The Orkney Scroll

Chapter 4

Bjarni had some choices to make in terms of where he should go. He could go back to Norway, of course. It was where he was born, and he still had kin there. But he wasn’t sure in what favor he’d be viewed, or whether Einar’s ties were stronger than his, and frankly retracing his steps does not appear to be something Bjarni liked to do. He knew, of course, of the route via the Shetlands and Faroes to Iceland, and he probably had kin there. Icelandic ships put in at Orkney, and Bjarni doubtless knew all about the land of fire and ice, the harsh and unforgiving terrain, and the long cold nights. Iceland fared rather poorly in comparison to the lush and fertile lands of Orkney, it had to be said, even if it did have an air of adventure to it. It did not take him long to decide Iceland was not somewhere he wanted to go. He’d heard rumors, too, of lands even farther west and even less hospitable. So Bjarni heeded his brother’s advice and took the route he knew as well as any other, to the west, to the lands where he’d raided every year with Sigurd, and where he thought some support in his difficulties with Einar might lie.

And so Bjarni headed for Caithness in northern Scotland. Caithness fell under the control of the earls of Orkney some of the time and was fertile hunting ground for loot most of the time. Indeed, the Orkney earl credited with taking Caithness was an earlier Earl Sigurd, this one known as Sigurd the Powerful. There is a legend about this Sigurd, that he died because he tied his vanquished enemy’s severed head to his saddle. The dead man bit Sigurd’s leg and Sigurd succumbed to the wound. A good story to be sure, and probably not true, but it does give some idea of the animosity that existed between the Vikings on one side and the Picts and Scots on the other.

At this particular juncture, Caithness and neighboring Sutherland to the south belonged to Einar’s youngest brother Thorfinn, who had been given it by his grandfather King Malcolm of Scotland. The boy was too young to rule but advisors were appointed by the king. A number of Orkney men who had suffered under Einar’s tyranny, or like Bjarni had provoked his wrath, had gone to Caithness to enjoy the support of young Thorfinn.

But this would not be true for Bjarni. You’ve probably already guessed by now that Bjarni was of somewhat intemperate disposition, rather prone to setting disputes with his Viking axe rather than negotiation. He had left Orkney a little short of provisions, given his haste, and so he did what he’d always done: he helped himself to what he needed. The trouble was he met with some resistance in the form of the brother of one of Thorfinn’s advisors. Bjarni emerged from the little set-to as the victor, but it didn’t do him much good. The brother was dead, and Bjarni was once again on the run.

Glasgow is Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s city. It was here that he was born, where he studied at the Glasgow School of Art, and here that he formed the Glasgow Four, with fellow draftsman Herbert McNair, and two sisters, Frances and Margaret Macdonald, both members of a group of women art students who called themselves, rather fetchingly, the Immortals. The Four developed a unique body of work, an unusual design aesthetic, which is often now referred to as Glasgow School, a subset of the Arts and Crafts movement, and indeed of Art Nouveau. Herbert went on to marry Frances, and Charles married Margaret, who collaborated with her husband from that time on.

Mackintosh’s work is everywhere in Glasgow, having finally achieved the hometown recognition denied him during his lifetime. Not that Mackintosh was deterred by this lack of acceptance while he lived: he boldly laid claim to being Scotland’s greatest architect. True or not, the remaining examples of his work have become places of some modest pilgrimage for those who love Arts and Crafts design. Mackintosh’s designs for furniture, textiles, posters, lighting, clocks and so on, are now much admired and indeed coveted. You can eat Scottish salmon on brown bread in the faithfully reproduced Willow Tearooms that Mackintosh designed for Miss Catherine Cranston. You can walk the hallowed halls of the Glasgow School of Art where Mackintosh not only studied, but which he later designed when new quarters were called for. You can see the rooms in which he and Margaret lived, every piece of furniture designed by them, carefully reconstructed in the Hunterian Art Gallery. You will have barely scratched the surface.

I did all of these things. I went to every place that exhibited authentic Mackintosh. I talked to every expert I could find. I peered at every detail, most particularly the locks. I came away convinced that the first cabinet I’d seen was authentic.

While I had no trouble finding Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s ghost in Glasgow, what I couldn’t find was the real John A. Macdonald Antiques. Not on George Square, the address on the receipt in Trevor’s files, nor anywhere else for that matter. In my heart of hearts, I knew I wasn’t going to find them. I just wasn’t prepared to admit it. Before I left home on the buying trip, I’d checked Glasgow telephone listings on the Internet and had done a dealer search on the British Antique Dealers’ Association Website, as well as on other Websites that featured Scottish antique dealers. No John A. Macdonald Antiques.

Still, my optimistic, or perhaps desperate, little soul had decided if I went there I’d find them. Once I’d convinced myself of the notion that I had not been wrong about the writing cabinet, further self-delusion was not only possible, but essentially effortless.

Glasgow had not been a regular stopping place for me, and I had been looking forward to it. It has a reputation for being one of the, if not the, most stylish city in Britain— edgy, fashionable, and exciting. I had not had time to put my usual careful plans in place for the trip, given the events of the spring and summer, so it was rather more haphazard than usual: I started in Rome, moved on through Tuscany, the south of France, Paris, then over to Ireland, before ending up in London. All along I took digital photos of the merchandise I’d purchased and e-mailed them to Clive so he would first of all know I was on the job, and secondly that he’d have something to show anyone who thought our showroom looked a little bare. From London, I called him to say I couldn’t get a flight back right away, so was going to head for the English countryside for a couple of days for a break. He was actually nice about it, which just served to make me feel guilty, although not guilty enough to forego my intended excursion to Charles Rennie Mackintosh country.

The trouble was, while Glasgow was every bit as interesting as everyone says it is, I got absolutely nowhere on my mission. Indeed it was one step forward, two or three steps back. After walking around George Square twice—it’s a rather impressive place except for rather tatty-looking tents set up in the middle of it for some conference or other—and thence along George Street, and West George Street, too, all without success, I entered the premises of the one antique dealer I could find in the immediate vicinity of George Square, one Lester Campbell, Antiquarian.

“I have a client in Toronto,” I said, after we’d been through the social niceties, and I’d had a brief look around his shop which was rather posh, just the place to look for outrageously expensive furniture. “Someone who is most enchanted by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. He will buy anything by Mackintosh. Do you know of something on the market?”

“I don’t,” Lester Campbell said. “I wish I did. I’d be only too happy to have a client like that.”

“Anybody with a private collection who might be prevailed upon to sell part of it? My client is not without means.”

“No, again. There are lots of reproductions and copies out there, and I suppose a few downright fakes, you know,” he said. In fact I did know that only too well. “The odd piece comes up from time to time. There was a very nice writing cabinet from the mid- to late nineteen-nineties that fetched a rather becoming price at auction.”

“Yes, about one-point-five million U.S. if I recall. My client wouldn’t even blink at that price. Unfortunately that was before he started collecting. He has come to this passion of his relatively recently.”

“Aren’t you the lucky one?” he replied.

“Yes, indeed,” I said, with an inward cringe. “This is not the kind of antique I usually carry, but I was given the name of an antique dealer here in Glasgow who dealt in Mackintosh, so I thought I’d look him up. For some reason, I can’t seem to locate him. John A. Macdonald?”

“Never heard of him,” Campbell said.

“Nobody has,” I said. “Strange that.”

“Strange, indeed. Perhaps someone is having you on?”

“Could be,” I said. “Annoying that.”

“I hope it didn’t cost you money,” he said.

“Not money, no. Reputation, maybe.”

“Ah,” he replied.

“You have my card,” I said. “If you hear of anything, would you let me know?” I tried not to sound too out of sorts even if the inescapable conclusion was that if the invoice for the black cupboard was a fake, then so, too, was the cabinet.

“Of course,” he replied. “Here is my card as well.”

I had a brief look at it and looked again. The name was wrong, which is to say, it was clearly marked as Lester Campbell, Antiquarian, but the typeface was similar to what I recalled on the invoice from John A. Macdonald. Now there is no law that says you can’t use the same typeface as another dealer, but this one was a bit unusual. It was designed to look like handwritten script. “Are you sure you’ve never heard of John A. Macdonald Antiques?”

“Absolutely certain. Do you want me to check the British Antique Dealer’s listings for you?”

“I’ve done that. I’m baffled.”

I must have looked rather dejected as I headed for the door, because as I reached it, he called me back. “You wouldn’t be planning to stay over a day or two would you?”

“I could, I suppose.”

“You might want to consider a little charity,” he said, reaching to pick up a card on the counter and waving it at me.

“Charity?”

“There’s a fund-raiser tomorrow night,” he said. “It’s being held at the residence of Robert Alexander and his wife Maya. He’s a big man about town, philanthropist obviously. He’s paying the shot for the evening, so all proceeds go to charity. He’s also a big collector, furniture, paintings, the works. If anybody has a Mackintosh or three, it would be him. And he can often be persuaded to sell them if he wants to make a big gesture for one of his favorite causes. I expect there’s a ticket or two left.”

“Thank you,” I said, taking the card. “I just may go to that. Will I see you there?”

“You will,” he replied. “You have to stay in with these kind of people.”

“You do,” I agreed, thinking about the last big party of a customer I’d attended. “I owe you for this.”

“Yes, you do,” he agreed. “See you there. I’ll introduce you to the Alexanders if the opportunity arises.”

If I couldn’t find the elusive, if not entirely fictional John A. Macdonald, I did find Percy Bicycle Clips. Not that it helped any, mind you. In fact, it put me in a really foul mood. He was riding his bicycle, of course, his jacket flapping around behind him, and I hailed a cab the minute I saw him. “See that fellow on a bicycle?” I said to the driver. “I think he’s a friend from Toronto. Can you see if you can catch up to him for me?”

It wasn’t as easy as it might be. Percy cycled along at a fairly good clip, and he didn’t have to sit in traffic. The cab driver was a pro, however, and managed to keep him in sight. Then Percy wheeled on to Buchanan Street which unfortunately had been blocked off to traffic.

The cab driver, never one to give up, apparently, whipped along a parallel street and then pulled up on Argyll where it crossed Buchanan. I handed the driver the fare and stepped out of the cab as Percy wheeled up. “Percy,” I said. “Remember me?”

Percy made to turn around, but I had my hand on his handlebars and to get away he was going to have to drag me with him, which would have caused quite a scene in this very busy shopping area. “Let go,” he said.

“I won’t! I want to talk to you.”

He tried to pull the bicycle away from me, but I held firm. “If I talk to you, will you leave me alone?” he said, defeated.

“I guess so. If I let go and you make a run for it, I’m going to scream thief at the top of my lungs. Just so you know.”

“I understand,” he said, pushing his glasses up on his nose nervously.

“Do you want to go for a coffee?”

“No. Just say what you want to say.”

“I’m trying to track down the source of the writing cabinet,” I said. “You say it was your grandmother’s, but there is an invoice and receipt for it, from an antique dealer here in Glasgow by the name of John A. Macdonald.”

Percy looked perplexed. “An antique dealer here?”

“Yes. So I’m wondering if the cabinet, the one you showed me a picture of, really belonged to your grandmother.”

“The cabinet?” he said.

“The cabinet in the photo of your grandmother, if that’s who she is, the one that’s possibly worth one-point-five million.”

“One-point-five million what?” he said.

“U.S. dollars,” I said.

“That thing was worth one-point-five million?” he said.

“If it was real it was,” I said.

“Real what?” he said.

“Charles Rennie Mackintosh. What else?”

“Whoa,” he said.

“You were looking for it,” I said.

“Well, yes, I guess I was.”

“You guess? I have this idea there were two, so I’m interested in your grandmother, where she might be, some way of getting in touch with her.”

“Two what?” he said.

“Two writing cabinets,” I said, in a rather impatient tone. Apparently I could not stay calm on this subject.

“Two of these things worth a million and a half? Is that each, or for both of them?”

“One was worth that much. The other was a fake.”

“A fake,” he repeated.

“Don’t play dumb with me. You told me your grandmother didn’t know what it was worth.”

“I did,” he replied. Then inexplicably he started to laugh.

“What is so funny here?” I asked, after watching him chortle for a while. He couldn’t reply because he was laughing too hard. “Are you going to let me in on this little joke?”

“I knew he had it,” he said at last. “That guy with his head chopped up.”

“Trevor Wylie,” I said, through gritted teeth. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

“Nooo,” he said. “Did you?”

“No. You did run away.”

“I suppose,” he said, calming down a little. “I felt sick. I didn’t want to get involved, either. It might have derailed my quest.”

“Your quest? What were you doing in the shop?” I said, as he started giggling again.

“Same thing you were, I expect,” he said. “Or maybe not. You’re telling me that there are two of those things. Or rather were two of those things. One was destroyed, right, but there is another?”

“That’s my theory anyway.”

“So the one that was destroyed was a fake,” he went on.

“I think so. It had a new lock.”

“A lock,” he said in a perplexed tone.

“Never mind. Look, I’m going to tell you what I think happened. You’ll think I’m crazy, but hear me out.” So I told him. I told him how embarrassed I was about making a mistake, but then started to think I hadn’t, how Trevor had needed money to cover his gambling debts, and that selling the one cabinet may have covered his debts but didn’t put him any further ahead, and that whether he had intended to do so at first or not, the presence of a second cabinet had been too much for him, and he’d baited Blair Baldwin with the real one, shipped him the fake, and then sold the first a second time. I told him I was in Scotland trying to prove there had been two cabinets even if everybody else in the world thought I was nuts. Percy listened as I rattled on and on.

“So it’s possible the real one is still out there?” he said, when I’d finished.

“I think so.”

“Where?”

“It could be anywhere.”

“But it’s in Canada?”

“Probably. Both the real one and the fake were brought over from either Glasgow or Orkney or both. Trevor needed to have both of them for this to work.”

“First you raise my hopes, and then you dash them,” he said. “I guess I might as well go home.” With that he hopped on his bike and rode away. I just stood there too depressed to make good on a threat to yell thief. It took me a minute to realize I still didn’t know his name!

So that was two illusions shattered. I’d half thought that Percy, once found, would confirm something about the real writing cabinet and maybe even point me in the right direction for getting to the bottom of this mess. Now I found that he hadn’t a clue about its value, even if he’d shown me a picture of his grandmother standing in front of it. Clearly he was not the person to confirm that the cabinet I had seen was authentic. He was on a quest, to use his quaint expression, but not for the same reasons I was. Maybe he really just wanted to help his grandmother retrieve a piece of furniture the family thought had sentimental value. Maybe telling him what it was worth was going to make my own little quest harder. It was in a rather grumpy state of mind that I went to the party the following day.

Tickets for this exclusive little event that Robert and Maya Alexander were hosting were five hundred pounds each, a rather breathtaking sum for a few shrimp and a couple of small glasses of champagne. But still there was the charity, a new drop-in center for drug addicts, and, of course, the cachet. Cachet does not come cheap. Neither, of course, does obsession, at least certainly not mine. Every day that I persisted in my hunt for the sources of two writing cabinets put a bigger and bigger dent in my wallet.

On the bright side, transportation was included, a bus that picked up those of us with tickets on George Square and then took us out into the countryside. I had no idea where I was, but it was very pleasant wherever it was with fine views of water and a rather splendid home.

With the exception of the Scottish accents, the ticket prices and the admirable fact that no one was chopping up the furniture, the party seemed remarkably similar to one I had attended earlier in the summer. There were important-looking people, even if I didn’t know who they were, the requisite number of fawning hangers-on, and enough food to feed a small country.

Still, the house was spectacular. The invitation had said the affair was limited to a mere one hundred guests, and like Blair’s, this place could hold them. Unlike Blair’s, which was the living embodiment of his rather obsessive love of Art Nouveau, this home was furnished in a much more attractive and eclectic fashion. I liked it a lot better than Blair’s, even if I hadn’t made a cent on it. The art and the furnishings were of exceedingly good quality, but they had been chosen by someone with a good eye for the whole. Pieces were put together because they looked good that way, not because they belonged to a particular school of design or period. It was also, I suppose, more relaxed because of the country vistas with the lights of the city visible only in the distance.

I was very happy to see Lester Campbell arrive, given he was the only person I knew at the party, and one of only two people, if one could include Percy Bicycle Clips, that I knew in all of Glasgow. He had waved and was making his way toward me when there was some clinking of glasses, and a woman’s voice, amplified by a microphone, could be heard above the din.

“Could I have your attention for just one minute,” the voice said, and I moved into the main room to see an earnest-looking woman of about thirty at a small podium. “I don’t want to interrupt this lovely party, but I cannot let the occasion pass without a heartfelt thank-you to our hosts, Robert and Maya Alexander.” There was an enthusiastic round of applause. “You all know, I’m sure, what a terrible problem drugs are in Scotland, in Edinburgh particularly, but also here in Glasgow. The suffering these drugs cause for individuals and their loved ones, the huge costs, social and economic to our community, must be addressed. And Robert and Maya are doing something about it, supporting as they have our new center in a very significant way. I don’t know what we’d do without you, Robert and Maya, and others like you. I’d like to thank all of you for coming, and I’d like to ask Robert to say a few words.”

To a second round of applause, a rather attractive man of about fifty, with lovely silver hair and dark eyes took the microphone. “Thank you, Dorothy,” he said. “I want you to know that how delighted Maya and I are to be able to help even in a small way.”

“Hardly small,” Lester whispered to me. “He’s given them a million pounds.”

While Robert was talking, Maya, delighted to be able to help or not, hung back a bit, shy perhaps. She was wearing a lovely silk dress, but what really caught my eye was her gorgeous necklace. It was simple but beautifully designed, with what looked at this distance to be garnets and pearls. I have a weakness for antique jewelry. We don’t carry much of it in the shop, and I can’t afford the good stuff for myself, so I usually just admire it from afar, as I was doing now. People think jewelry has to have lots of precious stones to be worth much, but an antique with great design and a good designer or manufacturer can be costly even with just semiprecious stones. I’d seen one very similar at home, in fact. Blair Bazillionaire had been thinking of buying it for his wife, but they broke up soon after, so I guess that hadn’t happened. The one he’d been looking at was worth about ten thousand dollars, so there was no way I was going to buy it if he didn’t. Let’s face it, my lifestyle doesn’t involve enough sparkling social events to justify jewelry worth even a tenth of that price.

“We are relatively new to this community,” Alexander continued. “Ten years, I think. And you’ve been most welcoming, considering I’m English and my wife’s American— not at all what I heard about Scottish reserve.” People applauded a bit more. “Well, perhaps at bit reserved, at least at first, but not nearly as bad as we expected.” Everyone laughed. “And there is no question Scotland has been good to us. Who would have thought a boy from Liverpool, a former army captain, a kid who joined the army just to get a cheap education and see the world, would end up with a house like this, and a spectacular wife like Maya!”

“You’re a captain of industry now, Robert,” someone called out, as Robert kissed Maya’s hand and everyone applauded.

“We wanted to repay the community in some way. We are so glad to have been able to make even a small contribution to helping make our streets a little safer. We thought about it a great deal before making a decision as to how we could best help. Dorothy is very persuasive, believe me.” Everybody laughed and clapped, and Dorothy blushed. “Seriously now, it’s the least we could do, and really, the thanks go to each of you,” Alexander continued. “Maya and I are perfectly aware that you can find champagne and Scottish salmon for less at other establishments.” More laughter greeted that comment. “Please enjoy the evening. Our home is at your disposal, although we do hope you won’t stay the night.”

“Pleasant fellow,” I said, turning to Lester. “Nice sense of humor.”

“Yes, but don’t get on his bad side,” Lester replied. “You don’t go from army captain to millionaire many times over by being nice to everybody.”

“I suppose not.”

“Have you had the beautiful homes tour?”

“I was just starting to have a look around when the speeches started.”

“I’ll escort you, shall I? An antique dealer’s guided tour? Let’s get some more of that vastly overpriced champagne to take with us.”

Lester was very amusing and also very knowledgeable. It was fun, really, seeing the place through his eyes, and he seemed to enjoy it, too. I knew enough about the stuff he’d sold to the Alexanders to make the appropriate appreciative noises, and so he was happy as a clam. They had clearly spent millions on the place, but all in very good taste, and Lester had helped him do it. It made me think of my former relationship with Blair. I wished I could be as proud of that as Lester seemed to be.

The house really was open for everyone to see. I was in heaven. I love open houses. I drop in at real estate open houses all the time, just to see how other people live. I insisted upon looking in every corner, every bathroom, any room that wasn’t locked, and there really weren’t any that I could find. Yes, there were people who were obviously making sure we guests didn’t abscond with the Meissen porcelain, but it was all very tastefully done. You’d hardly guess the gorgeous young people in artistic black were security guards.

Upstairs there were many bedrooms. The master bedroom was all Art Deco, and really spectacular with a huge balcony that ran the length of the room. There was also an upstairs den, and in it a couple of Charles Rennie Mackintosh chairs, both with neat little signs on them asking us to please refrain from sitting on them and a bookcase, also Mackintosh. Bingo, I thought.

“I see you do know your Mackintosh,” Lester said, as I walked right over to them.

“I’ve become something of an expert in the last few weeks,” I said. “Did you sell them these?”

“I regret to say I didn’t. In fact, this is the first time I’ve seen them.” He peered at them carefully. “Undoubtedly authentic.”

“Authentic, I’m sure, but I must say those chairs look uncomfortable. What do you bet even their owner doesn’t sit in them?”

“They were designed to be uncomfortable. Miss Cranston, for whose tearooms Mackintosh designed these chairs, thought her staff sat around too much, so she asked him to design uncomfortable furniture for the staff room.”

I laughed. “You obviously know a lot about this.”

“I’m Glaswegian,” he said. “I love the way he has these doors on the bookcase. Every detail is perfect. All that hand work. You just never see something like this these days. Look at these hinges and the lock.”

“Oh, believe me, I have,” I said. “I wish I had a photograph of the writing cabinet,” I added half to myself.

“What writing cabinet?”

“Umm, I mean the kind of writing cabinet my client would be interested in. Maybe Alexander has one in his basement or something.”

“Why don’t you get a book on Mackintosh and copy a photo of something similar so you’ll have something to show?” Lester said. “I’d be happy to take it to Alexander for you, for only a small commission if he sells it to you.”

“I’ll do that. Have we seen the whole place?”

“Just about,” he replied. “Now, come and meet a few people.”

Lester knew everybody. He introduced me to various people whose names I would never remember, and finally, in the dying minutes of the soiree, he introduced me to the Alexanders themselves. We were admiring what Lester referred to as the garden room, furnished with lovely old rattan with lots of orchids everywhere, when the Alexanders walked in.

“Lester!” Robert said. “Good of you to come.”

“Entirely my pleasure. May I present Lara McClintoch,” Lester said. “Ms. McClintoch is an antique dealer from Toronto.”

“Welcome to our home,” the great man said.

“Ms. McClintoch is interested in Charles Rennie Mackintosh. She’s looking for a writing cabinet for a client.”

“We know an antique dealer from Toronto,” Maya said. “Don’t we?”

“I’m not sure whom you mean,” Robert said. “We have some Mackintosh upstairs. I hope you saw it: a couple of supremely uncomfortable chairs and a bookcase in my office cum den.”

“You know,” she said. “That cute young man who came to see us.”

“Maybe I wasn’t here at the time,” Robert said, putting his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “There are always cute young men around my wife, I have to tell you.”

“Not really,” she said in my general direction.

“Have you seen upstairs?” Alexander said. “And the kitchen? The kitchen is Maya’s domain. I think it’s officially off-limits, but given you’ve come so far, we’ll make an exception, won’t we, darling?”

“Trevor somebody or other,” Maya said. “He was admiring our stuff. He liked Mackintosh, too.” She slurred her words very slightly and was leaning against her husband. It occurred to me that this party, like Blair’s, came complete with a dipsomaniacal spouse. Like Leanna the Lush, Maya must have started into the champagne before the rest of us got there.

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Robert said. “You, Lester?”

“Not to me,” Lester said.

“You’ll be making Lester jealous, darling. He’ll think we’re fickle, dealing with other antiquarians.”

“Heaven forbid,” Lester said.

“I must say this one is much better looking than you, Lester,” Robert said. “Toronto, did you say? Do you have a card, Ms…”

“McClintoch,” I said. “And yes, I do.”

“You traitor,” Lester said, but I could tell he was kidding.

“Wylie,” Maya said. “Trevor Wylie. Do you know him?”

“Actually, I do. At least I did.”

“Did?” Maya said vaguely.

“Unfortunately he’s dead.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “Wasn’t he awfully young? He can’t have been much more than forty, could he?”

“An accident, I expect,” Lester said.

“Mmm,” I said.

“I don’t recall the name at all,” Robert said. “Would you like some more champagne?”

“I thought he was really cute,” Maya said. “What happened to him?”

“Aren’t you being a little ghoulish, darling?” Robert said.

“Urn, he was murdered,” I said.

“No!” Maya gasped. “That can’t be possible. How? Was he shot?”

“My word!” her husband said.

“He was, er, sort of stabbed,” I said.

“I had no idea Toronto was such a dangerous place,” Lester said.

“Did they catch the person who did it?” Maya said.

“They have charged someone, yes. How do you know Trevor?”

“I can’t really recall, but I’m sure he was here.”

“Perhaps he’s an old boyfriend,” Robert said. “Maya and I are still in the honeymoon phase of our life together. I’m afraid there were other men before me, Ms. McClintoch.”

“I’m certain we met him together,” she said. “Didn’t we? I suppose I’m a little under the weather right now.”

“These evenings are so difficult for my wife. She really prefers to just putter in the garden. Come, darling, we must say our good-byes. The buses are scheduled to arrive about now to take everyone back into the city. Lovely to meet you, Ms. McClintoch. If we’re ever in Toronto, we’ll look you up, and do give us a call if you’re back in Glasgow.”

“Or maybe he came to our place in Orkney,” she said, as her husband lead her away.

“The buses are here,” someone called out in the next room.

“Yes, I’m sure that’s it. Orkney. We have a place there,” she called over her shoulder. “We’ll be there this weekend. Come and visit, and you can tell me about Trevor.”

“Really, darling,” Robert said. “I believe you are making this up.”

“If you ever consider selling the Mackintosh, I hope you’ll think of me,” I said. “I’m interested in anything by Mackintosh, but I’m particularly keen on locating one of his writing cabinets.”

“Most certainly,” Robert said, “if Lester doesn’t object.”

“You can have it only if I don’t want it,” Lester said, laughing. “I suppose you’ve noticed she drinks a bit,” he added when they were gone. “But really she’s terrific when she’s sober, and as you can see, he adores her. If you get a chance, you really should take her up on her offer to visit in Orkney. They own an equally fabulous place there. No weekend cottage, you understand. It’s practically a palace. It’s on Hoxa.”

“Hoxa?”

“Near St. Margaret’s Hope. Lovely little town.”

This was just too good to be true. I was zeroing in on a revelation of great proportions, I was certain of it. “So have you ever heard of Trevor Wylie, an antique dealer from Toronto? He’s originally from Scotland.”

“I don’t think so. Wait, he wasn’t the one killed with an axe, was he? You said stabbed. Were you trying to be delicate? I read about it in the paper.”

“One and the same.”

“My, my! Hard to think Maya Alexander would know someone who ended up like that. It was over a piece of furniture or something, wasn’t it?”

“Something like that.”

“Come to think of it, I’m sure that explains all. She read it in the paper, just as I did, and in her present state, by which I mean a little tipsy, recalled the name, and decided she must have met him. The name obviously means nothing to Robert.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” I said, but I really didn’t think so. My heart soared. Maybe at last I was on the right track. Maybe this whole obsession of mine was not just me being silly. Forget that ridiculous conversation with Percy. Percy didn’t matter. Who cared if he was looking for the same writing cabinet I was? Surely this could be win/win for both of us. So I hadn’t been able to find an antique dealer by the name of Macdonald. That was too bad, but it was no longer a real problem. What mattered was that I had found a connection with Trevor Wylie in both Glasgow and Orkney, a connection, furthermore, which owned some Mackintosh furniture. Real Mackintosh! The following day I would be on a plane heading for Orkney. I decided I just might take Maya Alexander up on her lovely offer.