Rembrandt's Ghost by Paul Christopher

own name to paintings that he never put a brush to.”
    “But you can’t be sure of that.”
    “Sure I can,” said Finn with a smile. “If it was painted in 1671.”
    “Why is the date so important?” Billy asked.
    “Because Rembrandt died in 1669,” she answered. “I’m no expert in the subject, but I remember that much from my art history classes.” She reached out and tentatively ran her fingers along the ornate gilded frame. “Interesting, though,” she said quietly.
    “What is?” Billy asked.
    “The frame. I’m almost sure it’s by Foggini.”
    “Who?” Tulkinghorn asked.
    “He was a Florentine during the seventeenth century,” said Finn. “I spent a year in Florence before going for my master’s. I got interested in him then. He was an artist in his own right, a sculptor, but he’s most famous now for his picture frames. Frames like this one. Gold, ornate, a lot of decoration.”
    “I’m not sure I see the point. Why is the frame important?”
    “If the painting is a forgery, or a copy, why would you put such a valuable frame around it?”
    “Maybe to make people believe in the authenticity of the painting,” said Billy.
    “But if you’re going to all that trouble,” mused Tulkinghorn thoughtfully, “why would you ascribe a date to the painting that was incorrect, nay, impossible, and, I would think, extremely easy to prove that it was so?”
    It really was amazing, thought Finn; the man spoke like Sherlock Holmes come to life. But the old lawyer was right.
    “Can I take a closer look?” Finn asked.
    Sir James nodded. “Of course. The painting after all now belongs to you and His Grace.”
    Finn picked up the little painting. Given the weight of the ornate frame, the picture itself was quite heavy for its size, which meant that it had been painted on a wood panel, almost certainly oak. One of her night classes at the Courtauld Institute had been about dating wood panels used in painting by dendochronological analysis—counting tree rings. She looked closely at the surface of the painting and immediately saw the weave of canvas in several worn spots near the edges. Canvas over wood? She’d never heard of a painting done that way, and certainly not in the seventeenth century. Frowning, she flipped the painting over. The back of the painting was covered in old, very brittle-looking kraft paper.
    “Anyone have a penknife?”
    Sir James nodded and reached into the watch pocket of his waistcoat. He took out an old pearl-handled jackknife and snapped it open. The old man gave it to her. She took the little knife and carefully cut along the kraft paper, keeping well away from the edges of the inner frame, or stretcher. She lifted the paper away, revealing the back of the panel. Dark wood. There were several scratched initials, what appeared to be the chalked number 273 , the 7 struck through in the European fashion, and two labels, one, clearly from the Nazi era, the other a simple paper rectangle reading
Kunsthandel J. Goudstikker NV.
    “Goudstikker was the preeminent gallery in Amsterdam,” said Finn. “The Nazis cheated him out of everything in 1940. The Dutch government only resolved the whole thing a little while ago. It was big news in the art world.”
    “This Goudstikker was a person?” Billy asked.
    Finn nodded. “Jacques Goudstikker. If I remember the story right, he inherited the gallery from his father.”
    “What happened to him?”
    “He fled Holland on a refugee ship for England, but they wouldn’t let him into the country because he was a Jew. He would have been interned. The ship went on to South America with him still aboard. Apparently he had an accident on the ship and died.” She stared at the upper edge of the painting. Frayed edges of canvas could be seen, almost glued to the wood with age. “But Goudstikker’s not the point.”
    “What do you mean?” Billy asked.
    She pointed to the canvas edging barely visible at the inner edge of the frame. “Most