurich—paintings that a few years before had hung in Jewish-owned galleries and homes in Paris.”

    “What a surprise,” Gabriel murmured. “A large number? How many?”
    “Unclear.”
    “He purchased them?”
    “Not exactly. It’s thought that the paintings acquired by Rolfe were part of several large exchanges carried out in Switzerland by agents of Hermann Göring.”
    Gabriel remembered things Julian Isherwood had told him about the ravenous collecting habits of the Reichsmarschall. Göring had enjoyed unfettered access to the Jeu de Paume, where the confiscated art of France was stored. He had taken possession of hundreds of Modern works to use as barter for the Old Masters works he preferred.
    “It’s rumored that Rolfe was allowed to purchase the paintings for only a nominal sum,” Lavon said. “Something far below their fair value.”
    “So if that were the case, the acquisitions would have been entirely legal under Swiss law. Rolfe could say that he purchased them in good faith. And even if the paintings were stolen property, he would be under no legal obligation to return them.”
    “So it would appear. The question we should be asking is this: Why was Augustus Rolfe allowed to buy paintings that passed through the hands of Hermann Göring at bargain-basement prices?”
    “Does your friend in New York have an answer to that question?”
    “No, but you do.”
    “What are you talking about, Eli?”
    “The photographs and the bank documents you found in his desk. His relationship with Walter Schellenberg. The Rolfe family collected for generations. Rolfe was well connected. He knew what was going on across the border in France, and he wanted a piece of the action.”
    “And Walter Schellenberg needed some way to compensate his private banker in Zurich.”
    “Indeed,” Lavon said. “Payment for services rendered.”
    Gabriel sat back in his chair and closed his eyes.
    “What next, Gabriel?”
    “It’s time to have a conversation I’ve been dreading.”
     
    WHENGabriel went back upstairs to the room, Anna was beginning to awaken. He shook her shoulder gently, and she sat up with a start, like a child confused by strange surroundings. She asked for the time, and he told her it was early evening.
    When she was fully conscious, he pulled a chair to the end of the bed and sat down. He left the lights off; he had no wish to see her face. She sat upright, her legs crossed, her shoulders wrapped in bedding. She was staring at him—even in the darkness, Gabriel could see her eyes locked on him.
    He told her about the origins of her father’s secret