I walked up and down the gallery, pausing before each painting and hologram, analyzing them as quickly as I could. Finally I returned to Abercrombie, being careful to stop some ten feet short of him.
"You tried to trick me, Mr. Abercrombie," I said with a smile. "There are four fraudulent pieces."
"The hell there are!" he snapped.
"The Skarlos portrait, the Ngoni still life, the Perkins hologram, and the Menke nude are all duplicates."
"I spent 800,000 credits for the Ngoni!"
"Then you were deceived," I said gently. "Ngoni lived on New Kenya five centuries ago, yet the paint is less than three centuries old."
"How can you tell?" he demanded.
I tried to explain how a Bjornn can analyze the chemical composition of paints and the diverse textures of canvas, wood, and particle boards, but since human eyes cannot see as far into the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum, it was beyond his comprehension, nor were there any dialects that could incorporate the proper terms into their Terran equivalents, which did not in fact exist.
"All right," he said. "I'll take your word for it." He paused, lost in thought, then looked up. "I'll send it to Odysseus for an authentication certificate, and if it doesn't pass muster, my agent on New Kenya is going to wish he'd never been born."
"Was I correct about the other three?"
He nodded his head.
"May I assume, then, that I am here to authenticate various purchases you have made or are considering making?"
"No," he said. "But I wanted to see if you knew your stuff." He paused, then added grudgingly: "You do."
"Thank you, Mr. Abercrombie."
"Come into the next room," he said, opening a door at the end of the gallery. I followed him into a small room--small for this house, at least--and found myself in a windowless enclosure, the walls of which were covered by seventeen paintings and five holograms, as well as a pair of exquisitely crafted cameos and a small statue--and each of them featured a likeness of the woman in the Kilcullen painting.
"Well?" he said, after allowing me to briefly examine them.
"I am most impressed," I said, the intensity of my color deepening once again. "I believe that four of the paintings were rendered prior to the Galactic Era."
"They were," he replied. "And the statue predates the birth of Christ."
"What religion does she represent?" I asked.
"None."
I felt confused. "But for the same woman to appear in artwork separated by so many thousands of years and trillions of miles would certainly imply that she is a formidable myth-figure in the history of your culture."
"She has nothing to do with the history of my culture," said Abercrombie adamantly.
"Then can there be some other explanation for why her likeness has appeared in so many diverse works of art?" I asked.
"I haven't got any idea," he replied.
"It is most curious," I said, standing back and comparing three of the nearer paintings. "It is obviously the same woman. She is always clad in black, and she possesses the same hauntingly sad expression in each rendering."
"I hope you're not suggesting that she posed for each of the artists," said Abercrombie irritably. "There's a seven-millennia span from the earliest to the latest. Men may be tough, but sooner or later we all die. Usually sooner."
"I am merely suggesting that possibly there is a single source, an ancient painting or carving, and that all these are simply interpretations of it."
"Maybe," he said dubiously. "But I sure as hell haven't been able to find it."
I walked slowly around the room once more, examining each piece in turn.
"They have another interesting feature in common," I said.
"What?"
"Not a single one was rendered by an artist of stature," I pointed out.
"You've never run across any of these artists before?" he asked, surprised.
"No," I replied.
"What about Kilcullen?"
"His name was unknown to me prior to the auction."
"Then how could you put a value of fifty thousand credits on the painting?" he asked sharply.
"By analyzing the painting's age, point of origin, general school, and quality, and then taking into account the artist's relative obscurity," I replied.
He seemed to consider my answer for a moment, then nodded his head.
"Do they have anything else in common that you can see?" he asked.
"You are the only other link that binds them together," I answered. I paused, aware of the possibility that he might take offense at my next question, but determined to ask it. "May I inquire about your interest in them, Mr. Abercrombie? The model's appearance in so many portraits is certainly an intriguing mystery, but I must point out that a number of them are relatively crude and amateurish."
"I'm a collector," he said with just a trace of pugnacity.
"Then she does have some meaning for you," I said.
"I like her face," he replied.
"It is a lovely face," I agreed, "but surely you must have some further reason."
"What makes you think so?"
"Two nights ago I saw you bid 375,000 credits for a painting that is demonstrably worth fifty thousand."
"So what?"
"I simply infer that you must have some reason to bid so much money, above and beyond your admiration for her beauty."
He stared at me for a moment, then spoke:
"I'm eighty-two years old, my health is deteriorating, my wife is dead, my two sons were killed in the Sett War, I haven't seen or spoken to my daughter in close to thirty years, I have one grandchild and I dislike her intensely, and I'm worth 600 million credits. What do you think I should do with my money--leave it to a woman I wouldn't recognize and another one that I can't stand the sight of?"
I moved a few feet farther away from him, stunned that he could so casually reject the concept and obligations of House and Family.
"Fifty thousand credits, 375,000 credits," he continued, "what the hell's the difference? I'd have spent five million credits on the Kilcullen if I had to. I can afford to buy any damned thing I want, and none of my money will do me any good once I'm in the grave." He paused. "That's where you come in."
"Please explain, Mr. Abercrombie."
"You said the other night that you had seen this model"--he gestured to one of the paintings--"twice before."
"That is correct."
"A painting and a hologram, you said."
"Yes. The painting was from Patagonia IV, although it was purchased by a resident of New Rhodesia, and the hologram was from Binder X."
"I want them--and any others you can hunt up."
"I am not aware of any others, Mr. Abercrombie."
"They're out there, all right," he said with conviction. "I've been tracking them down for twenty-five years, and I wasn't aware of the two you saw."
"I would not begin to know where to look for them," I said.
"You know where to begin looking for two of them," he replied. "You know where they were sold, and you can find out who bought them."
"I suppose I can," I admitted. "But that does not mean that their new owners will care to part with them."
"They'll sell, all right," promised Abercrombie. "You just find them for me, and I'll take it from there." He set his jaw firmly. "Then we'll start hunting for the others."
)
