The theft was so brazen that Agatha Christie herself would most likely have dismissed it as too farfetched even for Hercule Poirot to solve. For one thing, the Goya portrait of the first Duke of Wellington was just about the most-talked-about painting in Britain. It had made big headlines earlier in the summer, when U.S. Oilman Charles B. Wrightsman bought it for a whopping $392,000 from the Duke and Duchess of Leeds. Indignant cries went up about national treasures leaving the country, and a private foundation and Her Majesty's government raised $392,000 to buy the painting back for London's National Gallery....
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