Alvan looked away; Mistress diMedici’s gaze was too powerful. He rubbed the sweat from his palms onto his trimslax. “No, but I don’t think you fully understand what I’m proposing.”

“And I don’t think you fully understand my profession. My brother and I are not thieves.”

“That’s not what I want you to do. I can hire anyone to steal for me. What I want you to do is to devise some way of getting the statuette safely to me so I can add it to my art collection.”

“P.S. Add ‘conspiracy to commit theft’ to that list of felonies. We’re not engineering consultants, either. We specialize in the profitable misdirection of pecuniary affairs, and I suggest you remember that.”

“But that’s all I want—misdirection. Some way of getting the statuette onto the planet.”

“Jad and I work to please ourselves, not at the whim of someone else. Why should we help you when there are more profitable and less risky ways to earn our living?”

Alvan studied his fingernails carefully. “I had hoped the discussion would remain on a friendly level. Since you wish to include profit in the conversation, I shall say I’m prepared to offer you considerable reward for your help.”

“We don’t need your money.”

“I wasn’t offering any. The payment I meant is evidence.” Alvan grinned like a hungry sleam at a nest of kodda eggs. “You see, seven years ago Austin’s priceless painting ‘Dawn of Green Moons’ was stolen from the Duveen Planetary Museum, and has never been recovered. I happen to know that your father is the one who stole it.”

“That’s because you commissioned him to do so,” Chandra pointed out. “The painting is hanging in your private collection in the subbasement of your manor—along with many other originals of which the Museum only has clever copies.”

“Being curator does allow me a certain leeway,” Alvan admitted. “The point I think you were trying to make is that I would go to prison along with your father should the fraud be discovered. Alas, that is true. However, I feel certain things are worth the risk. I want a Vishnian statuette. I want it badly enough to risk a prison sentence. I’m betting that you do not want your father imprisoned almost as much as I do want the statuette. The I.I.I., on the other hand, would love to have some evidence against the Duke—and they might even convince the government of Duveen to start extradition proceedings.”