Edmond took a quick swipe at Christian’s ear while mouthing, “Told you,” and jumped out of the way before Christian could even the score.
Nathaniel was baffled by the exchange but got into the spirit of things, twirling his cane as he led them to the haberdashery where they purchased clothes. They made their way to Pierson’s without further incident, despite the fact that Edmond manage to “talk a load of bull,” as Christian put it, the entire time.
“That’s it,” Nathaniel said, gesturing to a building with a Greek Revival facade, dominated by four Corinthian columns on the portico. Turning around, he studied Christian thoughtfully. “Miss Aster doesn’t know you’re here?” he asked.
Aside from a “reserved” front row and a smattering of people in the second, the gallery was filled nearly to capacity. With a good number standing against the walls, despite the available seats, Annie guessed that many of the people present were merely curiosity hounds. She took a seat on the aisle near the back of the room.
“Excuse me.”
Annie swiveled in her seat and counted out the ten hundreddollar bills she’d withdrawn from the bank as a gentleman attempted to step past her to claim the seat on the other side. He tripped over her dress and practically fell into his chair. “Terribly sorry,” he said.
Annie gathered her skirt and turned to apologize, jumping reflexively. “Mr. Goodkin!” she said, holding out her hand. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so surprised to see anyone in my life!”
Nathaniel cupped it in both of his. “Miss Aster, the pleasure is mine,” he said. He collected his catalog, which had fallen to the floor. “Are you here as a spectator or participant?”
“Strangely enough,I’m interested in the last item in the catalog.”
Nathaniel flipped to the last page of the booklet. “The door? You wish to purchase Mr. Abbott’s magic door?” he asked, waving his hand at a feather that fluttered dangerously near to his nose. It was a stubborn thing, and he snatched at it impulsively, eliciting a squawk from a rather plump woman who had chosen that very moment to sit directly in front of him. Before finding itself in his hand, the feather had been situated atop her hat—an enormous, excessively plumed thing that blocked his view entirely.
Apologies were given all around, and Annie, though secretly enamored of the monstrosity, quietly offered Mr. Goodkin a few inspired suggestions on alternate uses for the plumes, as the woman, suspecting she was the topic of discussion, turned to glower self-importantly. With typical aplomb, Annie rocked forward to compliment the woman’s fashion sense and soon had the lady conversing energetically about the millinery on Broadway, even as Mr. Culler worked his way into the room.
He claimed three seats in the front row—for himself, Danyer, and his valise—removing the “reserved” placards and tossing them under his chair. Setting the bag in the seat next to him and indicating for Danyer to take the third seat, Mr. Culler quickly thumbed through his catalog. Spying the final notation, he pulled out his wallet, likewise counting ten one-hundred-dollar bills as the auctioneer approached the podium.
“The items up for auction today come from the estate of the late David Abbott, magician and entertainer,” the auctioneer said. As the buzz throughout the room simmered down, he added, “All items in the catalog but the last are available for viewing in the back room. This is a cash-only auction. Credit will not be extended.”
Having dealt with the preliminaries,he motioned for the attendant to place a framed composition on the display table. “The first item up for bid is one of ten original drypoint prints created by the American Impressionist Mary Cassatt. Can we start the bid at ten dollars, please? Ten dollars to the man in the corner. Can I hear twenty?”
Annie and Nathaniel spoke quietly in the back of the room as the auction proceeded. To her surprise, Mrs. Fowl, her new friend and style consultant, showed much better taste in art than chapeaus, snapping up all ten drypoints.
One after another, items were brought out for viewing and bidding ensued. Of particular interest to Annie was a leaded-glass table lamp designed by Clara Driscoll. She was sorely tempted to bid on it, having heard rumors that it was her designs, not Louis Comfort Tiffany’s, that would make his company world famous, but she needed to hold on to her cash. Once again, and to Annie’s admiration, Mrs. Fowl gobbled up the piece. Annie patted her shoulder in congratulations, and Mrs. Fowl reached back to rub her hand warmly while preparing for her next battle.
As Annie suspected, many of the attendees were there for the sensationalism of watching David Abbott’s belongings be auctioned off so soon after his death. Even so, there were a good many serious attendees, and the bidding was brisk.
A murmur pulsed throughout the room as the final item in the catalog was announced. “While not available for viewing, item number twenty-seven on the manifest is the centerpiece of David Abbott’s stage show, designed and made by the man himself.”
All business, Annie placed her hand on Nathaniel’s arm, forestalling any commentary.
“As described in the catalog, the door is carved with rune signs and astrological symbols, and is finished in a unique red glaze, the formula for which was made and kept secret by David Abbott. Can we start the bidding at…one hundred dollars? One hundred dollars for item number twenty-seven.”
All eyes shifted to the front row as Mr. Culler nodded.
“We have a bid of one hundred dollars. Can I hear a bid for onefifty?”
A slight woman in the back of the room lifted her paddle. Soon, a few more people joined in and the bidding inched upward. Annie became impatient at around the three-hundredtwenty-dollar mark and decided to weed out the rabble. “Five hundred dollars,” she said, lifting her paddle. As the room gasped collectively—fanning the general hum of anticipation—Messrs. Culler and Danyer spun around to see who had entered the fray.
“Five hundred dollars to the lady in the back,” stated the auctioneer.
Mr. Culler turned back to face the podium in a quiet rage, but he couldn’t help noticing that Danyer had not, that he was staring at the woman who’d raised the stakes with an almost feral preoccupation. Mr. Culler leaned over, intending to chide his associate for his lack of manners, but Danyer beat him to the punch, whispering in his ear.
He whirled around to fix his gaze on Annie. “Her? From the bank, you say.”
Danyer indicated his assent in the usual way, with a grunt, but further speculation was curtailed by the auctioneer.
“The current offer is five hundred dollars. Can I hear a bid for six hundred?”
Still staring at Annie, Mr. Culler held up his paddle. The duel was on.
“Very good. We have an offer of six hundred dollars from the gentleman in the front row. The bid now stands at six-fifty. Do I hear an offer for six-fifty?”
Annie raised her paddle. “Eight hundred dollars,” she said, smiling politely at the man in the front row.
The gallery relished the tension, glancing back and forth between the two remaining bidders as Mr. Culler turned to face the podium, the back of his neck livid.
“We have eight hundred dollars on the table,” said the auctioneer. “Do I hear nine hundred? Anyone for nine hundred dollars?”
Mr. Culler had had enough, bellowing, “One thousand dollars!”
The bid was followed by a gasp, then a general outbreak of pandemonium. The auctioneer struck his gavel atop the sounding board, but the racket drowned it out. Even when the uproar had subsided after several more strikes and a call to order, the gallery continued to ripple with movement as people leaned toward one another to whisper heated comments.
Annie shut out the din, her eyes closed. Her plans had gone completely and unexpectedly awry. But the door on the auction block, the one sitting in her father’s living room, also opened to the backyard of her house a hundred years in the future—proof, she thought, that this story had not reached its conclusion. She breathed deeply, willing something to happen.
“We have a bid of one thous
and dollars by the gentleman in the front row. The bid now stands at a thousand. Is there an offer for eleven hundred? Eleven hundred dollars, anyone?”When there was no response, Mr. Culler turned around to tip his hat to Annie. “Eleven hundred dollars going once.”
A stir of air led her to open her eyes. There were five crisp twenty-dollar bills resting in her lap. Shocked, she looked at Mrs. Fowl who pointed discreetly behind Annie. Looking over her shoulder at her benefactor, Annie did a double take and gasped involuntarily. “Christian!” she said.
Waving shyly from his seat behind her, Christian broke out into a huge grin as he motioned toward the auctioneer with a quick upward nod.
“—twice. Eleven hundred dollars going—”
Spinning around, she shouted, “Eleven hundred dollars!”
The effect of her cry was immediate. The audience burst into cheers, and Mr. Culler’s chair toppled over onto his bag as he turned to glare at Annie, his jaw clenching so spectacularly that she wondered if his teeth would chip. With the room in an uproar, he threw his catalog on the floor and manhandled his wallet to thumb through its contents.
“We have a bid of eleven hundred dollars. Anyone for twelve hundred? Is there an offer for twelve hundred? No? Twelve hundred going once. Twelve hundred going twice.” With the tables turned, and no benefactor of his own, Culler listened helplessly as the count concluded. “Twelve hundred going three times. Sold for eleven hundred dollars to the lady in the back!”
At the sound of the gavel, Culler snatched up his valise and, with a final, venomous glare in Annie’s direction, stomped for the exit with Danyer hot on his heels. Head down, he barged directly into a young woman who was standing in the doorway, landing face-first in her bosom.
She grabbed him by his lapels, gave him a shove, and yelled, “Watch it, bub!”
Ripping his coat from her hands, Culler stormed out without a word.
While applause broke out around her, Annie turned around and grabbed Christian in a tight hug. Abruptly, she held him at arm’s length. “You irresponsible, bullheaded—” She stopped short as her mind switched gears. “How did you find me?”
Christian fell back into his chair with a look of satisfaction. “You left a trail of…b-b-bread crumbs.”
“I suppose I did,” she said, before pausing to stare at his clothes. “What on earth are you wearing?”
Christian glanced at Mr. Goodkin as he prepared an explanation. Something in the man’s expression, though, led him to perform a second act of mercy instead. “Can you bring her up to speed while I check on Edmond?” he asked.
Annie’s brow furrowed as she pointed first to Mr. Goodkin, then to Christian. “You know each other?” she asked. “Wait, did you say Edmond? He’s here?”
Christian gave Annie a quick wink, then cocked his head toward Nathaniel. “You might thank Mr. Goodkin for the money, by the way.”
She watched as Christian was swallowed by the swarm exiting the building, then turned to meet Nathaniel’s gaze.“Mr. Goodkin.” An unexpected heat rose to her face. Flustered, she opened her purse and pulled out the checkbook, but Nathaniel placed his hand over hers.
“Can you—”He broke from his thought,sounding tentative.“Can you not do that and simply let me take you to dinner?” he asked.
He couldn’t have been any more charming, and Annie hesitated, wanting to say yes. “My situation is complicated,” she said after a moment.
Glancing toward the exit, Nathaniel quietly asked, “Is this regarding Mr. Keebler?”
“No.” The nuances behind the question tickled Annie and she smiled. “Christian is a dear friend.”
Rallying as only a true gentleman could, Nathaniel stood, offering his arm. “With your permission then, I’d be pleased to escort you back to the hotel.”
“That is an offer that I can and will gladly accept,” she said.
Noticing the clerk who was waiting patiently at the end of the aisle, Nathaniel gestured in his direction and said, “Shall I meet you outside?”
After Annie signed the necessary paperwork to complete the sale and learned from the clerk that the door was not available for immediate delivery, being part of a crime scene, she pulled a scrap of paper with an address written on it from her purse. She stared at it while deliberating how to ensure that the door would ultimately be delivered to a little antique store in San Francisco. Borrowing a pencil from the clerk, she turned the scrap over and wrote a note—her plan in full swing.
The wild card of that plan, in the form of Ambrosius Culler, paced furiously outside the auction house. He pulled Danyer out of view behind a large column, whispering fiercely. “Our plan is unraveling, Mr. Danyer. First, Mrs. Grundy, now this. I’m open to suggestions.”
Ever thrifty with words, Danyer uttered only four.
“Get rid of her?” Mr. Culler looked to the entrance, pondering the advice. “Point well taken. But let’s see if we can reason with her first.”
Danyer grunted. Coming from him, it was a veritable treatise on the pitfalls of Mr. Culler’s soft heart.
A gentleman sitting on the steps directly below the column lowered the paper he’d been reading and watched as Mr. Culler headed to the entrance of the auction house. Hearing his name being called, he stood.
“Edmond!”
Christian and Mr. Goodkin hurried over. Christian started in on a progress report when Edmond interrupted him with a gesture. “We have trouble,” he said before repeating the conversation he just overheard.
“And you heard them discussing Miss Aster?” asked Nathaniel, as Christian sunk to the stairs, visibly shaken.
“Yes, clear as a bell.”
“Where are they now?”
“One walked off. I think the other is still back there.” Edmond gestured over his shoulder.
Nathaniel wandered in the direction of the column, paused, then turned to Christian and Edmond with a quick shake of his head. “Miss Aster is settling her account,” he said as he returned to the huddle. “Would you mind keeping an eye open for Cap’n while I escort Miss Aster to her hotel?”
It seemed a simple enough request to Edmond, but the look of delight that stole across Christian’s face, replacing his earlier chagrin, told a different story. Edmond glanced quickly at Mr. Goodkin, noticing that his ears were beginning to color.
“Would you prefer—”
“No!” Christian said, startling both men with his interruption. “No, that’s fine,” he added.
A smattering of applause broke from the top of the stairs, and the three men looked up to see a small crowd gather around Annie as she emerged from the door.
She hadn’t made it onto the landing, though, when an arm slipped under hers, roughly guiding her down the steps.
“Allow me to congratulate you on your purchase, Miss Aster. The name is Ambrosius Culler.”
The mention of that name had an electric effect. Annie’s heart started hammering as if someone had floored her accelerator, but she played it cool, smiling as she unwound his arm from hers. “It may surprise you to learn that I’m not one for being manhandled, Mr. Culler,” she said.
Expecting a watery response and receiving the opposite, Mr. Culler halted, indecisive. He plucked a business card from his breast pocket, and Annie couldn’t help but notice two things as she took it from his hand: there was a gunpowder burn on the side of his neck she suspected was courtesy of Cap’n’s hand-rolled cigar, and the end of his left pinkie finger was missing.
He caught her staring and his eyes darkened. “You’re very observant,” he said. His remaining fingers twitched randomly, as if itching to slap her, and it was clear to Annie that Mr. Culler was seething. She could almost feel the heat of his anger creeping up the length of her arm from where he’d grabbed her, lodging the taste of fear in the back of her throat.
“How can I help you?” she said.
“The better question is how you can help yourself, I think.”
“Neither am I fond of being patronized,”
she responded crisply. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.”
Her fright gave way to outrage when he grabbed her arm as she turned to leave. Annie wrenched it free, rounding on him. “Be warned, Mr. Culler,” she spat.
Not put off in the least, Mr. Culler merely smiled, his eyes dancing. He put his hand in his pocket, toying with something while studying the ebb and flow of the crowd, its leading edge now within earshot. He collected himself. “Miss Aster, that door is, I assume, nothing more than an amusement to you,” he said. “It is, however, extremely important to me. Therefore, I’m ready to make your investment immediately profitable. I would like to purchase it from you for two thousand dollars.”
“You’d like to what?” she asked. Taken off guard by the offer, she found herself at a sudden loss for words. Recovering quickly, she added, “Well, Mr. Culler, I can’t help but wonder at the true value of the door when you offer almost twice my bid.” She held up his business card. “We’ll be in touch.”
There was a flurry of movement, followed by a crack and a grunt, but the only thing Annie could focus on was the stinging sensation in the palm of her hand. She stared at it uncomprehendingly and looked over to see Mr. Culler rubbing his cheek—a scarlet relief of her palm raising itself on the surface of his skin. Her face flushed with color to match it when she realized she’d slapped him as he’d attempted to bar her exit by stepping into her path. Christian’s warnings that her temper would trip her up some day passed through her mind as she watched Mr. Culler’s expression galvanize into something unutterably cold.
Before she could say a word, he chuckled. “Please don’t apologize, Miss Aster,” he said. “It will only spoil the fun. But I’m afraid I will be retracting my offer. Such a shame, really.” He stepped aside.
Galled by his self-assurance and her own weakness, Annie could only glare at him.
“Ah, Miss Aster.”
Looking up, she spied Nathaniel walking over at a leisurely pace. Relief gave way to impudence and Annie stuck her tongue out at Mr. Culler before beating a hasty retreat. Given a moment to collect herself, she might have even thrown in a big, old raspberry to boot, but she was suddenly overcome by a wave of fatigue.
The Lemoncholy Life of Annie Aster Page 22
