London
Avery’s first thought as she stepped into the elegant if somewhat draughty Victorian building on King Street in the St. James district of the City of Westminster, which housed the primary sales floor and offices of Southwick’s of London, was that she had walked into a Charles Dickens story. Her subsequent interactions with the employees of the venerable auction house, and particularly with Nigel Chalmers, who had introduced himself as a Senior Specialist—whatever that meant—felt more like something from a Monty Python sketch. Dead Parrot, or maybe the Knights who Say “Ni!”
It probably had something to do with Chalmers’ accent, or the fact that he looked remarkably like a young Michael Palin.
“Miss Halsey, I’m very sorry, but as I’ve told you, we keep the affairs of our clients in the strictest confidence. Our business depends upon our dependability.”
Avery returned a tight smile, thinking, Here we go again.
“And as I’ve told you, Mr. Chalmers,” she said, “I’m not interested in your clients. I only want to establish the provenance of a piece you recently sold.”
Greg Johns, in the chair next to her, looked like he might be on the verge of dozing off. She knew it was an act. He was as alert as an owl, but she wouldn’t have blamed him for being drowsy. They had all just come off another all-nighter—this time riding the overnight high-speed train from Zurich to London—and come straight here. Kasey was outside, keeping an eye on the building and babysitting the Brazen Head.
She didn’t know how the two CIA agents had smuggled the artifact through customs, and they weren’t telling.
She and Greg were posing as appraisers working for an insurance company, which had seemed like a suitable cover identity for making an inquiry about the history of the brass automaton, but Chalmers was proving resolutely intractable, seemingly for no other reason than because he could.
“And as I’ve told you, Miss Halsey, that confidentiality embraces the goods our clients buy and sell.”
Avery realized now that they should have gone with their first plan, to pose as FBI agents working with Interpol. She smiled at the thought of Greg subjecting Chalmers to some enhanced interrogation techniques. Was it too late to switch tactics? Probably, but she was going to have to do something to end the absurd runaround.
She shifted her weight forward as if preparing to rise. “Well, that settles it then. I will take your refusal to cooperate as evidence of your willing collusion.”
Chalmers blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Yes, you are.” She stood. Greg gave her a sidelong glance, then nodded and rose as well.
Chalmers stood too, looking a little less unflappable than he had a moment before. “What do you mean by ‘collusion’?”
“I think you know exactly what I mean. It’s the only explanation for your... your bloody-mindedness.” She hoped that wasn’t too insulting, then decided she hoped it was. “Obviously, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to hide this if you didn’t have something to hide.
“I thought you were simply duped into helping them, but now I see it clearly. You’ve been working with them all along.”
“Working with whom, Miss Halsey? We hold ourselves to a very high standard of integrity in all our dealings. Our clients depend on it. I’m certain you’re laboring under a misapprehension. There’s nothing nefarious going on here, I assure you.”
“Your refusal to share the information I’ve requested tells me a different story. Good day, sir.” She turned and started for the door. Her first few steps were quick, too quick. She was almost at the door, and he wasn’t stopping her. Had he seen through her bluff?
“Miss Halsey, wait!”
Avery let out a relieved sigh, but took one more step for good measure before turning. “It’s Dr. Halsey, actually.”
He inclined his head. “Dr. Halsey. Perhaps I can set your mind at ease with respect to this one particular item. Please, what exactly is it that you want to know?”
Avery put her hands on her hips and glowered at him a moment longer. “A few months ago, you sold a Brazen Head automaton from the estate of Gerald Roche.”
“Yes, you said as much. As you know the late Mr. Roche was a former MP. It’s a tricky business, that.”
“I’m not interested in scandalizing the dead, Mr. Chalmers. I just want to know the provenance of that item.”
Chalmers gestured for her to return to her chair, and then sat down and began typing on his computer keyboard. “Ah, here it is. Medieval brazen head automaton believed to be from the Thirteenth Century.”
“Yes, I told you that, too.”
“This is the information the estate provided us. The authenticity of the piece wasn’t verified independently, which is, I suspect, why it didn’t sell for considerably more. I’m afraid that’s all I know.”
“You didn’t have it authenticated before you sold it?”
Chalmers shrugged helplessly. “It was the seller’s decision. The buyers are so warned. Caveat emptor, Dr. Halsey.”
Avery decided to play her wild card. “I’m not surprised the seller didn’t want the real history of that particular piece coming to light. I happen to know that the Brazen Head was seized by the Nazis from a wealthy Jewish family in Prague during the Holocaust.”
Chalmers’ eyes went wide in horror and disbelief. Avery thought the reaction was genuine but decided to set the hook anyway. “The only thing I still don’t know,” she went on, “is if you were a willing participant in the cover-up.”
Chalmers sat motionless for several seconds, then reached out for his keyboard again. After a moment, he mumbled, “I don’t know anything about that. There is one other entry here.”
“What a surprise.”
“Nothing more than a footnote really. According to some of Mr. Roche’s notes, the piece in question was sold to him by a private collector in Glasgow. A Mr. Walker. Alan Walker.”
He looked up with a hopeful expression. Avery just frowned. “Any contact info?”
Chalmers seemed to deflate a little more. He took a pen and notepad from his desk and began scribbling. “Mr. Walker passed away some years ago, but his daughter, Adelle, confirmed that the piece was in their family’s possession for many years before he sold it to Mr. Roche.” He tore off the page and pushed it across the desk top. “I promise you, that’s all I know about this. We would never willingly trade in illegally obtained articles.”
Avery glanced over at Greg. “You think he’s telling the truth?”
“That would be a refreshing change of pace,” Greg replied. “If he’s not, we know where to find him.”
Avery snatched the paper off the desktop and saw a name and an eleven-digit number. A phone number, she surmised. “Glasgow, huh? I wonder how it ended up there.”
Nigel Chalmers sat fuming for several minutes after his visitors departed. Their exceptional rudeness had been bad enough, but the none-too-subtle threat to link Southwick’s to scandalous activity was simply intolerable.
What if this was just the beginning? What if Dr. Halsey went public with her wild accusation that the auction house had traded in loot seized by the Nazis? He realized, too late, that he had erred in trying to stonewall the inquiry. Doing so would give the appearance of complicity. The mere hint of impropriety would do irreparable harm.
Yet, what else could he have done? The venerable auction house’s reputation was built on trust and confidentiality. The buyers and sellers were assured absolute discretion.
He returned his attention to the records associated with the item in question. There was nothing to be done about the sellers—in all likelihood, they had known all along—but the buyer... The buyer was Maxim Loew, an economist from New York, currently living in Zurich.
Loew? Bloody hell, the buyer was a Jew. If that didn’t complicate things...
He needed to get out ahead of the problem, do some damage control. He would contact Loew, let him know that Southwick’s was completely innocent and willing... no, eager to cooperate with the authorities in the pursuit of justice.
He picked up the phone and dialed the contact number listed in the sales record, waited patiently as the call rang through.
It rang several times then, “Hallo?”
“Yes, is this Mr. Loew?”
A brief pause, then a heavily accented voice said, “Mr. Loew is unavailable. Who is this?”
“I... Ah...” Chalmers’ first impulse was to simply ring off, but before he could act on the urge, the voice spoke again.
“This is the police. With whom am I speaking?”
“Police?” Now Chalmers definitely wanted to end the call, but that would only look suspicious.
So, he did the only thing he could. He told them who he was. And when they asked, he told them everything.
Avery would have preferred a face-to-face meeting with Adelle MacLean nee Walker, but Glasgow was four hundred miles off the beaten track, and she wasn’t going to commit to a trip like that without first calling to make sure that such a meeting was possible. She tapped the number into her phone, and as soon as she was outside the building, made the call. Once she had Adelle on the phone and explained what she hoped to learn, it became apparent that the trip would be unnecessary.
“Oh, I remember that old thing.” Adelle’s kind grandmotherly voice was edged with a Scottish burr that, for some perverse reason, made Avery visualize her as the comedian Mike Meyers in drag. “My da brought it home when I was just a wee lass. He put him on the mantel, but it made such a horrible racket we had to move it. After that, Da just used him as a hat stand.”
“I was hoping we could meet,” Avery said, walking toward the café down the street where Kasey waited. “I’d like to know more about it.”
“Well, there’s no need for you to come all this way,” Adelle said. “What do you want to know?”
“For starters, how did your father acquire it?”
“He took it from the captain.”
“The captain?”
“Och, Sorry, that’s what he always called him. Father said weren’t supposed to talk about him or discuss the bronze man with anyone, but that was years ago. I’m sure no one cares. And he did tell Mr. Roche, after all.”
“Ma’am, do you know the captain’s name?”
“He wasn’t really a captain at all. He just told everyone that so they wouldn’t know who he was. Didna fool anyone though. It was Mr. Hess.”
Avery stopped in her tracks. She felt like her brain was a slot machine, the wheels stopping in sequence.
Nazis. Scotland. Hess.
Jackpot!
She wondered if this was how Stone felt when he solved one of his puzzles.
“Hess? Rudolf Hess?”
“Aye. He parachuted down in the field in Floors Farms. Da and Mr. McLean went out to look for him. Mr. McLean found the captain, and Da found the Bronze Man. And that, as they say, was that. Leastwise until Mr. Roche paid Da handsome for it. That’s been...twenty years. That’s really all I know, Miss. So you see, there’s hardly reason for you to be making the trip.”
Avery thanked her and rang off. She only realized she was stopped in the middle of the sidewalk when Greg nudged her, but she just stared at him, still too astounded to move.