Vanished Smile by R.A. Scotti

has a colleague's word for it that your good faith is above all suspicion
.
    Adieu! I am about to leave France, to finish my novel
.—
Baron Ignace d'Ormesan
.
    There was a rueful sort of chivalry and irreverent humor in these missives to the
Paris-Journal
, but the French police were not amused. The “baron” reveled in being the center of the biggest story in France and was leaving a trail as deliberately as Hansel and Gretel.
    For the first time since Mona Lisa vanished, Parisians had cause to be optimistic. Prefect Lépine believed that the same ring of international art thieves was behind both Louvre thefts—
L'Affaire des Statuette?
, and
L'Affaire de la Joconde
. If he could collar the baron and his colleagues, the hunt would be over and the lost Leonardo would return to the Louvre. The print had barely dried on the morning paper when Lépine's men had compiled a complete dossier on Baron Ignace d'Ormesan.
Le Petit Parisien
reported: “The police now have a real clue to the thief of
la Joconde.”
    The notorious Mona Lisa thieves were not the usual suspects.
    ∗1 The first radio programming for the French public did not begin until December 1921. Radiola, the first private radio station in France, began to broadcast in 1922.
    ∗2 Before photography, there were occasional sketches and caricatures.
    ∗3 Artists were as besotted as poets. In the 1840s, Aimee Brune-Pages's canvas
Leonardo Painting the
Mona Lisa sold for two thousand francs, a high price.
    ∗4 Darian Leader,
Stealing the
Mona Lisa.

NOT THE USUAL SUSPECTS

    APOLLINAIRE IN PICASSO'S STUDIO Shortly after moving from
le bateau-lavoir
to a new studio-apartment on Boulevard de Clichy, Picasso photographed Apollinaire there. (Courtesy of Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, New York. © ARS, New York/Museé Picasso)

    PAINTING BY MARIE LAURENCIN,
GROUP OF ARTISTS
, 1908 The prime suspects were as shocking as the heist—two young Turks of the modern art movement, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire and the painter Pablo Picasso. The Paris police suspected they were ringleaders of an international gang of art thieves. Shown here with their “molls” are (left to right) Picasso; Fernande Olivier; Apollinaire, looking oddly like Gertrude Stein; and Marie Laurencin, who painted the “gang of four.” Marie sold the work to Gertrude Stein. It was her first sale. (Marie Laurencin, French, 1885-1956.
Group of Artists
, 1908; oil on canvas, 25½ × 31⅞ inches (64.8 × 81 cm.). The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection, formed by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone of Baltimore, Maryland, BMA 1950.215.

    PICASSO AND FERNANDE Picasso and Fernande Olivier, his first mistress-muse, in Montmartre in 1906. Picasso would call this youthful period the happiest years of his life. (Courtesy of Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Museé Picassso/Art Resource, New York)

    APOLLINAIRE IN HANDCUFFS Apollinaire, arrested and in handcuffs, is brought before Judge Drioux. Apollinaire felt publicly humiliated by his ordeal.

I
    IN A SUMMER OR UNUSUALLY HOT DAYS , September 2 was a record-breaker. In Paris, the temperature exceeded ninety-seven degrees, and four people died. But the arts editor of the
Paris-Journal
, André Salmon, remained cool. He spent the morning closeted in his office with detectives from the Paris Prefecture, who were demanding information on Baron d'Ormesan. Salmon's rebuff was courteous and couched with sincere regrets. He was bound by professional ethics not to reveal his sources.
    The investigation of the Louvre thefts was turning as hot as the weather. The front page of the
Paris Herald
announced: POLICE MAY HAVE CLUE TO MISSING
MONA LISA
. Prefect Lépine hinted that a
“coup de theatre”
was imminent. Although Alphonse Bertillon's criminal records turned up no information on Baron Ignace d'Ormesan, he was a familiar name to the Parisian literati. D'Ormesan was a fictional character in
L'Hérésiarque et cie
, a collection of stories