r 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?"

"Frankly, Walter," he said, as we walked along, "I don't know what to
think. You know even the greatest experts sometimes disagree over
questions like this. Well, Walter, art is long and time is fleeting. If
we are ever to settle where that real Watteau is, we shall have to
resort to science, I think."

That afternoon after a trip up to the laboratory, where Craig secured a
peculiar and cumbersome photographic outfit, we at last found ourselves
around at Faber's private gallery. Faber was out, but, true to his
promise, he had left word with his man, who admitted us.

Kennedy set to work immediately, before the painting, placing an
instrument which certainly was not like a regular camera. I was further
astonished, moreover, when Craig set up something back of the canvas,
which he moved away from the wall. As nearly as I could make it out it
consisted of a glass bulb of curious shape. A moment later he attached
the bulb to a wire that connected with a little rheostat or resistance
coil and thence, in turn, to an electric-light socket.

He switched on the electric current and the apparatus behind the picture
began to sputter. I could not see very well what it was, but it looked
as if the bulb was suffused with a peculiar, yellowish-green light,
divided into two hemispheres of different shades. The pungent odor of
ozone from the electric discharge filled the room.

While Kennedy was working, I had noticed a little leather party box
lying on a table, as though it had been forgotten. It was not just the
thing