Page 151 of Portrait of an Unknown Woman

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Pierre Hotel

Gabriel had made the request of Yuval Gershon early that morning. Yes, he realized it was an imposition and not altogether legal, as he had no official standing. And, no, he could not state with any degree of certainty that it would be the last time. It seemed he had become the first port of call for anyone with a problem, be they adulterous British prime ministers, supreme Roman pontiffs, or London art dealers. His current investigation, as was often the case, had included an attempt on his life. Yuval Gershon, of course, knew this. In fact, were it not for Yuval’s timely intercession, the attempt might well have proven successful.

He gave the job to a new kid. It was no matter; in a field like theirs, the new kids were frequently better than the old hands. This one was an artist in the truest sense of the word. He made his first move at ten fifteen Eastern time, and by half past two he owned the place—the place being a Manhattan-based concern called Chelsea Fine Arts Storage.

As instructed, the kid headed straight for the database: insurance records, tax documents, personnel files, a dispatch log with a year’s worth of pickups and deliveries, a master list of the paintingsstored in a secure, climate-controlled warehouse on East Ninety-First Street near York Avenue. There were 789 paintings in all. Each entry included the name of the work, the artist, the support, the dimensions, the date of execution, the estimated value, the current owner, and the painting’s exact location in the warehouse, by floor and rack number.

Six hundred and fifteen of the paintings were said to be owned directly by Masterpiece Art Ventures—which also happened to own Chelsea Fine Arts Storage. The remaining works were controlled by corporate shell companies with the sort of three-letter uppercase abbreviations beloved by asset concealers and kleptocrats the world over. The most recent arrival wasDanaë and the Shower of Gold, purportedly by Orazio Gentileschi. The stated value of the work was $30 million, which was approximately $30 million more than what it was actually worth. As yet, the work was uninsured.

The warehouse also contained sixteen canvases by a once promising Spanish artist named Magdalena Navarro. At three fifteen that afternoon—following an incriminating luncheon with one Phillip Somerset, founder and CEO of Masterpiece Art Ventures—she returned to the Pierre Hotel. Upstairs in her suite she immediately surrendered her phone to Gabriel. He gave her a list of 789 paintings, and they went to work.

They fell into a predictable if altogether depressing rhythm. Magdalena would cast her eye down the list and call out when she spotted a painting she knew to be a forgery. Then, with Sarah and Evelyn Buchanan taking careful notes, she would recite the date and circumstances by which the work had found its way into the inventory of Masterpiece Art Ventures. The overwhelming majority of the canvases had been acquired through phantom sales conducted within Magdalena’s distribution network, which meant no actual moneyhad changed hands. But several had been routed through reputable dealers to provide Phillip with plausible deniability in the event the authenticity of the works was ever called into question.

Notably absent from the directory was Sir Anthony van Dyck’sPortrait of an Unknown Woman, oil on canvas, 115 by 92 centimeters, which Masterpiece had recently purchased from Isherwood Fine Arts. According to the dispatch logs, the painting was moved to Sotheby’s in New York in mid-April.

“A week after the bombing in Paris,” Gabriel pointed out.

“Phillip must have unloaded it,” replied Magdalena. “Which means some unsuspecting collector is now the proud owner of a worthless painting.”

“I’ll have a word with Sotheby’s tomorrow morning.”

“A quiet word,” cautioned Sarah.

“Somehow,” said Gabriel with a glance at Evelyn, “I don’t think that’s going to be an option.”

By 5:00 p.m. they had twice scoured the list from top to bottom. The final tally was a breathtaking 227 forgeries with a declared valuation of more than $300 million, or 25 percent of Masterpiece’s purported assets under management. When combined with the rest of the evidence that Gabriel and Magdalena had acquired in New York—including a recording of an attempt by Phillip Somerset to obtain an art-backed loan from JPMorgan Chase using a forged painting as collateral—it was irrefutable proof that Masterpiece Art Ventures was a criminal enterprise run by one of the greatest financial con artists in history.

At the conclusion of the review, Evelyn rang her editor atVanity Fair’s Fulton Street headquarters and told him to expect her finished draft no later than 9:00 p.m. Then she sat down at her laptop and began to write.

“At some point,” she informed Gabriel, “I’ll have to ask Phillip for a comment.”

Fortunately, they knew how to reach him. According to Proteus, his phone was presently near the corner of Fifth Avenue and East Seventy-Fourth Street, 134 feet above sea level. There were six missed calls, three new voice mails, and twenty-two unread text messages. The camera was staring at the ceiling. The microphone was listening to nothing at all. The damn thing was just sitting there, thought Gabriel. Like a paperweight with a digital pulse.