In the early morning hours of May 29, 1945, sirens wailed on Amsterdam's respectable Kaisergracht street.

Two black police cars pulled up in front of the house of the artist van Meegeren. The sleepy owner didn't realize what had happened, and handcuffs were snapped on his wrists.

"Henricus Antonius van Megeren? You are under arrest for cooperating with the occupation authorities!" - proclaimed the policeman.

The artist said in surprise: "It can't be, there must be some mistake. I have never collaborated with the Germans or been an informer. I am a man of art and out of politics."

The policeman dutifully unfolded a sheet of paper and read: "We inform you that among the paintings discovered by Captain Harry Anderson in the art collection formerly belonging to Reichsmarschall Göring is a painting of Christ and the Sinner by the great Dutch painter Jan Vermeer of Delft.

This painting was purchased in Amsterdam from the artist Henrikus Antonius van Megeren with the mediation of art agent Walter Hofer and Bavarian banker Alois Midl". It turns out that you not only dealt with the Germans, but also sold them our national relics, our patrimony. And, as far as I know, you made a good profit on it. What do you say to that?"

The bewildered gray-haired van Meegeren timidly tried to object: "I never traded relics, but only sold my own painting..."

The investigator grinned gloatingly: "You didn't sell your own painting, but a canvas by the great Jan Vermeer! And we'll find out how you got it. Sergeant, take the prisoner away!"

And that's how the 56-year-old artist found himself in custody. The small solitary cell smelled damp, water dripped from the ceiling, and the walls were covered with mold. Such a turn of events he did not expect.

"They want to break me psychologically. Or destroy me before the trial. Poison me with something and it'll all be over and done with. Or hang on the gallows as a Nazi collaborator. Maybe I should confess that Goring got a forgery, the author of which is me? But to admit it would ruin my reputation forever. And I'd have to pay the museum back a lot of money. What am I talking about? I'll be hanging from the gallows any day now, so what's my reputation got to do with it? It's better to be disgraced, but alive," the artist reasoned.

But even in this situation van Meegeren hesitated for several days and only then made his statement: "I painted the picture! Tell me, what would have happened to me if the Germans had gotten a work by, say, some modern author instead of Vermeer?"

The investigator placed a thick folder in front of him, "In case the painting would have been painted by a modern author, you would simply not be here. But in the folder are several conclusions of independent experts, proving that you sold the original brushwork Vermeer."

The artist murmured with just his lips: "I assure you, the experts were mistaken. For many years I have studied the technique of the old masters. And, as you can see, I have succeeded.... Now even the experts can't tell the difference between my work and Vermeer's!"

"Nonsense! - interrupted the investigator. - Where's the proof? You may be able to copy the works of the masters, but no one has ever managed to fake the age of a canvas! According to the expert evidence I have, it is over three hundred years old."

Van Meegeren admitted, "Yes, you are right. It is indeed more than three hundred years old. After all, I painted on authentic canvases of the XVII century. Making fakes is a troublesome business. Not to mention artistic skill, the picture must be painted on an old canvas with paints similar to those used by Vermeer - and that's just the beginning. Then you have to age the painting."

The investigator asked with a slight sneer: "Aging? And how did you manage that?" - "Oh, it's not hard. I treated the paintings with formaldehyde resin and heated them in a special oven to one hundred and twenty degrees, after which the paint cracked and got craquelures .... That's the name for the characteristic cracks. Then I rolled a metal roller over the canvases - the cracks became even bigger, and the canvases got the look as if they were several hundred years old..."

Then Megeren asked to find on his apartment accounts from antique shops, which were preserved in his office. In the shops he bought inexpensive works by little-known artists of the seventeenth century, washed off the paint and drew his pictures. Sometimes he painted directly on top of old works.

"If you peel back the top layer of the Last Supper of my so-called Vermeer, you can see a seascape by Abraham Hondius," he admitted.

Sensing that the matter was smelling of kerosene, van Megeren proposed an investigative experiment: "Let me paint a Vermeer-style painting under supervision, just give me a canvas, brushes and paints".

The investigator lit a cigarette and after a pause said: "That's enough for today. Sign the report and go to your cell."

The artist collapsed exhaustedly on the prison bunk. Like the frames of a movie, his life was replaying in his head. He is almost sixty years old and what is the outcome? Fame, dreams, ambition, wealth - all in the past.

...He always dreamed of being an artist, but his father thought that more reliable and prestigious profession of an architect. At his insistence, the young man went to the oldest Dutch university - Delft. Architecture attracted him little, but painting ...

Hendrikus soon became a teaching assistant in the department of art and architecture. For a magnificent watercolor drawing of the interior of the church, stylized under the technique of the XVII century, he received the highest award - the Gold Medal. Van Megeren was a remarkable animalist, as evidenced by many of his drawings, such as "The Deer," which is still reproduced in many drawing textbooks.

In 1922, at an exhibition in The Hague, his paintings, signed with his own signature "Van Megeren", were sold out in a few days. But the critics, instead of encouraging the young artist, seemed to conspire - they attacked him for traditional biblical subjects and trashed him.

What kind of person - it became finally clear after the publication of the data of the repeated examination, which found on each painting traces of materials that before the XX century were simply not known. So we had to say goodbye to the dream of a high-profile political trial.

Megeren sentenced to a year in prison, obliged to return the money to deceived buyers. Canvas "Christ, preaching in the temple" immediately bought a famous collector Sir Ernest Oppenheimer. It would seem that everything was going well.

However, fate ordered otherwise. December 29, 1947, just a month after the trial, Megeren died of a massive heart attack. His property was sold off at auction. And his paintings - they still adorn famous art collections.