Accidentally I found myself in Hanbury Street (Annie Chapman, whom J the R bizarrely laid out with brass rings and copper coins) and accelerated so quickly that Gluck and his stout gent shouted in anger. Lovejoy stayed cool, I'm pleased to report. I revved into Hymie's narrow yard, checked the gate was closed, and let them out. Gluck was furious. 'Is that your best driving?' 'Is this behaviour essential?' the gent asked. No names, no pack drill, they say. I'd already had a good look. No street names were visible from here. Okay, they'd find Hymie's place in a couple of days if they really tried, and could then talk to Hymie and Honor all they wished. Wrinkle too. By then I'd be over the hills and far away. 'Any ferreting, all deals are off, okay? Inside.' They went in.
I wouldn't let them switch on the lights. Sturffie had thoughtfully dowsed the hall lamp.
I shone a pencil torch ahead. Nothing like compulsory darkness to enforce dependence.
'Those three pieces,' I told them. 'You can lift the sheets.'
Wrinkle screened his genuine pieces from the work area, but there was no disguising the blissfilled aromas and sights of the dust, shavings. Wrinkle was a craftsman of superb tidiness, much neater than I am. All his pieces were either crated or covered.
The pudgy bloke was a real pro. His sharp intake of breath told me all. He knew Chinese antique furniture, touched the wood with reverence, glanced at Gluck as if to ask him how on earth such superb genuine pieces had got here. I wouldn't let him invert any.
'Crawl under if you have to. Don't lift.'
I wouldn't give an inch on this. Antiques is always a seller's market. Please don't tell me it isn't, that your friend Elsie's had terrible trouble trying to sell her reproduction mascot from her dad's old motor car. I did say 'antiques', so tough luck on Elsie and all modern junk. If Elsie's antique turned out to be, say, a Continental silver christening set - tiny knife, fork, spoon, feeding spoon, three little cups and a silver and ivory rattle, William IV vintage - then she'd have dealers clamouring at her garden gate and worshipping her hair, etc., because dealers will do anything for genuine antiques. They'll even - I've heard - offer the going market price.
'Can I ask for provenance?' the gent wheezed, straightening.
'No,' I said bluntly. 'If you want provenance for these, you're useless.'
He almost smiled. He had a goatee beard, waxed moustache grey as a brock badger.
Like he was trying to seem Edwardian. I thought, Sotheby's, moonlighting? Or did gentry still only come from Christie's?
'Any others?'
'Out,' I replied.
I did the journey in reverse, the boxed-in pair of them clinging on. I did my best among the streets, but still unnerved myself by blundering about the site of Buck's Row in Whitechapel (Mary Ann Nicholls, J the R's second prostitute victim, dead on the cobbles after trolling in Limehouse). Mercifully the lovely Moiya was still alive and sulking in her grand saloon. I let the two men out. Gluck was furious. He tried to see the van's registration. I let him try. It was covered in mud, Sturffie's attention to detail.
Whether Gluck told the old expert who I was didn't matter. Tinker would have my alibi chiselled in granite. I waved them off. Ten minutes later, I gave Sturffie back his van, waited until he'd set Wrinkle's alarms to rights, and let him drop me off in the Strand.
Finding a phone these days is an ordeal, but I got one after hunting Charing Cross for a century, and rang Gluck.
'On or off?' I asked him, knowing the answer.
'On,' he said. 'Details of the other event?'
'Going like a dream,' I lied. He meant the Dulwich robbery. 'It'll be in the papers day after tomorrow. About payment.'
'Any default,' he said, 'you know who'll suffer. Any trick will mean permanent exit for both of them, followed by somebody else. That is three.'
'I know. Payment?'
He chuckled. 'I like your directness. Tomorrow noon, when dining with influence.'
'Deal,' I said, and rang off.
So if I didn't deliver the Dulwich Picture Gallery's masterpieces for Dieter Gluck to rescue for the nation, and if I failed to provide him with a selection of genuine antique Chinese furniture pieces so he could make a fortune, then Mortimer, Colette, and me would go to the wall. I went, whistling, wondering if Tinker had got hold of Lydia yet.
34
I DON'T KNOW if people these days are familiar with doss houses. Different from days of yore, of course. The old phrase 'I'm so tired I could sleep on a clothesline' started there. You tied a rope between walls, draped your arms on the line, and slept like that because the floor was crammed with too many other lucky derelicts. Now, you pay a tithe for a 'semi-special' nook of partitioned sanctuary, and get breakfast for a pittance, then it's out into London's bright day. I mean raining.
Optimism's not my strong suit. I'm good at getting by, but frankly I'm scared of aggro.
Like, Gluck had won Colette's antiques firm, Saffron Fields, the land, canal. And he was a killer. If I knew all that, so must the police. Proof was a different matter. And a contract's a contract. Colette and Arthur had signed almost everything over to Gluck, nothing anybody could do.
But Gluck needed that one bit of land to dig the link canal. Which meant he needed money. Mortimer stood in the way. Give Gluck those two fields, plus Mortimer's lordship tide, Gluck would be taipan, big in the land.
I explained this to Gloria Dee at the Royal Academy in Piccadilly. No sense in holding back the cruel details. We sat on a bench.
'You, frightened?' She seemed astonished.
'Scared stiff.' I reminded her that Gluck's bloke Bern had been bludgeoned to death.
'But the police said the poor man simply fell, or surprised a robber.'
'Oh, aye. You know what to do?'
A crocodile of children came under the arch, chattering away. How come teachers look so cool? I'm frantic just babysitting Henry - my other job - and he can hardly crawl.
'You've told me what I'm to say, Lovejoy.' She didn't look scared, but then women have no need to be. 'Sir Jesson and I meet Mr Gluck. Public-spirited, Mr Gluck will tell Jesson that a major theft will soon happen, from an unnamed but important public art gallery.'
'Good. And?'
'And that Gluck has ways of rescuing the stolen art works for the nation.'
'That's when you ask your all-important question, love.' I watched her lovely mouth move as she got ready. Politicians like Sir Jesson have everything - wealth, sinecures, and lovely women like Mrs Dee.
'I ask Mr Gluck, "Why don't you simply tell the police?" And he replies—'
'That the robbers will then know he's an informer. They will exact retribution.' I was proud of the phrase, having rehearsed Gluck through it on the phone. Gloria sounded better. I couldn't help asking. 'You and Sir Jesson. Are you…?'
Her eyes widened. 'Lovejoy, I'm a married woman!'
Two ladies entering the Academy heard and turned to stare.
'You mean, er, you and he aren't—?'
'It's time this conversation ended, Lovejoy,' she said primly, gathering her handbag.
'Can I help you about art?' I asked desperately. Hardly Romeo wooing, but the best I could think of. 'Teach you how to forge an Old Master?' I threw in my last lie. 'No obligation.'
Her eyes were a lovely blue, steady as a hunter's. 'Why, Lovejoy?'
'It's all I have to offer.'
'Why would you want to help me?'
No answer to that, because women already know. She was smiling as we parted, she to Fortnum & Mason's posh restaurant, me to wait out the performance. From across the road I saw the lanky form of Sir Jesson arrive in his Rolls. The stage was set. I couldn't work out what felt wrong.