Read Online The Body in the Kelp by Katherine Hall Page - Free Book Online Page A

eyes darting around the tent, gearing up. You could hear a fly’s wings flutter.
    â€œLot two twenty-five. Copper weather vane. As trim a vessel as ever set sail—thirty-six inches long. You’ve all seen it, ladies and gentlemen. Right on top of the barn. I can tell you there are no patched-up bullet holes in this one. It is in the original condition. A beauty. Fifty to open.”
    Eric raised his card high, and immediately one of the Prescotts countered with a bid of seventy-five dollars. There was a lot of interest in the vane, and the bidding went high. At nine hundred dollars everyone had dropped out except the Prescotts and Eric and Roger. Eric bid nine hundred and fifty. The Prescotts looked grim and bid a thousand. The crowd was gasping. Eric bid twelve hundred and the Prescotts seemed to waver. Then Joe Prescott jumped up and rushed at Eric and Roger. Stanley Gardiner stood in his way, and Joe began shouting around him, “It’s the gold! Why do you think they’re bidding so high! You bastards! She told you, didn’t she!? It’s got to be gold underneath or something.”
    â€œAre you out of your mind!?” Roger yelled at him. He and Eric were on their feet. Sonny Prescott stepped next to the beleaguered auctioneer. “Now Joe might have an ideah here. I’d say we better have a closer look at the hull of that boat.”
    â€œIf you touch that weather vane, I’ll kill you.” Eric spoke in a flat measured voice, but his words reached all the way to the back rows. Jill moved away from the table and came up quietly behind him. Nobody else moved. Then the lawyer came and spoke to the auctioneer.
    â€œNow everybody sit down and calm down. Gorry, I’ve never seen anything like an auction to get people riled up.” Mr. Gardiner took out a big white handkerchief and mopped his forehead. Faith felt a thin trickle of sweat make its way down her cleavage. It was hot. And it was tense.
    â€œWhat we’re going to do is withdraw Lot two twenty-five for the time being until the heirs can have it appraised to everyone’s satisfaction, and whether it will be done up there on the blasted roof or down on the lawn is something you can work out with Mr.
Foster here.” He motioned to the lawyer, who looked as cool and collected as he had at seven o’clock. “Now there’s plenty left for everybody. Lot two twenty-six—Well, what do you know? An Atwater Kent in a Gothic box. Have to be a few of us here who remember this baby. Now what am I bid? Who will start the music at twenty-five?”
    The music stopped at two hundred dollars and an oak chest of drawers, a tray of spongeware, and a Seth Thomas Westminster chimes clock rapidly followed. The parlor set was put up and created some excited bidding among the Prescotts. It might have a nick or two, and the rosewood needed some elbow grease, but it had stood in splendor in the front parlor since Darnell had brought it home from Paine’s in Boston as a wedding present for his bride. Nora Prescott from Granville was the high bidder at $850. Just as Matilda had promised her, only she hadn’t thought she would have to buy it to get it. Nora’s sister, Irene, to whom it had also been promised, decided not to bid at the last moment. Blood was thicker than Old English polish, and Nora had always been there when she needed her, taking the kids when she was up at Blue Hill having her appendix out, telling her she was well rid of him when her husband took off with a hairdresser from Belfast. Irene’s noble sacrifice did not go unnoticed, and Nora decided to give her the little marble-topped table, which really wasn’t going to fit in her living room anyway.
    Pix bid quickly and got a pretty spool bed for Samantha’s room and a dry sink before Faith even knew she was bidding.
    And so the auction unfolded, assuming a character distinct from all the other auctions Gardiner and Company had