The next lot was a hodgepodge of household effects from a man named Raleigh Miller, who, according to the auctioneer, had lived to the ripe old age of one hundred ten in a room at the back of the Hole in the Wall Pub on Park Lane for as long as anyone could remember. He would come down to the pub each evening for a bottle of Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout and an order of fish and chips, both of which he took back to his room.
The room must have been sparsely furnished because there weren’t too many household goods being offered and even fewer being auctioned. The final lot was a small steel footlocker, padlocked and rusted shut with a faded first-class travel sticker that said RMSP ALMANZORA. The apparent journey the box had taken was from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Southampton, arriving on August 26, 1928. Peggy did the math. If Miller had been a hundred ten years old when he had died, that meant he was been born in 1903. He’d been just twenty-five years old when he had departed on the RMSP Almanzora. What had a twenty-five-year-old British kid been doing in Uruguay, and where had he gotten the money for a first-class cabin? Interesting questions. The first price from the podium was two pounds. Peggy held up her paddle. No one else bid, once, twice, thrice, and it was hers. She went down to the stage, paid her two pounds, filled out the appropriate paperwork and received her prize. It weighed a ton, and Peggy asked if they could call her a taxi; walking back to the convention center would have been an impossibility. Not only did they call her a cab—they put the box on a little hand truck and called one of the younger assistants to haul it out to the curb for her.
“You know anything about this old guy Miller?” Peggy asked as they went up the main aisle.
“He was a bit of a loon, I know. Least, that’s what my uncle told me.”
“Your uncle?”
“Bert. He’s one of the barmen at the Hole in the Wall.”
“Why did your uncle Bert think he was crazy?”
“He was forever getting newspapers, not proper English ones but foreign—the El Observadorio or something. And A Vozey da Serra, sounded like.”
“Interesting,” said Peggy.
They reached the roll-up doors and went out into the sunlight. The dark man who’d sat beside her briefly in the auction room was smoking a cigarette, leaning on the rear fender of the Jag. He watched silently as the young assistant tipped the box off the hand truck and eased it onto the pavement.
“There you go, missus,” said the assistant. When she took a heavy one-pound coin and pressed it into the young man’s hand, he handed it back. “Not necessary, missus, but thank you all the same.” The young man smiled at her and headed inside the auction hall.
Peggy smiled back; it was the most politeness she’d received from a stranger since she’d done a photo essay for the New York Times Magazine on the Amish.
“How much did you pay for the box?” asked the man leaning on the Jaguar. His accent was cultured but definitely Eastern European. At a guess she’d have thought Russian or maybe Czech. Whatever the accent, she didn’t like the tone.
“Why do you care?” Peggy responded.
“It should have been mine.”
“You weren’t there to bid on it.”
“A call of nature,” said the man.
“Well, I can’t help that,” said Peggy. She looked up the street, wishing the taxi would come.
“The box should have been mine,” the man repeated, a little more insistently.
“You mentioned that,” said Peggy.
“I will pay you for it,” said the man.
“I’m not selling it.”
“I will give you a hundred pounds for it. You will make a profit.”
“I don’t want a profit,” said Peggy, irritated. “I want the box, and it’s not for sale.” Why the hell did the guy with the Jaguar want a footlocker from 1928?
The taxi arrived, a boxy red Renault minivan with PRICE FIRST TAXI on the sliding door. The driver got out, opened the sliding door and hauled the footlocker inside. The man leaning on the Jaguar stepped forward and handed Peggy a business card.
“If you change your mind,” said the man. “My cell phone number is there. Anytime, day or night. I will await your call.” The last bit had a slightly sinister edge to it, as though something bad would happen if the call didn’t come.
“Don’t lose any sleep waiting.” Peggy took the card and got into the cab.
“Where to, missus?” the cabbie asked.
“Palace Hotel, please,” said Peggy.
“Right you are, missus.” The cab moved off.
Peggy looked at the card:
Dimitri Antonin Rogov
Expeditions
Custos Thesauri
“Custos Thesauri?” Rafi Wanounou laughed, staring at the card Peggy had handed him. “That’s ripe coming from a man like Dimitri Rogov! Latro Thesauri would be more like it.” They sat at the breakfast table in their room at the Palace Hotel, the rusty footlocker between them.
“So what does it mean? Who is he?” Peggy asked her archaeologist husband.
“Custos Thesauri means “keeper, or guardian, of the treasure” in Latin. Latro Thesauri is the opposite: the “thief of treasures.” Dimitri Rogov would make Lara Croft look like an amateur and your beloved Indiana Jones a bumbling boob.”
“How dare you cast aspersions on my secret love!” Peggy laughed. “You should look so good in a beat-up fedora.”
“You’re sounding more like my mother every day,” said Rafi, smiling back. The truth was, of course, that when Rafi had brought home a girl named Peggy Blackstock, his mother hadn’t been impressed. He told her the name in Yiddish was Schwarzekuh, but that didn’t seem to help much either.
“Seriously though,” said Rafi, “Rogov is infamous. He’s a tomb robber, a smuggler, a forger and an all-around thief. If he wants something, he’ll do just about anything to get it.”
“Well,” said Peggy, “maybe we should find out what’s inside.”
It took the better part of an hour. A hammer and chisel borrowed from hotel maintenance, as well as spraying around the edges of the lid with something called Cillit Bang, which came in a bottle with a bright pink label, finally did the trick.
The first thing out of the footlocker was the bundle of very frail-looking pinkish notebooks with faded designs on the covers. Rafi gently cut and removed the string. Then, putting on a pair of the latex gloves that he carried with him everywhere, he carefully opened the top notebook.
“Benn-zonna!” Rafi swore, his eyes widening as he stared down at the words in faint sepia-colored ink.
Being the Private Journals of
Lt. Col. (R.A) Percival Harrison Fawcett
in Search of the Lost City of Z
“I think it’s time we gave your cousin a call,” said Rafi slowly. “I think we’re going to need him.”