"He didn't buy, then?"
"Not even place an order." I carried in their cups and offered sugar. "I got a faint tickle, though. Bring in any tassies you find. We'll split."
"I might have a few," Jane said, and they were satisfied.
Tassies—intaglios, really—are the dealers' nickname for an in-carved stone, usually a semiprecious one. You know a cameo brooch? The figure—a bust silhouette or whatever—stands in relief above the main brooch's surface. Imagine the same figure carved inward, grooving out the design. That's an intaglio. Mostly oval, about the size of a pea and as high, with a shallow carving. Watch for copies, modern ones you can't even give away except to some mug who can't tell bottle glass from the Star of India, though the way things are going, by the time you read this…
"Harry Bateman phoned in," Adrian said, pulling a face at my foul coffee.
"On the cadge?"
"Offering."
"Good?"
"Wordsworth's stuff. Genuine."
"Really?" I was interested, but Harry Bateman didn't know his bum from his elbow, which when you think of it is pretty vital information.
"His original chair and a shaving case given to him by his daughter Dora, 1839."
"Oh."
Jane looked up sharply. It must have been how I said it.
"Chair's a straight Chippendale—" Adrian was starting off, but I took pity.
"—And he's even got the date wrong as well. Trust Harry."
"No good?"
"How come he doesn't starve?" I demanded. "He'll catch it one day. For heaven's sake, tell him before he gets picked up. Wordsworth's chair was always a diamond-seater because of his habit of sitting with a hand in his jacket, Napoleon-style. And the National Trust will be narked if he's really got Dora's case. It should still be at Dove Cottage, on show with the rest of his clobber."
"That's what I like about Lovejoy," Adrian said to Jane. "He's abusive without actually giving offense."
"I'm pretty good value," I retorted.
We had a few similar rapierlike exchanges of witty repartee and then they left in Adrian's new Jaguar. A shower of gravel clattered the Armstrong-Siddeley as he spun down my path. I could hear the stones pattering into the bushes all the way through the copse onto the road. Jane had blown me an apologetic kiss. I phoned Tinker to come over.
I had all the Wallis and Wallis auction catalogues out— Knight, Frank and Rutley's, Christie's, Sotheby's, and Weller and Dufty's of Birmingham—plus every reference book just as a check. My real filing system was below in the priest hole. There wasn't time to open up before Tinker showed, and he wasn't that close a confidant. Nobody was, not even Sheila.
"Watcher, Lovejoy."
"Come in, Tinker."
He was grinning. "Did a deal?"
"Not so's you'd notice," I said, narked.
"He told me to be sure and mention the money."
"All right, all right."
"Did he cough up?" He brought out the Black Label from where I hid it and poured a glug.
"No. All we've got is promises."
"Ah well." He smacked his lips. "You can't have everything."
"I thought he was a nutter at first." I gave him a glare. "Especially as you hadn't tipped me off what he was after."
"Do you blame me? Would you have come if I had?"
"No," I admitted. "Anyway, I talked him out of it. I ask you —the Judas pair. At my age."
"What's the job then?"
"He's decided to become the big collector," I improvised. "So he casts about for a real bingo, and hears of the Judas guns. He decides that's what he'll start with. I told him I'll get going after a pedigree pair that'll be just as good. He bought it."
"What'll we give him?" Tinker asked. Already I could see his ferret mind sniffing out possibilities.
"The best-named pedigree ones we can get."
"Same name?"
"Yeah—Durs."
"Some good Mantons might be on the move soon, word is."
"From where?"
"Suffolk, so people are saying."
"Well…" I pretended indecision. "Keep it in mind, but Durs for preference. I was just pinning them down."
"Three in Germany. Four in the States. Four here, and that Aussie." He ticked his fingers. "Twelve. That's the lot."
I nodded agreement. "I'll make sure none's come through the auctions lately."
"You'd have noticed, Lovejoy."
"It'll save you legwork."
"Right."
He sat and swilled my hooch while I sussed the auctions. In a dozen auctions three sets of Durs guns had been sold, two pairs of holster weapons, one by Joseph of Piccadilly and one by Durs, and one blunderbuss by Durs.
"Run-of-the-mill stuff," I said, forcing back the tears.
"Where do we go from here?"
"Out into the wide world." I watched his face cloud with misery. "I go to work writing and whizzing around the collectors. You get down among the dealers and listen. You don't ask anything, got it? You just listen."
"Right, Lovejoy. Only…"
I gave him some notes. "This comes out of your commission," I warned. He would expect that.
"I'll go careful."
"Do," I warned. "If you go shouting the odds—"
"I know better than go putting the price up." He winked. "Cheerio, Lovejoy."
"See you, Tinker."
I'd had to do it. If Tinker—who looked as if he hadn't two coppers to rub together—suddenly appeared, asking after high-priced stuff, it would be the talking point of the antique world within minutes and any trace of the Judas pair would vanish.
I caught myself in time. I should have to remember they didn't exist. What I was really going after was a pair of unusual real weapons, which did exist.
I put the catalogues away and sat outside the front door on my stone alcove seat. The day was fine, dry. Birds were knocking around in the haphazard way they do. A squirrel raced up a tree, stopping now and again for nothing. It was all pretty average. I could hear a few cars on the road. When I was settled enough I let my mind flow toward the job.
A pair of guns existed. They had been bought by Eric Field, who'd got excited. They were certainly by the great Regency maker, and therefore not cheap. Said to be flint duelers, but were possibly not. The other possibility was that the weapons had been mere holster pistols, and Eric Field, not knowing much for all his collecting enthusiasm, mistook them as valuable duelers.
Yet, if they were only officer's guns, who killed Eric that Friday night just to get hold of them? Nobody would murder for a couple of antiques you could buy at open auction, however expensive.
But a hell of a lot of people would murder over and over again for the Judas pair—if they existed. The day took on a sudden chill.
I shook myself and planned action. First, locate for certain all sets over the past twelve months. Assuming they were all where they ought to be, I would have to think again.
I went indoors to warm up a cheese-and-onion pie. That, two slices of bread, and a pint of tea, and I would start.
Chapter 4
It was about three that afternoon. I walked down to my gate, a hundred yards, and latched it as an added precaution. To come in you had to lift the latch and push hard. It screeched and groaned and rattled like the Tower dungeons. Better than any watchdog. My doors were locked, all my curtains were drawn, and I was in my priest hole.
Every weekend, while other dealers ginned it up at the local and eyed the talent, I cross-indexed sales. Newspapers, auctions, gossip, cheap adverts I'd seen on postcards in village shop windows, anything and everything to do with antiques. Those little cards and two hard-backed books may be no match for IBM, but my skills are second to none, powered as they are by the most human of all mixtures—greed and love. Let a computer get those.