Part IV, Chapters 1-5 Summary

Reporter Louis Broom is sitting in the newsroom working on a story about pollution when he receives a phone call. "'Good. Listen carefully, because I won't repeat anything. The biggest fraud in the history of art was perpetrated in London last week'" (Part IV, Chap. 1, p. 206). The anonymous voice goes on to tell him about the sale of a fake Van Gogh and Munch to major art galleries. When the paper publishes the story they will be told why they perpetrated the crime.

Professor Peder Schmidt had been a lecturer at Oxford and meets Louis in a London bar. They go to look at the Van Gogh at Claypole's gallery. The painting is called "The Gravedigger". The professor asks Claypole how he obtained the painting and the gallery owner tells him the story. Schmidt tells Claypole that...