The Napoleon of Crime (17 page)

These matters are now in the hands of Superintendent Williamson, of the police, and the detectives, and as we learn that with his advice Messrs. Agnew have offered the large reward of £1,000 for information leading to the recovery of the stolen picture, some speedy intelligence may be looked for. It must be tolerably evident that such a robbery was not contrived with the view of selling the picture, as that would be a thing next to impossible, and the mere offer of it would be certain to bring the thieves to detection in almost any part of the world. The description given of the picture at the time of the sale, and the engraving in the
Illustrated News
must have made it known far and wide.

It is very rarely that robbery of valuable paintings in this way has been attempted, and rarely, if ever, we believe, without discovery in the end. In the present case it is to be hoped that a picture of such remarkable notoriety and interest will be recovered uninjured, and the audacious thief or thieves brought to justice.

The airy confidence of the
Times
writer was not in evidence in other quarters of the metropolis. William Agnew was flabbergasted at the loss of his valuable investment, not least because he had agreed to pay the great engraver Samuel Cousins the enormous sum of 1,500 guineas, “
double his usual amount,” to make another engraving. Junius Spencer Morgan was equally displeased to be deprived of the painting he believed was his already.

The authorities were understandably embarrassed that such a daring theft could have taken place in the heart of London. Agnew’s neighboring art dealers lost no time in voicing their concern at the lack of security the theft indicated. Two of these, Messrs. H. and J. Jacobs, wrote to
The Times
to express the general consternation. “
Being inhabitants of Bond Street, and having property of our own, we are at a loss to know how such a daring robbery could have been effected without the knowledge of the police, and of the watchman who is paid by the various tradesmen to protect their property.” Suspicion immediately fell on the dozy night watchman, who,
The Times
unfairly reported, “
is said to have given himself a holiday on the night of the theft and, of course, he could throw no light on the subject.”

Inspector Williamson of the Yard was left the unenviable task of scouring London for a small thief, knowledgeable in the art of stealing paintings without damaging them, who may or may not have hidden in the gallery after closing time and who probably wore hobnailed boots. Circulars and photographs of the missing painting were sent to police forces “
all over the known world,” and advertisements were placed in many European newspapers. According to one report, “
the hue and cry raised in Bond Street spread to every civilized quarter of the globe, and all nations, peoples and languages were talking of the loss of the dead master’s work.” The Pinkertons pronounced Scotland Yard “mystified.”

No one thought to suspect Henry J. Raymond, the wealthy American gentleman living just a few hundred yards away and now thoroughly enjoying his new acquisition and the frenzy he had caused. But the police and
The Times
had been correct in one aspect: Worth had no intention of trying to sell the
Duchess
, now even more widely recognizable thanks to the Scotland Yard posters which festooned London offering £1,000 for its return and his arrest. Similar posters were also printed up by Scotland Yard in German and (appallingly bad) French for distribution in Europe.

While Worth was admiring the
Duchess
in his Piccadilly lair and congratulating himself on his own brilliance, news arrived that removed the reason for stealing it in the first place. John Worth, thanks to one of the few strokes of good fortune ever enjoyed by this feckless man, had suddenly been released from Newgate prison, to his own and his brother’s immense surprise. At considerable expense, Worth had retained a solicitor named Beasley to help defend his brother, and while the master criminal had been laying plans to abscond with the
Duchess
, Beasley had been hard at work. The solicitor later became a highly respected judge in London and deservedly so. In his enthusiasm to make an arrest, Inspector Shore had had John Worth extradited as the principal in the alleged forgery. Beasley pointed out that the description provided of the man who had actually cashed the forged check (Little Joe) “
in no way answered the description” of John Worth, and since the police had not accused him of passing the forgery, he could only have been legally extradited as “
an accessory after the fact.” Just hours before the Gainsborough was stolen, Beasley had obtained a writ of habeas corpus, and the following day, to the fury of Inspector Shore, John Worth was released and told to leave the country within thirty days or face arrest again.

His older brother, mindful of John’s chronic bad luck and Inspector Shore’s wrath, moved fast. Within twenty-four hours of quitting Newgate prison, John Worth had been bundled onto a boat sailing for the Continent, with instructions to make his way back to the United States as soon as possible, and stay there. Delighted as he was to see his brother set free, Worth now found himself in a fresh quandary. As he put it, he “
had the picture and his brother’s liberty as well.” Getting John out of harm’s way was the work of a moment, but disposing of the portrait, with profit but without getting caught, was clearly a much more complex matter. Even the most disreputable art dealer would be insane to handle so hot a property, and returning the painting to claim Agnew’s reward was an equally dangerous course. Worth toyed with the idea of simply giving the painting back, but to give John Shore that pleasure, after the trouble the Scotland Yard detective had put him to, was simply not in Worth’s nature. He was, moreover, enjoying the illustrious presence of the famous Duchess of Devonshire, his illicit guest. The painting was securely hidden beneath the mattress of his four-poster bed, sandwiched between hardwood boards; from time to time, he would take her out and admire his conquest. He would not, he decided, send “the noble lady” back to her rightful owners—quite yet.

In the meantime, William Agnew was becoming more agitated with every passing day, particularly since ugly rumors were beginning to circulate that the dealer might himself have had a hand in the disappearance. Some were claiming that Agnew had discovered, too late, that the painting was a fake and consequently
it had been “burned to save the dealer’s reputation as an expert.” The anonymous writer of this particular slur goes on to insist slyly, “
No one who knows the high standing of Mr Agnew as a businessman can but be aware that this preposterous story not only is without foundation, but is wholly improbable.” Preposterous or not, like all rumors, this one was taking on a life of its own. Other “
wise ones had it that the article stolen was an imitation, and that the genuine canvas was in safe keeping.”

So far from eliciting any concrete information about the theft, Agnew’s offer of a £1,000 reward had prompted a massive, emotional, and quite useless response from the English public. From every corner of the land, letters and telegrams flooded in to the Bond Street address; they came from the helpful, the criminal, and the merely barmy.

A Mr. Mortimer from Blomfield Road, North London, wrote on May 28, politely informing William Agnew: “
I have a very good clairvoyant … and with your kind permission will bring her to the gallery and see if she can trace the valuable painting which is such a loss to the public. I know I cannot obtain her services until after Thursday … I make this early appointment because the fewer persons touch the frame the more likely she will be to trace the culprit.” He added a postscript, heavy with conspiracy: “You had better keep this a secret, or it may prevent her tracing it.”

Others were quite specific in their assertions and accusations. “
No doubt you will think it strange my writing to you in thus manner,” advised another correspondent, “but having had a Dream last night that your valuable picture has been taken away by a Gentleman living at The Time House, Newton, Yorks, a Mr Villiers, I think it would be advisable for you to send there. You will please keep this letter as I shall keep a copy of it so that if it is as I have said you will be able to know the writer. I hope you will take note of this and send as I am so impressed with it that it is right.” Daniel Berman, from Leeds, simply sent a black bordered card with the suggestion: “
Could they not have hid it in a metal tube and sunk it?”—which, since it left Agnew to search every expanse of water in the world, did not really help very much.

The Agnews’ archives contain scores of such suggestions, proving that Victorian society included quite as many cranks as our own. Some clearly saw an opportunity for criminal profit. “Australia” insisted: “
I shall not take a fraction less than 1,000 pounds” in exchange for the painting and suggested a rendezvous with William in Eaton Square. “
Now Mr Agnew you must come alone and have no one watching. You will only have one person to deal with and no personal injury will be offered to you—it will be entirely your own fault if you are not in possession of your picture 1½ hours after you meet me … remember I have my freedom to look after … and if arrested I should have to suffer the punishment of the English law, which would be about five years I suppose.” “Australia” further warned that he had left instructions with his wife to destroy the painting in the event of his arrest and signed off with some wholly misplaced homespun philosophy: “
A woman will do anything for the man she loves.” Another writer suggested that if William Agnew would bring £1,000 in gold to a street corner in the East End of London at midnight on a given day, he would get his painting back. Very sensibly, Agnew declined an offer that would surely have seen him blackjacked down a dark alley, robbed, and possibly killed. It is easy to imagine this simple East End mugger waiting patiently at the corner for his victim to arrive. The art dealer wearily passed the letters on to Williamson at Scotland Yard. Some were briefly investigated; most were ignored.

Sprinkled among the nutters and criminals were a few letters expressing genuine anguish at the theft and reflecting the extraordinary impact of the painting, and its sale, on the general public. Of these, perhaps the most heartfelt came from one Marguerite Antehuester. “
Sir, Although unknown to you, the news of your great loss tonight has so touched me that I feel unable to resist assuring you of my profound sympathy and I cannot but think the crime has been committed by a madman—for days past I have dreamed of the delight of seeing the Gainsborough, and when news reached us tonight of its abstraction I can hardly say whether sorrow or indignation had the largest share of my heart … pray forgive a stranger for thus addressing you but I do feel intensely interested, as does everyone else, in that wonderful picture.”

The distraught Ms. Antehuester was hardly exaggerating, for the mysterious fate of the
Duchess
had suddenly become a parlor-game whodunit and few were without an opinion. For years afterwards, a steady trickle of false sightings, unsolicited advice, and commiserations continued to arrive at Agnew’s London office. Until the theft, Gainsborough’s
Duchess
had been the preoccupation of educated Londoners, a passing fancy of the chattering classes; suddenly Georgiana’s raunchy past was revivified by modern scandal. “
The interest, not to say anxiety, felt by the public as to its probable fate was so keen as to cast into the background all other things. It eclipsed all contemporaneous events, and so great was the desire to know what the picture was like that reproductions, more or less accurate, appeared in the public prints, and were much appreciated on presentation almanacs by the customers of grocers and bookmakers,” one observer noted. “Nothing but the poisoning of a favourite race horse or the disappearance of a famous dog could have aroused equal concern in the average British mind,” puffed the
Midland Daily Telegraph
.

The image of the duchess was everywhere, her possible whereabouts avidly discussed by everyone, from dukes to costermongers. Georgiana’s lewd reputation was now celebrated in music-hall ballads and scurrilous doggerel, while “
impresarios paid the leading beauties of the variety stage to put on replicas of the famous Gainsborough hat.” Thanks to Adam Worth, the fame of the duchess was now universal. As one newspaper observed wryly, whoever had stolen the painting had also “
accomplished a task before which Ruskin might have paled—he made known the names of Gainsborough and of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, to millions who would never otherwise have heard of them. So, in some sense, he was an apostle of culture.”

If, before the theft, the
Duchess
had achieved iconic status, now women positively wanted to
be
her. She became the hautecouture statement of the hour. The theft proved a blessing to London’s hatmakers, since “
at most of the public ceremonials a large proportion of the ladies dressed upon the model which the painting provided.” Vast ostrich-feather hats became the rage on both sides of the Atlantic, and in New York “
the Gainsborough hat … was so fashionable among women [that] one fashionable modiste went so far as to call it the ‘Lady Devonshire style.’ ” A Duchess of Devonshire hat gave its wearer a stylish, even somewhat risqué image and was used by literary types to denote a particularly flamboyant sort of woman. In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s
A Case of Identity
, Watson describes Mary Sutherland as wearing “
a large curling red feather in a broad-brimmed hat which was tilted in a coquettish Duchess-of-Devonshire fashion over her ear.” This was not the last time Sir Arthur would find himself indebted, directly or indirectly, to Adam Worth.

Vain as he was, and delighted to be the anonymous object of so much attention, Worth was also disturbed by the hullabaloo. He knew that the loyalty of Little Joe Elliott and even more of Junka Phillips (moronic but also avaricious) was dependent upon hard cash. Already they were demanding that the
Duchess
be made to pay, but entering into negotiations with William Agnew for the profitable return of the painting in the midst of such pandemonium would be to court disaster. So Henry Raymond, charming and prosperous man of the world, decided the time had come to take one of his excursions, this time accompanied by his new, portable paramour. A large Saratoga trunk was equipped by a skillful and discreet carpenter with a concealed panel in the bottom in which the painting could be accommodated with comfort and, while London still buzzed with rumor, the
Duchess
and her proud new consort inconspicuously slipped out of London and took ship for New York.