‘I’d be willing to put up the necessary capital to secure the piece,’ said Max, not missing a beat, ‘if in turn you would then agree to sell me the set.’
‘And how much would you be willing to pay?’ asked James.
‘Half a million,’ said Max.
‘But Sotheby’s have already valued a complete set at over a million,’ protested James.
‘That may well be the case,’ said Max, ‘but half a million is surely better than nothing, which would be the outcome if your brother were to learn of the red king’s existence.’
‘But you said that the red king might sell for a few hundred—’
‘In which case, I would require only a thousand pounds in advance, against two and a half per cent of the hammer price,’ said Max for the second time that afternoon.
‘That’s a risk I am quite willing to take,’ said James with the smile of someone who believes he has gained the upper hand. ‘If the red king should sell for less than fifty thousand,’ he continued, ‘I’d be able to raise the money myself. If it goes for more than fifty thousand, you can purchase the piece and I’ll sell you the set for half a million.’ James sipped his tea, before adding, ‘I can’t lose either way.’
Neither can I, thought Max, as he extracted a contract from an inside pocket. James read the document slowly. He looked up and said, ‘You obviously felt confident that I would fall in with your plan, Mr Glover.’
‘If you hadn’t,’ said Max, ‘my next visit would have been to your brother, which would have left you with nothing. At least now, to quote you, you can’t lose either way.’
‘Presumably I will have to travel to New York,’ said James.
‘Not necessary,’ replied Max. ‘You can bid for the piece by phone, which has the added advantage that no one else will know who’s on the other end of the line.’
‘But how do I go about that?’ asked James.
‘It couldn’t be easier,’ Max assured him. ‘The New York sale begins at two in the afternoon, which will be seven o’clock in the evening in London. The red king is lot twenty-three, so I’ll arrange for Phillips to place a call through to you once they reach lot twenty-one. Just be sure you’re sitting by the phone, with no one else blocking the line.’
‘And you’ll take over, if it goes above fifty thousand?’
‘You have my word,’ said Max, looking him straight in the eye.
Max flew to New York the weekend before the sale was due to take place. He booked himself into a small hotel on the East Side and settled for a room not much larger than our cell, but then he only had enough money left over to cover the endgame.
Max rose early on the Monday morning. He hadn’t been able to sleep because of an orchestra of New York traffic and police sirens. He used the time to go over and over the different permutations that might occur once the sale began. He would be on centre stage for less than two minutes and, if he failed, would be back on the next plane to Heathrow, with nothing to show for his efforts other than an overdrawn bank account.
He grabbed a bagel on the corner of Third and 66th, before walking another few blocks to Phillips. He spent the rest of the morning at a manuscript sale that was being held in the room where the Chinese auction would take place. He sat silently at the back of the room, watching how the Americans conduct an auction, so that he wouldn’t be wrong-footed later that afternoon.
Max didn’t eat any lunch, and not just because his meagre 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 favoured place on the end of the eighth row, just to the right of the auctioneer. He began to turn the pages of the catalogue, 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 catalogue.
‘Five hundred?’ enquired 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 catalogue 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 catalogue shot up again, and several dealers at the back of the room began chatting among themselves.
‘Four thousand?’ enquired 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 favoured 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 catalogue in response to the auctioneer’s enquiry, ‘Forty-five thousand? Are you bidding fifty thousand?’ he enquired 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.