Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (17 page)

On the opening day of the exhibition the
month before, Harvey had acquired, through his agent, a watercolour by Alfred
Daniels of the House of Commons for £250 and two oils by Bernard Dunstan of
English provincial scenes for £75 each. The Summer Exhibition was still the
best value in the world. Even if he did not want to keep all the pictures
himself, they made wonderful presents when he returned to the States. The
Daniels reminded him of a Lowry he had bought some twenty years before at the
Academy for £80: that had turned out to be a shrewd piece of judgement on his
part.

Harvey made a special point of looking at
the Bernard Dunstans in the exhibition. Of course, they were all sold. Dunstan
was one of the artists whose pictures always sold in the opening minutes of the
opening day. Harvey had not been in London on that
day,
however, he had had no difficulty in buying what he wanted. He had planted a
man at the front of the queue, who obtained a catalogue and marked those
artists he knew Harvey could resell easily if he had made a mistake and keep if
his judgement were right. When the exhibition opened on the dot of ten o’clock
the agent had gone straight to the purchasing desk and acquired the five or six
pictures he had marked in the catalogue before he had even seen them, or anyone
else had seen them other than the Academicians. Harvey studied his vicarious
purchases with care. On this occasion he was happy to keep them all. If there
had been one that did not quite fit in with his collection, he could have
returned it for resale, undertaking to purchase it if nobody else showed interest.
In twenty years he had acquired over a hundred pictures by this method and
returned a mere dozen, never having to pay for ones he later decided he did not
require. Harvey had a system for everything.

At one o’clock after a thoroughly
satisfactory morning he left The Royal Academy. The white Rolls Royce was
waiting for him in the forecourt.

“Wimbledon.”

“Shit.”

“What did you say?” queried Stephen.

“S-H-I-T.
He’s gone to Wimbledon, so today’s down the
drain,” said Adrian.

That meant Harvey would not return to
Claridge’s until at least seven or eight that evening. A rota had been fixed
for watching him and Adrian accordingly picked up his Rover 3500 V8 from St.
James’s Square and headed for Wimbledon. James had obtained two tickets for
every day of the championships opposite Harvey Metcalfe’s debenture box. Adrian
arrived at Wimbledon a few minutes after Harvey and took his seat in the Centre
Court far enough back in the sea of faces to be inconspicuous. The atmosphere
was already building up for the opening match. Wimbledon seems to be getting
more popular every year and the Centre Court was packed to capacity. Princess
Alexandra and the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, were in the Royal Box awaiting
the entrance of the gladiators. The little green scoreboards at the southern
end of the court were flashing up the names of Kodes and Stewart, as the umpire
took his seat on the high chair in the middle of the court directly overlooking
the net. The crowd began to applaud as the two athletes, both dressed in white,
entered the court carrying four rackets each. Wimbledon does not allow its
competitors to dress in any colour other than white, although they have relaxed
a little by permitting the trimmings of the ladies’ dresses to be coloured.

Adrian enjoyed the opening match between the
1973 champion, Kodes, and Stewart, the unseeded player from the United States,
who gave the Czechoslovakian a hard time, Kodes winning 6-3,6-4, 9-7. Adrian
was sorry when Harvey decided to leave in the middle of an exciting doubles.
Back to duty, he told himself, and followed the Rolls at a safe distance to
Claridge’s. On arriving, he telephoned James’s flat, which was being used as
the Team’s headquarters in London, and briefed Stephen.

“May as well call it a day,” said Stephen. “We’ll
try again tomorrow. Poor old Jean Pierre’s heartbeat reached a hundred and
fifty this morning. He may not last many days of false alarms.”

When Harvey left Claridge’s the following
morning he went through Berkeley Square into Bruton Street and on into Bond
Street, only fifty yards from Jean Pierre’s gallery. But then he slipped into
Agnew’s, where he had an appointment with Sir Geoffrey Agnew, the head of the
family firm, to see if he had any news of Impressionist pictures on the market.
Sir Geoffrey was anxious to get away to another appointment and could only
spend a few minutes with Harvey and had to disappoint him.

Harvey left Agnew’s soon afterwards
clutching a small consolation prize of a brace of tooled silver pheasants, a
mere bagatelle at £400.

“He’s coming out,” said Adrian, “and heading
in the right direction.” But again Harvey stopped, this time at the Marlborough
Gallery to study their latest exhibition of Barbara Hepworth. He spent over an
hour appreciating her beautiful work, but decided the prices were now mad. He
had purchased two Hepworths only ten years ago for £800. The Marlborough was
now asking between £7,000 and £10,000 for her work. So he left and continued up
Bond Street.

“Jean Pierre?”

“Yes,” replied a nervous voice.

“He’s reached the corner of Conduit Street
and is about fifty yards away from you.”

Jean Pierre prepared his window, removing
the Graham Sutherland watercolour of the Thames and the boatman.

“He’s turned left, the bastard,” said James,
who was stationed opposite the gallery. “He’s walking down Bruton Street on the
right-hand side.” Jean Pierre put the Sutherland back on the easel in the
window and retired to the lavatory, muttering to himself:

“I can’t cope with two shits at once.”

Harvey meanwhile stepped into a little
entrance in Bruton Street and climbed the stairs to Tooth’s. He was more
hopeful of finding something in a gallery which had become so famous for its
Impressionists. A Klee, a Picasso and two Salvador Dalis–not what Harvey was
looking
for.
The Klee was very well executed, but not
as good as the one in his dining room in Lincoln, Massachusetts. In any case,
it might not fit in with any of Arlene’s decorative schemes. Nicholas Tooth,
the managing director, promised to keep his eyes open and ring Harvey at
Claridge’s should anything of interest crop up.

“He’s on the move again, but I think
it’s
back to Claridge’s.” James willed him to turn round and
return in the direction of Jean Pierre’s gallery, but Harvey strode towards
Berkeley Square, only making a detour to the O’Hana gallery. Albert, the head
doorman, had told him there was a Renoir in the window, and indeed there was.
But it was only a half-finished canvas which Renoir had obviously used for a
practice run or had disliked and left unfinished. Harvey was curious as to the
price and entered the gallery.

“Thirty thousand pounds,” said the
assistant, as if it was three and a snip at that. Harvey whistled through the
gap between his front teeth. It never ceased to amaze him that an inferior
picture by a first-rank name could fetch £30,000 and an outstanding picture by
an artist with no particular reputation could only make a few hundred dollars.
He thanked the assistant and left.

“A pleasure, Mr. Metcalfe.”

Harvey was always flattered by people who
remembered his name, but, hell, they ought to remember, he had bought a Monet
from them last year for $125,000.

“He’s definitely on his way back to the
hotel,” said James. Harvey spent only a few minutes in Claridge’s, picking up
one of their famous specially prepared luncheon hampers of caviar, beef, ham
and cheese sandwiches, and chocolate cake for later consumption at Wimbledon.

James was next on the rota for Wimbledon and
decided to take Anne with him. Why not?–she knew the truth. It was Ladies Day
and the turn of Billie Jean King, the vivacious American champion, to take the
court. She was up against the unseeded American, Kathy May, who looked as if
she was in for a rough time. The applause Billie Jean received was not worthy
of her reputation, but somehow she had never become a Wimbledon favourite.
Harvey had a guest with him whom James thought had a faintly mid-European look.

“Which one is your victim?”

“He’s almost exactly opposite us with the
man in the grey suit
who
looks like a government
official from Brussels.”

“The short, fat one?” enquired Anne.

“Yes,” said James.

Whatever comments Anne might have made were
interrupted by the umpire’s call of “Service” and everyone’s attention was
focussed on Billie Jean.

It was exactly two o’clock.

“Kind of you to invite me to Wimbledon,
Harvey,” said Jörg Birrer. “I never seem to have the chance for much pleasure
nowadays. You can’t leave the market for more than a few hours without some panic
or other.”

“If you feel that way it’s time for you to
retire,” said Harvey.

“No one to take my place,” said Birrer. “I’ve
been chairman of the Swiss Union Bank for ten years now and finding a successor
is turning out to be my hardest task.”

“First game to Mrs. King.
Mrs. King leads one game to love in the
first set.”

“I know you too well, Harvey, to expect this
invitation to have been just for pleasure.”

“What an evil mind you have, Jörg.”

“You have to have in my profession.”

“I just wanted to check how my three
accounts stand and brief you on my plans for the next few months.”

“Game to Mrs. King.
Mrs. King leads two games to love in the
first set.”

“Your Number One official account is a few
thousand dollars in credit. Your numbered commodity account”–at this point
Birrer unfolded a small piece of unidentifiable paper with a set of neat
figures on it–”is short by $3,726,000, but you are holding 37,000 ounces of
gold at today’s selling price of $135 an ounce.”

“What’s your advice on that?”

“Hold on, Harvey. I still think your
President is either going to announce a new gold standard or allow your fellow
countrymen to buy gold on the open market some time next year.”

“That’s my view too, but I think we want to
sell a few weeks before the masses come in. I have a theory about that.”

“I expect you are right, as usual, Harvey.”

“Game to Mrs. King.
Mrs. King leads by three games to love in
the first set.”

“What are your charges on my overdraft?”

“One and a half per cent above interbank
rate, which at present is 13.25 and therefore we are charging you 14.75 per
cent annum, while gold is rising in price at nearly 70 per cent annum. It can’t
go on, but there is still a few months left in it.”

“O.K.,” said Harvey, “hold on until November
first and we’ll discuss it again.
Coded telex as usual.
I don’t know what the rest of the world would do without the Swiss.”

“Just take care, Harvey. Do you know there
are more specialists in our police force on fraud than there are on murder?”

“You worry about your end, Jörg, and I’ll
worry about mine. The day I get uptight about bureaucrats from Zurich who
haven’t
got any balls, I’ll let you know. Now, enjoy your
lunch and watch the game. We’ll have a talk about the other account later.”

“Game to Mrs. King.
Mrs. King leads by four games to love in
the first set.”

“They are very deep in conversation,” said
Anne. “I cannot believe they are enjoying the game.”

“He’s probably trying to buy Wimbledon at
cost price,” laughed James. “The trouble with seeing the man every day is that
I begin to have a certain admiration for him. He’s the most organised man I
have ever come across. If he’s like this on holiday, what the hell is he like
at work?”

“I can’t imagine,” said Anne.

“Game to Miss May. Mrs. King leads by four
games to one in the first set.”

“No wonder he’s so overweight. Just look at
him stuffing that cake down.” James lifted his Zeiss binoculars. “Which reminds
me to ask, darling, what have you brought for my lunch?”

Anne dug into her hamper and unpacked a
crisp salad in French bread for James. She contented herself with nibbling a
stick of celery.

“Getting far too fat,” she explained. “I’ll
never get into the swim-wear I’m supposed to be modelling next week.” She
touched James’s knee and smiled. “It must be because I’m so happy.”

“Well, don’t get too happy. I prefer you
thin.”

“Game to Mrs. King.
Mrs. King leads by five games to one in the
first set.”

“This is going to be a walkover,” said
James, “which it so often is in the opening match. People only come to see if
the champion’s in good form, but I think she’ll be very hard to beat this year.
She’s after Helen Moody’s record of eight Wimbledon championships.”

“Game and first set to Mrs. King by six
games to one. Mrs. King leads one set to love.
New balls,
please.
Miss May to serve.”