THE GREAT ART CAPER

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Literally thousands of leads came in, suggesting countless scenarios and motives. An I.R.A. operative was gunned down shortly after bragging to an ex-FBI agent that he had information on a major art theft. A former museum employee had abruptly left his job, didn't pick up his last check and flunked a lie-detector test. Falzon and other agents chased dead-end leads like those around the world, including one to Japan, where a painting, purported to be the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, turned out to be a fake.

"The impossible thing about the case," Falzon says, "is that there were so many possibilities. It was absolutely baffling." Were the perps art thieves or common thugs? Were the paintings stolen at the order of some mysterious Dr. No figure who likes to light a Cuban every night, pour a glass of cognac and repair to the cellar to admire his own private collection of hot masterpieces? Were they stolen by political factions to trade for their prisoners? Or was this just a score by local bad guys who thought they could unload the paintings to a fence, or use them as collateral in a drug deal, or trade them for reduced sentences on other crimes?

"With all the people we know in and out of prison, we've never got a quality piece of information that indicates this is it, this is who did it," Falzon says. "We've had everybody and his brother say they know who did it, and none of it has led to anyone's going to prison or any of the art going back on the walls."

Falzon, 36, loves listening to theories and opinions about the case, but they don't interest him nearly as much as facts do. That's how he manages to stay sane, he says. You get worked up about facts, not opinions. And every day, your job is to look for more--while taking the long view. "You know what? It's our firm belief that good things are going to happen. We know that Myles Connor sat on some paintings for 15 years, so this case is relatively young. We're only talking about seven years, and I'm working leads out here right now. I have ongoing leads." With each passing day, Dan Falzon is more determined to bury the ghosts.

Men loved Isabella Stewart Gardner, and women hated her. "Effervescent, exuberant, reckless, witty, she did whatever she pleased," says the museum's 116-page guidebook. "It was Mrs. Gardner's rule to select and acquire the best. If at a polo game, she would be escorted to her seat by the best player of the day...and naturally the best dancer in society was pretty regularly her Cotillion partner... Such victories the ladies could not forgive."

Her husband was a successful businessman, and her father left her an inheritance. With money to burn, Gardner began making forays to Europe in the 1880s to "acquire the best." Her haul included 290 paintings, 280 pieces of sculpture, 460 pieces of furniture and much, much more. It is fitting that the centerpiece of her collection was Rape of Europa, because Gardner had her way with the Continent in much the same way that thieves would one day have their way with her collection. With this, she built a temple of finery, personally designing a 15th century Venetian-style palace featuring a glass-ceilinged center court with garden and fountain and three floors of art. The Gardner Museum opened in 1903, Gardner died in 1924, and her will made her wishes crystal clear: nothing was ever to be replaced, moved or added.