“Are you sure?” Lawndry asked.
“Yes.” Mr Milson leaned forward again. “I am absolutely sure.”
“Please explain.” Lawndry, bless him, said what Nobbie should have been thinking. His mind couldn’t quite catch up to what was happening because the idea that he might matter clanged like a church bell in his skull.
“Six years ago, the Duke of Winchester died.”
What the fuck had this story got to do with some random Duke? Nobbie realised he was shaking his head and he forced himself to be still. Every muscle in his body strained with the effort of not moving. He must not react until he had more information.
“And?”
“At the time, his heir, the seventh Duke, asked Sotheby’s to value his watch collection. I had just joined Sotheby’s as my first clerking job after a scholarship at Harrow, and my boss decided that this would be a good job for a young clerk, because these collections tend to be less exciting than they sound. I travelled to Winchester to create a catalogue without much of an expectation that I’d find anything of interest.” Mr Milson swallowed. “I did not expect to find almost every Hobart watch ever made.”
Lawndry made an odd noise, a splutter that choked on a gasp. “What?”
“The sixth Duke of Winchester had every Hobart numbered one to sixty-five, then approximately one-third of the remaining watches. I catalogued them all, then came back here and went through the archives of our sale results to double check.”
“And?”
“It wasn’t so simple. Several of them had been purchased through agents, and I spent a lot of time tracking down the provenance. Eventually I had a list of all 126 Hobart’s barring number 79. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t find any evidence that it had ever existed. Until now.” Mr Milson gently touchedthe edge of Nobbie’s watch with his blunt finger and Nobbie wanted to slap his finger away. He tried to slow his breathing, in and out through his nose.
“Why was the Duke of Winchester so obsessed with Hobart watches?” Nobbie’s voice broke. He really hoped there was a good answer that wasn’t ... that he was the son of a fucking Duke. No. No. No. It couldn’t be. He didn’t want to be related to an asshole Duke who’d forced his poor mother to abandon him at an orphanage. This was why he hadn’t wanted to know why he’d been left with this cursed watch. He’d made a life for himself. He didn’t need this type of nonsense messing everything up ... although ... common sense snuck in as he breathed, and he realised that being a Duke’s by-blow might just be useful. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing. He needed to talk to Adam about it. Thinking about the potential advantages settled his stomach a fraction.
“Perhaps the Duke simply liked them. Hobart’s watches are truly exquisite workmanship. If I had the funds to collect every Hobart in existence, I would.” Lawndry made it sound so simple. “Some people collect art, others jewellery by their favourite creators, how is this any different?”
When he put it like that... Nobbie cursed his over-active imagination. He blamed Earnest who had always played these silly games when they were children; imagine if you were the son of man who left you here while he went to seek his fortune, and then he’ll come back for you one day and feed you proper food and dress you in the newest styles. Earnest, whose father had dropped him off at age ten when he’d been a hopeless blacksmith, had a fertile imagination. At least Nobbie had been abandoned as a baby with no knowledge of his family. Earnest had been old enough to understand that his father definitely didn’t want him. It was horrific behaviour if one thought about ittoo hard, which was why Earnest spent his time inventing other fun stories instead.
“For a long time, I had a theory, but I think this watch disproves it.” Mr Milson broke the silence, or perhaps him and Lawndry had been talking while Nobbie had been lost in thought and he’d missed something important.
“Tell me your theory.” Nobbie hoped it would distract him from weird combination of calculation and panic swirling in his chest, as if he’d been asked to face someone as big as Mr Milson in the boxing ring, and not in a very boring clerk’s office at an auction house.
“My theory is that the Duke of Winchester commissioned Hobart specifically to create watch number 79. Did you know that the Winchester Cathedral was built in 1079? It’s one of the oldest in the country and the numbers can’t be a coincidence.”
Nobbie shook his head at the fanciful notion. “If that was true, then he’d have the watch in his collection. How do you explain that he didn’t have it?”
“Perhaps he didn’t like it, and had it destroyed. I’ve seen people do worse.”
It was true. The toffs had too much money and they were often foolish with it—to Nobbie’s advantage.
“Now that we have seen that watch 79 exists, I wonder if the cathedral date is pure coincidence and that Mr Gilbert’s possession of the watch has more to do with Hobart than the Duke of Winchester, who may simply be an enthusiastic collector.”
“What do you know about Hobart?” Lawndry asked. Finally, some common sense prevailed. Naturally, Nobbie would have nothing to do with a Dukedom. The very idea was absurd. Dukes didn’t leave their babies, especially boys, at orphanages. They had local villagers raise their by-blows, then offered them jobs around the estate.
“It is more likely that someone stole the watch from whomever, then left it with their baby so the baby would have something to sell when they were grown.” Nobbie was the king of the financial scam. It’s what he would’ve done if he’d ... needed to abandon a baby? He growled. He would never do such a thing; couldn’t understand why someone would. He should’ve sold the damned watch a decade ago when he’d first been given it because thinking too hard about his origins hurt. It hurt his heart and it hurt his stomach and it gave him a pain behind his temples.
“You are correct. We have no evidence that the Duke of Winchester owned watch 79 as it is not in our auction records, nor was it in his collection. Until today, I had no evidence that it existed at all.” Mr Milson shared a glance with Lawndry like they were plotting something together.
“I suppose that makes it much more plausible that someone stole it from Hobart.” Lawndry’s logic made sense and Nobbie’s limbs finally started to warm up again. The only thing that mattered in his life was his own sense of drive and success. He’d come from nowhere and built himself up alone. Was he destined to always be alone?
Chapter 9
Lloyd had one question about Winchester’s collection. If he was a true collector, why would he have all the early ones, but hardly any of the later ones? A Duke was unlikely to be lacking in funds to purchase the newer Hobarts, even though they’d gone up significantly in price, was he? Or maybe Winchester was one of those estates run on bare bones with expenses far outstripping the income from the lands.
“Perhaps we need to find Hobart and check his records against Sotheby’s?” Mr Milson asked.
“Are you implying that you don’t know who Hobart was?” Lloyd knew the world of horology was small; everyone knew everyone, and yet he didn’t know who Hobart was. Odd. He should’ve had realised before today that it was unusual for a prominent watchmaker to be unknown as an individual in the horology community.
“No. It adds to the mystique around the watches, don’t you think?” Milson’s comment was illogical and surprising, since he’d always been quite sensible to deal with until now.
