The Orkney Scroll Read Free

chosen this very moment to call, but perhaps Trevor had suggested the time, all part of the plan to entice Blair to buy on the spot.
    “Do you think it’s genuine?” Blair asked quietly.
    “I think it could be,” I said, albeit reluctantly. I really wanted more time.
    “It may still be available,” Trevor said, looking right at Baldwin. “I’m talking to Blair right now.”
    “I’ll take it!” Blair said.
    Trevor nodded and smiled in our general direction. “Call you back, Dez,” he said. “Sorry.”
    “I’m off,” I said. I didn’t want to know what Blair was going to pay for this passion of his, and I sure didn’t want to find myself in the middle of a dustup between Baldwin and Crane. After all, both were customers.
    “I’ll be at the Stane later,” Trevor called as I dodged past the Doberman again. “If you’ll join me, hen, I’ll stand you to a single malt or three.”
    I didn’t take up Trevor’s offer of a scotch at the Stane, or rather The Dwarfie Stane, his favorite bar, there being only so much gloating I can stand in one day. I did see him a few days later, however. Baldwin, never one to quietly enjoy a victory over a competitor, held a rather grand cocktail party in his Rosedale mansion to show off his purchase. Trevor came with his latest girlfriend, Willow somebody or other. There was no point trying to remember her last name. If the relationship followed the normal course, she wouldn’t be around long enough for it to matter. She had the standard Trevor girlfriend look, long dark hair and even longer legs, a certain innocence of expression. Like most of them, she had an unusual name. McClintoch & Swain was represented by both me and my business partner—and ex-husband—Clive Swain. I brought my life partner, Rob Luczka, as my date, and Clive brought his, my best friend Moira Meller.
    Blair’s home was a shrine to Art Nouveau. It was a little over the top, but far be it for me to criticize, given I’d helped him to acquire a lot of it. Even the powder room walls had been covered in genuine Art Nouveau fabric. Not a copy, the real thing. Every room was a little museum, decorated to the point of excess and beyond. He had pieces from many of the masters of Art Nouveau, including some lovely furnishings by Josef Hoffmann, Carlos Bugatti, Henry van de Velde, and Victor Horta among others, and now of course he had a Charles Rennie Mackintosh. In the smaller items, he had much from Steuben and Tiffany, Sevres and Meissen and many lesser known but still important pieces dating to the period, and of course, determined as Blair was to erase his first mistake, a few genuine pieces of Galle glass. All were carefully placed, and artfully lit, none more so than the Mackintosh writing cabinet which was on a raised platform in an alcove off the living room all by itself. It was, to continue the shrine analogy, the holy of holies in Blair’s residence, the spot where he placed his prized possession of the moment.
    I idly wondered what had happened to the objects previously displayed there. At one time the alcove had held a Josef Hoffman walnut-veneered sideboard, another time a rather unusual carved wood chair by Antoni Gaudi no less. I hadn’t seen either of those pieces in awhile. I wondered if he sold stuff he got tired of, or simply stored it in the basement, which would be unfortunate. Blair had paid just over a hundred thousand for that one chair, which was a deal considering how unique it was. He’d got it for a few tens of thousands less than the going rate because it had a very small cigarette burn on the seat. A shame really, which is perhaps why the chair was nowhere to be seen anymore. The Mackintosh writing cabinet was, if not his proudest acquisition, then perhaps his most extravagant. Blair was a Collector, with a capital
C.
    “Do you like this stuff?” Rob asked as we wandered from room to room. “All these swirls on everything?”
    “I do, but not all in one place. I prefer