“My first impulse was to see you, Mildred, but it is a treat to see your beautiful house.”
“Yes, it is beautiful, isn’t it? In the daylight hours all I have to do with myself is to keep it that way, and the garden, too, and to write thank-you notes to my hostesses.”
“Do you still buy things?”
“Never. I haven’t bought a piece in thirty years. Caleb’s family collected so much over the centuries, that I haven’t had to shop. If I’m redoing a room and need something, I have no farther to look than my attic. There are dealers about who would pay a pretty penny for what I have in that attic.”
“Have you ever sold anything?” Barton asked.
“Not a th… well, nothing until… recently.”
Charlie Crow, Stone thought.
“Have you decided to finally begin selling?”
“Oh, no, there was just this one… thing.”
“May I ask what you sold?”
“Oh, I don’t want to talk about that. Did you come to buy my things?”
“I came to make you a proposition,” Barton said.
“I’ll just bet you did.”
“But I don’t want to take a single piece from your house… not anytime soon, at least.”
“What, exactly, do you mean by, ‘anytime soon’?”
“Not for as long as you live.”
Mildred chuckled. “I intend to make it to a hundred and fifty,” she said.
Stone believed she could do it.
“I hope you do,” Barton said, “but I’m prepared to make you what I hope you’ll think is a proposition worth considering.”
“Make your proposition, and I’ll consider it,” Mildred replied, “but probably not for very long.”
“I understand your attachment to your beautiful things and your reluctance to part with any of them,” Barton said, “and I will not ask you to do so. What I will do is this: I will make you an offer for a large group of specific pieces. Since I am not a very rich man, I will pay you a substantial part of my offer each year for the rest of your life. Upon your death, I will remit the unpaid balance to your executor, then take possession of the pieces.”
“And then you will auction everything and quadruple your money?”
“No, I would not like to auction such a collection and have it dispersed. What I had in mind is to interest a major museum in taking everything and, perhaps, re-creating some of your rooms to house a permanent collection.”
“Now that is an interesting idea, Barton,” Mildred said, looking thoughtful. “But why shouldn’t I just leave it all to a museum?”
“Because then you would realize nothing from the transfer of your possessions. You would lose a large annual income. Also, you would find yourself haggling with half a dozen museums over where the collection would go and how it would be displayed.”
Mildred frowned. “God knows I would hate doing that,” she said.
Stone watched as she sat perfectly still, soup spoon in midair for so long that he thought she had had a stroke and become catatonic. Then, suddenly, she spoke. “All right, Barton, I’ll do it,” she said, “in principle, contingent upon the details of your offer. You may have the run of the house this afternoon, or for as long as it takes, to put together your proposal.”
Barton nearly choked on his soup.
Stone had trouble not laughing out loud.
44