Death Is a Cabaret Read online

  Oh, occasionally, he’d go undercover to make a buy. The FBI doesn’t have an art theft unit as such, but the machine operates efficiently. The Bureau’s corner-office crowd learned of Jeff’s genuine love for antiques and figured that gave him an edge over other field agents. He was first-call when they needed a buyer. The problem was, it didn’t happen that often. Most things went missing and stayed missing. Some things stayed underground forever.

  He saw photos from museum files and artists’ records whose works had been stolen from galleries. He saw curators’ offices and fronts for illegitimate fencing operations. He spoke with somber-faced security guards who didn’t know if they’d be looking for employment by the end-of-the-week whistle, and thugs who’d give their right ears before they’d give you a lead on a missing Van Gogh.

  As a buyer, he saw the high-pressure salesmen: sleazes who wouldn’t guarantee a provenance, scumbags who danced around issues of origin and skirted direct questions about an object’s owner.

  The go-betweens, that’s who he’d dealt with. Every damn one of them. Go-betweens.

  He’d gotten out fast—stunning his fellow field agents, his squad leader, everybody. He wanted to be on a higher road. He wanted to rescue antiques from the basements, storage buildings, and yard sales where people either let them gradually go to ruin or sold them for a few bucks to others who slapped a coat of paint on them with no regard to possible value.

  Jeff looked upon his current profession as more of a calling. He was a champion of sorts, a savior of lost souls, a redeemer of things that couldn’t redeem themselves.

  He thought about Hamilton, wondered how the young picker would behave the next time they ran into each other. And they would run into each other. No place was large enough to avoid the likes of Hamilton when you were in the antique business. Not even Seattle.

  Especially Seattle.

  The Emerald City loved its antiques, even if it didn’t have a clue about how those antiques arrived in its quaint shops and antique malls. No matter. Jeff’s veins were filled with the oil that fueled railroad lanterns, the linseed that preserved antique furniture, the inks of ancient documents, the pigments of masterpiece paintings. Antiques weren’t merely in his blood; they’d replaced it a long time ago.

  Jeff pulled into the parking lot of his favorite antique mall and consciously gave up trying to understand Frank Hamilton’s motives. Maybe he’ll learn with age, Jeff thought as he stepped out of the car and put on his Harris tweed. If someone doesn’t kill him first.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Blanche Appleby always got what she wanted.

  Well, nearly always. As owner of Seattle’s largest and most successful antique shop, All Things Old—”including me,” she often said—Blanche could afford anything she desired. This kept Jeff—and no telling how many other pickers—busy flushing out bargains, then reselling them to Blanche in order to keep her store’s inventory (and his own bank account) healthy.

  Jeff always brought his finds to Blanche first. His reasons were purely mercenary: Blanche paid better than anyone else in the business.

  She’d renovated an old warehouse down by the waterfront, customizing it into a three-story antique mecca. With the large parking lot, it took up a city block. The walls of the ground floor’s formidable main room stretched upward twenty-eight feet, and a massive oak staircase led to a gallery that bisected the room’s height. The Widow’s Walk, as Blanche had named the gallery, was edged all around with an elaborately scrolled wrought-iron railing. It showcased a fortune in antique porcelains produced by European factories such as Sevres, Meissen, Chantilly, Minton, and Vincennes.

  The rest of the main floor was segmented into several large rooms, which housed everything from toys to swords, from cut glass to gas pumps, from furniture to books.

  The basement was split in half. On one side was TLC (Tender Loving Care), for the do-it-yourselfers, with barrister bookcases in want of glass and chairs whose seats needed recaning. On the other side was George’s, named for Blanche’s late husband. George’s was jam-packed with antique tools, weathervanes, fishing gear, sports and railroad memorabilia, and architectural hardware. Although she showed no propensity toward discrimination of the sexes, Blanche Appleby assigned railroad china to George’s as well in order to entice those females who might not normally frequent such places.

  Dominating the third floor was The Cabbage Rose, a tea room that offered a large luncheon menu including three varieties of quiche, several homemade desserts and, in answer to Seattle’s major obsession, more blends of coffee than any other establishment in the city.

  When questioned about her penchant for naming the sections of her establishment, Blanche declared that she would call the bathrooms Fred and Ethel if she took a mind to. George and Blanche never had children.

  Jeff rolled the ornate perambulator into the lobby. Around him, the wooden floors creaked and sighed under the steady current of people who had sought out Blanche Appleby’s coastal paragon. They, like so many others, had greeted the new millennium with a firm reach backward. When the population in general had looked in their garages on January first and found that hovercrafts hadn’t replaced their Oldsmobiles, they’d embraced the past as surely as they had anticipated the present.

  He strolled past the large L-shaped counter where customers were stacked six deep, waiting to make their purchases as closing time neared. As he walked, his eyes darted quickly over the antiques, and he tried to identify what had been added and what had sold since his last visit. Not only was he always searching for items to add to his own collections, but also he liked to know what had been brought in by other pickers.

  Blanche’s office was near the end of a long hallway. The door was open.

  She was seated behind an immense French provincial desk, writing furiously in a ledger. Her fiery personality and bright red hair made her seem larger than she was. In fact she was only four feet eleven. Under the desk, her slippered feet were planted squarely upon a tapestry-covered footstool. She admitted to being seventy, but she neither looked it nor acted it.

  He rapped the doorjamb lightly.

  She looked up. “Jeffrey!” She closed the ledger with a thud. “What does my favorite treasure hunter have for me today?”

  “Favorite? You mean I’m not your only picker?” Jeff tried for a hurt look, but he couldn’t wipe the grin from his face.

  “I’ll give you this. You’re the only picker I know who doesn’t look like a picker.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Jeff retrieved the pram from the hallway and wheeled it into the office.

  Blanche shot out of her chair. “I haven’t seen one of these in years!”

  “I know you’re not old enough to have ridden in one like this.”

  She wasn’t listening. “It’s more like a coach or a surrey than a pram. Watch this.” She worked some pulleys, and fringed side panels rolled up to give full view of the interior. Blanche caressed the tufted upholstery, scrutinized the weave of the wicker, tilted it to check underneath. She located a small brass identification plate. “Heywood-Wakefield. That puts it just before the turn of the twentieth century—the two companies were competitors before that. It’s an extraordinary piece, Jeffrey. Absolutely top of the line.” She turned to the bookcases directly behind her desk. From this reference library containing hundreds of volumes, she quickly chose a few books on wicker furniture, then sat at her desk and began leafing through pages.

  While Blanche searched, Jeff thought about the food chain. So many factors came into play when dealing with antiques: the fickle public, regional demands, quality, condition. Today, Jeff had paid a hundred dollars for the carriage, and he could expect to get triple that from Blanche. She, in turn, would sell it for at least triple what she paid him, and the treasure would likely be snatched up and in its new home before the weekend was out.

  Jeff took a slim brown leather-bound notebook from the breast pocket of his jacket. “There’s more, Blanche. You�
�re going to love me.”

  “More than I do now? Impossible.” She motioned toward the chair opposite. “Have tea with me before you start traipsing back and forth. It’s been a day.”

  He couldn’t disagree with her about that. He sat.

  She flipped the intercom switch. “Trudy, would you have the kitchen add another setting to my tea tray? Jeffrey Talbot is going to join me.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Appleby.”

  Blanche located the carriage in a book that covered fifty years of wicker furniture. Jeff recognized the volume. He had the same one in his home library.

  “I thought it would be in this one.” She looked up expectantly. “So, what else do you have for me?” She clapped her hands together twice, as if doing so would make all of it appear before her eyes.

  Ceremoniously, he read to her from the list he’d compiled that afternoon. “There’s a Tiffany lamp, turn of the century, I think; tons of old silver; a box of stuff for George’s; and—you’re not going to believe this—a roomful of Napoleonic items: Dresden statuary, books—”

  “My cabaret set?” She bolted from her seat.

  He stared at her for a moment before he realized what he’d done. A sinking feeling overtook him. How could he have been so careless? No excuse came to him, and all he could figure was that the run-in with Hamilton had thrown him off his game more than he’d thought.

  “Blanche, I’m sorry. No.”

  She lowered herself back into the chair. She flipped the intercom switch again and asked Trudy what was taking so long with the tea. There was no response. She stood and paced the room.

  Trudy’s voice came over the store’s loudspeaker, announcing that All Things Old would close in fifteen minutes and customers should make their way to the main counter with their purchases.

  Blanche returned to her desk. After a few moments, she sat and gave Jeff a slight smile. “It’s my obsession, not yours. You’re just doing your job. And, Lord knows, I’ve exhausted enough leads over the years, searching for that tea set. I should be accustomed to disappointment.”

  She gazed for a while at the small lacquered box that she kept on the corner of the desk, then opened it and removed from it two old photographs.

  Jeff knew what they were. One was of Blanche’s mother, the other of the cabaret set Blanche had been searching for since she was a young woman. Jeff carried his own copy of the tea set’s photo in his wallet, along with a photocopy of the set’s letter of provenance.

  “She died fifty-seven years ago today.”

  “I’m so sorry, Blanche.”

  A faint clatter could be heard from down the hall. Blanche propped the photos against the lacquer box as a small-framed girl in a blue calico dress shuffled in with a large silver tea service expertly balanced on her left shoulder. She bent her knees and slid the tray onto the credenza behind Blanche.

  “Trudy, honey, I didn’t mean for you to do this.”

  “I don’t mind.” Trudy poured the steaming liquid. “The Cabbage Rose is shorthanded today.”

  The two women were complete opposites, and Jeff was still surprised at how well they seemed to get along. Trudy Blessing, Blanche’s personal secretary, was a quiet and unassuming young woman of indeterminable height. Jeff had never seen the girl stand up straight. She seemed perpetually stooped, as if pulling in to herself. Jeff couldn’t be sure whether this was out of some odd attempt at self-protection or whether it was simply a result of extreme shyness. She wore her mousy brown hair straight, with blunt bangs like one might find on a six-year-old. Her pale skin, unadorned by cosmetics, appeared even paler behind dark-rimmed glasses that looked like two saucers on her face.

  In defense of her hiring choice, the older woman had said, “Put two spitfires under the same roof and somebody’s going to get burned.”

  No chance of that here.

  Trudy served the pair, then quietly left the room. “When are you leaving for Michigan?” Blanche asked.

  Jeff said, “I fly out tomorrow morning.”

  “They say the island will be stunning this year. The leaves are already turning, thanks to the heavy rains and early cold snaps.”

  “Then I should feel right at home, shouldn’t I?”

  Blanche chuckled without comment. One of many common bonds the two had was their love for Seattle’s rainy climate.

  They drank in silence, neither of them touching the plates of sandwiches and scones that Trudy had placed on the table.

  Jeff studied the woman who sat across from him, saw the tiredness in her face. The brief visit to her past had aged her, and her efforts to be sociable couldn’t hide it.

  After she’d finished her tea, she carefully placed the old photographs back in the box. “It’s not so much that I miss her, although there’s that, too, of course. But I miss the memories, the things we shared during our brief time together. That tea set was the only thing she had to give me, and I’ll never forgive the man who sold it out of my hands.”

  Jeff drank his tea and said nothing. He didn’t dare share the rumor with her. If it turned out to be false, she’d be devastated. And she’d already been hurt enough. But he had heard that the cabaret set—Blanche’s cabaret set—would be a last-minute addition to a special auction at the Annual Antiques Festival on Michigan’s Mackinac Island.

  When Blanche had first told him of the set, she’d also told him that she trusted him to be fair regarding the price if he ever acquired it. He trusted her, as well. He could purchase the set with the assurance of recouping his money. He wasn’t concerned with making a hefty profit on this one—just enough to cover his expenses.

  The important thing was to get Blanche’s cabaret set back for her. And he was going to do that, no matter what.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Napoleon loved Josephine.

  Napoleon loved Josephine fiercely, he loved her passionately. He drew strength from that love for the battles that would bring him power and wealth. Because of that love, he forgave transgressions that no ordinary man would tolerate.

  It was a love from which he would never recover.

  As his fortune grew, Napoleon gave his beloved bride many elaborate gifts. And the gift many believed she treasured most was a French cabaret set, commissioned from the Royal Porcelain Factory of Sevres.

  Providing a theme throughout the set’s design were Josephine’s beloved swans. The curvature of their slender necks formed the golden handles on each piece of claret porcelain. The scenes painted upon the pearl-white cartouches that graced the bodies of the pieces featured swans as well, gliding upon flower-strewn waters.

  The elaborate set took years to complete, the painstakingly wrought pieces arriving one by one at Malmaison via courier from the factory: serving tray, teapot, sugar bowl, creamer, a cup and saucer set for the empress.

  A magnificent fitted case of black Moroccan leather gilded with gold and lined with ivory silk from Lyons was designed to house the porcelain.

  The gift would have appeared complete by most standards, for a cabaret set typically contained only one cup and saucer. But Napoleon had commissioned a second cup and saucer set, in order that he might join Josephine in her private chambers for tea.

  During those many years that she’d awaited the arrival of each porcelain piece, Napoleon had waited for an heir to his throne.

  But the empress could not give him one.

  And while the courier traveled toward Malmaison with the final pieces, a distraught Napoleon was reluctantly divorcing his Josephine.

  The heartbroken empress couldn’t bear to look at the cabaret set and gave it to her most loyal lady-in-waiting, a young woman named Isabelle Fougères.

  Mme. Fougères would later pass the royal treasure into the hands of her daughter upon the young woman’s betrothal. This established a tradition that was honored for generations.

  That tradition stopped with a cruel blow, delivered to a descendant Isabelle Fougères would never know: a granddaughter’s granddaughter named Blanche.
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br />   While Blanche was growing up, she and her mother often used the imperial cabaret set for afternoon tea. Before Blanche’s father returned from work, and while her little sister was napping, Blanche would ceremoniously place scones in a woven basket lined with a frayed yet crisply starched linen cloth, take clotted cream and jellies from the aged but serviceable ice box in their tiny kitchen, and deposit it all on a makeshift butler’s tray to be taken to the living room. Blanche’s mother would brew peppermint tea, then carefully transfer it to the cabaret set, along with plenty of sugar and milk.

  As mother and daughter shared afternoon tea, they chose an imaginary guest, usually Queen Victoria or the generous ancestor Fougères or the Empress Josephine. It was during these times that Blanche learned from her mother of her French heritage and of Napoleon and Josephine’s great love affair.

  The daily tea parties represented an oasis of calm for Blanche, before her father returned from work and the war between her parents resumed.

  When her mother died suddenly, just after Blanche’s thirteenth birthday, the girl withdrew from everyone and everything. It was only when she planned to marry, several years later, that she believed she could bear the thought of looking at the tea set. Blanche remembered her mother’s promise that the cabaret set would become hers when she wed. When she couldn’t find it, she learned that her father had sold the set out of the family. He would offer neither compassion nor explanation to the grieving young woman.

  After her father’s death many years later, Blanche discovered in the family’s things the letter of provenance written by the Empress Josephine, confirming the set’s imperial ownership. Along with the letter was an early twentieth-century photograph of the cabaret set, faded but easily recognizable to the girl who had cherished it.

  This discovery had instilled new hope in Blanche Appleby, and she had been searching for her legacy ever since.