Page 7

“Hartmann?” He asks.

I glance back at The Winter Garden.

“Yes.”

Ross steps toward the table.

“I thought that one was already settled?”

“So did the catalogue,” I reply.

That brings his eyes back to me.

“What did you find?” he asks.

I move beside the frame and indicate the faded notation without touching it.

“An inventory number underneath a later reinforcement strip. It corresponds with an exhibition document Amelia located this morning. Munich, 1901.”

Ross looks down at the frame.

“The Kensington acquisition was in 1902.”

“That’s the recorded date,” I tell him.

His gaze shifts toward the open ledger.

“Then where’s the discrepancy?”

“The ledger places the painting in Vienna immediately before the acquisition,” I explain.

“The physical evidence puts it in Munich during the same period.”

Ross studies the old exhibition label, then the archival document beside it.

“An exhibition doesn’t necessarily change ownership,” he says.

“No,” I agree.

“But it does change location, and location can expose a missing link in the chain.”

Ross picks up the printed chronology.

“The family ledger identifies Hartmann’s Vienna dealer as the source of acquisition.”

“It does,” I confirm.

His eyes lift from the page.

“You think the ledger is wrong?”

“I think it’s incomplete,” I tell him.

Ross looks at me over the top of the page.

“The ledger was maintained contemporaneously.”

“Parts of it were,” I say.