On Wednesday, he asked his part-time assistant, James, to manage the shop for the day. He got up earlier than usual, packed the Corder figure in a shoe box lined with tissue, and caught one of the commuter trains to London. In his corduroy jacket and bow-tie he felt mercifully remote from the dark-suited businessmen ranged opposite him, most of them doggedly studying the city news. He pictured Mrs D’Abernon’s husband reading the same paper in the back of a chauffeur-driven limousine, his mind stuffed with stock market prices, uninterested in the dull, domestic routine he imagined his wife was following. Long might he remain uninterested!
The expert almost cooed with delight when Buttery unwrapped his figure. It was the first William Corder he had ever seen, and a particularly well-preserved piece. He explained to Buttery that Staffordshire figures were cast in simple plaster moulds, some of which were good for up to two hundred figures, while others deteriorated after as few as twenty castings. He doubted whether there were more than three or four Corders remaining in existence, and the only ones he knew about were in America.
Buttery’s mouth was dry with excitement. ‘What sort of price would you put on it?’ he asked.
‘I could sell it today for eight hundred,’ the expert told him. ‘I think in an auction it might fetch considerably more.’
‘A thousand?’
‘If it went in one of our sales of English pottery, I would suggest that figure as a reserve, sir.’
‘So it might go for more?’
‘That is my estimation.’
‘When is the next sale?’
The expert explained the timetable for cataloguing and pre-sale publicity. Buttery wasn’t happy at the prospect of waiting several months for a sale, and he enquired whether there was any way of expediting the procedure. With some reluctance, the expert made a phone call and arranged for the Corder figure to be added as a late item to the sale scheduled the following month, five weeks ahead.
Two days later, Mrs D’Abernon called at the shop and listened to Buttery’s account of his day in London. She had sprayed herself lavishly with a distinctive floral perfume that subdued even the smell of the books. She appeared more alluring each time he saw her. Was it his imagination that she dressed to please him?
‘I’m thrilled for you,’ she said.
‘And I’m profoundly grateful to you, Mrs D’Abernon,’ said Buttery, ready to make the suggestion he had been rehearsing ever since he got back from London. ‘In fact, I was wondering if you would care to join me for lunch next Wednesday as a mark of my thanks.’
Mrs D’Abernon raised her finely plucked eyebrows. ‘I thought we had dismissed the possibility.’
‘I thought we might meet in Epsom, where neither of us is so well known.’
She gave him a glimpse of her beautiful teeth. ‘How intriguing!’
‘You’ll come?’
She put down her sherry glass. ‘But I think it would be assuming too much at this stage, don’t you?’
Buttery reddened. ‘How, exactly?’
‘One shouldn’t take anything for granted, Mr Buttery. Let’s wait until after the sale. When did you say it is?’
‘On May the fifteenth, a Friday.’
‘The fifteenth? Oh, what a pity! I shall be leaving for France the following day. I go to France every spring, before everyone else is on holiday. It’s so much quieter.’
‘How long will you be away?’ Buttery asked, unable to conceal his disappointment.
‘About a month. My husband is a duffer as a cook. He can survive for four weeks on rubbery eggs and burnt bacon, but that’s his limit.’
Buttery’s eyes widened. The future that had beckoned ever since he had started to shave was now practically tugging him by the sleeve. ‘You go to France without your husband?’
‘Yes, we always have separate holidays. He’s a golfer, and you know what they’re like. He takes his three weeks in July and plays every day. He doesn’t care for travel at all. In fact, I sometimes wonder what we do have in common. Do you like foreign travel, Mr Buttery?’
‘Immensely,’ said Buttery huskily, ‘but I’ve never had much opportunity... until this year.’
She traced the rim of the sherry glass with one beautifully manicured finger. ‘Your thousand pounds?’
‘Well, yes.’ He hesitated, taking a glance through the shop to check that no one could overhear. ‘I was thinking of a trip to France myself, but I don’t know the country at all. I’m not sure where to head for.’
‘It depends what you have in mind,’ said Mrs D’Abernon, taking a sip of the sherry and giving Buttery a speculative look. ‘Personally, I adore historical places, so I shall start with a few days in Orleans and then make my way slowly along the Loire Valley.’
‘You can recommend that?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Then perhaps I’ll do the same. I say,’ he added, as if the idea had just entered his head, ‘wouldn’t it be fun to meet somewhere in France and have that celebration meal?’
She registered surprise like a star of the silent screen. ‘Yes, but you won’t be going at the same time as I... will you?’
Buttery allowed the ghost of a smile to materialise fleetingly on his lips. ‘It could be arranged.’
‘But what about the shop?’
‘Young James is perfectly capable of looking after things for me.’ He topped up her glass, sensing that it was up to the man to take the initiative in matters as delicate as this. ‘Let’s make a rendezvous on the steps of Orleans Cathedral at noon on May the eighteenth.’
‘My word, Mr Buttery!... Why May the eighteenth?’
‘So that we can drink a toast to William Corder. It’s the anniversary of the Red Barn Murder. I’ve been reading up on the case.’
Mrs D’Abernon laughed. ‘You and your murderer!’ There was a worrying pause while she considered her response. ‘All right, May the eighteenth it is — provided, of course, that the figure is sold.’
‘I’ll be there whatever the outcome of the sale,’ Buttery rashly promised her.
Encouragingly, she leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘So shall I.’
When she had gone, he went to his Physiology and Anatomy shelf and selected a number of helpful volumes to study in the back room. He didn’t want his inexperience to show on May 18th.
The weeks leading up to the auction seemed insufferably long to Buttery, particularly as Mrs D’Abernon appeared in the shop only on two occasions, when by sheer bad luck he happened to be entertaining other lady customers in the back room. He wished there had been time to explain that it was all in the nature of public relations, but on each occasion Mrs D’Abernon curtly declined his invitation to join the sherry party, excusing herself by saying she had so many things to arrange before she went to France. For days, he agonised over whether to call at her house — a big detached place overlooking the golf course — and eventually decided against it. Apologies and explanations on the doorstep didn’t accord with the cosmopolitan image he intended to present in Orleans.
So he made his own travel arrangements, such as they were: the purchase of an advance ticket for the cross-Channel ferry, some travellers’ cheques and a map of the French railway system. Over there, he would travel by train. He gathered that Mrs D’Abernon rented a car for her sightseeing, and that would have to do for both of them after Orleans, because he had never learned to drive. He didn’t book accommodation in advance, preferring to keep his arrangements flexible.
He also invested in some new clothes for the first time in years: several striped shirts and cravats, a navy blazer and two pairs of white, well-cut trousers. He bought a modern suitcase and packed it ready for departure on the morning after the auction.