“Oh, not me, my good man. I’d have to find someone who has both the technical skill and knowledge of the ancient art so it could be done right. There’s no one I trust more than the team who works at the Met. There’s none better. Wouldn’t you say, Dr. Westlake?”
“Yes, of course, but they’re quite busy with museum work as it is without taking on private projects,” she told him, bracing herself for the news she was about to deliver. She could only imagine what he’d spent on four matching canopic jars.
“Come again?” Joe looked at her. “The team at the Met?”
Lauren removed her gloves and slid them back into her purse. “That’s right. The Egyptian department has its own underground facility to support what you see in the galleries. We have rooms for inventory that we rotate in and out of the galleries, and workshops for carpentry and minor restorations.”
“But made with considerable skill and care,” Sanderson inserted.
“For example?” Joe prodded.
“You’ve seen the little blue hippo made of blue faience, with black line drawings of lotus blossoms all over him. Only his front left leg is original to him. The other three legs were restored so he can stand properly.”
“The hippo has three fake legs?”
“That doesn’t make the hippo a fake,” Lauren assured him. “It’s a common enough practice among museums, Detective. But restorations are only done in particular circumstances. The object needs to be mostly whole already, it cannot suffer any harm during the process, and the restoration must be helpful enough to the overall work to warrant the effort.”
She could see that Joe had more questions, but this conversation could take far more time than they had. Turning back to Mr. Sanderson, she said, “May I see the provenance for this set, please?”
He withdrew a document from the folder he’d been carrying and passed it to her.
It didn’t take long for Lauren to make her verdict. “I’m sorry, Mr. Sanderson, but this entire set was forged.”
The color leached from his face. “But how can you be so confident?”
“Inside the lids are the typical identifying labels.” She waited while he picked up the first lid and stared at hieroglyphs. “That says that these jars held the remains of a woman who was a mayor’s daughter during the twentieth dynasty, which was the Ramesside period. The provenance document agrees, dating these pieces to sometime between 1184 BC to 1070 BC.”
“I believe you, Dr. Westlake,” he said tentatively, “but I fail to see the problem in any of this.”
She glanced at Joe, who was taking notes, as usual. “During the Old Kingdom, canopic jars had simple disk-shaped or hemispherical lids. Then, from the late First Intermediate Period to early Middle Kingdom, lids became human-headed, like these. But as I’ve said before, according to the dates on the lids, these jars claim to come from the Ramesside period. But from the Ramesside period on, the lids always represented the four sons of the god Horus. One was human-headed, another hawk-headed, another ape-headed, and the last jackal-headed.”
She took a breath, waiting to see if he understood that a talented forger had made a big mistake.
His crestfallen expression said he did. “Is there any chance it could simply be a clerical error?”
“If it was only the provenance that got it wrong, I would have thought it possible. But the etchings on the lids themselves say the same thing. It’s simply impossible.”
“Could someone have reused the jars, centuries later?”
It was a valid question. “If that were the case, they would havemodified the label, crossing out the original name and adding the new one. So no, that’s not the situation here. I am certain these are extremely well-made forgeries.”
Mr. Sanderson brought a handkerchief to his brow. “Well, this is why I asked you to come, after all.”
Lauren caught Joe’s eye and detected a hint of something approaching compassion, or at least regret for the whole situation. From all appearances, the Sandersons were fabulously wealthy. But appearances could be deceiving, every forgery a case in point. Perhaps the loss of the money invested in these fakes would hurt them more than one might imagine.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Sanderson,” Joe said. “You’ve been the victim of a crime, and thanks to your cooperation, we have more evidence to hang on the one who did this to you as soon as we apprehend him.”
“My reputation will be ruined when people find out. What will they say?” Mr. Sanderson groaned. “What will my wife say?” Moving as though the starch had gone out of him, he sat on an upholstered bench and signaled Governor to come.
The German shepherd trotted over and rested his head on Mr. Sanderson’s knee. While Joe joined them and began his line of questioning, Lauren continued to walk the length of the gallery. She was pleased not to find anything else amiss.
Lauren thought again of her father’s suggestion to write up her notes as an article for the Napoleon Society newsletter. With what she’d written from this visit alone, she could protect people like the Sandersons.
Suddenly, it felt selfish not to.
By the time she returned to where Joe and Mr. Sanderson were seated, they were deep in conversation.
“Daniel Bradford,” Joe said as Lauren took a seat alongside him. “Spell it, please?”
