Back Bay (16 page)

“Traitorous words for someone from New England,” said Fallon.

Jane Cooper laughed softly and brushed back the brown hair that was already streaked with gray. She wasn’t beautiful in any conventional sense, but there was something about her that Fallon found very attractive. Women from Yankee stock always seemed to age gracefully.

“Don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Fallon,” she said. “I consider Paul Revere one of the best silversmiths in American history. He had his peers and his betters, but from 1860 on, he had the best public relations of any of them, thanks to Longfellow. ‘One, if by land, and two, if by sea,/And I on the opposite shore will be,/Ready to ride and spread the alarm,/Through every Middlesex village and farm.’ Heady stuff. The price for his work began to climb immediately after the poem was published. Within a few years, J.P. Morgan was offering a hundred thousand dollars for Revere’s
Liberty Bowl, an incredible sum in those days. A sort of Reveremania began, and it persists right down to the present.”

“Fired up, I would imagine, by the rediscovery of the tea set.”

“Oh, yes. People have always brought old silver into the museum to find out if it’s Revere. He was extremely prolific, and judging from his daybooks, he made several pieces that have not been seen ever since he delivered them. Ever since the Golden Eagle went on display, people have been flocking in here with absolutely everything. You’d be amazed at what they ask us to authenticate. Silverware bought at E. B. Horne in 1948, pewter candlesticks, silver plates engraved ‘To Mom and Pop on Their Anniversary.’ Someone even walked in here once with a golf trophy. The curator almost died laughing.”

Fallon was laughing himself. “I can’t say that I blame him.”

“It is hysterical. But people in New England want to feel that they’re part of the glorious past. It’s only natural when you live in a city like this, where you can’t walk two blocks without running into some sort of historical monument or another. Owning a piece of Revere silver gives us a link with our communal history, even if our ancestors arrived from Lithuania in 1900.

“But once in a while”—a sliver of excitement crept into her voice—“we are presented with something authentic. That’s an unforgettable thrill.”

“Then you must have been beside yourself when you heard about the Golden Eagle Tea Set.”

She thought for a moment. “Actually, we were a bit skeptical at first.”

Fallon had been skeptical since he heard the story she told the sixth-graders. His suspicions slowly began to expand. “What would make the museum doubt that the tea set was Revere’s work?”

“A couple of things,” said Mrs. Cooper. “First of all, it had been gone for a hundred and fifty years. Somewhere along the line, you’d think that whoever held it in Europe might want to make a sale to someone like J. P. Morgan. And of course, Lawrence Hannaford’s reluctance to reveal the name of the English owner caused us some hesitation as well.”

“But you said that’s not unusual.”

“It isn’t really. People selling works of art like to retain their anonymity, sometimes because they don’t want the world to know they’re poor, sometimes because they don’t want the tax man cutting into their sale. But we always feel a trifle uncomfortable when the last owner is unknown. I’m sure you’ve heard those horror stories about museums purchasing art works of uncertain lineage.”

“You mean forgeries?”

She felt him jumping to conclusions across her desk. “Before we go on, Mr. Fallon,” she said evenly, “let me remind you that all our suspicions disappeared when we examined the tea set.”

Fallon realized that he was sitting on the edge of his chair. He settled back.

“Lawrence Hannaford was actually a middleman for a middleman. His partner in Europe was an American importer named William Rule.”

Fallon had never heard the name.

“Rule is a very reputable businessman with offices on Atlantic Avenue and large holdings in several New England corporations. Apparently, he put Hannaford together with the owner of the tea set and took a share of the profits. Then, not long after Hannaford presented the tea set to buyers at his gallery, an article appeared in a local newspaper, one of those counterculture weeklies that sprang up in the late sixties.”

“The
Phoenix
?”

“Something like the
Phoenix
. It was called
Hubcap
. It folded several years ago. Anyway, they had a columnist who used to pop off about something different every week—the tax rate, Nixon, the price of hot dogs at Fenway Park, anything that came into his head. If you read him regularly, you were soon convinced that he was certifiably crazy.”

“Do you recall his name?” Fallon remembered the
Hubcap
, but he had never read it.

“Jack something or other. A big, burly fellow with white hair. Ferguson. Jack C. Ferguson. He wrote that the tea set was a fraud, that Hannaford and Rule were—I can’t quite remember the phrase—‘criminals in the guise of cultured gentlemen.’ Something like that. He said he knew the real story, and all he needed was ‘the permission of a certain fine lady from a certain New England
family,’ and he’d tell it all. His column caused quite a stir in art circles. But he was an alcoholic. Before his permission ever came, he started hitting the bottle with both hands. Lord knows what makes a man snap like that.” She paused and sipped her coffee.

“In the meanwhile, Hannaford had lined up Henry Drucker. He knew that Drucker was one of those collectors who not only appreciate good art, but also enjoy having a good story to tell when they show their treasures to their friends. If a work of art has been in the possession of famous people or the object of thefts and murders, its value rises astronomically. Any art dealer knows this, and Hannaford made sure that he documented the story of the tea set’s travels.”

“Where does his documentation begin?” Fallon hoped he would find holes in what she was about to tell him.

“With a British military inquest in 1816. Four British soldiers were robbed and killed while transporting a strongbox to the home of an officer in the Sussex countryside. The officer, a Captain Prendergast, had helped to torch the White House. It has always been assumed that he took the tea set. The British took everything else that wasn’t nailed down that night. However, Prendergast’s dream of a Revere tea set on the sideboard went a little awry.”

“I had always heard that Dolley Madison saved most of the valuable pieces in the White House. It seems unusual that the people on her staff would have left the tea set behind. Did they ever look for it in this country?”

“There was a rather limp investigation by some Congressional appointees, but they were as successful as most Congressional appointees are at anything.”

“Which means unsuccessful?” He wondered if they investigated Pratt.

“Exactly. Their main objective was to find two White House servants who disappeared along with the tea set. There was no FBI in those days, so the pair were never found. Since one of them was an Englishman, the investigators speculated that he struck a deal with Captain Prendergast and received passage to England in partial payment for the tea set.”

“Did the inquest mention the Golden Eagle Tea Set by name?”

“They asked Prendergast if the tea set was on the wagon. He
said it wasn’t. However, if he’d said yes, it would have meant trouble. You see, a year earlier, the American government had requested that the British return the tea set. The British government requested that any officer who had knowledge of the Golden Eagle step forward. Prendergast did not.”

Fallon laughed. “That’s pretty flimsy evidence upon which to assume that Prendergast stole the tea set.”

“It’s just a theory, Mr. Fallon, but in 1870, the evidence becomes stronger. On December 4, 1870, the
Times
of London reported the murder of Sir Henry Carrol. He was killed in his home, surrounded by his collections of English and American silver. The American silver included, and I quote, ‘works by Benjamin Burt, Jacob Hurd, and a handsome tea set by Paul Revere.’ Carrol was a reclusive old eccentric who never allowed anyone to look at his treasures. We can’t be sure if his set was the Golden Eagle or one of three other Revere services which disappeared during the nineteenth century and were recovered later.”

Mrs. Cooper took a phone call, and Fallon refilled both coffee cups. The story was beginning to sound more plausible to him. Perhaps Lovell had been successful, and Pratt had sold the tea set to Carrol’s family. When Hannaford’s researchers were documenting the story of the Golden Eagle, they hadn’t had Lovell’s note as a starting point, and whatever evidence they had pointed to Captain Prendergast. In short, a historian’s honest mistake.

After she hung up, Mrs. Cooper took off her coat and threw it on a chair. Totally absorbed in the story, Fallon had forgotten the heat. He realized that he was perspiring, despite the air conditioning.

“Where was I?” asked Mrs. Cooper, settling herself again.

“Henry Carrol.”

“Yes. The tea set disappeared from his house, and a hundred years later, it reappeared in England. That’s where we came in.”

Fallon feared this part of the story. If the scientific proof was conclusive, he would have little reason to investigate further.

“In order to prove beyond a doubt that the tea set was genuine Revere,” said Mrs. Cooper, “Hannaford offered it to us for inspection. Our silver expert at the time was a brilliant man named Elwood Kendall. He is no longer with us.” From the way she spoke, Fallon surmised that the silver expert was a bit of an eccentric.

“Elwood Kendall considered it the crowning glory of his career to examine the Revere masterpiece. After he rendered his verdict in favor of Mr. Hannaford, he quietly retired and died a happy man.

“Kendall’s first step was to talk with Mr. Ferguson. Since my own field of expertise is American silver, Kendall asked me to accompany him. We found Ferguson in his South Boston apartment, dead drunk and, for the most part, incoherent. No help at all.” She shook her head and recalled the pitiful sight. After a few moments, she continued, “Then, we came back here and Kendall went to work, beginning with Revere’s daybooks.”

“Are they like ledgers?”

“Exactly. Revere was never very systematic about keeping them, either. Occasionally he made a crude sketch of a piece he was working on. Other times he would carefully enter the height and weight of each piece he made. And sometimes he wrote down nothing but the name of the client and the price he charged. With the Liberty Bowl, he never entered a thing.”

“What about the Golden Eagle?”

“The daybook lists thirty-one pieces. He gives us the heights and weights of the teapot, creamer, sugar bowl, and coffee urn, and he adds that he has made the set for ‘President G. Washington.’ The Hannaford set fit the Revere specifications to the letter.”

“Can anyone read through the daybooks?”

“Well, they
are
archive material. Anyone with some serious intent could go through them.”

“Is forgery serious enough?” joked Fallon.

“Please let me finish, Mr. Fallon.” She was beginning to sound annoyed. “The daybooks are simply the first step. Only the crudest fakes are found out through the daybooks. After the daybooks, we look at the method of production. You can usually tell if the body of a piece was raised, shaped, and engraved by hand, or if machines like the slip-roll former and burring wheel did the work. Revere used rolled silver for his Federal tea sets, but he crafted them with hammer, shears, burring, and needle. No machines. Mr. Kendall determined that Hannaford’s Golden Eagle was worked exclusively by hand.

“Next comes the patina. Over the years, the color of a silver surface changes because of tarnishing, polishing, and interaction
with whatever is floating around in the air. The deposit, usually of silver sulfide, is called patina. We display all our silver in cases to keep it as free from patina as possible. A recent forgery will not show much patina, or it will have been chemically applied and easy to detect. Mr. Kendall agreed that the patina on the Golden Eagle was the product of time.”

She knew her material well and didn’t stop for questions.

“Third, we compare a piece against some of the artist’s well-known work to determine if he has done anything different. You know, in his hammer patterns, his engravings, his soldering technique, the beading and gadrooning, the general structure of the piece. We decided that Hannaford’s tea set looks like Revere’s work, and it closely resembles the only drawings of the Golden Eagle that were made before it disappeared.”

“Didn’t all silversmiths place their signature on each piece they made?”

“Revere used seven different signature stamps in his career. Sometimes he imprinted his initials on a piece, sometimes his last name in capital letters. Sometimes he put a small pellet in front of his name, sometimes not. Anyone who could copy a tea set would certainly be able to copy a signature stamp.”

“What about carbon dating or something like that?”

Mrs. Cooper laughed. “It’s easy to see you’re a historian and not a scientist. You can’t carbon-date something unless it’s organic, which silver isn’t. At the moment, they’re working on some sort of device that reads the density of electrons in a piece of silver and tells you its age. I’m not quite sure how it works, but it isn’t operational yet, anyway. In the case of Hannaford’s tea set, we analyzed the alloy content in the silver. They used a few, simple alloys in Revere’s time. Our alloys are much more sophisticated today. We know that Revere melted down confiscated Tory silver, then rolled it and reworked it. The alloy levels found in the Golden Eagle Tea Set were commensurate with those found in most eighteenth-century silver.”

“Could someone have faked the alloy content or the patina?”

“They could duplicate the alloy content, but I don’t believe that anyone could fake the patina and fool us.” She folded her hands on the desk, as though she had finished. “Patina is usually the key.”

“Are you convinced of the authenticity of Hannaford’s Golden Eagle?” he asked, the disappointment evident in his voice.