The Mystery of the Third Lucretia (16 page)

“And the brush technique.”

“We know how he got that,” Lucas said.

Mom added, “And he works right here in the Rijksmuseum, where I suppose there are more Rembrandt paintings than anywhere else in the world. He could copy paintings all he wanted. Normally an art expert would have to call in other art experts to authenticate a newly discovered painting, but I suppose Jacob got by with it because he's the world's leading expert on Rembrandt. Who would know better if it was a Rembrandt than Jacob Hannekroot? I'll say it again, what an unbelievable setup.”

We were quiet for a minute, letting it all sink in. “You know what makes me sad?” Mom said. “I'm not exactly a certified expert on art, but I've looked at a lot of paintings in my life, and I'd say the Third Lucretia is one of the most beautiful works of art I've ever seen. It also has about as much emotional content as a painting could have. I got tears in my eyes. Jacob Hannekroot is obviously a truly great artist. Too bad he doesn't just paint his own pictures and let people enjoy them in galleries.”

“But then he wouldn't make twenty million dollars selling a painting to the Rijksmuseum,” Lucas said.

“You've got something there,” Mom said dryly. “Well, the panel I read just talked about the Mannefeldt family, who they were, how they made their money, and how they might have gotten the Rembrandt to begin with.

“Then it told about Willem Mannefeldt dying and how Marianne started making a list of the belongings in the house. Boy, she and Hannekroot must have had everything planned for a long time, down to the last detail.”

“So do you think Jacob and Marianne were lovers before old Willem died?” I asked.

“I'd bet on it,” Lucas said. “And I bet he was murdered, too.”

“I wouldn't be so sure about either of those things,” Mom said. “Just because a man and a woman work together doesn't mean they're lovers. And as far as that and the murder go—well, we might have our suspicions, but let's remember we have no proof of either of those things.”

I took another bite of my food. Remembering the pictures of Willem, Marianne, and Jacob, I didn't have a single doubt in my mind that they were lovers. They might not have killed the old guy, Willem—he could just have had a heart attack or something—but that seemed way too convenient.

“I'd like to know how Willem died,” I said. “But mostly I want to know what we're going to do about the Third Lucretia being a forgery.”

“I think we should go to the police as soon as we finish eating,” Mom said.

“Mo-om, who's going to believe us?”

“Yeah, Gillian,” Lucas said, “like they're going to listen to two fourteen-year-old American girls and arrest the curator of Dutch art at the Rijksmuseum?”

“You've got a point.” She sat for a while staring out at the street and clamping up and down on her thumbnail. Then she said, “Tell you what. We'll just take a nice walk around Amsterdam this afternoon, and I'll think about it.”

Lucas and I looked at each other.

“Don't worry,” Mom said. “I won't leave the two of you out of it. You're the ones who made all the discoveries, and I'll keep you in the loop on everything. The whole thing is your deal, you know. But from the sound of it, Jacob Hannekroot is about as dangerous as they come. Remember those museum guards.”

Remember what happened to Lucas on King's Road, I thought. But I didn't say it.

“And you need some adult help in figuring out what steps to take without putting yourselves in danger.”

Maybe so. But somehow Mom seemed to be right in the middle of everything now. Part of me liked having her in on it, helping us figure things out. When she was sitting there talking about Marianne and Willem and Jacob a few minutes ago, she made me feel like the mystery we'd discovered was a big deal after all, just like my intuition had said it would be. And I knew that Jacob Hannekroot was an extremely dangerous guy, even more than she did, so I couldn't blame her for wanting to keep us safe. I wanted us to stay safe, too.

But danger or no danger, part of me still felt that the mystery belonged just to Lucas and me. And that part didn't like having Mom in the middle of things at all.

Amsterdam is not a big city. At least the parts of it that tourists want to see. You can actually see a lot of it in just a few hours. By five o'clock we'd walked through what I suppose you'd call their downtown and down a long pedestrian-only street with shops, and we'd seen about a thousand canals, a few hundred cute little bridges, and a billion canal houses, including the one where Marianne lived and the painting had been found. We'd avoided at least two million people on bicycles, and seen at least a billion more bicycles lined up outside every big building, tied to every railing, and on bike racks at every street corner.

We finally settled down to have a snack in my mom's favorite little bakery, which she says has been selling the best almond butter cookies in all of Amsterdam since way back when she lived there.

When we were sitting at a corner table with our coffee and cookies, Mom said, “I've been thinking.”

I braced myself. Thinking is often a dangerous thing in a parent.

“About your mystery. I agree the police would never believe our story because we don't have any real proof, so we have to count them out. And I don't want to go directly to someone else at the Rijksmuseum. They'd probably not believe what we told them anyway, and besides, they'd be sure to tell Jacob, and we can't have him knowing. Jacob is a killer.

“But somehow we have to plant doubt in the mind of some art-world honcho that Rembrandt painted the Third Lucretia. I think we need to go to somebody in the United States. I've interviewed the director of the Minneapolis Art Institute for a couple of stories, so he knows me. What I'll do, if it's okay with you guys, is call him tomorrow and tell him about this. I would suppose he knows somebody at the Rijksmuseum, and he'd probably be willing to call or send them an e-mail or something to say he has reason to believe the painting is a forgery and suggest they get some outside experts in to authenticate it. And I'll make sure Jacob never knows the tip came from us, so we won't be in danger when he learns his crime is going to be found out.”

I didn't say anything and neither did Lucas.

“Don't all cheer at once,” Mom said. “What's wrong with my idea?”

“It's just so . . . so boring!” Lucas started. “I mean, here we've had all this adventure figuring out the mystery and everything, and now you're just going to call this guy in Minneapolis and let him take it from here?”

“Well, I don't know of any other way to approach it. I thought we might try to get an appointment with some big official at the museum, but it occurred to me it might not be safe to do that. We don't know if there's anybody else in on the forgery besides Jacob and Marianne. If we told somebody else, and that somebody happened to be in on it, we could be in actual, physical danger. We're going to have to be extraordinarily careful. The only person I can think of who can help us that we know is absolutely safe is the director of the Art Institute.”

Mom waited for our reaction, but we still didn't say anything.

“Look, you guys,” Mom said, “you've done some great detective work, and you can be very proud of that. But to be honest, I'm not sure I should have brought you here to Amsterdam. I'm beginning to think this whole situation has way too much potential for danger. Tell me one thing. In London, when you were watching Jacob Hannekroot, did he ever get a good look at either one of you? Did he see Lucas when he said ‘Go a-
way
' to that little boy?”

“I was kind of behind him when that happened, and he didn't even look at me, or we couldn't have spied on him,” Lucas said. That much was true, and it's what I'd told Mom after our flight back from London.

I was still looking at Lucas, waiting for her to tell Mom about the argument she had with Gallery Guy, when all of a sudden I felt a kick in the shin so hard that I actually yelled, “Ow!”

“What's the matter?” Mom asked.

“I just bit my tongue.” This was not a lie. Lucas's kick had surprised me so much that I actually had bitten my tongue, but it didn't hurt enough to make me yell like that.

“Oh, I hate when that happens,” Lucas said, totally innocent. “But anyway, that's the closest we came to having Gallery Guy see us,” she continued, ignoring my dirty look.

“Well, even so, I'm worried about your safety,” Mom said. “We think Jacob may have killed at least three people. He's utterly ruthless. It scares me to death to think what he might do to you if you got in his way. Even if he never saw you, I want the two of you to keep a very low profile while we're here. Understand?”

We both nodded.

“Tell me you won't try any funny stuff,” Mom said.

We were both quiet.

“Tell me,” Mom said, in her Parent's Voice of Authority.

Finally we both muttered, “Okay,” but I'm sure Mom could tell we weren't very happy about it.

She was obviously still considering the situation, because she took another sip of coffee and said, “I think the two of you should probably stay close to me while we're here.”

“Oh no!” Lucas wailed.

I said, “Please, Mom, we'll keep out of Jacob's way. What are we supposed to do—sit around in waiting rooms while you do your interviews? That would stink! We'd be totally bored. Totally!”

She looked down at her coffee, then up at us.

“Well, I don't want you going anywhere near the Rijksmuseum. Got that? My first obligation is to keep you two safe, and if I thought for one minute—”

“Don't worry, Mom, we'll be careful.”

“And we won't set foot in the museum. Honest, Gillian,” Lucas added.

“Promise me.” She looked really serious now.

“We promise,” I said.

“Okay, I trust you.” She gave a big sigh, and shifted in her chair. “Well, here's what I'll do. It's Sunday. I'll call the Art Institute tomorrow right after nine A.M. Central Time. That'll be, let's see, four tomorrow afternoon here. How about if I tell this guy the story and ask his advice on what we can do from this end to get the Third Lucretia looked at by other experts. I'll also ask Bill if he knows of anyone here in Amsterdam who could help us out. Okay? Is that better than just letting the Art Institute director handle it?”

Lucas and I looked at each other and finally nodded.

When Mom looked down to break off a part of her cookie, I tried to catch Lucas's eye to see how she was reacting to all this.

But I couldn't, because she was staring in the other direction, thinking her own thoughts.

 

 

It was after we'd walked for a while longer that Mom started telling us about the bad part of town. It came up because we were waiting for a tram at a place called the Rembrandtplein, which is a little square with a statue of Rembrandt and a bunch of other guys in the middle of it. This square is surrounded by nightclubs and bars that completely light the place up with neon signs at night. On some of the side streets, some places had advertisements on them that said Peep Show or Sexy Girls, all in English, I suppose so tourists from all over the world can read them.

“Is this the bad part of town?” I asked.

It seemed like a good question, but Mom gave a slow chuckle and shook her head. “Oh, this is mild for Amsterdam. The really bad neighborhood is just up there a few blocks.” She pointed in the direction of the peep-show places toward a part of town we hadn't seen at all that day. “It's called the Quarter. They have a lot more of this,” she said, gesturing to one of the clubs with a picture of a dancing girl on the side, “and much, much worse.”

I was going to ask what, but just then the tram came. It was six thirty on a Sunday night, so there weren't a lot of people riding the trams. We got a whole area in the back to ourselves.

“The Quarter is probably pretty dangerous these days. Everywhere seems to be more dangerous these days, and it was bad enough when I lived here.”

“Back in medieval times,” I added.

 

 

As I said, this all just came up in conversation. It didn't seem any more important than any of the other things Mom had said that day, like about the tulip trade that was so big in the seventeenth century, and how the country is actually below sea level and the land was created by using dikes to block out the water, and how everybody in the Netherlands speaks English plus three or four other languages.

But it turned out to be a really, really important conversation. Because before we left Amsterdam, we were going to end up spending a lot of time in the dangerous part of town.

The next day, Mom spent the morning calling to schedule appointments and interviews for The Scene. Then she tried to get an appointment to interview Jacob Hannekroot for a magazine story. At least that's what she
told
them. But they said he was in meetings and she'd have to call back the next day.

By afternoon she had left to do some work, saying she wouldn't be back until six, and Lucas and I were alone for the first time in days.

It felt really good. I love my mother. Honest. But spending too much time around her can get very old.

Lucas and I decided to go see the Anne Frank house, the place where she hid from the Nazis and wrote her diary. I won't go into it, but it was pretty depressing. I kept thinking about some school friends of mine who are Jewish, and what would have happened if they'd been alive and over here during Hitler's time.