Possible location Justice Justices

In this shop, according to one theory by Gino Marchal, the panel of the Just Judges would be located. In 1932, two years before the theft of The Just Judges, drainage works were underway there. 'At one point, the workers encountered an underground pipe or passage...', he and Marc de Bel write. This underground passage was about 80 centimeters wide and 155 centimeters high. According to De Bel and Marchal, it was ideal for hiding a panel measuring 55 centimeters wide and 149 centimeters high. Arsène Goedertier, the main suspect in the theft of The Just Judges, was said to have known this passage. 'He passed by it every Friday afternoon on his way to his local café Moka,' it says in the book. 'This passage might lead to the Stone of Vijd. That is the residence of Joos Vijd, the patron of The Ghent Altarpiece, who also stood on the Kalandeberg.' The building in question now houses the Max Mara store. After Goedertier's death, two keys were found in his home. One of those keys belonged to the Saint Gertrude’s Church in Wetteren, where he was the caretaker. But the lock that the second key fit has never been found. According to the authors, that key 'might belong to the house or one of the houses where the Stone of Vijd once stood. From there, Goedertier would have had access to the underground passage.'

Author Marc De Bel wrote his fiction book The Fourteenth Letter around this story and theory, a youth book in which he embarks on a quest for the lost panel of The Just Judges together with investigator Gino Marchal.

Dromos