Rembrandt's Ghost
coming to the auction house, that didn’t just happen, either.”
    “No. You are mentioned as a beneficiary in a relative’s will as I understand it. The circumstances are a little peculiar. I wanted to see who you were.”
    “Did you know the painting was a fake?”
    “No.” He laughed. “I was always told it was a Jan Steen. I should have known better. Half of my mother’s jewelry was paste as well.” He smiled shyly. “Ours is a hollow dukedom, I’m afraid. Not like the old days back in the twelfth century, plundering with Richard the Lionheart, whacking the Saracen hordes and all that.” He laughed.
    “Sounds like fun,” said Finn. “So you really did want to sell it? The painting, I mean.”
    “Rather.” He nodded emphatically. “The
Flush
could use a refit and a hull scraping, not to mention the family pile on the coast. Falling to bits it is. Even the National Trust doesn’t want it, and it’s up to its ears in the tax.
Meur ras a’gas godrik dhe’n wiasva ma!
” The last had a rolling, rhythmic sound like music. It was beautiful, like something from
The Lord of the Rings
.
    “What language is that?” asked Finn, delighted.
    “The language of Pendragon and Trebarwith Strand, the language of Tintagel and King Arthur.”
    “Cornish.”
    “It is and I am,” said the duke. He held out a hand across the little table. “Am I forgiven for my deception?”
    “I suppose so, Your Grace,” Finn answered. She shook his hand.
    “It’s still Billy,” he said. “No one calls me Your Grace except Tulkinghorn and my great-aunt Elizabeth.”
    “Your great-aunt Elizabeth?”
    “The queen,” said Billy.
    “You’re kidding!”
    “Unhappily I am not. A great disappointment to all my cousins, I am, to be sure. I am one of that vast spawn of Victoria and Albert, discounting a few indiscretions along the way as I am given to understand. I should have amounted to more. I don’t even play polo!”
    “How dreadful.”
    He waggled his fingers. “I’m left-handed. They don’t allow left-handed polo players with the exception of cousin Charles.”
    “The prince?”
    “That’s the one.” He grinned. “No left-handed airline pilots, either.”
    “I never thought much about it.”
    “The world’s largest invisible minority. Terribly oppressed we are, except for Bill Gates. He’s left-handed as well.”
    “So is Bill Clinton.”
    “True, but then again, so is George Bush the Elder.”
    “Michelangelo,” said Finn.
    “Leonardo da Vinci,” countered Billy Pilgrim.
    “Kurt Cobain.”
    “Who?”
    “A dead musician,” explained Finn.
    “Great-Aunt Elizabeth.”
    “I didn’t know that.”
    “Queen Victoria as well. Second cousin William. It runs in the family.”
    Finn laughed. “We’re getting silly. We should stop.”
    “Agreed.” Billy glanced at his watch, a big heavy thing in a steel casing that would have looked appropriate on a diver. A long way from the thin little bauble worn by Ronnie. “It’s just gone two. Sir James will be waiting. Finished your coffee?”
    Finn nodded and stood up. They headed down the sidewalk to the narrow doorway leading to the offices above the bookstore at number 47.
    “What are these peculiar circumstances you mentioned?” asked Finn as they climbed the dark stairs.
    “I’m not entirely sure. Tulkinghorn was a little evasive on the telephone.”
    They reached the second floor and went down a short corridor. Tulkinghorn’s was the first door on the right. Billy opened it and ushered Finn into the room. If the lawyer’s letter had been out of Dickens, the man’s office was positively Edwardian.
    There were three rooms in all, a boardroom to the right, a small, book-lined library to the left, and the actual office in the center of the suite. There was no room for a secretary. A large oak desk with an inlaid, dark red leather center stood between the two large windows that overlooked Great Russell Street. The walls on either side of the windows
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