“Fifty thousand, do I have sixty, do I have sixty thousand, sixty, sixty …” The auctioneer—with that skill for which his friends detested him—had sussed the action, upped the bids. “Sixty, I have sixty from the rear, sixty thousand.”

Automatically, Storm glanced back to the rear of the room. Caught the brief wave of a numbered paddle. Another bidder—a man, this one. A tall, slim figure in a white suit. Wearing green gloves, weirdly enough. With black hair flowing to his shoulders. A thin, angular face, almost diamond-shaped, somehow feline, somehow feral. He was standing relaxed as the action popped, his eyes amused, witty. Standing back, out of the glare of the overheads. But even so, Storm took that one look at him and knew he was going to win the auction. He was that type. Storm had been around enough of them to know. Storm had been in auctions for books, for screenplays that had gone into the stratosphere; he understood the psychology. This guy was scorched earth, he was take-no-prisoners. Unless that was the U.S. Treasury on the phone, The Magi was as good as his. Sophia’s blond friend wasn’t even in it.

“Seventy, seventy, eighty thousand, eighty thousand, ninety …”

Whoa, thought Storm, getting interested now. The lights on the toteboard couldn’t keep up. Even in Hollywood, things didn’t move this fast.

By the clock on the wall just behind the board, it was nine minutes to eight.

Storm looked back at the girl against the wall, the blonde from the Endering Gallery. Yeah, as he’d figured, she was beginning to crack. The corners of her lush red lips were turning down, her eyes were frenzied. Every time her bid was trumped, Storm could see her blink, recoil, dismayed.

She fluttered her hand again.

“A hundred thousand pounds,” said the auctioneer. And immediately, “One hundred twenty-five thousand from the gentleman in the rear.”

That sent a stir through the audience, not quite silence, not quite sound. Several faces surreptitiously came round to get a look at this “gentleman in the rear.” And Sophia’s assistant—Storm saw her—whipped a stricken look over her shoulder so fast it made her hair fly.

Storm smiled at that. Then he stopped smiling. When she turned that way, he could see the front of her for a moment. He could see she was wearing Sophia’s brooch.

The bidding went around the triangle again. The phone table, the blonde, the man in the rear. The auctioneer, with a feel for the atmosphere almost tactile, had sped the bids once more. He was leaning back from his podium with his eyelids lowered as if with passion.

“One-fifty, one-fifty, one-fifty, one-seventy-five, one hundred seventy-five thousand, two hundred. Two hundred thousand …”

Wait a minute, thought Storm. This isn’t right.

It was seven minutes to eight.