CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Dinah
Thursday, May, London
On Thursday evening when Dinah came home after work, Hamilton met her at the door, nearly jumping with excitement.
“We found what we think is a treasure: old postage stamps.”
“I don’t know anything about stamps, but I think Jonathan does,” Dinah said.
While Jonathan was sipping his pre-dinner glass of wine, Dinah approached him. “Haven’t I heard you mention stamp collecting?”
“Yes, a bit,” he said. “Why?”
Dinah handed him the musty-smelling, worn, leather-bound book that Hamilton had found in the attic. “This was in a locked trunk. Hamilton brought the trunk downstairs and broke the lock. It was full of papers, invoices, receipts, financial records, all dating back to the 1890s and the early twentieth century. And this book, which seems to have old stamps in it. Please take a look,” she said.
Jonathan opened the book. “It’s a stamp collection, but an odd one. Not the usual stamp album, with little illustrations and numbers indicating where to place stamps. This is customized, and old—the stamps are secured by strips of paper. Probably before collectors started using paper hinges, let alone cellophane or plastic sleeves.”
Dinah smiled. Her husband was revealing a side of himself she’d never seen. “You do know ‘a bit’ about stamps, don’t you? How did you come by this esoteric knowledge?”
Jonathan blushed. “I collected stamps when I was young. But it was considered nerdish, and I kept my interest quiet. I should have been playing football, I suppose, but I enjoyed learning about places, people, events,” he said. “A stamp collection is a great history teacher.”
“But you were an athlete in college—you swam for Harvard,” Dinah said. “We’ve got pictures to prove it. You didn’t just collect stamps.”
“I quit collecting by the time I was in prep school. But I’ve remained interested in news about stamps, when it shows up in the papers, or an auction catalogue.”
“Tell me what you make of these stamps.”
Jonathan squinted at the small squares of paper. “They are old, and they’re all British Colonials. This is a very specialized collection. There’s probably value here. The denominations are large, which adds to rarity, like one pound or five dollars, in the case of Newfoundland—yes, Newfoundland was once a separate colony. Large-denomination stamps were issued in small quantities, because they were little used. But if the mother country had a one-pound stamp, each colony wanted one, too. The African countries all have their colonial names, like Tanganyika, not Tanzania. This collection may be close to one hundred years old.”
He was still looking through the book when his eyes widened and his voice rose. “This can’t be true! This looks like a British Guiana One-Cent Magenta. Is it possible? I’ve never seen one, but I’ve seen photos. It’s the rarest stamp in the world. I can’t believe it—this is beyond belief. It’s thought that there was only one in existence. We have to take this to an expert.”
Dinah could understand Jonathan’s excitement. She knew the thrill of finding a long-sought-after print. “What else can you tell me about it?”
“It has a storied past, and coincidentally, I’m up to date. Sotheby’s just announced that it was about to auction the only known British Guiana One-Cent Magenta. I read an article about it last week. Sotheby’s was quoted as estimating it would sell for over ten million dollars. The seller is the estate of its last owner, a DuPont heir who died in prison.”
“Prison?” Dinah asked.
“He murdered his boyfriend,” said Jonathan. “But the legend goes that there were two of these stamps in existence. The owner of both, a rich textile magnate, burned one with his cigar lighter to ensure there would be only a single surviving copy, thereby enhancing its value. If the legend is true, this must be a third. It certainly adds to the allure.”
Jonathan’s enthusiasm was contagious. Could they have found a real treasure? “What do we do now?” she asked.
“The largest stamp dealer in the world is right here in London. Stanley Gibbons, on the Strand. I’ve walked by and glanced in the window. We’ll take the stamp to them. If this thing is for real, they’ll faint. They’ll want to do all kinds of tests on it—paper type, ink, exact size. If it proves true, Sotheby’s will have a heart attack. Ten million dollars will become one or two million. The existence of two of the stamps rather than one will drastically lower the value.”
“Should we tell Lady Jane? I guess she’s the rightful owner—or do all of her horrible relatives have a share in the collection?” Dinah grimaced at the thought.
“No, let’s find out if this rarity is for real. Anyhow, there’s value to all of these stamps. We’ll get Stanley Gibbons to appraise the collection, then tell her.”
•••
Jonathan didn’t go into the office the next morning, an unheard-of event. He—with the stamp album carefully stowed in his briefcase—and Dinah were at Stanley Gibbons when the door opened at ten in the morning.
Dinah had never been in a stamp dealer’s gallery. It was a far cry from a New York art gallery. In contrast to the serenity and calm of a typical art gallery, Stanley Gibbons was blatantly commercial, with posters all over the walls advertising stamps for sale. Magazines promoting stamp collecting filled racks. A man seated behind a raised desk, right at the entry, greeted them with a cheery “Good morning” and “Please come in.” Quite a change from the usual haughty receptionist in a New York gallery.
Jonathan spoke up. “We’d like you to look at this collection, and if you think it’s worthy, appraise it for us.”
The dealer took one look at the first page, and summoned a colleague. “This is a special group of stamps. These old Colonials are worth something. There seem to be multiple stamps from every colony in the Empire,” the dealer explained to his cohort.
Jonathan turned to the last page in the book, where the single British Guiana was displayed. Stunned silence.
Then both dealers started talking at once.
“Could it be?”
“It can’t be.”
“It looks right.”
“It’s a forgery, for sure.”
“Too perfect.”
“I’ve seen the real one—this is identical.”
“We’ve got to really analyze this. Can we keep it?”
Turning to Dinah and Jonathan, Dealer #1 said, “By coincidence, Sotheby’s is about to auction . . . ”
Jonathan interrupted. “Yes, I know. I’ve read about the upcoming sale.”
Dealer #2 said, “What you might not know is that the stamp is in London today, at Sotheby’s. It’s on a world tour so collectors can see the real thing before the actual sale, without having to travel to New York. Hong Kong is next. Or maybe you did know. There’s too much coincidence about this.”
Dinah, recognizing the dealer’s implication, spoke up. “Our butler and I discovered this stamp book yesterday afternoon in our attic. Neither of us knows anything about stamps. I showed it to my husband last night, and he knew enough to recognize possible value in the entire collection. We came here immediately.”
Jonathan, annoyed, said with his Boston aristocrat manner, “We’ll take this somewhere else if you don’t treat us with courtesy. We are not thieves or forgers.”
The dealer capitulated. “We can take your Guiana to Sotheby’s, and put it side by side with the one that was thought to be the only one in existence and compare.”
Dinah asked, “Will Sotheby’s allow that? Won’t they deny the existence of ours, or at least argue that it’s a forgery?”
“If our paper consultant verifies the paper, Sotheby’s will have no choice. Our consultant works in the city—he’ll be here in thirty minutes, once we call him. We can check dimensions and ink with a direct comparison to Sotheby’s copy. Can we keep it?”
Jonathan’s suspicions were aroused. “No, we’re not leaving it,” he said, and turning to Dinah,
“I’m calling Heyward. We need advice and backup.”
•••
The paper expert, carrying a large case of special equipment, arrived at Stanley Gibbons’s door with Heyward Bain, flanked by two of his lawyers.
One of the dealers, under Jonathan’s watchful eye, gingerly handed the stamp to the paper expert, who put it on a tray beneath a microscope. Bain began instructing his lawyers to draw up a contract with Stanley Gibbons, and turned to Dinah. “You and your butler found this item, but I suppose Lady Jane Ross is the owner?”
“Yes, it was in her house, 23 Culross—in the attic, mixed with papers relating to financial matters, with Ross family names on them. There may be a problem for her with those awful Rosses, even if they’re in prison or headed there.”
“All the more reason to specify her name in this contract, and get this collection, with the British Guiana, into her physical possession as quickly as possible. ‘Possession is nine-tenths of the law,’ as they say,” Heyward said.
The paper expert spoke up. “The paper type looks right. I’ve never seen the One-Cent Magenta, but I’ve seen other South American British Colonials of this period, and they are printed on the same paper. If this was forged, it was done long ago, when there was identical paper stock available. The stamp is 1856, and anyone interested in stamps knows that it was discovered by a young collector some twenty years later. Nobody dreamed it was unique, and therefore valuable, for some time after that. It wouldn’t have been easy to create another copy. Where would the paper have come from? By the turn of the century, British Colonial stamps were completely different, with different paper, dimensions, and perforations. It’s not impossible that it’s a forgery, but improbable.”
•••
Contracts written and signed, Heyward and his legal crew departed. Too excited to return to work, Jonathan called his assistant and instructed her to cancel his appointments for the day. Dinah let her coworkers at the museum know she’d be late, and called her cousin, who was busy at work in her office in Heyward’s house.
“Coleman, hold your breath. We may have found a treasure at 23 Culross. It’s an old postage stamp collection, certainly worth something, and it may contain what some call the most valuable stamp in the world—but it may not be if this one turns out to be the second extant copy. Just the same, it would be worth a lot. We’re going to Sotheby’s now.”
Coleman broke in. She’d rarely heard Dinah so excited. “Slow down. Sotheby’s? Where are you?”
“Some place you’ve never heard of called Stanley Gibbons. It’s complicated. Meet us at Sotheby’s and I’ll fill you in. You’ll want to call Zeke at ArtSmart—it’s a story he’ll love.”
•••
Dinah, Jonathan, Coleman, the paper expert, and the two Gibbons dealers huddled around the grim-faced Sotheby’s stamp expert, all staring at two small scraps of oddly shaped paper.
Jonathan was the first to speak up. “Identical. What else is to be said?”
The paper expert, also an avid stamp collector, agreed. “Everything’s right: color, size—and I know the paper is genuine. This powerful magnification confirms the lettering—it’s the same on both copies, down to the slight imperfection in the ‘G.’ The cancellation is in the identical style, and we can get a handwriting expert to bless that, but it’s obviously the same hand. The ink can be tested, but it looks the same to me under this infrared light.”
Other Sotheby’s curators arrived looking worried, muttering, “What do we do now?”
The Gibbons dealers spoke in near unison: “We’re prepared to authenticate this as an 1856 British Guiana One-Cent Magenta.”
Coleman started taking notes, and questioning the Sotheby’s curators, who were offering confused and contradictory answers. She announced to the room at large, “ArtSmart has never done a story on stamps or stamp collecting, but we’re going to tell the story of this great discovery. We’ll have a special announcement online, and the complete story, fully illustrated, in this month’s print edition.”
The Sotheby curators retreated, summoning their PR minions.
Dinah asked, “How are they going to handle this? Their seller will be devastated. They might get sued. What can they do?”
Jonathan answered, “That’s their problem. Let’s go see Lady Jane.”
•••
Dinah, Coleman, Jonathan, a Stanley Gibbons representative, and Heyward converged on Lady Jane’s modest cottage. As expected, she was in her garden. Heyward gave her the news.
Jane was overcome. She sat down and began fanning herself. The Gibbons man told her he was confident the entire collection was worth at least £2 million, possibly close to £3 million. They were prepared to handle the sale for her. Coleman was busy taking pictures with her iPhone—action shots of Stanley Gibbons breaking the news to the owner of the rare stamp that she would publish in ArtSmart.
Heyward explained about the contract, handed her a copy, and said, “Lady Jane, we will get this album back in your hands today. Better yet, will you let me put it into a bank safe, the location of which only you and I will know? There must be no opportunity for any of the Ross clan to claim ownership. The lawyers have worked hard to protect you from them, but this is an unusual situation.”
“Oh, there’s no chance of that. The stamp collection belonged to my nanny. It was her greatest treasure. She left everything she owned, including the collection, to me. I have the will in my safe. I’ll give it to you, and you can put it with the collection in a bank you choose. But the collection disappeared after she died. I thought it had been stolen. I can’t thank you enough for finding it for me,” Jane said.
Dinah looked back at Jane as they were leaving. Her face was glowing. She looked happier than Dinah had ever seen her. When she’d first seen this place and its owner, she’d thought it looked like a fairyland. She’d just seen a fairy tale come true.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Coleman
Saturday, May, London
Coleman stuck to her plans and the list of things she wanted to do. She managed to slip away from Tony long enough to do her shopping. She didn’t tell him where she was going, or what she planned to buy. He’d want to accompany her, and he’d try to buy things for her.
She went to Liberty, and was entranced by the fabrics. She bought samples of upholstery fabrics to take back to the decorating department at First Home. She bought yards and yards of delicate silks in green, blue, lavender, and pale yellow to turn into party dresses in New York. She bought another copy of her how-to book on hats—The Modern Girl’s Guide to Hatmaking—to take home to Bethany, who, like Coleman, made most of her clothes, and would leap at the opportunity to design hats.
The hats at Liberty were less expensive than those she’d seen, but they were disappointing—pedestrian and lacking in glamour. Coleman had asked Kathy Mann if there was any place that had great hats for reasonable prices.
Kathy knew and had responded. “If you mean those grand hats worn by the Royals, no. But you can get some fashionable caps and berets and other plain hats at a place called Beret in Pimlico. After you buy them, you can dress them up. I’ll give you a list of places where you can buy trimmings—feathers, flowers, beading. You’ll love those shops.”
Coleman made the rounds, and bought lavishly. She could hardly wait to begin designing hats.
•••
She spent a bluebell day with Tony, a delicious day of beauty and love. Was she in love with Tony? She asked herself that every day. She supposed she was, but it didn’t matter: She couldn’t marry him.
Another day, he took her to Oxford to see his college, Christ Church, and the Dreaming Spires. She was as impressed as he’d hoped. She pictured the young Tony walking in that beautiful town, and wished she’d known him then.
“Did you like it here?” she asked.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I liked Eton, too. I’ll take you there so you can see the area and what the boys look like.”
He too
k her to all of his favorite restaurants. Her favorites were those in beautiful locations. The Waterside Inn at Bray was not only on the water, its large glass windows revealed swans drifting by. Tony pointed out Windsor Castle, and young Etonians in their top hats and black coats. She could see Tony the schoolboy in that attire, and thought he would have been adorable.
He took her to the French Horn, Sonning-on-Thames, where the specialty was roast duck, and the windows framed a wide spot in the river surrounded by willow trees. Another lovely day, a lovely view, and delicious food.
He flew her and Dolly to Paris for a day, and took them to a restaurant set in a grassy garden, where petals from the blossoming trees drifted into her hair and Dolly’s fur and all over the table. They ate asparagus, a cheese soufflé, and strawberries. She was exhausted at the end of the day. It was a night she and Dolly spent at Tony’s apartment. She rarely slept on nights in this apartment, and usually spent the next afternoon asleep in her room at Heyward’s house, only getting up to go out to the theater or a concert with her family, or dinner with Tony.
Would she change anything? No, but she had the sense of the candle burning at both ends. Her dreams were a blur of unicorns and hedgehogs and badgers, of bluebells and nightingales, and soaring through a star-studded sky. She knew these were the dreams she’d take home with her, and that when she woke from them, the pillow would be wet with tears.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Dinah
Monday, May, London
Dinah endeared herself to her new associates by ordering and donating all the catalogues needed for their new American collection. She called Bethany, at the Greene Gallery, and asked her to round up the rare books, and Bethany was pleased to help, and create a library to match the collection.
•••
As absorbed as she was in her work at the museum, Dinah found the time to begin her study of English food. She started with collecting cookbooks. Hatchards had a good selection, and she found older, out-of-print books at a small bookstore, Heywood Hill, located near Rachel’s house. The first cookbook she looked at provided a piece of information that made her angry as a hornet: To make a house smell the way 23 Culross had when cooking kidneys had to be deliberate. People cooked kidneys properly all the time without causing an odor. She hoped those wretched women would be in jail forever.
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