The Vanishing Museum on the Rue Mistral Read online

  Praise for M. L. Longworth and the Provençal Mystery Series

  “Judge Antoine Verlaque, the sleuth in this civilized series, discharges his professional duties with discretion. But we’re here to taste the wines . . . So many bottles, so many lovely views. A reader might be forgiven for feeling woozy.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “The Verlaque and Bonnet mysteries . . . plunge you into a languid world of epicurean pleasures and good living.”

  —NPR

  “Longworth’s voice is like a rich vintage of sparkling Dorothy Sayers and grounded Donna Leon . . . Longworth has lived in Aix since 1997, and her knowledge of the region is apparent on every page. Bon appétit.”

  —Booklist

  “A beguiling read that will appeal to Louise Penny and Donna Leon fans.”

  —Library Journal

  “Fun and evocative . . . Best read beach-side with a glass of French wine in hand.”

  —Bustle

  “Rich with details of daily life in Aix-en-Provence . . . Francophiles will be enthralled.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Longworth confirms her long-standing lovebirds as Aix’s Nick and Nora; their pursuit of miscreants never interferes with their enjoyment of the good life.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “What keeps you glued to this mystery is its vivid portrait of everyday life in Aix, which deftly juxtaposes the elegance of the city . . . with quotidian woes and pleasures.”

  —Oprah.com

  “Longworth paints such a loving picture of Provence that it’s likely you’ll start planning a vacation trip to France the moment you set the book down.”

  —The Denver Post

  “The best thing about each novel in this series is that they are as much about lifestyle in the South of France as they are about a legal tangle, a disappearance, or a murder . . . Longworth shows the reader why those who love Donna Leon’s Brunetti and Martin Walker’s Bruno take up her novels with enthusiasm.”

  —Kings River Life Magazine

  “Mystery and romance served up with a hearty dose of French cuisine. I relished every word. Longworth does for Aix-en-Provence what Frances Mayes does for Tuscany: You want to be there—NOW!”

  —Barbara Fairchild, former editor in chief, Bon Appétit

  M. L. Longworth’s Provençal Mysteries

  Death at the Château Bremont

  Murder in the Rue Dumas

  Death in the Vines

  Murder on the Île Sordou

  The Mystery of the Lost Cézanne

  The Curse of La Fontaine

  The Secrets of the Bastide Blanche

  A Noël Killing

  The Vanishing Museum on the Rue Mistral

  A PENGUIN MYSTERY

  The Vanishing Museum on the Rue Mistral

  m. l. longworth has lived in Aix-en-Provence since 1997. She has written about the region for the Washington Post, the Times (London), the Independent (London), and Bon Appétit. She is the author of a bilingual collection of essays, Une Américaine en Provence. She is married and has one daughter.

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2021 by Mary Lou Longworth

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  library of congress cataloging-in-publication data

  Names: Longworth, M. L. (Mary Lou), 1963–, author.

  Title: The vanishing museum on the Rue Mistral a Provençal mystery / M. L. Longworth.

  Description: [New York] : Penguin Books, [2021] | Series: Provençal mysteries

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020025291 (print) | LCCN 2020025292 (ebook) | ISBN 9780143135296 (paperback) | ISBN 9780525506966 (ebook)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PR9199.4.L596 V36 2021 (print) | LCC PR9199.4.L596 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020025291

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020025292

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design: Roseanne Serra

  Cover illustration: Tatsuro Kiuchi

  pid_prh_5.7.0_c0_r0

  For my parents

  Contents

  Cover

  Praise for M. L. Longworth and the Provençal Mysteries Series

  M. L. Longworth’s Provençal Mysteries

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One: Friday, April 20

  Chapter Two: Friday, April 20

  Chapter Three: Tuesday, April 24

  Chapter Four: Tuesday, April 24

  Chapter Five: Tuesday, April 24

  Chapter Six: Tuesday, April 24

  Chapter Seven: Tuesday, April 24

  Chapter Eight: Tuesday, April 24

  Chapter Nine: Wednesday, April 25

  Chapter Ten: Wednesday, April 25

  Chapter Eleven: Wednesday, April 25

  Chapter Twelve: Thursday, April 26

  Chapter Thirteen: Thursday, April 26

  Chapter Fourteen: Friday, April 27

  Chapter Fifteen: Friday, April 27

  Chapter Sixteen: Friday, April 27

  Chapter Seventeen: Saturday, April 28

  Chapter Eighteen: Monday, April 30

  Chapter Nineteen: Monday, April 30

  Chapter Twenty: Monday, April 30

  Chapter Twenty-one: Monday, April 30

  Chapter Twenty-two: Monday, April 30

  Chapter Twenty-three: Tuesday, May 1

  Chapter Twenty-four: Tuesday, May 1

  Chapter Twenty-five: Tuesday, May 1

  Chapter Twenty-six: Wednesday, May 2

  Chapter Twenty-seven: Wednesday, May 2

  Chapter Twenty-eight: Thursday, May 3

  Chapter Twenty-nine: Friday, May 4

  Chapter Thirty: Saturday, May 5

  Chapter Thirty-one: Saturday, May 5

  Chapter Thirty-two: Monday, May 7

  Chapter One

  Friday, April 20

  Léa Paulik wished that the little man leading them around the museum had permitted them to leave their backpacks in the front hall. Her back was killing her, the heaviness of her textbook a constant reminder of the Spanish homework she still had to do quickly during her lunch break. It was her own fault, she knew. She had stayed up too late scrolling through Instagram and texting Alexandra until she heard her father pound out of her parents’ bedroom and into the living room to unplug the router. How had he known? She looked across the room and winked at Alexandra, who was intermittently yawning and chewing gum.

  Léa shifted, trying to balance the weight on her back. She turned to look at the painting that the little man was going on and on about. The painter’s last name, Olive, was easy to remember. That would come in handy, as Mme Forbin was going to quiz them on Tuesday about this visit. Léa didn’t mind because she always paid attention. She knew how lucky she was to get these kinds of outings at the Collège Mignet, her junior high school in Aix’s posh Quartier Mazarin. Many of her classmates were posh themselves, and she looked around at them now. They were either yawning like Alexandra, looking down at the floor, or whispering to a friend. She looked back at the painting, and this time she heard the painter’s full name: Jean-Baptiste Olive.

  “This charming tableau was painted in the late nineteenth century,” the little man said. “I’m sure it’s obvious to you all that it’s of the entrance to the port of Marseille. Olive did many paintings of this exact same scene, but this one has always been my favorite. Its bright light on the water—”

  “Oh! I recognize that spot!” yelled Zoë, probably the richest girl in the whole school. “We go sailing by there all the time!”

  At least ten of their classmates groaned, and Léa smirked, but Zoë didn’t seem to notice.

  “I love the smoke,” Mme Forbin said, taking off her glasses and leaning in closer. “Students, look at the bright blue sea and clear sky at the entrance to the port. But if we look up into the old town, the sky is almost black.” She pointed to the streets and buildings that surrounded Marseille’s port and Léa tried to get closer to see. Sure enough, several chimneys emitted a thick gray smoke. Marseille’s sky was always a brilliant blue whenever she visited it with her parents. “Why do French towns no longer have that kind of smoke?” Mme Forbin asked the class.

  “Because it’s from coal,” Léa said.

  Mme Forbin smiled and nodded. “Exactly.”

  The little man seemed to be getting edgy; he didn’t know that Mme For
bin, when you got her on an interesting subject, could go off track until the bell rang. Those were always Léa’s favorite times at school. “Come along and look at the porcelain,” he said.

  “Oh, goody!” cried Eddy Peyrot, rubbing his hands together in mock glee.

  Léa laughed despite herself—she didn’t like Edouard Peyrot, even though her friend Alexandra adored him. She looked over at Mme Forbin, who was covering her grin with the palm of her hand. “Oui, M Formentin,” she said, pulling her hand away from her mouth. “By all means, the students would love to see the porcelain.”

  Eddy slid up beside Léa and said, “That painting must be worth a fortune, eh?”

  Léa shrugged. “Not as much as a Manet.”

  Eddy frowned. “You mean Monet.”

  “No. I mean Manet. Édouard Manet.”

  Grinning, Léa went to stand next to Mme Forbin, who had again taken off her glasses to look more closely at the porcelain. A few of the students were leaning on the plexiglass case, and M Formentin asked them to step back. He took out a clean white cotton cloth from his jacket pocket and began wiping the case as he spoke. “These porcelain dessert plates are one of the pride and joys of mine . . . of the museum. Mme Quentin-Savary used this service right up until her death in 1900. They were made at the porcelain factory in Sèvres, just south of the capital.”

  Léa nodded. She had been to that museum with Marine Bonnet and her mother. She looked down at the dozen or so plates, each one with a hand-painted fruit in its center: wild strawberries, fat purple plums, walnuts in their fuzzy green shells, and almost-translucent purple grapes. Some of the other students were pointing and muttering names of fruits, and it quickly became a competition to see who could identify each fruit the fastest. M Formentin stepped back a tiny bit, his arms folded across his chest and a satisfied grin on his flushed face. He reminded her of a television character from a show her parents watched: a short, fastidious Belgian who walked with tiny footsteps, like a penguin.

  “Et maintenant,” M Formentin announced with a dramatic flourish of his right hand, “les bustes des personnages illustres d’Aix . . . notre chère ville.” He pointed toward the far corner of the room and began walking there as the students slowly followed.

  Léa couldn’t see that far, as she was stuck at the back of the group. Was it a bust of Cézanne? She hoped so. Or Zola? Léa was proud that she had gotten into the music program at Mignet, a school that boasted such illustrious alumni as the famous painter and his best friend the writer, although in their day Mignet had been a high school. Her parents, too, were over the moon when she was admitted after an agonizing choral audition.

  Léa looked to her left and there was Alexandra, looking down at the dessert plates. Léa lifted up her cell phone and quickly took a photo. Léa looked at Alexandra and whispered, “Isn’t this a cool museum?”

  “Totally,” Alexandra replied.

  Léa giggled and gave her a thumbs-up. Alexandra smiled, happy to have a friend at last, even if Léa was the other geek in the class. Léa Paulik looked young for her age, but her intelligence and musical talents set her apart. “Léa’s on a different planet,” one of their fellow students once remarked. But if Léa Paulik was on a different planet, that only made her even more interesting. She was smart and didn’t hide it, and Alexandra admired that. Plus, Léa’s father was a police commissioner, which was just about the coolest job on the planet.

  “Et voilà!” M Formentin said, barely containing his excitement about the first bust.

  Léa’s face fell in disappointment. It was neither Cézanne nor Zola, both of which she could have picked out.

  Alexandra raised her arm in the air.

  “And who is it, Alexandra?” Mme Forbin asked.

  “Mirabeau!” Alexandra answered, almost breathless with excitement.

  Léa smiled and looked at the bust; the man’s fat head, his pockmarked skin. He was wearing one of those big wigs with rolls of sausage curls and a fancy frilly shirt under a vest with three big buttons. But despite the bad skin and stupid wig, he looked scary in a way. Formidable.

  “C’est exacte!” M Formentin replied.

  “It’s in terra-cotta,” Mme Forbin said. “Not marble.”

  “Ah, oui,” M Formentin said, sighing with a slight air of apology. “The marble version is in the Louvre.”

  “In the nation’s capital!” Eddy said.

  Again, Léa laughed despite herself. Referring to Paris as “the capital” was old-fashioned. Her parents didn’t like that expression, “As if there are no other cities in France!” her father would complain. “As if all life revolves around Paris,” her mother would add.

  “Ah, oui,” M Formentin said again with another sigh, disregarding, or not noticing, Eddy’s sarcasm. He went on. “But one thing the Louvre doesn’t have is this . . .” He gestured for the students to follow him into another, smaller room. He did his penguin walk while the students followed, trying not to laugh.

  It was darker here: The walls were a deep red and the only lighting was a chandelier that hung low over a very long polished wooden table. “A feast for your eyes,” M Formentin said. “A complete set of porcelain—again from Sèvres—each plate featuring a different French château.”

  “Why isn’t it under a glass case?” one of the students asked.

  M Formentin puffed up his chest. “On certain special days, such as your visit today, I set the table with this exquisite service, just as Mme Quentin-Savary would have done.”

  “More likely the servants would have done,” whispered Léa to Alexandra. Alexandra nodded in agreement while their classmates began a competitive guessing game with the plates.

  “Villandry,” one said, pointing to a plate whose château was surrounded by perfectly geometrical gardens with clipped hedges.

  “Very good, Isabelle,” Mme Forbin said. “And that one?” she asked, pointing to a plate whose château spanned a river.

  “Chenonceau!” Alexandra answered. “The river is the Cher.”

  “And who was its most famous owner?” Mme Forbin asked.

  “Henri II,” Léa replied.

  “That’s right,” Mme Forbin said. “He gave it to—”

  “Sa favorite!” Eddy cried out.

  Mme Forbin said, “His mistress. Correct. Next time raise your hand, Eddy. And what was her name?”

  Eddy shifted from foot to foot and scratched his forehead in such an exaggerated way that everyone laughed.

  A quiet girl named Mélanie raised her hand, which made Léa happy. Léa also knew the answer, but she didn’t want to be the one answering all the time because then people would avoid her, as most of them did Alexandra.

  “Diane de Poitiers,” Mélanie said.

  This time it was their guide, the funny little man, who clapped his hands in delight. “Excellent!” he said.

  By the time they left twenty minutes later, Léa was sorry to say goodbye to M Formentin and the Musée Quentin-Savary. When she finished school and started working, she wanted a job she loved—not to become rich so that she could buy beautiful things, as Mme Quentin-Savary had done, but so that she could be proud of her work, and not bored. Like M Formentin, who obviously loved his job. And Mme Forbin, who, it seemed to Léa, loved hers most of the time.

  Chapter Two

  Friday, April 20

  I ’d forgotten how beautiful this drive is,” Marine said to her best friend, Sylvie. They were heading south on the highway between Aix and the coast, and Marine was craning her head so that she could better see the hills to her right. They were covered in garigue that was brighter than usual because it had rained so much that spring.

  “Oui, c’est vrai,” Sylvie mumbled in agreement, signaling to pass a slow-moving truck. “How are you feeling today?”

  “Oh, I’m fine,” Marine said, smiling. “It was really just those first three months, you know. I was constantly tired.”

  Sylvie shifted gears as they climbed the mountain. “Get ready for the view,” she said.

  Marine did as she was instructed and looked out of the passenger window. She dared not move, as she knew that she’d only have the view for a few seconds. Soon she saw the sheltered bay of Cassis and caught her breath. “The water is sapphire blue and emerald green,” she said.