Page 89 of Control's Undoing

“Maybe one of the Stoker descendants, or a collector who bought Stoker’s books or papers, needs money,” Colum said.

“Maybe they didn’t realize what it was until now.Maybe they just found it because they had a painting reframed and voila, there it was,” Xavier mused.

“Or booped a plaster statue,” Annie said with a cute little growl, still typing.

Xavier began speaking their suppositions aloud.“So we’re thinking that either a Stoker descendent or a Stoker collector has the missing piece.Either they just discovered it, or they need money and decided to sell it.”

“It’s the most likely scenario…” Annie’s voice trailed off and she looked up.“Six months ago, my company hosted an auction of Stoker’s personal art in London.Supposedly the three paintings and two statues were all in his study at the time he was writingDracula.”

“Who was selling them?”

“A private collector.Anonymous.But I do know who bought them.”Another moment of typing and Annie grimaced.“Ever heard of Dodge?”

Xavier shook his head while Colum shrugged.

Annie grimaced.“He’s a tech-bro.Made his money in crypto currency, has a podcast, and likes to lecture other people about how they live their life and spend their money.He’s also, apparently, an avidDraculafan.He bought those five pieces for just over two million sterling.”

“He sounds like the kind of gobshite who might have reframed a painting just because he didn’t like the look of the antique frame,” Colum muttered.

“Are there images of the paintings?”Xavier walked over to Annie, bracing a hand on her thigh as he crouched to peer at the images.“This one.”He pointed to the landscape of a rocky beach bordered by timeworn cliffs patchworked with green.In the foreground, a few pieces of splintered wood, fabric clinging to one of them, were half hidden among the rocks.

Annie leaned closer.“It says this is a painting of a beach in Whitby, England, noting that Whitby is where Dracula comes ashore in the book.”

Xavier snorted.“That’s France.”He gestured to the cliffs.“That’s the north coast of France.Oscar lived there with Robbie Ross at one point, before the trials.”

Colum joined them, holding out his phone with the image of a sandy beach with low hills in the distance.“This is what came up when I searched Whitby beaches.”

It looked nothing like the painting.

The cliff-lined beaches of Berneval-le-Grand, which Colum googled next, looked exactly like the painting.Xavier spread his hands in a “see?I told you so” gesture.

Colum leaned in, pointing to the bits of broken wood tangled in the rocks in the corner of the painting.“Is that remnants of a painting?”

Xavier studied it after Annie zoomed in.Two pieces of wood were joined at a right angle, which could have been the corner of a canvas frame.

“And the bit of fabric.Is that a canvas, and does it look a bit like part of a face?”Colum asked slowly.

“An abstract face, maybe,” Annie said.

“Or a distorted one,” Xavier said, realizing what it was Colum had seen.“Distorted because the painting aged while the man did not.”

The three of them looked at one another, and again Xavier felt the clicks as everything fell into place.

“A painting showing a place he was happy, with subtle hints to one of the works Wilde was supposedly most proud of.He hid the manuscript inside and sent it to his first love.Given that this had to be painted after he wroteA Picture of Dorian Gray, the timing lines up with our missing years, and possibly the start of his legal troubles.”

“And Dodge took it out of its frame, found the manuscript, and his first instinct was to attach a price tag.A monetary price tag, not a cultural significance value.”Annie made a face but then whipped around to face Xavier.“If you say one thing about how that’s what I do…”

“I would never say such a thing.”He placed a hand over his heart.

“Thank you.”

“Because you have a knife.”

“And because it’s not true!”

“Come here to me,” Colum muttered, tugging Xavier away from Annie as he laughed.Her outrage was delicious.Her cheeks were pink and it made him want to kiss her.

“I need to call Eric,” Colum said.“We have three pieces and a good suspicion where a fourth piece is.”

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