"Not yet," I said.
"Read them," Diana said. "There is something patently wrong there. I can't put my finger on it, not yet anyway, but they do not ring true to me," she said. "This C. J. Piper is not what he's supposed to be, I'm sure of it."
"By 'not what he's supposed to be' do you mean he didn't have the academic qualifications?"
"Just read the diaries," she said. "You'll see what I mean. It would hardly be the first time a lot of people were fooled. There was that Piltdown business, wasn't there? That was a complete hoax and we still don't know who did it."
"We have a lot better testing methods now, and would perhaps not so easily be fooled, although I grant you there are a number of prized exhibits in museums all over the world that are being quietly put in storage because the centerpiece has been proven to be at best suspect."
"What's a Piltdown?" Cybil said.
"Piltdown man was a skull found in Sussex, England, in the 1920s that purportedly was the missing link between ape and man. People believed it for years. I think there's even a plaque where the skull was found. But it was proven to be a complete hoax, and Diana is right, while there have been several theories posited about who did it, no one is entirely sure."
"So, Diana, you are convinced the Magyar Venus is a similar hoax? Are you saying Charles manufactured it in his garage or something?" Grace asked.
"I'm not necessarily saying he manufactured it, no. I am saying that there is something the matter with the diaries, and Charles is either pulling the wool over everybody's eyes, or he is guilty of faulty scholarship. Either way, the Venus has to be a fake."
"Were people faking art a hundred years ago?" Morgan asked. "I mean, could it have been faked then, rather than now?"
"Sure," I said. "But a hundred years ago, most of the fakes of objects that were supposed to be as old as the Venus were found in North America, not Europe. They were attempts to prove—I use the term loosely—that man was on this continent tens of thousands of years ago."
"I'm telling you it's a fake," Diana repeated. "We need you, Lara. It was a godsend that I ran into you on the street the other day. Given what's happened, we need you more than ever. Now, if we want to prove the Venus is a fake, where should we start?"
"I'm really busy right now," I said.
"No, you're not," Diana said. "You told us the other night that you were thinking of taking a leave from the shop for a month or two. How long could it take to prove this thing is a fake? A month, give or take a week or two?"
"Have I mentioned that this thing, as you call it, is about twenty-four thousand years older than anything I know anything about? Give or take a millennium or two," I said.
"Where do we start?" Diana repeated.
I looked at their expectant faces, and in an instant I knew that I was going to have to follow this thread wherever it took me, because I had to know what happened the night Anna died. Somehow this group had to be part of it. One of them had to know.
"We'd start with Lillian Larrington," I sighed.
CHAPTERFOUR
September 10
"HELLO, LILY," MORGAN SAID, AS THE DOOR OPENED. "I hope we haven't caught you at a bad time. We were just driving by, and I thought I'd see if you were in. This is my friend Lara McClintoch. She and I were at college together, and she's an antique dealer. We're on our way to lunch."
"Morgan! How nice," Lily said. "Come in. We'll have a drink. You aren't supposed to drink alone. At least that's what they tell you. I'm always glad when someone comes to call. A gin and tonic, perhaps? Or a nice glass of sherry? The sun is over the yard arm, isn't it? Come and sit down."
She led us into the living room of her home, a rather unprepossessing ranch-style bungalow in one of the wealthier Toronto suburbs. I looked around the room. It did not look like a collector's home to me. The art, by which I mean one painting over the fireplace, was traditional and not particularly good. There were a couple of Royal Doulton figurines, and that's about it. Not that that necessarily meant anything, but I had a pretty good idea which way this was going to go.
"What will you have to drink?" she said, turning to me. "What did you say your name was again, dear?"
"It's Lara," I said, as Morgan and I sat side by side on the pink sofa. "But no drink, thank you." Lily looked very sad. Morgan nudged me.
"Okay, perhaps just a little sherry," I said. Lily's eyes brightened.
"We'll all just have a drop," she said, pouring an enormous amount of sherry and handing it to me.
"I just wanted to stop by and personally say thank you for donating the Venus," Morgan said, taking a tiny sip from an equally large container. "We are all so thrilled. This really will put the museum on the map. It was just so generous of you, and I wanted to tell you that in person. I felt badly that I didn't get a chance the other night, what with the crowds."
"Wasn't that a marvelous evening?" Lily said. "I had seen the Venus before everyone else, of course. Karoly saw to it that I had a special private showing, but still, I wanted to see what the reaction would be."
"You mean Karoly let you see how it was going to be displayed," Morgan said.
"That too," she said.
Morgan glanced over at me. She looked rather perplexed. From my perspective it was playing out pretty much the way I'd expected when I first entered the room. Sometimes in this business checking provenance is a slam dunk. Sometimes it isn't.
"When did you get to see it for the first time?" I said. "That must have been exciting."
"Oh, it was!" she said. "It was just that afternoon. It was supposed to come back from the restorer, or whatever you call those people, a week before it was displayed, but it didn't get there until that day. Karoly was so nervous it wouldn't be ready, it was quite funny. He is such a dear. He looks so confident and everything, but underneath, he's really quite sweet and rather shy. Intelligent, too—he has his PhD, you know—and so polite. If I had a son, I would have wanted him to be just like Karoly. I was sure the Venus would get there in time, but the suspense was quite something."
"Are you saying… ?" Morgan said, then hesitated. "How long have you owned it. Was it in your family for some years?"
"You are not listening, dear," she said, taking a large gulp of her sherry. "I never saw the Venus before the day it was unveiled." Morgan's jaw dropped. "That's an interesting question about my family, though," Lily said. "Karoly thought I might be related to the man that found it in the first place—C. J. Piper. My maiden name is Piper. I've made a stab at tracing it back, but no luck so far. I'm told you can do that kind of thing on the Internet, but I don't like computers. People have such bad handwriting nowadays. They've lost the skill. I used to be complimented on my handwriting. When I was young people wrote the loveliest letters, and diaries, of course. You sent off a letter and waited for the reply with such anticipation. Now it's all instantaneous, and with complete strangers, too. Karoly agrees with me, you know. He said when he had a minute he'd help me trace my ancestors, give me some addresses I could write to."
"I'm sure that was a very generous donation that you made so that Karoly could acquire the Venus," I said.
She hooted. "Reg would turn over in his grave if he knew I'd spent all that money on that little thing. He'd have a fit if he were alive. I gave Karoly a million dollars of Reg's money," she giggled. "I still have lots," she added. "Enough, anyway. Auto parts."
"Auto parts?" Morgan said.
"That's how Reg made his money. Pots of it. I wasn't quite sure what to do with it all when he died. We didn't have children. Then I met Karoly, and he had such a good idea. I like the Cottingham. After Reg died I decided to do some volunteer work, and that was the place I chose. The people there are lovely—I rather like your Woodward, Morgan—and it's nice when people like you come to visit. Karoly comes to visit quite often."