* * * * *
Before the art world had time to digest the incredible evidence of the
four identical Manets, the second series of incidents took place.
This time the locale was Rome, and the painting involved was Holbein's
famous portrait of the Duke of Kent, one of the ornaments of the
Pellagrini Gallery. At half-past ten on a Monday morning, a truck
arrived at the rear of the building to deliver a large crate. There was
no clue on the exterior of the crate as to its origin or contents, but
Gallery officials, assuming that their curiosity would be satisfied by
some document tacked within, signed the delivery receipt and had the
crate lugged to a store-room. Opening it, they found no such document,
only what appeared to be a marvelously clever imitation of their
precious Holbein.
They chuckled merrily at the joke. Then one of them remarked innocently
that it reminded him of the remarkable Manet duplications which were
currently vexing the English. At once a pall of doubt settled over
the group. Another Manet case? Utter nonsense! But that afternoon,
the Roman counterpart of Dr. Joll was quietly called in to examine
the strange gift. Professor Rienzo was not as swift as his English
colleague, and was still inspecting the supposed forgery the next
morning, when a different truck arrived with another portrait of the
Duke of Kent, just like the first.
Indeed, it was also just like the one that hung so proudly in the
Gallery itself--at least that was Professor Rienzo's firm opinion,
enunciated the following day at a special meeting of the Gallery's
directors. "I stake my reputation on it!" Rienzo declared. "You have
now three Holbein Kents, identically the same!"
But Rienzo was wrong. There were not three Kents, but four, for another
one had just arrived. The next day, the fifth appeared, and thus,
on the day after that, the entire staff of the Gallery waited in a
delirium of expectation for Holbein Kent VI. They were not disappointed.
Where had the canvases come from? But, like the London dealers, the
Pellagrini Gallery officials were unable to find out. They could follow
the trail back only as far as some young man on a street-corner, or
in a hotel lobby, or again, at some sidewalk cafe, each time waiting
calmly with his crate for the appearance of the summoned truck--then
vanishing.
In their agitation, the custodians of the multiple Holbein considered
trying to hush up the affair, but they had barely broached the topic
when the mysterious donor rendered further discussion useless. Holbein
Kent VII was duly delivered--not to the Gallery, however, but to the
art editor of one of Rome's great newspapers. The story was out in the
open.
* * * * *
In the following weeks, the tempo quickened. No longer were there
isolated incidents, first in one city and then in another. The plague
of original masterpieces became epidemic.
_Item_: Every art dealer in Vienna received, on the same day,
twenty-five different paintings by Picasso, Braque, and Matisse.
Each was subsequently established as being fully authentic, to the
consternation of those museums and private collectors in a dozen
countries who had acquired, at enormous cost, the originals.
_Item_: The Tate Gallery in London was notified by the confused
headmaster of a private school near Bath that one thousand copies
of a celebrated Van Gogh had been delivered to him, apparently
in error. At least, he said, they _seemed_ to be copies. He had
recalled that the Tate owned the original. Perhaps the shipment
had been intended for the Gallery? The Tate officials grimly agreed
that it probably had.
_Item_: One morning, the base of one exterior wall of the Louvre
was found to be solidly lined with the "Mona Lisa." There were
hundreds of them, side by side, smiling enigmatically out across
the Seine, and each, naturally, was as genuine as the single one
inside the great palace.
* * * * *
What was perhaps the most serious case occurred in New York. Directors
of a famous art museum were notified one day in a letter from a law
firm that a wealthy gentleman, recently deceased, had willed to the
museum his entire collection of paintings. Would the directors care to
appear at such-and-such an address the following day to inspect the
offered canvases? The directors wrote a polite acknowledgment and the
next day dispatched one of their junior members to the address given.
Presumably the donor had left them an attic-full of junk, but still
there might be something worthwhile there.
The junior member telephoned his colleagues at once. They hastened
to the spot. The collection was most remarkable. It covered every
wall of every room in an otherwise vacant five-story building, and
the directors could hardly call any of it junk, for it duplicated
with the most appalling exactitude the entire contents of their own
museum. Every last painting was reproduced there, and as if that were
not enough, inspection of the basement revealed that for each canvas
displayed in the rooms above, a precise duplicate existed in storage.
The directors were aghast. It was Manet and Holbein all over again, but
on a scale beyond all imagining. To make matters worse, someone had
impudently tipped off the press, and there was a crowd of reporters and
photographers, not to mention a number of curiosity-seekers who had
wandered in from the street. One of the directors telephoned the museum
and ordered it closed immediately, but of course that could not prevent
the instant collapse of the values of the museum's collection.
Once more, investigation proved fruitless. The law firm indignantly
denied authorship of the letter. Someone evidently had purloined the
stationery. The dead man, too, was a fraud, having never existed, and
as for the person who had rented the building, the real estate agent
could recall only that it was a young man named Smith, who had paid in
advance weeks earlier, and had not been seen since.
* * * * *
By this time, the entire art world was in a state of nervous collapse.
Dozens of masterworks had been rendered worthless by their sheer
profusion. Others joined the list every day. Collectors sought
frantically to sell--but no one would buy. Even those paintings as yet
untouched by the blight could not be sold, for what buyer could be sure
that a hundred identical canvases would not quickly turn up elsewhere?
Dealers' offices were closed, museum doors were shut--and most horrible
of all, artists were ceasing to paint.
In desperation, the leading museums and galleries pooled funds to hire
private detectives. Weeks passed, and the flow of originals continued,
but the detectives failed to produce a single positive lead--except for
one, and it was so fantastic that the art impresarios angrily rejected
it.
One shipment of masterpieces had been traced, through an intricate
system of straw parties and other devices, back to the New York
apartment of Dr. Cyrus E. Browl. Could the Wizard of Light be the
mass-production virtuoso? Ridiculous! Several of the museum directors
remembered his fumbling attempts to copy their treasures. It had been
pathetic--the old man had been clumsier than the rawest novice, and
besides, his eyes were so weak now, he could hardly see across a room!
But one of the art experts was suddenly struck by the memory of that
huge easel and the peculiar array of lightless lamps, and hastened off
to pay Dr. Browl a visit. He quickly returned, looking much older, and
in an unsteady voice made a report:
"I've seen Dr. Browl--and I've seen _it_."
"Seen what?"