More worried than ever that I'd somehow missed a really golden opportunity, I closed up.
I went out to check my two budgerigars as soon as it stopped raining. The garden was drenched, the grass squelching underfoot. A sea wind had sprung up. As darkness falls my cottage seems to move silently away from the two other houses nearby. One had lights in the window. I was pleased about this, though it was only old Mrs. Tewson and her dog. I checked the budgies' flight with a torch and said goodnight. They fluffed and chirped.
The budgerigars, Manton and Wilkinson, were how I'd met Janie. I'd done over one of the stallholders on our Saturday market. He'd had the birds in an old shoe box covered by a piece of glass, no food or water. Practically accidentally, I'd stumbled against him, breaking his shoulder, poor man, after buying them from him. Worse, I'd accidentally broken his fingers by standing on his hand. The police had come along and tried to make a case out of it, but luckily Janie saw it all and explained it was an accident.
They'd let me go suspiciously, which only goes to show how they're completely lacking in trust these days. I'd taken one look at Janie, smiling and wealthy, and that was that.
She'd given me a lift back, helped me to buy the cage and seed, and matters took their own course, as folks say. Janie says I'm soft about them, but I'm not. At the moment I could only think of Bexon. Forger or not, he was my lifeline back into the antique business.
Inside the cottage I fidgeted and then cleared up and fidgeted again. I even wished I hadn't had to pawn the telly. Isn't it funny how you get feelings. I decided to use my one remaining asset and phone the names Margaret'd given me. Cooney's always in because of his dog kennels. I told him I was interested in the stolen coins.
'You and the rest of us, Lovejoy,' he said, laughing.
'From the Isle of Man,' I explained innocently.
He snorted disbelievingly. 'There's no such thing,' he told me. 'Oh, they've had the odd stray Roman denarius show up, but no hoards or anything like that. The old chap who donated them went about saying he'd found them there.'
'Where?'
'On Man. Wouldn't say exactly. There was a row about the labels, I remember. He insisted on writing his own.'
'Thanks, Cooney.'
I got Pilsen next, the only religious antique dealer-cum-kite-collector in the universe. He blessed me down the phone and intoned a short prayer for my success but couldn't help. He tried to sell me a kite but forgave me when I said some other time. The old magistrate barked that the robbers should be horsewhipped, and slammed the receiver down when I admitted I had no Edward I coinage for sale. The overcoat man after a chat gave me a commission to bid for him at a local auction for an officer's greatcoat of the Essex Regiment, but otherwise nothing.
No use phoning Janie when I had the blues, though she'd be blazing tomorrow. You can't help being on edge sometimes.
Imagine suddenly meeting somebody who believed they could prove there'd been a hitherto unidentified King of England whose existence nobody else had ever suspected.
Or an extra American President. Or an extra moon for Earth. I felt just like that.
It probably didn't matter, I decided. The wrongest guess I ever made.
I decided to sleep on it but tossed and turned all night.
CHAPTER V
Contents - Prev/Next
NEXT MORNING Janie was waiting, illegally parked, pretending to look at the cutler's wares in Head Street. I'd caught her by phone just as she was going out for a hair-do.
We agreed to make up over coffee. She took one look at my face.
'Oh, dear.'
We went to a place near Gimbert's auction rooms on East Hill. I could see them unloading the antique furniture from the window table. Janie paid, pretending to do it absent-mindedly so I wouldn't take it bad.
I told her the tale of Patrick's wonderful find, the Korean vase. She said I should have tried to learn where he'd got it, but that's something dealers never do. She listened about Bexon, Popplewell, the Roman golds. I told her that Dandy Jack had got hold of the remnants of old Bexon's belongings.
'What's the mystery?'
'There never was a Roman Province of the Isle of Man, Janie. Caesar never bothered.'
'Then where did the coins come from?'
'Exactly.' I stirred uncomfortably. The nasty feeling was still there. Earlier I'd found Mary's surname from the register and telephoned. Her husband had been golfing since dawn, obviously a nutter. 'Take me to the golf club, Janie.'
'My God, Lovejoy! How can I?' She shook her head. 'My neighbour's a golfer. I'd better drop you beyond the station bridge. Can I come round later if I can get away?'
'No,' I said too quickly. 'Er, I've a deal on.' I do a special job at home some afternoons which Janie doesn't know about. Tell you about it in a minute.
'If I find you haven't, Lovejoy,' she said sweetly, I'll murder you. I hope you understand that.'
'Don't start,' I pleaded, but she put her lips thin the way they do and wouldn't answer.
Women never trust people. Ever noticed that? Sometimes I wish they would. It'd make my arrangements so much easier.
Janie ran me to the railway, periodically telling me to take my hand off her knee when she was driving, but it was honestly accidental. It's a mile uphill from the station bridge.
The golf club stands back from the narrow road among trees, quite a fetching low building. You never pass it without seeing a score of cars.
I asked for Peter Chape in the bar. He was out on the course. I waited, watching golfers from the bar window. I have no interest. To me golf's a good walk spoiled.
Behind me people entered the bar, had a drink, smoked. I listened to the talk of birdies, eagles, five irons and rough chipping. It was another language to me, like Swahili. The great thing, it seems, is to ask everybody else what their handicap is. Mine's women.
I was being pointed out to a tall newcomer by the barman. He started across the room.
Peter, Mary's husband.
Peter Chape was a thin, rather casual man, disappointed that I wasn't a golfer. I explained I was a dealer searching for Bexon's paintings and told innocently how I had been directed to his house earlier in the week by some anonymous wellwisher. He confirmed what Mary had said about old Mr. Bexon. They worked as engineers together only for a short period before the old chap retired.
'He lived with his two girls,' he said. 'Nieces by adoption, really. Kept house and so on.
A quiet, clever old chap.'
'I believe they're easy to get along with,' I fished cleverly. 'Maybe I should call around.'
'Well… Nichole, yes. Katie… maybe not so easy.' Clearly the gentlemanly sort. I thanked him and went.
It's a long walk out to the village. Not one antique shop for ten miles in any direction. A short cut runs across fields into our village but I never take it. There's too much countryside about already without going looking for the rotten stuff. As I walked I kept wondering if mashie niblick was in the dictionary.
It was coming on to rain as I trudged eventually into my lane. A familiar motor-cycle was propped against the cottage. I groaned. I'd forgotten Algernon, a trainee would-be dealer lumbered on me by a kindly crucifixioneer. I was struggling to educate him in antiques. Talk about a sow's ear.
It was becoming one of those days again.
'Lovejoy!' He was beaming at me through his goggles coming round the garden.
Toothy, specs, motor-cycle leathers. He's mad on bikes.
'Hiyer, Algernon. You'll frighten the budgies in that gear.'
I've read it.' He dragged from among his leathers a book and held it up, proud as a peacock. 'Like you said.'
'Not in the rain, Algernon.' I took the precious volume and put it inside my jacket.
'Fascinating! Such an amazing group of people!'