“Yes, about one-point-five million U.S. if I recall. My client wouldn’t even blink at that price. Unfortunately that was before he started collecting. He has come to this passion of his relatively recently.”
“Aren’t you the lucky one?” he replied.
“Yes, indeed,” I said, with an inward cringe. “This is not the kind of antique I usually carry, but I was given the name of an antique dealer here in Glasgow who dealt in Mackintosh, so I thought I’d look him up. For some reason, I can’t seem to locate him. John A. Macdonald?”
“Never heard of him,” Campbell said.
“Nobody has,” I said. “Strange that.”
“Strange, indeed. Perhaps someone is having you on?”
“Could be,” I said. “Annoying that.”
“I hope it didn’t cost you money,” he said.
“Not money, no. Reputation, maybe.”
“Ah,” he replied.
“You have my card,” I said. “If you hear of anything, would you let me know?” I tried not to sound too out of sorts even if the inescapable conclusion was that if the invoice for the black cupboard was a fake, then so, too, was the cabinet.
“Of course,” he replied. “Here is my card as well.”
I had a brief look at it and looked again. The name was wrong, which is to say, it was clearly marked as Lester Campbell, Antiquarian, but the typeface was similar to what I recalled on the invoice from John A. Macdonald. Now there is no law that says you can’t use the same typeface as another dealer, but this one was a bit unusual. It was designed to look like handwritten script. “Are you sure you’ve never heard of John A. Macdonald Antiques?”
“Absolutely certain. Do you want me to check the British Antique Dealer’s listings for you?”
“I’ve done that. I’m baffled.”
I must have looked rather dejected as I headed for the door, because as I reached it, he called me back. “You wouldn’t be planning to stay over a day or two would you?”
“I could, I suppose.”
“You might want to consider a little charity,” he said, reaching to pick up a card on the counter and waving it at me.
“Charity?”
“There’s a fund-raiser tomorrow night,” he said. “It’s being held at the residence of Robert Alexander and his wife Maya. He’s a big man about town, philanthropist obviously. He’s paying the shot for the evening, so all proceeds go to charity. He’s also a big collector, furniture, paintings, the works. If anybody has a Mackintosh or three, it would be him. And he can often be persuaded to sell them if he wants to make a big gesture for one of his favorite causes. I expect there’s a ticket or two left.”
“Thank you,” I said, taking the card. “I just may go to that. Will I see you there?”
“You will,” he replied. “You have to stay in with these kind of people.”
“You do,” I agreed, thinking about the last big party of a customer I’d attended. “I owe you for this.”
“Yes, you do,” he agreed. “See you there. I’ll introduce you to the Alexanders if the opportunity arises.”
If I couldn’t find the elusive, if not entirely fictional John A. Macdonald, I did find Percy Bicycle Clips. Not that it helped any, mind you. In fact, it put me in a really foul mood. He was riding his bicycle, of course, his jacket flapping around behind him, and I hailed a cab the minute I saw him. “See that fellow on a bicycle?” I said to the driver. “I think he’s a friend from Toronto. Can you see if you can catch up to him for me?”
It wasn’t as easy as it might be. Percy cycled along at a fairly good clip, and he didn’t have to sit in traffic. The cab driver was a pro, however, and managed to keep him in sight. Then Percy wheeled on to Buchanan Street which unfortunately had been blocked off to traffic.
The cab driver, never one to give up, apparently, whipped along a parallel street and then pulled up on Argyll where it crossed Buchanan. I handed the driver the fare and stepped out of the cab as Percy wheeled up. “Percy,” I said. “Remember me?”
Percy made to turn around, but I had my hand on his handlebars and to get away he was going to have to drag me with him, which would have caused quite a scene in this very busy shopping area. “Let go,” he said.
“I won’t! I want to talk to you.”
He tried to pull the bicycle away from me, but I held firm. “If I talk to you, will you leave me alone?” he said, defeated.
“I guess so. If I let go and you make a run for it, I’m going to scream thief at the top of my lungs. Just so you know.”
“I understand,” he said, pushing his glasses up on his nose nervously.
“Do you want to go for a coffee?”
“No. Just say what you want to say.”
“I’m trying to track down the source of the writing cabinet,” I said. “You say it was your grandmother’s, but there is an invoice and receipt for it, from an antique dealer here in Glasgow by the name of John A. Macdonald.”
Percy looked perplexed. “An antique dealer here?”
“Yes. So I’m wondering if the cabinet, the one you showed me a picture of, really belonged to your grandmother.”
“The cabinet?” he said.
“The cabinet in the photo of your grandmother, if that’s who she is, the one that’s possibly worth one-point-five million.”
“One-point-five million what?” he said.
“U.S. dollars,” I said.
“That thing was worth one-point-five million?” he said.
“If it was real it was,” I said.
“Real what?” he said.
“Charles Rennie Mackintosh. What else?”
“Whoa,” he said.
“You were looking for it,” I said.
“Well, yes, I guess I was.”
“You guess? I have this idea there were two, so I’m interested in your grandmother, where she might be, some way of getting in touch with her.”
“Two what?” he said.
“Two writing cabinets,” I said, in a rather impatient tone. Apparently I could not stay calm on this subject.
“Two of these things worth a million and a half? Is that each, or for both of them?”
“One was worth that much. The other was a fake.”
“A fake,” he repeated.
“Don’t play dumb with me. You told me your grandmother didn’t know what it was worth.”
“I did,” he replied. Then inexplicably he started to laugh.
“What is so funny here?” I asked, after watching him chortle for a while. He couldn’t reply because he was laughing too hard. “Are you going to let me in on this little joke?”
“I knew he had it,” he said at last. “That guy with his head chopped up.”
“Trevor Wylie,” I said, through gritted teeth. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”
“Nooo,” he said. “Did you?”
“No. You did run away.”
“I suppose,” he said, calming down a little. “I felt sick. I didn’t want to get involved, either. It might have derailed my quest.”
“Your quest? What were you doing in the shop?” I said, as he started giggling again.
“Same thing you were, I expect,” he said. “Or maybe not. You’re telling me that there are two of those things. Or rather were two of those things. One was destroyed, right, but there is another?”
“That’s my theory anyway.”
“So the one that was destroyed was a fake,” he went on.
“I think so. It had a new lock.”
“A lock,” he said in a perplexed tone.
“Never mind. Look, I’m going to tell you what I think happened. You’ll think I’m crazy, but hear me out.” So I told him. I told him how embarrassed I was about making a mistake, but then started to think I hadn’t, how Trevor had needed money to cover his gambling debts, and that selling the one cabinet may have covered his debts but didn’t put him any further ahead, and that whether he had intended to do so at first or not, the presence of a second cabinet had been too much for him, and he’d baited Blair Baldwin with the real one, shipped him the fake, and then sold the first a second time. I told him I was in Scotland trying to prove there had been two cabinets even if everybody else in the world thought I was nuts. Percy listened as I rattled on and on.