"Give that to me." Cooper snatched the canvas from the man's hands and unrolled the large thing across the dining room table. He went carefully, I was happy to see, understanding the consequences of damaging Denis's loot.

All the men had stopped working and came crowding in to see. An incredible painting spread itself before us. Colors glowed against a background that brightened from sable on the left to a golden light on the right that surrounded two rather muscular angels. A group of round-cheeked women faced the angels with expressions of astonishment, their gowns vibrant red, lavender, and blue.

I'd seen, in my travels, copies of paintings of the great Rubens, enough of them to realize that he'd painted this one himself.

"Good God," I said. " This was thrust behind the paneling?"

"Keep hunting," Cooper said to the other men. "We need the rest."

I touched the paint that a Flemish genius had stroked on two hundred years before. "Amazing." This should be hanging in the drawing room of a king-and maybe once had been. "How did Brigadier Easton get hold of something like this? And why would Denis trust him with it?"

"Couldn't say," Cooper said. "Are you staying or going? Sir."

"Going," I said.

It hurt to look upon that beautiful painting and leave it here with Denis's men. They'd roll it up and cart it off to him so that he could sell it to a rich banker who didn't mind buying stolen goods. War-wrecked Europe was an open market to James Denis and others like him, who stole from the weak and sold the booty to the very rich. Rubens was dead and gone, and all the people who'd owned this painting were probably dead and gone as well.

Cooper still insisted on accompanying me. The other men must be quite trustworthy if they could be left in a house with one and possibly more priceless pieces of art.

I rode the horse I'd borrowed from Lady Southwick's stables. Cooper didn't like horses and didn't ride. He walked along beside me and insisted I pace him. I did, because I wanted to keep an eye on him as much as he wanted to keep one on me.