Chaudron had gone so far as to purchase newly invented X-ray images from a dubious Louvre conservation worker. A man I knew and would never have suspected! These showed exactly what Leonardo had painted under the finished portrait. All the false starts. The ghosts. The pentimenti. Chaudron knew his forgeries would be examined under a microscope and the latest infrared X-ray. This hidden imagery would make it appear that each forgery was indeed authentic. He made certain his paintings would pass every scientific investigation.

He allowed these ghosts and false starts to dry. Then he painted in the thinnest possible layers. Used a feathering brush of the finest sable to smooth the paint. Layered glaze upon delicate glaze made up of just a hint of pure ground pigment diluted with oil and varnish to produce the soft misty atmosphere that infused the master Leonardo’s painting with the look of a dream.

Chaudron proudly showed me the backs of the panels where he had duplicated every mark and every smudge. And for the pièce de résistance he had replicated the stamp of the Louvre Museum itself!

But that was not all. He had set the finished paintings in front of whirring fans and laid them near fires. He drew wicks of candles across their surfaces to age them. Added extra coats of varnish he knew would intentionally crack. All this had taken several months of his labor.

But I had been waiting nearly two years.

Now the six forgeries were ready.

It was Valfiero’s turn to offer them for sale. He would do this on the black market. A network as convoluted and filthy as the sewers of Paris. A network Valfiero knew well as he was familiar with every unscrupulous art dealer and art collector in the city and beyond. He went about selling the paintings one by one. And each collector believed he was buying the actual Mona Lisa!

When Valfiero finished selling the forgeries he returned the original to me.

He told me it was my payment. Worth millions.

And I believed him.

41

For years, I had read about this elusive pair, but they were real now, exactly as some had theorized—Chaudron making copies, Valfiero selling them—but never proved. Vincent’s words had brought them to life. But I needed to know if what he had written was true. Were there a half-dozen forged Mona Lisa paintings out there somewhere?

A year ago, I had discovered Yves Chaudron’s only living relative, a nephew, Étienne Chaudron, who lived in Paris. I had done some digging, emailed him, and had gotten a terse reply: I cannot tell you anything about my great-uncle because I never met him.

Now I called.

“Étienne Chaudron?”

“Qui est-ce?”

“Luke Perrone,” I said and reminded him of our previous exchange. “Nous avons eu un échange de courier au sujet de votre grand-oncle, Yves.”

“I speak English,” he said, brusque, curt.

“I’m in Florence, but I have business in Paris,” I lied. “I hoped we could meet.”