Chapter 6
Ursula was steaming. She found it unconscionable that Proctor had not been more sympathetic to her financial situation. She regretted her decision not to call Henri Arpin.
She reached for her phone and clicked the number of someone she hadn’t spoken to in several years.
“Bonjour, Henri. It’s Ursula Borkart.”
Four thousand miles away in Venice, Italy, Henri Arpin was in his suite at the Hotel Danieli. He set down the glass of Proseco and answered his phone. He had arrived by train that morning from Paris to investigate an estate sale in Murano rumored to contain an unknown Rembrandt.
After a sketchy career with the French National Police, formerly La Sûreté Nationale, ended when he was terminated for corruption, Henri Arpin went into private practice specializing in historical documents, paintings, ancient artifacts and gems.
Because he was based in Paris, his clients were mainly European and ranged from wealthy collectors and museum curators including The Vatican, affluent mystics and occasionally nouveau-rich Americans in search of rare paintings and sculpture. He knew that any item he’d been hired to find, no matter how valuable, could turn up not only from auctions at Christie’s or Sotheby’s, but also estate sales, flea markets, resale stores, pawnbrokers, country fairs, fire sales, the black market and antique shops on all seven continents.
Over the years he’d had particularly good luck locating small objets d'art in flea markets, especially Les Puces, the oldest and largest in Paris situated in the gritty, seamy underbelly in the 18th Arrondissement.
One of his first clients was, Gwynna Fandant, a member of The Brimstone Club who divided her time between New York and Paris. Nicknamed “The Duchess” because of an early marriage into low-level British royalty, she had hired him unbeknownst to the other members to find The Brimstone.
Gynna became a member because of her lineage. Her father, grandfather and great grandfather had all been in The Brimstone Society, not because of their scientific prowess, but as financial benefactors. Gwynna was the heiress of the Fandant airline fortune, but rather than live the life of the pampered rich girl, she opted to go into the family business earning a B.A. from Wharton and M.A. from Harvard Business School. She had a knack for buying failing companies, turning them around and selling at a profit.
By the time she was forty-five, her personal worth was said to be slightly under a billion dollars. Having made her mark, she looked for new challenges. Finding The Brimstone became her uppermost objective, not for the greater good of mankind, but rather as her next business venture: bringing time travel to the masses.
For the next thirty years she searched for it by hiring the best of the best.
When she first hired Henri, she insisted that he drop all other clients and work exclusively for her to find not only The Brimstone, but also whatever object de arte struck her fancy, which he agreed to. It was why he was currently in Venice. Through The Duchess, Henri became privy to the secrets of The Brimstone Society and the capabilities of The Brimstone.
“Bonjour, Ursula. How are you?” He had known her since he began working for Gwynna, and thought of her as an aging hippy who dressed and wore her hair as if she were still living in the late 1960s.
“Bien, merci. I may be able to hand The Brimstone to The Duchess.”
There was silence on Henri’s end until he uttered a blasé, “I receive calls like this a dozen times a year. What makes you think you have it?”
“It was found seven years ago at a flea market in Paris. I, like everyone in The Brimstone Society, am well aware of your encounter at Les Puces.”
