He caught my arm. "Will you date and price them for me, Lovejoy?"
"Look," I told him, "if I do, promise me one thing."
"What?"
"You won't sell me that bloody inky dragonfly. It's worth its weight in gold four times over. If I put a price of two hundred quid on it, then offer to buy it from you, don't sell."
"You're a pal, Lovejoy," he said, grinning all over his bleary face.
I pulled off my coat and set to work. I saw Margaret make a thumbs-up sign across the arcade to Dandy, who had to rush across and give her the news. Morosely, I blamed Field's mad search. If I hadn't needed Dandy's gossip, I could have tricked most of the old jades out of him for less than twenty quid and scored by maybe a thousand. Bloody charity, that's me, I thought. I slapped a higher price on the dragonfly than even I'd intended. Give it another month, I said sardonically to myself, the way things are going and it would be cheap at the price.
I eventually had three leads from Dandy Jack, casual as you like. I think I was reasonably casual, and he was keen to tell me anything he knew. Lead one was a sale in Yorkshire. Jack told me a small group—about seven items is a small group—of weapons were going there. The next was a sale the previous week I'd missed hearing of, in Suffolk. Third was a dealer called Brad. He deserved to be first.
I loaded up with gasoline at Henry's garage.
"Still running, is it?" he said, grinning. "I'll trade you."
"For one that'll last till Thursday?" I snarled, thinking of the cost of gasoline. "You can't afford it."
"Beats me how it runs," he said, shaking his head. "Never seen a crate like it."
"Don't," I said, paying enough to cancel the national debt. "It does six—gallons to the mile, that is."
I drove over to the estuary, maybe ten miles. Less than a hundred houses sloped down to the mud flats where those snooty birds rummage at low water and get all mucky. A colony of artists making pots live in converted boathouses along the quayside and hang about the three pubs there groaning about lack of government money. Money for what, I'm unsure.
Brad was cleaning an Adams, a dragoon revolver of style and grace.
"Not buying, Brad," I announced. He laughed, knowing I was joking.
"Thank heavens for that," he came back. "I'm not selling."
We chatted over the latest turns. He knew all about Dandy's jades and guessed I'd been there.
"He has the devil's luck," he said. I don't like to give too much away, but I wanted Dandy to learn from Brad how impressed I'd been, just in case he'd missed the message and felt less indebted. So I dwelled lovingly on some of the jades until Brad changed the subject.
"Who's this geezer on about Durs guns?"
You must realize that antique collecting is a lifetime religion. And dealing is that, plus a love affair, plus a job. Dealers know who is buying what at any time of day or night, even though we may seem to live a relatively sheltered and innocent life. And where, and when, and how.
This makes us sound a nasty, crummy, suspicious lot. Nothing of the kind. We are dedicated, and don't snigger at that either. Who else can be trusted but those with absolute convictions? We want antiques, genuine lustrous perfection, as objects of worship, and nothing else. All other events come second. In my book that makes us trustworthy, with everything on earth— except antiques. So Brad had heard.
"Oh, some bloke starting up," I said.
"Oh?"
I thought a second, then accepted. "An innocent. No idea. I took him on."
"They're saying flinters."
"Yes."
"Difficult."
I told him part of the tale I'd selected for public consumption. "I thought maybe duelers, a flash cased set."
"I'll let you have a few pair he can choose from."
I grinned at the joke. "I'm hardly flush," I said. "That's why I was around Dandy's, on the prod. He said you might have word of a pair. Have to be mint."
He looked up from replacing the Adams in its case. "I'm in the Midlands next Monday. I'm onto five pieces, but they might turn out relics."
I whistled. Five possible miracles. A relic is any antique defaced and worn beyond virtual recognition, but you never think of that. The desire for the wonderment of a sensational discovery is always your first hope. Some people say it's ridiculous to hope that way, but doesn't everyone in one way or another? A man always hopes to meet a luscious, seductive woman; a woman always hopes to meet a handsome, passionate man. They don't go around hoping for less, do they? We dealers are just more specialized.
"Keep me in mind," I said, swallowing. "The cash is there."
"Where exactly?" he rejoined smoothly, and we laughed.
We chatted a bit more, then I throbbed away in my fiery racer. I made a holiday maker curse by swinging out into the main road without stopping, but my asthmatic old scrap heap just can't start on a hill, whereas his brand-new Austin can start any time, even after an emergency stop. People ought to learn they have obligations.
Muriel's house turned out to be my sort of house. Set back from the road, not because it never quite made it like my cottage, but from an obvious snooty choice not to mob with the hoi polloi. I imagined banisters gleaming with dark satin-brown depths, candelabras glittering on mahogany tables long as football fields, and dusty paintings clamoring on the walls. My sort of house, with a frail old widow lady wanting a kindly generous soul like myself to bowl in and help her to sell up. My throat was dry. I eagerly coaxed the banger to a slow turn and it cranked to a standstill, coughing explosively. I knocked with the door's early nineteenth-century insurance company knocker. (They come expensive now, as emblems of a defunct habit of marking houses with these insignia of private fire insurance companies.) It had shiny new screws holding it firmly onto the door, though the thought honestly never crossed my mind. The door opened. The frail old widow lady appeared.
She was timid, hesitant, and not yet thirty.
"Good day," I said, wishing I was less shabby.
I've never quite made it, the way some men do. I always look shoddy about the feet, my trousers seem less than sharp, my coats go bulbous as soon as they're bought. I have a great shock of hair that won't lie down. I'm really a mess.
"Yes?" She stared from around the door. I could hear somebody else clattering things in the background.
"Look, I'll be frank," I said, feeling out of my depth. "My name is Lovejoy. I've called about… about your late husband, Mr. Field."
"Oh."
"Er, I'm sorry if it seems inopportune, Mrs. Field…" I paused for a denial, but no. "I'm an antique collector, and…" Never say dealer except to another dealer.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Lovejoy," she said, getting a glow of animosity from somewhere. "I don't discuss—"
"No," I said, fishing for some good useful lie. "I'm not after buying anything, please." The door stayed where it was. I watched it for the first sign of closing. "It's… it's the matter of Mr. Field's purchases."
"Purchases?" She went cautious, the way they do. "Did my husband buy things from you?"
"Well, not exactly."
"Then what?"
"Well," I said desperately, "I don't really know how to put it."
She eyed me doubtfully for a moment, then pulled back the door. "Perhaps you should come in."
In the large hall she stood tall, elegant, the sort of woman who always seems warm. Cissie spent her time hunting drafts to extinction. This woman would be immune. She looked deeply at you, not simply in your direction the way some of them will, and you could tell she was listening and sensing. In addition she had style.
Now, every woman has some style, as far as I'm concerned. They are fetchingly shaped to start with, pleasant to look at, and desirable to, er, encounter, so to speak. And all women have that attraction. Any man that says he can remain celibate for yonks on end is not quite telling the truth. It's physically impossible. What astonishes me is that very few women seem to see this obvious terrifying fact, that we are completely dependent on their favors. Ah, well.