The Kill Artist

moved south along Duke Street until she arrived at the entrance of Mason's Yard.
    Gabriel bumped her elbow as he passed. "You're clean. Give my love to Julian."
    The gallery was exactly as Gabriel had described it: wedged between the shipping company office and the pub. Next to the door was a panel, and on the panel were two buttons and two corresponding names: LOCUS TRAVEL and ISHER OO FINE AR S. She pressed the button, waited, pressed it again, waited, glanced at her watch, pressed it again. Nothing.
    She crossed Mason's Yard, entered Duke Street, and found a little café where she could wait. She ordered coffee and settled in the window with her Times. Fifteen minutes later, at precisely nine-twenty, she spotted a stylishly clothed gray-haired man rushing along Duke Street as though he were running late for his own funeral. He ducked through the passageway and disappeared into Mason's Yard. Isherwood, she thought. Had to be.
    She pushed her newspaper into her handbag and slipped out of the café after him. She followed him across Mason's Yard toward the gallery. As he was unlocking the door she called out, "Mr. Isherwood, is that you? I've been waiting for you."
    Isherwood turned around. His mouth fell open slightly as she approached.
    "I'm Dominique Bonard. I believe you were expecting me this morning."
    Isherwood cleared his throat several times rapidly and seemed to have trouble remembering which key opened the office. "Yes, well, delighted, really," he stammered. "Awfully sorry, bloody tube, you know."
    "Let me take your briefcase. Maybe that will help."
    "Yes, well, you're French," he said, as if he thought this might be a revelation to her. "I have fluent Italian, but I'm afraid my French is rather atrocious."
    "I'm sure we'll get along just fine in English."
    "Yes, quite."
    Finally, he managed to unlock the door. He held it open rather too gallantly and gestured for her to lead the way up the stairs. On the landing, Isherwood paused in front of the travel agency and studied the girl in one of the posters. He turned and glanced at Jacqueline, then stared at the girl in the photograph once more. "You know, Dominique, she could be your twin sister."
    Jacqueline smiled and said, "Don't be silly."
    Isherwood opened the gallery and showed Jacqueline to her desk.
    "There's a man called Oliver Dimbleby coming later this morning. He looks rather like an English sausage in a Savile Row suit. Buzz him up when he arrives. Until then, let me show you round the rest of the gallery."
    He handed her a pair of keys on a blue elastic band. "These are for you. Whenever one of us leaves the gallery, the doors are to be armed. The disarm code is five-seven-six-four-nine-seven-three-two-six. Get that?"
    Jacqueline nodded. Isherwood looked at her incredulously, and she repeated the sequence of numbers briskly and without error. Isherwood was clearly impressed.
    They entered a small lift, barely large enough to accommodate two passengers. Isherwood inserted his key into the security lock, turned it, and pressed the button marked B. The lift groaned and shuddered, then traveled slowly down the shaft, coming to rest with a gentle bump. The doors opened, and they entered a cool, dark room.
    "This is the tomb," he said, switching on the lights. It was a cramped cellar filled with canvases, some framed, some unframed and resting in slots built into the walls. "This is my stockroom. Hundreds of works, many of them valuable, many more that have little or no worth on the open market and are therefore accumulating dust in this room."
    He led her back into the lift, and this time they rode up. The doors opened onto a large, high-ceilinged room. Gray morning light trickled through a circular glass dome in the roof. Jacqueline cautiously walked forward a few paces. Isherwood threw a switch, illuminating the room.
    It was as if she had stepped into a museum. The walls were cream-colored and pristine, the hardwood floor burnished to a high gloss. In the center of the floor was a low bench covered in soft velvet the color of claret. On the walls were towering canvases lit by focused halogen lamps mounted in the ceiling. Rain pattered softly on the domed skylight. Jacqueline sat down on the bench. There was a Venus by Luini and a Nativity by del Vaga; a Baptism of Christ by Bordone and a stunning landscape by Claude.
    "It's breathtaking," she said. "I feel like I'm in the Louvre. You must come up here often."
    "When I need to think. Feel free to