Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 104, No. 4, August 22, 1936

“He covers his board with a sheet of fine canvas. Nothing simpler than that,” said Kearton. “But the fact was that under the canvas there was an excellent copy of the Granduca. An old one. Painted centuries ago and by a good workman. That was where the idea came into the brain of the doctor — or of Tydings, or whoever was behind it — to find that excellent old copy in the shop of the dealer. And so Dr. Hamblin skins a fine canvas over that old board and takes it into the Pitti Palace to copy the Granduca. The guard grows used to him in that room. Now and then, naturally, he walks up to the picture and examines it carefully. Why not? Any painter may want to see how the paint is put on. Who would suspect that a fellow in the open light of day was loosening the fastenings that join the picture to the gilded frame? Day by day he prepares everything until it will take only a touch to move the picture out of the frame... Then to wait for the right opportunity. The guard in that room of the Pitti liked to pick up a tourist, here and there, and escort him off to another room to show something curious. They have that way of picking up an extra lira or so. And when it happens this time, Hamblin is ready... It must have been a strain on his nerves, but he snakes his canvas from the good copy that it covers. He runs to the Granduca hanging on the wall, jerks out the last fastening, removes it from the frame, puts the copy into the frame, secures it in one or two places, and jumps back with the real Granduca, which he puts on his own easel.”

“There’s brains!” said O’Rourke. “I wouldn’t of picked the doctor, living or dead, for brains like that!”

“But here comes the clever part. He can’t leave the Granduca exposed on his easel. There’s nowhere near time enough to stretch a new canvas over the top of it. That takes hours, perhaps. And though it’s early in the morning of a dark day, when not many tourists or other sightseers will be around, every moment counts, because the guard will be back almost at once. Now I ask you, what does he do to hide the face of the real Granduca? What does he do, Sergeant Campbell? Tell me that!”

“I’m damned if I know. All I could of done would of been to sweat,” said the sergeant. “No, I would of popped the picture into a bag that I would of had along with me, and I would of said that I’d finished making my copy, and goodby.”

Kearton laughed on a high, breaking note.

“That’s what you would have done, maybe,” he said. “But when you were to leave the gallery, your painting would have had to be inspected, of course, and the moment the inspector saw that old paint on your board, he would have stopped everything... Besides, you hadn’t the time necessary for securing that painting in its frame — the one that was to serve as the real Granduca... No, you could pop the picture into a bag and walk off with it. You simply would have been walking yourself into jail — for a fifteen year sentence. They’re thorough about such things in Italy, these days!... Can you guess what Hamblin did, O’Rourke?”

“I dunno. I been trying to think,” said O’Rourke, fascinated. “I’ll tell you — he’s got a line hitched to the picture, and he lowers away through a window to where his confederate...”

Kearton laughed again. “In broad daylight... with the guard coming back again at any moment?” he asked.

“No, my idea ain’t so bright,” agreed O’Rourke.

“Why,” said Kearton, “he already has prepared a quantity of grayish tempera, a coating that can be washed on fast, and when the guard returns, he simply finds Hamblin covering his board with great strokes. The whole thing has turned to a mass of gray under-paint. The guard thinks that the artist is dissatisfied with his work. Hamblin swears and groans and speaks of the time he has lost. The guard feels sympathy. At the moment of stealing one of the world’s most famous pictures, Hamblin, with the article there under his hand, is the earnest, innocent student — least suspected of men!”

“Smart! Damn smart!” said O’Rourke. “Too smart for Hamblin, I’d say.”