The Elizabethan Secret (Lang Reilly Series Book 9) Read Online Free PDF Page A

exited the cab as it pulled away. She stopped long enough to share her covering with Lang before they both made a dash for the shelter of Christie’s open door.
                  The lobby was tall, crowded, and illuminated by a line of huge crystal chandeliers. It smelled of money. Rarely do ordinary folk attend an auction where only an occasional item goes for as low as a thousand dollars. In an effort at egalitarianism, Christie’s also maintained an auction house in Kensington for the “middle market.”
                  The room also smelled of wet socks since there were probably seventy to a hundred pair dripping on the marble floor. Was it his imagination or could Lang actually hear his own socks sloshing inside his shoes with each step?
                  Lang had become inured to the looks, glances, and stares Gurt received in any gathering. Even in a modestly cut dress and medium heels, her near six foot, statuesque figure, blond hair, and sculpted face could have come right off a Saint Pauli Girl bottle, absent the overflowing beer steins. If she was aware she drew the attention of nearly every man and the envy of almost all the women, she did not acknowledge it.
                  The reason for the crowd here in the lobby became instantly apparent: Tuxedoed waiters circulating with trays of Champagne flutes. Lang’s mood improved marginally as he took two and handed one to Gurt.
                  He sipped tentatively. Lang was far from a connoisseur of bubbly. Twenty dollar a bottle California Mumm Brut or $1,900 Dom Perignon from Reims, France, it all tasted like a very light beer to his uneducated palate. Well, uneducated as to Champagne. A vertical tasting of post-World War II vintage Ports was as simple as differentiating between chocolate and vanilla. Likewise, the flavor, aroma, and finish of a Campbelton single malt were equally distinguishable from those of, say, an Islay.
                  As the saying goes, pick your poison.
                  The crowd was gradually filtering toward a pair of elevators that ascended to the top floor. As each person exited, he (or she) joined one of a half dozen lines in front of a long table to register and be assigned a cardboard paddle with a number printed on it. Instead of oral bidding, flashing these devices served. Unsubstantiated legend had it these paddles had originally been wood, a custom discontinued after a series of disputes between bidders became bloody when paddles became weapons.
                  Behind the tables was a room where perhaps a hundred or so folding chairs faced a stage upon which was a single rostrum as might be found in any college lecture hall. To the stage’s right, a staff of ten manned both telephones and laptops. Although Christie’s had accepted bids by wire for nearly a century, cyber bidding was a relative novelty. 
                  Lang and Gurt took seats on one of two aisles.
                  Moments later, a cherubic little man, gavel in hand, entered stage left to light applause. Adjusting the microphone on the top of the rostrum, he began.
                  “Welcome to Christie’s, Ladies and gentlemen,” he said in a plummy  accent that surely had its origins in Oxford or Cambridge. “As you know, tonight’s auction includes a number of fabulous items from the Elizabethan era. Among those is an addition to the catalogue, lots 226 through 230, a number of what appear to be scientific instruments that may well have belonged to Elizabethan scholar, navigator, cartographer, magician, and astronomer, John Dee. They were recently unearthed on what is believed to have been the site of his home in Mortlake.
                  “Since it will be some time before Christie’s has another auction of items from this era, we decided to include these tonight. Those of you who wish may inspect them during