“I’m sorry, Barton,” Kramer said, collecting himself. “But you can’t prove any of this. It’s your word against Charlie’s, and I choose to believe him.”
“Ab, Charlie and some friends of his beat me up and stole that secretary from me, and I can prove it. If you will go to the piece and remove the left-hand drawer, you will find my initials burned into the back side of it.”
Kramer stared at Barton for a moment, then went to the secretary and removed the drawer. He looked at it, then turned to Crow. “The initials are there. Charlie, how could Barton’s initials be there, unless he had had possession of the secretary before you did?”
“Come on, Ab. You didn’t care where I got it,” Crow said.
Barton spoke again. “Ab, I know you are in a difficult position, but I want to offer you a way out of it. You have three choices, really: One, Stone and I can load the piece into my van and return it to my home; two, you can write me a check for twenty million dollars and right now; three… well, that choice would involve the police and the newspapers, and I could write a very interesting article for Antiques magazine. But Peter and Julian will tell you that twenty million is a cheap price for a Goddard-Townsend secretary. They paid twenty-five million dollars for theirs, thus establishing a market.”
Stone now knew why Barton had specified a value for the piece in the contract with the Metropolitan.
“But I’ve already paid Charlie seven million dollars for it,” Kramer said.
“That, I’m afraid, is between you and Charlie,” Barton said. “I’m sure you’ll find a way to extract it from him.”
Charlie had gone very quiet and was staring at the floor.
Kramer thought about it for a minute, then went back to his desk, removed a large alligator-bound checkbook from a drawer, wrote a check and took it to Barton. “I’ll need Monday to move the money from my brokerage account,” he said.
“Of course,” Barton said, accepting the check. “You may have until three o’clock Monday afternoon to move the money, and at that time I’ll provide you with a genuine provenance for the piece. I’m sure you no longer wish to be associated with Charlie’s fraudulent one.” He tucked the documents Mildred had sold Crow into his pocket, along with Kramer’s check.
Cavanaugh and Whately returned to the study. “Beautiful things, Ab,” Cavanaugh said. “I hope you’ll think of giving the museum some of them at some future date.”
“I’ll consider that, Peter,” Kramer said. He seemed to have recovered from the shock of writing the check.
The women rejoined them, and they chatted for another hour, then the guests took their leave.
Back in Barton’s study, Stone took his host aside. “So the secretary you said was made in Charleston was yours all along.”
“Yes,” Barton replied, “it was. I thought I could get more from Ab for the piece by exposing Charlie than by auctioning it.”
“And, of course, you would save the million dollars you promised me for finding it.”
Barton looked stricken. “I really must apologize for that, Stone. I never intended to withhold your reward.”
“Then you won’t mind writing me a check now, will you?”
Barton swallowed hard. “Of course not,” he sighed. He went to his desk, wrote the check and handed it to Stone. “I wouldn’t want you to think I was trying to avoid paying you.”
“Oh, I was certain you wouldn’t do that,” Stone said. He reached into his pocket and removed a small leather pouch and dangled it from its string. “Otherwise, I’d be minting my own very rare twenty-dollar gold pieces.” He dropped the pouch into Barton’s hand. “I found it in a drawer of Ab’s secretary when I was examining it.”
Barton smiled and slipped the die into his own pocket. “Then I think our business is concluded, and now we can concentrate on being friends.”
“I’d like that, Barton,” Stone said, tucking the check away.
EPILOGUE
On Monday morning in New York, after a good breakfast at Stone’s house, Tatiana called her attorney and spoke briefly with him, then hung up the phone. “Henry has agreed to my settlement terms,” she said, smiling. “I think his night in jail made him more reasonable.”
“I’m delighted to hear it,” Stone said, kissing her. “You’ll soon be a free woman.”
“I’m looking forward to that,” Tatiana said. “Now, I must go home and get some things done.”
“Dinner tonight?” Stone asked.
“Of course,” she replied. “I’m going to be taking up most of your dinner hours from now on.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Stone replied. He walked her over to her house through the garden and set her luggage in the kitchen, then returned to his own house and went into his office. He read slowly through the Times and stopped at the business section. A headline on the first page caught his eye.
KRAMER COMPANY JOINS DEAL amp; CROW IN REAL ESTATE VENTURE
Abner Kramer, in a fax to this newspaper on Sunday afternoon, announced that he had paid Charles Crow of the new firm of Deal amp; Crow seven million dollars for two hundred thousand of Mr. Crow’s personal shares in the new company, which will have a public offering next month. Observers were surprised at the transaction, since Mr. Crow might have profited by retaining his shares for the IPO.
The rest of the piece didn’t matter. Ab Kramer had extracted his pound of flesh from Charlie Crow’s carcass.
Joan came in with the mail, and Stone handed her Barton Cabot’s check. “Please deposit this,” he said. “Then write Dino a check for two hundred thousand and one to Bob Cantor for fifty thousand. Then give the IRS their share.”
“Good,” Joan said. “What’s left will just about cover the bill on top of your mail.” She went back to her office.
Stone opened the envelope and found the invoice for the conversion of his airplane to a turboprop. Joan was right; what was left of Barton’s money would just about cover it.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Goddard-Townsend desk and bookcase is real, and the one sold at Christie’s in June 1989 actually brought $12.1 million, at that time the highest price ever paid for a piece of American furniture. I am told that it was bought by a member of a Texas oil family and, indeed, now stands in a house that rests upon the San Andreas Fault in California.
I am grateful to my friend Nick Brown, who sold the desk at Christie’s, for sending me to Dean Failey, the gentleman who was in charge of arranging the sale. Mr. Failey was extraordinarily helpful to me in learning about the piece and its sale.
Before selling the secretary, Nick Brown had a replica built by a very fine cabinetmaker for a rumored price of $38,000. I tried very hard to learn the name and address of the maker, but neither Nick nor Mr. Failey nor Christie’s nor Google was able to help me. Mr. Failey did, however, tell me of the maker’s search in Central or South America for the perfect mahogany tree and of its delivery to the United States disguised as a shipping crate, and I have shamelessly adapted that story to my own ends in this book. Whoever and wherever the gentleman is, I thank him.
I am, once again, grateful to my agent, Morton Janklow, of Janklow amp; Nesbit, and especially to his principal associate, Anne Sibbald, and to all the other folks at J amp;N for their hard work on my behalf over the past twenty-seven years.
I am grateful, too, to my publisher, Ivan Held; to Michael Barson, head of publicity at Putnam, and his hardworking staff (Michael also works hard); and, especially, to my editor, the incredibly light-fingered Rachel Kahan, for her support and guidance.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I am happy to hear from readers, but you should know that if you write to me in care of my publisher, three to six months will pass before I receive your letter, and when it finally arrives it will be one among many, and I will not be able to reply.