The Duke of Wellington, Kidnapped! Read online

  Reuters turned the letter over to West End Central Police Station, where it was examined before being turned over to Scotland Yard’s forensic laboratory. The Yard would not comment publicly on the letter, but not everyone was so circumspect. The London Times quoted the director of Sotheby’s auction house as saying, “Personally I see no reason to doubt the story” given the description of the labels. Even more direct confirmation came from Frank Le Gallais himself, director of the depository referred to on the back of the painting and by the ransom note. Reached in the Channel Islands where he was vacationing, Le Gallais said the description of the label sounded genuine. He added that the picture had been in his hands briefly in 1958 and that very few people would know about the label on the back.

  The letter presented some encouraging news by way of omission: The thief did not threaten to destroy the work; nor did he seem intent on selling it for private benefit or, for that matter, keeping it. Rather, his plan apparently involved its safe return. On the other hand, the report that the portrait was undamaged could be seen as concerning rather than reassuring. Why had the thief bothered to mention that? Did he protest too much? Adding to this concern, the note’s author seemed off the wall—who commits a major felony to raise money for charity and to punish those who “love art more than charity”? The thief was either nuts or, worse, a shrewd man pretending to be nuts.

  And was he in fact a “thief,” solo? It was hard to say. On the one hand, the note referred to the “culprits” and “group.” But that language could have been diversionary, and the note did begin, “Query not that I have the Goya”—”I,” singular.

  The note flummoxed the authorities because it defied conventional notions about art theft. A half century later, in his memoirs about his career chasing art thieves, Robert Wittman would summarize what his decades in the trenches (as head of the FBI’s art crimes unit) had taught: “The art thieves I met in my career ran the gamut—rich, poor, smart, foolish, attractive, grotesque. Yet nearly all of them had one thing in common: brute greed. They stole for money.” But if the ransom note for the Goya was to be believed, the thief was the opposite of greedy—he had stolen the painting to raise money for charity. Robin Hood aside, criminal derring-do and charity do not go hand in hand.a

  That said, there are instances of altruistic art theft, including one that occurred in May 1962. In Tokyo, a man stole a Renoir from a private collector and promised to return it if the collector would donate it to the Tokyo Museum of Western Art, which the thief felt needed a Renoir to round out its collection. The painting, shortly thereafter found in the freezer of an ice cream truck, was indeed donated to the museum.

  For all the wackiness, the ransom note did assist the authorities in one respect, at least if it was taken at face value rather than seen as a diversionary effort. By calling for £140,000, exactly the amount The Duke had commanded at auction, and by protesting against those “who love art more than charity,” the letter suggested the thinking behind the theft and its immediate catalyst. The government raising money to keep Goya’s portrait in England had established the value of the work—not only in monetary terms but also by demonstrating the eagerness of the government and others to do whatever it took to keep it around. Perhaps the thief was offended by the willingness to spend an exorbitant sum on a painting and took out his anger on both the government and the painting.

  But the note gave cause for concern as well. Could anyone so unhinged as to kidnap a masterpiece for the sake of charity be trusted to deal rationally and in good faith? In part because of doubts on that score, Scotland Yard might have ignored the ransom demand, if it had the option of responding to it. It did not, because UK law prohibits negotiating with or paying a ransom to kidnappers. (The relevant law makes no distinction between human collateral and other property.) So while the Yard turned the note over to handwriting analysts and psychologists to assist in the investigation, it made no response to the writer.

  Meanwhile, media accounts of the letter spurred a fresh round of hoaxes. Reuters immediately received a phone call from a woman claiming to have written the letter and asking what action was to be taken. When no definitive answer was given, she hung up. Three hours later, she called back with a threat: If the ransom was not paid, “we will take the two Renoirs from the National Gallery.” It wasn’t, and they didn’t. But such calls were taken seriously. On September 3, the Sunday Times reported on its front page that, as a result of the threat, “strict measures were taken by the National Gallery last night to protect their collection of Renoir paintings.”

  That same day, the Daily Mirror received a letter postmarked Epsom, Surrey. It said: “We have decided to tell your newspaper the whole truth about this sensational story after the panic has died down.” (They didn’t.) Three days later, Bristol police surrounded a railway station after a young man told a passenger he was carrying the Goya. (He wasn’t.)

  The fact that none of this, the ransom note included, gave the authorities major encouragement is suggested by internal National Gallery documents. One memorandum reports that on September 4, four days after receipt of the ransom note, Director Hendy visited Scotland Yard to discuss the advisability of offering a reward for information leading to the painting’s return. The Yard’s acting chief commissioner strongly advised in favor of a reward, which he considered the only hope for the painting’s recovery.

  Various events, including the theft of the duke’s two gold rings from the Bankfield Museum in Halifax, conspired to keep the theft of the Goya in the news. On September 4, two young men were caught attempting to steal a small copy of Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus from the National Gallery’s storeroom. Just two days after that, the wire services ran a big story from Copenhagen on how a master plan for theft prevention had been offered by Interpol to the National Gallery and other museums a year earlier. A memorandum (“Protecting Museums against Thieves”) had circulated, but apparently most museums, including the National Gallery, had not seen fit to take Interpol up on the offer.

  Though the gallery’s trustees unanimously rejected Hendy’s offer to resign, the negative publicity from the theft spurred the gallery to take other action for the sake of public relations. On September 15, the gallery issued a press release that “deeply deplored” the theft from which “the whole nation has suffered.” On September 26, the gallery trustees offered a £5,000 reward to “the first person giving information which will result in the apprehension and the conviction of the thief or thieves, or receiver, and the recovery of this famous picture, the property of the Nation.” Reward notices were circulated to Interpol, and thousands of reward leaflets were translated into French and sent to Paris. Apparently it was presumed that the art capital of the world was a logical place for someone to transport the painting. In addition, the gallery broadcast two appeals, one in late September and one in December, imploring the thief to return the booty anonymously and suffer no consequences.

  The offer of a reward only accelerated the flow of bogus notes and calls. What slowed the hoaxes somewhat was the capture of a nineteen-year-old typist attempting to steal a tablet from the National Portrait Gallery in London. Under grilling by police, the disturbed woman confessed to having been the source of many of the hoax calls pertaining to The Duke. On October 16, she was sentenced to three years at Borstal, a reformatory for young criminals.

  Scotland Yard continued with the normal investigatory measures, but with no reason for optimism about a breakthrough any time soon. At the same time, investigators braced for what they assumed would come next, the event they simultaneously dreaded and craved: another communication from whoever had the painting.

  Chapter 6: THE CRUSADE

  The encounter with the veteran who could not afford the BBC license “seemed to insist on popping up in my mind,” Kempton Bunton later recalled. He brooded about the afflictions of old age and the cruelty of callous government policies compounding that state of affairs. Solitude, Bunton reflected, is the single greatest curse of
aging. The elderly need companionship above all, but no one wants to visit them. “I began to romance on the ways to combat this evil,” Bunton writes in his memoirs, and he came to realize that “television was the answer.” Before long, the more specific solution came to him: “All old folk who wished should have free viewing.”

  It was only a matter of time before that simple insight became Kempton Bunton’s cause célèbre and eventually his casus belli. As he acknowledges with disarming candor in his memoirs, “The problem lay forever with me.” Like many a crusader before and after, Bunton recognized that his cause was not the only cause, that in fact it had infinite competition in the ranks of injustice, but that recognition did not moderate his zeal. To the contrary, it meant that he needed to do something dramatic to get the public’s attention. “And then came the idea.”

  Given his instinct for rebellion against law enforcement, the big idea came naturally for Kempton Bunton: civil disobedience. As he put it with impeccable logic: “If one did not pay a license for their TV set, that was not news, but if everyone refused to pay a license, that was news.” Bunton dreamed of inspiring an army of elderly folks to refuse to pay the BBC fee. Such a force would prove irresistible. “They could gaol me time and time again, but would they gaol a hundred or so old folk who may possibly follow me?” This plan to combat a “tyrannical law” involved “a certainty of success.” Bunton would later be derided as a publicity hound, but he dismissed this criticism as coming from “nitwits” who missed the point: “Of course I was working for [publicity]. Without publicity, the plan was worthless.”

  The revolution starts at home. In the spring of 1960, Bunton altered the switch on his television set so that it would receive only ITV (the nongovernment service). Next he sent a letter to the authorities: “As my set can only receive ITV, I see no reason to pay the BBC.” Having taken a stand, “I then waited for the Heavens to fall.” He didn’t have to wait long, at least for earthly movement in his direction. A few days later, he received a visit from two post office inquiry officers. According to Bunton, these stern gentlemen lectured him on “the sinfulness of this state of affairs.” When informed that the sinner had no intention of reforming his ways, they “eyed me as some kind of nut.” Eventually they left, “but not before assuring me that I was in for serious trouble.”

  A few weeks later, Bunton received the predictable summons, which set the stage for phase two of his plan: to use the courtroom as soapbox and set in motion the mass civil disobedience that could not fail. With a savvy sense of public relations, Bunton alerted the local media “of the time, the place, plus the novel aspects of the case,” and lo and behold, “they turned up in force.” And when, at his hearing on April 29, the magistrate asked Bunton what he had to say for himself, he launched into a diatribe against the BBC licensing fee, which he characterized as a “ridiculous tax.” He further told the magistrate, “This is a matter of principle with me. I believe that the air should be free. Why should millions of people be deprived of the pleasures of television?” This newfound champion of free television acknowledged that some television programs were ridiculed, “but I still maintain that it is a grand time-killer and a special benefit to our old folk.”

  The judge pronounced himself unimpressed and fined Bunton (who had pled not guilty) £2. The contempt was mutual, and Bunton declared his unwillingness to pay. The judge informed him that he had seven days to change his mind. The scofflaw was ushered outside, where he “willingly obliged the press photographers” while feeling “extra confident as to the success of the plan.”

  Bunton’s day in court received substantial media coverage, with the London Times closing its eight-paragraph account by noting that “he said that he intended to carry the case to the end even if it meant going to prison.” (The article identified Bunton as thirty-five years old; he was in fact fifty-six.) Despite the publicity, it soon became apparent that Bunton had failed to inspire an army of followers. Nevertheless, as Bunton remarks in his memoirs, “the stunt had started, and I meant to see it through for the year.”

  He claims that he did receive some support—dozens of letters urging him to stick to his guns. Before long, he also received another summons to court on account of his failure to pay the earlier fine. Bunton again notified the media and again attracted a large crowd to bear witness to his recalcitrance. As for what happened in court, Bunton describes the matter succinctly: Once again, the authorities were “loath to gaol me. Instead, they gave me extra time to pay, and this despite the fact of my assertions that I had no intention of paying the fine.”

  Bunton continued to expect his leadership to produce a legion of copycats—”oh for a few hundred devil may cares, yes just one in every 10,000.” Had even a few brave souls followed his intrepid example, he later maintained, “the government would have been helpless.” Alas, his crusade remained solo, and it failed to amuse the authorities. On May 19 he was summoned back to court, where he reiterated that he would prefer prison to voluntary payment of the fine. Bunton promised to continue to “treat the B.B.C. levy with the contempt it deserves,” and he declared that old people are “sick of empty promises given by forgetful governments.” He urged the House of Commons to rectify the situation immediately. The magistrate replied that he had no opinion about Bunton’s crusade: “We are only concerned that you should pay your fine.” He gave Bunton one more week to do so and decreed that thirteen days imprisonment would be the price of default.

  The London Times covered the hearing, leading with a description of Bunton’s “one man campaign against the Inland revenue and the BBC.” After the hearing, the Times reporter caught up with Bunton outside of court and quoted the nonrepentant defendant as saying that he would serve the time and immediately resume his illegal viewing. “I expect to be in and out of gaol a lot,” he remarked, though he added that he would abandon his crusade if he did not receive substantial support by January.

  Bunton made good on all his threats. He did not pay the fine, and the resulting thirteen-day sentence failed to break his spirit. To the contrary, upon his release he immediately notified the government of his plan to continue his unlicensed enjoyment of television. Once again a few burly visitors arrived at his house and informed him in no uncertain terms that his resistance would be met by the full force of the law. Once again he was undeterred, received a summons to court, and seized the occasion to “rail against the principal villain, the BBC.” His performance earned Bunton a choice: a £10 fine or fifty-six days in prison. Bunton’s life had begun to resemble the movie Groundhog Day, an endless loop.

  Bunton again opted for prison, but even the longer sentence failed to knock him off course. After all, “I had made a statement that the campaign was to be continued until the end of the year, and I could not break my word.” Accordingly, upon his release he yet again informed the authorities that he planned to continue watching television without paying the required fee. At this point he did so with “the full knowledge of failure,” but unbowed just the same. It occurred to him to supplement his civil disobedience with old-fashioned democratic participation. He wrote to his representative in Parliament, who did in fact raise the issue of the licensing fee in the House of Commons, but “it was like a cry in the night to be forgotten five minutes later.”

  The year ended, and Bunton finally considered the battle lost. Unfortunately, he received another summons for January and had to appear in court and admit defeat publicly. The court responded with lenient treatment for his delinquent payment, giving him a choice of a £10 fine or a night in prison. Bunton again opted for the latter. Three strikes and he was finally out for good—or at least for several years. He abandoned the civil disobedience campaign, which had failed to bring about the desired result.

  Privately he claimed a moral victory: “Yes, the plan failed, but millions of people must have realized the point I was trying to make. . . . The time will also come when an apathetic public must surely awaken to this monstrosity. The air is free, don
’t let them tax it.”

  His losing bout with the law behind him, Bunton answered a newspaper advertisement and found work as a bookmaker’s clerk—returning to a vocation he had sampled thirty years earlier. But before long he decided that being trapped in an office for miniscule pay was not appealing. What next? Here, as so often with Kempton Bunton’s memoirs, paraphrase won’t do. For accuracy and succinctness, one can’t improve on his transition: “And then came Goya.”

  Chapter 1 described how the sale of Goya’s Portrait of the Duke of Wellington to an American oil tycoon set off a storm in the UK, culminating in the expenditure of £140,000 to keep the painting in England. Most Brits were outraged at the thought of the UK losing the painting. Kempton Bunton was outraged at the thought of the UK keeping the painting. Or, more to the point, he thought it outrageous that the government would spend substantial taxpayers’ money for such a purpose. In fact, the government paid only two-sevenths of the £140,000, with the rest contributed by a private foundation, but that distinction was lost on Bunton. As he put it in his memoirs, “Something clicked within me” when he learned of the expenditure of “£140,000 for a thing I wouldn’t hang in my kitchen.”

  From the beginning, Bunton was obsessed with the juxtaposition of the government’s solicitousness over a mere canvas and its indifference to the plight of the elderly. He simply could not fathom “the Government taxing old folk to view [television], and at the same time wasting money on a useless painting.” Moral outrage mingled with curiosity: “Who the hell was this Wellington anyway?”