The New Collected Short Stories (43 page)

‘Mind you,’ continued Max, ‘I’m not complaining, because if they had charged me with the crime I did commit, I would have ended up with a much longer sentence –’ he paused – ‘and nothing to look forward to once I’m released.’

Max knew he had aroused my curiosity, and as I had nowhere to go for the next three hours before the cell door would be opened for Association – that glorious forty-five minutes when prisoners are allowed out of their cell for a stroll around the yard – I picked up my pen, and said, ‘OK, Max, I’m hooked. So tell me how you came to be sentenced for the wrong crime.’

Max struck a match, lit his hand-rolled cigarette and inhaled deeply before he began. In prison, every action is exaggerated, as no one is in a hurry. I lay on the bunk above and waited patiently.

‘Does the Kennington Set mean anything to you?’ Max began.

‘No,’ I replied, assuming he must be referring to a group of red-coated gentlemen on horseback, glass of port in one hand, whip in the other, surrounded by a pack of hounds with intent to spend their Saturday morning in pursuit of a furry animal with a bushy tail. I was wrong. The Kennington Set, as Max went on to explain, was in fact a chess set.

‘But no ordinary chess set,’ he assured me. I became more interested. The pieces were probably crafted by Lu Ping (1469–1540), a master craftsman of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). All thirty-two ivory pieces were exquisitely carved and then delicately painted in red and white
.
The details have been faithfully recorded in several historic documents, though it has never been conclusively established exactly how many sets Lu Ping was responsible for producing in his lifetime.

‘Three complete sets were known to be in existence,’ continued Max as smoke spiralled up from the lower bunk. ‘The first is displayed in the throne room of the People’s Palace in Peking; the second in the Mellon Collection in Washington, and the third at the British Museum. Many collectors scoured the great continent of China in search of the fabled fourth set, and although such efforts always ended in failure, several individual pieces appeared on the market from time to time.’

Max stubbed out the smallest cigarette butt I have ever seen. ‘I was at the time,’ continued Max, ‘carrying out some research into the smaller objects of Kennington Hall in Yorkshire.’

‘How did you manage that?’ I asked.

‘
Country Life
commissioned Lord Kennington to write a coffee-table book for Christmas, in which he detailed the treasures of Kennington Hall,’ Max said, before rolling a second cigarette. ‘Most considerate of him,’ he added.

‘Among the peer’s ancestors was one James Kennington (1552–1618), a true adventurer, buccaneer, and loyal servant of Queen Elizabeth I. James rescued the first set in 1588, only moments before he sunk the
Isabella.
On returning to Plymouth, following a seventeen-four victory in the match against the Spanish, Captain Kennington lavished treasure plundered from the sinking ship on his monarch. Her Majesty always showed a great deal of interest in anything solid, especially if she could wear it – gold, silver, pearls or rare gems – and rewarded Captain Kennington with a knighthood. Elizabeth had no use for the chess set, so Sir James was stuck with it. Unlike Sir Francis or Sir Walter, Sir James continued to plunder the high seas. He was so successful that, a decade later, his monarch elevated him to the House of Lords, with the title the first Lord Kennington, for services rendered to the Crown.’ Max paused before adding, ‘The only difference between a pirate and a peer is who you divide the spoils with.’

The second Lord Kennington, like his monarch, showed no interest in chess, so the set was left to gather dust in one of the ninety-two rooms in Kennington Hall. As there were few historical incidents worthy of mention during the uneventful lives of the third, fourth, fifth or sixth Lords Kennington, we can only assume that the remarkable chess set remained in situ, its pieces never moved in anger. The seventh Lord Kennington served as a colonel in the 12th Light Dragoons at the time of Waterloo. The colonel played the occasional game of chess, so the set was dusted down and returned to the Long Gallery.

The eighth Lord Kennington was slaughtered during the Charge of the Light Brigade, the ninth in the Boer War, and the tenth at Ypres. The eleventh, a playboy, led a more peaceful life, but eventually found it necessary, for pecuniary reasons – Kennington Hall required a new roof – to open his home to the public. They turned up every weekend in countless numbers, and for a small sum were allowed to stroll around the Hall; when they ventured into the Long Gallery they came across the Chinese masterpiece on its stand, surrounded by a red rope.

With mounting debts, which the publics entrance fees could not offset, the eleventh Lord Kennington was forced to sell off several of the family heirlooms, including the Kennington Set.

Christie’s placed an estimate of £100,000 on the masterpiece, but the auctioneer’s hammer finally fell at £230,000.

‘When you next visit Washington,’ added Max between puffs, ‘you can view the original Kennington Set, as it’s now part of the Mellon Collection. This would have been the end of my tale,’ continued Max, ‘if the eleventh Lord Kennington hadn’t married an American striptease artiste, who gave birth to a son. This child displayed a quality that the Kennington lineage had not troubled themselves with for several generations – brains.

‘The Hon. Harry Kennington became, much to the disapproval of his father, a hedge-fund manager, and thus the natural heir to the first Lord Kennington. He was a man who took as easily to the currency market as his pirate ancestor had to the high seas. By the age of twenty-seven, Harry had plundered his first million as an asset stripper, much to his mother’s amusement, who suggested that stripping was clearly a hereditary trait. By the time Harry inherited the title he was chairman of Kennington’s Bank. The first thing he did with his new-found wealth was to set about restoring Kennington Hall to its former glory. He certainly did not allow members of the public to pay five pounds to park their cars on his front lawn.

‘The twelfth Lord Kennington, like his father, also married a remarkable woman. Elsie Trumpshaw was the offspring of a Yorkshire cotton mill proprietor, and the product of a Cheltenham Ladies’ College education. Like any self-respecting Yorkshire lass, Elsie considered the saying,
If you take care of the pennies, the pounds will take care of themselves
to be a creed, not a cliché.

‘While her husband was away making money, Elsie was unquestionably the mistress of Kennington Hall. Having spent her formative years wearing her elder sister’s hand-me-downs, carrying her thumbed books to school and later borrowing her lipstick, whatever the colour, Elsie was well qualified to be the guardian of a hereditary pile. With consummate skill, diligence and good housekeeping, she set about the maintenance and upkeep of the newly restored Hall. Although she had no interest in the game of chess, she was irritated by the empty display cabinet in the Long Gallery. She finally solved the problem while strolling around a local car-boot sale,’ said Max, ‘and at the same time changed the fortunes of so many people, myself included.’ Max stubbed out his second cigarette and I was relieved that he didn’t immediately roll another, as our little cell was fast coming to resemble Paddington Station in the era of the steam engine.

Elsie was trudging around a car-boot sale in Pudsey on a rainy Sunday morning – she only ever attended such events when it was raining, as that ensured fewer customers and it was therefore easier for her to strike a bargain. She was rummaging through some clothes when she came across the chessboard. The red and white squares brought back memories of a photograph she had seen in the old Christie’s catalogue, dating from when the original set had been sold. Elsie bargained for some time with the man standing at the back of an ancient Jaguar, and ended up having to part with £23 for the ivory chessboard.

When Elsie returned to the Hall, she placed the newly acquired board in the empty display cabinet and was delighted to discover that it was a perfect fit. She thought nothing more of the coincidence, until her uncle Bertie advised her to have it valued – for insurance purposes, he explained.

Unconvinced, but unwilling to slight her uncle, Elsie took the board up to London on one of her monthly trips to visit her aunt Gertrude. Lady Kennington – she was always Lady Kennington in London – dropped into Sotheby’s on her way to Fortnum & Mason. A young assistant in the Chinese department asked if her ladyship would be kind enough to come back later that afternoon, by which time their expert would have placed a value on the board.

Elsie returned to Sotheby’s after a leisurely lunch with Aunt Gertrude. She was greeted by a Mr Sencill, the head of the Chinese department, who offered the opinion that the piece was unquestionably Ming Dynasty.

‘And are you able to place a value on it –’ she paused – ‘for insurance purposes?’

‘Two thousand, two thousand five hundred, m’lady,’ said Mr Sencill. ‘Ming chessboards are fairly common,’ he explained. It is the individual pieces that are rare, and a complete set . . .’ He raised the palms of his hands and placed them together, as if praying to the unseen God of auctioneers. ‘Are you perhaps considering selling the board?’ he enquired.

‘No,’ replied Elsie firmly. ‘On the contrary, I’m thinking of adding to it.’

The expert smiled. After all, Sotheby’s is nothing more than a glorified pawn shop, with each generation of the aristocracy either buying or selling.

On arriving back at Kennington Hall, Elsie returned the board to its position of honour in the drawing room.

Aunt Gertrude set the ball rolling. On Christmas Day she presented her niece with a white pawn. Elsie placed the single piece on the empty board. It looked lonely.

‘And now, my dear, you must see if you can complete the set in your lifetime,’ the old lady challenged, unaware of the chain of events she was about to set in motion. What had begun as a whim, while attending a car-boot sale in Pudsey, turned into an obsession, as Elsie began to search the globe for the missing pieces. The first Lord Kennington would have been proud of her.

When Lady Kennington gave birth to their first son, Edward, a grateful husband presented his wife with a white queen. A magnificently sculptured ivory lady adorned in a long, intricately carved royal gown. Her Majesty stared down with disdain on the single pawn.

The next acquisition was another white pawn, acquired by Uncle Bertie from a dealer in New York. This allowed the white queen to reign over two of her subjects.

The birth of a second son, James, was rewarded with a red bishop, resplendent in a flowing surplice and carrying a shepherd’s crook. The queen and her two subjects were now able to celebrate Holy Communion, even if they had to travel to the other side of the board to do so. Soon the whole family began to join in the search for the missing pieces. A red pawn was the next acquisition, when it came under the auctioneer’s hammer at Bonham’s. He took up his place on the far side of the board, waiting to be taken. By now, everyone in the trade was only too aware of Lady Kennington’s lifetime mission.

Next to find its place on the board was a white castle, which Aunt Gertrude left Elsie in her will.

In 1991 the twelfth Lord Kennington passed away, by which time the white set was lacking only two pawns and a knight, while the red set was short of four pawns, one rook and a king.

On 11 May 1992, a dealer in possession of three red pawns and a white knight knocked on the door of Kennington Hall. He had recently returned from a journey through the outer regions of China. A long and arduous trek, he told her ladyship. But, he assured her, he had not returned empty-handed.

Although her ladyship was in her declining years, she still held out for several days, before the dealer finally settled his bill at the Kennington Arms and left clutching a cheque for £26,000.

Despite following up rumours from Hong Kong, flying to Boston, contacting dealers as far afield as Moscow and Mexico, rumour rarely became reality in Lady Kennington’s unremitting search for the last of the missing pieces.

During the next few years, Edward, the thirteenth Lord Kennington, came across the last red pawn and a red rook in the home of a penniless peer, who had been on the same staircase as Eddie at Eton. His brother James, not to be outdone, acquired two white pawns from a dealer in Bangkok.

This left only the red king to be unearthed.

The family had for some time been paying well over the odds for any missing pieces, since every dealer across the globe was well aware that if Lady Kennington was able to complete the set it would be worth a fortune.

When Elsie entered her ninth decade, she informed her sons that on her demise she planned to divide the estate equally between the two of them, with one proviso. She intended to bequeath the chess set to whichever one of them found the missing red king.

Elsie died at the age of eighty-three, without her king.

Edward had already acquired the title – something you can’t dispose of in a will – and now, after death duties, also inherited the Hall and a further £857,000. James moved into the Cadogan Square apartment, and also received the sum of £857,000. The Kennington Set remained in its display case for all to admire, one square still unoccupied, ownership unresolved. Enter Max Glover.