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collectors. Those who might be tempted to raise concerns about the provenance of a work are not informed of anything that could cause them distress.
    One afternoon in November of 2001 Bryce sat alone in his library, a cup of coffee by his side. A handsome man in his early sixties, with close-cropped gray hair, blue eyes, and a disarmingly clear complexion, he wore round tortoiseshell glasses, acustom-made shirt, and a silk tie with a Windsor knot. Bryce prided himself on his ability to stand above the fray and to take the long view, but he realized that even he had been knocked into something of a funk by the recent events. The smell of smoke and death still hung in the air; getting around downtown was, he found, inconvenient as hell, and conversation had turned horrid. He had, of course, been able to take advantage of the panic that had set in that September; he had assisted in several transactions in which savvy clients in Japan and the Middle East were able to profit from the nervous desire for cash that a number of Americans felt. The walls of Madison Partners were more densely hung with paintings than was usual, but Bryce knew it was only a matter of time before cash would seek a more beautiful refuge.
    Bryce picked up a leather binder and reread a document he had read a hundred times before:
    Petworth House      
November 16, 1837
    Dear Mr. Turner
,
    Of your past greatness as an artist there can be little doubt, as there can also be little doubt of your pernicious influence on my Father in his declining years, or of your impudence. As for that infamous painting to which you had the audacity to refer, I beg you to think of it as no longer existing. Any payments you received from my father you may keep. If you provide Documents signed by him acknowledging further obligations to you they shall be examinedcarefully, for it seems to me, and so it would seem to all men of correct understanding, that no matter how lofty the title of artist you claim it is improper you be paid for debauching an old man in his dotage
.
    Thank you for attending my Father’s funeral. I regret that the ceremony went on so long as to inconvenience you. I see no reason for you to trouble yourself with further visits to Petworth. Sketchbooks, paints, brushes etc. belonging to you have been packed up and will be sent to your address
.
    Yrs
,                
Geo. Wyndham
    The writer of the note was the bastard son and heir of the Third Earl of Egremont. Egremont, who was born in 1751 and died, at the age of eighty-six, in 1837, was the most important patron of the arts of his era. He supported any number of British artists, including J.M.W. Turner, the greatest of all English painters, and, in Bryce’s opinion, one of the three or four greatest painters who ever lived. Bryce smiled to himself as he remembered how he had acquired the letter, less at the ingenuity of the scheme than at the fact that it would not do if the circumstances became generally known.
    If Bryce had been a conventional art historian or scholar, this document might have changed the general direction of Turner studies. But Bryce traded in information; information, like certain works of art, was precious and beautiful to him on account of its rarity. He was conscious of the fact that he knew something that no one else did, namely, that at the behest ofEgremont, Turner had created a painting that Egremont’s boorish son had described as “infamous.” And there was something curious about the phrase “I beg you to think of it as no longer existing.” Not quite the same as “it has been destroyed” or words to that effect. If, Bryce thought, it had not been destroyed, it might still exist; if it still existed, it could be found.
    Yes, it still existed. Bryce decided he would believe in this “infamous” painting and that he would find it. He knew that he needed some greater purpose to help him get through the dreary days of war and vengeance that were sure