| Le Lézard Bleu Art Gallery | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Informations | |
| Type | Art Gallery |
| Owner | Henri Dubois |
| Location | Rue d'Orsel, Paris, France |
| Appearance | Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse |
Le Lézard Bleu ("The Blue Lizard") is a small art gallery owned by Henri Dubois. It is the first location in Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse where the robbery and murder of Henri takes place.
It is divided into 2 rooms: the gallery (where the robbery / murder takes place), and Henri's Office.
Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse[]
This Gallery is the first place seen in the story. After months of not seeing each other, Nico and George find themselves in the same exhibition which surprises them. George has been invited because the company he works for, Paris Mutual, was hired to insure the event. On the other hand, Nico’s boss has chosen her to write a very insignificant article about it for La Liberté.
Along with other participants, the gallery is presenting a brand new exhibition which features a very distinctive painting that is located in the far wall from the main entrance. This particular canvas that doesn’t seem important at first is very significant for the main plot of the adventure.
Not very long from the beginning of the event, an unknown individual breaks into the scene holding a gun and an intimidating aura. The audience, overwhelmed by the situation, tries not to interfere except from the gallery’s owner who stands in front of the painting mentioned before. The furious man doesn’t think about it twice, shots Henri and steals the artwork. The thief quickly escapes from the gallery followed by Nico who tries to take him a picture with her camera. Meanwhile inside the gallery, Father Simeon prays for Henri’s poor soul.
George finds himself in the middle of a new adventure which involves nothing else than murder. Why did the burglar choose that particular painting? It’s up to George, with the help of Nico, to uncover the mysteries of this incident.
George has to act fast and find sufficient evidence before the police arrives. After searching the place and talking to the other observers, he finds a little more information about the painting that was stolen thanks to Father Simeon, the Dominican priest. He specifically remarks that the portrait called “La Maledicció” is evil, very evil. The only thing the painting brings is death, and clearly in this situation it did.
Suspiciously enough, the alarm connected to it didn’t make a sound during the robbery which makes George think that the theft might have been an inside job. After talking to Hector Laine, Henri’s partner, George intimidates him with crucial information gathered from Café Le Tricolore which states that he might have been involved in the burglary. That, and a nail clip with his name engraved found in the scene which could have been used to cut the wires from the painting’s alarm. Thanks to this, George manages to get the code needed to access Henri’s Office. Just as he is typing the code in the security panel, the police arrives.
The inspector which is going to be in charge of the investigation is Navet, a very interesting and special inspector if you can call it like that.
Some time later, Nico comes back from pursuing the thief and wants to go into the gallery. She finds a familiar face guarding the door who happens to be Sergeant Moue who is Navet’s helping hand in the case. After taking advantage of Moue’s little problem with liquids, she is able to finally enter the gallery. This time around, she helps George get into the office by distracting Navet with a possible stain of blood in the middle of the crime scene. What Navet doesn’t know is that the bloodstain is in fact pizza sauce.
The next day, Nico arrives to the Gallery’ street to find Hector Laine having a cup of coffee in Café Le Tricolore. She takes benefit from Laine’s weakness for beautiful woman to collect some information about “La Maledicció”’s owner which leads into a warm reunion with champagne in the Gallery’s office.
Later in the story, When the reconstruction of the crime that caused Henri’s death and “La Maldicció”'s disappearance is held in the Gallery, all the individuals that witnessed the traumatic situation are called by Inspector Navet to attend the role play. Once George enters the gallery, he overhears the inspector and Sergeant Moue arguing about what it looks like a big, strange looking machine sets in the middle of the scene just above the pizza sauce stain. It seems that both of them are having trouble with turning on the instrument. Navet is absolutely sure that it can’t be broken because it has the power of ten investigators. Supposedly this device will analyze the scene, compute the data and deduce everything for them. When George tries to explain Navet that he has already found Henri’s killer and that the reconstruction is of no use, the inspector qualifies him as imaginative and tells him to wait for the others who are still missing. It is clear that if they don’t manage to fix the machine, the reconstruction would take days to finish and George isn’t planning on staying that long there. If George is going to help them repair it, it is pointless trying to get a closer look at the machine while Navet and Moue are tinkering with it.
Apart from them, the only one inside the gallery at the moment is Hector Laine. This is George’s perfect opportunity to confront Laine about “La Maledicció”’s provenance. Laine is surprised about how much information George has gathered, and explains that the document must be inside the office safe so he suggests him to talk to Bijou Dubois (Henri's wife) because she took care of the business side of the gallery and has the keys in her possession. It looks like Bijou hasn't been completely honest with George after all.
When George tries to leave the gallery to pay Bijou a visit, Navet interrupts him and lets him know that he will remain there until he has concluded his investigations. Better to play along with Navet and get the reconstruction over as quickly as possible. Moments later, George tricks Navet into looking the unplugged device’s cable to be able to fix it before he returns. This is when Sergeant Moue realizes that there is not a dead body for the role play, so Navet nominates George to play the lead of Henri. Though he doesn’t look like him, George is able to find an old pair of white glasses that belonged to Henri. Meanwhile, Nico and Father Simeon arrive in scene.
The reconstruction starts and everyone needs to stand precisely where they were when the victim died. Since George is playing Henri, he lays down on the floor with Father Simeon on his side. Luckily, they have the opportunity to speak while Navet figures out what to do next. Father Simeon shares with George some interesting information about the Gnostics and the symbols seen in the “La Maledicció”. After this, George shows him one of Hobbs’ sketches and the priest loses control unable to believe what he is seeing and storms out the gallery screaming that evil is coming and that the “Tabula Veritatis” is real. At that same time, an Interpol Inspector named Richard Langham enters the Gallery.
Langham speaks with Inspector Navet about a previous phone conversation they both had and asks him about his strange machine. He requests him to step aside, and kneels in front of the blood stain located underneath the device. He tastes the blood and tells Navet that the suspect is a Hawaiian. Before letting Navet make any kind of assumptions, Langham explains him that the stain is not blood but pizza sauce, Hawaiian pizza sauce. He then suggests Navet to try to get Father Simeon back and invites Nico and George to Café Le Tricolore for a chat.
Because Richard Lanham appears to be quicker and better at solving puzzles in comparison to Navet, George and Nico agree to have a coffee with him. Maybe he can bring a dose of common sense to the case.
After learning that Medovsky's provenance was forged by Hobbs, a gunshot sounds from the gallery and the door to the office is shut tight. Once in the gallery, George tries to talk with Father Simeon who has just been shot. Simeon had been carrying a scan of an old manuscript with a covering note. Both were written in Latin.
George turns around only to see Hector Laine astonished at the situation. He firmly believes that George killed the Dominican priest and warns him he is going to tell Inspector Navet. While having the conversation, George’s phone rings. Nico is calling for help because something terrible has happened in her building. George, with no time to waste, tells Laine he is mistaken and runs to see Nico. Clearly Hector Laine calls inspector Navet to blow the whistle on George, because minutes later police surrounds Nico’s address.
Quotes[]
- George: “Sixty thousand for a sketch? Ouch!”
- George: "'Challenging and experimental'. Like the 85k price tag."
- George: “For the discerning connoisseur. A soupcon at right thousand.”
- George: “Seventy grand. Cheap at half the price.”
- George: “Fifty five thousand. Huh, shame. Just outside my price range.”
- George: “All I needed was a mere sixty five thousand and this little gem could be mine.”
- Sergeant Moue: (About Navet’s machine) “A marvel indeed, sir. Though at the moment, it is kaput.”
- Inspector Navet: “Your pessimism has obviously infected the circuitry, Moue.”
Trivia[]
- Provenance: a record of ownership of a work of art or an antique, used as a guide to authenticity or quality.
- The original paintings featured in Le Lézard Bleu's exhibition can be seen in our Flickr account along with their respective authors.
- Le Lézard Bleu is located next to Café Le Tricolore on Rue d'Orsel. This is an actual street in the north of Paris, in the 18th arrondissement (district).
Gallery[]
