“I think I’ll have another Scotch.” He got up and went over to the bar cart.

It was none of my business to dissuade him, so I didn’t. But before he got too much further in his cups I said, “I suspect you must have realized that Prescott showed me the copy of the Declaration of Independence he’d just bought on Saturday.”

He turned around. “I noticed you looking at the bookcase while we were downstairs together in the wine cellar. So I figured you’d been in his Masonic sanctum sanctorum. It’s a privilege, Lucie. Not many people get the honor.” I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or sarcastic. “And then when I saw the Declaration and all the other items he’d bought, James and Dolley Madison’s letters, that slave’s memoir…” He shrugged. “Well, what of it?”

“There seemed to be something about those items that was especially important to him,” I said. “I had a feeling it was relevant to whatever he was going to share with his Masonic brothers the night of the gala.”

Clay gave a short laugh. “And you think he confided in me?”

“Did he?”

“Of course not. The only thing he told me right before everyone arrived for the feijoada was that he was going to sell the Tribune and half a dozen other papers that he said were in trouble.”

“You had no idea before that?”

“No.” He returned to his chair.

“That must have been rough.”

He gave me a look filled with irony and anger.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“We argued, of course. He told me right here in this room.” He glanced over at the fireplace and I could just imagine the two of them, voices raised, shouting at each other. “I said if we needed money for the family business, he should sell some of the acquisitions he and my mother had made over the years and we could use the money to shore up the Trib. He was wrong to give up on our family’s flagship newspaper.”

“And?”

“He said ‘absolutely not’ to selling any of the art or sculptures because everything was going to be sold on behalf of his and my mother’s charities once he died, most of it to benefit the Miranda Foundation. He and my mother had already signed the Caritas Commitment along with so many other billionaires.” He paused and added, “But as I reminded him, it was only a pledge, not a binding legal commitment. It wasn’t like he’d set up an irrevocable trust. Though even those can be undone if you have a smart enough lawyer.”

“In other words, now that he’s gone you don’t have to go through with the Caritas Commitment, even though he and Rose signed the pledge?”