is Edward Taylor, the archaeologist is William Strode, the gallery owner is Isaac Watts, the art dealer is John Milton and the art restorer is Sydney Goddphin.” I finished on a triumphant note and looked expectantly at Phillip. He slowly turned to me with a blank expression. My shoulders slumped. “You don’t know who they are.”
“No, Genevieve, I don’t.”
“Every single one of them was an English poet who lived in the seventeenth century.” I could barely sit still with the excitement bubbling in me. “Can’t you see? The probability of all of these men discovering stolen pieces having names of seventeenth-century poets is incalculable. It simply would not happen.”
“And that led you to believe that this is the same person.”
“Yes!” I all but shouted and took a calming breath. “What I haven’t been able to figure out is his agenda.”
“It would seem clear to me. He reappropriates artworks that were illegally taken from the owners.”
“True. But who is he working for? I couldn’t find anyone fitting his description working for any agencies.”
Phillip narrowed his eyes at the screens. “I see only three photos in these articles.”
“Unfortunately there aren’t any more photos of this man, these men. Only the three photos here.”
“None of these photos really show his face.” A sly smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Clever bastard.”
“But these three photos are enough for me to believe that this is the same man.”
“I don’t know, Genevieve.” He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “The men in those articles look mighty different from each other.”
“Look at their noses and their mouths.” I reached for a laser pointer and aimed it at the perfectly shaped male lips in each photo. “This is the same man. We can puff out our cheeks and try to draw attention away from our eyes with glasses and contact lenses, but we can’t change the shape of our lips. Or our noses. At least not without the help of a professional makeup artist.”
We spent a full minute in silence studying the photos. I was reliving the burst of excitement that had cannoned through me when I had made this discovery. Almost as if to myself I said, “These articles date back five years. I’m sure that there are many more discoveries and poets if I looked.”
“But why would you look? What is this man’s connection to the case apart from being the one who identified the artefact?”
“Talking about the artefact, did you find out why your client didn’t report the artefact stolen?”
“I haven’t been able to get in touch with him,” grunted Phillip. “He tends to go off the grid for weeks on end and then it’s impossible to reach him.”
“Which means we don’t know if or when the painting was stolen.”
“Correct.”
“Hmm, that might be a problem.”
“It is obvious to me that it would be a problem, but why do you think it’s a problem?”
“So far I’ve found six different poets who discovered another thirteen artefacts. See these three cases?” I pointed to three different screens. “Here the poet declared the stolen artefact a forgery. In each case it caused huge controversies since all three of these pieces were authenticated.”
“By whom?”
“By different and very reputable entities. One of the artefacts alone was authenticated by a museum, a university and an independent archaeologist.”
“This is not good. Not good at all.”
“No, it’s not. It leads me to believe that the poet-man not only recovers artefacts, he also has some ability to identify fakes. After his very public declaration that they were forgeries, they were once again tested and were found to be extremely good replicas of the originals.”
“Okay,” he said very slowly. “How is all this connected?”
“I don’t know yet. But I know it is connected. I’ve found more art murders.”
Phillips blinked at my quick change of topic. “Art murders?”
“Well, murders