Lost and Found Page 4

  “Dewey and Notch are old friends of the family. They served under my father’s command a long time ago. We’ve kept in touch with them over the years. When the helmet went missing, they called me to ask if there was anything I could do about it.”

  “I see.” It was the first tiny glimpse she’d had of his past. It made her hungry for more, but she could see that it wasn’t going to be forthcoming at the moment. “You know as well as I do that this is probably a wild goose chase. Why are you acting as if you think the helmet is genuine? Why raise their hopes?”

  He shrugged. “When Notch called me and told me what had happened, my first assumption was that the piece was a reproduction and not worth trying to trace. But I agreed to come here and take a look around. Now I’m inclined to think someone may have known what he was doing when he grabbed the thing. If he had just wanted a nice souvenir, why not take the fifteenth-century parade helmet? It’s a lot flashier.”

  She thought for a moment. “I assume you called the company that crafted the rest of the garniture to see if it had made the missing helmet?”

  “Yes. It’s an old-line firm that specializes in museum-quality reproduction pieces. I was told that they had made a helm to go with the rest of the suit, but not the one in that picture.”

  She pondered the dimly lit photo. There was no denying that there was something about the shape of the helmet that did not match the lines of the breastplate and the other pieces.

  “There are a lot of other companies that specialize in reproductions,” she reminded him. “This could be a mix-and-match suit that has been assembled from several different sources.”

  “I called all of the usual firms. None of them had any patterns that duplicated the design of that helmet. None of them knew of any competitors who were producing any similar designs.”

  “I’ve got some books I can check. And I’ll talk to some people. I’ve got a couple of friends who curate arms and armor collections at two of the big museums. I’ll see what I can do.” She got to her feet and picked up her purse. “I suppose there’s no point telling Dewey and Notch not to pin their hopes on recovering this piece.”

  “Afraid not. They’re psyched, as you can see.”

  “This is Vegas. It’s obvious where they’re coming from. But I would have thought you’d be a bit more pragmatic, Mr. Easton.”

  He rose in an easy, deceptively languid movement that took his face back into deep shadow. “I’m following a hunch, Miss Briggs.”

  She paused at the door and turned back to study him for a moment. “The same kind of hunch you followed when you asked me to trace that Spanish ewer last month?”

  “Yes.”

  His instincts had been right in that case. They had been right in the other two jobs she’d done for him, too. In the art world, you learned to respect good instincts.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she repeated. “But no guarantees. Understood?”

  “Understood, Miss Briggs.” He came around the end of the desk. “You know how to reach me. Call me as soon as you’ve got anything solid.”

  Something in his voice, an edge of warning perhaps, made her glance quickly at his face. He was standing in a narrow shaft of light. She got a good look at his eyes for the first time. They were fog gray.

  Another of the odd little thrills of awareness shot through her, raising the fine hairs at the nape of her neck.

  She nodded once, turned and continued briskly out of the office. Mack followed and fell into step beside her.

  “I’ll have Dewey call you a cab to take you to the airport,” he said.

  “Do you live here in Vegas?” She tried to make the question eminently casual.

  “No. But my flight doesn’t leave until this evening. Thought I’d use the time to go through Military World’s old records and files. You never know what might turn up.”

  And that, she thought, was all she was going to get out of him. He didn’t live in Las Vegas. So what? The information told her nothing useful.

  Together they walked through the gloom-shrouded ranks of still and silent soldiers, through the history of a thousand years of war technology. Twelfth-century mail gave way to the heavy metal of the sixteenth century that, in turn, evolved into the familiar camouflage-clad figures of the modern era. Swords and lances gave way to guns. The shapes of the helmets changed slightly. The lethal, high-tech gear that constituted the new version of knightly armor appeared.

  Only the technology changed, she thought. The goals remained the same.

  Armor was not her favorite among the decorative arts.

  Three

  When she got home that night she poured herself a glass of wine, sat down at the computer and opened the “Fantasy Man” file. She browsed through some of the more recent correspondence she had received from Mack Easton and paused to read one piece in particular.

  Dear Miss Briggs:

  You’re the expert, but as far as I’m concerned you’re wrong when you say that the essential element of Regency style is an intellectual approach to design. It’s sophisticated on the surface, of course, but underneath there is a lush, seething sensuality. The pieces make you want to stroke them. Then again, what do I know? I just trace old antiques, I don’t study them…

  Maybe the references to seething sensuality and stroking had not been intended as anything other than descriptive, Cady thought.

  Dear Miss Briggs:

  You were right about that restaurant in San Francisco. I tried it last week when business took me to the city. Great pasta. What is it about good food that makes a man think of fine art and great sex?

  It would certainly be fascinating to know what kind of sex Mack Easton classified as great.

  She took a deep breath and reached out to shut down the computer. She had not misread the signals today. Mack had been flirting with her.

  On the plane back to San Francisco he resorted to doing what he often did late at night when he could not sleep. He cranked up his laptop and opened the file in which he stored the on-line correspondence she had e-mailed to him during the past two months. He started with the most recent messages, pausing at one of his favorites.

  Dear Mr. Easton:

  I am pleased to hear that you were satisfied with my work on the Spanish ewer project. Let me know if I can be of further service. I have enjoyed the consulting that I have done for Lost and Found and hope to do more of it in the future.

  By the way, I still feel that the Neoclassical design elements of the Regency period are fundamentally intellectual in nature, not a cover for “lush, seething sensuality”…

  It only went to show that even the experts could be wrong, he thought. He knew lush, seething sensuality when he saw it. And he had certainly seen it today when he had looked into the eyes of Cady Briggs.

  All those late-night fantasies that had been keeping him awake lately had a strong basis in reality. The lady was everything the voice on the phone had promised, and more.

  Four

  Jonathan Arden gave his tiny silver-haired client a reassuring smile as he placed his palm on the surface of the old pedestal table. Hattie Woods watched anxiously.

  Silly old fool, he thought. He closed his eyes for effect and held himself very still for a few seconds. Then he shuddered, drew a deep breath and raised his lashes.

  “Yes.” He sucked in a small, sharp breath and snatched his hand off the top of the table as if it had been burned.

  “Oh, dear.” Alarm flashed briefly across Hattie’s soft features. “Are you all right, Mr. Arden?”

  “Yes, thank you. I’m afraid it goes with the territory, so to speak. Especially with the older pieces.” He managed a weary smile. It was important to give the appearance of having expended an enormous amount of energy.

  “The table is genuine, then?” Hattie asked eagerly. “Old furniture can be so tricky, you know. I realize the Austrey-Post experts have authenticated it, but mistakes get made in the best galleries. I can’t bear the thought of having a fak
e in my collection. I’m going to leave everything to a museum, you see. They’ve promised to name a wing after me. It’s vital that every piece be an original.”

  “I understand, Ms. Woods.”

  “That’s why I asked you to take a look at it for me. I wanted to be sure.”

  “There is no reason to be concerned about this table.” He glanced quickly around the gallery showroom. It was only lightly crowded this afternoon. No members of the dignified staff stood close enough to overhear his conversation with Hattie. “Early nineteenth century. English Regency period. It really is a lovely old piece.”

  “And the history?” Hattie pressed in a lower tone. She was practically bubbling with excitement now. “Did you feel anything curious or especially interesting?”

  Clients liked their antiques with lots of drama attached. A table that had been used to sign a famous treaty or to write a king’s letter of abdication was far more valuable than the same piece of furniture that had simply stood gathering dust in a private home. Jonathan studied the table, considering possibilities.

  “It has seen its share of excitement, I can tell you that,” he said. “There is an aura of old violence surrounding it. I could feel intense anger and some fear when I touched the surface. Also…”

  “Yes? What is it, Mr. Arden?”

  “Pain, I believe.” Jonathan kept his voice subdued, almost meditative. “I would not be surprised if a duel took place in the vicinity of this table. A few drops of blood must have fallen on it to have left such strong emotional traces.”

  “Blood.” Hattie regarded the table with awe. “Imagine that.”

  Jonathan leaned closer and lowered his voice another notch to close the deal. “In my opinion it’s an exceptional value. In fact, it’s a bargain. The experts here at the gallery obviously did not recognize the true excellence of the piece.”

  Hattie clutched her purse and gave Jonathan a look that glittered with the feverish obsession of the true collector. “Now that I know for certain that it’s genuine and that there’s some interesting history attached to it, I have no problem with the price. Worth every penny.”

  “I think you’ll be very pleased.”

  “Thank you so much, Mr. Arden.” Hattie tightened her grip on her elegantly carved cane and started toward the glass doors at the front of the gallery. She moved with a careful air that spoke of delicate bones and a frail sense of balance. “You have been most helpful. I must admit that when you were first recommended to me, I had some serious reservations. When it comes to investing in art and antiques, I have always relied on my long-term relationships with dealers and friends in the business for professional opinions. It never occurred to me to consult a psychic.”

  “You certainly aren’t alone.” Jonathan fell into step beside her. “Very few people are sufficiently open-minded to take advantage of information that can be obtained from the metaphysical realm.”

  Hattie chuckled. “Well, I like to think that I am a bit more open-minded than most in that regard. I have had a lifelong interest in metaphysics, you know. I read a great deal in the field. But your particular talent was new to me.”

  Jonathan held the glass door open for her. “Psychometry is an uncommon psychic talent.”

  “Well, I’m not so sure about that.” Hattie pursed her lips and tilted her head in a dainty, considering fashion as she stepped out onto the busy San Francisco sidewalk. “When you think about it, there are many occasions in life when we look at an old object or walk into a strange room and are suddenly aware of some sort of sensation.”

  “An aura?” he suggested.

  “Yes, indeed.” She brightened. “An aura. A sense of something having happened in the vicinity. An unmistakable feeling of an emotional connection with the past. I expect that in your case, that ability is simply more acutely developed than it is in the rest of us.”

  “Perhaps. Whatever, I am delighted to have been of service, Ms. Woods.”

  “I shall be in touch the next time I am considering an acquisition.”

  Hattie inclined her head in a birdlike nod of dismissal and walked gingerly toward a black Lincoln that was parked in front of the gallery. A short, square man in an ill-fitting suit and tie straightened quickly from the fender to open the rear door for her. She gave him a vague smile as she got into the back of the big car. Then she glanced at Jonathan and lifted a thin-boned hand laden with a fortune in gold and gems in farewell.

  Silly old fool. The elderly made such easy targets, he thought. Loneliness did ninety percent of his work for him. Medications, chronic illness and the mind-clogging tendrils of dementia did the rest. Talk about shooting fish in a barrel.

  The short, square driver got behind the wheel, started the engine and eased the heavy Lincoln away from the curb. Jonathan smiled with satisfaction.

  When the Lincoln was out of sight, he walked to where his Jaguar was parked, opened the door and got inside. He glanced in the rearview mirror and grinned again as he calculated his cut on the table. All in all, it had been a good day’s work.

  The table was counterfeit, of course; an excellent fraud manufactured sometime during the past few months in a small European factory that employed some extraordinarily skilled forgers. The workmanship and the phony provenance had been good enough to fool the gallery staff. At least for a short time.

  His job was to lead the right client to the right piece before its authenticity could be questioned. Timing was everything. The scam was a slick one, but to be on the safe side it was important that none of the fakes fell into the wrong hands. There were experts, although very few according to his sources, who could detect the fine nuances that marked even the most brilliant reproductions.

  He saw to it that the furniture moved quickly once it arrived at the gallery. None of the items could be allowed to stand around long on the showroom floor, where it might attract unwanted attention. For that same reason, none of the pieces was designed to appear so unique or so magnificent as to warrant excessive interest.

  He had definitely moved into the big time with this latest venture. It certainly beat the phony investment schemes he had marketed for so many years. He was moving in much higher, much wealthier social circles, too. The money was rolling in quite nicely. He would have to look into the possibility of opening one of those off-shore accounts that the real pros used.

  Five

  Vesta Briggs stood alone in the two-story chamber and absorbed the soothing ambience of the past. If it were not for the heavy steel door with its computerized lock and the total absence of windows, one would never know that the richly paneled walls and the gleaming granite floor of this room covered what was, in fact, an elegant vault.

  The display cases extended from floor to ceiling. The shelves held her collection of precious antique boxes, hundreds of them, perhaps over a thousand now. She had begun collecting them years ago when she had finally accepted that, for her, there would be nothing to live for except Chatelaine’s.

  She turned slowly, breathing deeply of the atmosphere of the chamber. There was comfort to be found in the immutable past: a realm that remained frozen and locked in time, a world that could be visited again and again in memory and in dreams. She savored the cold fire of the glittering, polished works of art arrayed before her. Beautiful damascene chests from the sixteenth century; elegant seventeenth-century jewelry cases; gilded toilet sets that had once decorated the boudoirs of eighteenth-century ladies and courtesans; exquisitely carved writing cabinets from the early eighteen hundreds. Each had been crafted to hold secrets and precious objects. All were fitted with locks.

  She walked slowly across the room and stopped at the little spiral staircase. It led to a narrow balcony that encircled the chamber at the midway point. She put her hand on the polished rail and thought about the quarrel with Sylvia. It had not been pleasant. Perhaps she should have explained her decision to postpone the merger vote to her niece. Sylvia was the CEO of Gallery Chatelaine, after all.

  But she
wanted to be certain, Vesta thought. There was so much at stake. And in the end, the simple fact was that she did not have to explain anything. Not yet. Sylvia had assumed the day-to-day operations of Chatelaine’s, but they both knew that even though she had been forced to retreat into semiretirement, the founder of Chatelaine’s still controlled the shares that determined the fate of the gallery.

  She knew what the rest of the family was saying behind her back. The business with the psychic had been the last straw for Sylvia. Vesta smiled grimly. Long ago she had been labeled eccentric. Now they would wonder if dementia had set in.

  The expression on her niece’s face when she had confronted her about her appointments with Jonathan Arden had been almost amusing. The rest of the family would soon be buzzing with the news that Great-aunt Vesta had finally lost it completely. But they would keep quiet about it, she thought. Oh, yes, they would go to great lengths to conceal the information. None of them would want to risk having the news leaked to the art world. That sort of gossip would not only be professionally embarrassing, it would be bad for business.

  She gazed at a beautiful ornamental gold box on a nearby shelf and wondered what Cady would say when they told her about the visits to the psychic.

  Cady was not like the others. Cady understood her. That was because they were so much alike in so many ways. Cady wouldn’t leap to the conclusion that she had lost her grip on reality. Cady would ask questions first. Cady would look beneath the surface. It was her nature.

  Vesta put a hand to her waist and removed the magnificent piece of ancient jewelry known as the Nun’s Chatelaine. She had worn it to the Carnival Night committee meeting earlier that evening. Eleanor Middleton’s boundless enthusiasm for her duties as chair of the annual Phantom Point community event was admirable but tiresome. Still, it was important for Gallery Chatelaine to be represented on the committee. And given her semiretirement status, Vesta thought, she had no excuse for sticking someone else in the family with the task of volunteering for the committee work. She had never shirked her responsibility to Chatelaine’s.