James the Conniosseur Cat

by Harriet Hahn

  “Hello, old dear,” I cried.

  James looked apprehensive and laid his paw against his mouth to shush me, but he had been spotted.

  “Well, James, going swimming soon?”

  “Quite a baptism!”

  “It was a fine dance, too bad you couldn’t finish it!”

  “Hello, wet cat!”

  The teasing was good-natured. Though James did not find it funny, instead of staring evilly at his tormentors, he retreated under my chair, genuinely abashed.

  “He’s lost his giddy hubris!” commented Lord Henry.

  “Will wonders never cease?” commented the vicar, and started another song.

  Once the teasing stopped, James sidled out from under the chair, tried a spell on my lap, and at last slipped atop the upright piano and lay still, occasionally keeping time to the music with his tail. He was actually trying to be inconspicuous.

  Just before midnight, Helena put a paper hat on him and he gave her a melting look, but his self-confidence was gone. He remained quietly on the piano, waving his tail and looking for all the world like any ordinary stray gray cat.

  Soon after midnight we all walked home. James and I climbed the stairs to our room while Helena and Lord Henry lingered in the hall.

  I looked out the bedroom window at the moonlight on the snow. James sat on the back of the adjacent chair and gazed out at the snow with me. I stroked his head and he began to purr tentatively as we wondered what the new year would bring.

  CHAPTER 6

  We said good-bye to Haverstock Hall, and returned to Baron’s to find Mrs. March with a fading tan.

  Lord Henry had brought a number of bulky packages with him, and was occupied with the contents.

  Helena was now at work on a series of etchings full of dancing snowflakes and moonlight.

  I was doing tedious things at the British Museum, and a subdued James resumed his routine at Baron’s, but without his usual enthusiasm. Something was wrong. He still supervised the tenants as they first arrived, but those who hated cats—whom he used to attack with overwhelming love and attention—he now only glared at. And a cat-hater who is only glared at by a big cat is perfectly content. Some completely unsuitable tenants slipped through his screening and some utterly despicable luggage went totally unscratched.

  In fact, all the enthusiasm had evaporated from his life.

  One morning a bored James slouched into my room as I opened the door to get the paper. He flopped on the sofa.

  “You’re not yourself!” I commented.

  I got a languid nod in return.

  The phone rang.

  “Meet me at Thwaite’s, the stamp department,” said a jubilant Lord Henry. “I’ve found this old album full of stamps, and I want Peter Hightower to look at them.”

  “Can I bring James?”

  “Fine.”

  “Wake up, James,” I said, patting him affectionately. “We’re off to Thwaite’s.”

  In the Thwaite’s stamp department, old postage stamps, envelopes, and all sorts of objects related to the transmission of information through the postal system are assembled for private sale or public auction.

  We met Lord Henry, who was struggling with a large, old, tatty leather album, and we were ushered into a small office completely lined with books. A broad desk, exceptionally well lighted, was against one wall, and ensconced in a big leather chair, which not only swiveled but also rose and fell at the desire of whoever was in it, was Peter Hightower. He was a round, blue-eyed, nearly bald man of about seventy-five, with a mobile face that constantly twinkled and smiled. He probably knew more about the postal history of the world than anyone else, and what he didn’t know he knew where to find out.

  “Come in, come in!” he cried cheerfully.

  Introductions were made; as Lord Henry recounted the affair of the stolen jewels, James nodded politely and then lay down in the corner and yawned.

  Peter Hightower opened the album to disclose on the first page a lot of old red stamps attached to the page with adhesive wafers.

  “At least they’re hinged and not stuck down, that’s a start,” said Peter.

  He took a magnifying glass and began to examine each stamp. His blue eyes began to gleam. Once in a while he would tenderly lift a stamp off the paper, separate it with a pair of large tweezers from the adhesive wafer that held it to the page, and put it to one side on the desk.

  “These ‘penny reds’ were very early British stamps. They were printed from plates of two hundred forty stamps. As the plates were used, they wore down, and on occasion a new stamp impression was made in the plate on top of the metal where the old engraving had worn away. Traces of the old engraving still remained, however, and those stamps that bear both the new and the old marks are very scarce and very valuable to collectors. They are also very hard to see.”

  James stopped yawning. He slithered onto the desk and looked at the stamps himself. Peter Hightower took no notice of him, but, seeing that we were confused, he reached above the desk for a loose-leaf binder, which he opened to a greatly enlarged photograph of a penny red stamp.

  “Here,” he said circling the o in the word “Postage.” “You can see that there are two black lines outlining the outside of the o, one fainter than the other. There should only be one. If you find two, you have a reentry.”

  “You have one here,” he said, picking one of the stamps out of the special pile.

  We tried to see the faint line, but without a strong magnifying glass we failed.

  Peter Hightower returned the stamp to its pile, where James stared at it intently.

  Peter turned to a new page and began to study it. So did James. Suddenly a gray paw delicately tapped a stamp halfway down the page.

  Peter turned sharply. James was sitting immobile. Peter picked up his lens and looked.

  Then he lifted the stamp off the page, put it aside, leaned back in his chair, and gave James a long look.

  James scanned the page. He delicately tapped a stamp close to the bottom. Peter examined it and put it with the small pile. He looked at James again.

  “Any others?”

  James shook his head.

  “Hmm,” said Peter. He examined the page himself. James had been correct.

  He turned the page and leaned back in his chair, waving his hand to James.

  “It’s all yours,” he said.

  James studied the page and shook his head.

  “Nothing?” said Peter.

  Nothing, James indicated.

  Peter gently closed the album and put it aside.

  He opened a drawer and pulled out an envelope, from which he extracted two stamps that appeared to be identical. He laid them side by side.

  “James,” he said. “Are these the same?”

  James shook his head immediately. The look on his face said, “Any fool could tell that!”

  “Which one has two lines at the top of the number five in the right-hand corner?”

  James casually gestured toward the stamp on his left.

  Peter grinned. He tipped back in his chair and ruminated. Suddenly he sat up straight and looked hard at James.

  “How would you like to work for me?” he asked.

  James was momentarily taken aback, then he sighed and leaped into Peter’s lap. The two of them grinned at each other.

  “What are his favorite things?” Peter asked as James purred contentedly in his ample lap.

  “Laphroaig whiskey, crab salad from Fortum & Mason—none other—and sometimes cream teas,” I reported.

  So, on Thursday and Friday afternoons, James left his post at Baron’s and slipped through the delivery entrance, past furniture, pictures, and miscellaneous objects in the warehouse, and went to work for Peter Hightower in the big office, where together he and Marilyn looked at such arrivals as needed the eye of James the expert.

  At six o’clock or a little before, James would scratch at the door of my apartment and enter, showing signs of exhaustion. If Lord
Henry was there, James would give him a lofty pat and then collapse on the sofa, barely able to raise a paw to gesture imperiously for me to produce a whiskey. He would lap a little at intervals, and listen to our conversation with the slightly condescending affection of the great expert for the beginner. James was back in form.

  Peter vastly enjoyed James. James regarded Peter with awe.

  Sometimes James left Baron’s early on a Thursday, and he and Peter had crab salad and champagne for lunch at Peter’s desk. Then Peter closed the door and he and James made the chair go up and down and then had a nap before tackling the day’s consignment.

  On occasion there was time for conversation.

  Peter would tell stories, and James would listen and purr.

  James turned out to have an exceptionately discriminating eye, and there was no one better at detecting forgeries.

  Meanwhile, Peter trained James. Lord Henry acquired an increasing enthusiasm for the stamps and envelopes lying around in old trunks in Haverstock Hall. In fact, he was becoming a collector.

  He had acquired albums, sorted the material, and found he had a good start toward a collection of Turkish stamps, as an aunt had adventured into Turkey in late Victorian times and written everyone in her family all about it. However, the collection was far from complete, so Lord Henry began to haunt bourses and stamp dealers and go to auctions. He often took James with him, and on occasion James would tap him sharply on the arm as he was about to buy a stamp and shake his head firmly.

  Then, mystified, Lord Henry would arrive to see Peter on Tuesday or Thursday afternoon and discuss the stamp he had wanted. Invariably it was one that had been forged, and James had detected the forgery.

  Meanwhile, at the upper reaches of Thwaite’s, directors were simmering and soon they would boil over.

  “That damned cat was prowling around the great room again!” stormed one.

  “Break anything?” needled another as they sat at Silks, a restaurant across the street, having lunch.

  “This is ridiculous. Suppose someone finds out we have a cat working—actually working—in the stamp department?” Said the first.

  “I agree. You tell Peter Hightower where to get off,” said the second director. “I’ll hold your coat.”

  They drank a bottle of claret apiece in anger, and decided not to go back to the office after lunch.

  Meanwhile, James had discovered another talent. His magnifying eyes were as useful in distinguishing between types of brushwork on canvas as they were at seeing reentries on stamps.

  From time to time he would peer around at the paintings on view before an auction, and one afternoon, when there was little for him to do in the stamp department, he examined a consignment of fine paintings by John Constable that had just been accepted for auction and put on view. The catalog was printed, and the art department was ready to publicize a major event.

  James looked casually at the paintings lined up on the floor, waiting to be hung, while Peter, Lord Henry, and I chatted with a couple of men from the art department.

  James paraded in front of the pictures, then stopped and looked seriously at each one. Finally he stopped before a gray-green landscape and looked hard. At last he stepped next to Peter and tapped him on the leg.

  Peter looked down questioningly.

  James stepped smartly up to the landscape, extended his paw, and shook his head.

  Peter nodded imperceptibly.

  “Thank you very much,” he said softly, apparently to no one. After all, one does not talk to cats.

  A senior director came through the big room.

  “I see that damned cat is still here!” he exclaimed, taking a swipe at James, whose dignity remained intact as he avoided the extended leg.

  “Yes, I’m happy to say he is,” said Peter.

  I felt a little thrill of excitement.

  “By the way,” Peter said, having developed a sudden interest in the Constables, “what can you tell me about these?”

  “Great find!” said the director, stopping. “I sent young Kirby around to get them as soon as Miss de la Rue called. We have known they were there for years, of course, but she has always wanted to keep them. Then, about three weeks ago, she gave me a call herself and said she was ready to part with them.”

  “How did she get them in the first place?” I asked.

  “It’s very romantic,” said the director. “John Constable gave them to her ancestor at some time before 1811, and they have been handed down in the family ever since. We’ll be delighted to be able to sell them, inasmuch as Constables are hard to come by, and there is quite a revival of interest in them.”

  “I see,” said Peter. “And who checked them out?”

  “Oh, our nineteenth-century English painting man, Tom Burke. He was very enthusiastic. Unfortunately he was called away two and a half weeks ago to care for his mother in Cornwall. The old lady has had to be hospitalized. Tough for Burke.”

  He turned to greet some new visitors.

  “See you at the sale,” he said.

  “Surely before,” said Peter. “Let’s assemble in my office in about ten minutes,” he whispered to us as he walked off to talk to friends.

  Once James, Lord Henry, Peter, and I had crowded into Peter’s office, we settled into a council of war.

  “James tells me one of the Constables is a fake!”

  James nodded importantly.

  “Which one?” I asked.

  “The muddy green landscape in the middle of the five on the floor.”

  “They’re all muddy,” grumbled Lord Henry.

  Peter nodded. “I agree,” he said, “but we can’t let Thwaite’s make a terrible mistake.”

  “Four of these paintings were given to a Miss Ellsworth by John Constable sometime in 1810, before his marriage. She was a student of Benjamin West, and she and Constable were friends and painted together sometimes. The pictures have been in her family, and greedy collectors have tried several times to get them, but till now the family refused to sell. We need to find out where the other one comes from and how it was misidentified. Tom Burke, Thwaite’s nineteenth-century man, is one of the best in the business. He would normally never have made such a mistake.”

  “Are you sure James is right?” said Lord Henry. “Sorry, old chap,” he added.

  “Oh, yes, I’ll pin my reputation on James,” Peter said firmly. James gave his best friend, Lord Henry, a haughty stare.

  We all sat in deep thought for some time.

  “Why don’t Helena and I visit Miss de la Rue, and see what we can find out about the odd picture,” Lord Henry offered. “It is possible no one asked her.”

  “Splendid!” said Peter.

  James, after a moment’s thought, jumped into Lord Henry’s lap and rubbed his cheek against Lord Henry’s tweed jacket.

  “You can come too,” Lord Henry said. “In fact, if the weather is good we’ll take a picnic.”

  James beamed.

  “I’ll hang around the office and see if I can find out what happened here,” said Peter.

  Lord Henry arranged an appointment with Miss de la Rue for the next afternoon, and he and Helena and James departed in the big, chauffeur-driven car for Guilford. The weather was terrible, but they took a picnic anyway, and ate it in the car, because James is passionate about picnics.

  Peter asked around the offices and got answers, and so, in due time, we all met again at Baron’s Chambers to pool our resources.

  I poured drinks, Helena passed paté and brown bread, and Peter sat back in the big chair and began the report.

  “Pure fluke,” he commented. “Remember that young Tom Burke had to go to take care of his mother. It was an emergency, and it occurred in the middle of his examination of the Constables. He had examined three and put them aside. Then he answered the phone and heard the news about his mother so he called Bill Watson and asked him to finish the job, and then left in a terrible rush. Watson, after finishing what he was doing, went to Burk
e’s office, where he saw two paintings on one side and three paintings in a group, and went to work on them, assuming that the other two were the ones Burke had examined. He then turned all five over to Burke’s secretary saying they were all okay. Burke isn’t back, and Watson has gone off to Birmingham on another job.”

  “What did you find out, Lord Henry?” I asked after we had absorbed Peter’s information.

  “More chance,” said Lord Henry. “Miss de la Rue is eighty-eight years old and lives with a housekeeper in a cottage in Guilford, where her family has lived for some six generations. She is a charming, intelligent woman with splendid taste, but she is slightly deaf, and so fragile she can hardly walk.”

  “She had indeed sent the Constables off for sale?” asked Peter.

  “Oh, yes, but she had asked her housekeeper to make the call because she has difficulty with the phone. In addition, when Kirby came, she was still in bed, and so she asked the housekeeper to get the five pictures from the dining room and deliver them to Kirby. Then she signed a receipt, but didn’t look past the notation ‘five pictures from Miss de la Rue.’ She and Kirby never saw each other, so he never had a chance to talk to her personally. She is delighted that the sale is going through.”

  “Poor dear,” said Helena. “She is the last of her family, and she wants to stay in her cottage until she dies. The money from the pictures will let her live in peace and comfort with her devoted housekeeper, so she is willing to let them go.”

  James was sitting on Helena’s lap, and she stroked him softly. “She is so alert and interested in everything. I fell in love with her. Didn’t you, James?”

  James nodded.

  “Did you learn anything more about the fifth painting?” Peter asked. He didn’t like the idea of having to go to the director and say that James had discovered a Constable that wasn’t a Constable.

  “Tell them,” said Helena to Lord Henry as she tried to adjust a pair of spectacle frames on James’s nose.

  She and James went over to the mirror and looked at each other. “Because you’re an intellectual cat,” she said softly to him.

  “It seems,” said Lord Henry, “that Linda Ellsworth and John Constable used to paint together on Hampstead Heath in 1810. They often tried to paint the same scene, and discussed the theory of painting together. She was studying with Benjamin West and was reputed to have some talent, and one day she received a package and a letter.” Lord Henry put on his glasses and very carefully removed from his pocket a letter sheet protected by a glassine envelope. The folded sheet was addressed to “Miss Linda Ellsworth, Hampstead,” and contained the following letter, dated October 10, 1810: