The Case Files of Jeweler Richard Vol. 3 by Nanako Tsujimura

Author:Nanako Tsujimura [Tsujimura, Nanako]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: light novel
Publisher: Seven Seas Entertainment
Published: 2022-10-15T07:00:00+00:00

It was the following Sunday. Étranger had only been open on Saturday this week, so Richard had spent quite a lot of time apologizing to people on the phone yesterday.

For some reason, I was heading to a hotel in town with Mr. Itou after joining him at Shinbashi Station. The auction was being held in Ginza, but we needed to meet up with Richard first. I’d wondered why Richard couldn’t just meet us at the hotel, but apparently, he had to see someone right before the auction, which made taking a car the fastest option.

Once Mr. Itou was done greeting me, he asked me a question in the back of the taxi. “What’s your relationship to Richard?”

“Relationship? We’re just boss and employee…”

“Really? I thought you might be a relative. Of Mr. Ranasinghe’s, that is.”

“Um, isn’t he Richard’s…”

“Mentor is what he calls him.”

The Sri Lankan man who had come up before. Mr. Itou must’ve thought I was Sri Lankan-Japanese. That was a pretty funny misunderstanding. I wondered what kind of person Mr. Ranasinghe was? The fact that Richard looked up to him suggested he was very particular about certain things, too.

“Shoubin Co. has ties with Mr. Ranasinghe’s shop. I think it’s been about twenty years now that we’ve been doing business together? It was through that connection that I made this request of Richard—and I do apologize for how much trouble it’s caused.”

“Jewelers and antiquities dealers do business together?”

“Of course we do. Antique jewelry is the most common reason why, but it’s difficult to draw hard lines between antiques, art, and jewelry. It doesn’t really matter what field you’ve specialized in, even in the sciences—you won’t be exclusively interacting with only people in your field. This is no different.”

I guess things did look different, depending on how you came at them. Even where that piece of jade was concerned… I didn’t think anyone would argue with you if you told them it was an antique, but at the same time, calling it a gemstone wasn’t exactly wrong, either. It was probably hard to categorize.

I remembered I was curious about what had happened with the budget.

“Not to stick my nose into someone else’s business, but do you think the thirty million is going to be enough?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I did get the upper limit raised just a little since the preview, but still.”

Just how much was “a little”? I asked Mr. Itou this, and he quickly raised a single finger. It probably wasn’t another hundred thousand. There’d be no point to them pushing for this without the funds to potentially win. It was probably thirty-one million. At least, I didn’t think he could have possibly meant forty million… Just thinking about it made my stomach churn.

Mr. Itou chuckled.

“But sometimes it’s just not enough, you know? And when that happens, you have to know when to give up. This is a business. Sometimes you have to just make a call and leave it up to fate.”

“…I hope it goes well.

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