The Sunday Gentleman (49 page)

Van Meegeren returned to his great house at 321 Keizersgracht to await his official removal to a prison cell. No one came for him. He lived a Kafka nightmare. He waited and waited, and still no one came. There were countless legal actions against him. Those who had bought his forgeries as Vermeer were pressing suits to recover all money paid him. The government wanted back taxes on this disputed income. There were court costs. Van Meegeren’s assets dwindled swiftly. Bankruptcy proceedings were begun.

Among collectors of paintings there was a carnival interest in van Meegeren, the kind of curiosity that lures people to the freak exhibits. From London, New York, Paris, there were orders for portraits, for book illustrations, for new oils “in the style of Vermeer.” Van Meegeren desired to resume with brush, palette and canvas, but was unable to begin. His resolve and wasted body were weak. His impending imprisonment hung over him daily.

In those days of waiting, he had nurses, he had a few friends in, he had regular visits from his son, Jacques. Since there were no police to stop him, he took to walking along the canals in the afternoons, greeting and accepting the compliments of the populace. In the evenings, he often attended his favorite cafe. He drank heavily. He slept lightly, poorly, despite the drugs. He got weaker. After five weeks in limbo, he collapsed. He was rushed to the Valerius Clinic in Amsterdam. During the evening of December 30, 1947, he suffered a severe heart attack and died.

Two days later, Paul Muni dramatized his life, based on my story, for listeners the length and breadth of the United States, and perhaps on that evening, Hans van Meegeren had his resurrection, and his real legend began.

Today, the legend is stronger than ever, the legend of warped genius.

Van Meegeren’s last word to posterity was encompassed in his prison confession. It was, according to a 1946 dispatch by the Reuters news agency: “that he had produced work intrinsically as good as that of the great masters. It gave equal pleasure and therefore did not defraud anybody. The only difference, he said, was the signature.”

Two posthumous judgments would have appealed to him. One concerned his talent, and the other concerned his critics.

In 1949, in London, there appeared Dr. P. B. Coremans’ judgment of Hans van Meegeren’s gifts:

“Van Meegeren was indisputably the greatest forger of all time. As an artist, he achieved the best and the worst since his natural gifts were warped by the line of least resistance, the lust for gain and luxury. These same characteristics are evident in his fakes. An immense conceit and contempt (if not hatred) of the official art world made him create the beautiful painting of the Disciples.”

In 1951, in Rotterdam, there appeared Jean Decoen’s speculation about van Meegeren’s critics:

“One thing remains a mystery to me. It is the attitude of all those who, in 1938, by their statements and writings, announced to the world one of the greatest masterpieces of Dutch art of the seventeenth century. And the qualities, which this work possessed, and which everyone could see, do they no longer exist? Do qualities that go to make a masterpiece exist only in the minds of men, and have they no real foundation? Does everything evaporate because the name of the artist and period in which the painting was made have been changed? It is therefore Name, not work, which possesses this sympathetic magic…Of all van Meegeren’s forgeries examined from distance or close quarters, none can be compared with the Disciples, and I reiterate that if van Meegeren is the maker of it, I take off my hat to him and forgive him all the forgeries that he ever made.”

Here it was, then, the critics’ surrender:

“The greatest forger of all time”—creator, in the twentieth century, of “one of the greatest masterpieces of Dutch art of the seventeenth century…I take off my hat to him.”

Somehow, I cannot believe that Hans van Meegeren would have been displeased with these critics. He had proved that the species could harbor fallible fools. To their credit, the majority of critics, humbled, had recanted from their belief in their omniscience. But there will soon be a new generation of them to renew and perpetuate their exclusive hold on Infinite Wisdom and Final Judgment. For them, the legend of Hans van Meegeren should tower as a disturbing reminder of human fallibility. One can hope.

13

Monsieur Bertillon

At the turn of the century, an enterprising New York publisher traveled to Paris to offer the world’s greatest living detective one dollar a word for his memoirs. Though potentially the offer far exceeded his salary as director of the French Sûreté ’s Identity Department, Alphonse Bertillon firmly refused It. “To write the whole truth for you,” he told the publisher, “I would have to tell secrets, which might be useful to criminals. If I skipped the secrets, I would cheat the public “Undaunted, the publisher promptly offered to pay the same rate if Bertillon would disguise his facts in a fictional detective novel. “Surely you would have no objections to the detective novel?”

“On the contrary,” said Bertillon, “I love detective stories I would like to see Sherlock Holmes’s methods of reasoning adopted by all professional police. Yes, perhaps I will write a mystery story one day when I retire, if I retire. But now I have no tune. It is such a pity. I have so many wonderful stones to tell!”

When at last he died, in harness, just thirty-five years ago, Alphonse Bertillon had still not found time to write his mystery book. But, in his incredible record of achievements in the scientific advances he willed to criminologists the earth over, in the very life he lived, were more “wonderful stories” than any that he might have invented.

Today, every time the FBI comers a Dillinger, every time Scotland Yard catches a Crippen, every time the French Sûreté traps a Landru, they are paying silent tribute to Alphonse Bertillon. Instead of memoirs, Bertillon left behind countless weapons of detection with which the law can evenly pit itself against the wit and savagery of outlaws and killers. He gave the world its first successful means of identifying and classifying criminals, thus catching repeaters. He discovered a method of seeing through aliases, disguises and plastic surgery. He invented police photography. He was among the first detectives to use psychology on criminals successfully. He was the first detective to solve a crime through fingerprints. He was a pioneer in scientific sleuthing.

But it was not easy. Once, when Bertillon was guiding old Louis Pasteur on a tour of the Sûreté, the scientist halted, gazed thoughtfully at the detective, and asked, “Was it difficult. Monsieur Bertillon, getting the government to recognize your discoveries?” Yes, Bertillon admitted, it had been terribly difficult, and added, “But I never despaired. When they resisted, I became more aggressive.” Pasteur smiled. “Ah, then you know—the difficulty is less in discovering than in having discoveries understood and adopted.”

In the beginning, Bertillon’s most arduous case was in solving Bertillon. He, who would discover so much, could not find himself. Born in 1853, the second son of a Parisian doctor whose hobbies were studying skulls and physiological statistics, Alphonse Bertillon was the family disgrace. He failed to do satisfactory work at three different schools, and lost a half-dozen jobs, varying from banker to schoolteacher, in France, England, and Scotland.

Then came a job he could not lose. He was drafted for compulsory military service, and, as a private, was stationed with the 139th Infantry Regiment in Clermont-Ferrand, France. There was plenty of leisure, and out of sheer boredom young Bertillon began taking night courses in the medical school of the local university.

Suddenly, for the first time, he found something that interested him. His father’s old hobby—human skulls. Now, fascinated, he began studying them, measuring and classifying hundreds. Soon his interests expanded to the 222 bones of the human skeleton. He made a personal discovery. The skulls and bones of no two human beings were exactly the same. Bertillon began compiling statistics, but before he had enough to substantiate his theory, his military service was ended. He was home, again unemployed. His father was pleased with the statistics, but realistic. “To be a disinterested scientist is well and good, Alphonse, but to be fully disinterested the scientist must make money first. I am going to try just once more to get you a job.”

In March, 1879, through his father’s contacts, Bertillon went to work as a lowly auxiliary clerk in the French Sûreté headquarters in Paris. His duties, inside his tiny, cold cubicle, were dull, monotonous and, he felt, quite stupid. Several times, he was tempted to quit, but something about the work returned him to his desk. His job consisted of recording descriptions of criminals arrested during the day, just in case the same criminals should ever turn up again. But the descriptions consisted of generalities that were impossible to file accurately, and so they were never used. The pointlessness of the method was what bored Bertillon, and yet challenged him. To make his job more interesting, he decided to improve on the primitive system of catching repeaters.

Just a half century before, he learned, the only means of checking on whether an offender was an ex-convict was by seeing if he had been branded with a red-hot iron. When branding was abolished by law, the police in France, as well as those in other nations, were limited to age-worn tricks. They would plant a detective, dressed as a prisoner, in the new convict’s cell. They would offer bonuses to detectives who located repeaters, and they would write lengthy descriptions, too vague to be classified. It was a farce. A man had only to change his name or features, however crudely, to avoid being recognized as a previous offender. Habitual criminals were constantly turned loose for lack of concrete identification. The police were helpless. Crime had a holiday.

And then Alphonse Bertillon remembered his human skulls: that no two were alike. An idea struck him. Age, hunger, sickness might alter a murderer’s flesh but not his bones. His study of statistics had told him that between the ages of twenty and sixty, certain parts of the human body do not change. The width of a man’s head, his right ear, his left middle finger—all three normally remain the same size. Bertillon checked and rechecked. The ear alone, he calculated, was enough to identify thousands of criminals. There were twenty distinctive parts to a single ear. A killer might dye his hair, bob his nose, lift his chin. But unless he cut it off, the ear remained the same, difficult to disguise, easy to observe.

Thus, within eight months of the day he had joined the Sûreté as a lowly clerk, twenty-six-year-old Alphonse Bertillon had conceived his revolutionary system of classifying and trapping criminals by measuring certain unchangeable parts of the human body. He called his invention “anthropometry” or body measurement, and it consisted of making a composite chart of a criminal’s eleven unalterable features.

Enthusiastically, he presented his system to Police Prefect Andrieux. He waited for congratulations. Andrieux scanned the outline of the system, and then threw it back at Bertillon. “You are a lunatic,” said Andrieux. “Get out.”

Bertillon was confused. Back in his office, he. reread his presentation of his system, took it apart, put it together again, made subtractions, additions, finally rewrote it in more detail. Once more, he submitted it to the police prefect. This time Andrieux completely lost his temper. “So now clerks tell us how to run the Sûreté! I will teach you a lesson!” Andrieux dashed off a note to Bertillon’s father stating that the young man was mentally unstable, and that he would be fired if he persisted in expounding his cracked theory.

Exasperated, the elder Bertillon summoned his son for a final showdown. Alphonse appeared, not with contrition but with the summary of his system in hand. In an hour, anthropometry had its first convert. Excitedly, the elder Bertillon appealed to the prefect, but to no avail. The Sûreté chief refused to reconsider. It had become a matter of saving face.

Alphonse Bertillon returned to his clerical desk. He dared not mention his system. A single word, and he would be fired. He wanted to remain in the Sûreté desperately now. So he played dumb, and waited. He waited one year, two years, three years. The future seemed hopeless. And then, suddenly, Andrieux was out, and a new police prefect named Camescasse was in.

Once again, Bertillon presented his revolutionary system. The new prefect listened with a tolerant smile, admitted that he realized the importance of what Bertillon was trying to do, admitted also that he had not the slightest comprehension of how Bertillon planned to do it. But he was impressed by the young clerk’s enthusiasm. “Monsieur Bertillon, you shall have your chance. I will give you exactly three months. If in three months your identity system has caught one recidivist, the Sûreté will permanently adopt it. If in three months it has caught none, you are to drop it forever and never bother us again. That is the gamble I offer. Are you satisfied?”

Three months did not seem enough. Bertillon hesitated. But it was this or nothing. “I accept, sir. You shall have at least one criminal because of my system in three months. And, thank you, sir!”

On the morning of December 13, 1882, Bertillon introduced the world’s first scientific system of classifying criminals. Bertillon began by forcing each offender into a revolving chair, which is still used at the Sûreté today, and taking a series of 24-by-30-inch glass-plate photographs. Until that date, the Sûreté had photographed about 60,000 criminals, stiff, full-faced, unrevealing portraits. Bertillon changed all that He introduced, despite the difficulties presented by time exposure, a pioneer form of candid photography. Convicts were photographed informally, in natural poses. Bertillon played down the standard full-faced picture, which he felt distorted the appearance, especially of the nose. Instead, he concentrated on profiles, which he felt gave police a more honest view of a man’s brow, nose, chin. Also, he snapped close-ups of prominent facial features.

Next, Bertillon applied his system of recording physiological statistics. Each man’s head, right ear, left middle finger, left forearm, and left foot were carefully measured and noted. The measurements were taken three times and averaged, except in the case of the head, where all three measurements had to agree exactly. There were other measurements: left index finger, arm spread, chest girth, height. Physical oddities, like moles and scars, were jotted down. Even the exact shade of the eyes was recorded; Bertillon felt the color of adult eyes never changed. All of this was placed on an index card, and, with the photographs, classified and filed according to a clever system of size groupings Bertillon had created. The file which Bertillon inaugurated that first day, sixty-seven years ago, may still be seen in the Sûreté Identity Department, above the Summary Courts of the Palais de Justice in Paris—except that, today, these files contain ten million cards, with names now classified phonetically instead of alphabetically, each record being kept on file for ninety years.