Rembrandt's Ghost by Paul Christopher Page B

surroundings were less intrusive too; there was neon enough certainly, but even it was fairly restrained, and there wasn’t much in the way of giant billboards or screaming mega-screen TVs either. She knew a lot of her of friends back at NYU would call it retro or old-fashioned, but Finn thought it was refreshing.
    The
Herengracht
was a canal side street of small trees and large houses. Cars were angle parked next to the canal and there were large houseboats lined up in the dark water. As usual there were more bicycles than automobiles on the street. In the air, there was a faint, heavy smell that Finn couldn’t quite place—a hint of the sea but something else and slightly unpleasant, like old garbage gone sour.
    “It’s the sewage system,” Billy offered, seeing her nose wrinkle. “Amsterdam’s probably the last major city that dumps its raw sewage directly into the water table.”
    “Into the canals?” Finn said, astounded. “Untreated?”
    “They depend on the tide to wash the effluent away.”
    “I guess you learn something new every day,” she said, slightly depressed by the information; walking the few short blocks from Derlagen’s office, she’d begun to fall in love with the gentle, unpretentious city with its trams and its politically correct bicycles. Love might be blind, but it still had a sense of smell. She sighed.
    “Here we go,” said Billy. They were standing in front of number 188.
    The house was three stories plus a ground floor that looked as though it might have once been for servants. It was a big place without being grandiose, absolutely symmetrical. There were four tall windows and a door on the main floor, and five windows on each of the next two floors with a pair of evenly spaced single window dormers set into the steep roof angle and two identical chimneys jutting upward. There was a massive stone portico and the Boegart crest with a “1685” carved beneath it.
    “Honey, I’m home,” said Finn. She took the key out of her bag and they climbed a short flight of steps to the imposing front door. She fitted the key into the lock, pushed the door open, and they stepped inside.
     
     
     

Chapter

12

     
    There was a Chubb keypad on the wall just as Derlagen had described it. Finn fitted the guitar pick’s narrow end into a little slot, and the red pulsing light turned green. A message appeared in an LED panel: REPEAT TO ARM.
    “Close the door,” she said to Billy. He did and she squeezed the guitar pick again. The panel light pulsed red and the LED said: ARMED. “Okay, let’s look around.”
    “I feel like I’m trespassing,” said Billy.
    Finn nodded. Billy was right; there was something a little unsettling about wandering around in a stranger’s house, even if she did now own it. There was a mustiness in the air. No one had been here in quite a while. She had an urge to run around opening windows.
    Directly in front of them was a long hallway with rooms on either side. The hallway walls were hung with a number of paintings, all modern. The walls were painted flat white. The overall effect was a kind of studied blankness as though Pieter Boegart didn’t want to reveal anything about himself through his taste in decor.
    There were two front rooms, like large parlors, flooded with light. The one on the right was laid out like an office. Behind the parlors were a large rectangular living room with an ornate fireplace and an equally large dining room on the right. A narrow staircase led upstairs and an even narrower one led down. At the far end of the hallway was a moderate-sized room that looked out onto a tiny garden. It might have served as a breakfast room or an old-fashioned music room.
    “No kitchen,” said Finn.
    “If it’s anything like England, in a house this old the kitchen would be in the basement,” answered Billy.
    “Somehow this isn’t what I expected,” said Finn.
    “Nor I,” agreed Billy. “I thought it would be all stuffy and Victorian.