In a moment Emma found herself on Madison Avenue. Sotheby's, she knew, was on Seventy-second Street, over by the East River, several avenues away. It could wait. There was something else she wanted to do first.
Without slowing down, Emma dug into her wallet and found the business card Henri-Pierre Caraignac had given her outside the Alhambra. It seemed like years ago now. H. P. CARAIGNAC, ANTIQUAIRES, read the card, specifying an address at Eighty-first Street and Madison.
Emma was presently in the low sixties. Madison was full of yellow cabs heading uptown, but the city blocks were short and it was a beautiful day, albeit cold. She walked up the sparkling, seductive street, past boutiques and jewelers, art galleries and restaurants. The streets went by quickly. Each window vied for her attention with dazzling merchandise in appealing arrangements. By the time she turned onto Eighty-first Street and had come to
the address on the card, Emma had seen two actors she recognized from movies and counted twenty-five mink coats worn by an assortment of men, women and children.
H. P. Caraignac, Antiquaires, occupied a tiny, quiet storefront in a brownstone just off Madison, next to a small clothing boutique. The name appeared in small gold letters on the door and again on a small green canvas awning that looked wellestablished, rather than old. A metal gate stretched across the window in which two chairs were displayed discreetly, their spotty gilding penetrated with worm holes, their pink silk upholstery looking more antique than practical.
It was the kind of store Emma would ordinarily have walked right past without even seeing. She pressed her face close to the barred gate to see better through the glass. Inside, the shallow space was packed tightly with bureauplats, armoires, and clocks. According to the hand-lettered sign in the window, the hours of H. P. Caraignac were Tuesday through Saturday, I I A.M. to 5 P.M. It looked as if the owner might be arriving any minute. Emma knew he wouldn't.
She swallowed hard, wishing with all her might that Henri-Pierre had been simply someone who had happened to be on the ferry with her that day, not someone involved with Pépé's murder.
The walk to Sotheby's took less than fifteen minutes.
This auction house, too, looked nothing like what Emma had envisioned. It occupied a gray, almost industrial-looking box, except for the bands of windows that ribboned the front. At least the structure was largeâit took up the entire block front.
Another uniformed doormanâthis one in charcoal grayâheld the door. This time Emma checked her coat and hat with a courteous attendant at the cloakroom directly inside the door. At the top of a short flight of granite stairs was a plush reception area, much like the one at Christie's, though larger. The ceilings here were high, and vast galleries stretched off to either side. Behind
a spacious catalog counter stood a young man and three young women, all of whom might have been hired for the quality of their appearance and wardrobes.
“I'd like to speak with someone about an antique Spanish gold artifact,” said Emma, feeling less nervous, knowing what to expect now that she'd done this once before.
“A piece of jewelry?” asked the young man, after taking her name.
“No. More of an
objet de virtu
. A collector's item. Sunken treasure.”
The young man didn't bat an eye. Apparently people came here with sunken treasure on a regular basis. He conferred with one of the women, then picked up a telephone. A short conversation ensued.
“You can see Mr. Pilkington on the third floor,” he said finally to Emma, putting down the phone. “Go down the stairs and around to the left for the elevators.”
Emma thanked him and followed his directions, going back to the front entrance and walking down a short hall to the single elevator. When she arrived on the third floor she found a quiet waiting area that had none of the drama of the salerooms downstairs. In fact, it looked just like any office. Like the area downstairs, the ceilings here were high. The walls were painted white.
Emma gave her name and took a seat as directed on a comfortable leather couch in front of a row of windows. The well-dressed woman next to her rested a hand on a framed painting she had turned to the couch so the image couldn't be seen. A fellow in a heavy winter coat that he should have checked was seated on the other side. He had some kind of heavy metal casket-shaped box in his lap.
Several minutes passed. Then a tall, stout man appeared from a hallway. He had thick glasses in transparent frames and wore a slightly rumpled blue business suit. Not only was he the heaviest person Emma had seen at either auction house, he was also the
oldestâwell into his sixties, Emma estimated by his cottonwhite hair.
“Ms. Passant?” inquired the man of the general vicinity in a breathy, but resonant bass voice. He had a vaguely upper-class British accent and a second chin, considerably bigger and softerlooking than the first. It seemed to have replaced his entire neck.
“I'm Emma Passant,” said Emma, rising. “You're Mr. Pilkington?”
“N. C. Pilkington,” said the man, presenting a huge pink hand to be shaken. “Given that this is our first acquaintance, you may have your single allotted guess as to what N. C. stands for and then you must leave me in peace. I have refused to tell anyone for the past forty-seven years and I shall not begin with you.”
“Nebuchadnezzar Cuthbert,” said Emma without missing a beat.
“Good for you,” said Pilkington, breaking into a delighted smile. “Wrong, of course, but very witty. I can't tell you how weary I grow of all the Ned and Nats and Curts and Charleses. It was almost a relief last week when one of my wife's odious relatives suggested Nut Cutlet. Nebuchadnezzar Cuthbert, indeed. Is two open, Karen?”
“Yes, Mr. Pilkington,” said the receptionist brightly. Like the people downstairs, she looked like something from the pages of
Town and Country.
“Shall we go in here, Miss Passant?” said Pilkington, leading the way to the second of several small, bare rooms off a side corridor. Each room was big enough for only two chairs and a small countertop under the window.
“My favorite viewing room,” said Pilkington, closing the door. “It brings me luck. In this very spot I daresay I've seen more sets of wooden false teeth purported to have resided in the mouth of George Washington than has any other living individual. Now, what do you have for me today?”
“Just a question, I'm afraid.”
“Be not afraid, Miss Passant. All knowledge begins with questions.”
“It's about a gold object. Something very unusual. You probably will never have heard of anything like it.”
“Ha!” declared the big man, clasping his hands beneath his chins theatrically. “How luscious to think that there is something new under the sun. Or at least something old that these tired eyes haven't seen. You are doubtlessly wrong, of course. I am a veritable museum of esoterica. I have spent my life in the auction game, identifying bits of treasure and pieces of trash. I am the one to whom they direct all of the inquiries that do not fit into any neat category. What will happen to the silver-mounted coconuts and the ivory whist counters when I am gone? I wonder. And all those wooden teeth? Now tell me about your object.”
“It was found in the Caribbean, and I believe that it's from the Spanish conquistadors. A gold ornament in the shape of a dragon. Very intricate and beautiful workmanship. It hangs from a long gold chain, also of great craftsmanship, and makes a whistling sound if you blow through it.”
Pilkington was already shaking his head.
“You see?” he said. “Here, you have me all primed for something unique, and what do you deliver? Yesterday's newspaper.”
“You mean you've seen it?” Emma gasped. “You've seen the dragon?”
“I've seen several, actually. Not that they aren't quite rare, mind you, but then the unusual is my call-and-trade. What you are describing is probably a badge of office.”
“A badge of office,” repeated Emma. “What exactly is that?”
“Do you know how generals and admirals nowadays have stars on their collars and scrambled eggs on their hats?” said Pilkington, squeezing himself gingerly into one of the cubicle's little chairs and adopting a professorial tone.
“Yes?”
“Well, this is the same thing. The custom of carrying a whistle-and-chain
insignia by naval commanders was prevalent in several countries to signify their rank and importance. Early in the sixteenth century Sir Edward Howard threw his overboard to avoid its capture by the French. The one you have described was probably made to order in China in the late-seventeenth or early eighteenth century with gold from Latin America. Several such badges of office have passed through these rooms, each with gold chains comprising thousands of patterned and faceted links. The serrated dorsal fins of the golden creature are often hinged and served as toothpicks. The tapering bodies end in an ear probeâquite basic were our ancestors, or at least the Chinese gave them the opportunity to be. It is also quite a useful whistle, which indeed was its ceremonial purpose.”
“I have reason to believe that something just like what you've described was stolen from my family,” said Emma. “Has anyone approached you with one to sell recently?”
Pilkington peered, owl-like, over the rims of his glasses.
“Stolen, you say? When did this occur?”
“I'm not sure exactly. Probably within the last month.”
“Whew,” he said, theatrically wiping imaginary sweat from his brow. “Thank goodness, we are in the clear. The one we just sold was consigned back in July, though the auction didn't take place until three weeks ago.”
“You sold a dragon like my grandfather's three weeks ago?”
“I don't know what your grandfather had, but ours was very handsome. Would you like to see a picture?”
“I've already taken up a great deal of your time, but yes, I would, very much.”
“Time is something I have a surplus of these days. Not many people come to see me anymore. Value is growing ever more standardized. Soon anything that does not fit into six or seven easily identifiable categories will be banished from the auction rooms forever, along with yours truly. Wait here a moment. I'll be right back.”
Pilkington rose laboriously from his seat and exited, leaving Emma in a state of near shock. A second dragon appearing on the market within days of Pépé's death was as improbable a coincidence as Big Ed Garalachek showing up at her hotel in San Marcos. This had to be the same dragon, which would mean that it couldn't have been in the secret compartment in the model of the
Kaito Spirit
. But then why had the model been stolen? Or was it not stolen at all? Before Emma could figure out what to make of any of this, N. C. Pilkington had returned with two auction catalogs under his arm.
“Here we are,” he said, opening one of the catalogs to a fullpage picture.
Emma took the book and stared at the glossy color image. It was a gold dragon on a long chain, just as Bernal Zuberan had described, though what Emma had envisioned was much different from what she saw in front of her. This dragon looked smaller, somehow, yet more real than she had imagined, more like a fisherman's bait than a monster. Its beauty came from its workmanship rather than its subject, yet the image was still powerful enough to send chills down Emma's spine.
“How does it compare with yours?” said Pilkington.
“I don't know,” said Emma. “I've never seen ours.”
“Then you will have a hard time finding it, I should think.”
“How much did this sell for?”
“Fifty-five thousand dollars, not including our commission.”
Emma felt strangely disappointed. Zuberan had speculated that the dragon could be worth a fortune. Fifty-five thousand dollars was a lot of money, but hardly a fortune. Was it the current price for two men's lives?
“That's all?” asked Emma.
“Well,” sniffed Pilkington, “considering the fact that the bullion value of the thing is in the neighborhood of eight thousand dollars, I don't think it made too shabby a premium. There aren't many collectors of seventeenth-century badges of office ready to
battle it out at auction these days, you know. The last such badge we had on the block here carried an estimate of seventy-five to a hundred thousand and was passed. Even with all the hoopla about lost treasure, frankly I was relieved this piece sold at all.”
“Lost treasure? What treasure?”
“Oh, it's all speculation really. I probably shouldn't have allowed it into the catalog at all.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I'm talking about the notion that this badge of office might have belonged to the admiral-general who commanded the illfated Spanish plate fleet of 1690. Nine galleons of this fleet went down somewhere near Puerto Rico in a hurricane in that year. Each ship was carrying a huge cargo of treasure from the New World back to Spainâthousands of bars of silver, hundreds of pounds of gold. The admiral's flagship, the
Santa Maria de Espinal,
was bringing up the rear, as was customary with Spanish flotillas. He presumably would have been wearing an impressive gold chain and badge of office.”