A fool there was and he made his prayer (Even as you and I) To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair (We called her the woman who did not care) But the fool he called her his lady fair - (Even as you and I!)
Rudyard Kipling, 'The Vampire'
'What is aught, but as 'tis valued?'
William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida
1
LONDON'S TRAFFIC ROARED past as I prepared to attack.
'Don't, Lovejoy.' Shar was beautiful and furious. But she's a lawyer. They always say don't. 'You'll get arrested.'
People on passing buses stared. Old crones called things like, 'Riff-raff!' It gets me narked. This was me out in the rain, fighting for them. We could all sit in warm buses and do nothing while the world dies.
Nothing for it. I went to the middle of the road with my placard and howled at Holloway University, 'You swine stole my Old Masters! You thieving—'
Two weary bobbies arrested me.
Shar was still arguing two nights later in bed. Do lawyers ever give up? I honestly think they're abnormal.
'This behaviour must stop.' Shar was giving it me - aggro, I mean.
'I'm not the criminal,' I shot back, indignant. 'They are!'
'The law clearly states—'
'The law is a—'
'Say that once more and you're out of this bed this instant!' She was blazing.
I was amazed. 'Tell me just one thing I've done wrong.'
She glared along the pillow. Nice hair, lovely eyes, but a lawyer's a lawyer for all that.
'You bawled abuse at Holloway University.' Even in bed lawyers sound extra-terrestrial.
'Despite,' she said bitterly, 'your lawyer's advice. The magistrates show forbearance—'
Oh, aye, like slamming me in the pokey.
'Thieving swine sold my paintings.' My hand had accidentally fallen on her bare thigh, but she shoved it off.
'They aren't your Old Masters, Lovejoy. And stop that.'
Her breast had accidentally come into my palm, but whose fault was that? Typical woman, drags me naked into bed, wreaks her savage lust on my defenseless body, then tells me to lie still. Is that fair?
She sighed. 'Lovejoy. I'm utterly tired of this. The Cottesloe Report says the University couldn't sell the objects unless authorized by the Courts or Charity Commissioners or the Minister of Education—'
'Fraudsters,' I muttered. 'They flogged my paintings.' To flog is to sell.
Shar cuffed me as my face reached her belly. 'You got arrested. They are in the right.'
It was time to make smiles again so I pretended to give in. I'd not got long.
'You're right, dwoorlink.' I put a smile on. 'Thanks for keeping a clear head.'
'Promise you'll remember the law, Lovejoy?'
'Very well, dwoorlink.'
It worked, thank heavens. Shar was mollified. We slept afterwards, had another breakfast, though she'd run out of bacon, which really narked me because what is breakfast for? We parted with endearments.
'Be good, darling. Remember you're bound over to keep the peace.'
Pure love shone from my eyes. 'I shall, luv. Back in an hour.' Another promise, but promises aren't the trouble, I find.
As I waved up at her window from the street below I tried to remember her surname.
Maybe I'd still got her trade card somewhere.
Then I went to Bermondsey, where Floggell lives. He'd know how to burgle a university better than anybody. 'Not my paintings' indeed. Universities always say they've a right to steal. Once, only banks and politicians made that excuse. Now, theft's called progress. Remember that detail, or you'll get lost in the murk of this story.
But cheer up. One dauntless warrior is still in the arena fighting for honesty and justice against the forces of evil, greed, and law.
It's me, Lovejoy, honest antique dealer. It's blinking lonely, especially when they slam you in the dock as soon as you want them to play fair. Unfortunately, I'm on my tod. So far, nobody had lifted a finger to help.
I'd come to London's street markets to find who the heck was flooding the antiques world with dud padparadshas (lovely gemstones; tell you about these in a minute). I'd been hired by Dosh Callaghan for the purpose against my will. I'd been feeling sorry for myself after a really bad day. I'd backed an illegal Carlton Ware forger's pottery with a load of lOUs. Staffordshire's maniacal Trading Standards Officers raided it, in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent. Can you imagine anything so unfair? I was seething with self-pity and poverty. They weren't even fakes of antiques, because the Carlton factory only closed in 1989. A so-say 1957 vintage Guinness toucan lamp, for God's sake? I honestly think morality's gone to the dogs. If you can't make pots in the Potteries, where is truth?
Needless to say, dealers all across East Anglia jeered at me.
Me and a lass called Iana had made a go of total permanent unending eternal love for a couple of days once, but she proved unreliable. She had a rotten temper, accused me of infidelity just because I'd stayed with Jessica at Goldhanger when trying to buy Jessica's Regency cabinet. For all that, our valencies always linked whenever she zoomed in. And she tended to broker antique sales. Iana had promised me a genuine Holbein miniature painting, owned by a hunchbacked Romford dealer called Syme.
'Genuine Holbein!' Syme protested as I gave it back across the tap-room bar.
'No, Syme. Hans Holbein was lefthanded.'
'So?' Syme asked, puzzled.
'Miniaturists paint their portraits with northern light on their left. Righthanded, they sit facing east, see? Holbein's subjects have the light coming the other way.'
Syme's pal had done the commonest forger trick of all. In any book on miniatures, the photographs are reproduced actual size. So forgers simply trace them in reverse, to look like different versions of some famous portrait - like Syme's, of Lady Catherine Howard, date about 1540.
'Also, Syme,' I added sadly, 'it's on Ivorine. Holbein painted his miniatures on vellum stuck to card.' I could have gone on about the brilliant art of 'limning' - painting miniature scenes and portraits. It's a miraculous art-form. I love it. But like I say I was down in the dumps, instinctively feeling that worse was on the way.
Dealers like Syme get taken in by the old forger's trick, to do quite a good fake using the wrong materials. Ivorine is a synthetic modern plastic. Good stuff, though, you can cut with scissors. Respectable miniaturists use it all the time. But no way is it ivory. Nor is it real vellum - that stretched skin of aborted veal calves. I could have sworn Syme's miniature painting was done over acrylic 'carnation', as ancient limners used to call their ground. And acrylics, like Ivorine, are modern.
'No good, Lovejoy?' Iana had asked. I sat with her.
'Bad, love. The original belongs to the Duke of Buccleugh.'
While we were talking Fakes I Have Known, that saga of antique dealers everywhere, Dosh Callaghan hove in and told me to go to London.
Dosh saw nothing unreasonable in forcing me into slavery while he took gorgeous women out to belly-rumbling restaurants.
'Why, Doshie?' I pleaded. 'I hate London.'
He's one of these criminals who wears alpaca coats down to the heels, has gold teeth and a gunslinger hat. He has two goons, to enforce whatever rules he dreams up for us on the spot. The charm of a boil, and lies like a gasmeter. In spite of this, I like Dosh.
His party trick is to find obscure relatives, claim close kinship, and do them out of every penny. He owns a propeller plane at Earls Colne airfield, says an auntie left it to him.
He beamed, flashed his rings about the tavern. We were in the Welcome Sailor at East Gates, that being where our town's antique dealers congregate to enter terminal decline.
Think of a dodo graveyard but where all extinct species are still pretending they know life.
'You used to love London, Lovejoy,' Iana said. This is her way, prettily taking me over every time she returns from Cyprus.
'Me? I've always hated London, ever since—'