The Lies of Fair Ladies (30 page)

A viewing is such a wonderful experience it's no good trying to
describe the sensation. You must see for yourself. And I promise. You'll fall
in love with antiques. Oh, I know every viewing day's disappointing when you
glimpse the load of tat, crud, dross. But your job is to go in
knowing
that bliss awaits. The bliss is
antiques. And every antique is worth any amount of money. Why? Because money's
machine-spun paper. And antiques are legacies from the hand of Man, the gifts
of angels. Never mind that money is the modern religion. Only idiots preach
that money counts. Business barons know that they're duckeggs. Sooner or later,
they come to their senses. They frantically start buying like maniacs—and they
buy antiques. They are trying to capture Time, encapsulate it as if Time is
theirs to re-use. Is there a mighty dictator who fails to stuff his
presidential palace with antiques? Trade tycoons raise unedifying edifices—museum,
art gallery, foundation—to their self-glory, and thereby prove themselves
prats. The megalomaniacs who carry on this way expect knighthoods for caressing
their own egos. Quite barmy. When you're that far gone, remorse should be
silent grief. Building bizarre cathedrals simply embarrasses the rest of us.
(Of course, we're green with envy, which is why we scorn their
"achievements." Like I'm doing, I suppose. It must be great to be
well-adjusted.)

Wittwoode's Auction Temple.

"Drift. Don't look. Don't seek or search."

Luna was puzzled. "But you said—"

“I've told you before, Lune." I pulled her roughly behind the
stack of chairs and occasional tables the whizzers chuck together near the long
wall. Nobody was close. "The antiques will pull you. They're
here—somewhere. They'll shout, call, maybe just touch your mind as you walk by.
But they're here."

"They'll ..." She looked at the chair legs sticking out
at all angles from the mound. "Are they here now?"

"Yes. And when you find one,” I begged, pleading, "don't
shriek and wave your handbag. Just tell it hello, then tip me the wink." I
shook my head. Give me strength. "Not really a wink, Lune. Metaphorically.
Direct my attention."

"How?"

"Lune. You directed my attention the other night—"

"Shhh!" She pulled away, prim. "Twice you've
mentioned that episode, Lovejoy. Don't think I don't deplore my—"

"Shhhh," I said. "Please, Lune. We're in
public."

"Yes, well."

"Here." I stopped as we emerged. Something she'd said.
"What registration? The impertinent lass?"

"Registration? Oh. The motor car." She lowered her
voice. I bent, anxious. "Do you think I ought to complain? Officially, I
mean? The girl's rudeness—"

"No, love." I was broken. She'd worn me down.
"Don't complain. She might have trouble at home. But what car?"

"At the garden center. Poor Mr. Benedict's. Don't you
remember? It belonged to a Mr. G. F. Cooley, Waylance Street, Weston Hammer.
It's quite a nice village, in Staffordshire I think ..."

Hopefully, sanity lived. Somewhere. I left her, and drifted.

It happened in the first pass. I called Luna over. She came eyeing
the dealers, mistrustful. I held up the bottle-shaped carafe to the light,
smiling.

"See the medallion on the side? Enamel. Trying to be German
eighteenth century."

"I think it's rather nice."

Loud with merriment, I chuckled and wagged my head. "Sorry,
love. Fake. Look through the other side. The glass is quite clear. Somebody's
ground out depressions, enamel pastes in and fired it anew. It seems true
enameling. Authentic enameled glass has no sign of grinding. The grinding
wheel's marks show up as a slight prismatic effect. See them?"

"Well, no."

There weren't any to see, so I was glad she said no. I replaced
the lovely antique carafe among the job lot of pressed glass jugs and butter
dishes, mentally apologizing to it. It stood there, regal.

"That's inexperience, love," I said airily. "It'll
come."

There was a small collection of decoy ducks in a wicker basket.
They're collectors' items, but take care. Most aren't genuine, because
wandering fairgrounds have started selling new ones, suitably aged, on the
now-fashionable "country antiques" stalls

among their sideshows. I make some myself when I’m desperate. As
ever, antiques bring surprises. Some collectors'!! pay a year's average wage
for some rarities. I think they're horrible, but A. Elmer Crowell's Black Duck
Preening—East Harwich in the U.S.A.—or Black-Bellied Plover are current
favorites. I mean, who wants a wood duck? Once you've seen one, and all that.

I called loudly to Betty O'Connors—lives down on the wharf
postal-selling thimbles and stitchery by subscriber catalogue—to bid for a
porcelain firemark for me.

"Bid yourself," Betty called back.

"Misery," I grumbled. "I can't stand this heap of
dross. Just bid, eh? I'll owe."

Dealers snorted, but sidled across to inspect the firemark.

"All right, Lovejoy," Betty relented.

"Ta, love." I waved a piece of paper between my fingers,
and left it with Alf, a whizzer famous for having lost a leg in the service of
antiques corruption. He fell through a wardrobe one night. He'd been bribed to
swap the decorated surrounds of two pieces of furniture before the following
day's auction. It's a common practice (swapping, not falling through
wardrobes). Alf was trapped. His leg went bad, and he was discovered by a char
lady who had hysterics. He's a blabbermouth. We call him Radio Alf. I'd chosen
carefully. The price I'd pay—a month's wage—was about right for an Atheneum
Fire Office porcelain firemark. They're rare, especially mint.

"People had them on their houses," I explained to Luna.
"The fire insurance firm would reward the firefighters." I didn't
explain the fertile grounds for corruption and extortion that fire insurance
provided in early days, as now. Luna would find some reason not to believe me.

"Now, love," I said, having sussed the entire place. We
were outside, strolling down a riverside walk by some cottages. I quite like
trees now and again, even in towns, as long as they don't gang up and threaten
to start their own countryside among our harmless streets. "Your first
job."

"I've done several, Lovejoy." Her lip was quivering.
What the hell now?

"This one's your own. Pick seven or eight pieces of
furniture. Any. Buy them, changing your mind, hesitating. Now and then start
bidding, then drop out. Look ..." I searched for a word that described her
to a tee. "Incoherent."

"What if I guess wrong?"

I smiled. I was going to turn them into antiques anyway. "You
can't. You won't. Believe me, love. I know.''

Her eyes filled. "Oh, Lovejoy. You do trust me!"

"Eh?"

She sniffed, did the hankie bit. "You wanted Betty O'Connors
to bid for you, when I'm perfectly—"

Well, I rolled in the aisles. "Betty? She won't."

"But she said she would, Lovejoy."

"Of course she did—so I'd say how much I'd pay. I wrote it
down. She'll buy it for herself."

Luna instantly went nuclear. "But that's . . . dishonest,
Lovejoy! Actually to resort to such—"

I heard her out, shaking my head sadly at the perfidy of an unkind
world. "Go in this afternoon. Bid for the German carafe, the one shaped
like a retail sherry bottle. And that job lot of decoy ducks."

"But you said they were fakes, Lovejoy." Wide eyes and
all.

"Er, did I?" I'd just deplored Betty O'Connors's lies.
"Er, yes. But the vendor's been in hospital, and wants to move near his
daughter's. To, er, Bognor."

She looked about for lurking observers, decided and gave my arm a
surreptitious squeeze. "You're sweet, Lovejoy."

"Lune. A little kindness to an old soldier . . ."I
welled up at my fictitious old git, controlled myself manfully.

"Should I bid higher than necessary, Lovejoy?" She was
thrilled again. "I mean, the old gentleman would appreciate a little
extra. Is his daughter married? Just think how happy he'll—"

Luna got out of hand fast. "No, love," I said firmly.
"He's very proud. He would hate charity. Some of these old folk ..."

"You're so wise, Lovejoy! I had a great-aunt once—"

"Look. I'd better go. Remember what I've told you."

"Yes," she said solemnly. We walked to the road by the
bridge. "That horrid Mr. Cooley was looking at the carafe after we looked
at it. Did you notice?"

"Cooley?" I didn't know any Cooley.

"Who owns the motor you wanted to know about."

Cooley? I halted. Who had been in, milling around among the women
non-dealers? Acker Kirwin, Betty, Marjorie, Olive Bremner from Stirling, a few
of the Brighton circus. Big Frank, Jeff for ten seconds, Chris who collects
hammered silver, Mannie the maniac clock faker in his caftan and cowbells,
Connie Hopkins, Deg the parchment forger, Lonnie Marklin who makes model
coaches. Who else? Stan Tell who's furniture. Liz Sandwell, today unfortunately
guarded by her jealous rugby-playing monster lover. A scattering of lesser
dealers. One I like particularly is Rhea Cousins. She's Georgian furniture—pays
in very personal services administered in the privacy of her own home. Her
husband, Willis, is her accomplice. They're very, very rich. I ran down this
list, checked myself. I was speaking aloud. Luna's eyes were like saucers, the
list making her weak at the knees.

"Cooley?"

"The one I told you about at the other auction,
Lovejoy."

"Acker Kirwin?" I described him.

"Yes. He's not very nice, Lovejoy. Shifty. He's the same one
who . . . conned us before. I
told
you."

"Give us a lift to the mill, love?" It wouldn't take
long. A breath of country air would do us no harm.

Twenty-six

The watermill was on a flow from the river. Artificial, of course,
meaning man-made. A small fishing lake lay above, fed from a little tributary
that came from a valley a mile or so off. The influx passed through the mill.
Undershot, they call it, the water flowing beneath. You don't get as much power
as from an overshot wheel, but that's just hard luck. If you have hills, like
in Lancashire, you get significant power from big overshots.

Luna went in the car for the key from the garden center office.
It's quite tall as watermills go. Red brick, with a warehouse for sacks, and a
loading bay where Suffolk horses clomped in with their wagons. Gingerly I
looked, but the rain had washed the flint cobbles clean of crime, except for
moss. Did I think crime? Wrong. Everybody saw it was an accident. Witnesses
can't be wrong. The victim—sorry, the poor unfortunate—was in full view. Well,
nearly full view. One hand was reaching in, out of sight. Taking hold of
something, keeping him safe. Dead safe.

The surrounding countryside was quiet. Somebody was whistling
across the river. In the market garden, I shouldn't wonder. A motor started up.
A dog barked, was ballocked crossly for not coming when he was told, the whole
family was late now, bad dog. Slam. Rev, and off. Two anglers walked the
riverside path, turning in to seek the lake. More gear than spacemen,
camouflage jackets, rods, wicker baskets. Bet they only lived a hundred yards
away. A laugh.

Somebody had shut the hoist door. A notice said "Council
Property Keep Out.'' The mill was closed until further notice, trespassers
would be prosecuted. I felt indignant. We common folk owned the frigging place.
But once a robber baron, always a robber baron. Calling it politics fools only
the perpetrators.

The mill doors were locked. The windows on the second floor wore
wire mesh. You'd have to be Delia, at least, to get inside. That set me
thinking. Had Delia himself found something in the office? And later came back
to kill Rye? But why? Delia came highly recommended. And asked for more jobs,
any time. That's not the chat of a secret murderer, not round here. Also, he
seemed as ignorant of antiques as any antique dealer, which is ignorance of a
pretty stupendous degree. Here came Luna, with the keys.

“I want to see the hoist, Lune."

Oliver's Council hadn't the sense to use the original ancient
locks, still functional. They'd spoiled the great doors by adding enormous
metal bars, with modern padlocks. Typical.

The mill inside felt lovely, cool, spacious. The millstones were
not turning, which was fine by me. Stairs you could ride a horse up led to open
floors, substantial beams across each ceiling to carry almost any weight.
"JoHy' millers were hated down the centuries— think of the extortion they
could perpetrate, controlling the only means of processing grain. And their
ancient technology is beautiful to behold. Normally I would have been smiling.
I wasn't. We climbed higher.

"This is it, Lovejoy. The hoist."

It was closed, that great wide window through which the sacks were
pulled in. I'd expected a gap, like a fool.