“He got a hundred dollars for that ten minutes’ bit of work, and I guess I got a hundred extra grey hairs.
“Well, Cap’n, then I took the Mona, and mounted her on a brand new panel, for she was on a layer of wood so thin that she bent just with picking her up.
“That’s how we got the panel for the copy. The copy’s painted on the old Mona Lisa panel. Smart, wasn’t it? I guess the Experts couldn’t get past that — what! Not much, Sir!
“Queer, when you come to think of it, Cap’n, that if those Frenchmen only thought to notice it (not that they could, after not seeing the lady for a couple of years!) they’d the clue right there, in the thinner panel, that the Mona’s been doctored!
“Great, I call it! And she’ll hang there all through the ages; and people’ll come from all parts and stare and gasp and go away, feeling they’ve seen the only Genuine! And all the time she’ll be where all the real stuff’s going — in God’s own country, Sir — U.S.A. That’s her.
“And to think a pair of calipers would give the whole show away, if only they’d taken the thickness of the panel, before a ‘friend’ of mine lifted her out of the Louvre!”
“That was smart, certainly,” I said. “You can spin a good cuffer. What about the old pigments and all the rest of the impossible things — eh?”
“The pigments, Cap’n, cost me exactly fifteen thousand dollars in cold cash. I bought old canvasses of the same period — some of them were not bad either, and I scraped ‘em, Sir. Yes I did, for the pigments that were on ‘em. Nearly broke my heart! But this is a big business. Then an old painter I know, got the job of his life. He’s as clever a man as ever stole a canvas, ‘cause he hadn’t money to pay for it.
“I got hold of him and locked him up in a room for three months, to get the drink out of him. If someone’d done that for him regular, and given him paint, brushes and canvas, he’d have been pretty near as big a man as the Master himself; but he never could keep his elbow down.
“At the end of the three months, when I’d all my pigments re-ground and mixed ready for use, I showed him the Mona and the empty panel. He went down on to his blessed knees to the thing, and pretty near worshipped.
“I told him there were five thousand big fat dollars for him, the day he’d finished a copy of her, on the wooden panel; that’s if the copy were so good, I couldn’t tell one from t’other.
“Well, Cap’n, he did it. And he did it properly, like a monk might pray. Four months he took; and when it was finished, I couldn’t have told one painting from the other except that the new one wanted ‘sunning’ — that’s a little secret of my own. I do part of it with a mercury lamp, and part of it with the sun and coloured glass. I gave her a solid year of that treatment, while she was drying and hardening. Then I’d have defied L. da V. himself to tell one from t’other!”
“And the chap who painted the copy” I asked.
“He got his five thousand bucks,” he said, casually. “There’s a lot of absinthe in five thousand dollars.”
“Poor devil,” I said. “What was the idea of getting this copy made for twenty thousand dollars, when you had the real thing?”
“It was for the French Government to sneak,” he told me.
“What?” I said.
“It was for a plant!” he explained. “It was going to be ‘planted’; and then an agent of mine was going to approach the picture-dealers and offer to sell it, as the real thing, you know.
“And of course, I knew no dealer on the East side the duck-pond would look at it. No use to anyone this side, except to get ’em into bad trouble. I knew the next thing they’d do, would be to lay information, for the sake of the reward and the press notices.”
“Well,” I asked, “what had you to gain by all that, and what did you gain by getting your agent into the hands of the police?”
“He bungled things!” he told me. “It wasn’t my fault he got nabbed. However, he don’t matter. He’ll be made for life, when he comes out clear of all the bother. I’ll see to that; and he knows he can trust me, so long as he holds his tongue.”
“But the reason you wanted the authorities to cop the copy you’d spent twenty thousand dollars on?” I asked again. “If you were so anxious for them to have a copy, why didn’t you offer to sell it back? They’d have paid a decent sum — quite decent, I should imagine — that’s if they couldn’t get their hands on you first!”
“That’s just the point,” he explained. “If I’d offered to sell back the picture, they’d have approached it in a more suspicious spirit; and I want no blessed suspicions at all, Cap’n. If they thought I was trying to get rid of the original, secretly to a dealer, and that they had dropped on me unexpectedly, then their whole frame of mind would be the way I want it to be — see?
“You see, Cap’n, I paid twenty thousand dollars odd to get that copy made, simply for a blind. I’m taking the original out to U.S.A. where I’ve got a patron for it at five hundred thousand dollars, as I’ve told you; or anyway as I’m telling you now.
“But he won’t even look at it, if there’s going to be any bother attached. I’ve to clean up behind me. I’d to let the French Government have back what they think is their picture; and then my patron can hang the original in his private gallery, without fear of trouble.
“He’s a real collector, and it’s sufficient for him to know he’s got the original, under his own roof-slates, without wanting to shout the song half across the world, like a society hostess.
“If there are any comments, he’ll acknowledge it to be what it isn’t — and that’s a copy. This is bound to go down, as people are convinced the original is clamped up good and solid, back in its old place in the Louvre. Thank God for that sort of collector, I say.” They make living possible for people in my business. Now, have you got all the points, Cap’n?”
He grinned so cheerfully, that I had to do the same thing.
“But all the same,” I told him, “I’m not available for handling stolen goods, Mr. Black. You’ll have to try further up.”
“Come now, Cap’n Charity,” he said; “and you a good American, too! I guess we got to have this bit of goods in little old U.S.A. It’s too fine for any other nation on earth. You mustn’t think it’s only the dollars I’m thinkin’ of. Why, Cap’n, there’s a patron of mine, right here in England, that will give me ninety thousand pounds for it, now that I’ve made it safe; and that’s only fifty thousand dollars under what I’m to get across the water. And out of that fifty thousand I’ve to pay you, and all expenses, and run the risk of the U.S.A. Customs dropping on it, and all my work going up in a flare!
“No, Sir! If it were just the dollars only I’m after, I’d sell it right here, within twenty-four hours, and be shut of all trouble and risk; but it’s got to go over to our country, Cap’n, and stay right there, till it’s acclimatised.”
I couldn’t help liking the man for that. But I had to stare at him a bit, to size up how much he was honest and how much I was dreaming: but he was honest, right enough; and I felt I’d got to look good and hard; so that I’d not forget what an honest picture-dealer looked like.
“What about the French?” I asked him. He shrugged his shoulders.
“I guess I’m not French, Cap’n,” he said. “Anyway, they’ve got a fine copy, and you couldn’t persuade them, not with a hammer, that it wasn’t the real one; not unless you showed ’em the original. I’ll agree then they might grow suspicious; but there’s not got to be any suspicions set going. That’s what all my work’s been to stop.”
“Look here,” I said; “for all I know, this one you want me to put through, may be the copy, that you’re going to palm off on your customer!”
“No, Sir!” he replied, very wrathy in a moment. “No, Sir ! I never try that sort of thing. No double-crossing for me! I’ve never done a patron yet. That’s how I’ve built up my business. I’m known to be honest.”
“It’s a pity you can’t put it through, openly, as the origina
l,” I said. “You’d have no duty at all to pay then, seeing that it’s more than a hundred years old. Anyway, why don’t you put the thing through yourself, as a copy? If your customer’s going to manage to palm it off to his friends (and there’s likely to be some experts among ‘em) as a copy, why don’t you put it through the Customs, frankly, as a copy? There’ll be nothing much to bother about in the duty-line on a mere copy by an unknown artist. Shove a fairly good price on it, so they won’t think you’re trying to jew them, and there you are. Anyway, Mister, that’ll come a heap cheaper than paying me what I should need, before I’d even look at a job of this sort.”
He put his finger to the side of his nose, in French fashion.
“Don’t you worry, Cap’n,” he replied. “That picture’s worth five hundred thousand dollars; and I guess I’m taking no chances at all. You must reckon there’s others that guess things about this, besides me, and it ain’t only the Customs I’m bothering about, but it’s a little bunch of crooks that have got to suspecting more than’s good for them. And I guess if they can’t get a finger in the pie, they’re capable of dropping a hint to the New York Customs, just for spite.
“If the Customs put their eyes on the picture, after a hint like that, they’d hold it and communicate with the French authorities, and it’d be all U-P then, once the two pictures were put together and compared.
“And, anyhow, Cap’n, I reckon there may be a bit of trouble, going across; for the gang’ll never drop trying, until it’s ‘no go’ for them. They’ll sail with the picture and me, on the chance of nipping in before we get to the other side. I’d not be surprised if they came across with a proposal to go shares or split. If they can’t do me in any other way.
“Now, what’s it to be, Cap’n Charity — are you on, or is it no go?”
I thought for a few seconds, then I answered him: —
“I’ll do it,” I said. “I guess I’d like it to go across to God’s country; and I suppose it’s about as much right in the Louvre, as Cleopatra’s needle has on the Embankment. Doesn’t it belong by rights to Italy?”
He winked at me, and shrugged his shoulders, in a grotesque fashion.
“I guess, Cap’n,” he told me, “we won’t go into that now, or the Lord knows where the complications are going to end. It’s going to belong in little old U.S.A., and that’s good enough for me.... What’ll your figure be, Cap’n?”
“Five per cent,” I told him. “That’ll be twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“Very good, Cap’n,” he agreed. “It’s a good tough price; but I’ll come across all right. I reckon the more you stand to make out of it, the more like you are to do your best! And just what that is, I guess every Customs official each side of the pond knows! If you do up to your usual, the New York Customs’ll never even smell it. That’s why I’ve come to you; and that’s why I don’t kick at your figure.
“You’re a dandy, Cap’n ! You’re IT! I heard about the way you ran that cargo of smokes into Liverpool. That was smart now! That must have taken a bit of planning!”
“Where’s the picture?” I asked him.
“Here!’’ he said, almost in a whisper, and patted the wrapped up drawing-board affair, that he held under his arm.
“Bring it along into my cabin, and let’s have a look at it,” I told him. “I want to see this smile that won’t come off, that I’ve heard so much about. Is it anything wonderful?”
“Cap’n,” he said, with extraordinary earnestness, “it is wonderful! It’s as if one of the old gods had got in some mighty fine work on the panel.”
We went along to my cabin, and I shut and locked both doors. Then he unwrapped the thing, on the table. It was painted on what appeared to be a solid panel of hard wood, about three quarters of an inch thick. I looked at it for a good bit. It was certainly fine and strange.
“It’s got something about it that looks as if a clever devil had painted it,” I told him. “She’s got no eyebrows. That makes her look a bit peculiar and, somehow, slightly abnormal. But it doesn’t explain what I mean. It’s as if the elemental female smiled out in her face — not what we mean now-a-days by the word woman; but all that is the essential of the female, as opposed to the essential of the male — not the man, you know! The smile is conscienceless; not consciously so, but naturally.... It’s as if the unrestrained female — the ‘faun’ in the woman — the subtle licence in her — the subtle, yet unbridled, goat-spirit in her, were spreading out over her face, like a slow stain. It’s the truth about that side of a woman that the best part of a man insists on turning his blind eye to. The painting ought to be called:— ‘The Uncomfortable Truth!’”
“Cap’n,” he said, “for a man that pretends not to understand pictures, you’re doing mighty well! I guess you’ve just put into words, a bit that I’ve felt, but couldn’t ever get unmuddled into plain talk. I’ve felt that, many and many a time, since — well since she came into my hands. It isn’t that she’s bad, so much as that she’s not good! It’s as if she’s got a throwback fit on. I guess women get that sometimes — more often than we think!”
“They’re primitive things,” I said. ‘‘Nature keeps them too close to her, to let them be anything else, at bottom. A woman’s as primitive as a savage — whether she’s cultured or uncultured. Just notice, for instance, her idea of repartee! It is to be crudely insolent in a modulated voice, if she’s cultured, and otherwise if she isn’t! Her desires are more moderate than a man’s, only in those things she doesn’t want. When she wants a thing, she’s no more sense of moderation than a child or a savage. Look at her immoderate notions of dressing herself, or undressing herself, perhaps is what I ought to call it! She’s no sense of moderation, except about the things she doesn’t want! And even then she’s immoderate not to want ‘em!”
“Cap’n”, he said, “you’ve sure been hit sometime by a woman, and I reck’n she wasn’t much good to God or man. I guess I recognise the symptoms!”
I had to laugh at his cuteness; but I didn’t add up the particulars for him!
“All the same,” I said, nodding at the Mona, “it’s a good painting and clever insight; but it’s rotten bad art. It’s unmoral!”
“Lord, Cap’n Charity, don’t talk like that!” he said, genuinely distressed. “I’d begun to think I’d met a man that understood things my way of looking at ‘em. An’ then you go and blow off like that!”
“Art’s not got the right to be a vehicle for unwholesomeness!” I said, smiling a bit at his earnestness.
“I guess, Cap’n, you’re wrong, all the way there!” he asserted. “Art’s the right to do and say and be what it likes, so long as it’s clever and wonderful enough.”
“No,” I said. “Have a cigar. It’s not worth talking about, anyway; but you can take it from me that when Art claims only its Privileges, and shirks its complementary Responsibilities, it is bound to become as undesirable as any other irresponsible force.”
“I quit, Cap’n!” he said, biting off the end of his cigar. “You out-argue me. The chief thing that counts just now, is there’s five hundred thousand dollars on the table there; and twenty-five thousand of them are yours, the day you hand me the painted lady, safe and sound, in Room 86 of the Madison Square Hotel, New York.
“I guess you got that all plain, Cap’n. Meanwhile, I’ll book my passage across with you. I reckon I shall feel easier, sleeping in the same ship with her.”
“That’s all right, Mr. Black,” I told him. “If you’ve got an hour or two to put in, you’ll find that chair’s comfortable, and that’s my brand of whisky in the rack, and there’s Perrier and Soda, whichever you fancy.”
“Right you are, Cap’n,” he said; and while he was making himself comfortable, I began to get out my colours, palette and brushes.
“You paint, Cap’n?” he asked, over the top of his glass. He seemed surprised.
I nodded towards the oils and water-colours, round the bulksheads. He got up with his glass of whisky, a
nd began to go the round, sipping, and muttering some astonishment, as he journeyed.
“My word, Cap’n!” he said at last, facing round at me. “You sure can paint some! And I guess I’m slinging no cheap flattery. What you going to do now?”
“I’m going to do an oil sketch of the Mona as a keepsake, right now, and before I hide her for the voyage,” I told him. I hauled out a sheet of prepared cardboard from my portfolio. “I guess I’d like to remember I once handled the original,” I went on. “And I’d like to have a shot at that smile. The trick of it catches me.”
“Good for you, Cap’n,” he said, quite interested, and set down his whisky, while he propped up the Gioconda, in a good light from the glazed skylight, above. Then he came round behind me, to watch.
I finished the thing, a rough sketch, of course, in about an hour and a half; and Mr. Black seemed to be genuinely impressed.
“Cap’n,” he said, “that’s good work, you know! You’re a mighty queer sort of sea-captain!”
“Mr. Black,” I said, as I fetched out my pipe, “you’re a mighty queer sort of picture-dealer!”
But he couldn’t see it.
April 8th. At sea.
Mr. Black’s an interesting man to talk to; but he’s got the itch to know where I’ve hidden his blessed picture. I’ve explained to him, though, that when a secret has to be kept, it’s better kept by one head than by any other number you could think of in a month.
He’s had to agree that my method’s the right one; but, every time I ask him up to my chart-room for a smoke and a yarn, he has a try to wheedle out of me whereabouts I’ve stowed away his five hundred thousand dollar lady.
Meanwhile, I’ve found that he’s a good taste for other things besides pictures. As he put it: —
“Cap’n, I’m no one-horse show, in the matter of liking good things. A pretty woman I like, and if they’re good, so much the better—”
Complete Works of William Hope Hodgson Page 139