by Rumer Godden
‘And he allowed them?’
‘Always.’
‘He must have been a remarkable man.’
‘Yes, and he must, too, have had an affection for Bihar. He called his hotel Patna Hall – Patna is the capital of that state. The hotel is run now by Henry Bertram’s granddaughter, Samantha.’
… ‘Now?’ she always said. ‘I have been its manager since I was nine.’…
‘Henry Bertram brought her up,’ Walter went on. ‘There’s no mention of parents. Though she married a Colonel McIndoe, Bhatacharya says everyone calls her Miss Sanni or, if you are close to her, Auntie Sanni. Colonel McIndoe, who does the business side, firmly installed electricity, telephones and a fax machine, but except for that Miss Sanni insists on keeping Patna Hall exactly as it was, in full old-time panoply, which must be very expensive. Indeed, Mr Bhatacharya thinks she finds it hard to keep it going, especially as he says India now has a chain of hotels, the Uberois. “They are in every province,” he told me, “with high standards, comfortable and excellent service, quick, which Patna Hall is decidedly not.” Yes, there’s no fault to find with Uberois except that all over India they’re exactly the same – public rooms, furnishings, even the menus. Most people stay at them, but visitors say that if you’ve once been to Patna Hall you want to come back again. An archaeological group has been coming every October for the last twenty years. It’s led now by a Professor Ellen Webster who, I believe, is well known in America. When she took it over the tour was only for women, a mixture of holiday and sightseeing. Mr Bhatacharya told me that the Patna Hall servants called them the “cultural ladies”, but now it’s for men too and it’s considered a privilege to be accepted on one of these tours – students get grants for them and people book them from as far away as China.
‘Professor Webster is meticulous,’ Walter was appreciative, ‘and each year she comes to Patna Hall a week or so in advance to check on every possible arrangement. Mr Bhatacharya says this is very wise as there is a proverb that Indians are so anxious to please that they tell you things not as they are but as you would like them to be – and now we come to the point. On every tour there are evening lectures in the ballroom. One is always on the Hindu deities and, though no one else was allowed to touch it, Miss Sanni let Professor Webster use the Nataraja, lifting it down and putting it on her table. Last year the genuine statue was in place, but at some time during the last twelve months it has been exchanged.’
‘And no one noticed?’ Michael marvelled.
‘The fake, they say, is exact,’ said Walter, ‘and remember, at Patna Hall everyone was used to seeing it in its niche. No, it took an Ellen Webster and she took the precaution of writing her discovery down.’ He produced a page or two of manuscript and handed them to Michael.
As soon as I lifted it I knew it was a fake. The first thing was the weight. It was too light. Next the surface of the bronze was too smooth – no patina – and though it was so expertly made, something was missing, an ambience of calm, I can call it nothing else, a calm in spite of the dance. Of course I raised an alarm. I remember shouting, ‘Auntie Sanni, Auntie Sanni! Come here at once. Call the Colonel. The Shiva’s gone.’
‘No. He is here.’ Auntie Sanni had come, not hurrying.
‘He’s not. This is a fake. Someone’s stolen yours. We must get the police at once.’
‘There’s no need for the police. He has not gone.’
‘He has. He’s gone! Gone! Gone!’ I was trying to hammer it into Auntie Sanni. ‘Gone.’
The confidential servants, Samuel the old butler and Hannah the housekeeper, his wife, had come running. ‘Aie! Aie! I get the police. I, Samuel.’
‘No, Samuel,’ said Miss Sanni. ‘No, Ellen, let things be.’
‘I can’t. The Nataraja is not just yours. It’s a national treasure, worth I don’t know how much.’
Auntie Sanni was suddenly stern. ‘I know what it’s worth and I know the value, but not your kind of value or worth. Police, money, everything that disturbs. I forbid you, Ellen, absolutely forbid you to tell anyone. We still have our Shiva-ji.’
Michael read it closely. He looked up: ‘What happened next?’
‘Nothing for twenty-four hours, but the next day was the day when Mr Cromartie, a Canadian art dealer, arrived in London. He took the statue straight to Sparkes’s. Soon there were mentions of it in some of the better English newspapers and the Indian ones immediately picked them up. Patna Hall’s telephone rang incessantly. An enterprising journalist announced that he was coming. Miss Sanni had to give in: her prohibitions were no longer valid. “Do as you like,” she said. Professor Webster had already written her formal testimony and lost no time in sending it to London.’
‘Thank God for faxes,’ Honor had said, when it arrived.
‘It was certainly timely,’ Walter told Michael. ‘The Professor even offered to come to London as soon as her tour ended. The police made over the testimony at once to Mr Bhatacharya, who gave copies to everyone concerned. One is probably on its way to you. He told me he even gave one to Mr Cromartie, hoping he would drop this ridiculous case. But no. He’s set on it.’
Michael came down to the snug again. ‘Walter, have you a few minutes?’
‘No,’ said Walter, ‘but I’ll make some.’
‘Thank you. Something has struck me about Cromartie versus the God Shiva, and I have a feeling that you know more than you let on about this man Cromartie.’
‘Yes.’ Then Walter was silent for a few moments. ‘I was going to tell you when it seemed ripe but I don’t think I behaved very well.’
‘You?’
‘Yes. Yet it was well before we were involved in the case. The Indian government and Mr Bhatacharya had not even approached Sir George, but when Mr Cromartie – Sydney Carstairs Cromartie, to give him his full name – had decided on litigation, he took action at once to find himself a lawyer. He seems not to have any friends or advisers in London, which doesn’t surprise me, so he asked around. He said he wanted the best – and it appears that he’s got plenty of money. Someone told him of us and he didn’t wait a minute but came straight here demanding to see Sir George. Of course, he ended up with me.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Crass,’ said Walter, without hesitation. ‘Unbelievably ignorant because he’s so cocksure he’s always right. “I go my way and my way goes with me as it damn well has to” was one of his sayings. Ginevra didn’t stand a chance – he was in the hall, had shut the door behind him and was flourishing his card at her before she could say a word. She still did her best. “Have you an appointment?”
‘“Don’t be silly, girl. I don’t waste time making appointments. I have to see Sir Fothergill at once.”’
Michael could not help laughing.
‘It wasn’t funny,’ said Walter. ‘Ginevra thought it better not to argue, but she’s quick. She gave our invariable excuse, “Sir George is in court” and before Cromartie could speak she said, “If you’d like to leave your telephone number I’ll get someone to call you as soon as possible.” She got up to show him out but he stood between her and the door. She told me later she didn’t like the look of him – well, he’s certainly the reverse of attractive – and she really thought he might push straight past her so she showed him in to me. I expect he thought she’d capitulated and followed her quietly. “Someone to see you, Mr Johnson,” she said, but one look at my snug and he was on the defensive. “You’re not Sir Fothergill!”
‘“Certainly not, Mr Cromartie.” Ginevra had put his card, too flashy, on my desk. His name was in big letters but below, in smaller print, was “Ye Olde Oriental Treasure Chest” and an address in Toronto.’
‘Ah!’ Michael put in. ‘Oriental Treasure Chest. That’s the connection.’
‘Obviously. The newspapers said the same. Anyway he attacked at once. “Sir George Fothergill’s in court and, however urgent, he can’t possibly be got out for me. That’s the long and short of it, isn’t it?” I had to agre
e, and he went on, “I’ll tell you what I don’t like – the way you English treat people from overseas as if they were bloody foreigners. I’m Canadian, mister, and Canada is part of the Commonwealth so we should be compatriots but I’m beginning to think that for us you’re the bloody foreigners.”
‘Like Ginevra, I thought it better not to argue and there was a pause. Then Cromartie asked, “If I can’t see Sir Fothergill who are you?” I told him my name and that I was head clerk to Sir George Fothergill’s chambers,’ and Walter added, ‘I couldn’t bring myself to call him sir.’
‘“You don’t look like a clerk,” he said, so I told him again, head clerk. “I think you’ll find, Mr Cromartie,” I said, “that in chambers, even the heads work through their clerks, and so, Mr Cromartie, if you wish to see one of our barristers—” He interrupted me. “Sir George or no one. I won’t have the girl.”’
Walter, for once, had been moved to fury. ‘The girl as you call her is Miss Honor Wyatt QC.’
‘What in God’s name’s a QC?’
‘Queen’s Counsel, a very high rank of barrister. Anyway she couldn’t take you. She’s on an important case but, Mr Cromartie, to return to what I was going to tell you, if you want to see a barrister – certainly one of our barristers – your solicitor should make the appointment and accompany you.’
‘Solicitor!’ Cromartie exploded. ‘So they told me but I’m not having any of that! I have no solicitor, Mr J., nor do I intend to have one. It’s just another of your law-wallah’s ruses to get money from a gullible public!’
As Michael heard that, he gasped. ‘He said that in our chambers? Outrageous!’
‘Yes, I nearly pressed the bell for Johnny and we would have propelled him out on to the street, but it wouldn’t have been seemly – especially with all the notoriety of Miss Wyatt’s Huntingdon case – so I let him go on.’
Cromartie had ranted, ‘Well, I’m not gullible and you’ll never make me have a solicitor.’
‘Then you’ll never see any of our barristers, nor, I can guess, any decent barrister,’ had been Walter’s response.
‘That silenced him for a moment and I knew a struggle was going on in the man until he burst out, “Bloody blackmail!” Again I nearly pressed the bell for Johnny but Cromartie was evidently near the end of his tether and, sure enough, he almost wailed, “I must talk to someone. I wish I’d never seen that damned statue.”
‘It was pitiful. He was in such a state, his suit was crumpled – he was so paunchy it looked uncomfortably tight. His face was red with anger and he’d forgotten to brush his hair, which was ginger and clashed with the suit, which was a blatant bright brown – but there was no mistaking that he was genuine and I thought if I let him talk, asked him a few harmless questions, it might get rid of some of the spleen.’
‘You’re a kinder man than I am,’ said Michael. ‘I should have got Johnny at once, no matter what.’
‘You’d have been right, but it seemed best at the time. I knew that the spleen was not only of rage but disappointment, not to say worry. Cromartie feels the whole world is against him and he doesn’t know why, and he really is genuine. In fact, Michael, if this case does come on, I don’t think you’ll make mincemeat of him. He could get round a jury just as he nearly got round me.
‘I began with what I thought was a safe question, “Do you have to travel a great deal for your Treasure Chest? To India perhaps?” but it made him even more belligerent.’
‘I’ve never been to India in my life, and I don’t want to!’ Cromartie had bellowed. ‘I bought the statue right there in Toronto where I do my business – successfully I’m glad to say. Mister, I run this small shop – exclusive, mind you – for which I buy Oriental goods. I have my sources. What’s wrong with that?’
‘Nothing, as long as you know where the goods come from, but do you always?’
‘How could I? In my trade you don’t ask questions. Anyway if you did you wouldn’t be told the truth. A chap came to see me, bringing the statue. You people treat me as if I were an idiot but I tell you, the moment I saw it I knew it was different, though I didn’t know how different. He said he’d bought it in India from a workman who’d found it buried.’
To Michael, Walter added, ‘Well, as you know, that happened to be true.’
Mr Cromartie had gone on, ‘The fellow called himself Narayan Gupta. Of course, he haggled over the price, but I couldn’t get him below twenty-five thousand dollars – more than I ever paid for anything in my life. Of course I never saw the fellow again.’
‘We could trace him through the cheque.’
Mr Cromartie had given Walter a pitying look. ‘I paid him cash.’
‘Cash? Twenty-five thousand? Didn’t that make you suspicious?’
‘It’s the custom. How Mr Narayan Gupta keeps his accounts is nothing to do with me.’
‘It was convincing,’ Walter told Michael, ‘but somehow I felt I must persist so I asked him, “You are sure, Mr Cromartie, that the Shiva is yours to sell?” and for the first time, there was a moment’s hesitation until he said reluctantly, “Granted there was some hanky-panky.”
‘“Dishonesty,” I told him flatly.
‘“Not on my part. Didn’t I get a licence to bring the statue over? Declared it to customs. It cost me a bomb, I can tell you, but I had to get it valued.”’
Michael interrupted, ‘Toronto has the Royal Ontario Museum with a wonderful oriental department. Why didn’t he go there?’
‘He did, but only to ask them if they’d tell him who were the best dealers for oriental antiques. To give him his due, Mr Cromartie doesn’t do things by halves. Of course they said Sparkes’s. He booked the next flight to London.’
Michael had been brooding as he listened. ‘Cromartie said, “Damned statue.” I don’t like to think of him with the Shiva.’
‘Neither do I, but it wasn’t for long. As soon as he was free of Customs, even before he’d found an hotel, he put the Shiva into a taxi and took it to Sparkes’s and, in Cromartie fashion, demanded a table or a stand, took the statue out of its case, set it there and told the dumbfounded salesman to fetch the manager who, surprisingly, came – I expect the salesman had said something to him. Soon two or three others were summoned, and a young woman. Cromartie saw they were deeply impressed.’
‘Of course I was gratified,’ he had admitted to Walter, ‘I told them how and where I got the statue, but not, of course, what I paid. Then I asked them straight out, “How much do you think you could get me for it?” In this country it seems no one can answer a question directly. They hummed and hawed. “It will take time, Mr Cromartie” … “We’ll have to be sure” … “Get expert advice” … “Maybe consult the Indian government” … and finally, “If you leave it with us …”
‘“No way,” I told them.
‘“It would be safer than in an hotel – we have a strongroom,” they said. “Of course you would have a receipt.” Oh, they went on until I said, “I’ll leave it with you for two days, no more.” And what did they do?’ Mr Cromartie had burst out in fury again. ‘They called in the police, without a word of reference to me.’
‘That was a bit hard,’ said Michael.
‘I thought so too,’ said Walter, ‘but I said, trying to smooth things over, “Perhaps they thought if they’d told you, you’d have taken it away.”’
‘God’s truth I would!’ Mr Cromartie had been emphatic. ‘It’s mine, isn’t it? Yet they treated me as if I was a receiver of stolen goods.’
‘Perhaps you were – unwittingly.’
‘There you go. You too!’ Mr Cromartie said bitterly.
‘I said unwittingly,’ Walter reminded him.
‘And so you should. Haven’t I told you and told you? From the day I first saw the statue I have behaved with complete openness throughout. Throughout,’ Mr Cromartie had emphasized again. ‘That’s more than can be said for Mr Bhata—I can never remember their names. The man they sent for from India.’
&nbs
p; ‘Mr Bhatacharya. We know of him. He’s a senior official.’
‘He may be. I thought at first he was trustworthy, but he’s glib as hell. He was sent here immediately the British police informed the Government of India. He told me he’d been authorized to reimburse me for the money I’d paid and the same again, and all in pounds not dollars, as a thank-you for bringing the statue so openly to London. A “thank-you”, I don’t think.’
‘But you accepted it,’ Walter had demurred.
‘Then, not now. Then it seemed quite good to me. Fifty thousand pounds is not to be sneezed at – pounds not dollars. But I’d put nothing in writing. We Cromarties are not fools, mister, and, sure enough, I found the Government of India had tried cheating me. The experts, especially that Sir Lennox from the British Museum, valued the little piece at at least a quarter of a million pounds. Two hundred and fifty thousand, mark you. And said he’d be glad to pay even more to have the statue in his museum.’
‘Of course he can’t. It’s got to go back to India,’ Walter said.
‘So it will, if they pay me for it – the proper price which, mind you, they knew all along, not a paltry fifty thousand. They’re trying to cheat me. You can’t deny it, though I think you’re trying to persuade me that I have no case. Of course I have. Haven’t I checked and rechecked?’
‘Beyond all doubt?’ Walter had asked, and said now to Michael, ‘I felt I had to drive that in and I said, “Mr Cromartie, you’re not on certain ground. If at any point the Shiva had been stolen it wouldn’t be yours to sell. You’ve read Professor Ellen Webster’s testimony, which is beyond all doubt, so maybe fifty thousand was generous.”’
‘Was it?’ Mr Cromartie had snapped. ‘What if I told you I know something that you, smart Mr J., her and even Mr Bhata don’t know.’ He had come so close that Walter could smell his breath – ‘And himself, ugh,’ he told Michael. ‘It was very disagreeable.’
‘A young man came to see me.’ Mr Cromartie had been almost whispering. ‘He had read in the papers about my bringing the statue to London. His name is Kanu and he’s much closer to Mrs McIndoe – Miss Sanni of that hotel – than any visiting professor. He was practically brought up at Patna Hall. He says Miss Sanni was like a mother to him. Kanu is now nineteen and has been working at Patna Hall as barman and receptionist – staff there have to double up, these days. His great ambition, though, is to be a barman at one of the Uberoi hotels, and to help him Mrs McIndoe sent him to London for a short intensive training course.
