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[beginning of page] Scott & Fowles Co. 590 Fifth Avenue New York.

February 27, 1911. Dear Mr. Frick: I think perhaps that it would interest you to know all the details connected with the discover of your Velasquez Philip IV and how the picture came to be offered to me, but you will understand that, for obvious reasons, i must not mention names. Some ten years ago there was a card scandal in the highest circles of Austrian Society. The incident took place at the Chateau of Duc Rober de Bourbon Parme, father of Prince Elias, from whom I brought the picture. A gentleman whom we will call X was Robert's very intimate friend, and a man holding a very exalted position at court. One fine day Mr. X. was detected cheating at cards, and so naturally had to vanish. He went to Paris where he has lived in great seclusion and under an assumed name ever since. For the past eighteen months or so he found himself in very low water, for, being in hiding as he was, he did not know to whom to apply for money for fear of being recognized and the scandal recommended. Last November he was struck by a bright idea - He bethought himself of the Velasquez which he had so often seen and lived with at Duc Robert's Chateau, and he had learnt that, on the Duc Robert's death in 1907, the picture had gone to Prince Elias, a young man whose tastes lay in sport

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