Chapter 2
PART 2
The auction preview closed within twelve minutes.
Guests were asked to move into the adjoining reception hall while foundation counsel reviewed the dispute. Charles described the interruption as a routine provenance issue.
No one in the room believed him.
The watch remained on the pedestal under continuous camera coverage. The inner lid stayed open. The portrait of Mae Brooks faced the empty ballroom.
Lena sat with Naomi in a small conference room behind the ballroom kitchen.
Edmund sat across from them.
Charles refused the chair beside him and remained standing.
Foundation attorney Rebecca Sloan placed Naomi's photocopy inside a clear sleeve.
"Where did you obtain this?"
"The Holloway archive," Naomi said.
"You were not authorized to copy restricted family correspondence."
"I was hired to inventory fire-damaged materials."
"Inventory, not reproduce."
"The original page was scheduled for disposal as an unattached draft."
Charles leaned forward.
"Because it had no verified chain of custody."
"Because it created a claim against the watch you wanted to sell."
Rebecca stopped the exchange.
Naomi explained how she found the page inside a warped ledger cover. Beside it were calibration drawings in Mae's hand and a photograph of Arthur and Mae at the workbench.
Naomi scanned everything before reporting the discovery.
Charles removed her from the archive the next morning and accused her of violating conservation protocols.
She had, in fact, violated them.
She used a personal scanner instead of the archive system because she feared the files would disappear.
The scans preserved the pages.
They also broke the evidence chain and gave Charles grounds to challenge them.
Edmund looked at her.
"Why didn't you contact me?"
"I did. Three times."
Naomi placed printed emails on the table.
Edmund's assistant had replied that he was unavailable and that all provenance questions should go through Charles.
Edmund read the messages slowly.
"I never saw these."
"You built an office where someone could decide what you never saw," Naomi said.
He accepted the sentence.
Charles did not.
"This is becoming theater. The watch is legally owned by the foundation. The sale funds pediatric housing grants across New England."
He turned to Lena.
"Do you understand how many children lose help if your mother stops this auction?"
Lena looked at him without answering.
Naomi moved her chair slightly between them.
"Do not put the sale on her."
"She opened the watch."
"Because every adult with authority delayed the truth until after the bidding."
Rebecca examined the photocopy.
Arthur's signature appeared genuine, but the page was not witnessed as a codicil and did not clearly transfer title.
It might carry historical weight without changing ownership.
Charles seized on that distinction.
"Then we add Mae's name to the catalog, acknowledge the disputed history, and proceed."
Naomi shook her head.
"The instruction says the school must be funded from the watch's value."
"The foundation funds education already."
"Not the school Arthur and Mae described."
The notebooks described paid evening training for Black workers and women barred from signing workshop pieces.
The school was never built.
Arthur's reputation grew.
Mae returned to garment work after the Holloway shop closed.
She taught the release sequence to her daughter using a broken brass practice case.
That daughter taught Naomi.
Naomi taught Lena.
Charles folded his arms.
"Or your family invented a story around a mechanism after seeing the watch in the auction catalog."
Lena reached into her sweater pocket.
Naomi caught her wrist before she removed anything.
"Ask first."
Lena looked at Rebecca.
"Can I show them?"
Rebecca nodded.
Lena placed a small brass practice case on the table.
It had no movement and no value beyond the scratches worn into its surface.
She performed the same three-step sequence.
The inner lid opened.
Inside was a pencil drawing of the release lever signed M.B.
Edmund touched neither object.
His face changed again.
"My father kept one like this in his desk."
"Mae made six," Naomi said. "Our family has two."
Charles called the cases unverified reproductions.
Rebecca asked Edmund when he first saw Arthur's instruction.
He looked at the copied page.
"In 1998. Two years after my father died."
Naomi's expression hardened.
"And you did nothing."
"I sent it to estate counsel."
"What did counsel say?"
"That honoring it could reopen ownership of the entire Holloway collection."
The Holloway collection and licensing income supported Edmund's family.
A co-inventor claim could reopen decades of credit and unpaid royalties.
Edmund locked the page inside a private file.
"I told myself I was protecting work my father completed," he said.
"You were protecting what his name bought you," Naomi replied.
"Yes."
Charles stared at him.
That admission threatened the collection.
Rebecca warned everyone that the foundation could seek an injunction against Naomi for possession and disclosure of restricted documents.
Charles offered an alternative.
The foundation would drop its complaint, restore Naomi's benefits for one year, and fund Lena's education.
In return, Naomi would acknowledge that the watch belonged to the foundation and allow the sale to proceed while scholars reviewed Mae's role privately.
The offer would help Naomi.
Naomi's contract work barely covered rent after Lena's father died.
The account could change Lena's future.
Naomi asked for time.
Charles smiled, believing the price had worked.
Lena looked at the brass practice case.
"Would Mae's name be on the watch tonight?"
Charles answered carefully.
"After a responsible review."
"Then no."
Naomi looked at her daughter.
Lena had not accepted the offer for her.
She had reminded her what the offer required.
Naomi told Rebecca to release every copied page to an independent provenance examiner, including the documents that weakened the Brooks family's position.
"Which documents?" Edmund asked.
Naomi removed one final copy.
It was an assignment signed by Mae Brooks.
For five hundred dollars and payment of her daughter's hospital bill, Mae transferred all patent rights in the release mechanism to Arthur Holloway.
Charles's smile returned.
"There is your answer."
Naomi did not hide the page.
"No. There is the next question."
Mae had signed away the patent.
But on the bottom margin, Arthur had written in his own hand:
"Rights purchased under Whitmore pressure. Debt to be repaired through school and final watch."
May you like
Samuel Whitmore, Charles's grandfather, had financed the Holloway workshop.
The family that now planned to sell the watch had been involved from the beginning.
