He had decided to play a sleazy Canadian and had it in his head, for no very good reason, that the ideal outfit would be "a tam-o'-shanter hat, a really garish orange-colored blazer, and yellow trousers. I tried to look like a complete Canadian a.s.shole. I told them I was going to sell all these wonderful medieval objects and paintings stolen from various churches to people who owned yachts in the Bahamas.

"You'd have to be some kind of eastern bloc jacka.s.s to believe the c.r.a.p I was coming out with," Hill gasps, red-faced with laughter. "But they loved it; they went for it."

Nervy though he is, Hill chooses outlandish roles not to spice up the game but because he thinks he knows what crooks expect an art sleazeball to look like. "You have to feed the art crook a.r.s.eholes' fantasies," Hill says. "You have to be what they want you to be." Their notions are almost guaranteed to be wildly off, since they are based on guesswork and stereotype, but that's fine with Hill.

His job is to hit the notes that signify authenticity to his crook audiences. If a posh accent or a plush hotel room spells credibility, so be it. In the world of natural history, scientists have spent years exploring such triggers. When birds bring food to their nests, for example, they meet a host of gaping beaks pointed at the sky. If scientists take away a hungry chick and subst.i.tute even the crudest replica of an open beak, the hardworking parents will labor mightily to feed it it. Charley Hill is the least scientific of men, but the performances that he calls his "amateur theatrics" are essentially experiments to find the triggers that cajole crooks into responding the way he wants them to.

Mark Dalrymple, the insurance investigator, is a far less impetuous man than Charley Hill. But even though he shakes his head at Hill's lack of prudence, Dalrymple is quick to acknowledge the detective's undercover skills. "Charley Hill," Dalrymple says, "has more brains and more b.a.l.l.s than the rest of the police combined."

Hill's aversion to any gear beyond the most basic is partly a personal quirk and partly a matter of experience. "Brits don't do guns," Hill will say, if he is pressed, but that is patently insincere. If he happened to favor favor going armed, he would just as happily chalk his preference up to his American heritage. More to the point, Hill's anti-gun bias is a legacy of his time in Vietnam. When guns are around, things go wrong, and not just for the person at the wrong end of the barrel. "Going unarmed doesn't put me in extra danger," Hill insists. "It puts me in going armed, he would just as happily chalk his preference up to his American heritage. More to the point, Hill's anti-gun bias is a legacy of his time in Vietnam. When guns are around, things go wrong, and not just for the person at the wrong end of the barrel. "Going unarmed doesn't put me in extra danger," Hill insists. "It puts me in less less danger, because carrying a gun gives you a false sense of security." danger, because carrying a gun gives you a false sense of security."

Guns foster a "shoot first, think later" approach that can only mean trouble. In Vietnam, Hill himself had nearly killed one of his own men by accident. "He was a little guy, named Peewee. He was Hispanic but he looked almost Vietnamese. He was one of those a.s.sholes who liked to put his helmet on the wrong way around, like wearing your baseball cap backward." One morning Hill spotted something in a clump of elephant gra.s.s. "Suddenly this head popped up, and the helmet was the wrong shape. I stopped just short of blasting him full in the chest. He must have been fifteen yards away, no more than that. 'Oh, f.u.c.k,' I thought. 'Jesus! Peewee!' I nearly blew him away, and all he'd been doing was having a c.r.a.p in the bushes."

Hill's dislike of guns also reflects hostility toward technology in general. He can manage a cell phone or send an e-mail, but that is as far as he goes. The function of mechanical contrivances is to betray their user at the worst possible moment.

In the Czech case that featured a crew of ex-secret police turned art thieves, Hill had no choice but to trust his life to gadgetry. The good guys-the German counterparts of the FBI-had given him a briefcase rigged up so that when Hill pressed a b.u.t.ton it sent out an electronic "come quick" signal. In a parking garage beneath a hotel in Wurzburg, Germany, Hill met with the Czech gangsters and perused the stolen paintings they proposed to sell him. The Germans were poised to race in when they got Hill's signal. Hill pressed the b.u.t.ton. Nothing happened. Maybe the problem had to do with being underground, or perhaps there was a mechanical failure. He tried again. Still nothing.

For half an hour, Hill studied and restudied the paintings, playing for time and rambling on about Lucas Cranach and Veronese and Reni as best he could, to an audience made up of cops gone bad, at least one of them a killer. When he could manage to do it inconspicuously, he tried again to send the help signal. Nothing. Finally the Germans acted on their own, bursting in brandishing Dirty Harry handguns and arresting everyone. Hill and the Czech gang leader ended up sprawled next to one another face-down on the concrete floor. A cop bent low to handcuff Hill's arms behind his back and whispered into his ear, "Goot verk!"

Charley Hill, on the grounds of Blenheim Palace. The pose was a subtle homage to one of Hill's favorite paintings, Gilbert Stuart's The Skater The Skater. A man of action with a connoisseur's eye, Hill liked to think of himself as spiritual kin to Stuart's skating scholar.

Gilbert Stuart, The Skater The Skater. 1782 oil on canvas, 147.4 245.5 cm National Gallery of Art. Washington DC, USA /Bridgeman Art Library Hill's pa.s.sport photo, taken in 1969 in Saigon.

A memorial service for the eleven men of Bravo Company's Lima Platoon, killed in an ambush on Easter Monday, 1969.

Zita Hill, Charley's mother. An elegant, high-spirited woman, Zita trained as a ballerina but joined Bluebell Kelly's troupe of high-kicking dancers for a European tour just before the outbreak of World War II.

Landon Hill, Charley's father, in Air Force uniform.

Hill is proud of his dual ancestry, "log cabin on one side and knight of the realm on the other." His mother grew up in a glamorous English household where the likes of George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells were frequent visitors. His father's family hailed from the American west. Here several of Hill's relatives (the boy who would become his grandfather is sixth from the left) pose in front of the family homestead in Oklahoma in the 1890s.

In Charley Hill's first case as an undercover detective, two crooks tried to sell him a painting by the 16th-century Italian Parmigianino. The painter's most famous work, often called the Madonna of the Long Neck Madonna of the Long Neck because of its exaggerated proportions, is at left. Hill examined the crooks' painting and told them he thought their prize was a fake. because of its exaggerated proportions, is at left. Hill examined the crooks' painting and told them he thought their prize was a fake.

Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery was stolen from London's Courtauld Inst.i.tute of Art Gallery by a thief who tucked it under his arm and ran out the door. The painting, by Bruegel, was valued at 2 million. The painting eventually made its way to a gang of small-time thieves, who showed it to an expert to find out if it had any value. The expert took a look and fainted. was stolen from London's Courtauld Inst.i.tute of Art Gallery by a thief who tucked it under his arm and ran out the door. The painting, by Bruegel, was valued at 2 million. The painting eventually made its way to a gang of small-time thieves, who showed it to an expert to find out if it had any value. The expert took a look and fainted.

Francesco Mazzola Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long Neck, 1534-40 oil on panel, 135 219 cm Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Italy /Bridgeman Art Library Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, 1565 oil on panel, 34.4 24.1 cm The Samuel Courtauld Trust. Courtauld Inst.i.tute of Art Gallery, London Photograph of Edvard Munch c.1892 Munch Museum, Oslo Munch painted his self-portrait in 1895, two years after The Scream The Scream. A more tormented man would be hard to imagine. "Disease, insanity, and death were the angels which attended my cradle," he once wrote, and they chased poor Munch throughout his long life.

Edvard Munch, Self-Portrait with Self-Portrait with Cigarette, 1895 oil on canvas, 85.5 110.5 cm PHOTO: J. Lathion: National Gallery. Norway/ARS J. Lathion: National Gallery. Norway/ARS Edvard Munch, Spring Evening on Karl Johan Street Spring Evening on Karl Johan Street, 1892 oil on canvas, 121 84.5 cm Courtesy of the Bergen Art Museum /ARS Munch painted this melancholy street scene, Spring Evening on Karl Johan Street Spring Evening on Karl Johan Street, in 1892, a year before The Scream The Scream. The skull-like heads and staring eyes would reappear in The Scream The Scream.

The Scream has served as the basis for countless spoofs and cartoons. Munch, a tormented and melancholy man, had hoped that audiences would "understand the holiness" of his images. has served as the basis for countless spoofs and cartoons. Munch, a tormented and melancholy man, had hoped that audiences would "understand the holiness" of his images.

Munch may have seen this Incan mummy at the Palais du Trocadero (now the Musee de l'Homme) in Paris. Some art historians believe it helped inspire The Scream's The Scream's central figure. central figure.

Pl Enger was an ex-soccer star turned crook and a publicity hound. Enger, who had been convicted in 1988 for stealing Munch's Vampire Vampire, was a natural suspect when The Scream The Scream vanished. He had an alibi, though, and enjoyed teasing the police. Here he poses next to the spot where vanished. He had an alibi, though, and enjoyed teasing the police. Here he poses next to the spot where The Scream The Scream had hung; in the place of the $72-million masterpiece is a poster from the museum's gift shop, hanging above a label reading "Stolen." had hung; in the place of the $72-million masterpiece is a poster from the museum's gift shop, hanging above a label reading "Stolen."

The National Gallery, in Oslo. The Scream The Scream had been moved from its customary location in the museum to the second floor, so that it would be more convenient for tourists. Not only was the painting moved closer to ground level, but it was hung in a room with easy access from the street and within a few feet of a window. This photo was snapped moments after had been moved from its customary location in the museum to the second floor, so that it would be more convenient for tourists. Not only was the painting moved closer to ground level, but it was hung in a room with easy access from the street and within a few feet of a window. This photo was snapped moments after The Scream The Scream vanished. Note the billowing curtains, as the wind blows through the broken window, and the police tape. vanished. Note the billowing curtains, as the wind blows through the broken window, and the police tape.

The Scream was stolen on the opening day of the Winter Olympics in 1994. With the world's attention focused on Norway, the was stolen on the opening day of the Winter Olympics in 1994. With the world's attention focused on Norway, the Scream Scream thieves stole the international spotlight as well as a $72-million painting. thieves stole the international spotlight as well as a $72-million painting.

An art dealer named Einar-Tore Ulving found himself mixed up in The Scream The Scream case when an ex-convict client told him he had underworld contacts who could arrange for the return of Munch's masterpiece. case when an ex-convict client told him he had underworld contacts who could arrange for the return of Munch's masterpiece.

The first break in the case -following a tip from an anonymous caller, authorities found a piece of The Scream's The Scream's ornate frame. The National Gallery's ID numbers proved that the frame was the real thing. ornate frame. The National Gallery's ID numbers proved that the frame was the real thing.

Leif Lier, the Norwegian detective in charge of The Scream The Scream case. case.

John Butler headed up the three-man team that Scotland Yard sent to Norway to find The Scream The Scream.

Charley Hill's business card, for his role as wheeler-dealer Chris Roberts, "The Man from the Getty."

Adam Worth, the renowned Victorian thief, provided the model for Sherlock Holmes's nemesis, Professor Moriarty. Worth stole one of the most famous paintings of his day, Gainsborough's Portrait of Georgiana Portrait of Georgiana, and kept it with him, secretly, for twenty-five years. Worth is the only undisputed example of a thief who stole a masterpiece and clung to it not for profit but for his own delectation.

Thomas Gainsborough, Georgiana, d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire Georgiana, d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire, 1787 oil on canvas, 74 102 cm The Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth. Reproduced by permission of the Chatsworth Settlement Trustees.

Perugia was arrested in Florence. Though convicted, he was sentenced to only twelve months, reduced on appeal to seven. Perugia, an Italian, argued successfully that he had been motivated by patriotism, not greed, and wanted only to see the Mona Lisa Mona Lisa in its homeland. Here officials at the Uffizi examine the painting before returning it to France. in its homeland. Here officials at the Uffizi examine the painting before returning it to France.

On a Monday morning in August, 1911, a day when the Louvre was closed to the public, a carpenter named Vincenzo Perugia sneaked out of a closet where he had hidden overnight. He hurried to the Mona Lisa Mona Lisa, took the painting off the wall, tucked it inside his coat, and walked out the door. Two years later, when he tried to sell the world-famous work, he was arrested. (Police misspelled his name in this mug shot.) David and Mary Duddin. A major-league fence, or seller of stolen goods, Duddin was dubbed "Mr. Big" by an English judge. Duddin once tried to sell a stolen Rembrandt. He wasn't much impressed by the painting. "I wouldn't hang it on me wall," he scoffed.

Kempton Bunton, who was Mary Dud-din's uncle, was in the art line himself. In 1961 he stole Goya's Portrait of the Duke of Wellington Portrait of the Duke of Wellington from London's National Gallery. (See photo insert p. 5.) from London's National Gallery. (See photo insert p. 5.) Rose Dugdale, an ex-debutante turned political radical, stole a Vermeer, a Goya, a Velasquez, and sixteen other paintings from Russborough House, a stately home outside Dublin. The theft was inept and all the paintings were quickly recovered. At her trial in 1974, Dugdale proclaimed herself "proudly and incorruptibly guilty." She was sentenced to nine years in prison.

In 1986, a Dublin gangster named Martin Cahill robbed Russborough House yet again, pulling off what was then the biggest art theft ever. "The General," as Cahill was known, was a vicious thug-he once took hammer and nails to the hands of a gang member he suspected of betrayal-who had a strange sense of showmanship. Here Cahill is led to jail; the gangster, who made a fetish of hiding his face, nonetheless flaunts a pair of boxer shorts and a Mickey Mouse T-shirt. Art thieves have attacked Russborough House four times so far.

Niall Mulvihill, a Cahill a.s.sociate. Charley Hill, who recovered the two most valuable paintings stolen by Martin Cahill, negotiated their return with Mulvihill. (See photo insert p. 3.) In 2003 Mulvihill was shot to death by a gunman in Dublin.

One of the very few thieves who stole art for his own collection, Stephane Breitwieser was a French waiter arrested in the winter of 2003 for stealing perhaps $1.4 billion worth of paintings and other objects. When the police closed in, his mother sliced many of the paintings in tiny pieces and threw them away in the trash and tossed others into a ca.n.a.l near her home. Here police search the partly drained ca.n.a.l.

Arkan, a Serbian gangster and accused war criminal, was reportedly involved in the theft of two Turners, worth a total of $80 million, stolen in 1994 while on exhibit in Frankfurt, Germany. Above, on a tank captured by his "Tigers" unit, he poses with a tiger cub. Art thieves were once dashing figures like Adam Worth. Today the swashbucklers have been shoved aside by brutes like Martin Cahill and Arkan.

Whenever a world-famous painting disappears, police speculate that some master criminal, a real-life Thomas Crown, has ordered the painting for his private collection. Outside of Hollywood, Charley Hill insists, there are only wannabe Thomas Crowns like Stephane Breitwieser, never outsize figures on a Hollywood scale. One villain who supposedly a.s.sembled a collection of paintings stolen to order was the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston was the site of the largest art theft ever-eleven paintings and drawings worth $300 million. The photo above shows the museum courtyard. The robbery, still unsolved, is the holy grail of art crime. The FBI reward in the case is $5 million. Ten years after the theft, the FBI admitted that "we haven't got a clue," and, after another four years, the agency remains stymied.

27.

Front-Row Seat Undercover work is not a spectator sport. Almost always, the only eyewitnesses are the partic.i.p.ants themselves, and both cops and robbers have biases that distort their view. Dennis Farr, who was director of the Courtauld when thieves stole its 2 million Bruegel-this was the "Peter Brewgal" affair-is one of the rare laymen who have seen an undercover operation.

Farr is a tall, thin man with elegant manners. He looks like a fluttery type, a bird-watcher perhaps, the sort of scholar who would go pale at the sight of a typo. As the Bruegel case played out, though, it fell to Farr to string crooks along on the phone (while Art Squad detectives at his elbow listened in and scribbled him instructions). He found he had a flair for the task. "One discovers one has a bit of a thespian bent," he acknowledges shyly.

Charley Hill and Dennis Farr hit it off at once. Hill put on his best manners at their first meeting, deferring to "Dr. Farr" and chatting away about the Courtauld collection and art in general. Bruegel was one of Hill's favorites. He grew animated when he discussed how Bruegel had painted the shaft of light that descends from the left and illuminates Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, the stolen painting. Farr took up the theme, and both men went on to a happy discussion of similar uses of light in Rembrandt and Vermeer.

Farr is no sn.o.b, and he had been taken with the other Art Squad detectives, too, but Hill intrigued him. "As soon as I met him," Farr recalls, "I saw there was a maverick quality in Charles Hill. I said to myself, 'He's either going to end up commissioner of the metropolitan police, or he'll quit the force altogether.' "

The second time they met, Farr found Hill considerably changed. The plan was to rendezvous with the crooks, and Hill was in character. "I was a loudmouthed 'Hey there, you old son of a b.i.t.c.h' kind of guy," Hill recalls. For this role, the point was not not to come across as an art connoisseur but as someone so smug and ignorant that he was ripe for the plucking. "I wasn't arty, but I was a trophy art type, some J. Ralston Ridgeway type from Dallas, Texas. Those guys are legion. They're the ones who buy fakes and spend big bucks on overpriced paintings. They're extremely wealthy chumps who see art as a way to establish their bona fides in society. So that was me, some a.s.shole who's got more money than sense." to come across as an art connoisseur but as someone so smug and ignorant that he was ripe for the plucking. "I wasn't arty, but I was a trophy art type, some J. Ralston Ridgeway type from Dallas, Texas. Those guys are legion. They're the ones who buy fakes and spend big bucks on overpriced paintings. They're extremely wealthy chumps who see art as a way to establish their bona fides in society. So that was me, some a.s.shole who's got more money than sense."

The meeting with the crooks was set for the Savoy, a grand old hotel on the Strand, overlooking the Thames. Ideally, the thieves would produce the painting, Hill would hand over a ransom, and a gang of cops would burst from hiding to make the arrests.

Farr was thrilled with his insider's peek at all the planning and deception. Hill and Farr walked into Hill's hotel room-a large and handsome suite, with a river view-and Hill started yelling almost at once. He'd been in a foul mood all day Hill was a big-picture thinker, not a detail man, he liked to say, but sometimes details did catch his eye. The police had showed up earlier in the day with the ransom money, 100,000 in 20 notes, stuffed in "a c.r.a.ppy police cardboard kind of thing." Any crook would immediately start wondering what kind of high-roller he was dealing with. Hill insisted the police buy him a proper leather bag. Hill had won that battle, but his superiors had been horrified at the cost of a leather case intended as a one-time prop.

Now, in the suite, he saw at once that the carpet had been tamped down by the cops in the surveillance team. Size 12 footprints were everywhere, because the cops had been stuffing wires down every crevice they could find. "It looks like the Serengeti after the gnus have gone thundering past," Hill complained to Farr.

Hill called for the cops. "Get somebody in here to get rid of these f.u.c.king footprints," he shouted. "Those guys are going to come in here and see that, and then we're all f.u.c.ked!"

Once the telltale footprints had been vacuumed away, Hill relaxed. He picked up the phone and ordered a bottle of champagne and a tray of smoked salmon sandwiches. Farr scanned the room to decide which sofa would be the best to hide behind, if anyone started shooting. ("Now, dear," his wife had told him that morning, "don't come home perforated.") In the meantime, he rehea.r.s.ed his a.s.signed line time after time. "This is what we're after," Farr was to shout, and on that signal the cops in the next room would rush in.

Hill asked Farr if he had ever seen 100,000 in cash.

"No, let's have a look."

Hill unlatched his new case, which burst open, spilling money everywhere. The maid knocked on the door, with the smoked salmon. "And Charles Hill and I were sitting on this b.l.o.o.d.y briefcase," Farr says, "trying to squash it flat."

"The whole thing was marvelous," Farr bubbles. "Hill was totally convincing. He dressed elegantly, not flashily, but he exuded exuded money, shall we say. He just had this presence. You've met Charles Hill? So you know he's a big, broad-shouldered chap, and he just... well, when he chooses, he can throw his weight about." money, shall we say. He just had this presence. You've met Charles Hill? So you know he's a big, broad-shouldered chap, and he just... well, when he chooses, he can throw his weight about."

Bullies like the one Hill was playing were new in Farr's experience. He himself was fond of expressions seldom heard outside a boy's adventure magazine of the type popular three-quarters of a century ago-his stories are full of "blighters" and "frightful chaps" and even "four-flushing swine"-and he watched Hill's performance goggle-eyed.

Years later, he could still recite many of the exotically ugly phrases Hill had thrown around so casually. "I remember, he leaned over and tapped the case with the marked bills and said. 'This money will stick to 'em like dog s.h.i.t,' "Farr says gleefully. The line holds such appeal that he tries it a second time, like a mischievous schoolboy reading aloud a s.m.u.tty scribble on the wall.

"Charles Hill knew just how to play a big, swaggering, loudmouthed American, if I may say that, saving your grace," Farr says. "'I can't waste my time with this, I'm off to Europe tomorrow, I've got business all over the world, I can't be dealing with little twits like you.' "

Farr frets that his cultured accent drains this "good, coa.r.s.e stuff" of virtually all its menace, but he replays his favorite lines nonetheless. "I've had it about up to here with your horses.h.i.t," he growls, mimicking Hill.

Though Farr didn't know it, that seemingly offhand line was far from casual. The key was the word "horses.h.i.t." It is an Americanism, first of all, and reinforced Hill's American persona. In the taxonomy of nonsense, "bulls.h.i.t" is universal, but "horses.h.i.t" is unique to America. Second, the r r sound emphasized Hill's American accent and reminded him to keep hammering those r's. sound emphasized Hill's American accent and reminded him to keep hammering those r's.

At the Savoy, Hill abused the thieves for the better part of an hour and then threw them out, even though he had yet to see the stolen Bruegel. d.i.c.k Ellis was hidden in a hotel room next door, eavesdropping as the tape recorders whirred.

Even Ellis and his fellow cops, as experienced with scenes like this as Farr was new to them, feared Hill had overdone it. "We were saying, 'Charley, steady down. We're gonna lose these guys.' "

"He said, 'Don't worry, they'll be back,' "Ellis recalled.

"And he was absolutely right. They came back. They came back, they got arrested, and they got convicted."

28.

A Crook's Tale Hill's confidence in his ability to read crooks is a product of endless hours listening to their tales. Many are hard to draw out. Not David Duddin. A flamboyant, 300-pound crook who once tried to sell a stolen Rembrandt, Duddin recounts past misdeeds with the relish of a retired athlete recalling the first time he heard a delirious crowd shout his name.

The world that Hill navigates is replete with treacherous but useful characters like Duddin. Hill and Duddin go back several years; they met when Hill visited Duddin in prison, after the Rembrandt deal had gone bad. Hill hadn't been involved in catching Duddin, but he hoped to cultivate him as a source.

Duddin lies with gusto and without scruple, for the sheer style of it. Convivial and self-absorbed, he talks freely about crime and crooks, with only the most perfunctory nods toward conventional morality. It's all a bit of a lark. Where's the harm?

One of his favorite roles is tour guide to the underworld. "I'll let you make up your own mind how criminally minded you think I am," he begins. "I don't particularly think I am am criminally minded, but having said that, I've been found guilty of six counts of handling stolen goods, so that's me criminal record." criminally minded, but having said that, I've been found guilty of six counts of handling stolen goods, so that's me criminal record."

This seeming confession is in fact closer to a boastful dig in the ribs, an invitation to share in the joke. "Who are you going to believe," the tone implies, "me or some judge?" In Duddin's world, the fundamentals of morality-tell the truth, keep your promises, pay your debts, and so on-are not rules to live by but a credo for suckers. To earn your living by the sweat of your brow is to proclaim yourself a sap.

Duddin is no sap. Straight society is something to plunder, not to join. He explains matter-of-factly, for example, that although art is always easy to steal, stealing from Britain's grand and stately homes (like Russborough House) is easiest of all. The homes are colossally expensive to keep up, and many of the owners have decided that their only chance of survival is to open up to ticket-buying visitors. "Picture your own house," Duddin says. "Would you take several thousand people around it, and then think it was secure? You wouldn't, would you?

"I've spoken with people-and bear in mind that where I've been, I've been with some of the heavier criminals in the country-and they say, 'If somebody's going to show you something and tell you it's worth millions, well, then, you're going to take it.'

"It's natural. It's normal. It's redistribution of wealth." This last grand phrase is a mocking joke, and Duddin rolls the words around his mouth voluptuously, savoring the syllables.

Ma.s.sive and slow-moving, with arms like hams, Duddin is a great Buddha of a man, albeit a Buddha who favors such touches as gold Rolexes and bright red jackets and gleaming red shoes to match. His criminal ambition was as outsized as the man himself. At his peak, Duddin drove a Rolls-Royce ("a Roller") and gave his wife a BMW as a Christmas present. The judge who sent him away for selling the Rembrandt and a host of other stolen treasures said Duddin was the biggest handler of stolen goods in England and dubbed him "Mr. Big."

In his early days, Duddin ran a jewelry business. The illegal buying and selling took place in a back room. Duddin presided from behind a large, nearly bare desk. Neatly arrayed atop the desk were a scale and an eyepiece, a Kellogg's Cornflakes box stuffed with cash, and a shotgun. No one ever mentioned the shotgun, which faced outward, but it did seem to cut down on haggling over the prices Duddin offered his clients for their wares.

He has lived all his life in Newcastle, in the north of England, and he speaks with the thick local accent. "I was blind out of me skull," he says, fondly recalling one monumental bender, and, to American ears, the stretched-out vowels give his speech the wavery sound of a tape played on a malfunctioning machine: "I was blaind oot of me skool."

Duddin's wife, Mary, is always by his side. She is tiny, though she teeters on colossal high heels, and she has bright red hair and a tiny voice, too, pitched in a high squeak. Mary looks as if she has just wandered in from a rehearsal of Guys and Dolls Guys and Dolls, but she is shrewder than her husband, and far too shrewd to acknowledge that she knows it. As Duddin talks, Mary plays the role of the attorney who whispers a helpful word into her client's ear while he covers the microphone and turns away from his senatorial prosecutors.

Mary's family, too, is in the art line. In 1961, in one of the notorious art thefts in recent history, someone stole Goya's Portrait of the Duke of Wellington Portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. The theft generated enormous publicity because the museum had purchased the painting only weeks before, after a great kerfuffle. The painting had been in private hands and had sold at auction to an American oilman for 140,000. Furious at the prospect of losing a famous painting of a national hero to a foreign buyer, Parliament and a private foundation came up with 140,000 of their own. The American gave in, the painting stayed home, and the National Gallery put it on exhibit. Eighteen days later, it vanished. from the National Gallery in London. The theft generated enormous publicity because the museum had purchased the painting only weeks before, after a great kerfuffle. The painting had been in private hands and had sold at auction to an American oilman for 140,000. Furious at the prospect of losing a famous painting of a national hero to a foreign buyer, Parliament and a private foundation came up with 140,000 of their own. The American gave in, the painting stayed home, and the National Gallery put it on exhibit. Eighteen days later, it vanished.

In 1962, with the portrait still missing, the first James Bond movie opened. This was Dr. No Dr. No, and the plot, such as it was, had to do with a villain who hatched evil schemes at a secret lair in the Caribbean. Dr. No took Bond on a house tour, which led past a portrait mounted on an easel. Lest anyone miss the joke, Bond did a double-take and the camera moved in for a close-up of the Duke of Wellington Duke of Wellington.

The real portrait finally turned up in 1965, unharmed but without its frame, lying amid a jumble of forgotten suitcases in the lost-luggage office of the train station in Birmingham. Six weeks later, the thief turned himself in, apparently convinced that the world would want to hear his story and that no one would punish a person for stealing something that was back where it belonged. The self-proclaimed thief was an unemployed taxi driver named Kempton Bunton, a Newcastle man who looked a bit like Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k.

Bunton, a clumsy, eccentric man in his sixties, was Mary's uncle. "Only an uncle by marriage," she clarifies, "me auntie's husband. Well, I don't know how he got the painting home, but he put it in his cupboard in the bedroom. And Auntie made a joke the night he turned himself in. 'I've been sleeping with the Duke of Wellington for four years,' she said, 'and I've never even known.' "

At his trial, Bunton explained that he had stolen the painting as a political protest. He had no interest in commercial gain; his sole aim was to remedy a gross injustice. The government charged everyone who owned a television set a yearly fee, which went to support the BBC. Not even the elderly were exempt. Bunton was beside himself. What kind of government charged its citizens to watch television and then lavished 140,000 on a b.l.o.o.d.y painting? painting?

Both judge and jury seemed to find Bunton endearing, and they apparently had doubts about whether he really was agile enough to have taken the Goya from the museum by climbing out a window in a men's bathroom, as he claimed. The jury performed a contortionist's trick of its own. Bunton was not guilty of stealing the painting, they found, but he was guilty of stealing the frame. The judge imposed a sentence of three months.

Mary does not believe that her uncle stole the portrait. His two sons did, she says, and then he horned in on their glory. (The family, she says, was "all a bit nuts"-"a bit noots.") It is a convincing if not ringing defense: her uncle was too fat to steal, not too honest. It is a convincing if not ringing defense: her uncle was too fat to steal, not too honest.

Duddin's world and the conventional one are not self-contained. They meet occasionally, as the lion's world sometimes meets the antelope's. But in ordinary times the two worlds are are isolated from one another, and Duddin betrays surprise when it becomes clear that yet another commonplace feature of his life is strange to an outsider. Mundane questions-How big a bag does it take to hold 20,000 in small bills? How long would it take to count?-throw him off-stride for a moment, as if an earnest visitor had asked him to explain how to make a sandwich or dial a phone. isolated from one another, and Duddin betrays surprise when it becomes clear that yet another commonplace feature of his life is strange to an outsider. Mundane questions-How big a bag does it take to hold 20,000 in small bills? How long would it take to count?-throw him off-stride for a moment, as if an earnest visitor had asked him to explain how to make a sandwich or dial a phone.

A broader question that seems absolutely fundamental to a layman-Why steal a masterpiece?-leaves him frustrated and befuddled. Art is worth stealing because it's valuable; what valuable means means is "worth stealing." is "worth stealing."

Speaking slowly and emphatically, Duddin strives to make matters clear. "If it's very easy to take," he says, "it doesn't matter if you've got a buyer for it or not. If it's difficult difficult to take, you're going to make sure there's a market for it, because you've got to put extra work into it." to take, you're going to make sure there's a market for it, because you've got to put extra work into it."

But what do you do with it?

Driven to distraction, Duddin resorts almost to baby talk. He has been sipping his drink, but this calls for a pause and a deeper swallow. "Mr. Burglar, all right, goes and steals a painting that he's got no market for. If he's a professional burglar, then he deals with people regular. Someone who regularly steals antiques, we'll say, will have an antique dealer that he deals with. So he goes to that antique dealer and says, 'I know this isn't your kind of meat, but I've got this'-Duddin lowers his voice to a stage whisper-'and it's worth a fortune. All I want is twenty grand on something that's worth two million.' "

Here Duddin interrupts himself to add an explanatory note. "All they want is enough money to live on for the next six months, what they call 'working money.' Enough money to go and look at other things and do something that's easier sold."

"I didn't realize 'til I went to prison," Duddin says, with feigned coyness, "that people that burgle houses for a living consider they've got a purpose in life. They consider it their job. It's a job of work, isn't it? No different than a doctor going to hospital every day."

It is not just work but hard work. "It costs money to burgle houses," Duddin says wearily. "You've got to go and look around, you've got to set it all up, you've got to have transport. It's like a building contractor, isn't it?"

Duddin is as disdainful as Hill of the notion that reclusive tyc.o.o.ns commission thieves to steal for them. "Do you honestly think there are people who have millions of pounds, and art collections worth millions, who would risk going to prison for a painting?" he scoffs. "Are you addled? Would you you, if you had that sort of money? It doesn't make sense, does it?