Mallory grunted. De Lesseps' face， instead of expressing appreciation of the compliment， blanched suddenly， and his hands closed tightly. Again he recovered himself and smiled.
"The beauty of this picture lies not only in its faithfulness to the original， " the scientist went on， "but also in the fact that it was painted under extraordinary circumstances. For instance， I don' t know if you know， Mr. Mallory， that it is possible so to combine glue and putty and a few other commonplace things into a paste which would effectually blot out an oil painting， and offer at the same time an excellent surface for water color work."
"This water color—this copy of Whistler， " continued the scientist evenly—"is painted on such a paste as I have described. That paste in turn covers the original Rubens picture. It can be removed with water without damage to the picture， which is in oil， so that instead of a copy of the Whistler painting， we have an original by Rubens， worth fifty thousand dollars. That is true； isn' t it， M. de Lesseps？ "
There was no reply to the question—none was needed. It was an hour later， after de Lesseps was safely in his cell， that Hatch called up The Thinking Machine on the telephone and asked one question.
"How did you know that the water color was painted over the Rubens？ "
"Because it was the only absolutely safe way in which the Rubens could be hopelessly lost to those who were looking for it， and at the same time perfectly preserved， " was the answer. The Thinking Machine"I told you de Lesseps was a clever man， and a little logic did the rest. Two and two always make four， Mr. Hatch， not sometimes， but all the time."
馬修·科爾在車軸潤滑油生意上足足賺了五千萬，隨後他便開始四處收購名畫。原因很簡單，他有錢，而歐洲也不缺大師級名作。不過，他收購名畫隻是為了填滿府邸中占地大約五千平方米的藝術廳，所以他總共買了總麵積大約五千平方米的畫。畫的品質參差不齊，大多數都是次品，不過，他也買到了不少好的作品，其中最有名的當屬他在羅馬花了五萬美元買下的魯本斯的名作。