David Halifax, the aspiring artist, has been granted an all-expense-paid trip by a mysterious and unknown benefactor, called the Levasseur Committee, in order to study painting.

Unbeknownst to him, the true purpose behind his presence in Paris is part of an intricate plan in order to allow Halifax to reproduce priceless works of art before they are destroyed by the invading Nazi forces.

His classes begin in an atelier, where Halifax is surprised to find only two other students, besides himself, sketching a picture of a nude woman posed on a stool.

The teacher, a Russian named Alexander Pankratov, presents himself begrudgingly and carries himself around in an aloof and harshly critical manner yet possesses an unquestioned authority over whomever he meets.

Halifax quickly tires of Pankratov's repeated insistence in sketching every day, and seeks time to complete his own works.

The enemy, however, has maneuvered into the Ardennes Forest, completely bypassing the French line, and quickly pierces into Paris.

Pankratov reveals that he, and the local cafe owner, are the mysterious Levasseur Committee, and that he has brought Halifax to Paris to teach him to forge art.

On one instance, however, where Dietrich was given a real original painting as part of the plan to keep suspicion at bay, his appraiser tells him that it is a fraud.

Halifax and Pankratov forge what was seen as impossible to copy, and deliver the painting on the day that all chaos has broken loose in Paris.

Pankratov's sole surviving masterpiece emerges in an art auction, in which Halifax wins the painting in a bidding war with an unknown party.