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“Why weren’t you?”
“Because I went into that gallery on the lookout for forgeries. And because I’ve been around paintings for a hundred years. I know the brushstrokes of the Old Masters like the lines around my eyes.”
“With all due respect,” replied Sarah, “that isn’t good enough to prove the painting is a forgery.”
“Which is why we’re going to give it to Aiden Gallagher.”
Gallagher was the founder of Equus Analytics, a high-tech art research firm that specialized in detecting forgeries. He sold his servicesto museums, dealers, collectors, auction houses, and, on occasion, to the Art Crime Team of the FBI. It was Aiden Gallagher, a decade earlier, who had proved that one of New York’s most successful contemporary art galleries had sold nearly $80 million worth of fake paintings to unsuspecting buyers.
“His lab is in Westport, Connecticut,” continued Gabriel. “If the forger made a technical mistake, Gallagher will find it.”
“And while we’re waiting for the results?”
“You’ll arrange for me to have a look at the painting you sold to Phillip Somerset. If, as I suspect, it’s a forgery—”
“Julian and I will be the laughingstocks of the art world.”
No, thought Gabriel as he reached for his wineglass. IfPortrait of an Unknown Womanturned out to be a forgery, Isherwood Fine Arts of Mason’s Yard, purveyors of museum-quality Italian and Dutch Old Master paintings since 1968, would be ruined.
