Page 144 of Portrait of an Unknown Woman

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The Wolseley

And so it began, with an apparently offhand remark, made over a costly lunch in one of Mayfair’s finer dining rooms. The midday clatter of cutlery was such that Nicky leaned forward over his dressed Dorset crab appetizer and asked Olivia to repeat her statement. She did so in a confessional murmur, with the addition of a don’t-quote-me-on-this disclaimer. The time was half past one o’clock. Or so claimed Julian Isherwood, who was dining well at a nearby table and noticed the ashen expression wash over Nicky’s face. Julian’s tubby tablemate didn’t see a thing, for he was making a run at young Tessa, the newest addition to the Wolseley’s waitstaff.

Nicky pressed Olivia to reveal the name of her source. And when she refused, he begged her pardon and immediately dialed Sterling Dunbar, a wealthy Manhattan real estate developer who bought paintings by the ton, always with Nicky looking over one shoulder. Sterling had been one of the first major investors in Masterpiece Art Ventures.

“Do you know my current balance?” he sniffed.

“I’m sure it’s considerably larger than mine.”

“A hundred and fifty million, a fivefold increase over my initialinvestment. Phillip assures me the fund is rock solid. Truth be told, I’m thinking about giving him another hundred.”

The reactionary industrialist Max van Egan had parked $250 million at Masterpiece. He told Nicky he wasn’t going anywhere. Simon Levinson—of the retailing Levinsons—was also inclined to stay put. But Ainsley Cabot, a collector of exceptional taste but only eight-figure wealth, heeded Nicky’s advice. He rang Phillip at 9:15 a.m. Eastern time, as Phillip was stepping from his Sikorsky at the East Thirty-Fourth Street Heliport.

“How much?” he shouted over the whine of the rotors.

“All of it.”

“Once you’re out, there’s no getting back in again. Do you understand me, Ainsley?”

“Spare me the bravado, Phillip, and send me my money.”

Buffy Lowell reached Phillip at 9:24 a.m. as he was rolling up Third Avenue in his chauffeured Mercedes. Livingston Ford caught him eight minutes later, as he was crawling crosstown on East Seventy-Second Street. Livingston had $50 million in the fund and wanted out.

“You’re going to regret this,” warned Phillip.

“That’s what my third wife told me, and I’ve never been happier.”

“I’d like you to consider only a partial redemption.”

“Are you suggesting there isn’t enough cash in the till?”

“The money isn’t sitting in an account at Citibank. I’ll have to unload several paintings to make you whole.”

“In that case, Phillip, I suggest you start unloading.”

Which was how a seemingly offhand remark—made forty-five minutes earlier over a costly lunch in London—blew a $100 million hole in Masterpiece Art Ventures. The firm’s founder, however, knew nothing of what had transpired. Desperate for information, he conducted a pair of hasty Internet searches—one for his own name, the other for the name of his firm. Neither unearthed anything thatwould explain why three of his largest investors had suddenly fled his fund. A search of social media likewise produced nothing damaging. Finally, at 9:42 a.m., he tapped the icon for Telegram, the encrypted cloud-based messaging system, and opened an existing secret chat thread.

I’m bleeding to death, he typed. Find out why.

When Phillip Somerset purchased his town house on East Seventy-Fourth Street in 2014, $30 million was considered a great deal of money. He had obtained the loan from his banker at JPMorgan Chase using several forged paintings as collateral, just one of the ways he had waved a magic wand and turned swaths of worthless canvas into gold. Several additional forgeries adorned the interior of the mansion, all to impress prospective investors and confer upon Phillip a patina of extraordinary wealth and sophistication. They were the elite of the art world, his investors. The ones with more money than sense. Phillip was a fraud and a clever forgery himself, but his investors were the fools who had made the elaborate scheme possible. And Magdalena, he thought suddenly. It would have never worked without her.

He entered the mansion’s ground-floor foyer and was greeted by Tyler Briggs, his chief of security. Tyler was an Iraq War veteran. He wore a dark suit over a gym-hardened body.

“How was the ride in from the island, Mr. Somerset?”

“Better than the drive from the heliport.”

Phillip’s phone was ringing again. It was Scooter Eastman, a $20 million investor.

“Any scheduled deliveries today?” asked Tyler.

“A painting is supposed to arrive from the warehouse any minute.”

“Clients?”

“Not today. But Ms. Navarro is supposed to drop by around one. Send her up to my office when she arrives.”