As I checked mechanically back for Durs items in my records I occasionally glanced at the shelves about me, wondering if there was anything the Fields could have mistaken for the Judases. I had a pair of lovely mint double-barreled percussion Barratts cased and complete with all accessories. No goon could mistake percussion for flints, which narrowed the field considerably. There were other relatives of Joseph and Durs, one being Charles, but he came later and in any case was only a pale shadow of the two older craftsmen. Then came Augustus Leopold, no less. Only, to see his masterpieces you have to go to the London art galleries, for he was the famous oil painter pal of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. To read the scathing comments these writers left about him, he'd have run a mile on even seeing a pistol, flintlock or otherwise. No. It all pointed to Durs weapons. My own Durs flinters were holsters. The duelers I owned were a late large-bore pair by Henry Nock. All the rest, carefully wrapped and laid on dry sponges, were unmistakably non-Durs.
The more I thought about it, the more unlikely it was that Eric had got it wrong. His pair probably were duelers, and perhaps even Durs. If a master craftsman can make a dozen pairs, what's to stop him making one more set? Nothing.
But what made them so special that Eric would babble eagerly over the phone about them to his bored brother?
There was no other alternative. I would have to make the assumption that the Judas pair had been found and bought by Eric Field, that they were used to kill him by some unknown person, and that the motive for Eric's death was possession of the unique antiques. How they'd managed to kill Eric without bullets was a problem only possession of the weapons themselves could solve. I put my cards away, switched off the light, and climbed out.
It took only a couple of minutes to have the living-room carpet back in place. I opened the curtains and phoned Field.
"Lovejoy," I told him. "Tell me one thing. How long before his death did Eric have them?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe a few months."
"Months?"
"Why, yes," he said, surprised. "I'm almost certain he mentioned he'd found a pair of good-quality flintlocks quite some time ago."
"Who would know for certain?"
"Well, nobody." He cleared his throat. "You could try his wife, Muriel, my sister-in-law."
"Same address?"
"She still lives in the house. Only, Lovejoy." He was warning me.
"Yes?"
"Please go carefully. She's not very… strong."
"I will," I assured him and hung up.
So Eric had bought them, and only months later had he discovered their unique nature. I was justified, then, in searching for duelers which looked like most other flints.
This was a clear case for Dandy Jack over at the antique mart, the world's best gossip and worst antique dealer. I could do him a favor, as he'd recently bought a small Chinese collection and would be in a state about it. He always needed help.
I locked up and examined the weather. It would stay fine, with hardly a breeze. The nearby town was about ten miles with only one shallow hill to go up. My monster motor would make it.
I patted the Armstrong-Siddeley's hood. "Let's risk it, love," I said, set it rolling with the outside handbrake dropped forward, and jumped in.
Mercifully, it coughed into action just as it reached the gate. The engine kept grinding away while I swung the gate open, and we trundled grandly out onto the metaled road, all its remaining arthritic twenty cc's throbbing with power. I pushed the throttle flat, and the speedo sailed majestically upward from walking pace into double figures. The jet age.
Practically every town nowadays has an antique market, mart, arcade, call it what you will. Our town has an arcade of maybe ten antique shops. Imagine Billy Bunter's idea of the Sun King's palace, built by our town council, who'd run out of money before finishing the foyer, and you've got our shopping arcade. It's given to seasonal fluctuations, because people from holiday resorts along the coast push up summer sales, and the dearth of winter visitors whittles the arcade's shops—stalls in—down to five or six. They throw in a cafe to entice the unwary. Dandy Jack never closes.
I parked the Armstrong illegally, sticking the card on the windshield saying "Delivering," which could be anything from a doctor to a florist. It often worked. The cafe had a handful of customers swilling tea and grappling with Chorley cakes. I got the cleanest cake and a plastic cup. Within five minutes they were popping in.
"Hello, Lovejoy. Slumming?" Harry Bateman, no less, of Wordsworth fame.
"Hiyer, Harry."
"Hear about my—?"
"Remember the Trades Descriptions Act, that's all."
He gave me a grin and shrugged. "I thought I'd done me homework that time. Bloody encyclopedia you are, Lovejoy. See you later."
"It's Lovejoy. Going straight yet?" came a second later.
Margaret Dainty was perhaps a useful thirty-five, tinted hair, plump, and prematurely matronly of figure. She was cool, usually reasonably griffed up on her wares, and tended to be highly priced. There was a husband lurking somewhere in her background, but he never materialized. An unfortunate childhood injury gave her a slight limp, well disguised.
"Hiyer, Margaret. How's business?"
"Not good." This means anything from bad to splendid.
"Same all around."
"Interested in anything—besides Jane Felsham?" She sat opposite and brushed crumbs away for her elbows.
I raised eyebrows. "What's she done wrong?"
"One of your late-night visitors, I hear."
"Word gets around—wrong as usual. Daytime. Accompanied."
"I'm glad to hear it, Lovejoy," she said, smiling.
We had been good friends, once and briefly. I'd assumed that was to be it and that she'd developed other interests.
"Now, now, young Dainty," I chided. "You don't want an aging, disheveled, poverty-stricken bum like me cramping your style."
"You are hard work," she agreed coolly. "But never dull."
"Poor's dull," I corrected her. "Failure's dull. That's me."
"You're determined not to risk another Cissie." Cissie, my erstwhile lady wife.
"There couldn't be another. It's one per galaxy."
"You're safe, then." She eyed me as I finished that terrible tea. "Coming to see my stock?"
I rose, bringing my unfinished Chorley cake with me. Frankly, I could have gone for Margaret badly, too deeply for my own good. But women are funny, you know. They keep changing, ever so slightly, from the time you first meet them. There's a gradual hardening and tightening, until finally they're behaving all about you, unmasked and vigilant, not a little fierce. It's all made worse by the crippling need for them that one has. There's an absolute demand, and women have the only supply. I prefer them before their shutters and masks come down. Not, you understand, at a distance.
She had a bonheur de jour—lady's writing desk—eighteenth century.
"Sheraton?" Margaret asked.
"No. His style, though."
"Why not?"
I shrugged in answer. I couldn't tell her about my bell's condemnatory silence. "Doesn't seem quite right."
Tip: look for neat fire-gilt handles, that lovely satinwood, tulipwood, and ebony, and never buy until you've had out the wooden runners which support the hinged writing surface. You'll be lucky if the baize is original. Look at it edge-on to see if it's standing high or not. High: modern replacement. Low: possibly original. Forget whether it's faded or not, because we can do that on a clothesline, washing and sun-drying repeatedly, day in, day out for a week. It's only stuck on.
"Good or not?" she pressed.
"Pretty good." Which satisfied her.
She showed me two pottery birds, all bright colors, and asked if I liked them.
"Horrible."
"Genuine?" They looked like Chelsea.
I touched one. Ding-dong. "As ever was."
"You haven't looked for the gold anchor mark underneath yet," she said, vexed.