Veronica walked over, and indeed, the carpet a few feet from the wall was threadbare. The painting showed a man emerging from a cave, with a city looming in the distance. “Where’s the rabbit?” She leaned in close. The head of a furry animal peered out of a hole in a stone wall, just below the main figure’s right hand. “Found him! It’s like he’s hiding. He’s cute, though. What’s it all about?”
Joshua hovered right behind her, as if he was afraid she’d fall headfirst into the canvas. “St. Francis received the stigmata in 1224, and the painting depicts that moment—you can see the holes in his hands there. He’s looking up at the light coming from the sky in the upper left corner. It’s all about revelation and warmth.”
“Which matches the poem. Hey, you’re really good at this, Joshua.”
“Well, thanks.” He beamed at her compliment. This was too easy, really.
“Let’s follow the trail, starting with the very last one we have,” she said. “For the scavenger hunts I did for my sister, I’d leave candy at the very end.”
“You’re hoping we might find some century-old licorice lying around?”
Or even a precious gem. She still held out hope. “What else is there to do?”
“Well, I suppose we could try.” He studied the eleventh clue and recited it out loud. “A natural beauty came from naught / Yet this lady was quite sought Out. A lover of Horatio Holding a hound Off you go Take a good look around. Huh. That’s a terrible poem. But the answer’s easy, it’s right next door.”
In the library, he led her to the painting of the lady and the dog she’d come upon the day before. “Lady Hamilton as ‘Nature,’ painted by George Romney.”
Veronica studied the woman’s face, with its coy smile and tilted chin, as if she had only just noticed it. “Who was Lady Hamilton?”
“She was born Amy Lyon, the daughter of a blacksmith, and became the mistress to a series of wealthy English aristocrats, eventually catching Lord Nelson’s eye. She was incredibly famous and widely celebrated, but after Nelson died, she lost everything and died in poverty.”
The story aggravated Veronica. When she’d first studied the portrait, she’d assumed this was a woman whose life was light and airy, without a care in the world other than the happiness of her pooch. But of course Veronica was looking at the artist’s depiction of the woman, not the actual woman. She grunted in response.
“What?” said Joshua. “Don’t you like it?”
“The painting’s lovely, but I’m annoyed that Lady Hamilton’s only means of success depended on being attractive to powerful men.” She pointed to the painting above the fireplace. “Mr. Frick wasn’t handsome, but that didn’t matter one whit because he was a man. It’s not fair.”
“I suppose it’s not.”
“So I guess now we look for the clue.” She glanced down at the bookcase.
Joshua froze. “Wait a minute. When I first found you, you were sitting on the floor, looking at a book. You read this clue and figured it out and were looking for the next one.”
She knew better than to deny it. “Yes, you’re right. I was curious if I could find it.”
“So why all the pretending?” A coldness had crept into his voice.
“I’m so sorry,” she offered. “That was wrong of me. You see, yesterday, I tried to follow the clues to distract myself from freaking out at the thought of being trapped in the dark, and then you showed up. I knew the models and the film shoot had disrupted things here, and I thought you’d be mad that I’d nosed about. I’m sorry if I overstepped.”
He frowned, but then something in him seemed to relent. “Did you find it?”
“The fifth volume from the left.” She waited as he opened the book and drew out the clue.
He read it silently, and then, almost in spite of himself, looked up in triumph. He knew the answer. “This one’s in the art gallery, right next door.”
The twelfth clue referred to a solemn self-portrait by Rembrandt that indeed hung in the art gallery. The gold-and-red costume the painter wore belied his bankrupt state, Joshua explained as they studied it. “The head of an old lion at bay, worn and melancholy.”
“That describes it exactly. Did you make that up?”
“Nope. That’s how the Met described it in an exhibit in 1909, three years after Frick purchased it. Helen Frick’s clue referenced a ‘red-sashed lion.’？”