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Moments later, Drewe requested a glass of water.

“How are you feeling at the moment?” Volpe asked him, suspecting a ruse.

“I’m feeling fine, thank you very much,” said Drewe.

Volpe advised him that he could call his lawyer.

“I’ve got nothing to hide,” Drewe said. “Carry on.”

Seven hours after they began their search, the cops took a break. The professor made himself a ham sandwich, and Volpe ran out to the corner shop for bacon-and-egg sandwiches for the others. While they were eating, Drewe received a call from his lawyer. Volpe overheard the conversation.

There was no room for the smallest procedural error, and Volpe was determined to take every precaution. “I heard you tell your solicitor that you’re not feeling very well, and we’re trying to obtain the services of a police surgeon,” he told Drewe.

“I don’t want to call the police surgeon,” Drewe said. “I feel able to carry on.”

Volpe called the surgeon anyway. He suspected that Drewe might try to use an illness, real or imagined, to trip the investigators up. When the surgeon arrived two hours later, Volpe temporarily stopped the search while Drewe was examined. The doctor declared Drewe “fit to be detained.”

Volpe walked over to Drewe. “Time to go,” he said. He put on his coat and watched the detectives file out the door carrying cardboard boxes filled with financial papers, documents, photographs, floppy disks, three typewriters, and a computer. An officer led Drewe to one of the cars parked outside, and they set off toward the Reigate police station.

Volpe stayed behind for a last look around. As he was preparing to go, he noticed a colorful Juan Gris hanging in the living room above the fireplace. He admired it for a moment, then looked at his watch and recorded the time in his notebook: 7:03 P.M. He took the painting off the wall, put it under his arm, and closed the door behind him.

At the station Volpe placed Drewe in a “custody suite” that was monitored by a closed-circuit camera. He and Ellis were afraid Drewe would allege that he’d been roughed up, which would certainly win him a mistrial. After a short conference, the detectives agreed to call it a night. It would take weeks to prepare a formal interrogation from such an abundance of material. They released Drewe on bail and ordered him to return in five weeks, on May 14.

The professor was on his best behavior now. His suit didn’t have a single wrinkle, his tie was straight, and he seemed as refreshed as if he’d just swum a dozen laps and downed a perfect martini. He turned to his interrogators.

“It’s been such a long day for us all,” he said cheerfully. “Why don’t we all go down to the pub and have a drink?”

Volpe and Ellis declined the invitation.

Over the next several weeks the detectives pulled together the remaining strands of the investigation. In quick succession, they raided the homes of the runners.

At 6:00 A.M. on a June morning they knocked on Clive Belman’s door at 45 Rotherwick Road. They flashed a search warrant and told him they were looking for forgeries and any correspondence he might have had with John Drewe.

Belman seemed shocked and immediately agreed to cooperate. His wife and his two children, both in their early teens, sat half asleep in their pajamas as the police searched the house, bagging Sotheby’s catalogs, checkbooks, and a black briefcase containing a letter to the dealer David Stern and provenance for a Giacometti Standing Nude.

“Mr. Belman,” Searle said, “I’m arresting you on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud with paintings and provenances.” As his family watched Belman was placed in the back of a squad car and driven the few blocks to the Golders Green station.

When police visited the home of Stuart Berkeley, they found several box files relating to the case. Berkeley too quickly agreed to cooperate.

Their next stop was the Tate. The librarian had called to say that an art researcher named Maxine Levy had come in looking for material on Ben Nicholson. Volpe and Searle arrived to find that Levy, whom they knew as the runner who