False Impression

“At Wentworth Hall,” Anna replied. “Once I’d retrieved the painting from Sotheby’s, I grabbed a cab and took it straight back to Arabella. The only thing I came away with was the red box and the painting’s original frame.”

“Which you took on to Bucharest so that your friend Anton could put his fake into the original frame, which you hoped would be enough to convince Fenston that he’d got his hands on the real McCoy.”

“And it would have stayed that way if he hadn’t decided to have the painting insured.”

No one spoke for some time, until Macy said, “And you carried out the whole deception right in front of Jack’s eyes.”

“Sure did,” said Anna with a smile.

“So let me finally ask you, Dr. Petrescu,” continued Macy, “where was the Van Gogh while two of my most experienced agents were having breakfast with you and Lady Arabella at Wentworth Hall?”

“Plead the Fifth Amendment,” begged Jack.

“In the Van Gogh bedroom,” replied Anna, “just above them on the first floor.”

“That close,” said Macy.

Krantz waited until the tenth ring, before she heard a click and a voice inquired, “Where are you?”

“Over the Russian border,” she replied.

“Good, because you can’t come back to America while you’re still regularly appearing in The New York Times.”

“Not to mention on the FBI’s Most Wanted list,” added Krantz.

“Fifteen minutes of fame,” said Fenston. “But I do have another assignment for you.”

“Where?” asked Krantz.

“Wentworth Hall.”

“I couldn’t risk going back there a second time—”

“Even if I doubled your fee?”

“It’s still too much of a risk.”

“You may not think so when I tell you whose throat I want you to cut.”

“I’m listening,” she said, and when Fenston revealed the name of his next victim, all she said was, “You’ll pay me two million dollars for that?”

“Three, if you manage to kill Petrescu at the same time—she’ll be staying there overnight.”

Krantz hesitated.

“And four, if she’s a witness to the first throat being cut.”

A long silence followed, before Krantz said, “I’ll need two million in advance.”

“The usual place?”

“No,” she replied, and gave him a numbered account in Moscow.

Fenston put the phone down and buzzed through to Leapman.

“I need to see you—now.”

While he waited for Leapman to join him, Fenston began jotting down headings for subjects he needed to discuss: Van Gogh, money, Wentworth estate, Petrescu. He was still scribbling when there was a knock on the door.