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Clara sets a leather folder beside my laptop.

"I'm Clara Mendel," she says. "I'm handling the title and transaction side."

"Perfect," I reply. "Then we should be able to keep the historical and legal questions separate."

"That was my thought as well," Clara says.

After that, most of the work becomes quiet. The basic problem is exactly what Charlotte described.

Her family owned Woman at the Window before leaving Germany in 1938. The sale occurred under circumstances that strongly suggest coercion, but the painting later passed through several legitimate owners before eventually entering the Kensington collection.

The current title is clean. The history is not. That distinction matters more than anything else in the file.

Charlotte is not trying to prove that the Kensington Trust stole the painting or acquired it improperly. She wants the forced-sale history documented accurately, the present ownership position confirmed, and the Trust approached about a private reacquisition.

The first step is therefore historical.

The second is legal.

The third is whether the Trust is willing to sell.

Only after that does price become relevant.

By early afternoon, I am working through an old index sheet when my own handwriting catches my eye.

I stop. Along the margin, in black ink, is a note I wrote years ago:

Cross-check 1938 dealer correspondence against Basel inventory.

I remember writing it.

Not the exact hour or room, but the concentration behind it. I was still proving myself then, still checking everything twice because I could not afford to be careless.

My handwriting has barely changed.

The person who wrote it has.

I turn the page and find my signature on another internal review sheet.

Blaire Wilson.

For a moment, seeing my name inside the archive feels stranger than I expect. It is not painful. It is simply disorienting, like finding a version of myself filed away with the documents.

Then Simon asks me a question about one of the dealer references, and the feeling passes. I go back to work. By the end of the first day, most of the ownership chain is confirmed.

***

The second day is devoted to the forced-sale history.

Simon produces translated correspondence from Charlotte's great-grandfather and a dealer involved in the transaction shortly before the family left Germany. The letters do not create a defect in the Kensington Trust's current title, but they strengthen the historical record considerably.

The price paid for the Reinhardt was significantly below its estimated value. The correspondence shows urgency around the family's departure, restrictions on their ability to manage assets freely and pressure to liquidate quickly.

I read through the translated letters twice before looking across the table at Simon.

"This supports the forced-sale history without overstating it," I say.

"That's my assessment," Simon replies.