The Umbrella Man and Other Stories (12 page)

He was holding one hand up over his eyes in a gesture of pain, and now, very carefully, secretly, he made a little crack between two of the fingers and peeked through.

Sure enough, the thing was still there, and on this occasion he took a good long look at it. Yes—he had been right the first time! There wasn’t the slightest doubt about it! It was really unbelievable!

What he saw was a piece of furniture that any expert would have given almost anything to acquire. To a layman, it might not have appeared particularly impressive, especially when covered over as it was with dirty white paint, but to Mr. Boggis it was a dealer’s dream. He knew, as does every other dealer in Europe and America, that among the most celebrated and coveted examples of eighteenth-century English furniture in existence are the three famous pieces known as “The Chippendale Commodes.” He knew their history backwards—that the first was “discovered” in 1920, in a house at Moreton-in-Marsh, and was sold at Sotheby’s the same year; that
the other two turned up in the same auction rooms a year later, both coming out of Raynham Hall, Norfolk. They all fetched enormous prices. He couldn’t quite remember the exact figure for the first one, or even the second, but he knew for certain that the last one to be sold had fetched thirty-nine hundred guineas. And that was in 1921! Today the same piece would surely be worth ten thousand pounds. Some man, Mr. Boggis couldn’t remember his name, had made a study of these commodes fairly recently and had proved that all three must have come from the same workshop, for the veneers were all from the same log, and the same set of templates had been used in the construction of each. No invoices had been found for any of them, but all the experts were agreed that these three commodes could have been executed only by Thomas Chippendale himself, with his own hands, at the most exalted period in his career.

And here, Mr. Boggis kept telling himself as he peered cautiously through the crack in his fingers, here was the fourth Chippendale Commode! And
he
had found it! He would be rich! He would also be famous! Each of the other three was known throughout the furniture world by a special name—The Chastleton Commode, The First Raynham Commode, The Second Raynham Commode. This one would go down in history as The Boggis Commode! Just imagine the faces of the boys up there in London when they got a look at it tomorrow morning! And the luscious offers coming in from the big fellows over in the West End—Frank Partridge, Mallet, Jetley, and the rest of them! There would be a picture of it in
The Times
, and it would say, “The very fine Chippendale Commode which was recently discovered by Mr. Cyril
Boggis, a London dealer . . . ” Dear God, what a stir he was going to make!

This one here, Mr. Boggis thought, was almost exactly similar to the Second Raynham Commode. (All three, the Chastleton and the two Raynhams, differed from one another in a number of small ways.) It was a most impressive handsome affair, built in the French rococo style of Chippendale’s Directoire period, a kind of large fat chest of drawers set upon four carved and fluted legs that raised it about a foot from the ground. There were six drawers in all, two long ones in the middle and two shorter ones on either side. The serpentine front was magnificently ornamented along the top and sides and bottom, and also vertically between each set of drawers, with intricate carvings of festoons and scrolls and clusters. The brass handles, although partly obscured by white paint, appeared to be superb. It was, of course, a rather “heavy” piece, but the design had been executed with such elegance and grace that the heaviness was in no way offensive.

“How’re you feeling now?” Mr. Boggis heard someone saying.

“Thank you, thank you, I’m much better already. It passes quickly. My doctor says it’s nothing to worry about really so long as I rest for a few minutes whenever it happens. Ah yes,” he said, raising himself slowly to his feet. “That’s better. I’m all right now.”

A trifle unsteadily, he began to move around the room examining the furniture, one piece at a time, commenting upon it briefly. He could see at once that apart from the commode it was a very poor lot.

“Nice oak table,” he said. “But I’m afraid it’s not old enough to be of any interest. Good comfortable chairs, but quite modern, yes,
quite modern. Now this cupboard, well, it’s rather attractive, but again, not valuable. This chest of drawers”—he walked casually past the Chippendale Commode and gave it a little contemptuous flip with his fingers—“worth a few pounds, I dare say, but no more. A rather crude reproduction, I’m afraid. Probably made in Victorian times. Did you paint it white?”

“Yes,” Rummins said, “Bert did it.”

“A very wise move. It’s considerably less offensive in white.”

“That’s a strong piece of furniture,” Rummins said. “Some nice carving on it too.”

“Machine-carved,” Mr. Boggis answered superbly, bending down to examine the exquisite craftsmanship. “You can tell it a mile off. But still, I suppose it’s quite pretty in its way. It has its points.”

He began to saunter off, then he checked himself and turned slowly back again. He placed the tip of one finger against the point of his chin, laid his head over to one side, and frowned as though deep in thought.

“You know what?” he said, looking at the commode, speaking so casually that his voice kept trailing off. “I’ve just remembered . . . I’ve been wanting a set of legs something like that for a long time. I’ve got a rather curious table in my own little home, one of those low things that people put in front of the sofa, sort of a coffee-table, and last Michaelmas, when I moved house, the foolish movers damaged the legs in the most shocking way. I’m very fond of that table. I always keep my big Bible on it, and all my sermon notes.”

He paused, stroking his chin with the finger. “Now I was just thinking. These legs on your chest of drawers might be very suitable.
Yes, they might indeed. They could easily be cut off and fixed on to my table.”

He looked around and saw the three men standing absolutely still, watching him suspiciously, three pairs of eyes, all different but equally mistrusting, small pig-eyes for Rummins, large slow eyes for Claud, and two odd eyes for Bert, one of them very queer and boiled and misty pale, with a little black dot in the centre, like a fish eye on a plate.

Mr. Boggis smiled and shook his head. “Come, come, what on earth am I saying? I’m talking as though I owned the piece myself. I do apologize.”

“What you mean to say is you’d like to buy it,” Rummins said.

“Well . . . ” Mr. Boggis glanced back at the commode, frowning. “I’m not sure. I might . . . and then again . . . on second thoughts . . . no . . . I think it might be a bit too much trouble. It’s not worth it. I’d better leave it.”

“How much were you thinking of offering?” Rummins asked.

“Not much, I’m afraid. You see, this is not a genuine antique. It’s merely a reproduction.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Rummins told him. “It’s been in
here
over twenty years, and before that it was up at the Manor House. I bought it there myself at auction when the old Squire died. You can’t tell me that thing’s new.”

“It’s not exactly new, but it’s certainly not more than about sixty years old.”

“It’s more than that,” Rummins said. “Bert, where’s that bit of paper you once found at the back of one of them drawers? That old bill.”

The boy looked vacantly at his father.

Mr. Boggis opened his mouth, then quickly shut it again without uttering a sound. He was beginning literally to shake with excitement, and to calm himself he walked over to the window and stared out at a plump brown hen pecking around for stray grains of corn in the yard.

“It was in the back of that drawer underneath all them rabbit-snares,” Rummins was saying. “Go on and fetch it out and show it to the parson.”

When Bert went forward to the commode, Mr. Boggis turned round again. He couldn’t stand not watching him. He saw him pull out one of the big middle drawers, and he noticed the beautiful way in which the drawer slid open. He saw Bert’s hand dipping inside and rummaging around among a lot of wires and strings.

“You mean this?” Bert lifted out a piece of folded yellowing paper and carried it over to the father, who unfolded it and held it up close to his face.

“You can’t tell me this writing ain’t bloody old,” Rummins said, and he held the paper out to Mr. Boggis, whose whole arm was shaking as he took it. It was brittle and it cracked slightly between his fingers. The writing was in a long sloping copperplate hand:

Mr. Boggis was holding on to himself tight and fighting to suppress the excitement that was spinning round inside him and making him dizzy. Oh God, it was wonderful! With the invoice, the value had climbed even higher. What in heaven’s name would it fetch now? Twelve thousand pounds? Fourteen? Maybe fifteen or even twenty? Who knows?

Oh, boy!

He tossed the paper contemptuously on to the table and said quietly, “It’s exactly what I told you, a Victorian reproduction. This is simply the invoice that the seller—the man who made it and passed it off as an antique—gave to his client. I’ve seen lots of them. You’ll notice that he doesn’t say he made it himself. That would give the game away.”

“Say what you like,” Rummins announced, “but that’s an old piece of paper.”

“Of course it is, my dear friend. It’s Victorian, late Victorian. About eighteen ninety. Sixty or seventy years old. I’ve seen hundreds of them. That was a time when masses of cabinet-makers did nothing else but apply themselves to faking the fine furniture of the century before.”

“Listen, Parson,” Rummins said, pointing at him with a thick dirty finger, “I’m not saying as how you may not know a fair bit about this furniture business, but what I
am
saying is this: How on earth can you be so mighty sure it’s a fake when you haven’t even seen what it looks like underneath all that paint?”

“Come here,” Mr. Boggis said. “Come over here and I’ll show you.” He stood beside the commode and waited for them to gather round. “Now, anyone got a knife?”

Claud produced a horn-handled pocket knife, and Mr. Boggis took it and opened the smallest blade. Then, working with apparent casualness but actually with extreme care, he began chipping off the white paint from a small area on the top of the commode. The paint flaked away cleanly from the old hard varnish underneath, and when he had cleared away about three square inches, he stepped back and said, “Now, take a look at that!”

It was beautiful—a warm little patch of mahogany, glowing like a topaz, rich and dark with the true colour of its two hundred years.

“What’s wrong with it?” Rummins asked.

“It’s processed! Anyone can see that!”

“How can you see it, Mister? You tell us.”

“Well, I must say that’s a trifle difficult to explain. It’s chiefly a matter of experience. My experience tells me that without the slightest doubt this wood has been processed with lime. That’s what they use for mahogany, to give it that dark aged colour. For oak, they use potash salts, and for walnut it’s nitric acid, but for mahogany it’s always lime.”

The three men moved a little closer to peer at the wood. There was a slight stirring of interest among them now. It was always intriguing to hear about some new form of crookery or deception.

“Look closely at the grain. You see that touch of orange in among the dark red-brown. That’s the sign of lime.”

They leaned forward, their noses close to the wood, first Rummins, then Claud, then Bert.

“And then there’s the patina,” Mr. Boggis continued.

“The what?”

He explained to them the meaning of this word as applied to furniture.

“My dear friends, you’ve no idea the trouble these rascals will go to to imitate the hard beautiful bronze-like appearance of genuine patina. It’s terrible, really terrible, and it makes me quite sick to speak of it!” He was spitting each word sharply off the tip of the tongue and making a sour mouth to show his extreme distaste. The men waited, hoping for more secrets.

“The time and trouble that some mortals will go to in order to deceive the innocent!” Mr. Boggis cried. “It’s perfectly disgusting! D’you know what they did here, my friends? I can recognize it clearly. I can almost
see
them doing it, the long, complicated ritual of rubbing the wood with linseed oil, coating it over with french polish that has been cunningly coloured, brushing it down with pumice-stone and oil, bees-waxing it with a wax that contains dirt and dust, and finally giving it the heat treatment to crack the polish so that it looks like two-hundred-year-old varnish! It really upsets me to contemplate such knavery!”

The three men continued to gaze at the little patch of dark wood.

“Feel it!” Mr. Boggis ordered. “Put your fingers on it! There, how does it feel, warm or cold?”

“Feels cold,” Rummins said.

“Exactly, my friend! It happens to be a fact that faked patina is always cold to the touch. Real patina has a curiously warm feel to it.”

“This feels normal,” Rummins said, ready to argue.

“No, sir, it’s cold. But of course it takes an experienced and sensitive fingertip to pass a positive judgement. You couldn’t really be expected to judge this any more than I could be expected to judge the quality of your barley. Everything in life, my dear sir, is experience.”

The men were staring at this queer moon-faced clergyman with the bulging eyes, not quite so suspiciously now because he did seem to know a bit about his subject. But they were still a long way from trusting him.

Mr. Boggis bent down and pointed to one of the metal drawer-handles on the commode. “This is another place where the fakers go to work,” he said. “Old brass normally has a colour and character all of its own. Did you know that?”