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At 8:40, queried about a group of photographs of looted paintings by the German surrealist Max Ernst, he was an entrepreneur developing a computerized art database that could link lost paintings to their owners.

At 9:21, he was the head of Norseland Research, a British partnership that marketed revolutionary archival methods.

At 10:20, he put in a call to his mother.

Volpe sent his men upstairs to search further. In a study they found a box containing a craft knife, surgical blades, a pair of tweezers, and a set of Sotheby’s catalogs from the 1970s, with several illustrations removed and apparently replaced. On the floor was a clear plastic V&A tote bag, and in it was a British Rail ticket to London that had been punched the day before, when Drewe met Bartos at the V&A. In addition, there was a catalog from the Hanover Gallery with stitching trailing from its spine, probably because it was an original catalog that had been ripped out of a bound V&A volume. Volpe felt a small puff of satisfaction: This was physical evidence linking Drewe directly to a theft. When he asked Drewe why the catalog was in his possession, Drewe said he’d bought it at a secondhand bookshop and had the receipt to prove it.

Volpe continued his search. In another plastic bag, he found rubber stamps inscribed “Tate Gallery,” “V&A,” “St. Philip’s Priory,” and “St. Mary’s Priory.” In a pile of old correspondence, he found a 1957 invitation to an exhibition at the ICA gallery, as well as letters from ICA stalwarts Roland Penrose and Lawrence Alloway. Drewe claimed that Alloway had given him the material when he was embarking on a history of the ICA around 1987. In a closet under the stairway, Ellis found cut-and-paste affidavits from solicitors, documents relating to the ownership of several paintings, and others that appeared to confirm Drewe’s academic credentials.

Drewe was the quintessential pack rat; it seemed he had never thrown anything away. His house was a trove of irreconcilable odds and ends: a blue folder labeled “The Internal Geometry of Elementary Particles”; a box of letterhead from the Federal Republic of Germany, and another from the Vindesine Company, supposedly a manufacturer of anticancer drugs; copies of letters Drewe had written to members of Parliament regarding changes in Britain’s bird population and its ecology; a flyer from the Zionist Foundation of Great Britain and Ireland; and a newspaper article about a recent Hampstead fire in which a young Hungarian student had died. Volpe and Ellis exchanged glances. They were aware of the fire and thought it strange that Drewe would have the article in his house. Drewe calmly told the detectives that he had the article because Goudsmid had tried to embarrass him with it: She’d sent copies to the wedding guests before his marriage to Dr. Sussman implying that he was responsible for the fire and the subsequent death.

By noon Volpe felt he had enough evidence to charge Drewe with possession of stolen items linking him to a broadscale con. While the search continued, he formally arrested the professor on suspicion of theft and conspiracy to defraud dealers and auction houses. “You do not have to say anything but it may harm defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court,” he informed Drewe.

“The allegations are provably absurd,” Drewe said, insisting that the material had been obtained legitimately for purposes of research into the ICA.

Volpe said nothing.

As Drewe was explaining that his only contact with the auction houses had been as an agent or middleman for collectors and dealers, he grimaced and put his hands to his temples. He told the cops he was “suffering from either an acoustic migraine or Ménière’s disease,” a disorder of the inner ear that can produce vertigo and a roaring sound in the ear. He said the condition had been diagnosed at Gatwick Park Hospital, and that the stress he was experiencing was likely to bring on “bouts of nausea