BOSTON — The hallway in the Brooklyn warehouse was dark, the space cramped. But soon there was a flashlight beam, and I was staring at one of the most sought-after stolen masterpieces in the world: Rembrandt’s “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee.”
Or was I?
My tour guide that night in August 1997 was a rogue antiques dealer who had been under surveillance by the F.B.I. for asserting he could secure return of the painting — for a $5 million reward. I was a reporter at The Boston Herald, consumed like many people before me and since with finding the “Storm,” a seascape with Jesus and the Apostles, and 12 other works, including a Vermeer and a Manet, stolen before dawn in March 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a cherished institution here.
The theft was big news then and remains so today as it nears its 25th anniversary. The stolen works are valued at $500 million, making the robbery the largest art theft in American history.
Which explains why I found myself in Brooklyn, 200 miles from the scene of the crime, tracking yet another lead. My guide had phoned me suggesting he knew something of the robbery, and he had some street credibility because he was allied with a known two-time Rembrandt thief. He took me into a storage locker and flashed his light on the painting, specifically at the master’s signature, on the bottom right of the work, where it should have been, and abruptly ushered me out.
The entire visit had taken all of two minutes.
Call me Inspector Clouseau — I’ve been called worse in this matter, including a “criminal accomplice” by a noted Harvard law professor — but I felt certain I was feet from the real thing, that the Rembrandt, and perhaps all the stolen art, would soon be home. I wrote a front-page article about the furtive unveiling for The Herald — with a headline that bellowed “We’ve Seen It!” — and stood by for the happy ending.
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What happens now? The investigators keep looking.
“Mrs. Gardner would have expected us to battle every day to get back her art,” Mr. Amore said.
Mr. Kelly said he rejected the notion that the art was destroyed by the thieves as soon as they realized they had “unwittingly committed the crime of the century.”
“That rarely happens in art thefts,” Mr. Kelly continued. “Most criminals are savvy enough to know such valuable paintings are their ace in the hole.”
A version of this article appears in print on March 1, 2015, on page AR17 of the New York edition with the headline: Still Missing After All These Years. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
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