On videotape, hands in rubber gloves gently turned “Red Square” over and delicately peeled off a chip, which was analyzed and found to be of German manufacture from the correct time period; Irina pointed out that Russians always used German art materials when they could.

There were paintings within paintings. Under X ray, “Red Square” was a negative that revealed a rectangle painted over. Under fluorescent light, the border’s lower layer of zinc white paint softened to a creamy hue. Under ultraviolet light, the brushwork of lead white turned to blue. Under oblique light, magnified brush strokes were rapid horizontal commas with variations—a cloud of strokes here, a tidal swell of strokes there in a varying sea of different reds, broken by a crazing called “craquelure,” where red paint had not bonded to the yellow paint hidden underneath.

Irina said, “While the work is unsigned, every brushstroke is a signature. Brushwork, choice of paints, repainting, lack of signature, even the ‘craquelure,’ are characteristic of Malevich.”

Arkady liked the word craquelure. He suspected that under the proper light he might show some “craquelure” of his own.

The screen went white again, moving over a magnified weave of canvas and primer thrown into relief by oblique light to the telltale grain of a fingerprint faintly discernible through the paint. Irina asked, “Whose hand left this mark?”

A face with deep-set, sorrowful eyes filled the screen. The camera pulled back to show the blue tunic and sorrowful face of the late General Penyagin. Hardly a person whom Arkady had expected to meet again, least of all in artistic circles. With a pen the general pointed to similar whorls and deltas in the enlargements of two fingerprints, one lifted from the gallery’s “Red Square” and the other from an authenticated Malevich in the Russian State Museum. An off-camera voice translated. It occurred to Arkady that a German forensic technician would have been faster, but a Soviet general was more impressive. By now he had recognized the off-camera voice as Max’s. It asked, “Would you conclude these prints are from the same man?”

Penyagin stared straight into the camera and worked up forcefulness, as if he sensed how short his starring role would be. “In my opinion,” he said, “these prints are absolutely those of the same individual.”

As the lights of the room came up, the most kaiserlike guest in the audience rose and asked angrily, “Did you pay a Finderlohn?”

“Finder’s fee,” Max translated for Arkady.

Margarita answered the question. “No. Though a Finderlohn is perfectly legal, we dealt directly with the owner from the start.”

The man said, “Such fees are notorious ransoms. You know that I’m referring to the fees paid in Texas for the Quedlinburg treasure, which was stolen from Germany by an American soldier after the war.”

“No Americans are involved.” Margarita almost smiled.