“Look, Mrs. Surton. I’ve a confession to make. I didn’t realize until I saw your photograph on your husband’s desk. I… I was suddenly worried that you’d think I was…
well, trying to gain introduction to you by some underhand means. And I wouldn’t want you to assume that. I’ve been trying for so long to speak to you.”
The canaries sang. The scraggy old blokes puffed, grinned, chatted. “I don’t understand. Who is this, please?” came in a breathy alarm. I wasn’t Phyllis’ average caller.
“All week I’ve been so desperate to at least say hello. And now Dr. Surton’s suddenly invited me out of the blue, pure chance, honestly. I just don’t want you to think the wrong thing.”
“Wrong thing?”
I’d acted worried so effectively I really was anxious now. “It’s just that I made a pathetic mess the other evening—”
“Oh!” She’d got it, remembered me at the Digga Dig.
“I’ll quite understand if you don’t want me to come…”
“No, I… Yes. I mean…”
Reality had intruded into her fantasy life. I knew the feeling. She was lucky her reality was only me. Mine wasn’t.
“It was wrong to… well, speak without introduction. I’m so stupid. It was just that I, well, admired you and —”
“No, you see—” We were both desperate now.
“Perhaps I’d better decline, make an excuse? I’m a bit frightened. Dr. Surton might suspect I…”
We dithered for a lifetime. I’m sure it was my confession of fear that swung it. The novelty of someone else being terrified made buddies of us both.
“Mrs. Surton? You please won’t say anything about my… my being in those bars or anything?”
“Very well, Lovejoy.” Her voice outdid me in relief. “I mean, you’d… you’d better come.
Especially as it is genuine business.”
“You won’t mind having… well, somebody less than moral in your house?”
“No.” Bravely, adding, “My husband’s invited you in good faith, so…” We eventually rang off with suppressed delight.
I gave the canaries a ho leng of unstinted admiration and bought a catty of seed as thanks for the phone. This evening I’d dine with Dr. and Mrs. Surton. She had been his research assistant on Chinese manuscripts; they had published together in academic journals until a couple of years ago. Happily I kept in partial shade all the way down Wing Sing Street and made a tram in Des Voeux Road West, so I was only partially dissolved by the Star Ferry concourse.
Kowloon seemed stuporous, deep-fried, sullen. I made it to the Flower Drummer Emporium and asked for Marilyn.
“I have found you a scheme of the desired kind, Little Sister,” I told Ling Ling. “If successful, it will make Brookers Gelman request a merger with your antiques group.”
She sat beside Fatty. Sim stood behind, eyeing me. I tried to guess where his knife was. Plural? Two amahs pattered to and fro doing the tea bit under Marilyn’s eye. The furniture was Indonesian wood, class but neffie modern.
“If? Proceed.”
Really I wanted to know who else was to be in on the scam, but didn’t dare ask. Fatty looked sour. He seemed to grow even bigger when angry, and Ling Ling had an aura of restlessness. Twice when I looked at her she glanced aside as if deliberately cold. How did she stay cool in this heavy heat? Today even the air-conditioning was having a hard time. I drew a soggy breath. “This is how I see it, folks. Hong Kong is the outlet for China’s antiques, smuggled or legit, for onward export to the world’s collectors. I guess we double or triple their number by high-quality fakes —er, replicas. Right?”
“You were told this, Lovejoy.” Ling Ling meant by Chao.
I pressed on. “We invite antiques firms like Brookers Gelman. We feed them genuine antiques at auctions, private sales, whatever. That whets their customers’ appetites.
And it helps to authenticate our fakes.” I paused. Right so far. “When a millionaire buys an antique, he’s trying to buy a new personality—because he’s made the terrible mistake of mislaying his own. But greed is the Ho Chi Minh trail of antiques.”
Ling Ling, dryly: “We comprehend the philosophy, Lovejoy.”
“Er, aye. Now, we could go with modern collectors away from Ming ceramics and aim for 1100 b.c. bronzes at half a million a time, Chinese sculptures, pre-Ming. But we don’t.”
“Your scheme?”
“Concerns Song Ping.”
Silence. “Who is Song Ping?” Fatty shrilled.
My big moment. “Back in Impressionist days, the 1870s, you could get their best works for a groat. Even Van Gogh, who came later, sold only one painting, and his agent was his brother. Yet nowadays one Sunflower painting would maintain a thousand families for life. Luckily the Impressionist Song Ping is as yet unrecognized. His paintings are still cheap. Fame would increase their value a millionfold.”
“Everybody fakes paintings,” Fatty piped impatiently. “We have our own artists.”
“Not Song Ping’s. Look. There’s a limit to fakery. You can copy a painting and pass it off as the original. Or you can make one up from new but in the unmistakable style of an artist—that’s done oftener than you might suppose: David Stein with Chagall; everybody with Rembrandt. Or you can do an unsigned period fake, but collectors aren’t keen on those. And that’s it.”
