Cat O'Nine Tales (2006) Read online

  Max didn’t eat any lunch, and not just because his meager funds were already stretched to their limit. Instead, he used the time to make two overseas calls; the first to Lord Kennington, to confirm that he still had his authority to take the bidding for the red king up to fifty thousand dollars. Max assured him that, the moment the hammer fell, he would call to let him know what sum the piece had sold for. A few minutes later Max made a second call, this time to the Hon. James Kennington at his home in Cadogan Square. James picked up the phone after one ring, clearly relieved to hear Max’s voice on the other end of the line. Max made the Hon. James Kennington exactly the same promise.

  Max replaced the phone and made his way across to the bidding counter, where he gave an assistant the details of James Kennington’s telephone number in London and told her of his intention to bid for Lot 23.

  “Leave it to us, sir,” the assistant replied. “I’ll make sure we’re in touch with him well in time.”

  Max thanked the assistant, made his way back to the saleroom and took his favored place on the end of the eighth row, just to the right of the auctioneer. He began to turn the pages of the catalog, checking on items in which he had no interest. While he sat around, impatiently waiting for the auctioneer to invite bids for lot number one, he tried to work out who were the dealers, who the serious bidders and who the simply curious.

  By the time the auctioneer climbed the steps of the rostrum at five minutes to two, the saleroom was full of expectant faces. At two o’clock the auctioneer smiled down at his clientele.

  “Lot number one,” he declared, “a delicately crafted ivory fisherman.”

  The piece sold for $850, giving no hint of the drama that was about to follow.

  Lot 2 reached $1,000, but it wasn’t until Lot 17, the figure of a mandarin bent over a desk reading a ledger, that the $5,000 mark was achieved.

  One or two dealers whose only interest was clearly in later lots began to drift into the room, while a couple of others left, having failed or succeeded in acquiring the items they’d been after. Max could hear his heart pounding, although it would still be some time before the auctioneer reached Lot 23.

  He turned his attention to the row of phones on a long table by the side of the room. Only three were manned. When the auctioneer called Lot 21, an assistant started to dial. A few moments later, she cupped a hand over the mouthpiece and began to whisper. When Lot 22 was offered, she spoke briefly to her client again. Max assumed that she must be warning James Kennington that the red king would be the next item to come under the hammer.

  “Lot twenty-three,” declared the auctioneer glancing down at his notes. “An exquisitely carved red king, provenance unknown. Do I have an opening bid of three hundred dollars?”

  Max raised his catalog.

  “Five hundred?” inquired the auctioneer turning to face the assistant on the phone. She whispered into the mouthpiece and then nodded firmly. The auctioneer turned his attention back to Max, who had raised his catalog even before a price had been suggested.

  “I have a bid of a thousand dollars,” said the auctioneer, returning to face the telephone bidder. “Two thousand,” he ventured, surprised to see the assistant nod so quickly.

  “Three thousand?” he suggested as he looked back at Max. The catalog shot up again, and several dealers at the back of the room began chatting among themselves.

  “Four thousand?” inquired the auctioneer, staring in disbelief at the assistant on the phone. $5,000, $6,000, $7,000, $8,000, $9,000 and $10,000 were overtaken in less than a minute. The auctioneer tried desperately to look as if this was exactly what he had anticipated as the murmurs in the room grew louder and louder. Everyone seemed to have an opinion. One or two dealers abandoned their favored places and quickly walked to the back of the room, hoping to find an explanation for the bidding frenzy Some were already beginning to make assumptions, but were in no position to bid under such pressure, especially as the amounts were now going up in leaps of $5,000.

  Max raised his catalog in response to the auctioneers inquiry, “Forty-five thousand? Are you bidding fifty thousand?” he inquired of the lady on the telephone. Everyone in the room turned to see how she would respond. For the first time she hesitated. The auctioneer repeated, “Fifty thousand.” She whispered the figure into the phone and, after a long pause, nodded, but not quite so enthusiastically. When Max was offered the piece for $55,000, he also hesitated, taking his time before he finally raised his catalog.

  “Sixty thousand?” suggested the auctioneer to the assistant on the phone. Max waited nervously as she cupped her hand over the mouthpiece and repeated the figure. Beads of sweat began to appear on Max’s forehead, as he wondered if James Kennington had managed to raise more than $50,000, in which case he would just about clear his expenses on the whole exercise. After what seemed like an eternity, but was, in fact, only twenty seconds, the assistant shook her head. She put the phone down.

  When the auctioneer smiled in Max’s direction and said, “Sold to the gentleman on my left, for fifty-five thousand dollars,” Max felt sick, triumphant, dazed and relieved all at the same time.

  Max remained in his place, as he waited for the furor to die down. After a dozen more lots had been disposed of, he slipped quietly out of the room, unaware of the suspicious stares from dealers, who wondered who he was. He strolled across the thick green carpet and stopped at the purchasing counter.

  “I wish to leave a deposit on lot twenty-three.”

  The clerk looked down at her list. “A red king,” she said, and double-checked the price. “Fifty-five thousand dollars,” she added, and looked up at Max for confirmation.

  He nodded as the assistant began to fill in the little boxes on the purchasing document. A few moments later she swiveled the form round for Max to sign.

  “That will be five thousand, five hundred dollars deposit,” she said, “and the full amount must be settled within twenty-eight days.” Max nodded nonchalantly, as if this was a procedure he was well familiar with. He signed the agreement and then wrote out a check for $5,500, aware that it would empty his account. He pushed it across the counter. The assistant handed him back the top copy of the agreement and retained the duplicate. When she checked the signature, she hesitated. It might have been a coincidence: after all, Glover was a common enough name. She didn’t want to insult a customer, but she knew she would have to report the anomaly to their compliance department, before they could consider cashing the check.

  Max left the auction house and headed north to Park Avenue. He strode confidently into Sotheby Parke Bernet and approached the reception desk. He asked if he could have a word with the Head of the Oriental Department. He was kept waiting for only a few minutes.

  On this occasion, Max didn’t waste time with any preliminary questions that would have only been a smokescreen to disguise his true intent. After all, as the sales clerk at Phillips had pointed out, he only had twenty-eight days to complete the transaction.

  “Should the Kennington Chess Set come onto the market, what would you expect it to fetch?” Max asked.

  The expert looked incredulous, although he had already been briefed on the sale of the red king at Phillips, and on the price the piece had fetched. “Seven hundred and fifty thousand, possibly as much as a million,” came back the reply.

  “And if I was able to deliver the Kennington Set, and you were in a position to authenticate it, what amount would Sotheby’s be willing to advance against a future sale?”

  “Four hundred thousand, possibly five, if the family were able to confirm that it was the Kennington Set.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” promised Max, all his immediate and long-term problems solved.

  Max checked out of his little hotel on the East Side later that evening, and took a taxi to Kennedy Airport. Once the plane had taken off, he slept soundly for the first time in days.

  The 727 touched down at Heathrow just as the sun was rising over the Thames. Having nothing to declare