The Judas Pair
By
Jonathan Gash
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
PENGUIN CRIME FICTION
THE JUDAS PAIR
Jonathan Gash is the author of eighteen other Lovejoy mysteries, including The Possessions of a Lady. Gash's books served as the inspiration for the long-running Lovejoy television series on the Arts & Entertainment Network. He developed his love for antiques as a medical student when he earned extra money by working in a London street market. Now Mr. Gash is drawing upon his medical expertise to write a new series starring Dr. Clare Burtonall, the first of which is entitled Different Women Dancing.
Copyright © John Grant, 1977
Gash, Jonathan.
The Judas Pair.
Originally published: New York: Harper & Row, 1977
ISBN 0 14 01.2688 0
This book is dedicated, with respect and humility, to the Chinese god Wei Dt'o, protector of books against fire, pillaging, decay, and dishonest borrowers.
LOVEJOY
Chapter 1
This story's about greed, desire, love, and death—in the world of antiques you get them all.
Just when I was in paradise the phone rang. Knowing it would be Tinker Dill, I pushed her into the bathroom, turned all the taps on, and switched the radio on.
"What the hell's that noise?" Tinker sounded half sloshed as usual.
"You interrupted again, Tinker," I said wearily.
"How am I to know you're on the nest?" he said, peeved.
In the White Hart they only had one record that worked, and it was notching up the decibels in a background muddle of voices.
"What is it?"
"Got somebody for you," he said.
I was all ears. You know that tingling a sexy promise gives? Double it for religion. Treble it for collecting. And for antique dealers like me hearing of a customer, multiply by infinity to get somewhere near the drive that forces a man over every conceivable boundary of propriety, common sense, reason—oh, and law. I almost forgot law. I'd been on the nest two days with Sheila (was she Sheila, or was that last Thursday? I couldn't remember) and here I was quivering like a selling plater at its first race. All because one of my scouts was phoning in with a bite.
Scouts? We call them barkers in the trade. An antique dealer has scouts, people who will pass information his way. Tinker Dill was one of mine. I have three or four, depending on how rich I'm feeling at the time, paid on commission. Tinker was the best. Not because he was much good, but because he was loyal. And he was loyal because he judged every deal in terms of whisky. Or gin. Or rum.
"Buying or selling?" I said, quite casual. Twenty years dealing antiques, and my hands sweating because a barker rings in. It's a right game.
"Buying."
"Big or little?"
"Big."
"You having me on, Tinker?" That stupid bird was banging on the bathroom door wanting to be let out.
"Straight up, Lovejoy," he said. All right, all right. I was born with the name. Still, you can't forget Lovejoy Antiques, Inc., can you? The "Inc." bit was pure invention, brilliance. It sounds posh, reeks of dollars and high-flying American firms backing that knowledgeable antique wizard Lovejoy.
"Got enough copper in case the bleeps go?" I asked.
"Eh? Oh, sure."
"Hang on, then."
I dropped the receiver, crossed to open the bathroom door. There she was, trying to push past me into the room, blazing.
"What the hell do you mean—?" she was starting to say when I gave her a shove. Down she went on the loo amid the steam.
"Now," I explained carefully, "silence. Si-lence. Got it, love?"
She rubbed her arm, her eyes glazed at the enormity of these events.
I patted her cheek. "I'm waiting," I said. "Got it, love?"
"Yes." Her voice barely made it.
"I've got a deal coming in. So shut your teeth. Sit there and listen to all my lovely hot water going to waste."
I slammed the door on her, locked it again, and found Tinker hanging on by the skin of his alcohol-soaked teeth.
"Big? How big?" I demanded.
"Well…"
"Come on."
"S and four D's," he said shakily.
My scalp, already prickling and crawling, gave up as the magic code homed in.
"Give over, Dill."
"Honest, Lovejoy. God's truth."
"In this day and age?"
"Large as life, Lovejoy. Look, this bloke's real. He's here now."
"Where?"
"White Hart."
My mind took off. Computers aren't in it. Speed they've got and memory too, so people say. I have both those attributes and a bell. This bell's in my chest. Put me within a hundred feet of a genuine antique and it chimes, only gently at first, then a clamor as I get nearer the real thing. By the time I'm touching it I can hardly breathe because my bell's clanging like a fire engine. It's never been wrong yet. Don't misunderstand—I've sold some rubbish in my time. And lies come as natural to me as blinking in a gale. After all, that's life, really, isn't it? A little half-truth here and there, with a faint hint of profit thrown in for good measure, does no harm. And I make a living mainly from greed. Not my greed, you understand. Your greed, his greed, everybody's greed. And I want no criticism from self-righteous members of the indignant honest old public, because they're the biggest school of sharks on this planet. No? Listen:
Say you're at home relaxing in your old rocking chair. In comes a stranger. He's heard of your old—or indeed your new—rocking chair. Could it be, he gasps, that it's the one and only rocking chair last used by Lord Nelson on his flagship the Golden Hind? Good heavens, he cries, clapping his eyes on it in ecstasy. It is!
Now, you put your pipe down, astonished. What the hell's going on? you demand. And who the hell is this stranger butting into your house? And what's he babbling about? And—take your hands off my old rocking chair!
With me so far? Good.
The stranger, confronted with your indignation, turns sincere and trusting eyes to you. I've searched all my life, he explains. For what? you demand suspiciously. For Lord Nelson's famous old rocking chair, he confides. And here it is, at last. It's beautiful. My lifelong search is over.
See what I'm getting at? At everybody's dishonesty. At mine. And at yours. No? Yes! Read on.
Now, if I were a trusting soul, I'd leave you to complete the story, give it a proper ending, so to speak. How you smile at the stranger, explain that the chair's only a secondhand mock-up your cousin Harry's lad did at night school, and how in any case Nelson, who is pretty famous for rocking on the cradle of the deep for years on end, was the last bloke on earth ever to need a rocking chair, and how you kindly proceed to put the misguided stranger right over a cup of tea with gay amusing chat. But you can't be trusted to end the story the way it really would happen! And why? Because the stranger, with the light of crusading fervor burning in his eyes, reaches for his wallet and says those glorious magic words—How much?