Tyler had glued about a quarter of Mrs. Searles’s bowl back together. I needed to check the mail; the bowl I’d bought from eBay should have arrived today.
“Seems as if there’s one piece missing here.” He pointed to the spot, guessing I’d be a willing assistant to his reconstruction. Better to bury my head in that project than in P.P.’s anger.
I took my place at his side, picking through the pieces while P.P. collected himself. He wasn’t generally a volatile man, and the degree of his anger now attested how much the situation disturbed him.
“Right or wrong?” he finally asked.
“The head?” Tyler said.
“Of course,” I volunteered.
P.P. gave the Indian shake of his head that means yes, but to the uninitiated seems to mean no. Tyler understood it correctly.
“Well.”
“Yes,” P.P. said. “And?”
Avoiding the line of fire, I kept my focus on the broken bowl that wouldn’t be needed once my package arrived.
Tyler stood up. “P.P., I really can’t tell you. It’s sandstone of a type that comes from Cambodia, or so it seems. I sent off some photos to a friend at the Met who has done a little work on the stone, and he thought it looked correct, but you know that means little. And even if it comes from Cambodia, when was it made? Yesterday or nine hundred years ago?”
He shook his head. “The stone has little wear, which is suspicious. We all know how frequently the nose of a sculpture or some other protruding portion breaks. You have to remember that it sat in that temple, or lay on the ground, for centuries. Something was bound to happen to it. A break when it fell, water pouring over it as it lay.”
He was preaching to the initiated. I knew it. He knew it. He knew that we knew it, but he’d shifted into automatic and was explaining as he would to anyone. Maybe he was giving P.P. more time to collect himself. “The sample I took from the neck gives me a surface cross-section that looks awfully uniform. But if I took a sample from elsewhere on the head, it might well be less so.”
“You won’t commit?” P.P. asked. Tyler was notoriously conservative in his proclamations. He could balance two sides of any issue better than the finest scale.
“No. I think the best you can do is when you and Jenna go to Cambodia, look carefully at the old and see what they seem capable of making with the new. Are you going to Bangkok?”
“We’ve talked about it,” I volunteered, picking up the piece he’d been missing.
“Well, from what you’ve told me, that’s the place to go to look for good Cambodian fakes.” He looked at me as he spoke, evidently having had enough of P.P.
P.P. charged out of the lab without a word. I held up the shard.
“Damn,” he said. “I was hoping it was gone and I wouldn’t have to continue.”
“You could always throw these pieces out and buy that bowl you saw online. She’d be incredibly impressed that you got it back together in such pristine condition.”
“Don’t think that it didn’t cross my mind, but when I looked this morning, in a moment of frustration, it had been sold.” He focused his gaze on the glue he held in one hand and the shard of bowl in the other. “P.P. seems angry.”
“Philen sent out a press release saying P.P. owns the stolen head.”
That brought his head up. “Idiot. What was he thinking? No, don’t answer that. ‘Nothing’ is the obvious answer. Wait, isn’t Arthur going with you to Cambodia?”
“I fear he is.” I prodded another small piece toward him and pointed. “I think this goes here.”
Tyler took it. “That sounds like a really fun trip.”
“Right. Kind of like traveling with a snake and a mongoose.”
I poked half-heartedly at the ceramic shards, but the weight of dealing with Arthur Philen and P.P. in close proximity for two weeks had knocked the wind out of me.
He looked up. “They’re both a little much. Each in his own way, of course.”
“Of course. Philen, well, he’s so absorbed in his quest for power that he wears blinders.” I said.
“And P.P. is so engaged in his quest for art that he sees little else.”
“That’s not entirely true. You have to respect his passion, not to mention his eye. And it’s not just that he has an eye for fabulous art. He’s very knowledgeable about what he collects. I value his opinion.”
Tyler looked at me expectantly. “And?”
“And. He has a sense of humor.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t shine through today.”
“No, it didn’t. It’s true that art is at the center of his universe, but it seems to be at the center of ours as well.” I swiveled my head around the room. “I’ll be back,” I said, rising from my stool.
I wished P.P. had never brought that head into the museum. Or that Philen wasn’t always lurking. As I passed Caleb’s office, he called me in. Philen was standing in front of his desk.
“We’ll take the head with us to Cambodia and—”
“No, Arthur,” I said. “We are not taking the head with us. We are not going to return the head to the Cambodian government until we know what we have. I’m not certain if it’s authentic, and Tyler isn’t either.” My voice rose as I spoke. I took a seat beside Philen, who remained standing.
“I’ve already issued a press release that—”
“Prematurely, to say the least.” I couldn’t restrain myself.
Philen’s voice rose to match mine. “When I came into the conservation lab, you and P.P. were discussing a stolen head. Something needed to be done about it.”
“And if you’d continued listening to us, you would have heard me say that we needed to authenticate it before we did anything.”
“You’ve had almost a month.” He straightened his tie.
“The fact remains, we haven’t been able to agree on whether it’s fake or real. Now you’ve put P.P.’s name out there as a collector, possibly of fakes, and by sending out the press release, you’ve associated us with the head. Which is bad for us. Of course, that might turn out to be good for P.P. if it takes him out of the picture. You’d best hope it does if you want him to stay associated with the museum. He doesn’t want everyone knowing he’s a collector.”
“Well, everyone already knows that,” he said prissily.
“Only a small circle of people. Every gift he’s given to the museum says “Anonymous” on the credit line. If he wanted to advertise his interest in Asian art, he’d allow articles in art magazines, or put his name on pieces of his that are borrowed for exhibitions. He’s not a self-promoter.”
Philen ignored me. “I can’t believe he came to you, Caleb, and told you to fire me. Just because he has access to you, because he’s a trustee.”
Caleb evidently had no intention of inserting a single word. “Caleb?” I prompted him.
“Yes. He’s extremely angry. Rightly so, as you acted precipitously, Arthur.”
It was the most direct attack Caleb had ever made on a member of staff. In my hearing, at any rate. Philen took a step back, as if experiencing it physically.
Caleb softened the blow by saying, “I understand your worry, Arthur. If it belonged to us, I would be very concerned. But it really wasn’t your place to send out that