Dancing at the Savoy: A Samantha Duncan Mystery (Samantha Duncan Mysteries Book 9)
Page 14
Samantha put the leftover soup in a saucepan and took the bread out of the freezer to thaw. She knew that Annie was not one to stand on ceremony. It would be nice to have a girls’ chat. They had both been so busy with their guests they had not had fifteen minutes to talk on their own.
“What do you suppose it is?” Samantha asked as they looked at the cardboard box that was securely bound with strapping tape. There was not a clue anywhere on the outside.
“Open it and see,” Annie said. She was every bit as eager as Samantha for her friend to open the mystery package.
“Oh Annie,” Samantha said when she saw the exquisite Tiffany lamp nestled in bubble wrap. The card read:
To my favourite tour guide. Thanks for a wonderful visit. Love, Alex.
“Annie, did you know about this?”
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Annie said as she sidestepped the question.
“But it’s far too much for Alex to spend on a thank-you gift,” Samantha said.
“It is,” Annie agreed.
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Fourteen
“What I want to know is how Alex managed to buy it without my knowing; we were together every minute.”
“Remember when you asked me where they were when we were looking at things before the bidding started?”
“Yes. You said that they were looking at something over on the other side,” Samantha said.
“Well, strictly speaking I suppose that was a bit of a fib,” Annie confessed. “Alex had already told me that he wanted to get something for you when we were exchanging emails about bringing his Tux. I didn’t know what to tell him at the time. Then when we saw the notice about Olivia Carrington’s estate sale, I suggested that he might find something there.”
“So how was that a fib?” Samantha asked.
“I was fairly sure that the men had gone to the back to register, since I knew that Alex planned to buy something.”
“Honestly Annie, if I can’t trust you, then who can I trust?”
Annie just shrugged.
“But when did he buy it? It was just me and that one woman bidding on it until someone piped up and gazumped us both.”
“That’s why I insisted that you sit on the end,” Annie admitted. “I didn’t think you’d notice if Alex bid on something if you were several seats away.”
“But that still doesn’t explain how he managed to pay for it and sneak it out without my knowing,” Samantha pointed out.
“That part was easy,” Annie explained. “Remember when we were at the tearoom and I said that I’d like a second cappuccino?”
“Yes, of course. I had a second one, too.”
“Michael had suggested that I stall you at the restaurant so that he and Alex would have time to go back to Christie’s and pick up the lamp when they went to get the car. Alex was afraid that you might not accept it if he gave it to you in person, so he asked Michael to leave it here for you.”
“I certainly have a bunch of devious friends,” Samantha said with mock annoyance. “Seriously though, Annie, don’t you think I should contact the Savoy and tell them that I have their lamp?” Samantha asked. “I’m absolutely certain it’s the original.”
“It probably is,” Annie agreed. “But it was over sixty years ago. No doubt it was only one of dozens of things that must have gotten broken or lost in all the upheaval during the war. And besides, there’s no way to know for sure it’s the same one we saw in the photograph. How do you even know if it’s a real Tiffany?”
“Well, I can’t know for sure,” Samantha confessed. “Some of the copies are such a high standard these days that it’s almost impossible to tell them from the originals. And Tiffany changed its mark so many times that it’d be easy to forge that as well.”
“I know the original base was usually bronze rather than brass or some other metal,” Annie said. “Of course this one had the stained glass almost all the way down, except for the little piece of bronze at the very bottom. It feels heavy, though, for such a small object.”
“That’s because they tended to put a bit of lead at the bottom to weight it, even though the stems were hollow.”
Samantha turned the little lamp upside down.
“See, there’s the leaded weight just there.” She indicated the dull grey metal.
“Wait, there’s a bit of a gap where it’s soldered to the base. It looks like someone’s stuck something up in there.”
Samantha held it over so that Annie could see what she was looking at.
“Here, hold on to it for a minute while I get some tweezers,” she said as she handed it to her friend and ran upstairs to get them from her bathroom.
“I can just about reach it,” she said as she grasped a tiny corner of the thin rolled paper and pulled it through the gap.
“It’s some sort of receipt,” Samantha said as she carefully unfurled it.
Received from James Carrington on the 27th June 1948, the sum of Seventy-five pounds. One small leaded glass Tiffany table Lamp.
It was signed by the manager on a piece of headed paper from The Savoy Hotel, The Strand, London, W2.
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