"Surely," answered Jacot, then, after consideration, in which his beady eye seemed to size up Kennedy, he added, sotto voce, craftily, "Would Mr. Morehouse be—er—interested in Watteau's Fête?"
My heart almost stopped beating. Were we really on the right track at last?
Jacot leaned over confidentially to Kennedy and added, "Why not sell as an original, not this, but another copy—a—a—what you call it?—a fake?"
I understood. Kennedy, having invited crooked dealing by his remark about the rake-off, was being approached about another crooked deal.
"A fake Watteau?" he asked, appearing to meet Jacot halfway.
Jacot nodded. "Why not? You know the same Botticelli belongs to collectors in Philadelphia and Boston; that is, each has a picture and if one is genuine the other must be a fake. Possibly the artist painted the same picture twice. Why, M'sieur, there are Rubens, Hals, Van Dycks, Rembrandts galore in this country that hang also at the same time abroad." Jacot smiled. "Did you never hear of a picture with a dual personality?"
Kennedy seemed to consider the idea. "I'll think it over," he remarked finally, as we prepared to leave, "and let you know when I come back to snap some of the things for my principal."
"Well—of all brazen crooks!" I sputtered when we had gained Fifth Avenue.
Kennedy shook his head. "We can't be sure of anything in this game. Does it occur to you that he might perhaps think he was playing us for suckers, after all?"
My mind worked rapidly. "And that that picture of Faber's is the real original, after all?" I asked. "You mean that somehow a copy by Miss Fleming has come really to Jacot with instructions to palm it off on some gullible buyer?"