"I am."
"You don't think Watson—?"
"I'm not sure." The tea came. "He's a Durs collector, a clever one. I've eliminated most of the rest one way and another. It could be a dealer, of course, or somebody I don't know about, but I must try to follow the leads I've got."
"Was he at the Field sale you've been on about?"
"Yes."
"He may have nothing to do with it."
"And again," I said coldly, "he may."
For the next few minutes Jane quizzed me. I told her the whole story including the turnkey bit while she listened intently.
"Have you anything practical to go on?" she demanded. "So you found a posh screwdriver—big deal."
"Yes," I said after a minute, "there is something."
"What?"
"God knows." A few people drifted out of the doors across the way. It would end in five minutes. "I couldn't sleep last night for worrying. The answer's been given me, here in my hand, and for the life of me I can't think what makes me think so. I'd know who it is, but the bits of my mind won't connect."
"From Seddon's?"
"I feel helpless. I just can't think."
"Give it up, Lovejoy." She was less forbidding than I remembered. "It'll ruin you."
"I might." And I almost believed me, except that Watson came out of the auctioneer's that instant. I was up and out into the road darting between cars before I knew where I was.
He waited, casually looking through the window at a set of old seaside lantern slides that had gone dirt cheap. There's quite a market for them nowadays. It was decimalization that did it.
"Mr. Watson." We stood together, me somewhat breathless and aggressive, him a little reserved.
"Mr. Lovejoy."
"Right."
He smiled hesitantly. "I admired your, er, act with the circus crowd."
"Thanks."
"Could I ask"—I nodded and he went on—"er, if you, er, were very keen to have that group of portabilia?"
"No," I snapped.
"I thought not. May I ask then why you bid?"
"Never mind me, comrade," I said roughly. "Why did you?"
He was astonished. "Me? They belonged to my father."
"Eh?" I was saying as Jane strolled up.
"My brother put them up for sale," he explained, "somewhat against my wishes. Why do you want to know?"
"Well done, Lovejoy," Jane said sarcastically.
"Keep out of it," I said. "Why did you go to the Field sale?"
His memory clicked away for a moment, then his brow cleared. "After that collector was killed, you mean? Oh, the odd item."
"Never mind what you actually bought. What attracted you there?"
He glanced from Jane to me, but it was no use messing about at this stage.
"He gets like this periodically." Jane's casual excuse didn't calm me.
"It's my habit," Watson replied with dignity, "to do so. It's also my right."
"I couldn't agree more," Jane chipped in.
I looked about. People had gathered around. The windows of the auction rooms were full of faces, staring. Cars were slowing to see what the rumpus was about. My old aunts would have called it a "pavement scene."
"You're among friends, Lovejoy," Jane said kindly, and explained to Watson, "He's not like this normally. He's been under a strain lately, a bereavement, you know."
Murmurs of sympathy arose from a couple of old dears in the throng who quickly transmuted compassion into reminiscences of similar events in their own past. "Just like our Nelly's cousin when her Harry was took," etc., etc.
"Will he be all right?" Watson was asking anxiously of Jane. That more than anything shook me. When people talk over you as if you're not really there, you really might have vanished.
"His car's near here somewhere. Over there."
Watson and Jane frog-marched me to the Braithwaite. Rage shook me into a sweat, rage at Jane's smooth assumption of power and Watson's obvious concern. If I'd cast him in the role of murderer, why didn't the bastard behave like one?
"You'd better come to my sister's; it's a few miles." They discussed me while I trembled like a startled horse. My face was in my hands. I could hear their voices but not what they said, so sick did I feel from the stink of the leather upholstery and the extraordinary vertigo which took hold. Jane took my keys and we drove out of Maltan Lees in the wake of Watson's old white Traveller.
There's nothing much to say about the rest of that day except that I stayed at Watson's sister's house in a room the size of a matchbox full of toys. Children came to stare at me as I was given aspirin tablets and milk to swallow—heaven knows why—and finally I dozed until dawn. Watson, my erstwhile villain, slept on a settee. Jane drove home in my old crate, saying she'd come back for me in the morning. When I woke I found one of the children had laid a toy rabbit on my bed for company, a nasty sight in the sunrise of a nervous breakdown. Still, thank God, it wasn't a hedgehog.
I can't remember much except Watson's kindness, his sister's concern, and Jane smiling too quickly at everything that was said as we departed.
"I feel a bloody fool" were my parting words, epitaph for a crusader. Amid a chorus of denials and invitations to return soon Jane ferried me away. I couldn't even remember what the house was like.
On the way back, Jane, a smart alert driver, told me she'd been summoned into Geoffrey's police station to explain what she'd done with me, because the cottage was raided again during the night. Our vigilant bobby, understandably narked by his ruined sleep, told her in aggrieved tones how he'd wakened to the sound of the alarm and arrived before entry was effected. The would-be intruder fled unseen.
I received the news with utter calm and stared at the ceiling.
Chapter 13
Weeks of feeding my robin and watching weather, occasionally getting the odd visitor. Twice I found myself embarking on gardening expeditions armed with rusty shears and suchlike, but my heart was never in it. After all, grass does no harm growing and birds and bushes don't need mowing anyway, so there's not a lot you can do in a garden. Somewhere I'd cleared a patch for growing vegetables years ago, but it had reverted to jungle, as the herbaceous border had, and I couldn't find exactly where it was. I abandoned the attempt, taking the wise view that if vegetables had wanted to grow there they'd have done so whatever assistance they'd been given by me. There's a chap Brownlow in a bungalow not far from me who's never out of his garden. It beats me what he finds to do. Maybe he's got a blonde in the shrubbery.
Ever been stuck at home? You get up and make breakfast, put the radio on, and wash up. Then you mill about doing odd jobs like cleaning and washing, and that's the end of it. What housewives keep moaning about heaven only knows, because I was up at seven-thirty and finished easily by ten, after which the rest of the day was waiting there—in my case, for nothing. Margaret called at first with provisions, and Jane dropped in with Adrian.
The itinerant dealer Jimmo called. Tinker came after the first day, but within a week all the visits had dwindled. I was pretty glad, because I was in no mood to talk and they were embarrassed. People are, where a nervous breakdown's concerned. It's posh and gallant to break your leg, and brave to have appendicitis, but a nervous breakdown's a plain embarrassment best avoided. You're better off with the plague. Maybe people think a breakdown's a sign of lack of moral fiber, that you ought to be pulling yourself together, putting your shoulder to that wheel, et cetera. It taught me one lesson at least, that any form of "weakness" is highly suspect. I wish I knew why.
I'd heard of breakdowns before, of course. Half my difficulty was that I didn't know what they actually were or where they came from, let alone what went on; yet there I was with all my anxieties gone, all my worries vanished, all interests evaporated. It would have been rather disturbing, if I'd been capable of being disturbed that is. As it was, I was utterly serene—dirty, unwashed, filthy, unshaven, unfed, and unkempt, but serene. Calm as a pond I was, uncaring. Worst of all, grief about Sheila had disappeared. Margaret came on a second then a third visit and discreetly left money on the mantelpiece, saying I was to be sure to remember to pay it back when I had a chance. I mumbled vacantly. Finally everyone had stopped coming. The letters lay in a heap by the door.