“Is that what I think it is?” Camille asked.
“Yes,” replied Art.
They stared at the image floating on the screen. It was the long-lost painting by Vincent van Gogh, The Park at Arles with the Entrance Seen Through the Trees—the same painting that they had seen earlier that day on the large banners hanging from the front of the National Gallery of Art.
The image on the screen was remarkable.
“It’s so . . . real-looking,” said Camille.
Art nodded. It was incredible. He stood directly in front of the monitor, his face only inches away, but it was as if he were standing in front of the painting itself. There was no sense of the image being anything less than a real object—the boy could almost smell the dust in the intricate carvings on the thick wood frame. Whatever technology was used to capture this image was not something bought off the shelf at the local electronics store.
Art reached out and touched the painting on the screen. Instantly a small circle appeared and the area that he had touched was enlarged tenfold. The detail was unbelievable. The boy could actually see a single hair from a paintbrush trapped in the dried paint. He put his hands on either side of the circle and moved them apart. The circle expanded—and the image within enlarged even more. He could now see thousands of hairline cracks crisscrossing the surface of the painting.
Art touched the circle again, and it disappeared.
“Wow,” said Camille. “But why is this here? Why would someone need this?”
Art continued to stare at the screen. “Good questions,” he replied. He could feel the answers struggling to get out from behind the dam in his head.
“What else can you do with it?” Camille asked.
Another good question. “Let’s see,” the boy replied.
Art put both his hands under the bottom of the frame and moved them up. The painting shifted up, as if Art was actually lifting it. He brought his hands back down, and the painting settled into place. He then took the canvas by its right edge and moved his hand to the left. The painting rotated sideways. The edge of the frame appeared. He could see the little dings along the frame’s perimeter and the small worn areas where the darkened wood peeked through the gold paint—the hallmarks of the frame’s many journeys. Art turned the painting completely sideways. All he could see was the edge of the frame itself.
Why would someone need to see the sides of a frame? he wondered.
Art gave the frame one last push to the left, and the painting rotated completely around on the screen so that the back of the canvas was visible to them.
“No way,” Camille said. “Is that . . . ?”
Art was at a loss for words. He immediately reached for his backpack and retrieved the leather journal from its hiding place. He opened it to the tabbed page and held out the drawing so that both of them could see it.
The back of the painting on the monitor—the verso—was identical to the verso image in the journal. The spider had made its appearance once again.
“Art?” Camille asked. “What does this mean?”
He did not immediately respond, but the pieces fell together instantly—the leather journal, the newly discovered van Gogh at the National Gallery of Art, their mysterious pursuers, the strange room in which they now stood, and the image floating on the screen in front of them.
He turned to Camille.
“The National Gallery of Art,” the boy said, “is about to pay one hundred and eighty-three million dollars for a fake painting.”