The Stolen Chalicel (13 page)

“Name, address, and phone number. Somebody will be along to take your statement.”

Carter walked over to the scarred wooden benches along the wall. In his mind he clearly saw the white van and the two men loading the crate. He sat down and began to write.

Brooklyn Museum

A
T NOON
C
ARTER
Wallace poked his head into Holly Graham’s office. Nobody was there. No brown bag lunch in the usual spot.

Disappointed, he headed back down to his little cubby in the basement. The subterranean passage was empty, but he could hear the phone ringing on his desk. He speeded up and grabbed the receiver just in time.

“Carter here,” he said, hoping like hell it was Holly. Instead it was the nasal whine of the director of the antiquities department.

“Carter, I need you to check something out for me.”

“OK. No problem.”

“It’s stolen art. Egyptian artifacts. I know that Holly usually does this sort of thing, but she’s doing a scan today over at the hospital and then she’s leaving for London. Can you look into it?”

Carter felt his spirits sink. She was going to London and didn’t even
tell
him? He must be pretty low on her radar for her to go out of the country without saying good-bye.

“Sure. Just tell me where to go.”

He wrote down an address, tore off the sheet, and stuck it in his pocket. He’d leave right away. With Holly gone, there was no use hanging around.

North Cove Marina, New York

T
HE DOCK AT
the base of Manhattan’s Financial District was empty except for Lady Xandra Sommerset’s megayacht,
The Khamsin.
No private boats remained in New York this late in the season. Most people had already headed down to Florida or the Carribbean for the winter. But the nautical charts on
The Khamsin
were for another destination—a transatlantic crossing.

Xandra walked up the gangplank and glanced out over the harbor. It was a beautiful sunny day. Across the glinting water the Statue of Liberty had her arm lifted, as if in a cheerful wave. Ferries were churning by, taking commuters to New Jersey and Staten Island.

The boat’s engines were already idling and the twenty-four-man crew was standing by, ready to cast off. She gave an affirmative nod to the captain as she boarded, and the men immediately set about clearing the lines. In the main salon one of the stewards was waiting.

“Would you like some tea, madame?” he inquired.

“Please.” Xandra tossed her camel-hair coat on the nearest chair.

The interior decor of the yacht was tasteful, with a subtle palette of cream and beige. She stopped to survey the Orientalist painting above the couch—a portrait of a naked young woman entitled
Femme Nue,
by Jean-Léon Gérôme. Moustaffa had said it reminded him of Xandra. The classic odalisque depicted a young woman with pearly flesh bathing in a Turkish hammam.

The steward returned with a pot of freshly brewed Egyptian chamomile tea. She kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet up on the couch. This was her favorite place on earth. Unencumbered by any man-made laws, Lady X ruled this universe of twenty-odd people. She alone dictated the schedule of daily life and could go wherever the wind and sea permitted.

Xandra had named her boat after the hot Sahara wind—a seasonal gale that blew in April. The
khamsin
had raised choking, blinding dust against Napoleon’s army in Egypt and caused Allied and German troops to halt their battles during World War Two.

Today,
The Khamsin
motoryacht would not raise any attention. It would cruise quietly out of New York Harbor past the Statue of Liberty, under the Verrazano Bridge to Ambrose Channel, and out into the Atlantic Ocean.

From there, they’d follow the coastline of the Eastern Seaboard, along the Great Circle Route—the shortest geographic distance between two points on earth. They’d travel steadily at fifteen knots for ten days until they reached the coast of France, where she would meet Moustaffa.

1010 Fifth Avenue

A
T A QUARTER
to one, Sinclair, Cordelia, and Ted entered the VerPlancks’ penthouse. The formal entrance hall had a black-and-white marble floor, a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and a white-jacketed butler standing at attention.

“Thank you,” Cordelia said, handing him her trench coat.

Ted VerPlanck lived the life of a Gilded Age tycoon—his penthouse was every bit as grand as the nineteenth-century showplaces of the Carnegies, Vanderbilts, and Astors.

“Where did you keep the cup?” Sinclair asked, looking around.

“In the living room. I’ll take you in there in a minute, but first I want to show you the atrium.”

“Is that where they broke in?” Sinclair asked.

“Yes. As you can see, the apartment is designed so all the rooms open into an enclosed courtyard. This is the same construction as a
peristylum
in ancient Roman architecture.”

As he spoke, they entered an enormous interior garden with palm trees and tropical plants. The air was filled with the lush scent of foliage and flowers. It was a private, exotic jungle, right in the middle of the apartment!

“Of course this is not
really
a Roman courtyard, because the roof has to be enclosed,” VerPlanck explained, almost as if apologizing for its deficiency.

Cordelia walked around, staring in astonishment. The atrium had a tranquil feel. Filtered sunlight came down through a vaulted glass ceiling. A large birdcage held tiny colorful South American parakeets. There was an oblong reflecting pool with a small jet of water burbling gently and lily pads floating on the surface, their waxy leaves accented with spiky pink flowers.

“Oh, how
beautiful
!” Cordelia said with a gasp.

“It was designed by the famous architect Rosario Candela in 1910.”

“It’s incredible,” Sinclair remarked, looking around.

“I’ll give you a little bit of the layout.” VerPlanck swept his arm toward the front of the building. “On this side of the atrium we have a reception room, the living room, dining room, and library.”

“The entertaining spaces?” Cordelia asked.

“Exactly. The bedrooms and other private rooms are on the other side.”

“So where did the intruders break in?” asked Sinclair.

“Astonishingly, they came in through there,” VerPlanck said, and pointed up at the glass ceiling.

“That must be twenty feet high,” Sinclair observed.

“They lowered themselves down on ropes,” VerPlanck said. “On the way to bed last night, I noticed shards of glass all over the floor.”

Cordelia examined the entry point with interest.

“But the glass isn’t broken,” she observed.

“I had it replaced this morning. We keep extra panels in the basement.”

“They didn’t touch any of this art?” Sinclair asked, examining the canvases on the walls. “I’m assuming that these are not copies.”

“No, they are originals,” VerPlanck assured him.

Cordelia walked over to a canvas of pastel swirls.

“Haven’t I seen this one before?”

“Yes. It is one of the many water lily studies by Monet,” VerPlanck explained. “And over here is a jungle scene by Henri Rousseau. And there, a Peruvian landscape by Frederic Church.”

“Priceless,” Sinclair observed. “Yet they didn’t touch anything.”

“No, it appears they were after only one item.”

“The cup,” Sinclair said.

“Exactly. Come this way,” VerPlanck encouraged. “I’ll show you where it . . . was.”

The living room was at least sixty feet long. Six enormous windows swathed in rose silk moiré faced Fifth Avenue. The Metropolitan Museum was directly across the street.

“After you left the apartment, no one was home?” Sinclair asked.

“Tipper came in after I left. She was running late. But the butler and housekeeper were both off for the evening. And the cook and cleaning staff come in only during the daytime.”

He walked the length of the living room and stopped at a curved niche in the wall. Inside was a freestanding marble Ionian column—obviously a pedestal for an art object.

No explanation was necessary. This was where the cup had been displayed. They looked at the empty space in silence. VerPlanck sighed.

“I just can’t believe it’s gone.”

There was no mention of the Sardonyx Cup during lunch. Ted VerPlanck spoke of art, archaeology, and his extensive travels. Only after the plates had been cleared of cucumber salad and salmon, and they had finished their lemon tart, did he broach the subject of the cup.

“John, what do you think about the possibility of recovering it?” VerPlanck asked. “. . . and please be honest. I don’t want to have any false hopes.”

“I can’t offer any guarantees, but I would be happy to make some calls and see if it is on the international black market . . .”

“That’s exactly what I had in mind.”

Sinclair waited in silence. The butler poured the demitasse and left before he continued.

“The problem is most of my contacts in the black market are overseas. I often deal with criminal gangs to try to recover artifacts that were stolen directly from archaeological digs.”

“How do you get them back?”

“Cash. Pure and simple. Things can usually be bought back for a fraction of what they are worth.”

“That sounds fine to me,” VerPlanck said.

“Except in New York it’s different. Things surface in the art market through vendors. You need local connections to art dealers and auction houses.”

“I understand, but surely you have those kinds of networks also?”

“Some,” Sinclair assured him, “but I’m based in London. To pursue this properly, you would need someone who lives here in New York.”

“Is there anyone you can suggest?”

There was a long silence. Sinclair gave a calculating glance at Cordelia.

“Yes, there
is
someone,” he finally said. “The person I am thinking of is often called in to verify ancient artifacts before they are put up for sale—to see if they are authentic.”

“They sound perfect.”

“It would take someone with a Rolodex built up over decades to quietly start the type of inquiry you are looking for.”

Ted took a note card out of his jacket pocket to jot down the name. His pen was poised above the paper.

“I don’t have the
private
phone number, you understand,” Sinclair explained. “But I can tell you how to get in touch with her at work.”

“Please . . .” said VerPlanck.

He looked up, sensing Sinclair’s reticence.

“Dr. Hollis Graham,” Sinclair finally said, not looking at Cordelia. “She works at the Brooklyn Museum. I’ve already spoken to her. She expects your call.”

North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, Long Island

T
HE
N
ORTH
S
HORE
Hospital was known for its state-of-the-art cardiac imaging. Today, the middle-aged man on the scanning bed was beyond any lifesaving measures—he had been dead for two thousand years.

Standing around the gurney were museum conservators wearing masks and gowns. The protective clothing was to prevent them from ingesting any toxic particles that would be released when they moved the mummy. It was a difficult maneuver they were attempting—trying to slide the human remains out of a wooden container and onto the bed of the CT machine.

“Everyone, get ready,” Holly instructed. “When I say ‘three’ . . .”

They usually didn’t have to lift the body out. The machine could penetrate anything organic, including a coffin, and most mummies could be scanned intact. But this mummy lay in a wooden crate that was too big to scan. Worse still, the body had been unwrapped and was now fully exposed, held together by strips of linen.

When the conservators at the Brooklyn Museum first saw the mummy’s condition, they were appalled. An unwrapped mummy was a throwback to the gruesome practices of the Victorian age. Back then, unraveling was a form of entertainment. Members of high society would sometimes host “unwrapping parties,” followed by champagne and a midnight supper!

On one ghoulish evening, Dr. Augustus Granville stood before the Royal Society of London in 1825 to “scientifically autopsy” an embalmed Egyptian woman. He added a theatrical touch—candlelight, with tapers made from the same kind of wax used to preserve the deceased. The British archaeologist Flinders Petrie set a new course in 1898 by using an X-ray machine.

Holly looked down at the desiccated cadaver before her.

Usually, lifting a mummy was like moving a person in a sleeping bag. Roman-era mummies often had wooden planks aligned along the spine under the wrappings to keep them rigid. But this one was no longer tightly bound.

Holly adjusted the surgical mask over her nose and took hold of her corner of the sling. They had improvised with a bed sheet, threading it under the bones to use like a hammock and swing the body up onto the table.

“Now it’s going to shift around a lot,” Holly warned. “You have to be ready.”