“I’m impressed, Lovejoy,” Jo said, smiling.
“Ta,” I said modestly. I knew she would be. I can really lay on the elegance when I want. I’d even found the teapot lid.
She wore a beige twin set, tweed skirt, but mainly a black opal ring, Edwardian setting, heavy and gold. Beautiful.
“It was my friend I was at school with, Shona. We’ve kept up correspondence.” She colored, proving rumor right: a farm manager, a passionate holiday affair, and her coming to a teaching job in East Anglia to be near his fertile acres.
Shona was a teacher in Caithness, which is almost as far north as you can go. In a recent letter Shona had mentioned selling some furniture. By pure chance, Jo said, carefully avoiding my gaze, my name entered the correspondence.
“It was soon after I’d met you at the Castle show,” she explained. Farmer Bob had been away. Jo and I had met on that local gala day—everybody goes to our Castle’s flower displays. We saw quite a bit of each other for a fortnight until her favorite yokel homeward plodded his weary way.
“You told Shona I was a divvie?”
“I may have mentioned it. In passing.” She spoke offhandedly. “Maybe. I can’t remember. Shona insisted on selling through a box number. I passed it on to you. You wrote, and… and now that poor driver…”
My mind wouldn’t stop nudging me, but I’d have scared her off if I’d started a serious interrogation.
“Wasn’t it lucky, you meeting that woman in the fog?” Jo said, too casual. She’d reached the suspicion bit, about Ellen.
“A fluke,” I agreed.
“You deserved it, Lovejoy,” she said, smiling. “For giving Archie that grand tricycle.”
“It isn’t his fault his legs can’t reach the car throttle.”
“Of course not.” Still smiling, she put her fingers to my face. We were suddenly close.
My hopes of examining the true worth of Farmer Bob’s black opal engagement ring were dashed when Jo found her hand on a pair of Ellen’s stockings. They’d treacherously crept out from behind a cushion. She was up and vehement in a flash.
“Lovejoy! And to think that I was about to… oh!”
“Honestly, Jo. They’re my sister’s…” Tra-la, tra-la. Good night, nurse, with Jo storming out in a ferocious temper and me shouting invented explanations after her.
Women really get me down sometimes. They’re so unreasonable. You’d think they’d learn sense, having nothing else to do all day. I watched her car burn off up the lane, then went in disconsolately.
The sight of her unfinished grub cheered me up and I sat down to finish it. My spirits began soaring. Where one valuable antique came from, there were bound to be more, right? And if the sender was dim enough to send a pricely article thinking it a mock-up, I was in for a windfall.
Give Jo a day to come round, wheedle Shona’s address off her, then hit the high road.
Or the low road. I’m not proud.
Between mouthfuls I burst into song.
« ^ »
—— 4 ——
Jill was at Gimbert’s infamous auction rooms. This emporium of wonderment and infamy is lodged between a row of ancient cottages, a ruined priory, two pubs and a church. She was inspecting the assorted junk in her time-honored way, which is carrying a microscopic poodle and trailing a knackered seaman. Jill’s tastes are catholic, as they say. She wears furs, grotesque hats, rings, brooches, pearls, the lot. I like her.
She saw me pushing through the dross and screamed.
“Lovejoy, darling!” She drenched my face with a kiss. Quickly I pulled away. Her embrace is a dead risk. Either the poodle gnaws your earhole or you stink like a boutique. “How clever to escape from jail! Meet… the name, lover?”
“Dave,” the young sailor said.
“Dave,” Jill repeated, trying to lock the name in. She always forgets. “Dave’s just into port, aren’t you, honey?” In or out is her only criterion.
“Yes.” Dave was bemused, like all Jill’s Jolly Jacks. Coastal ships docking at our town’s minuscule port take turns lending Jill nautical manpower. The names change, to protect the innocents. I’ve never met the same one twice. Tinker says they don’t dare land again.
“Hello, er, Dave,” I said heartily. “Jill. You sometimes commission Tipper Noone?”
“Not lately, Lovejoy. I’ve been absolutely rushed off my feet!” Big Prank from Suffolk, silver dealer among the Regency ware, snickered at the unfortunate turn of phrase. A couple of other dealers upending furniture politely disguised their guffaws as coughs.
“Dobson gave him a twinner, Patrick said.”
Tinker’s tale was beginning to sound true, despite Dobson’s reticence.
“Ta, Jill. Tell him to bell me, eh?”
I evaded another soak, gnaw, and scenting by eeling among heavy suites of 1910
furniture to where Patrick stood. He always looks crazy to me—crocodile handbag, silken bishop sleeves, and enough mascara to black your boots—but he’s a hard-line dealer. I was swiftly getting narked. This bloody drudgery’s Tinker’s job.
“Hiyer, Pat. Where’s Lily?” Lily’s a married woman who loves Patrick while her husband’s away and sometimes when he isn’t. I’d say more but it’s too complicated and I’d get it wrong.
“Patrick,” he corrected. “That stupid bitch brought the wrong checkbook, Lovejoy! Can you imagine?” He swore extravagantly in falsetto. “I made her go right home!”
“That’s the spirit, Pat. Look. Where’s Tipper Noone?”
“To each his own, dear heart. You won’t find him in my boudoir.” He boomed—well, trilled—a gay laugh.
“Don’t help, then,” I said evenly. “See if I care.”
Other dealers sieving through the gunge on display paused at the implied threat. Even Patrick abated somewhat.
I may not be much to look at, but among antique dealers I’m special. Very few dealers know anything about antiques. In fact, most are simply Oscar-minus actors highly skilled at concealing their monumental ignorance. Try one out, if you don’t believe me.
Offer an antique dealer a Rembrandt—he’ll hum and ha and won’t offer you more than eighty quid. It isn’t because he’s miserly. It’s because he can’t tell an Old Master from an oil slick, which is why you can still pick up fortunes hidden among loads of old tat.
Ignorance being endemic, it follows that antique dealers need somebody to help them, not only with reading and writing, but also with knowing antiques. I don’t mean somebody who’s simply read the right books. I mean somebody whose inner sense tells if that fifteenth-century Book of Hours is a brilliant sequence of illumination from the unsullied monks of Lindisfarne, or a newspaper and starch. Easy? Yes, for somebody like me, who quivers and trembles when that Roman oil lamp radiates its honest ancient little soul’s vibes out into the universe, or when that antique Chinese jeweled fingernail cover emanates gleams under the auctioneer’s naked bulb.
The people distributed in Gimbert’s showrooms had paused with alert interest because I’m the only divvie for many long leagues. I’m gormless with money and women, which is why I’m always broke, but I’m the only one of us who isn’t gormless with antiques.
Patrick’s venom is legendary. But if I called his antiques fakes, he too would be broke.
Mostly I’m honest because special gifts aren’t for monkeying about with. So, wisely, he turned sulky and pulled his mauve silk-lace gloves on.
“Don’t be nasty, Lovejoy. I positively sweated blood arranging for Tipper to give me an estimate for mending a Chippendale fret. He didn’t turn up, did he, Lily?” Patrick’s admirer had just breathlessly returned, proudly bearing her checkbook.