Chapter 6

The twelfth of September was warm and still, and Ward Ashcombe's lawyer called Delia at nine in the morning with a final number, and Delia said no thank you, and went back to ironing her shirt.

At half past six the library was full.

The auctioneer stood at the end of the refectory table with the parcel map and the gavel. Along the window wall sat the historical society's board, Gwen Ambrose with her hands folded. Dr. Voss sat near the door with her portfolio on her knees, frowning at the pale rectangle above the fireplace where the portrait had hung. Renata Buhl stood behind Delia's shoulder with her tablet. Bunny sat at the head of the table with her stick hooked over the chair back, and Ward stood at the far end with one hand resting flat on the gavel, in his navy blazer, warm, unhurried, the man who signs the payroll.

Teo Marchetti came in at twenty to seven in a canvas cap and a grey polo shirt. He was not on the payroll. He did not have to be announced. He walked to the left corner of the table and set down a plywood backing board, four feet by three, with a strip of yellowed tape still clinging to one corner.

Nobody said anything for a moment. Then Ward said, "What is this?"

"Condition report," Delia said.

She sat down at the head of the table beside Bunny and put the estate key register in front of her, closed.

"Mr. Ashcombe asked me to complete the season's condition reports," she said. "This is the last object. The backing board of the painting that was declared a forgery on the day of the house tour."

Teo took the folding knife off his belt, opened it, and slid the blade under the tape.

The tape lifted with a soft rasp, and the brass key swung free of the board and turned in the lamplight, and every person in the room saw the bow.

ASHWOOD 1928 - No. 4.

Delia's hand came down flat on the oak beside it. She did not raise her voice. She had never once raised her voice.

"Ask who cut the fourth key," she said.

Then she reached across and took the three keys off the velvet board in the case by the door - she had asked Al Cerrone to bring it in at six - and she laid them in a row on the table, and Teo laid the found key beside them.

Four bows. Four stamps. The same hairline crack running through the top loop of the 8, on every one.

Ward's fingers did not move off the gavel.

"That key was struck with the dies in the muniment room," Delia said. "Those dies have never left that room since 1928. Which means whoever cut that key had already been inside. And that key was taped behind the backing board of a copy that was hung eighteen months ago, by a restorer named Milo Sarkisian, who was paid partly in access to this estate by the man who signs the staff payroll."

"Careful," Ward said.

"I have been careful," Delia said. "For eight months."

She opened the register. Three entries in a 1928 hand, and a fourth line ruled through in ink, dated 1974.

"I found that key in October," she said. "I photographed it. I taped it back exactly the way I found it, same tape, same corner, same pressure, and I told one person, and then I did nothing for eight months while Dr. Voss stood in this room and called the family's oldest painting a fake, and while Ward walked me down my own drive in front of four hundred people."

Bunny's stick clicked once against the floor.

"The Keystone policy has a fraud clause," Delia said. "It triggers on a public claim. A quiet settlement pays the family, buries the painting and leaves the man in the room. I needed it said out loud, on the record, with everyone in one house. So I let him do it."

The room was very quiet. Dr. Voss had gone red to the ears.

Bunny said, without looking up, "I was told the night before."

"So was I," said Renata Buhl.

Teo said, "There's a key in the lodge drawer. Old brass. Nobody's ever claimed it. Al keeps it with the unclaimed ones."

Ward's hand stayed on the gavel. His knuckles had gone pale, and the head of the gavel had lifted a half inch off the table.

"Ward," Bunny said. "Give me your keys."