A daring week-end theft of paintings from the Brooklyn Museum was revealed yesterday by Dr. William H. Fox, director of that institution, who asked the police to broadcast an international alarm for the thieves and their loot.

Ten paintings, eight of them from the valuable collection of the late Colonel Michael Friedsam, were taken from the fifth floor galleries. They were valued at about $35,000 and were not insured.

A sixty-foot length of rope, knotted fast to a newel post on the fourth floor of the building at the Washington Avenue end and extending to the ground, gave a hint of the manner in which the thieves escaped. Fingerprints on the window sill indicated that two men committed the crime, the most sensational of its kind in years.

The article went on to describe the paintings that were taken, including one each by Rubens and Van Dyck. I had never heard of any of the others—and had barely heard of those two. The article also mentioned that the thieves probably snuck in while the museum was open and hid behind statues or in dark corners. They were able to avoid the eight security guards on duty that night. Rather than being cut from the frames and rolled, the wood panels had been pried whole from their frames and the pictures carried out on their "stretchers." Since most of the paintings were reasonably small, the thieves were able to escape with them pretty easily.

I opened my laptop and Googled the art heist. There wasn't a lot about it, but the little bit I found indicated that it was still considered an unsolved mystery. Of the ten paintings, four were later recovered—supposedly a botched ransom demand. The other six were never found, and the thieves were never identified.

I went back to the letter and began reading it again. I assumed Robert was his son, my grandfather: Robert, There were three of us involved, not two. Tony, Mikey, and me. Four if you count John. I helped plan it, but I didn't do the actual heist. And there were eleven paintings stolen, not ten. It was the eleventh one we were after. The special one. They were only supposed to get that one, but I guess they got greedy. Too bad. It got Mikey killed. That painting is dangerous. There's a fortune down there, but I don't know exactly where John hid it. And now he's probably dead too. You need to get the painting first. It'll help you find where the treasure is hidden. If you want to try for the treasure, you can, but be warned: A lot of people have died because of it. The slip shows where the painting is. There are eggs, too. They might be the most valuable of all. You'll understand when you see them. Maybe by the time you read this people will have forgotten about it. Good luck but be careful.

Treasure? Fortune? Eggs? I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this is what Izzy was looking for. It also meant that the people who killed Izzy were also looking for it.