“It’s older than I thought.” He turned on a light and slid the frame under it. “Audrey said this was her grandmother’s painting.”

“Yes. It’s her grandmother, my great-grandmother, Cecile Cabot. That’s her riding the horse in Paris.”

Taking a loupe, Gaston studied the corner. “I hadn’t noticed this before. Odd.”

“What?” Again, the before implying he’d studied this painting at length.

“The painting is signed EG.” He pulled away and handed her the loupe. “See.”

“And?” Lara looked at the signature. It was, indeed, signed EG.

“Well.” Gaston took his glasses off and wiped them on his shirt. “It’s unlikely, but this signature does resemble Émile Giroux’s. This painting is from the 1920s, non?”

“Yes, that’s about right.”

“This would be the correct time frame as well as the correct location for Giroux. It’s just that…” He stopped and turned his head, looking at the painting at an angle. “Again, I highly doubt it. This painting was probably some street artist, but there were rumored circus paintings by Giroux. Lost paintings—three of them—Les Dames du Cirque Secret. It’s an odd coincidence.”

“You’re saying this painting might be famous?”

“Perhaps,” he said. “I’m going to contact Edward Binghampton Barrow to see if the paintings are all accounted for. The lost thing is always a bit of an exaggeration. Usually they’re just in some private collection. This is probably just a cheap copy.”

“Edward Binghampton?” Lara laughed out loud struggling to recall the third name.

“Barrow,” said Gaston, clarifying. “Binghampton Barrow.”

“That’s a ridiculous name.”

“Troisième,” he said, smiling. “Or is it quatrième—as you say it, ‘the fourth’? I can never remember. Anyway, there’s a whole mess of Edward Binghampton Barrows, but this particular one has done most of his work on French Jazz Age painters. A few years ago, he wrote the only biography that exists of the painter Émile Giroux. So if anyone will know if this painting is one of his, it would be Teddy.”

“How do you know him?”

“We studied at the Sorbonne together. His mother was a famous Nigerian model who used to hang with Warhol. In our youth, his mother’s cachet could get Teddy and me into some terrific parties in Paris. His father, the rather stodgy Earl of Campshire, would often have to get us out of any trouble, but it was a marvelous existence.” Gaston grinned, turning the painting over and bending over it, again studying the frame carefully. It was gold-carved with inlaid flowers that looked to have once been red but were now faded brown. “While I’m not a fan of this frame for this picture, I think it might be quite valuable—an original even.”

“Let me know what you find,” said Lara. “I think I’d like it more if it was framed in something like this.” She pointed to a simple gold frame.