The Mistaken Masterpiece (28 page)

Malcolm and Elizabeth take the Pommeroy to their friend at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the morning, and Malcolm sends Margaret an email asking to
meet us after school at Perkatory for some very surprising news.

He sets the painting on the table in front of us. “It’s a fake,” he blurts out, not even waiting for our drinks to arrive at the table.

“What?”
our voices cry out in perfect four-part harmony.

“How is that even possible?” I ask. “I mean, we’re sure the one we just hung on Prunella’s wall is a fake, right?”

“Absolutely,” Margaret says. “So, after all that running around, all we did was trade a fake for a fake?”

“Which means—” Malcolm starts.

“That somebody must have conned Phillip!” exclaims Margaret. “Phillip hired someone to make a copy that he could pass off to his sister so he could keep the original. But it sounds to me like the forger made
two
copies and then kept the original for himself. Or herself.”

“Is this fake exactly like the other one?” I ask.

“Yes and no,” Malcolm says. “According to the expert at the Met, the visible parts of the two paintings are very, very similar—probably done by the same hand. But while the other had no underpainting whatsoever, this one was painted over another artist’s work, completely unrelated to Pommeroy in style. My guess is that the forger simply recycled a canvas that was the size he needed—most likely something that he had done himself. Lots of gallery owners and employees are amateur artists.”

Something about it just doesn’t add up.

“But … we’re assuming that somebody from the Svindahl Gallery created that other forgery because they knew just where to look after Father Julian brought in that first fake, right? And that there just had to be some connection between Phillip and the Svindahls. Well, if one of the Svindahls was the forger, they would know that
this
is a fake, too. Right? So why are they willing to pay
anything
to get it back? It just doesn’t add up.”

A moment of stunned silence, followed by several heavy sighs.

“A truly excellent question,” says Malcolm.

“It
doesn’t
make sense,” Margaret admits. “It’s not very likely, but I suppose it’s possible that they’re trying to right a wrong. Maybe they’re afraid it will be discovered and ruin the gallery’s reputation.”

“Then why didn’t they want the fake that Father Julian showed them?” I ask.

Margaret pats me on the back. “Excellent logic, Soph. You really have been reading your Sherlock, haven’t you?”

“Sophie, my dear, I’m afraid I don’t have a good answer for you, either,” Malcolm says. “But see what you girls can make of this; it was taped to the hidden side of the stretcher bar in the back.” He takes a folded envelope from a pocket inside his tweed blazer and sets it on the table.

Margaret opens the envelope and removes an address book that’s no more than two inches square.

“My, my,” she says, flipping through the gold-edged pages. “Phillip’s ‘little black book.’ So he kept some secrets from his beloved Prunella. Tsk, tsk. And look, some of the women’s names have stars by them. Malcolm, maybe you’d like to explain what those mean.”

“Not in a million years!” Malcolm says with a hearty laugh. “But you never know what else you might find in there. Good luck—I’ll send you a message if I learn anything new.” He wraps up the painting and heads out the door.

Margaret, convinced that the Svindahls hold the secret to whatever is going on and desperately searching for proof of the connection between them and Phillip, discovers an interesting detail in the picture where Phillip and Prunella are sitting on the couch, looking so pleased with each other. She sets it on a table in the school library and takes Malcolm’s loupe from her bag.

“This photograph is important because it shows the painting clearly. And thanks to Becca noticing that little difference in those two squares, we know that
this
painting is definitely
not
the one that Father Julian had,
nor
the one that was hanging on Prunella’s wall. Based on what Father Julian’s cousin Debbie said, this picture must have been taken seven years ago—that’s when she met Cale Winokum. And we know that within a few weeks of this picture being taken, Phillip walked off with the painting until his ‘conscience’ made him bring it back. Now, take a close look at the three men in this
picture. There’s Phillip, Cale Winokum, and this mystery man,” she says. “What do they have in common?”

“Um … nothing,” I say. “Phillip is old and kind of sleazy-looking. Cale is cute, in a scruffy, artsy-geeky kind of way. And it’s hard to tell about the mystery guy. He looks pretty normal, I guess.”

Fashion expert Leigh Ann zooms in on the clothes. “They’re all wearing dark blazers and light-colored pants.”

“And … anything else?” Margaret prods.

“Their ties!” Leigh Ann says. “The ties are all the same.”

“Bingo!” Margaret says. “Now, what are the odds that three men would be wearing the exact same tie, unless—”

“They’re school ties!” I say. “Stripes and crests. Definitely private school stuff.”

“Precisely,” Margaret says. “The Bramwell School, to be exact.”

Leigh Ann looks skeptical. “Um, aren’t they a little old to be wearing school uniforms?”

“True,” says Margaret, “but Bramwell alumni are lifetime members of a very exclusive club. Haven’t you noticed that Malcolm wears that one maroon and gold bow tie a lot? Those are the colors from
his
old prep school.”

“And that’s how these three know each other?” Becca asks.

“Well, I know Phillip went there, and I had Father Julian ask Debbie about Cale. He graduated from there—before going to … 
art
school.”

“Ohmigosh! He could be the forger!” I say.

“And I’ll bet you anything,” Becca says, “that this ‘mystery man’ is from the Svindahl Gallery. Look at him. He could be the father of the guy who yelled at us—the one who was at the diner with Prunehead.”

“He’s Arthur Svindahl Sr.,” Leigh Ann says, looking up from the computer where she has pulled up the Svindahl Gallery website.

She turns the screen so we can all see. Sure enough,
there he is: a little grayer, a little heavier, but there’s no doubt it’s the same guy.

“So … these three got together and hatched this little scheme,” I say.

“But somebody got greedy,” Becca adds. “Instead of making one forgery for Phillip, I’ll bet you that Svindahl had Cale make
two
, and then he kept the original for himself.”

“Not a bad plan,” Margaret says.

“But it still doesn’t explain why they want it back,” I point out.

Margaret nods her agreement. “There’s a logical explanation. We just have to find it.”

I’ve been assigned the job of returning the address book to Prunella, and I decide that I can kill two birds with one stone. Livvy’s parents are out of town—again—so she and Tillie are staying at Julia Demarest’s apartment for a few days. Now that we have switched dogs and I have the “right” Tillie, I miss the old one. I was really getting used to all of her strange habits—even her howling. Nate’s Tillie is a bit of a couch potato, I’m afraid. When I come home, I get a wag of the tail, but not that look of utter joy that makes me feel that all is right with the world. And she won’t even get up on the bed with me; she sleeps on the floor next to the bed—like a
dog
. On top of all that, I have to wake
her
up in the morning! It’s just not the same.

My plan is to run up to the fifth floor, slide Phillip’s little black book under Prunella’s door, and then swing by Julia’s to say a quick hello to Tillie—and Livvy. As I’m approaching the fifth floor, however, I hear Prunella’s door close and two people arguing in the
hallway as they wait for the elevator. I duck behind a column and prepare to snoop, ready to make a run for it if necessary.

It’s Amelia Svindahl and her brother, Arthur.

“This is just unbelievable,” she says in a high, whiny voice. “I don’t understand. It’s impossible. Inconceivable.”

“You’re absolutely sure that’s a different painting from the one you and Dad saw last week?” Arthur asks.

“Positive. Gus’s notes are very clear. You know how
meticulous
he is. He’s totally insane about details like that—leaving his little identification marks that only he understands on everything he paints, whether he’s doing his own thing or copying somebody else’s. I saw his marks on the Pommeroy copy that that nosy little hobbit of a priest brought in a few weeks ago, and I saw different ones on the copy that
was
on the wall here a week ago. Somehow—don’t ask me how or why—those two paintings have been switched.”

“Well, we simply
have
to get that painting back, even if it means giving up the original Pommeroy,” Arthur says. “Of course, Dad will have an absolute fit about that. He just loves that godawful thing.”

“Serves him right. He’s the one who got Gus involved in the first place. Painting over a Werkman. How could anyone be so stupid?”

The elevator finally arrives, but before the door closes, they drop one more little gem for me to take home.

“It wasn’t entirely Gus’s fault,” Amelia says. “Seven years ago, Werkman was a complete nobody. Who knew his stuff would end up worth more than the Pommeroy?”

Did I say “little gem”?

More like the crown jewel.

When the Svindahls disappear behind the elevator door, I spend the next five minutes with my ear pressed to Prunella’s, listening to her sing along with a 1940s bigband record. She’s not bad, either—although it practically kills me to admit that. There’s a good half-inch gap at the bottom of her door, and when I give the address book a healthy kick, it slides well into her apartment. When she suddenly stops singing, I make a run for the stairs, stopping on the third floor for a nice visit with Livvy and a very exuberant Tillie.

I stop by Margaret’s apartment on my way home and reenact the Svindahls’ conversation for her. Everything about her, from her toes, which are tapping like mad, to her oversize brain, vibrates with the energy of a genius on the verge of a major discovery.

“Do you know what this means?” she asks. “This changes
everything
. We have the upper hand. I can’t wait to tell Father Julian.”

“What are we going to do? Call the police?”

Margaret shakes her head. “That won’t do any good. We can’t prove anything—and the Svindahls have had the Pommeroy for years. The cops would laugh at us.
No, this is up to us. We need a really good plan … a ‘butt-kicking’ plan, I think you’d call it.”

“RBGDA sleepover tomorrow at my place,” I say. “The Blazers have the week off because Aldo is trying out a poetry slam at Perk, whatever that is. I’ll get Dad to make us something good. I think better after a good meal.”

“That sounds perfect. Can you call Becca and Leigh Ann to make sure they can do it?”

“Got it. We will have a couple of other visitors—for a while, anyway.”

“Visitors, plural?”