There were only around forty known paintings by Vermeer, so it was hard to establish a pattern. Most of Vermeer’s paintings were of domestic scenes inside well-appointed homes, but not all. Most of his subjects were people of means, but not all. That made this painting atypical on two fronts, but the other details, like the mastery of light and shadow, were classic Vermeer.

“I can’t be certain,” he said. “I notified the museum director of my suspicion and asked to study the back of the canvas, to look for clues of its age and construction, but he denied the request. So there it hangs.”

“What does it matter?” Caroline asked. “It’s a charming addition and just as good as any of the other paintings here.”

He strolled to a real Vermeer several paces away. The Woman in Green wasn’t particularly interesting, showing a plain-faced woman reading a letter in a lackluster room. But it was real, and that vaulted it far above the girl with the rabbit.

“A painting is more than the arrangement of pigment on canvas,” he said. “A real Vermeer is centuries of history and a chance to step into an earlier time and place. It’s a chance to be in the Dutch master’s studio, look over his shoulder, and glimpse what had him so entranced. He knew that woman reading the letter. Who was she? Why did he choose to memorialize her for all time? Does the letter contain good news or bad? A fake will never capture that aura of mystery and authenticity. It’s flawed from the start.”

Caroline glanced back at the girl with the rabbit, skepticism on her face. “I hear what you’re saying, but I disagree. If I could have one of these paintings on the wall of my home, the rabbit wins every time. The woman with the letter is hopelessly dull and frumpy.”

He was torn between laughing and tearing his hair out in frustration. The rabbit painting was a fraud, and he knew it in his bones but couldn’t prove it without the museum’s cooperation. And why would they? The privately owned museum had probably paid a fortune for that fake Vermeer, and the government had no jurisdiction over them.

“Somewhere out there, a con artist is wallowing in ill-gotten riches from that painting.”

“And that bothers you?”

It drove him insane. “I don’t like cheaters. The artist is to be commended for his talent, but why did he have to cheat?”

This was probably the point at which she was going to call him a Puritan and a killjoy. But she surprised him.

“He cheated because he understood the value of Vermeer’s style and knew he could never create one to surpass it. You should pity him.”