“Now,” continued Isidore, “what was there in this room that could arouse the covetousness of the burglars? Two things. The tapestry first. It can’t have been that. Old tapestry cannot be imitated: the fraud would have been palpable at once. There remain the four Rubens pictures.”
“What’s that you say?”
“I say that the four Rubenses on that wall are false.”
“Impossible!”
“They are false a priori, inevitably and without a doubt.”
“I tell you, it’s impossible.”
“It is very nearly a year ago, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, since a young man, who gave his name as Charpenais, came to the Château d’Ambrumésy and asked permission to copy the Rubens pictures. M. de Gesvres gave him permission. Every day for five months Charpenais worked in this room from morning till dusk. The copies which he made, canvases and frames, have taken the place of the four original pictures bequeathed to M. de Gesvres by his uncle, the Marqués de Bobadilla.”
“Prove it!”
“I have no proof to give. A picture is false because it is false; and I consider that it is not even necessary to examine these four.”
M. Filleul and Ganimard exchanged glances of unconcealed astonishment. The inspector no longer thought of withdrawing. At last, the magistrate muttered: