Hidden Treasure

by Jane K. Cleland

  “I’m sure it will mean a lot to him to have you there.”

  We chatted for another minute; then I called Stacy and made my request. “Do you know how the box and cat came into your family?”

  “Through my dad’s great-great-grandfather. His name was Ethan Holmes. He was a college professor in Rutgers’s Classics Department. I know he earned his Ph.D. at Princeton and that he spent two years in Cairo as a visiting professor and traveled extensively throughout Europe. I’m sorry, but I don’t remember which university he worked at there or where, specifically, he traveled. I assumed that he acquired the objects during that period.”

  “I’m guessing he was overseas in the early 1900s … does that sound right?”

  “Yes. I know he came back before World War I.”

  “Do you have any cousins or other relatives who might have additional information?”

  “No … sorry.”

  “Thanks, Stacy. You’ve been helpful. How are you doing?”

  “Better. I decided that if I wanted to keep my sanity I had to stop pounding my head against the wall. I sold my designs and licensed my machine to a competitor, so at least the orders will be filled. Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t given up. I’m going to continue to hunt for funding, and I hope I’ll be able to launch my own line within a couple of years, but clearly now isn’t the time.”

  “That sounds like such a smart plan, Stacy. Congratulations.”

  “I don’t know that congrats are in order, but at least I can sleep at night.”

  “Have you gone back to New York?”

  “Oh, yeah. I can only take Rocky Point for so long, no insult intended.”

  “None taken. I wondered if you planned on going to Julie’s sentencing hearing tomorrow.”

  “No. I said everything I had to say to the district attorney. She killed my sister, left her to bleed to death alone. I hope they give her the max.”

  “I understand. Any news about Doug?”

  “He likes his new job, and he’s planning on going back to school, accounting, I think. We decided to get together for Thanksgiving, if not before. Aunt Maudie’s hosting the dinner at the Austin Arms.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “And I promised him that I’d try to get better around the kids.”

  I smiled. “You don’t like them?”

  “It’s not them in particular … it’s all kids. What’s to like? They’re little narcissists. I’m of the children-should-be-seen-and-not-heard theory of child-rearing. I don’t know why that approach ever fell out of favor.”

  I laughed, thinking that I wasn’t surprised that she didn’t warm to children. “Maybe you’ll like them better as they get older.”

  When we were done, I swiveled back to face my computer monitor. Given that Stacy had no more specific information about where or when her ancestor purchased the box and cat, I could infer the objects came from this auction house, but I couldn’t document it. I clicked on the next link, which led to a sheaf of Dr. Russo’s original handwritten notes, a copy of which was archived at the University of Rome. The English translation was available online.

  Dr. Russo wrote that jewels were alleged to be hidden inside the cat sculpture. From the x-ray, I knew this wasn’t true, and I wondered why he’d speculated that they were. Another article, published in 1987, suggested that the rumor persisted because the cat, which was made of bronze with silver and gold inlays, backed by lead, weighed almost twice as much as the Gayer-Anderson Cat, the exemplar owned by the British Museum.

  “Holy moly!”

  I called Sasha. Nate had left, and she was at her desk.

  “I’ll be right down,” I told Sasha. “Get the endoscope.”

  * * *

  With Sasha holding the insulated cord, keeping it straight, I threaded the tiny camera into the cat through its open mouth. Together we watched on the monitor.

  The inside metal was streaked with verdigris, a green patina.

  “The outside must have been coated with wax,” Sasha said. “Otherwise, it would be green, too.”

  “Sealing bronze sculptures was common.” I inched the scope lower. “Look, do you see those pins?”

  “Yes. Is that what held the mold in place?”

  “The wax mold, yes,” I said. I moved the camera closer to inspect the remnants of the pins. They were coarsely hewn. “After creating a wax mold, the artist covered it with clay and fired it in a kiln. Naturally, the wax melted away.”

  “Which is why it’s called the lost-wax process.”

  Something gleamed in the camera’s concentrated light. “Wow.” There was something inside, but not jewels. “I was right, but wrong.” The object was just shy of six inches square, all gold, as bright as the sun. I looked at her. “See if you can reach Ed Moss.”

  We got him at his studio and sent him the live camera feed.

  “What do you think it is?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s not a familiar object.”

  “I’m going to show you the bottom of the inside of the cat, then the outside bottom. It’s sealed.”

  I manipulated the endoscope so he could see a close-up of the inside seal. It was jagged, as if whoever added the metal disk was only concerned about the outside appearance. Sasha used our professional camera to take a detailed image of the outside. It was smoother than what appeared on the inside, but lopsided. Sasha emailed the photo.

  “Any thoughts?” I asked Dr. Moss.

  “I need to examine it in person. The seal is uneven, which suggests it was added some time after the statue was created.”

  “How soon can you get here?”

  He could come immediately, and I transferred him to Cara, so she could make his travel arrangements.

  Sasha packed up the endoscope. “Since the x-ray was negative, what made you think something was inside?”

  I smiled. “A 1987 article saying a cat similar to ours was heavy because it contained lead. X-rays don’t penetrate lead.”

  * * *

  I checked my calendar and saw I had an appointment with Gretchen. She wanted to discuss the finalists for her new assistant position.

  “Do you have a favorite?” I asked her.

  “Zach. I like his reason for wanting a new job—he’s always looking to better himself. He’s an assistant manager at a furniture store, and he was knowledgeable about quality construction. He cares. If they’d had an opening for a manager, he would have stayed. If you agree, I’d like to offer him the job, and as part of his onboarding process, I think we should sign him up for Hitchens’s weeklong gallery management course. It will be good for him to learn some of the vocabulary and special considerations we deal with.”

  “Yes, I agree, because it’s your decision to make. Remember that part of your job is to continually groom him for his next position at Prescott’s.”

  “Will do. I’m excited.”

  “Me, too. You did a fabulous job, as always.”

  * * *

  Later, as Ty and I sat in the hot tub watching stars twinkle, we discussed our plans for Emma’s party.

  “I’m thinking I need to rent a hall.”

  “How big are you thinking?”

  “Big.” I told him my ideas. “What do you think?”

  He said he loved it, and I slid deeper into the hot tub. Everything was coming together.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  I got to the courthouse at a quarter to ten the next morning, Friday, located the correct courtroom, and paused by the door. I felt oddly nervous.

  Wes stood with his back to me, talking to Tom. Tom shook his head and walked into the courtroom.

  I nodded at Tom as he passed by. Wes joined me at the door.

  “How’s Tom?” I asked.

  “Feeling played.”

  “He prided himself on his ability to read people.”

  “And messed up big-time.”

  “If someone is a good liar, there’s no way you can tell.”

  “D
on’t you think you can read people? Their eyes? Nervous tics?”

  “I like to think so, but who knows? If someone cons you, how would you know unless they get caught? Have you heard how Julie is doing? Is she contrite?”

  “I guess we’ll find out soon enough. No one from her family showed up.”

  “That’s awful.”

  We walked in together. Wes sat in the front. I sat in the back not far from Tom. I was pleased to see Maudie sitting next to Doug.

  Julie was led in. She wore an orange prison jumpsuit. She didn’t look at anyone, not her lawyer, not Tom, not the judge.

  She stood when told to do so, sounded robotic when she delivered her allocution, which contained no new information, and sat when she finished.

  The judge asked if there were any victim impact statements. Maudie patted Doug’s arm. He stood and dragged himself to the podium positioned to face Julie, giving the gallery and judge his profile. Julie kept her eyes on the table in front of her.

  “You killed the love of my life, the mother of my children, a woman who did you no harm. I will never forgive you. After today, I will never again speak your name.”

  He carefully refolded the paper, placed it into his pocket, and returned to his seat.

  The judge asked if there were any other statements. There weren’t.

  He sentenced Julie to seven to twelve years, and she was led away.

  After everyone else had left, I sat on the bench thinking about love and loss, independent thinking, and second chances.

  * * *

  I returned to Prescott’s and ate lunch outside, a tuna salad sandwich, sitting under the willow tree. When I was done, I stayed a while longer, enjoying listening to the birds chat.

  An old brown car pulled into the lot. I didn’t recognize the driver, a young man in his twenties. The passenger was Lainy.

  I stepped out from under the willow so she’d see me.

  She said something to the driver and got out.

  She walked toward me, stopping ten feet away.

  She nervously pleated a fold of her skirt. “I just came from seeing Maudie. She looks good, better now that she’s out of Belle Vista. Not that there’s anything wrong with Belle Vista—I didn’t mean that.” She paused. “I went to thank her for asking the district attorney to let me go, and she said it was all you, that she went along with it, but it was your idea, that it wouldn’t have happened without you, that you argued for it. Thank you. I’m so sorry for what I did. I’m so sorry.”

  “I’ve always thought that a couple of mistakes, even a couple of really bad mistakes, shouldn’t define your life.”

  “I won’t let you down.”

  “Don’t let yourself down.” I glanced at the car. “Are you leaving town?”

  “I’m going to New York. My friend is driving me to the bus. I applied online and got a waitress job at the Marriott in Times Square and a room at the Y. I’m not going to screw up.”

  “I believe you. I think you’ve got a lot of potential.”

  Her eyes widened. “You do?”

  I smiled. “I do.” I set off across the parking lot, heading for the front door. After a few steps, I stopped and looked back at her. “Break a leg.”

  * * *

  Dr. Moss drove his rental car straight from the airport, arriving at four thirty, eager to examine the cat sculpture. It took him less than twenty minutes to determine that the seal was not contemporaneous to the sculpture but was itself ancient, probably added during the Late Period of ancient Egyptian history, perhaps in an effort to hide whatever was secreted inside from Alexander the Great’s successful conquest of Egypt in 331 BCE. The seal was made of bronze but bore a different patina and had been added by a different, and lesser, craftsman. He said he was willing to open it up but would need cutting tools and an assistant, preferably a master ironworker.

  Fred smiled and pointed at his chest. “You’re looking at one. I’m a certified welder.”

  “Good. Let’s examine the—”

  “Wait,” I said, interrupting. “Before you break the seal, I want to get the TV crew up here. I want to memorialize this process—whatever we find inside the cat. I know Cara has you set up at a nice hotel. I’m going to try to get the team up here by tomorrow. Before I call, I need to know if you’re willing to have your work recorded for Josie’s Antiques. I should mention that you’ll receive a separate honorarium from the show.”

  “I’d be delighted,” he said.

  “Super! I’m going to call Timothy now. If you’d like to work with Fred on how you’ll tackle the unsealing, what tools you’ll need, etcetera, that’s fine. If you’d prefer to wait until morning to hear what’s going on, that’s fine, too.”

  He said he was eager to work with Fred.

  I went up to my office and placed the call.

  “Timothy, you’re going to hate me, but then you’re going to love me. I need you to get a crew up here now—so we can film in the morning.”

  “I hate you!”

  “Wait till you hear why.”

  An hour later, as dusk was falling and the moon was rising, the arrangements were complete. Timothy would get the equipment on the road overnight. The crew would fly up in the morning. All the filming would occur at Prescott’s, which was already outfitted with much of what was needed in terms of lighting and wiring. Timothy thought he might be able to use a clip from my video showing the discovery of the objects in the dumbwaiter, so I sent it to him. We agreed that I’d re-create all the steps of my examination of the presentation box. Nate had appeared on previous episodes, so I knew he’d be glad to repeat his work for the camera. Dr. Moss had just agreed to do the same.

  I called Maudie to ask if she’d like to appear on camera.

  “Heavens, no!” Maudie said. “I’m glad the objects are worth filming, but I don’t want to be on TV. Don’t use my name, either, please. I don’t want to be hounded by people about it.”

  I agreed that she would only be referred to as the owner.

  I ended the call and stared out the window at the gathering twilight. I’d talk about my online research and my conversations with the family, who wished to remain anonymous. The final step—the breaking of the seal—would be filmed on-site, in real time.

  * * *

  The next day, Saturday, with the tag sale in full swing, the TV crew set up their equipment in the warehouse and my office. They were ready by one. Timothy decided to film the redo shots later and to start at the end.

  Dr. Moss and Fred began working on breaking the seal. Dr. Moss explained to the camera that laser cutting would require treating the bronze with a graphite spray paint in order to prevent the beam from refracting off the surface, endangering the operator, but since the paint leaves a residue that can alter or damage the object, the preferred method is the one that’s been around for thousands of years—sawing.

  The two men used a thin handsaw to break through the bronze seal, leaving a scattering of metal shards on the worktable. Once the seal was removed, the opening was shown to be symmetrical, the lip smooth.

  Ignoring the cameras as Timothy had taught me years earlier, I proceeded as if I were talking to respected colleagues. I held the light over Ed’s head while he used padded tweezers to extract the gold object. Once it was free from the cat, he laid it on a sheet of acid-free paper.

  “It’s a book,” Fred said.

  The book was comprised of six pages, bound by two gold rings. Using the tweezers, Dr. Moss turned them, one at a time.

  Dr. Moss turned to face me. “This appears to be twenty-four-karat gold.” He studied the markings. “The language is probably Middle Egyptian, used from 2000 BCE to 1300 BCE.”

  “This resembles the Etruscan Gold Book,” I said, “you know the one I mean. A construction worker found it in Bulgaria when he was digging a canal. That one dates to 600 BCE and is considered the world’s oldest book. You’re saying this one is even older? Is that even conceivable?”

  “I need to examin
e the language carefully to be certain, and we’ll need to compare the two books. That one is housed in the National History Museum in Sofia—in Bulgaria. To answer your question, given this cat statue’s likely provenance, it is definitely possible that this book is even older than the Etruscan one—as much as a thousand years older.”

  “That’s remarkable!” I said, beaming. “You’re thinking that someone who cherished the book hid it in the cat as the bad guys—Alexander the Great’s troops—were knocking on the city walls.”

  “I think that’s a likely scenario. The book might well have been produced hundreds of years before it was hidden.”

  “What would you expect the content to include?”

  “Probably it’s a kind of eulogy, a tribute to someone created when he died.”

  “Assuming we can verify its authenticity, how much would it sell for? A rough guess?”

  Dr. Moss turned to the book, the gold resplendent. “Somewhere between a fortune and priceless.”

  Timothy called, “Cut!” He turned to me. “You’re right! I love you!”

  * * *

  I called Maudie to tell her the news, and she was, no surprise, speechless.

  I started describing options for verifying the book—we could take our book to the museum in Sofia, or find scholars who’ve studied that one to come to us—but she stopped me and said, “Let someone else do it. If I wanted to donate it to a museum, which one is most equipped to take the next steps?”

  “The British Museum in London. The Louvre in Paris. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The new museum in Cairo, the Grand Egyptian Museum, should be on the list, too.”

  “Let’s keep it in America. Can we ask them to loan it to the Egyptian Museum every once in a while?”

  “Yes, assuming they deem it appropriate. They’ll need to assess security and so on.”

  “Good. Arrange it, please.”