I had no plan of action, trusting simply to my innate instinct for deception and falsehood. Mrs. Field dithered a bit, then asked me into a lounge, where we sank into nasty new leather armchairs. There was a rosewood desk, Eastern, modern, and one tatty cavalry saber on the wall. On the desk I could see a chatelaine which looked like Louis XIV from where I was sitting but I couldn't be sure.
"You mentioned you and my husband were fellow collectors, Mr. Lovejoy."
A chatelaine is a small (six to eight inches or so) case, often shaped in outline like a rounded crucifix. It opens to show scissors, toothpick, manicure set, and sometimes small pendants for powders and pills, that sort of thing, for people to carry about. Quite desirable, increasing in value—
"Mr. Lovejoy?" she said.
"Eh? Oh, yes. Mr. Field." I dragged my mind back.
"You mentioned…"
In the better light she was quite striking. Pale hair, pale features, lovely mouth, and stylish arms. She fidgeted with her hands. The whole impression was of somebody lost, certainly not in her own territory.
"Poor Mr. Field," I hedged. "I heard of the… accident, but didn't like to call sooner."
"That was kind of you. It was really the most terrible thing."
"I'm so sorry."
"Did you know my husband?"
"Er, no. I have… other business associates, and I collect antiques in partnership with, er, a friend." It was going to be hard.
"And your friend…?" she filled in for me. I nodded.
"We were about to discuss some furniture with Mr. Field." I was sweating, wondering how long I could keep this up. If she knew anything at all about her husband's collecting I was done for.
"Was it a grandfather clock?" she asked, suddenly recalling.
I smiled gratefully, forgiving her the use of that dreadful incorrect term.
"Yes. William Porthouse, Penrith, made it. A lovely, beautiful example of a longcase clock, Mrs. Field. It's dated on the dial, 1738, and even though the—"
"Well," she interrupted firmly, "I wouldn't really know what my husband was about to buy, but in the circumstances…"
I was being given the heave-ho. I swallowed my impulse to preach about longcase clocks, but she was too stony-hearted and unwound her legs. Marvelous how women can twist them around each other.
"Of course!" I exclaimed, as if surprised. "We certainly wouldn't wish to raise the matter, quite, quite."
"Oh, then… ?"
"It's just…" I smiled as meekly as I could as I brought out the golden words. "Er, it's just the matter of the two pistols."
"Pistols?" She looked quite blank.
"Mr. Field said something about a case with two little pistols in." I shrugged, obviously hardly able to bother about this little detail I'd been forced to bring up. "It's not really important, but my friend said he and Mr. Field had… er…"
"Come to some arrangement?"
I blessed her feminine impulse to fill the gaps.
"Well, nothing quite changed hands, you understand," I said reluctantly. "But we were led to believe that Mr. Field was anxious for us to buy a small selection of items, including these pistol things." I shrugged again as best I could but was losing impetus fast. If any smattering of what Field had told me was remotely true, a pair of Durs flinters had actually resided under this very roof, been in this very room, even. I raised my head, which had bowed reverently at the thought. I felt as if I'd just happened on St. Peter's, Rome.
"As part exchange, I suppose?"
"Well, I suppose so. Something like that."
"I heard about them," she said, gradually fading into memory. Her eyes stared past me. "He showed me a couple of pistols, in a box. The police asked me about them, when George—"
"George?"
"My brother-in-law. Eric, my husband, phoned him the night before he… He was going to go over and show George the next morning. Then this terrible thing happened."
"Were you here, when… ?"
"No. I was in hospital."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"We'd been abroad, Eric and I, a year ago. I'd been off color ever since, so I went in to have it cleared up. Eric insisted."
"So you knew nothing at all about it?"
"Until George came. I was convalescent by then. George and Patricia were marvelous. They arranged everything."
"Did you say the police asked about the pistols?"
"Yes. George thought whoever did it… used them to… to…"
"I suppose the police found them?" I said innocently. "They can trace guns these days."
"Hardly." Her face was almost wistful. "They were so old, only antiques, and they don't think he was… shot."
"What were they like?" I swallowed. The words were like sandpaper grating.
"Oh, about this long," she said absently, measuring about fifteen inches with hands suddenly beautiful with motion. "Dark, not at all pretty."
"My friend said something about gold decoration," I croaked in falsetto.
"Oh, that's all right, then," she said, relieved. "They must be different ones. These had nothing like that. Blackish and brown, really nothing special, except that little circle."
"Circles?" I shrilled. At least I wasn't screaming, but my jacket was drenched with sweat. She smiled at her hands.
"I remember Eric pulling my leg," she said. "I thought they were ugly and a shiny circle stuck in them made them look even worse. Eric laughed. Apparently they were pieces of platinum."
I realized I should be smiling, so I forced my face into a gruesome ha-ha shape as near as I could. She smiled back.
"You see, Mr. Lovejoy, I never really… well, took to my husband's collecting. It seemed such a waste of time and money."
I gave my famous shrug, smiling understandingly. "I suppose one can overdo it," I lied. As if one could overdo collecting.
"Eric certainly did."
"Where did he get his items from, Mrs. Field? Of course, I know many of the places, but my friend didn't see very much of him."
"Through the post, mostly. I was always having to send down to the village post office. I think the case came from Norfolk."
"What?" I must have stared because she recoiled.
"The box. Weren't you asking about them?"
"Oh, those," I said, laughing lightly. "When you said 'case' I thought you meant the cased clock I mentioned." I forced another light chuckle. Stupid Lovejoy.
"The shiny pistols. I remember that because they were so heavy and the woman at the post office said she'd been there."
You have to pay for the pleasure of watching a beautiful woman. In kind, of course. Like struggling to understand her train of thought.
"Er, been where, Mrs. Field?"
"To the place in Norfolk. She said, "Oh, that's where the bird sanctuary is, on the coast." She'd been there with her family, you see. I tried to remember the name for the police, but they said it didn't really matter."
"Ah, yes. Well, I never get quite that far, so perhaps… er, one thing more." I was almost giddy with what she'd told me.
"Yes?"
"What, er, happened to them? Only," I added hastily, "in case my friend asks."
"Well, I don't know." Any more questions would make her suspicious. "George asked, and the police asked, but that's the point. When I returned from hospital they were gone."
"And the rest of the antiques… ?"
"Oh, they were sold. I wasn't really interested, you see, and Eric always said to send them off to a respectable auction if anything happened. He was a very meticulous man," she informed me primly. I nodded.
He was also a very lucky man, I thought. For a while.
She was waiting for me to go. I racked my exhausted brain. How did the police and these detectives know what questions to ask, I wondered irritably. I knew that as soon as the door closed a hundred points would occur to me. I'm like that.
"Well, thank you, Mrs. Field," I said, rising. "I shouldn't really have called, but my friend was on at me about it."