onet’s Secret Letter

ome time ago Baron Von Lodge was the head of a small country near Switzerland known as Lilliland.

On a recent trip to Giverney located outside Paris, Professor Hamblin, the Baron’s trusted advisor, was given a secret letter from Claude Monet not to be opened until the professor’s return to Lilliland. Lady Angela was pleased that Monet was able to authenticate the picture that she had at Alpine Castle. The Baron thought that the trip was successful.

The Professor met with the Baron in the Baron’s office to show him the secret Monet letter. Upon opening the letter, Monet asked the Professor to check all of the backs of his paintings in Lilliland to see if there was a number containing ten digits written on a piece of tape. The number was to be sent immediately to Monet.

The Professor checked all of the paintings in the Baron’s gallery and all of the paintings in Lady Angela’s castle as well as several paintings in various collections in Lilliland. It was supposed to be done so that no one would pay any notice of the search. The Professor had no idea as to what the numbers meant, only that they were important. Perhaps it was only a way of keeping an accurate record of all of the paintings.

The search took several weeks and turned up nothing. When the Professor was about to send a letter to Monet to say that no number was found, Lady Angela remembered a small painting in one of the guestrooms in Alpine Castle that may have been overlooked. Sure enough, the small painting of haystacks revealed a number on the back of the painting. The letter and the good news were dispatched to Monet promptly. The Professor still had no idea as to the importance or significance of the number.

Two months passed and a letter came from Claude Monet to the Professor with a picture that was recently painted by Monet at his Giverney studio.

The letter expressed gratitude and appreciation for finding the number that belonged to him to a Swiss bank account. Monet had banks in various countries to deposit the money for the sale of his paintings in those countries. If that number was lost, then all of the money was gone. The small painting was not to be sold but an art dealer was accidentally given the picture by mistake. Meanwhile, a new number had been issued and the problem was solved.