documents off instead,” I said, summing things up.
“Yes. The suspected conspirators will all be at the party, since it involves their collector’s group.”
“Birds of a feather, in more ways than one,” I said. “What sort of collecting do they do?”
“Chinese porcelain.”
“How sinister,” I said dryly.
“They’ve all been rather keen on it for years. It’s the purpose of this party, in fact. Bothingham’s has some new pieces going to auction, and Sir Nigel has arranged a private viewing at his house so that the collectors might look them over.”
“And are you a collector?” I asked, wondering how the two of us would manage to fit unobtrusively into this group of eccentrics.
“I’m not, but my uncle is interested in such things. It was on his behalf that I arranged the invitation.”
Major Ramsey was a man of many layers. It was clear now that he was very posh indeed, but I found it strange to think that he had an uncle somewhere with glass cases of ancient porcelain. What was more, I couldn’t exactly picture him haggling with collectors over the price of a vase or plate. He knew better than I did what needed to be done, however, so I would just have to trust him on that score.
I realized that I had been studying him rather intently and collected my thoughts.
“Just those five, then?” I asked. “How many people do you suppose will be at the party?”
“It’s going to be a large group. Sir Nigel can’t afford, after all, to invite only German sympathizers to his parties. The collector’s group has been expanded to include several other interested parties. Now, with many wealthy people out of the country, is an excellent time to get good prices.”
“A bit cheeky, to bring fragile collectibles under his roof with Messerschmitts buzzing overhead, isn’t it?”
“The rich and powerful stop for no man—or machine.”
“A bit like Nero playing his fiddle while Rome burned, eh?”
The corners of his mouth tipped up. “Not a bad comparison.”
“So we’ll need to watch these five and wait to see if someone, a collaborator, tries to pass off the papers to them.”
“Yes. Of course, it’s possible the German contact is someone we have overlooked, but that’s a chance we’ll have to take.”
There was something in the way he said it that made me think he relished the challenge. So the stoic Major Ramsey had an adventurous streak, after all.
One thing was certain: it was going to be an interesting evening.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Uncle Mick, it turned out, had his own part to play in our little drama. He and one of the major’s men were going to enter Leslie Turner-Hill’s auction house while the rest of us were at the party. It was just possible, the major thought, that Mr. Turner-Hill was using artwork to smuggle information out of the country. Uncle Mick and the major’s man would do a thorough going-over of the auction house while we were at the party.
We discussed the whole plan in more detail when we were back in the privacy of his workshop.
By rights, Uncle Mick should have gone to bed when we returned home, but I knew he wouldn’t rest. No doubt his fingers were itching to get to work after days in captivity. He was not the sort of man who had ever enjoyed sitting still for long. His mind was always whirling, his hands ready to be at work. I had never seen him idle.
“What do you think about it all, my girl?” he asked, when he had settled himself at his worktable. There was an array of locks spread out before him, his tools scattered across the table in a configuration that would have looked random to anyone but him.
I sat on the desk chair.
“I think we’ll be lucky if it works,” I said. “It seems to me the whole thing hangs on a lot of hopes.”
“Hopes make the world go round, love,” he said cheerily.
He was bound to be cheery now that he had a job ahead. Uncle Mick thrived on this sort of thing. He loved locks, and he loved them twice as much when he was opening ones that weren’t his to open.
In some ways, I wondered if his task might be more dangerous than mine. After all, I would have the major with me. We knew little of who Uncle Mick’s companion on the raid of the auction house would be.
I wished there was some way that we could’ve brought Uncle Mick to the party with us, but I knew