The Eighth Commandment Read Free Page A

rising as if she was examining Mt. Everest—that I resented.
    “Do you know a man named Archibald Havistock?” she demanded.
    “Havistock? No, I’m not familiar with the name.”
    She gave me one of her dagger glances. “He owns what seems to be a very large, valuable collection of antique coins. Almost five hundred items with an insured value of two million. I’m surprised you’ve never heard of him.”
    “Miss Dodat,” I said, as patiently as I could, “ no one knows the names of the world’s biggest coin collectors. For security reasons they buy and sell only through agents, attorneys, or professional coin dealers. You never see their names mentioned at auction or anywhere else. Sometimes they’re known in the trade by nicknames. ‘Midas,’ for instance, is a Saudi Arabian sheikh. Nobody knows who he is. A woman called ‘The Boston Lady’ is reputed to own one of the finest collections of antique Greek coins in the country. ‘The Man from Dallas’ is another. These people work very hard to keep their names secret. When you possess that much wealth in portable property—a two-million-dollar collection of antique coins could be carried off in a small, brown paper bag—you don’t wish to have your name and address publicized.”
    “Why don’t they put their coins in a bank vault?”
    I looked at her in astonishment. “Because they want to look at them, touch them, dream over them. Most of these people don’t invest in antique coins for profit. They’re hooked on the beauty, history, and romance of the mintage.”
    She made a gesture, waving away everything I had said as of no importance. “Archibald Havistock,” she repeated. “He wishes to put his entire coin collection on the block or sell outright. I’m sure he has contacted Christie’s and Sotheby’s, and probably other houses as well. I have here a copy of his insurance inventory. I want you to go over it very, very carefully and give me an accurate estimate of what you feel Grandby’s might earn if the collection was consigned to auction or whether we’d be better off buying outright.”
    “Miss Dodat, I can’t do that without making a physical examination of the coins. Even an insurance inventory can be inaccurate. Values in the coin market change rapidly.”
    “Then make arrangements to see them,” she said crossly. “He lives in Manhattan, so it shouldn’t be difficult. Here—it’s all yours. I’ll expect your report within a week.”
    She held a folder of documents out to me. I took it and tried to smile, wondering if I should curtsy. I started out.
    “By next Friday!” she cried after me.
    Hobie was down in Virginia, appraising the value of a stamp collection left to his heirs by a recently deceased nonagenarian. Grandby’s provided this service to executors for a fee even though we might not be selected to offer the property at auction or be given the opportunity to buy outright.
    So I had the office to myself that morning. I poured a mug of black coffee—my mug had I TAKE CANDY FROM STRANGERS printed on the side—and started going over the inventory of Archibald Havistock’s coin collection.
    In my business, there are collectors and there are accumulators. The former are people of taste and discernment, who have an educated knowledge of the history, provenance, and intrinsic value of what they acquire. Most of all, they buy through love. Accumulators are greedy addicts who buy everything, without regard to rarity and condition, and are only concerned with the bottom line (catalogue value) of their collections. Which often turns out to be woefully inflated when they try to sell.
    It was immediately obvious to me, studying the inventory, that Archibald Havistock was a very discriminating collector indeed. His list included some real beauties, but the insurance estimates were dated four years previously and did not allow for inflation or the recent runup in antique coin values.
    The gem of the collection, a real