‘Staffordshire portrait figures are not valued as good likenesses,’ Buttery said in its defence, pitching his voice at a level audible to browsers in the main part of the shop. He believed that a bookshop should be a haven of culture, and when he wasn’t broadcasting it himself, he played Bach on the stereo. ‘The proportions are wrong and the finishing is too stylised to admit much individuality. They are primitive pieces, but they have a certain naive charm, I must insist.’
‘Insist as much as you like, darling,’ said Mrs D’Abernon, indomitable in her aesthetic judgements. ‘You won’t convince me that it is anything but grotesque.’ She smiled fleetingly. ‘Well, I might give you vulgar if you press me, as I’m sure you’d like to.’
Buttery sighed and offered more sherry. These sprightly married women in their thirties and forties who liked to throw in the occasional suggestive remark were a type he recognised, but hadn’t learned how to handle. He was thirty-four, a bachelor, serious-minded, good-looking, gaunt, dark, with a few silver signs of maturity at the temples. He was knowledgeable about women — indeed, he had two shelf-lengths devoted to the subject, high up and close to the back room, where he could keep an eye on anyone who inspected them — but he had somehow failed to achieve what the manuals described as an intimate relationship. He was not discouraged, however; for him, the future always beckoned invitingly. ‘The point about Staffordshire figures,’ he persisted with Mrs D’Abernon, ‘is that they give us an insight into the amusements of our Victorian ancestors.’
‘Amusements such as murder?’ said Mrs D’Abernon with a peal of laughter. She was still a pretty woman with blonde hair in loose curls that bobbed when she moved her head.
‘Yes, indeed!’ Buttery assured her. ‘The blood-curdling story of a man like Corder was pure theatre, the stuff of melodrama. The arrest, the trial and even the execution. Murderers were hanged in public, and thousands came to watch, not just the rabble, but literary people like Dickens and Thackeray.’
‘How macabre!’
Buttery gave the shrug of a man who understands human behaviour. ‘That was the custom. Anyway, the Staffordshire potters made a tidy profit out of it. I suppose respectable Victorian gentlemen felt rather high-hat and manly with a line of convicted murderers on the mantelpiece. Of course, there were other subjects, like royalty and the theatre. Sport, as well. You collected whatever took your fancy.’
‘And what did Mr William Corder do to earn his place on the mantelpiece?’
‘He was a scoundrel in every way. No woman was safe with him, by all accounts,’ said Buttery, trying not to sound envious. ‘It happened in 1827, way out in the country in some remote village in Suffolk. He was twenty-one when he got a young lady by the name of Maria Marten into trouble.’
Mrs D’Abernon clicked her tongue as she took a sidelong glance at the figure.
‘The child didn’t survive,’ Buttery went on, ‘but Corder was persuaded to marry Maria. It was a clandestine arrangement. Maria dressed in the clothes of a man and crossed the fields with Corder to a barn with a red roof, where her luggage was stored and a gig was supposed to be waiting to take them to Ipswich. She was not seen alive again. Corder reappeared two days after, and bluffed it out for months that Maria was living in Ipswich. Then he left the district and wrote to say that they were on the Isle of Wight.’
‘And was he believed?’ asked Mrs D’Abernon.
‘By everyone except one tenacious woman,’ said Buttery. That was the feature of the case that made it exceptional. Mrs Marten, Maria’s mother, had two vivid dreams that her daughter had been murdered and buried in the red barn.’
‘Ah! The intrusion of the supernatural,’ said Mrs D’Abernon in some excitement. ‘And did they find the poor girl there?’
‘No one believed Mrs Marten at first, not even her husband, but, yes, eventually they found Maria buried under the floor. It was known as the Red Barn Murder, and the whole nation was gripped by the story. Corder was arrested and duly went to the gallows.’ He paused for effect, then added, ‘I happen to have two good studies of the case in fine condition, if you are interested.’
Mrs D’Abernon gave him a pained look. ‘Thank you, but I don’t care for that sort of reading. Tell me, what is it worth?’
‘The figure of Corder? I’ve no idea.’
‘It’s an antique, isn’t it? You ought to get it valued.’
‘It’s probably worth a few pounds, but I don’t know that I’d care to sell it,’ said Buttery, piqued that she had dismissed the books so off-handedly.
‘You might, if you knew how much you could get for it,’ Mrs D’Abernon remarked with a penetrating look, ‘I’ll make some enquiries. I have a very dear friend in the trade.’
He would have said, ‘Don’t trouble,’ but he knew there was no stopping her. She was a forceful personality.
And next afternoon, she was back. ‘You’re going to be grateful to me, Mr Buttery,’ she confidently informed him as he poured the sherry. ‘I asked my friend and it appears that Staffordshire figures are collectors’ items.’
‘I knew that,’ Buttery mildly pointed out.
‘But you didn’t know that the murderers are among the most sought after, did you? Heaven knows why, but people try to collect them all, regardless of their horrid crimes. Some of them are relatively easy to obtain if you have a hundred pounds or so to spare, but I’m pleased to inform you that your William Corder is extremely rare. Very few copies are known to exist.’
‘Are you sure of this, Mrs D’Abernon?’
‘Mr Buttery, my friend is in the antique trade. She showed me books and catalogues. There are two great collections of Staffordshire figures in this country, one at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the other owned by the National Trust, at Stapleford Park. Neither of them has a Corder.’
Buttery felt his face getting warm. ‘So my figure could be valuable.’ He pitched his voice lower. ‘Did your friend put a price on it?’
‘She said you ought to get it valued by one of the big auctioneers in London and she would be surprised if their estimate was lower than a thousand pounds.’
‘Good gracious!’
Mrs D’Abernon beamed. ‘I thought that would take your breath away.’
‘A thousand!’ said Buttery. ‘I had no idea.’
‘These days, a thousand doesn’t go far, but it’s better than nothing, isn’t it?’ she said as if Buttery were one of her neighbours on Kingston Hill with acres of grounds and a heated swimming pool. ‘You might get more, of course. If you put it up for auction, and you had the V and A bidding against the National Trust..."
‘Good Lord!’ said Buttery. ‘I’m most obliged to you for this information, Mrs D’Abernon.’
‘Don’t feel under any obligation whatsoever, Mr Buttery,’ she said, flashing a benevolent smile. ‘After all the hospitality you’ve shown me in my visits to the shop, I wouldn’t even suggest a lunch at the Italian restaurant to celebrate our discovery.’
‘I say that is an idea!’ Buttery enthused, then, lowering his voice again, ‘That is, if your husband wouldn’t object.’
Mrs D’Abernon leaned towards Buttery and said confidentially, ‘I wouldn’t tell him, darling.’
Buttery squirmed in his chair, made uneasy by her closeness. ‘Suppose someone saw us? I’m pretty well known in the High Street.’
‘You’re probably right,’ said Mrs D’Abernon, going into reverse. ‘I must have had too much sherry to be talking like this. Let’s forget it.’
‘On the contrary, I shall make a point of remembering it,’ Buttery assured her, sensing just in time that the coveted opportunity of a liaison was in danger of slipping by. ‘If I find myself richer by a thousand pounds, I’ll find some way of thanking you, Mrs D’Abernon, believe me.’