“She asked me who I thought might be bidding on the box. I told her that Burton Haldimand, her successor as curator of the Asian galleries of the Cottingham Museum was trying to purchase it for the museum. I told her there was a young man, too, who seemed interested. That man was Song Liang, an employee of the Cultural Relics Bureau who was sent to purchase it on behalf of China. There was also a telephone bidder, who could have been anyone anywhere, but I am reasonably sure will prove, once courts subpoena the auction house records, to be Dr. Xie here.”
“Ms. McClintoch!” Dr. Xie protested, but Anthony motioned him to be silent.
“When Dorothy realized she might lose her precious box, and still be none the wiser, she got cold feet and she herself withdrew her silver box from sale at the last minute. She told me she had to get a drink of water, but she went on another line and faxed the auction house. George told me she had a fax ready to go just in case.”
Anthony turned to his son. “You have sold Lingfei’s boxes!”
Xiaoling didn’t answer.
“Actually he’s sold more than that,” I said. “He’s sold a rather impressive number of other T’ang dynasty artifacts that may or may not have come from the same tomb. In fact, he has a rather effective antiquities smuggling operation going on, feeding a North American market that is panic-stricken that Chinese antiquities will soon not be available for sale in their countries.
“Sadly, Dorothy died shortly after she took the silver box off the market. George had told his wife he would support this project of hers, and somewhat reluctantly continued on with it after she died. He put the box up for sale again, this time in Beijing. Once again he sent me to try to purchase it. And, given that he had some qualms about this whole venture, he asked his friend Xie Jinghe to keep an eye on the box and on me.”
All eyes now turned to Dr. Xie, who nodded. “And this is how I am to be repaid?” he said, his voice dripping with acid.
I ignored him. “Dr. Xie was happy to oblige, because, unbeknownst to Dorothy and George, he was part of Xiaoling’s antiquities-smuggling scheme. The arrival of a third silver box on the market had certainly attracted his attention, and this was a way to find out what exactly was going on.” I heard a sharp intake of breath from the man at my side. “Isn’t that right, Dr. Xie?” This time the man did not answer.
“I have no idea why someone as wealthy as Dr. Xie might want to do such a thing, except to ensure his own supply of priceless artifacts, some of which I believe I saw in a decorating magazine a year or so ago. Perhaps, Dr. Xie, you, like others, were worried that the door would really slam shut on Chinese antiquities. I also don’t know why Song Liang stole the box in Beijing. I suppose we might give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he started out with the best of intentions, hoping to purchase the box on behalf of his country. Later the temptation got to be too much for him. He was approached by Xiaoling and he agreed to simply steal it. Xiaoling even came to the auction house in Beijing to get a look at it, and to provide some cover for the thief. He made sure that the view of the box was blocked, and that Song was able to get away. Then Song decided to double-cross the man who had paid him to steal the box. It was a very bad decision on his part.
“What do you mean a large number of T’ang dynasty artifacts?” Zhang Anthony said, as if the information had finally sunk in.
“Fifty, fifty-five, at least. A friend and colleague of mine has been through ten years’ worth of auction catalogs and noted a spike in T’ang dynasty artifacts beginning about five years ago.”
Anthony turned toward his son. “You have been to Lingfei’s tomb, perhaps?” Xiaoling shook his head. Anthony turned back to me. “Yes, there was a tomb, and yes, we took objects from it. It kept us from starving during the worst excesses of various regimes. My father may have been a confidant of Chairman Mao, and I may have been a red prince with privileges others did not enjoy, but during the Cultural Revolution, I, a U.S.-educated teacher, was sent to the countryside along with the rest of the so-called bourgeoisie. I worked in the fields, tending herbs used for medicine, actually. Fortunately for me, it was to Shaanxi Province that I was sent. My father had told me about the tomb, and exactly where it was. I found it. A discreet sale from time to time allowed me to return to Beijing and to this comfortable home. It helped me to send my son to law school in California, too, even if he failed his final examinations. Is that so terrible?”
“That’s not for me to say. Your son, however, is far from starving. He is a criminal and a bully. Not only does he smuggle antiquities, but he gets off on intimidating people. No, wait, it goes well beyond intimidation. People both hate and fear him. There are very kind and brave individuals in a little village outside this city who are terrified of him. He is the Beijing end of a group that calls itself Golden Lotus, whose activities have expanded way beyond antiquities smuggling.”
Anthony just looked at his son, a question in his eyes. Xiaoling spoke to him in Chinese. When he’d finished, Anthony turned to me. “My son has forgotten to respect his father. He tells me I am a fool to listen to you.”
“Then, I’ll stop talking and leave.”
“You will not leave,” Xiaoling said.
“Yes, she will,” Anthony said in a warning tone. “Whenever she chooses to do so.”
“The mistake you made,” I said turning once again to Xiaoling, “was to have your goons threaten me in Xi’an. That told me there was a Toronto connection that I might not have known otherwise. No, I don’t think Dory Matthews was part of the smuggling operation. I think she just thrust her beloved silver box out there in what might have been an ill-conceived gesture, more vain hope than any real certainty that it would lead her to her brother. That box sure made ripples in the pond, and yes, it attracted attention, most of it dubious.
“Without those threatening phone calls in Xi’an, I would have viewed all this as a strictly Chinese problem as opposed to an international one. Until you started me on that course of thought, I had just assumed it was an unfortunate coincidence that a box that had already been withdrawn from sale once was stolen in short order. It also put me on to Dr. Xie as the seller of at least one of the boxes offered through Molesworth and Cox auction house.” Once again Dr. Xie declined to comment.
“But to summarize: Zhang Xiaoling has been systematically plundering at least one tomb and probably several more in Shaanxi province somewhere, I’d guess in the area around Hua Shan. To compound this, he has been smuggling the artifacts out of the country to places like Hong Kong and North America. Dr. Xie has been helping him do that using his distribution system for Xie Homeopathic.”
“You will never prove anything of the sort,” Dr. Xie said.
“Maybe not. You should know, however, that I have turned the teabags you gave me in to the police for analysis, and have pointed out that Burton Haldimand may also have received teabags from you. That latter fact may be hearsay, but my teabags aren’t, and I believe they will pretty much speak for themselves. I think you killed Burton. It wouldn’t have taken much, given his medical condition and all the stuff he was putting into his system knowingly, and I think you knew enough about his health to finish him off.”
Anthony seemed to have reached a conclusion. “All of this activity of my son will now cease, I assure you,” he said. “I would only ask that you leave it to me to deal with this matter. There was a point at which we needed the money, you understand. Even I, son of a friend of Chairman Mao, required cash. The T’ang artifacts were the debris of decadent imperialism, and I felt no qualms about selling them. I would not, however, sell Lingfei’s boxes. It seemed a sacrilege, if I may be permitted a modestly religious term. My son has no such hesitation, apparently. He will be dealt with. Now leave me to do so.”