The main character in this story is fictitious, but all the events and circumstances described here are based directly on conditions in the prison camps and on actual reported incidents. OK, so I’m a villain. I’ve done a lot of breaking and entering in my time. We did a villa near Nice in 1905. The owners had gone off on a cruise. The stuff they had in there… silver cutlery, a gold clock on the mantelpiece, and those paintings… Renoir, Rembrandt, and that modern one, Picasso. I don’t know much about that stuff, but my friend Jean-Marie did. And he knew who wanted to buy it on the quiet. Frightening people, most of them, but they paid good money. We made millions of francs from that job. It even made the papers. “Priceless Paintings Vanish in Villa Break-in” said Le Figaro. After that we settled down, and melted into the background. It was a nice life. But one of our gang got drunk in a bar and started bragging about it all. The next thing we know he’s down at the police station.
