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

litigious society of America was spreading like the plague it was. Now even English clerks issued disclaimers.
                  Compared to the vast auction hall, number three gallery was small. Perhaps a dozen pictures hung on the walls. Lang guessed they were painted by Rossetti or some other Pre-Raphaelite, that mid Victorian brotherhood of painters, poets, and critics with a predilection for Arthurian and Greek legend who had resolved to reform art to its true form but had faded into oblivion, if indeed they had ever emerged from it.
                  The only other furnishings was a pair of jewelers’ showcases around which a dozen or so people clustered. Lang waited for an opening and edged his way next to the glass. He recognized two brass telescopes and a trio of hour glasses, progressing in size. He thought the large brass ring fitted with a sighting rule might be an astrolabe, used to measure the angle between the pole star and the horizon, something difficult on a pitching, rolling ship. It was the ancestor of the modern day sextant. A device that might have been an early spring-driven clock caught his attention before he noted what looked like a large, brass-case pocket watch, lot 228.
                  He motioned to one of the attendants stationed along the wall like sentries and pointed. “May I have a closer look?”
                  The man, a grizzled elder whose demeanor screamed ex-cop, detached himself from his post, reaching into his pocket. A key emerged on the end of a chain attached to his belt. He unlocked the glass top of the case and Lang lifted the object out.
                  There was a catch. When pressed, the top snapped open like a pocket watch. But it was definitely not a time piece, at least not like any Lang had seen. There was no winding mechanism and its face had no hands, only a notch in the brass casing’s top where a watch’s stem might have been. Nor were there numbers, only groupings of one, two, or three barely distinguishable letters, forms and figures, either worn or rendered illegible by the clouded glass over the face. In the center was a small hole where Lang supposed something long lost had once been attached.
                  “Know what this is?” he asked the attendant.
                  The old man shook his head. “No idea, guv. I only get paid to make sure none o’ the lot gets nicked.” He smiled, displaying nicotine-stained teeth. “Not that any o’ this crowd of toffs would be knocking something off.”
                  As Lang handed the object back, he noted a man standing just inside the door. Lang wasn’t sure what had caught his attention. Perhaps the ill-fitting, cheap suit that contrasted with the largely bespoke attire of most of Christie’s male customers. Maybe the man’s scowl at the screen of an iPhone as he texted.
                  Something. . . .
                  A closer look revealed a Cyrillic key pad.
                  Interesting. An iPhone in Russia cost somewhere around a thousand dollars. For reasons Lang had never cared to understand, the Apple smart phone had either not caught on or the government/oligarchy had economic reasons to keep it out of the reach of ordinary citizens.
                  A lot of those oligarchs had homes here in London, men to whom a thousand dollars for a phone would be but a trifle. But they also dressed lavishly if not flamboyantly, not in poorly fitted, off-the-rack suits. It was like seeing a battered junker in the driveway of a multimillion dollar mansion.

7.
    Christie’s Auction House
    Moments Later
     
                  The ringing of a hand-held bell announced the second part of the auction was about to begin.
                  Gurt was studying the auction catalogue with undue intensity as Lang slid into the seat next to her. “See anything you