Hidden Riches

scan DiCarlo’s bruised face. “Did you have an accident of some sort?”
    “Yes.” DiCarlo touched the bandage at the back of his neck. The memory of Dora’s teeth sinking in had him steaming all over again. “Nothing serious.”
    “I’m glad to hear it. It would be a pity if there was any scarring.” He finished pouring the claret. “I hope your plans for the holiday haven’t been upset by this trip. I didn’t expect you for another day or two.”
    “I wanted to bring you the results as soon as possible.”
    “I like a man with a sense of responsibility. Cheers.” Well satisfied, he tapped his glass against DiCarlo’s. He smiled as the door chimes echoed down the hallway. “Ah, that will be Mr. Winesap. He’ll be joining us to inspect the merchandise. Mr. Winesap is quite excellent with his lists, as you know. Now, I hope you’ll both forgive me, but I can’t stem my impatience any longer,” he said as Winesap entered. “I must see my treasures. I believe they were taken into the library.” He gestured toward the door. “Gentlemen?”
    The hallway was tiled in white marble, and wide enough to accommodate a huge box settle and hall rack while leaving room for three to pass abreast.
    The library smelled of leather and lemon and roses. The roses were arranged in two tall Dresden vases set atop the mantel. There were hundreds of books, perhaps thousands, in the split-level room, not on wall shelves but in cases and cabinets, some open, some glass-fronted. There was a charming four-tier revolving bookcase from the Regency period, as well as an Edwardian model Finley had arranged to have stolen from a castle in Devon.
    He’d wanted the room to have the feel of a country squire’s library, and had succeeded very well, adding deep leather chairs, a collection of antique pipes and a hunting portrait by Gainsborough.
    In keeping with the cozy theme, the ubiquitous monitors were hidden behind a trompe l’oeil panel of a bookcase.
    “And here we are.” With a spring in his step, Finleywalked to the library table and picked up a mermaid bookend.
    As instructed, the butler had left a small hammer, a knife and a large wastebasket. Finley picked up the hammer and neatly decapitated a blue-eyed mermaid.
    “Mustn’t move too swiftly on these,” he said softly, and continued to chip away, delicately, at the cheap plaster.
    “This was made in Taiwan,” he told his guests. “At a busy little plant I have an interest in. We ship merchandise primarily to North and South America, and make a tidy, if uninteresting, profit. These, however, are what we might call one of a kind. Some are excellent reproductions of valuable pieces, excellent enough to fool even an expert.”
    He took out a small square of bubbled plastic, tossing the rest of the bookend aside, then using the knife to slit the packing material open. Inside the plastic was a chamois cloth, and in that a small, very old netsuke.
    He examined it, minutely, delighted. A woman crouched on hands and knees with a round-bellied man behind her, his hand clasped possessively over her breast. Her ivory head was turned slightly toward her left shoulder and up so that it appeared she was trying to see his face as he prepared to enter her from the rear.
    “Excellent, excellent.” After setting it aside, he carefully destroyed the second bookend.
    The next piece continued the theme, with a woman kneeling at a man’s feet, her head tilting back and a smile on her face as she clutched his erect penis.
    “Such craftsmanship.” Finley’s voice shook with emotion. “Over two hundred years old, and no amount of technology can improve on it. The Japanese understood and appreciated eroticism in art while Europeans were covering their piano legs and pretending children hatched under cabbage leaves.”
    He took the knife and disemboweled the parrot.
    “And here,” he said, opening a velvet pouch. “Ah, andhere.” The lightest of tremors passed deliciously through him when he let the sapphire brooch drop into his waiting palm.
    It was set in an intricate gold filigree encrusted with diamonds, a stone of more than eight carats, in a deep cornflower blue, square cut and majestic.
    “Worn by Mary, Queen of Scots.” Finley stroked the stone, the setting, turned it over to admire the back. “While she was plotting intrigue and her clandestine love affairs. It was part of the booty good Queen Bess took after she’d had her pretty cousin executed.”
    He could