The Big Steal (2 page)

The plank beneath my feet had moved, or at least that's the way it felt. Instead of falling forward, my body twisted and first my hip, then my shoulder, took the impact of the fall.

The faint lightbulb dangling from the attic ceiling had flickered, then gone out when I fell. A small casement window was nearby, but afternoon clouds had settled in. Crawling forward, I mentally kicked myself for not bringing in the flashlight I kept in my car for just such situations.

No question about it. One of the wide floorboards had sunk at least half, maybe even three-quarters of an inch below the boards on each side of it. I patted the floor around me. My hand hit an obstruction. The beam I had stumbled over was definitely jutting up through the floor. It was probably part of a high-vaulted ceiling I'd seen on my tour of the house.

I pushed on the sunken board in hopes it might pop back in place. When I did, the wall I had barely avoided hitting head-on
creaked ever so slightly. My hands went wet and my throat dry. I swallowed hard and pressed the board again, harder this time. There was no mistaking the connection between the movement of the displaced piece of flooring and the low creaking coming from what looked like just another wall—except it was paneled, not unfinished the way other parts of the attic were. Maybe the plan had been to build a closet or a maid's room, but they never got around to doing it.

As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I set about restacking the fallen boxes, one of which had broken open. Strewn across the floor were sheets of dry onionskin paper held together by rusty paper clips and straight pins. Official-looking ledger pages were mixed in with handwritten receipts, as were several small books.

Enough late afternoon light was trickling through the windows so I could make out the larger lettering on some of the receipts. I gathered a handful and began sifting through them. “Société anonyme au capital de 250.000 Francs. Invoice. Nürnberg. American Consulate. Hong Kong. Customs Broker. Saaz.”

That one caught my attention. Saaz? I moved the paper back and forth until I could make out the words written long ago in purple ink, but that now had faded to a light lavender.

1 sugar box, jeweled, 2200.
1 silver vessel, 600.
12 spoons.
2 little tea spoons.

I was musing over the quaint description “little,” when I noticed no prices were cited for the spoons. I looked back at
the stationery's letterhead.
July 1927
was scribbled at the top right hand corner. Embossed on the center of the page was a red coat of arms and, beneath that, in royal blue letters, the name Franz Bauer. A third line ran across the width of the page. Saaz—New York—Rio de Janeiro. But where was Saaz? Germany, perhaps? Poland?

Again I shifted the paper to get it in a better light when a straight pin holding a handwritten note attached to the back pricked my finger. I turned the page over and read: “To whom it may concern, these spoons are genuine antiquities and over a hundred years old and the work of Saaz handicraft and passed on in possession of families of this region of Bohemia and sold privately.”

Well, that answered one question. Saaz, Bohemia, now Saaz, Czech Republic, I surmised. But the handwritten explanation struck me as peculiar. Why would a merchant have included the spoons on his list? To get them past customs was all I could think of. But no price? I came up empty.

Still, something about these papers stored—or had they been hidden?—in the attic, rather than being on file in the curator's office, seemed strange. Then again, in a house as large as this one and with so much in it, the chances were great that things would be scattered all about. I had had a gut feeling about the attic, and Michelle had been surprisingly agreeable. “Who knows what's up there,” she'd said offhandedly. “Just see what you can find.”

Many an attic has held great treasures. Why every four or five months there's breaking news that a heretofore unknown composition by Beethoven, a manuscript by Goethe, a long lost old master painting, or some such discovery has turned
up hidden beneath often walked-by shadows. In Virginia the original eighteenth-century plans for Francis Lightfoot Lee's Menokin plantation were found in the attic of a house several miles away. I was wondering how much more might be up here.

“It's almost three thirty.”

My heart leapt.

Michelle Hendrix loomed above me. She looked no different in the gloomy shadows of the attic than she had in the daylight when I had arrived at Wynderly. A tall woman probably in her mid-thirties, she had no sparkle.

“I had no idea,” I said, attempting to recover, while also trying to slip the papers onto the floor without her noticing. “I didn't hear you.”

“Dr. Houseman expects board meetings to start on time.” Michelle crossed her arms in front of her and stepped closer. “Finding anything?” she asked.

“Board meeting?” I replied.

“Oh, did I forget to tell you yesterday? Alfred Houseman, you know, the chairman of the Wynderly Foundation board … anyway, he's called a meeting for this afternoon.”

I struggled to my feet. Michelle Hendrix didn't budge.

“So, finding anything?” she asked again.

“Too early to be sure,” I said offhandedly.

Too many questions were swimming around in my head for me to share my findings. I gave her a noncommittal shrug. “What about you? Have you had a productive afternoon?”

“Not after Houseman blew in earlier than I had expected. He has a way of doing that.” She rolled her eyes. “I was back in my office when he showed up, a full half an hour early.

Didn't bother to call ahead either.” She made a low growling sound. “That man thinks he owns this place.”

Michelle pointed to her watch. “You'd better hurry. Houseman doesn't allow for lateness.”

“Me?”

What to do? I swooped up the papers with every intention of putting them in the open box. Michelle had started toward the steps. With her back turned, did I dare slip some of them in the zip-up binder I had with me so I could take notes? Just one or two, maybe.

Opportunity makes the thief
, Mother scolded.
One thief in this place is enough
.

I hesitated, but only momentarily. What's an appraiser to do?

Evidence, I thought.

Dear Antiques Expert: In a recent article about a fabulous European palace museum there was mention of a pair of blackamoors, but it didn't explain what blackamoors are. Could you help me, please?

During the late 17th century, life-size statues depicting the Muslims, who had spread from Africa into Spain and Europe during medieval times, became popular household decorations in grand European homes and palaces. These were called blackamoors. (Incidentally, servants sometimes wore Moorish costumes. Remember Cary Grant in
To Catch a Thief
?) If the statue or figure held a light or torch (candle, oil lamp, or later, an electrified bulb) it was called a blackamoor torchère. But be warned. Not all the “antique” statues seen in shops are old. Reproductions come in a variety of material, sizes, quality, and prices.

I
WAS STILL
wrestling with my conscience when I reached the last attic step. Mother was right. One thief
was
enough. On the other hand, I rationalized, I had been sent to Wynderly to get to the truth, and that meant digging for evidence.

By the time I reached the main floor, three flights down, I
was no longer thinking about the papers I had confiscated, but the tension building between Michelle and me. Yesterday's encounter had set the tone for all that followed.

G
ETTING TO
W
YNDERLY
had been no small feat. The twisty, narrow back roads would have been nerve-racking in bright sunshine. Yesterday had been gray and threatening. Only when I had brought the car to a stop in front of the mansion and tossed the directions I had clutched between my knees onto the passenger seat did I relax a little. I should have turned around right then and headed back to Leemont.

I had been reaching for the pull of the bell mounted on the front archway when Michelle Hendrix flung open the massive front door as if this were her ancestral home. Had she really been the lady of the house, surely she would have invited me to come in out of the cold and inquired about my trip. That's the polite Southern way. Instead, she had motioned me inside with a grand, sweeping gesture. “The drawing room,” she had said.

My eyes had followed her arm and voice. Assuming the red velvet rope marked off the drawing room, I ventured forth. I paused at the top of the four steps leading to the sunken room beneath the vaulted ceiling. Below lay a magnificent sight.

At the far end of the room hung a Venetian mirror with a rich cobalt blue glass border. The glow of the enormous silver-plated chandelier reflected in the mirror was as dazzling as a summer sun. In contrast, the furniture was dark and elaborately carved, the sort tourists go to great expense to see in the grand castles of Europe. Ornate sterling picture frames graced every tabletop. Pairs of trumpet-shaped silver vases filled with
bunches of blue and green peacock feathers adorned the twin marble mantelpieces on the side walls.

“Oh dear, I forgot to turn on the sconces,” Michelle said.

It hadn't been necessary, the room was splendid enough. But when she did, my appraiser's mind instinctively kicked in: English, nineteenth century, originally intended for candles, now electrified.

As if reading my mind, Michelle said, “The sconces weren't electrified until after Hoyt died and Mazie decided it was too much to have the servants lighting and snuffing out the candles every night. Candles … that's how they lit the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles,” she said.

Thank goodness Michelle couldn't see my frown. Despite its size and grandeur, Wynderly hardly measured up to Versailles.

“We seldom turn them on these days. Way too wasteful,” she continued. “But I wanted you to get the full effect, to see the way the Wyndfields lived in Wynderly's glory days … when they were here, that is. They traveled all the time. And I took the sheets and coverings off the furniture especially for you.”

I glanced about. In my mind's eye I could envision shrouds of white sheets and gray tarps mounding over the furnishings, turning the room into its own dreary mausoleum. Michelle turned and made another, even grander gesture, flipping her wrist and pointing ballerina-like. Assuming she meant for me to go down into the room for a closer look, I stepped forward. When I did so, Michelle announced, “No. No.
This
way. The ballroom is to the left.”

She reminded me of Gloria Swanson in
Sunset Boulevard
, preparing for her grand entrance.

I followed her along the paneled corridor separating the two rooms, our echoing footsteps the only sign of life. Portrait after portrait of unsmiling people entombed in heavy gilt frames lined the oak walls. At the hallway's end, two larger-than-life wooden blackamoor torchères guarded the entrance to the ballroom. The flickering bulbs in their outstretched hands cast a golden light across the parquet floor. Only the white ceiling, a flurry of plaster loops and swirls carved to imitate fully opened rose blossoms, broke the gloomy darkness.

I know, my responsibility was to identify quality and assign a value to my client's treasures, not pass judgment on someone else's taste. But the house wasn't at all in keeping with the slightly frumpy style this part of Virginia was famous for. This was horse country. Fashions might come and go, but not the family's ancestral huntboard or threadbare Oriental rugs.

Michelle stopped to remove the roping before she almost pirouetted over to the light switch. When she turned to face me, her eyes left little doubt that not only was I expected to be impressed, I should tell her so. But gushing isn't my way.

“Hmm-humm,” I mumbled noncommittally, all the while thinking that I might be more enthusiastic if I could shed my heavy coat and break away to the lady's room after such a long trip. But when Michelle flipped on the lights and I saw the life-size mural on the far wall of the room, I forgot my discomfort. So what if the scene of a masked ball replete with bejeweled women, their hair adorned with billowing plumes and feathers, flirting with men in satin britches and lacy shirts was a bit too tony for these parts. It was masterful.

“How wonderful,” I said. “Venetian?”

“Oh, yes, and hand-painted,” she answered.

For the first time since we'd met, Michelle Hendrix smiled a pleasant, almost warm smile. Leaning toward me as if sharing a secret, she said, “Hoyt and Mazie brought craftsmen from Italy to paint the murals. In fact, there are murals all over the house. Masons. Painters. Artists of every sort, even sculptors. The Wyndfields brought them all here. You'll see the marble statues in some of the gardens later,” she added. “Mazie loved her gardens.” Michelle held up her fingers as she named them. “Herb, formal, cutting, rose, even a vegetable garden, Italian, Elizabethan … ah …” She faltered. “Boxwood. And of course the maze. That's always been the public's favorite. But Mazie got tired of people always talking about Mazie's maze. Her real name was Mary Elise, you know, but everyone called her Mazie,” she said. “Hoyt had it designed as a gift to her. Actually, I think the water garden might have been Mazie's favorite. It's so remote most people don't even know about it. Like the pagoda. Wynderly is a very large place, you know. Acres and acres.”

I was about to make some joking comment that “large” was an understatement.

“I'd advise you not to try to wander off by yourself, though,” Michelle said, her voice flat. “You'll need to stick with me. If there's anything you want, or need to see, you'll have to ask me.”

With Michelle in the lead, I had dutifully followed—beneath arched doorways, in and out of wings, down long dreary passageways, around massive bookcases, through the rooms of Wynderly, each one seemingly larger and grander than the one before. Her unnecessary aggrandizing of the house and
its contents was beginning to grate on my nerves. Wynderly spoke for itself. Plus, I was anxious to get down to work.