The Big Steal (19 page)

“You can move back now,” she said.

I watched as Michelle placed both hands beneath the middle shelf of the recessed section and slid that portion of the bookcase to the right, making a wide entranceway. Behind it there was a room.

I caught my breath in surprise. “Another one?”

“Another what?” Michelle said.

“Oh … just another one of those sliding walls and hidden
rooms. Secret passageways. They're not only in the pages of books, you know.” I was trying to hide the rush of nervousness and surprise running through me like cold water. “These old mansions are full of them,” I said.

“Really? I never thought much about it. Come to think of it, though, there's a house down the way with a secret room in the portico over the front door.”

I hung back before joining her as she stepped into the room. “When did you find this … room?” I asked, my hand still holding onto the wall as if to anchor me in the real world.

“I've always known about it. It was Mazie's secret room. Babby showed it to me when I was little, but she made me promise to seal my lips forever.” She placed her forefinger over her lips.

“Did you?”

She seemed surprised. “Of course. Until now, that is.”

The room was an orderly place, though filled with books and papers. And wonderful antiques. In one corner was a fine walnut corner cupboard, a plain piece except for the elegant line inlay that accented its pure lines. Pembroke tables with delicately scalloped leaves at the side flanked a Federal sofa made sometime around 1790 and upholstered in red and gold damask.

But the pièce de résistance was the American secretary-bookcase. Most such pieces have a simple molded cornice. This one had a bold, curved swan neck pediment, made even more stunning by its delicate pierced lattice-like work. I wanted to drop to my knees and examine its ball-and-claw feet. It would have taken a true craftsman, someone like John Shaw of Annapolis,
Maryland, to execute a piece of such superior quality and workmanship.

Even more amazing was that, except for the Federal sofa, which likely was from Philadelphia or New York, these were all Southern pieces—the sort collectors would pay tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars to possess. And they were hidden away in this room. I was speechless.

Michelle was oblivious to my enthrallment. “I guess I should have told you about this earlier,” she was saying. “I didn't mean to do anything I shouldn't. Looking back, I realize it was wrong to keep any secrets from you. It's just that I love Wynderly so much, I didn't want anything to hurt its reputation.” She spoke softly, reverently.

“I know,” I said. “And these are magnificent, finer than the majority of pieces in the house. May I have a moment to … look more closely at them?” I didn't dare use the word
examine
. But that's what I needed to do to be sure I was seeing true eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century period pieces and not the work of some shrewd faker. I felt reasonably positive they were the real thing. The market for Southern antiques had soared only in the last ten years or so. Until then, it hadn't been worth the time and effort needed to fake a Southern piece.

But New England antiques? That was a different matter. They had always sold for high prices. Since the end of the nineteenth century many a dishonest cabinetmaker had made a fine living by faking grand eighteenth-century Boston, Philadelphia, and Newport, Rhode Island, furniture. Why just a few weeks ago I had dashed a family's dreams when I had to tell them the lady's writing desk they thought had been made
in Boston in the early 1800s by John Seymour was one of many such fakes made in the barn behind a well-known antique dealer's shop in the 1930s. I hate days like that.

While I was crawling around checking for (and thankfully finding) the telltale signs of age, Michelle had taken a book down from one of the bookcases in the room.

“And you'll want to see this,” she said, holding the book in front of her. “I would have thought some of the people working here before me would have found it, but no one has ever mentioned it. It was in one of the file cabinets in my office. Actually, at the back of one of the bottom drawers, behind a lot of other papers. Mostly old newspaper clippings, I think. I can't remember … not exactly. The only thing I can figure is no one else ever dug down far enough to find it. But then there have been times when I've wondered if maybe somebody put it there on purpose. I brought it in here to be sure no one else found it. Anyway, when I started reading and comparing it to what I had been told and to some of the later appraisals, like that one I gave you, well, I didn't know who to believe. It's all so confusing.”

I took the book from her and sat down on the sofa I had so admired seconds before. Michelle stood above me.

“What does it mean?” she asked.

Dear Antiques Expert: I see the term “giltwood” used a lot to describe very fancy antique European pieces that are also usually very expensive. What exactly does the term mean
?

Giltwood means that a thin layer of gold leaf or gold foil has been applied onto the exposed wood. Pieces highlighted with a gold wash have been found as far back as in the tombs of pharaohs dating from 1700 BC. Over the years, different techniques used to apply the gilt have evolved, but the process of gilding the wood has always been expensive and time-consuming. Giltwood pieces were especially fashionable in Europe throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. You're right, antique giltwood pieces in good condition
are
expensive—the finest examples often sport five- and six-figure price tags.

“A
ND YOU FOUND
this in your office,” I said.

That was understandable. It's not unheard of for valuable information to lie untouched and unnoticed for years, even centuries, in some of world's finest museums, to say nothing
of a disorganized place like Wynderly. Nonetheless, my head was swimming with questions.

“So, just how well
did
you know Mazie?” I asked offhandedly, the book still closed.

“She was already old when I was born. Probably seventy, maybe seventy-two. But I do remember her,” she said, adding, “though sometimes I wonder if my memories come more from Babby's stories about Mazie than from the Mazie I
really
knew and the things that really happened.” She cocked her head as if pondering her own statement. Then after a chuckle Michelle said, “Of course, I remember her. Mazie didn't die until I was oh, fourteen or fifteen. But why do you ask?”

“I'm just trying to get everything straight in my head. There's so much going on around here.”

“If it helps any—I saw less and less of her as I got older. That explains why my own memories are fuzzy, I guess. Mazie was sick for a long time. Dementia, my grandmother said. Whether or not it was Alzheimer's or just old age, who knows? One thing though,” Michelle said, walking over to the secretary-bookcase, “from the time I was a little girl Babby always told me that Mrs. Wyndfield had a collection of china dogs that she wanted me to have. That's how I happened to see this room. One afternoon when Mazie was out, Babby brought me here to see the dogs.”

As she talked she turned the key, unlocking the glass door in the upper bookcase section.

“They were in the secretary, on these shelves,” she said.

I put the unopened book to one side and joined her. Surely I would have noticed any dogs, though it might have been possible
that I had been so enthralled by the secretary-bookcase's beauty that I had had blinders on.

“Oh, they aren't there now,” she said. “And I've never found them anywhere in the house. Just another one of life's little promises broken.” Her sigh left little doubt how disappointed she was, even now, many years later. “But just knowing that Mazie Wyndfield even thought of me … that's special.”

On the shelves Chinese Export bowls were stacked on top of one another. Brass candlesticks were concealed behind vases and pitchers. With so many things crammed into the bookcase top of the secretary, anything could have been in there. “Have you looked really carefully?” I asked.

“I didn't open any drawers or shift things around,” she said. “I guess I was always afraid I'd be caught, even if, as far as I know, I'm the only person who knows this place exists.”

Our eyes locked. We both realized the implications of what she had said.

I grabbed the book from the sofa. “I'll take this with me,” I said, glancing back at the room and thinking how Mazie's old things had become her old friends, too.

Only when we were in the sanctity of the back workroom did I dare open the book—and then with trepidation. Though I would have preferred to be alone, without Michelle looking over my shoulder, what choice did I have?

The book was a bound appraisal made by Eugene Kirklander in 1955. On the cover, in gold lettering, was the single word WYNDERLY. Inside, on the title page I read, “Wynderly—Its Contents.” The next page was a letter to Hoyt from Mr. Kirklander written on his letterhead and signed in a scrawly
hand. His Manhattan Upper East Side address made perfect sense. In the days before values skyrocketed and thieves emptied out whole housefuls of antiques while the owners were vacationing or just out for dinner, appraisers were seldom found outside metropolitan areas, and certainly not in the Virginia countryside.

Kirklander's appraisal read the way a good appraisal should. There was a description of each article, its date and condition, any other pertinent information, and finally its value. I read at random.

 

French gold snuff-box formed as a bouquet of flowers, 18th century. 3-3/8 inches long. Deaccessioned from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Augustus Cruikshank. $540
.

Louis XV oak cabinet in the provincial style, with garland decorated glass upper portion above a solid-doored cabinet base with ball feet. Mid-18th century. Repairs to the upper portion. $2,500
.

George II giltwood side table, circa 1740–50, with marble top. The elaborate S-scrolled legs and paw feet and the shell motif at the apron testify to its exceptional quality. Purchased in London, 1933. The marble appears to be of more recent date than the base. $7,000
.

 

Oddly, the entry for the George II giltwood side table had been marked through. Across it, in red pencil, was written, “Sold. 1951. $7,500.”

Wait a minute. 1951? I looked back at the cover page. The appraisal had been made in 1955. How could an appraisal be made in 1955 for something that had been sold four years earlier?

“Michelle. This ‘sold' notation. Whose handwriting is this?”

“Hoyt's. And just you wait …”

I turned the page. Laid into the book was an invoice from Ewan Antiques in Baltimore. It, too, was dated 1951. “Giltwood side table in the George II style. $550. Marble top. $60. Total $610. Paid in full. Thank you for your order.”

Kirklander had been right about the new marble top. Old marble tops are easily broken or cracked and often replaced. What he had
missed
was that the table itself was also new. Eugene Kirklander had been an appraiser of some note in his day. For him to think the table was a mid-eighteenth-century George II giltwood side table after thoroughly examining it, the table was obviously meant to masquerade as an antique.

I didn't blame Kirklander for his mistake. There isn't an appraiser, museum curator, auctioneer, or dealer alive who hasn't been fooled by some expert craftsman who has used old materials and tools to make new “old” pieces. Newspapers and antiques publications are filled with stories of some prized piece being pulled from a museum collection or auction sale upon learning it is a reproduction or a fake. In the trade we say that any professional who won't admit to being fooled is ignorant, lying, or too embarrassed to fess up to having been duped.

The person I blamed was Hoyt. He had sold the original George II table in 1951 and replaced it with a fake.

I flipped over two or three pages. When I saw another entry scratched through, I paused.

 

Kashmiri bronze figure of Lokesvara. 6-1/2 inches high. Dating from the 10th century. Extraordinarily rare. $3,000
.

 

Once again, and in the same hand that I had just seen, was written “Sold. 1957. $2,500.” And beneath that, “Sold. 1958. $2,800.” And beneath that, “2 figures. Sold. $5,000.”

Again I asked Michelle, “And this? Hoyt's writing?”

“Yes.”

I turned the page. There, as I had found behind the giltwood table listing, a page was laid into the bound book. Only a few words were in English. “Objects of Art. Kobe. Kyoto. Mr. Hoyt Wyndfield, Virginia, USA, 1928. Lokesvara.” Beneath, rows of neat columns ran up and down the page in what must have been Japanese. I hadn't a clue whether they were words or numbers.

Paper-clipped to this was a letter.

 

Dear Mr. Wyndfield, As you ask me to, I go to the shop asking when the Lokesvara figures be ready. I go more than 15 time. Mr. Nomura always say the figures not good enough. Hoping you understand that I do my best. Mr. Nomura now finish them. He call me and I get them for you. I have your ancient figure and the five new ones. You not be able to tell them apart. Enclosed are all documents for shipping of your purchases. Kindly send draft sum of Y 38.55, payable at our Kyoto office. P. Yas ka. December, 1928
.

 

Between the
s
and
k
, only a faint portion of the upper part of the letter had come through. It might have been an
a
, or maybe an
o
. An
e
perhaps? But considering the long-ago year, what did it matter? Whoever P. Yas ka was, surely he was dead by now.

“Michelle, that figure of Lokesvara. It was on the list of stolen items, right?”

“I … think. But which one is that again?”