Page 21 of The Collector
With the guards subdued and the museum’s security cameras disabled, Isabella Stewart Gardner’s remarkable collection of art and antiquities lay defenseless. For more than an hour, the thieves attacked without mercy, beginning with a pair of Rembrandts in the second-floor Dutch Room:A Lady and Gentleman in BlackandThe Storm on the Sea of Galilee, the artist’s only seascape. The marauders slashed both works from their stretchers. They also attempted to steal Rembrandt’s iconicSelf-Portrait, Age 23but left it leaning against a cabinet, helping themselves instead to a postage-stamp-size Rembrandt etching. Two works they managed to remove from their frames without resorting to undue violence. One wasLandscape with Obeliskby Govert Flinck. The other was the Dutch Room’s most valuable painting:The Concertby Johannes Vermeer.
After snatching an ancient Chinese vase, they headed next to the Short Gallery, which yielded an imperial French finial and five sketches by Edgar Degas. The last painting seized was Édouard Manet’sChez Tortoni, from the first-floor Blue Room. The immense size of the haul required the thieves to make two trips to their waiting hatchback on Palace Road, the last at 2:45 a.m., when they made their escape. The total time of the robbery was eighty-one minutes. The estimated value of the thirteen stolen artworks was an astonishing $200 million, making it the largest heist in history.
By midday the FBI had assumed control of the investigation. Led by twenty-six-year-old Dan Falzon, it would be hampered by an unusual lack of forensic evidence such as fingerprints, footprints, hair, or cigarette butts. Agents interviewed witnesses and scoured themuseum’s employment and maintenance records for possible links to the robbery. Security guards Abath and Hestand were subjected to repeated interrogations as Falzon and his agents probed their accounts for inconsistencies. They found it suspicious that Abath, while making his rounds earlier that evening, had opened and closed the museum’s side door. Agents were troubled, too, by the fact that the motion detectors in the Blue Room—from which Manet’sChez Tortoniwas taken—showed no intruders during the eighty-one minutes of the robbery.
With an annual budget of only $2.8 million, the Gardner Museum could not afford to insure its collection. But with the help of the auction giants Sotheby’s and Christie’s, it was able to offer a $1 million reward for information leading to the recovery of the stolen works. Falzon and his team pursued thousands of leads and tips from the public, including one from a man in Charlestown who claimed to have seenThe Concerthanging on a neighbor’s wall. The neighbor invited FBI agents and museum officials into her home and showed them a high-quality print of the painting. A report thatThe Storm on the Sea of Galileemight be in Japan proved no more accurate. It was not Rembrandt’s masterpiece that Falzon and Japanese police found hanging on the wall of an eccentric collector, but a crude paint-by-numbers version instead.
Four years after the theft, the museum received an anonymous typewritten letter promising to facilitate the return of the stolen works in exchange for $2.6 million. Gardner director Anne Hawley considered it the most promising lead to date, but like all the others it quickly went nowhere. Desperate, Hawley increased the size of the reward to an astonishing $5 million. In the Dutch and Blue Rooms, patrons gawked at six empty frames. A psychic claimed that the museum’s founder, in her grave since 1924, had told her the missing paintings were hidden in the ceiling of the restoration lab. Securitychief Lyle Grindle dutifully climbed a ladder to have a look for himself. The paintings, of course, were not there.
In May 2017, the Gardner Museum’s board of trustees doubled the reward to $10 million, the largest bounty for stolen goods ever offered. Still, the thieves refused to part with their loot. But who were they? And for whom were they working? There was no shortage of suspects, most of whom were connected to Boston’s thriving Irish and Italian criminal underworld. But there were other theories as well, some laughable, others merely implausible. And it was there that Maurice Durand, perhaps the greatest art thief who ever lived, picked up the thread of the story.
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“My favorite was the one about the shadowy Vatican operatives.”
“Mine, too,” admitted Gabriel.
“Why would the Vatican, which has more paintings than it knows what to do with, want to steal more? And who are these so-called shadowy Vatican operatives?”
“You’d be surprised.”
Durand raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying it’s possible?”
“I’m more interested in your opinion, Maurice.”
He appeared to give the question serious consideration before answering. “In my opinion, the thieves were almost certainly local Boston hoodlums who were connected to larger criminal networks. Generally speaking, these networks are quite good at stealing art, but they haven’t a clue how to bring it to market. As a result, the paintings end up being used as underworld cash. Criminal travelers’ checks, if you will. They move from gang to gang, usually as collateral, sometimes as tribute and trophies. Because paintings are easily smuggled, they often travel long distances. Across oceans, in fact.”
“Where did the Vermeer end up?”
“Monsieur Van Damme had been told by one of his associates that it could be had in Dublin.”
“From whom?”
“The Kinahan cartel. Ireland’s most powerful criminal organization. He wanted me to travel there on his behalf and negotiate a deal.”
“What was your response?”
“Thank you, no. This business is dangerous enough without getting mixed up with Irish gangsters.”
“How much did it cost to get you to yes?”
“My memory is a little fuzzy on that.”
“Put your back into it, Maurice.”
“It might have been twenty percent of the final sale price.”
“Highway robbery,” said Gabriel.
Durand placed a hand over his heart. “The negotiations included blindfolds and several long journeys in the trunk of a car. I consider myself most fortunate to have survived.”
“Who was the man on the other side of the table?”
“Let’s refer to him as Monsieur O’Donnell. A connoisseur he was not. He allowed me to see the painting only once. For all I know, I was in Belfast at the time.”
“And?”
