I don’t know whether the shock of being replaced had anything to do with it, but Dory’s arthritis, well under control while she worked, had been steadily getting worse through her forced retirement, and soon she had to abandon even those outings. It was a shame, really, not the least because I didn’t think Burton could hold a candle to Dory. It would be my pleasure to help outbid him.
It was unseasonably warm in New York when I got there. The Molesworth Cox Oriental auction was the first of the season and had attracted a lot of attention. There were some wonderful objects in the show, and the people at the auction house were justifiably proud, managing to get some play in the New York Times. Unhappily, the silver box was one of the objects featured, almost certainly ensuring I would have more competition for it.
Consequently, there were a lot of people interested in the sale, some of them with major museums, and the usual suspects in terms of collectors. At the preview, the first person I saw was a curator from the Smithsonian. The second person I saw was Dr. Burton Haldimand.
Mention the name Burton Haldimand in certain circles, and you’re almost certain to be subjected to a wide range of opinion. To wit: Haldimand is exceptionally talented, perhaps even a genius, and he should be forgiven a few eccentricities. Or: Haldimand may be talented, but he is also the most ruthlessly ambitious person in the whole field of museology, and woe betide anyone who gets in his way. And finally: Haldimand is not so much eccentric as seriously disturbed.
All of these things were true. Haldimand came to the Cottingham with a reputation as an expert in Chinese antiquities, and I’d never heard anyone say he wasn’t as represented. I’d had few dealings with him, but I was certainly prepared to acknowledge that he was good at his job. There was no question he was ambitious. No sooner had he taken over responsibility for the Chinese galleries than he set his sights on the furniture galleries as well. So far the targeted curator had managed to fend him off, but I wasn’t sure for how long. Burton seemed to have a way of insinuating himself into good standing with the powers that be anywhere he worked, and generally got what he wanted.
More than anything else, though, few could deny that Haldimand was very odd. Haldimand, you see, had a thing about germs. Even in the warmest weather—and that day in New York was no exception—he wore a scarf, almost always an azure color, and gloves. True, museologists often wear gloves to protect the objects they are handling. This is not what I am talking about here. Haldimand wore gloves all the time, those plastic surgical gloves which he removed the way surgeons do, wiggling their way out of them so that they never actually touch the outside of them with their bare fingers. He wore them under winter mittens. He also, if Cottingham Museum staff were to be believed, sprayed his desk and all objects on it, including the phone, with disinfectant every evening when he left, and then again in the morning when he arrived. I have no idea why, other than he thought the cleaning staff must be running a business out of his office at night.
If you went to a meeting in his office—which wasn’t often given that you could hardly hear yourself think over the drone of the huge air filter he had there—he probably sprayed your chair after you left. He was always dosing himself with some remedy or prophylactic. His assistant, one Maria Chappell, said he had a cupboard full of medicines of all sorts, homeopathic and otherwise. She also maintained that he never used the toilets, either staff or public, at the Cottingham. Fortunately he lived close enough, and apparently had a strong enough bladder to wait until he went home at lunchtime, and then again after work. It probably explained why he was never seen with a cup of coffee in his hand.
In flu season, he augmented his scarf with a surgical mask. When Toronto was hit with the horrible SARS outbreak, he called in sick, holed himself up in his Victorian townhouse in the Annex neighborhood, and didn’t come out until the all clear had been sounded. Mind you, the all clear was sounded a little prematurely, which probably brought Burton to the brink of mental collapse, given that he’d ventured abroad too soon. Somehow he survived. We all speculated that he must have had quite the supply of food stashed away to outlast the germs. He most certainly wouldn’t have been calling for pizza delivery.
Despite this, or possibly because of it, Burton seemed to be sick more often than average. He always seemed to have a cough or the sniffles, a headache or some tummy upset.
Sick or well, though, Burton knew his stuff. He was intent upon building up the T’ang dynasty collection at the Cottingham, and while Dory had had to tell me the silver box was T’ang, Burton headed straight for it. There was none of the pretend-I’m-not-interested approach of many buyers at auction previews. Under the watchful eye of a Molesworth Cox staff person, Burton picked it up—he was allowed to do that given he was wearing gloves—and scarcely concealed his glee. It was not until he had examined it in minute detail through a magnifying glass, as I had done a few minutes earlier, that he noticed me.
“Lara!” he said. “What a pleasure.” For once, Burton looked to be in better shape than I was, the picture of health, in fact: just the right amount of tan for the fall that said he got enough sun, but not too much, and a general spring in his step. I, on the other hand, was nursing a cold, and had been for a couple of weeks. It was more nuisance than anything else at this stage, and something I attributed to stale hotel air, but I couldn’t shake it, and continued to blow my nose at regular intervals. Feeling this way also made me grumpy, and seeing someone I was not fond of in such glowing health was something of an annoyance.
Needless to say, Burton did not extend his hand for a polite handshake, my having managed to sneeze twice since I entered the room. He may have had gloves on, but I didn’t. He spoke a bit loudly, as he had the habit of standing well away from those to whom he spoke. Someone must have told him that germs could travel no more than six feet because that was about how far away from me he’d placed himself. He would have had a rather trying time at those cocktail receptions the Cottingham threw for high-end donors.
“Something special you’re looking at?” he went on.
“The same thing you are, I expect,” I said.
“The cloisonne vase, you mean?” he said, coyly.
“Exactly,” I said.
“Oh, ho,” he said in a jovial tone. “McClintoch and Swain are aiming for a wealthier clientele, are they? I hate to tell you, but this one starts well into six figures.”
“The cloisonne vase?” I said. “That would be a little high, wouldn’t it?” I had him there. He was tripping over his own lies.
“I know you’re after the silver coffret a bijoux” he said. If there is a fancy term for anything, in this case French for “jewelry case,” Burton was almost certain to use it. “You can’t fool me. And you can’t afford it either.”
“Quite right, Burton. Under normal circumstances I couldn’t, but I’m buying for a client, I’m happy to say. It’s somebody else’s money, so it’s no problem.” In fact I had half a million dollars of Dory’s money in a trust account, although I promised her I’d spend as little of it as I could.
“I see,” he said. “Still, I rather suspect that you won’t have the resources of the Cottingham estate. I hope you won’t be too disappointed if I get it. It’s better that way in any event. It’s a public institution and far more people will have the opportunity to enjoy it. It will be the anchor piece of our Asian galleries. You know that is what the Cottingham tries to do, to have at least one piece of international importance in each of its galleries. Now we’ll have Lingfei.”