His stand was at the far end of the arcade: J. S. H. Keegan, Specialist in GB amp; Commonwealth. It was just before lunch when I arrived, and his manager, Jim Grace, was invoicing some early St Helena he had just sold to a thickset man flourishing a German credit card. The only other customer at the counter was picking over some Specimen GBs neatly packaged in plastic envelopes.
‘Is Josh Keegan in?’ I asked.
Grace nodded. ‘Just back from Birmingham. Our first auction is next week.’ To look at this small stand in a crowded arcade it was difficult to realise that he had a partner in Zurich, another in Munich, and had just gone into partnership with a firm of auctioneers in the Midlands. ‘If it’s about that little collection Commander Sawyer brought in, I know he’d like to see you.’ He reached for the credit card, jotting down the number on the invoice. ‘He’s upstairs in the office if you’d like to go up.’
I had only once before been to his office on the third floor; that was when Tubby had introduced me to him. It had originally been one large room; now it was partitioned off into small cubicles where his staff sorted, packaged and priced the material he acquired, most of it from private collectors. His own office was little bigger than the others, a desk, two chairs, a window looking down on to the Strand and the walls lined with small filing tray cabinets. He was standing at the window when I went in, a neatly dressed man with a shock of grey hair. He might have been a musician, except that he had a block of orange stamps gripped in a pair of tweezers and was holding it up to the light, his glasses pushed on to the top of his head and a jeweller’s magnifying glass screwed into his right eye.
He turned and smiled at me. I think he was Irish, the smile and the charm all part of his stock-in-trade. ‘Ever seen a block of four five-pound orange? Lightly cancelled, too. I thought they might be fakes, but no, they’re all right and it’s the blued paper.’ He held the block out for me to see. ‘Superb, isn’t it?’ His eyes were shining with enthusiasm.
‘What’s it worth?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘What anybody will pay for it — four thousand pounds, five thousand, I don’t know. But it’s something to bring the dealers down to Birmingham when we hold our big auction there in the autumn.’ He slipped the brilliant orange block back into its plastic mount, his eyes already fastened on the parcel I was carrying. ‘Is that the Holland collection you’ve got there?’ He sat down at his desk, clearing a space with a sweep of his hand. ‘Are you going to let us auction it for the lady, or is she prepared to sell direct? I’ll make you an offer for it if you like.’
‘Tubby has already made an offer,’ I said. ‘And I’ve given a man named Berners until July sixteenth to better it.’
‘Two dealers after it already, eh?’ He smiled and rubbed his hands together. ‘Tubby won’t get it, of course, poor fellow. I’ve already been on to my Zurich partner, and I’ve just heard that one of our clients over there is willing to go to thirty-five hundred pounds, probably more, provided the background is substantiated. In that case I might even go to four thousand myself.’
I stared at him. ‘But you were only willing to give five hundred and fifty for the Trinidad ship stamp.’
‘It’s not the “Lady McLeod”. Didn’t Tubby tell you what he had discovered?’
‘He said something very odd had come to light, but I was in a hurry and wasn’t prepared for one of his lectures. I thought it was some finer point of printing-’
‘Some finer point of printing?’ He laughed. ‘You could certainly call it that.’ He leaned back. ‘So you don’t know. And if I’d offered you four thousand pounds, you’d have taken it?’
‘There’s Berners,’ I said. ‘Also I’d have had to get advice about exchange regulations.’ And I told him about Perenna Holland’s movements. ‘As a UK resident, I think it might require Bank of England permission to send money out to her.’ That was before exchange controls were lifted.
‘No problem, if you’re willing to let us auction the collection.’
I hesitated. But it was what I had been hoping for. ‘Provided you can let her have some sort of guarantee in advance.’ And I explained her position and also that I was booked out for Sydney on Sunday evening.
‘Sydney, Australia?’ He looked at me with sudden interest. ‘That could be very helpful. But before I promise anything, let’s have another look at those die proofs. It’s the die proofs that make the collection unique.’
‘Because they’re ship stamps?’
‘No, because they could explain something that has always puzzled students of the Perkins Bacon printing house. Come on, open it up and let me have another look at them.’ And he added as I undid the wrapping, ‘The catalogue description would have to be very circumspect, but we could certainly say enough to bring every major GB and Commonwealth dealer running to have a look at it.’ He opened the albums, searching out the two pages with the proofs, placing them side by side on the desk in front of him. ‘Forgeries, fakes, re-entries, inverted watermarks, doubled surcharges, there are examples of every vagary of stamp printing. But stolen dies that were later used to prepare the transfer roller for a plate of ship labels — that’s something quite new. Hard to believe in connection with a firm like Perkins Bacon.’ He put the glass to his eye, peering closely at the seal in its frame. ‘Solomons Seal. That’s right, isn’t it? That’s how Berners described it to you.’
‘Yes.’
He nodded, still examining the proof. ‘Tubby rang me about it, said he thought the label on the cover auctioned a couple of years ago must have had the word “Solomons” on it — Solomons Shipping Company, something like that.’ And he added, ‘I checked with a friend of mine at Robson Lowe. He couldn’t remember what was on the label, so I asked him who had put the cover up for auction. He rang me later to say that it had been sent to them by a dealer in Sydney.’ He reached to a box file on the window ledge behind him, searched out a card and copied an address on to a slip of paper. ‘Cyrus Pegley, that’s the dealer’s name.’ He handed me the slip. ‘Since you’re going there, do me a favour, will you? Go and see him when you’re in Sydney, find out all you can about that cover, where he got it from, what was printed on the label — anything at all that will help establish the provenance of these die proofs.’
The address he had given me was Victoria Street, King’s Cross, presumably a suburb of Sydney. ‘I won’t have much time,’ I murmured.
‘Then make time. It’s important if you want these die proofs to fetch the sort of figure I think they could.’ He was leaning forward again, peering intently at the pages, the jeweller’s glass back in his eye. ‘Solomons Shipping Company,’ he murmured, and shook his head. ‘I don’t believe that would fit. Berners didn’t tell you who his client was, I suppose? No, of course not.’ He sighed. ‘A pity. We need to know a lot more. It’s so incredible, so incongruous.’
‘What is?’
‘The seal. Particularly the seal on its icefloe. Do you have the Perkins Bacon Records?’ he asked without looking up. ‘The first volume dealing with the Colonial issues. You’ll find it in that, towards the end. A very odd admission for a firm of security printers that was known chiefly for the printing of banknotes.’ And when I told him I hadn’t got the books, he said, ‘You should have. Those two volumes are the meticulous record of every letter, every transaction connected with the design, printing and delivery by Perkins Bacon of stamps for the colonies, and for several foreign countries, too. It took Percy de Worms years to compile it, and he died before he had completed the work. Every collector of early line-engraved issues should have them.’
‘Well, I haven’t,’ I said. ‘So perhaps you’ll tell me what it’s all about.’
He hesitated, then shook his head. ‘Better ask Tubby. He spotted it first, not me.’ He took the glass out of his eye, closed the albums and leaned back in his chair. ‘He’ll enjoy telling you, so I won’t spoil it for him. And now, having had another look at the proofs, I have a suggestion to make, bearing in mind your client’s needs and the fact that you’ll be out of the country for a time.’