The ability to judge a person’s reliability and competence was more of an art than an acquired skill that could be taught, one Henry Hackett considered himself to be quite good at. As a young subaltern he had often found himself having to decide on the fly if an officer or an NCO he was meeting for the first time, often under the most trying conditions, could be counted on. It was more than a talent he relied on when preparing to sally forth into harm’s way. Like all good soldiers, Henry knew the man who was to his left and right, or was watching his back, were important keys to success and a long, healthy life. There were occasions when he did get it wrong, leading him to take care to keep a wary eye on his mates in case his instincts failed him at a critical moment. But in the case of Clive Barrow, within minutes of meeting the man, he had little doubt he was pretty much spot on as to what sort of man the retired art historian was.

His opinion of the man took a major hit even before he laid eyes on him. It began when Barrow insisted that the portrait Megan wished him share his thoughts on be taken around to his flat. His less than favorable opinions were further reinforced when Barrow asked her to stop along the way and to tend to a personal chore. “Do be a dear, Megan, and before you come up, stop by the shop on the corner and fetch me a package of tea,” he requested over the speakerphone in Henry’s office in a manner that was clearly not a request. The very idea a man of his reputed reputation would think of asking someone carrying a work of art that could be worth millions to pop into a street corner shop told Henry all he needed to know about the retired curator and his relationship with Megan Ellsworth, for she acquiesced to his demand without batting an eye.

Upon arrival at Barrows’ flat with the portrait and a box of PG Tips tea in hand, Henry saw right off he had no need to amend the personality profile of the man he had been putting together in his head. While no one who enjoyed the rare privilege of being invited up to his flat would accuse him of being fastidious, at least Henry knew what bookshelves and trash bins were for. Of course, he told himself as he followed Megan in, wondering where the man expected him to display the portrait, Barrow was an art historian, a breed of professionals who most people assumed were, by their very nature, a tad bit different than the general population and very much apart from it.

“It’s so good of you to drop by, my dear,” Barrow declared in a manner that came across as if this were a social visit even as she was looking about for an uncluttered surface upon which she could set her black, non-descript messenger bag before handing him the sack containing the box of tea. “Ah, bless you,” he murmured gratefully as he took the tea, turned, and headed toward the kitchen. “I used the last of my tea last night and haven’t had a chance to run out and buy some,” he muttered as if to himself even as he was walking away from her.

Standing just inside the flat, holding the padded leather carrier containing the portrait, Henry found himself wondering what had prevented the retired curmudgeon from going down two flights of stairs, walking thirty paces or so, and going into the same shop he and Megan had stopped in to buy his own tea. It was clear man certainly hadn’t been rushing about the flat sorting it out in preparation for their arrival.

“Would you and your friend wish to join me in a cuppa?” he called out from the kitchen.

Before she answered, Megan glanced over at Henry. He could tell by her pained expression she was embarrassed by her former supervisor’s behavior, a man she had taken great pains to talk up.

“Hello? Are you two still there?” Barrow called out.

“Oh, yes. We’d love some,” Megan replied without bothering to ask Henry.

Seeing no point in standing about, wasting time while Barrow puttered about making tea, Henry took to looking for a suitable spot where the portrait could be display. When she realized what he was doing, Megan did likewise. “Over here,” she suggested as she made her way over to a chair on which a stack of books was set. After removing them, she repositioned it so that the morning sun, streaming in from a window that hadn’t seen a cleaning rag in ages would hit the portrait at an appropriate angle once it had been set on the chair.

By the time Barrow emerged from the kitchen holding a tray on which three mismatched cups and a simple tea service was set, he acted as if he were surprised to see the portrait. “Ah, you brought it.”

It took every bit of will power for Henry to keep the snide little comment that was threatening to roll off the tip of his tongue in check. That, and Megan’s effort to introduce him, kept him from giving it free rein. “Clive, this is Henry Hackett.”

After carefully balancing the tray he’d been carrying on an uneven stack of books that caused the creamer and sugar bowl to slide precariously close to the edge of the tray, Barrow looked over to where Henry was unzipping the carrier and beamed. “Ah yes, your assistant.”

Again, Megan found herself unable to hide her embarrassment as her gaze flicked back and forth between Barrow and Henry who had stopped what he had been doing in order to look over at the askew tray as if waiting to see if everything on it would tumble off and onto the floor.

“Mr. Hackett is Guy Tinsdal’s assistant,” Megan declared even as she was springing up out of her seat and reaching for the tray in order to prevent the calamity that was in the offing. “He’s just helping me with this project.”

“Yes, of course,” Barrow muttered off handedly he watched Megan lift the lower end of the tray up, deftly snatch a book off another stack that was behind her, and placed it under the tray in an effort to level it out before turning her attention to serving each of them tea without being asked to do so by their erstwhile host.

With the tea tray now secure, Henry turned his full attention back to taking the portrait out of the carrier and balancing it on the arms of the chair before stepping back, taking the cup of tea Megan was holding up to him, and wedging himself on a divan between the stack of books Megan had taken off the chair. In the silence that followed, as each of them enjoyed a tentative sip of their hot tea, he watched as Barrow moved around the room until he stood several paces in front of the portrait in much the same way Megan had back at Easley House.

At first the former curator regarded the portrait with a critical distain he made no effort to hide, telling Henry the man had already determined the piece could not possibly be another long, lost work by da Vinci. This all changed when, after several long minutes, Barrow set his teacup aside without bothering to look where he was placing it, leaned forward, and begin to ever so slowly inch his way closer to the portrait.

Like an expectant child seeking her father’s approval, Megan all but held her breath as she watched him, hoping to detect a sign that would tell her if he agreed with her initial assessment, or if this quest was stillborn.

It didn’t take very long for Henry to realize she had no need to worry, for Barrow’s eyes were madly darting about, just as Megan’s had, checking off the same tiny details she had pointed out to him that had led Tinsdal to suspect that it was, in fact, a da Vinci.

“I can see why you’re so taken by this, dear girl,” Barrow muttered without taking his eyes off the portrait. “The artist has a marvelous sense of the way various materials and anatomical features respond to tension as witnessed by the slight indentation in the subject’s hair where the band comes to rest on the back of her head. And the eyes,” he continued as he took a half step closer, leaned over further until he was bent over double. “You can almost see the way the subject is trying to keep her focus to the front, but cannot help but glance over to where the artist is, or I should say was, out of the corner of her eye.”

It was Megan’s eyes, as well as Barrow’s, that Henry was watching. In hers he could see apprehension giving way to hope, tinged with the satisfaction a student allows herself when she has rendered a correct answer in class. The look in Barrow’s eyes, on the other hand, were at war with his expression, for despite himself, he was being drawn into the mesmerizing allure of the portrait in the same way Tinsdal, Megan, and even he had been.

Completely captivated by the work of art before him, Barrow was all but oblivious to the other people in the room, though he continued to quietly utter a running narrative as he turned his attention from one aspect of the painting to the next. “The artist is left handed,” he proclaimed with certainty, speaking of the person who had created the work as if he were still alive which, in Megan’s mind, he was, for the portrait he had created was there, in front of them. For her it was a living testament, not only to the man’s skills, but to the beauty of the subject, as real and as fresh now as they had been the day when the two had come together to create the piece. “These lines, something most people wouldn’t pay a jot of attention to, are proof of that.” Turning to Henry, Barrow swept the fingers of his left hand an inch away from the lines he was referring to as if holding an invisible brush. “In making these strokes, a left handed artist will go in this direction without giving what he is doing a second thought. A right handed artist, on the other hand, would have great difficulty creating such smooth, evenly spaced lines that angle off in the direction these do.”

Never having paid much attention to the works of art Guy Tinsdal was in the habit of buying on a whim, Henry found Barrow’s observation, as well as what Megan Ellsworth had pointed out to him the day before, fascinating. As a man who appreciated the work of others who were masters at their chosen profession, whether it involved running a global business as effortlessly as Tinsdal did, or possessed the ability to flawlessly execute an operation in the field under the most trying conditions, understanding what separated them from their middling counterparts was important to Henry. While he was of the age where he was being to suspect that he would never be anything more than a high ranking and trusted subordinate, he never passed up the opportunity to learn something new and useful that would allow him better meet the needs and wished of those he served.

“What I find most fascinating about this particular piece, however, is the subject’s hairstyle,” Barrow continued as he turned his attention back to the portrait a moment before glancing over at Megan. “You said it’s called the English Courtesan?”

“That is what the family who have owned it for several centuries claim the proper title is,” Megan replied flatly.

Furrowing his brow, Barrow stepped back as he took to staring at the portrait. “The girl’s hair, even her gown, are not at all what you would expect an English courier to wear. They not only have an unmistakably Italian flavor to them, they are the sort of thing you would expect a member of the nobility to wear.”

For the first time Henry spoke out, putting forth an opinion based on his sketchy understanding of history. “I was always under the impression women who were courtesans dressed in fashions similar to those worn by the people of noble birth or high station.”

Megan took to responding before Barrow had an opportunity to formulate a more biting retort. “While that might have been true in some cases, especially if the woman were a cortigiana onesta, an educated intellectual rather than a cortigiana di lume or common prostitute, few would have bothered to have wasted their time commissioning a portrait such as this one. Besides, the subject of this portrait does not strike me as being a courtesan in the classical sense of the word,” Megan murmured in a hushed, distracted tone as she set aside her teacup, rose from her seat, and made her way over to where Barrow was standing without ever taking her eyes off the portrait. “There’s a shy innocence and modesty you wouldn’t expect to see in a woman who followed that profession.”

As if he were taken aback by how the woman he had mentored was behaving, Barrow turned his attention away from the portrait and took to staring at her. After a long pause, during which his expression ever so slowly morphed from one of confusion to incongruity over the very notion she would interrupt him, Barrow gave his head a quick shake. Then, dismissing what she had said without comment, he did his best to resume his running narrative where he had left off before she and Henry had so rudely interrupted. “Yes, well, be that as it may, as you can see here, the details around the eye are most impressive.”

As impressive as they might have been to Barrow, Henry found his mind wandering as he tuned out what the retired art historian was saying and, instead, took to glancing back and forth between the young woman he was assigned to chaperon and the image of the one in the painting, for the same shy innocence that had struck Megan Ellsworth as being notable was, for him, her most distinguishing features. It was if there was an affinity between the woman who had taken up the challenge of uncovering the truth about the portrait and the very subject of the portrait itself. If that were true, Henry concluded, than finding out all he could about the latter would help him learn all he wished about the former.

“The shading, especially here, along the back of the subject’s neck, is most impressive,” Barrow droned on, never once realizing neither of the woman standing next to him or the man seated across the room were no longer paying any attention to what he was saying.