Stephanie listened as Carol explained more about the work. Edward Savage, its creator, had been an 18th-century American painter. Portraits were his specialty, but his most famous creation was this group started in 1789 and finished in 1796.
The Washington Family.
“It’s the only portrait of the First Family painted from life,” Carol said. “They actually posed for Savage, then he painted this from sketches he made. Washington, as you see, was depicted in uniform, his hat and sword on the table, his left hand resting above a set of papers, the idea to symbolize both the military and civilian aspects of his service to the country. Martha sits before a map of the federal city, her closed fan pointing to what is today Pennsylvania Avenue. The grandchildren are there to symbolize the nation’s future. The servant in the background is particularly noteworthy, as it was rare for slaves to be depicted in early American art. He stands overdressed in livery, in the shadows—there, but not. A reminder that Washington remained a gentleman farmer and planter.
“What’s really interesting are the people themselves. They sit stiff and awkward. Little life to them, and the faces, notice how none of them looks at the others. Their gazes are all off, focused separate, which was surely more symbolism. None of them was particularly close to the others. True, they were a family, but we would call it dysfunctional today.”
Stephanie studied the image, impressed with both its color and its detail. Behind the figures a vista down the Potomac seemed to complete the patriotic illusion.
“What you sent over,” Carol said, “Edward Savage, Eleanor Custis, Martha Washington. They all add up to this painting. Mr. Mellon bought it in January 1936. It’s hung here, in the gallery, since we opened in 1941 per his specific instruction. I checked on that to be sure. It’s one of the permanent pieces in the museum.”
All of the dots connected. That was nearly a full year before Mellon met with Roosevelt on December 31, 1936. But she needed to know more. “Where was it before the gallery opened, from 1936 to 1941?”
“In Mr. Mellon’s Washington apartment. It stayed there, even after he died in 1937, until we opened.”
Making it easily accessible if Roosevelt had bothered to go looking.
I’ll be waiting for you, Mr. President.
That’s what Mellon told Roosevelt.
Literally, at least for a time.
Stephanie held a smartphone in her right hand, its camera pointed at the portrait. On the walk from the Founders Room she’d dialed the number and established an encrypted connection. The unit had been provided by Treasury, so no one would be intercepting this transmission. As Carol Williams gave her explanation, the phone had heard, too.
Two other people appeared behind them, a man and a woman, the museum’s director and chief curator, who introduced themselves.
“I involved them,” Carol said. “I hope it was all right.”
She wasn’t listening. Instead, she was pondering the riddle. Andrew Mellon had left clues that directed FDR straight to this portrait.
But what now?
“Ask all of the workers here to leave, please,” she said. “We need privacy.”
The museum director looked unsure, so she decided to make the point clearer.
“That’s not a request,” she said. “Either work with me or I’ll shut this place down and do it my way.”
Joe Levy looked surprised at her abruptness, but there was no time for niceties. Things were playing out in Croatia and she had a timetable. The director gave the order and the chief curator cleared the galleries around them. She stepped closer to the painting and tried to make sense of what Mellon had done. He’d gone to a lot of trouble, everything executed with a precise purpose, so there was no reason to think that the final parts were any different.
Edward Savage Eleanor Custis
Martha Washington 16
She focused on the granddaughter, Eleanor, and asked Carol about her.
“They called her Nelly. She lived a long time and spent her life protecting George’s image. Look closely at how Savage depicted her, though. The right hand is lifting the map, as if signaling that there was something beneath it.”
And she saw that the observation was correct.
She aimed the phone toward Eleanor’s image, which also encompassed her grandmother Martha.
Then it hit her.
Mellon’s clues.
Edward Savage was for the painting itself. Eleanor Custis for a message beneath. So did Martha Washington complete the riddle? First she studied the painted floor beneath Martha’s hemline, where the toes of one shoe could be seen resting atop the checkerboards. Nothing there. She stepped closer and examined the outer frame in the lower right corner. Clearly it was old and had been hand carved, its edges abundant with chips and gauges. The wood was a good eight inches thick.
So why not?
She dropped to her knees and studied the frame’s underside that faced down to the floor. About four inches in from the bottom right corner she saw a round plug embedded into the wood. She immediately examined the opposite left corner and found a similar plug. One difference, though. The one on the right contained tiny engravings, rough, but still legible.
XVI.
16.
She aimed the phone at what she’d discovered.
“Bingo,” she whispered to it.
A small toolbox lay atop a padded drop cloth on the other side of the gallery. She laid the phone on the floor, rushed over, and found a hammer and screwdriver. The others watched her in silence. She came back and positioned herself beneath the frame. Three feet or so of clearance existed from there to the floor. She adjusted the phone’s angle, then jammed the screwdriver into the slight depression that encircled the plug. She was just about to pound the hammer when the museum’s director and curator both yelled for her to stop.
“You can’t do that,” the director told her. “That’s a national treasure. I cannot allow it.”