"That's very kind." If Field got the irony it didn't show.
"You made a collection for the Victoria and Albert Museum, I understand, Mr. Lovejoy."
"Oh, well." I winced inwardly, trying to seem all modest. I determined to throttle Tinker. Even innocent customers know how to check that sort of tale.
"Wasn't it last year?"
"You must understand," I said hesitantly, putting on as much embarrassment as I dared.
"Understand?"
"I'm not saying I have, and I'm not saying I haven't," I went on. "It's a client's business, not mine. Even if South Kensington did ask me to build up their terracotta Roman statuary, it's not for Dill or myself to disclose their interests." May I be forgiven.
"Ah. Confidentiality." His brow cleared.
"It's a matter of proper business, Mr. Field," I said with innocent seriousness.
"I do see," he said earnestly, lapping it up. "A most responsible attitude."
"There are standards." I shrugged to show I was positively weighed down with conscience. "Ordinary fair play," I said. Maybe I was overdoing it, because he went all broody. He was coming to the main decision when Tinker came back with a rum for me and a pale ale for Field.
I gave Tinker the bent eye and he instantly pushed off.
"Are you an… individual dealer, Mr. Lovejoy?" he asked, taking the plunge.
"If you mean do I work alone, yes."
"No partners?"
"None." I thought a bit, then decided I should be straight— almost—with this chap. He looked as innocent as a new policeman. I don't know where they keep them till they're grown up, honest I don't. "I ought to qualify that, Mr. Field."
"Yes?" He came alert over his glass.
"There are occasions when an outlay, or a risk, is so large that for a particular antique it becomes necessary to take an… extra dealer, pair up so to speak, in order to complete a sale." I'd almost said "accomplice." You know what I mean.
"In what way?" he said guardedly.
"Supposing somebody offered me the Elgin Marbles for a million," I said, observing his expression ease at the light banter. "I'd have to get another dealer to make up the other half million before I could buy them."
"I see." He was smiling.
"For that sale, we would be equal partners."
"But not after?"
"No. As I said, Mr. Field," I said, all pious, "I work alone because, well, my own standards may not be those of other dealers."
"Of course, of course." For some reason he was relieved I was a loner. "Any arrangements between us—supposing we came to one—would concern…?" He waited.
"Just us," I confirmed.
"And Dill?"
"He's free lance. He wouldn't know anything, unless you said."
"And other employees?"
"I hire as the needs arise."
"So it is possible," he mused.
"What is, Mr. Field?"
"You can have a confidential agreement with an antique dealer."
"Certainly." I should have told him that money can buy silence nearly as effectively as it can buy talk. Note the "nearly," please.
"Then I would like to talk to you—in a confidential place, if that can be arranged."
"Now?" I asked.
"Please."
I glanced around the bar. There were two people I had business with. "I have a cottage not far away. We can chat there."
"Fine."
I crossed to Jimmo and briefly quizzed him about his Chinese porcelain blanc de Chine lions—white pot dogs to the uninitiated. He told me in glowing terms of his miraculous find.
"Cost me the earth," he said fervently. "Both identical. Even the balls are identically matched."
For the sake of politeness (and in case I needed to do business with him fairly soon) I kept my end up, but I'd lost interest. The "lions" are in fact Dogs of Fo. The point is that even if they are K'ang-hsi period, as Jimmo said, and 1720 A.D. would do fine, they should not match exactly to be a real matched pair. The male dog rests one paw on a sphere, the female on a pup. Jimmo had somehow got hold of two halves of two distinct pairs. I eased away as best I could.
Adrian—handbag, curls, and all—was next. He and Jane Felsham were bickering amiably over a percentage cut over some crummy "patch-and-comfit" boxes. "Real Bilston enamel," Adrian was telling her. "Pinks genuine as that. Oh." He saw me at his elbow and stamped his foot in temper. "Why won't the silly bitch listen, Lovejoy? Tell her."
"How many?" I asked.
"He's got six," Jane said evenly. "Hello, Lovejoy."
"Hi. It sounds a good collection."
"There you are, dearie!" Adrian screamed.
"Only two are named." Jane shook her head. "Place names are all the go."
These little boxes, often only an inch across, were used in the eighteenth century for holding those minute artificial black beauty patches fashionable gentry of the time stuck on their faces to contrast with the powdered pallor of their skins. Filthy habit.
"Any blues?"
"One," Adrian squeaked. "I keep begging her to take them. She can't see a bargain, Lovejoy."
"Any mirrors in the lids?"
"Two."
"Four hundred's still no bargain, Adrian dear," Jane said firmly.
"Show us," I said, wanting to get away. Field was still patient by the fireplace.
Adrian brought out six small enameled boxes on his palm. One was lumpy, less shiny than the rest. I felt odd for a second. My bell.
"I agree with Jane," I lied, shrugging. "But they are nice."
"Three-eighty, then," Adrian offered, sensing my reaction.
"Done." I lifted the little boxes from his hand and fought my way free, saying "Come around tomorrow."
Adrian swung around to the surprised Jane. "See? Serves you right, silly cow!"
I left them to fight it out and found Field. "My car's just outside."
I gave the nod to Tinker that he'd finished on a good note. He beamed and toasted to me over a treble gin.
The cottage was in a hell of a mess. I have this downstairs divan for, so to speak, communal use. It looked almost as if somebody had been shacked up there for a couple of days with a bird. I smiled weakly at my customer.
"Sorry about this. I had a, er, cousin staying for a while."
He made polite noises as I hid a few of Sheila's underclothes under cushions and folded the divan aside. With only the table lamp, the room didn't look too much of a shambles. I pulled the kitchen door to in case he thought a hurricane was coming his way and sat him by my one-bar fire.
"A very pleasant cottage, Mr. Lovejoy," he said.
"Thanks." I could see he was wondering at the absence of antiques in an antique dealer's home. "I keep my stock of antiques dispersed in safe places," I explained. "After all, I'm in the phone book, and robbery's not unknown nowadays."
Stock. That's a laugh. I had six enameled boxes I'd not properly examined, for which I owed a mint payable by dawn.
"True, true," he agreed, and I knew I had again struck oil.
In his estimation I was now careful, safe, trustworthy, reliable, an expert, and the very soul of discretion. I drove home my advantage by apologizing for not having too much booze.
"I don't drink much myself," I confessed. "Will coffee do you?"
"Please."
"Everybody just calls me Lovejoy, Mr. Field," I informed him. "My trademark."
"Right." He smiled. "I'll remember."
I brewed up, quite liking him and wondering how to approach his money—I mean, requirements. So far he hadn't mentioned flinters. On the drive back in my jet-propelled Arm-strong-Siddeley we had made social chitchat that got us no nearer. He seemed a simple chap, unaware of the somewhat horrible niceties of my trade. Yet he appeared, from what Tinker had said, to have gone to a lot of trouble to find a dealer known to have a prime interest in flinters.
"How long have you lived here?"
"Since I started dealing. I got it from a friend."
She was a widow, thirty-seven. I'd lived with her two years, then she'd gone unreasonable like they do and off she pushed. She wrote later from Siena, married to an Italian. I replied in a flash saying how I longed for her, but she replied saying her husband hadn't an antique in the place, preferring new Danish planks of yellow wood to furniture, so I didn't write again except to ask for the cottage deeds.