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“He would want her seal of approval?”
“Correct.”
“Is there another reason why someone might hire her?”
“Yes, of course, Timothy. To find a missing painting.”
Smiling, Peel pointed toward the yellow legal pad lying on the corner of the desk. “Have a look. Tell me if you see anything interesting.”
Gabriel adjusted the beam of the lamp and scrutinized the first page. “Sorry, but I’m afraid Sanskrit isn’t one of my languages.”
“It seems that penmanship wasn’t the professor’s strong suit.”
Gabriel flipped to the following page, which was no more legible. The notation at the top of the succeeding page, however, was carefully rendered.
Peel read it aloud. “Untitled portrait of a woman in the surrealist style, oil on canvas, ninety-four by sixty-six centimeters, 1937.”
“Picasso painted numerous such works that same year.”
“How much would one be worth today?”
“A great deal.”
Peel pointed out the next notation.
Galerie Paul Rosenberg...
“He was Picasso’s dealer at the time,” explained Gabriel. “His gallery was on the rue la Boétie in Paris. Picasso lived and worked in an apartment next door.”
“Should we assume the painting was purchased there?”
“For now.”
Peel’s gloved fingertip moved down the page. “By this man?”
Bernard Lévy...
“Why not?” said Gabriel.
Peel’s fingertip inched downward. “He doesn’t seem to have kept it long.”
Private sale Paris 1944...
“Not a good year for someone named Bernard Lévy to part with a Picasso,” said Gabriel.
Peel pointed out the final entry on the page. “But what could this mean?”
OOC...
Gabriel drew his phone. The three letters, when entered into the white box of his search engine, produced twenty-seven million pages of Internet mush. Adding the words Picasso and Untitled was of no help.
He snapped a photograph of the page, then looked at the slumbering computer.
Peel read his thoughts. “I’ll let you know if it contains anything of value the minute we get authorization.”
“If you like...”
Peel switched off the computer. “Don’t even think about it, Mr. Allon.”
