When at last he said to the Judge that he had seen enough he received a shock. “Several of your fellow-experts are in the city at present,” said Huygens. “They are anxious to hear what you have to say, as I am myself. You speak, we know, with the authority and probity of Tancred Saraceni and we have agreed that your opinion shall carry great weight, and indeed will doubtless prove decisive. Will you meet us here tomorrow at eleven o’clock? The painter will be here also. Understandably he expects a triumphant vindication.”

“And you, Edelachtbare Heer?”

“I? Oh, my opinion is of no importance. I am simply the director of the investigation. Indeed, it would be improper if anyone holding strong opinions about this sort of painting had been appointed to preside. I do, of course, represent the Netherlands government.”

At luncheon, as Francis was treating himself to another veal-free blow-out at the expense of his hosts, he was joined by a smiling American.

“Mind if I sit down? I am Addison Thresher, and I’m here from the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Also representing one or two other interested parties. There’s no harm in our talking; Huygens said it was perfectly all right. What did you think?”

Addison Thresher was an expensively dressed, conservatively dressed, more than ordinarily tastefully dressed man, with silver-rimmed glasses and those American teeth, so disconcerting to the European eye, that always seem to have been furiously brushed not more than an hour ago. His manners were wonderful and he smelled of a costly toilet water. But in his eyes there was a steely glint.

Warily, Francis told him what he thought, which in effect was nothing at all.

“I know,” said Thresher; “that’s the trouble, isn’t it? Not a thing you can quite lay your hand on. The signature is a fake, of course, but that’s not important. But there is something about the whole affair I don’t like. You’ve seen the composition before, of course?”

Francis shook his head, his mouth being full.

“Have you ever looked at that late-medieval manuscript of the Cooks and Innkeepers Play, in the Chester group? There’s a miniature of the Harrowing. Very suggestive. Could van Eyck have seen it? Barely possible. But a faker could know it. There’s nothing that hints at the Fra Angelico or the Bronzino of the Harrowing; that would have been a dead give-away, for Hubertus van Eyck couldn’t have seen either. But there is also a strong feeling of that big wall painting at Mount Athos, and that would be funny, wouldn’t it—two minds with but a single thought, and God knows how many centuries between them? The influences, if they are influences, are so damned scholarly. Nothing in any of the work of either of the van Eycks suggests that they were learned in that way. Painters in those days simply weren’t.”

“Yes, I see what you mean,” said Francis, trying to conceal the fact that he was learning fast. “But still—nothing that proves fakery.”

“That’s what the Germans say. And also what the Dutch say. They want it to be genuine, of course, because it would be a marvellous acquisition for a Dutch gallery. The man from the Mauritshuis is particularly keen. If it proves to be a national treasure they’ll never let it out of the country, and they’d love to thwart Göring. They fight about details but they’re wholly agreed on that. They’ll pay Letztpfennig a goodish price, but not the really big money he would get from the States, or the splendid swaps he could get from the Germans.”

“What do you know about Letztpfennig?”

“Nothing to his discredit. Indeed, he is rather an impressive figure. Lectures learnedly on Dutch art, and is probably the best restorer in Europe—except for Saraceni, of course. Knows perhaps a little too much about Old Master painting techniques to be entirely trustworthy in a situation like this. But I mustn’t let my suspicions run away with me. It’s just that in my bones I sense something wrong, and as long as the scientific boys from London are kept at bay, I have to rely on my bones. Aesthetic sensibility, we call it in the trade, but it comes down to a feeling in the bones.”

“Like Berenson.”

“Yes, Berenson has wonderfully shrewd bones. But when Joe Duveen is paying you a full twenty-five per cent of the sale price of a picture for an authentication, I wonder if your bones can always be heard above the sweet music of the cash register. It costs a lot of dough to live like Berenson. Of course, it’s all academic to me; whatever happens I won’t get the picture. But I hate a faker. Bad for business.”

Addison Thresher’s manners left nothing to be desired. He did not hover over Francis but took himself off, saying that they would meet again in the morning. And what was Francis to do? Go to the Mauritshuis and look at the pictures? He had been there before and he was sick of looking at pictures. Encouraged by his good lunch he went to the Wassenaar, and spent the afternoon at the zoo.

Jean-Paul Letztpfennig’s hand, when he gave it to Francis to shake, was unpleasantly damp, and Francis immediately drew out his handkerchief and wiped his own hand somewhat too obviously. Some of the other men in the room were quick to notice. Professor Baudoin, whom Francis had already decided was the nasty one, sucked in his breath audibly. This was much better than when he blew it out, generously, as he did in conversation, for his breath suggested that he was dying from within, and had completed about two-thirds of the job. It was a striking contrast to Addison Thresher, whose breath smelled of the very best caries-defying toothpaste. He was dressed this morning in a completely different outfit, somewhat formal and suggestive of great affairs.

Indeed, great affairs were in hand. Expectancy was in the air, and all the sensitive bones of all the experts must have felt it. Dr. Schlichte-Martin, ample and red-faced. Dr. Hausche-Kuypers, young and merry, were like men playing a game of Snakes and Ladders; if the van Eyck were real, the fat old man advanced and the young jolly one was thrown back, but if it were the other way round, youth rejoiced and age grieved. Frisch and Belmann, the Germans, wore iron-grey suits and iron-grey expressions, for they were losers whatever happened. They rather hoped Letztpfennig would be exploded and regretted their earlier excitement about his find. Lemaire and Bastogne and Baudoin were philosophical, but inclined to negative opinions; the two Frenchmen would have liked the picture to be genuine, but doubted if it could be; the Belgian wanted it to be a fake, for he was a friend of whatever was negative. They were all hedging their bets in the guarded manner of critics the world over.

“Everyone knows everyone else, I believe? Shall we proceed to our business, which may be brief? Mr. Cornish, will you tell us what your conclusions are?” The Judge was by far the calmest man present. The Judge, and the big guard at the door.

Francis approached his task with inward shrinking, but outward calm. He was inclined to like Letztpfennig, though he wished he could wash the corpse-sweat from his right hand. Letztpfennig was by no means the comic figure of Saraceni’s derision. A grey man, with the appearance of a deeply intellectual man, thickly spectacled and possessing a mop of grey hair which might have suggested an artist if the man were not so obviously cast in the mould of a professor. A carefully dressed man, with a white handkerchief peeping from his breast pocket in just the right proportion. A man whose shoes gleamed with loving care. His appearance of calm impressed nobody.

Well, here goes, thought Francis. Thank God I can be both decisive and honest.

“I fear the picture cannot be accepted as genuine,” said he.

“That is your opinion?” said Huygens.

“More than simply an opinion, Edelachtbare,” said Francis; the occasion he thought deserved the fullest formality. “The picture may indeed be an old picture. The quality of the painting is superb, and it strongly suggests van Eyck. Any painter at any time might be proud to have painted it. But you cannot even attribute it to alunno di van Eyck or amico di van Eyck; it is probably a century after van Eyck.”