Moonspender (8 page)

"Sir John will be twenty minutes." She made it sound a
promulgation. The world evidently had to go along. Well, not me. I'd done what

Sykes ordered, correctly this time. If Camforth wouldn't see me,
he and Sykie could fight it out.

"Tell him I called on time, love. Tara."

And I was down the corridor before she came hastening after me and
said Sir John was ready. She looked stricken, so I retraced, thinking this
Camforth must be an ogre. The inner sanctum's door lintel was carved in Greek
key designs, a pathetic waste of good wood. Some tree had given its whole life
so this Camforth maniac could carve it wrong. What a world.

"Your typist changed her mind," I said to the curtain
that hung immediately beyond. Typists hate being called typists. You're to call
them personal secretarial administrative specialists nowadays instead.

The curtain was a heavy modem Thai silk in lime. Somebody dragged
it aside and I stepped into the most extraordinary room, so weird I heard
myself gasp. Normally I only do that when thumped.

As long as broad, the place had three vast convex mirrors, floor
to ceiling. A quiveringly beautiful antique study desk confronted me,
Ince
and Mayhew, late Regency. I moaned with unrequited
lust. The walls staggered me so I literally recoiled. Can you imagine? Me,
desperate dealer of Lovejoy Antiques, Inc., practically fainting under the
impact of that enormous room's furniture and ornaments. Two Joshua Reynolds
pencil sketches dazzled on the right-hand wall. An alpine water-color by
Turner, greatest of them all, shimmered its yellows and whites in a paneled
alcove. A luscious Charles
Cressent
commode stood
arrogantly by—this Frenchman originated the commode as we know it, changing it
at one fell swoop from a mere humble chestlike lump to a slender-legged Regency
triumph complete with crossbow bottom rails. It bestrode an Aubusson carpet, an
1820ish Empire pattern on a lettuce green field that made you wish you could
float from respect. Over to the left was an early English face shielder, a pole
screen with the most delectable tapestry work. Embroidresses nowadays go too
much for collage—not clever ladies who needleworked their feminine loveliness
and stitched their signatures in the whole history of man. I stepped forward to
see if they'd used undercouching stitch, and saw the fake.

Ivory cracks, especially those hard East Africa ivories, so if
you've got any, keep them humid. This was a finely decorated German tankard,
silver gilt and ivory—desperately pretending to be seventeenth century. I gazed
aslant—sure enough the ivory had fractured and been mended. This is okay,
because ivory breaks with geometrical precision and ordinary glues mend it
easily enough. But, forever trying to warp, ivory needs pegging, with metal or
ivory dowels, exactly as somebody had done here between two cherubs below the
rim. Vinyl adhesives never stain true ivory, so why was discoloration diffusing
from that faint seam? Because it wasn't ivory, that's why. I'd have whitened it
with hydrogen peroxide, 120 volumes, and—

"Give him the bill, Winstanley," somebody said.

My vision cranked reluctantly back. I hadn't noticed the little
wart perched behind that lovely desk. Nor had I seen Winstanley, the nervous
accountant now treading—not, note, walking or striding, but treading as
acolytes fetch ritual unguents—toward me bearing a paper. Baffled, I stood
there feeling a right daffodil. It was a telephone receipt, solving the
mystery. So this was the nerk who'd paid my bill.

"It cost me that to contact you, Lovejoy," the voice
said.

His head was just about visible. Lacquered black hair ironed down
on his pate. Specs, a thin face, and a one-piece tie. I hated that one-piece
tie. If you're going to wear a tie, then wear the proper bloody thing, not a
cardboard monstrosity a machine makes for you. Much worse, or better, was the
mind-bending fact that virtually every antique in sight was thrillingly
genuine. Except one. Here was the man. Power, wealth, authority exuded from his
expression; a bloke at war with anybody and everything.

"I'm waiting, Lovejoy."

Like I say, faces fascinate me, maybe because that's where stares
come from. Oblong stares, elliptical stares, stares so straight and rectangular
they hit you like the end of a plank. Women mostly have curved slow-worming
stares, quite warm for the most part. Children have soft magnolia-colored
stares that swarm all over your front and push you about. Henry's is like that;
takes your breath away. This gaffer's stare slammed me like a piece of
four-by-two.

"Waiting? What for?"

"My money." His fingers drummed, like a noisy arthropod
creeping from his sleeve.

"Money? I've not got any of yours." Nor, I nearly added,
of my own either.

"Explain, Winstanley."

The serf read from a note pad like a courtroom clerk giving the
charge before merciless magistrates. "Nine attempts to phone you, two
visits to your cottage, petrol, capital depreciation on the Rolls, chauffeur's
wages, time, the
motorphone
."

Winstanley's
voice was shaking. He knew what was going to
happen. I had the benefit of his wobbly aspen-leaf stare, and he had the full
benefit of mine. I nudged him aside.

"I'm impressed," I said. I really was. This behavior
proved that idiocy flourishes everywhere. "Comrade, your chances of
getting that gelt are nil. Stuff the bloody telephone."

"Read on, Winstanley."

Winstanley flapped his notes. "You owe council rates, water
rates, electricity, the Bungalow Stores in your village. You owe Mrs. Margaret
Dainty four loans and a
Lowestoft
porcelain jug. You
owe Elizabeth Sandwell of Dragonsdale for a personal loan made after you and
she went to Birmingham—"

"Here," I said indignantly. "That's private."

"And the police, Lovejoy," said Sir John. "You've
been arrested nineteen times. The murder charges we needn't detail, since you
were never convicted."

We all thought a bit, but Ledger had admitted I was momentarily in
the clear. My confidence resurged. "Stuff the police."

"I will deduct the amount, with compound interest at two
percent over the bank rate, from you salary."

Salary? I cheered up. Sykie's mark, definitely. "It's a
deal," I said. "And in return I won't tell you which of your antiques
here is phony. What's the job?" I maneuvered past Winstanley in as few
strides as possible. That lovely carpet. And now this exquisite farthingale
chair, taking the wind out of my sails. Find a simple chair with boxlike struts
and a slightly raked back, chamfered square legs, and tapestry of blinding
sweetness, and you've made your first fortune. They did lovely oak work in
1620. Of course, chairs were only for gentry. . . .

"Eh?" I said, touching the tapestry reverently to feel
that chime thrill through my middle. I looked up to find Sir John in a towering
rage.

"Did you say phony?" He whispered the word through ashen
lips.

"Dud. Forged. Faked. Reproduction. naughty."

"Impossible, sir," Winstanley added.

"Look," I said. "This job."

"Sit down, Lovejoy." Both Sir John's hands were
fibrillating now, tap-dancing spiders. "Out, Winstanley."

A waft and the serf was gone. My new boss's gaze was a rapier,
flicking around me before inflicting the wound. He'd got what he wanted, hired
a defenseless adversary, an armless sparring partner.

"All right. Sir John," I said. "So we hate each
other. I'm poor. You're not. You've gone to a lot of trouble to find me. So you
need what I can do. What is it?"

He nodded, that curt head-jerk of the boxer at the opening bell.
Part of the wall behind him slid away, would you believe the slice with a
Gainsborough landscape, black and white chalk and a gray wash. I already hated
him. Moving wall indeed. The revealed space glowed.

A map of Suffolk appeared on the screen. A click, a whine, and it
enlarged. I recognized the ordnance survey, saw the rim of Dogpits Farm, Manor
Farm adjoining, and Roman Brook, St.
Botolph's
little
river line, the woods, the
Blackwater
estuary, the
red A134 road running to St. Edmundsbury. Naturally, my eyes were drawn to
where my cottage stood.

"Recognize anything, Lovejoy?" Camforth asked quietly.

There was a small red dot in one space, the sort galleries put on
paintings that have been sold. It should have been a cross, because it was
where George Prentiss had died. For the first time it all came together. I knew
what Sykie was playing at, and whose side I was on.

"No," I said innocently. "Should I?"

7

Later I was sitting on a less august piece of furniture—a plank
bench in the spit-and-sawdust Ship Tavern on East Hill. It's not bad as pubs
go. Like, there are worse
sinbins
, but not many. On
auction days you'll find most of the town's antique dealers in for their lunch
hour, which extends from 11:20 a.m. to chuck-out time at three. Tinker was on
his fifth pint. The gelt I'd received from Sykie stretched to render Tinker
semicomatose
on Greene King ale, his staple diet.

"Gawd, I'm glad
ter
see yer,
Lovejoy," he croaked, climbing back on the bench and mopping his streaming
old eyes. He'd just had a beautiful racking cough that had shaken him off the
form. Just in time I held up a warning finger. He spat phlegm politely into a
finished tankard, froth. I looked away, queasy. He gave a
rugose
grin. "thought Sykes had done for you, mate."

"Oh, that. His lads did me over a bit."

"We got a few jobs on, Lovejoy?"

"One in particular."

"For Sykes?" Tinker swigged his ale, eyes trundling in
nervous
nystagmus
through the glass. He's scared of
big rollers like Sykes. Irritably I shoved him a bigger note.

"Tell her to keep them coming."

He obeyed, shoving his way through the
fug
and mob. Absently I watched his shabby form. He had a lot to do, now I'd taken
Sir John's metaphorical shilling (he'd given me nowt). A barker's main asset is
that he is a lowlife—and nobody lower than Tinker, who kips in church porches,
dosshouses. He can go where even impoverished antique dealers—me—fear to tread.

"Lovejoy." Big Frank from Suffolk arrived, soulful and
lorn
. It's all an act with him. You're supposed to feel a
wave of sympathy and give him antique silver to cheer him up. Margaret Dainty
was with him: plump, honest, loving. She loves me, but with a kind of cunning
mistrust that does our relationship no harm at all.

"A delegation, eh?"

"About Raymond," Big Frank said.

"Who? Oh, aye." Our hopeless hero of the dud con trick.
"Leave it to me," I said calmly, smiling. "It's all in
hand."

"You sure, Lovejoy?" Margaret sounds mellifluous.

"I'll have Raymond sorted out by eleven tomorrow."
Nothing reassures people like a number uttered with conviction. Statisticians
live on that deception. "You can take over Raymond's aftercare," I
offered, which caused them to vanish back into the swirling carcinogenic fug. I
shelved the problem of Raymond, silly burke, and started to think.

Swiftly I ran over Sir John's account. What would be safe to tell
Tinker? Allies are all right until the question of trust arises. From there
you're on your own. This job needed caution. Poor George Prentiss had learned
that. Of course he'd been killed, but the word "kill" says very
little. Manslaughter by a bull? Execution? Accidental death?

Which raises the question of Roman bronze.

"No," I'd said innocently at Sir John's map.
"Should I?"

"You fail to recognize where you live, Lovejoy?"

"All right." I was offhand, the
superdeceiver
.
"So it's a map of the Eastern Hundreds. Modem," I added nastily.
"A quid from the
Hythe
paper shop. Next
problem?"

"Next problem? rumors, Lovejoy." He put his hands
together in a child's pat-a-cake. "Of ancient bronze figures."

"Oh, aye." Remembering Ben Cox, I didn't know whether to
laugh or yawn. "Any in particular?"

His chair swiveled with that grating noise made by all electronics
from videos to dishwashers. An arrow light pointed on the glowing map.
"Site?" he said.

"Colchester Castle."

The arrow flew, alighted on a luminescent estuary.
"Site?"

"Sutton Hoo, the Viking burial ship."

The arrow tipped that ominous red dot. "Site?"

"Nowhere?"

He touched secret controls. The screen departed as the
Gainsborough slid back like a benevolence. I couldn't help wondering what this
bloke had been like as a child. He looked like he'd terrified his way to the
top.

"You are a crook, Lovejoy. Probably a killer. There isn't an
antique dealer in the Eastern Hundreds who doesn't know of you. You sponge
off" women. You're filthy—"