Paid and Loving Eyes

keeping tabs on the antiques I buy. The difficulty is remembering where. I suppose women have this trouble when they’re on a spending spree, except they like to scoop everything up as they go, which saves bother. But I had assistants. What did I pay them for, for heaven’s sake, if not to help? I always finish up doing the donkey work. Not today.

A little over an hour, I’d bought forty-seven antiques, almost all furniture and genuine, for a fortune in IOUs. “My assistants will be along immediatement,” I carolled every time. “Name of Solon…” I’d not seen a single piece of furniture that had made me queasy, in the way that Troude forgery in the Mentle clubhouse had. I felt the serenity that comes when rewakening after love. Love is moreish, same as antiques. I hurtled out from the place, collared a taxi and told him anywhere in the sixth arrondissement, starting with the very best antique shops. He was pleased, warned me darkly against the dealers. I said ta, I’d watch out, and tipped him well. He called out his warning after me. I waved, keeping an eye out for Guy and Veronique.

And plunged into the separate antique shops, not sparing the grottier brocanteurs. I must say, the stuff was pretty good. Oh, forgeries abounded, as always, and nothing wrong with that. Fakes provide mirth, where very often there is only weeping and gnashing of teeth. I was happy to see the usual dross of Dutch fake silver—and I don’t mean fake Dutch silver—with its phoney marks, its duff baroque “strapwork” so gross and unlike the real thing. You’ve only to see one genuine piece in any museum to be warned off it for life. Why the Dutch love faking Louis XIV silver, heaven alone knows, because they’re no good at it. Electrotyping’s more of a difficulty, because you do this by making a mould from an original, say a valuable bronze. You coat the copy with plumbago, as we forgers (sorry, we honest copyists) still call black lead, then sink it in a bath of electrolyte. Wire it to a chunk of copper, give it a little current, and sit back. Copper covers the copy’s surface. Clue: it will be beautifully fine, deposited atom by atom, unlike the real bronze, which is rough.

The piece I came across didn’t need the test, but I gave it a knuckle tap for old times’ sake, and heard the tell- tale clunk instead of the lovely faint singing note of genuine bronzes. I smiled an apology to the dealer, then bought a fake painting. It was a mediaeval Madonna and Child, so say, on solid wood panel, done in the true old style. It would have fooled me but for my chest’s stony silence when I touched it.

Still keeping a watch for my two nerks, I asked, “Can I see the reverse, Monsieur?” (Please— always look at the back. Here’s why.) It was American hickory of the sort we call pignut: very straight, coarse but lovely smooth grain. It’s a beautiful elastic wood, can resist any amount of thumps. In spite of these qualities, it doesn’t last, so is highly favoured by forgers for painted panels. This faker had really done his stuff—glued several small panels together to make one large one. And he’d stuck them like Theophilus did in the eleventh century, mixing quicklime and soft cheese (I really do mean cheese). Theophilus thought highly of this method, and so do I.

“I’ll buy it as a fake, Monsieur,“ I suggested. He was outraged, scandalized, overwhelmed, underwhelmed, and finally whelmed. I gave an IOU. My two assistants would be along…

There were plenty of antique shops, a few with two or three proprietors. And still no sign of my golden pair. The rest of the time I concentrated on furniture, with a few other antiques here and there. I bought an especially fine piece of fake Strasbourg faience, but pretty old. I liked it because Strasbourg faience was copied right from the off. (You often get the number 39 underneath, because fakers misunderstood the significance of numbering. Once you’ve seen the original brilliant carmine you’ll never get taken in; even modern fakers can’t match it.)

An hour I worked, darting quickly in and out of shops, eyes open for Guy and Veronique. Eventually I went down an alley, feeling worn out, and settled to a nosh in a busy restaurant. I sat where I could see the street.

Less than forty minutes later I was back in the shops, buying, testing, looking, sounding pieces out, rejoicing fit to burst in a way I hadn’t for days. I could hardly keep myself from choking while examining furniture, on account of the robbery that was going to hit the street come nightfall. I could even pinpoint the exact shops. In fact, I returned to one and bought a Davenport drawing-room desk. I’d passed on it first time round, but saw it would be right in the robbers’ firing line and probably get marmalized when the ramraiders struck. It was too bonny to die.

“Can I have it taken out of the window’s sunlight, Mademoiselle?” I begged the dealer. “Only it might fade.”

“In three hours, Monsieur?” I’d promised her my assistants would be along. But she complied.

Captain Davenport’s original desk-and-chests had desktops that slid backwards to cover the chest, for use in a narrow ship’s cabin. Adapted for a lady’s withdrawing room, the desk surface could stay projecting, supported by pillars on a horseshoe platform. Yellow walnut, and lovely even if it was Victorian.

Which gave me time to inspect more closely the bloke pacing the pavement. A fly lad, tough, fit, earring. I hid a smile. He’d been in the Louvre des Antiquaires, then here, consulting a card list and catalogues. A dealer never misses somebody putting ticks on a catalogue. Sign of an innocent, or somebody not innocent at all. One thing about ramraiders, they’re the least subtle thieves in creation.

The ramraider’s one of Great Britain’s exports. Just as we invented most of the world’s sports, in order to lose at them in the Olympics, so we’re indefatigable inventors of scams. The bluntest, not to say most aggressive, robbery in antiques is the ramraider. It’s so simple it’s almost beautiful. At least, it would be if it wasn’t destructive.

Method: take any van—and I mean steal, nick, thieve. Weld scaffolding poles to the rear bumpers to form a battering ram. Early in the owl hours, you reverse at speed through the window of any convenient antique shop, shattering whatever protection it’s got. Spill out, go straight to the antiques your sussers have previously marked on a rough sketch-plan you’ve learnt by heart. Load up, and be off and out of it in less than ninety seconds. Again, I do mean that quick. The London and Provincial Antiques Dealers’ Association has been moaning for years about the eruption of ramraiders in the Thames Valley. The best (for best read worst) thing is that it’s thieving to plan. Exactly like the art works —Van Gogh, Old Masters— in France, Holland, Germany, during the 1980s and early 1990s, it’s theft by prescription. One place in Leeds got hit three times in as many weeks. I’m against ramraiders, actually, because they’re pro hooligans. That is, they go straight for whatever they’re told, never mind what’s in the way. They’ll shred any painting, mash any furniture, to reach the priceless pieces they’ve been sent to steal.

How did I know the lank lad with the soiled jeans and golden earring was a susser? Well, who else would pace a street of antique shops like a drum major, his lips moving as he did his phoney “stroll”? Then, unbelievably, pause to mark the distances down! Where I come from these daredevil youths’d starve. The pillock thought himself among a load of dupes. I hadn’t known the ramraiders had reached Paris, but here they undoubtedly were.

“Monsieur?”

God. I found myself shaking my head, tut-tutting audibly. I smiled apologetically at the girl. She was smart, really well turned out. I apologized. “The traffic, Mademoiselle! I admire your Parisian drivers’ skill. So fast!”

We prattled a bit. I said what splendid stock she had. She was pleased I liked it, tried to persuade me to buy some more. I told her my name, Lovejoy. Claire Fabien offered me coffee for a merci beaucoup and a smile. We talked of the antiques locally. I kept an edgy eye on the window, twice almost starting up as I imagined a couple of blond heads, subsiding to chat some more, false alarm. I was drawn,