Pick up a genuine Regency dueler. Hold it with your arm straight down. Now lift as if about to aim. Its weight makes it wobble in the strongest fist as it rises. Up it comes, wobbling and waggling, and you begin to wonder how they managed to hit anything with the long barrel waving in the breeze. Then, just about on level with your bottom rib, something so remarkable happens you won't believe me, but it's the truth—a genuine flintlock dueler begins to lift itself. Honestly. Try it. The weight evaporates. The wobble disappears. Up it goes, seemingly of its own accord, and all you need to do is point it right. Its perfect balance, its meticulous design, and the love and joy expended in its making have achieved the seemingly impossible. That's the genuine dueler—grim, somber, almost dull of appearance, lying with its identically matched partner in a wooden case with powder flask, bullet molds, flints, separate ramrod, and screwdrivers. It reeks of class. It screams of perfection.
A pair of mint—that is, perfectly preserved—cased flintlock duelers would buy you a couple of new cars nowadays, minimum. A mint pair of them with a pedigree—belonging, say, to some hero, a famous dandy of the time, or perhaps some pal of Beau Brummell's or a member of the then royalty—will virtually buy you anything. If you discover such a pair of old pistols in a dirty old box upstairs, rush to the nearest church and light a candle in thanks to your Maker—Bate, Monlong, Murdoch, Pauly, whoever it turns out to be. Then retire for life in affluence.
Finally, one point more. Just like Queen Anne silver, each weapon is, or should be, named on the lock. Don't throw value away. Your famous silversmith's monogram can double or treble the value of your fruit bowl. So your famous maker's name can send your find ever upward in value. The names are too many to give here, but Joseph Manton; John Manton; Wogden, who gave his name as a nickname to dueling (a "Wogden affair"); the brilliant Joseph Egg; Henry Nock the Great and his younger relative Sam that he had a terrible row with; Mortimer; Tatham, who blew himself to pieces on a cannon for reasons best not gone into; Freeman; the fashionable Rigby; the Reverend Alexander Forsyth, who invented the percussion system, which did away with flintlocks altogether and doubled the killing speed—they are some you should not lose on your way home.
And last but not least, one "Durs" (nearly as bad as Lovejoy) Egg, flintlock maker to kings and princes, genius extraordinaire, maker—so they say—of the one and only Judas pair of flintlock duelers. Well.
This young man came to London about 1770 to seek his fortune. With another Swiss, Pauly, he became interested in the science of pneumatics and air propulsion, and between them they produced a variety of odd but lethal air guns. In later years he lost a fortune by inventing a flying machine, the Flying Dolphin, which he kept in a hangar down Knightsbridge way, to London society's huge delight and derision. A genius whose habit it was to pattern the walnut stocks of his flintlocks with a curiously stippled star design, to aid in the grip. He signed himself always by his nickname, Durs.
The legend is that he made twelve—only twelve—pairs of dueling pistols. The legend goes on to say that he privately made a thirteenth pair, when something terrible happened. What it was the legend fails to explain.
That thirteenth pair, sinister weapons of ill-omen, were his last. They were never found or heard of except as obscure rumors. Any antique dealer worth his salt will laugh till he falls down if you ask after them. They don't exist, and everybody knows it.
That thirteenth pair of flintlock duelers is the Judas pair.
I drew breath.
"I've bad news, Mr. Field," I managed to get out.
"Bad news?"
"The Judas pair. They don't exist," I said firmly, and rose to get my emergency beer. "They're a myth, a legend. The antique trade's riddled with myths."
"Is it really?" He was oddly calm for somebody who'd just been put down.
"Really," I told him. No use mucking about.
He watched me splash the ale as I drove the truth savagely home. "Michelangelo's Goliath to match his David. Turner's mysterious set of portraits and industrial paintings. Napoleon's woodcuts done by his very own lily-white hands. Sir Francis Drake's poetry in two breathtaking volumes. Bill Shakespeare's latest play, King Penda. Robin Hood's diary. Czar Alexander's secret will. The Grail. Excalibur. Prince John's necklace from the Wash. Friar Bacon's perpetual clock. Leonardo's jeweled casket of secrets. Cleopatra's ruby ring. The Kohinoor's partner diamond, even bigger and better. Nazi treasure chests in those tiresome bloody lakes. Rembrandt's French landscapes. Chippendale's missing design books. All myths. Like," I added harshly, "the Judas pair."
"Did Dill tell you how much I was willing to pay?" he asked.
"Ten thousand," I said bitterly. "Just my luck."
"Now I believe you, Lovejoy," he said, calm as you please.
"Look," I said slowly. "Maybe I'm not getting through to you. Can't you understand what I'm saying? Ten thousand's too little. So is ten million. You can't get something if it doesn't exist."
"Before," he continued evenly, "I thought you were leading me on, perhaps pretending to be more honest than you really were. That is a common deception in all forms of business." I took a mouthful of ale to stop myself gaping too obviously. "Now I believe you are an honest man. A dishonest dealer, seeing I know little about the subject, would have exploited my ignorance."
"It happens," I admitted weakly.
"I accepted that risk when I came to you." Field stared thoughtfully at me.
"So you knew about the Judas pair being legendary?"
"From various sources."
"And it was a try-on, then."
"Yes."
"Well, Mr. Field." I rose. "You've had your fun. Now, before you leave, is it worth your while to tell me what you do want?" I stood over him. To my surprise he remained unabashed. In fact, he seemed more cool as the chat wore on.
"Certainly."
"Right. Give." I sat, exuding aggression.
"I want you to do a job."
"Legal?"
"Legal. Right up your street, as Dill would say." So he'd listened in on Tinker's phone call as I'd guessed. "You'll accept? It will be very lucrative."
"What is it?"
"Find me," he said carefully, "the Judas pair."
I sighed wearily. The guy was a nutter. "Haven't I just explained—?"
"Wrongly." Field leaned forward. "Lovejoy, the Judas pair exist. They killed my brother."
It was becoming one of those days. I should have stayed on the nest with Sheila, somewhere safe and warm.
Chapter 3
Elizabethan ladies—the First, I hasten to add—had fleas. And lice. And gentleman suitors who came courting also suffered. If these heroes were especially favored, they were allowed to chat up the object of their desire. If they were really fancied, though, matters progressed to poetry, music, even handclasps and sighs. And eventually the great flea-picking ceremony. You've seen baboons do it on those unspeakable nature programs. Yes, our ancestors did the same, uttering rapturous sighs at all that contact.
What I am getting at is this: If you see a little (one and a half inches maximum) antique box, dirty as hell, that should be neat and enameled to be a proper patch-and-comfit box and somehow isn't quite right, it can be only one of two things. The first is a battered nineteenth-century trinket or snuffbox, in which case you can generally forget it. The second—oh, dear, the second—is an Elizabethan flea and louse box. Don't shudder. Don't boil it to kill any remaining creepy-crawlies. Lock it carefully in the biggest safest safe you can find, swallow the key, and then scream with ecstasy. These little jeweled boxes were used by lovers for holding fleas and lice that they captured on their paramours' lovely chalk-powdered skin. It was an exquisitely charming pastime of those days. We don't advertise them as such, these boxes. We call them anything: "Early antique sixteenth-century lady's minute toiletry box, heavily inlaid, made by…" and so on.