Firefly Gadroon

by Jonathan Gash

  Chapter 13

  There was no question where I’d sell my precious Bible box to some undeserving swine. Once a week there’s a gathering of antique dealers called Ye Olde Antiques Fayre in the Red Lion. The only antique you can be sure of, though, is the Red Lion itself, this being well documented since the Romans first brewed up on the site. I was sad to be harnessing Germoline up that morning, but I had other reasons for going.

  I had to create a disturbance, to draw Devvo out, now Devlin and I both knew the game. And I was eager to see which dealer Maud had in tow, as she worked her way through us, so to speak, in her blundering attempts to unravel the mystery her old uncle had left. My Bible box went easily into an old pillowcase. No sign of rain. I asked Germoline to gee up please and we hit the road. At the chapel crossroads our bobbie George Jilks was nodding off, vigilant as ever on the chapel bench. I woke him after asking Germoline politely to hold it a second.

  ‘Sorry, George.’ I gave him a moment to splutter awake. ‘But supposing I knew who killed somebody?’

  ‘Eh?’ His eyes cleared, focused. ‘What the hell you up to, Lovejoy?’

  I gave up. No use explaining to a nerk like George. ‘Tell Maslow from me that Devlin killed Drummer. Cheers.’

  I invited Germoline to proceed, George trotting after us frantically trying to scribble in his notebook. As if he can write.

  ‘Maslow knows where, when and how, George,’ was all I would say. Just tell him.’

  He dashed in to phone as we passed his house. I was glad. I felt conspicuous enough driving a donkey cart without having the Keystone Kops making matters worse.

  I whistled all the way to town. My personal disturbance was nicely under way.

  Town was agog, or what passes for agog in dozy East Anglia. Lots of cars and folk, a small autumn fair in the park and a shirt-sleeved band parping away. The flea-market was in the coaching yard. Margaret blew a kiss, looking unhappily frozen in about six coats as I arrived to a chorus of catcalls. Helen gave me a distant nod. Wrong again. Oh, well. Patrick yoohooed. Lily had forked out for the best patch in the yard for him, facing the main gateway. Lucky old Patrick.

  ‘Don’t bring that beast in here, Lovejoy,’ he screamed, doing a theatrical swoon.

  ‘Get stuffed. Whoa, please.’

  Eddie Trasker came over sheepishly as I climbed down. ‘Stall money, mate.’

  ‘Don’t want one, Eddie. This cart’s my stall.’

  ‘Er . . .’ Eddie’s quite good on late Georgian furniture but weak on donkey parking law. He’s a jaunty chequer-suited extrovert everybody likes, so he gets all the rotten jobs like collecting dues.

  I turned Germoline round but secretly I was worried about the cart. How do you keep it still? Germoline has no brakes. ‘Stay!’ I ordered. ‘Please.’ A good fifty customers were in among the twenty or so antique stalls. Don Musgrave and Margaret were already wrapping stuff for happy customers and Jason had sold a good walnut Canterbury to a bloke who was wreaking havoc backing his car to load up.

  Tinker hove in, tattered and bloodshot, instantly all over the Bible box.

  ‘Restored it, Lovejoy? How much we asking?’

  ‘Don’t breathe on it,’ I cracked. ‘You’ll strip it again with that breath.’ Tinker received the price I quoted for him without surprise and drifted off to put the whisper round.

  Within ten minutes I’d sold the box to Jason for a really good mark-up, though not without a pang of genuine grief. He took it off reverently in its protective pillowcase. I gave Tinker his back commission, which made him thirsty and reminded him it was opening time. I could see the nondescript figure of Lemuel feverishly beckoning this news from the pub window.

  I shrugged. ‘All right, you can go. But find me a set of personal cruets, Tinker. Eighteen-thirties.’ This always happens, money burning my pocket when it’s earmarked for other purposes.

  ‘Eh? What’s a personal cruet?’

  ‘Noshing wasn’t always sharing the same sauce bottle like in Woody’s,’ I told him caustically. Once upon a time, elegance dictated that guests should be given individual silver pepper and salt-cellars at dinner. I’ve always wanted a cased set.’

  He grinned farewell and was off like a ferret. By nightfall the job would be done, deserving a tipsy celebration in the White Hart. A hand tapped my shoulder. Honestly, I was actually smiling as I turned. Here we go, I thought cheerfully. Personal disturbance Part Two. I’m always at my best when hate shows the way.

  ‘Morning, Inspector,’ I beamed. ‘Isn’t shopping hell?’

  ‘In there, Lovejoy.’ He hadn’t brought an army, which was a pity. I wanted spectators, mayhem, blood all round the frigging town. The mob of dealers and customers thronged to a standstill.

  ‘No,’ I said, being poisonously cheerful. When you’re being pushed about by the Old Bill happiness is big medicine.

  ‘You passed on a message—’

  ‘Pigeon reached you, did it?’ At least three customers were still focused on Margaret’s early Stonebridge ware. I yelled, ‘Pay attention, everybody.’

  Maslow started sweating, conscious that the good old public was all ears and him not exactly bobby-dazzling. He went for pomp, silly fool. ‘Conduct liable to cause a breach of the peace—’

  I boomed heartily, ‘Devlin killed Drummer. That’s k-i-double-l-e-d. I warned you before it happened. Where and when. So like I mean, sod off.’

  Nearby the band played erratically on. Cars and noise filled the High Street. But inside the coachyard you could have sliced the appalled silence with a blunt shovel. I leaned forward to him confidentially. The crowd leaned with me, breathless to catch the next bit.

  ‘I could sell you a lovely Georgian pendant, a bargain—’

  He went then, pushed through the frozen mob.

  I bawled after him, ‘I’ll not let you forget, Maslow. I’ve posted the details to the Chief Constable—’ No good. He vanished among the shoppers across the street. Margaret came by me apprehensively but I was grinning like a fiend.

  ‘What on earth, Lovejoy?’

  ‘It’s my new image.’ I felt on top of the world – money in my pocket, antiques nearby and vengeance at hand.

  ‘You’ll get yourself arrested, Lovejoy,’ Jason prophesied. Jenny Bateman ruefully shook a warning finger. All this made me notice the silver eggcase Jason was busily over-pricing on his stall. Staring intently at it with my Bible box money corroding my jacket made me notice the early seventeenth-century stumpwork box next to it. Which made me spot a dazzling Queen Anne babywalker – basically a walnut wood ring, just big enough for a toddler’s waist, held between four finialled wooden balls separated by brilliantly turned ‘stretchers’ or rods. Which made me notice, sweating with excitement, a pile of old theatrical playbills. These currently average no more than half a day’s wages, and they’re rocketing. Feeling great, I paused for a fatal second. It’d do no harm just to look . . .

  Of course I should have first collared Brad about hiring a boat, or phoned Joe Poges at Barncaster Staithe, or maybe the glamorous Doc Meakin – she had a million nautical patients and was bound to have some idea. Instead I finished up an hour later with the stumpwork box – it’s a kind of embroidery in which ornamented scenes are fetched out in relief. You get religious scenes, pastoral motifs or moral exhortations on jewellery boxes or vanity purses. Sequins, pearls and occasionally coloured glass beads are worked into the design which, I warn you, isn’t to everybody’s taste. But the value of stumpwork has soared because three centuries ago women couldn’t resist showing little scenes of domestic and other worthwhile labour.

  I’m making excuses. All right. I bought it from Jason for about half its value. And the collection of old theatre playbills. And gave Jenny Bateman a deposit on a carved beechwood chair of the Great Civil War period, the first time cane-bottomed chairs made sitting almost comfortable. I got it for half its true value. (A tip, learned the hard way: never forget that the ‘true’ value is what you can sell something for
the same day you buy it.)

  But it wasn’t all self-indulgence. During those two hours I collected gossip about thirty-one antiques nicked in the past three months, about half from my mates. Naturally only the honest dealers had reported the thefts, which meant Margaret – no antique dealer welcomes investigations round his doorstep. Taxmen have long ears. I was impressed by Devvo’s industry. No wonder he was our most regular attender at local auctions. How else could he gather reliable information about who had what? It was then I had my one stroke of luck.

  A raucous shout made me turn with interest. Mannie, large as life. He is a youth who showed up two years ago as a tourist – a real one – off a coach. He took one look at our antiques arcade and bade a delighted farewell to his astonished coach party. Tell Mum not to cry and everything. He stayed and became one of us. I pushed my way through to where he lounged with this long-case clock.

  ‘For you, Lovejoy,’ he greeted me straight off, ‘ten per cent discount.’

  Mannie has two styles of dress – the new straggly filth look, or a multicoloured caftan thing with bells and a striped pointed cap. Never anything on his feet. It looked like the Dalai Llama had hit town.

  ‘You’ll catch your death, Mannie.’

  ‘I’ve not mucked about with the white face, Lovejoy,’ Mannie said earnestly. ‘Notice it?’

  ‘Good heavens!’ My pretence was a bit theatrical because nobody in their right mind can miss a genuine white-faced long-caser. Especially Mannie. He was half asleep. ‘Go back to bed, Mannie. You’re knackered.’

  He gave a rueful grin. ‘Daren’t. Left this bird there. I had to fight my way to the door.’ He plucked me closer while I examined his clock. ‘Here. Know anything about Japanese boxes?’ He fumbled in his clothes to a jingle of prayer bells, smoothed the crumpled paper he somehow managed to find. A crude outline sketch of a firefly cage on ordinary notepaper. So Maud had found time for something else during the night besides romping with Mannie.

  ‘Search me.’ I hardly glanced at it, ducking the mystery for the moment. The clock was dazzling me anyway.

  Nowadays ‘grandfather’ (properly called long-case) clocks have become something rather special. Twenty years ago they were a space problem, a polishing problem, a servicing difficulty and a plague to keep looking just right. You couldn’t give them away. I remember as a lad seeing our auctioneer begging anybody to take two pianos and a derelict long-caser for half a crown. Nowadays everybody’s crazy for them, and they cost you the earth.

  ‘No good, Mannie,’ I lied. ‘No gold tracery decoration.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, does it?’

  Long-case clocks are a whole new area of ignorance. If you see a dial embellished with gold tracery you’re on to a rare pre-1800 model, such as Thomas Crawshaw made in Rotherham about 1792. The actual dials were subcontracted out, mostly to Birmingham craftsmen of the calibre of Osbourne or Byrne. Mannie’s antique was brilliant, a genuine Samuel Deacon masterpiece. Sam was a merry soul from Barton in Leicestershire who bought his dials from James Wilson, again a Birmingham dialler and who was Osbourne’s partner until they had words in 1777. Wilson became a front runner in the fashion of japanning. Remember that the name you see displayed on the dial is the clockmaker’s, not the dialler’s. It’s important – a dial from a prominent dialler makes a wrecked long-case clock worth twice as much as even the best superbly preserved specimen. Always look behind for the iron ‘falseplate’ on the dial’s back. The dialler’s name is often engraved there.

  ‘Sorry, Mannie. I need a brassfacer.’

  ‘Never seen one, Lovejoy.’

  The first long-case clocks before 1770 had brass faces. Some modern fakers even get the silvered engraving right, so watch out. The white dial fashion is what people want nowadays, though. Don’t make the mistake Margaret did. She once turned down a ‘porcelain china’ dial clock because the dial was neither porcelain nor china. Those terms were only descriptive – the process is a kind of so-called ‘japanning’, stove-hardening of repeated layers of paint (usually white) applied to iron sheeting. Word is that Osbourne and Wilson were the first-ever dial makers to do it. I have my doubts, though they claimed this to their dying day.

  Mannie had dozed off in all this excitement, people all round grinning at him. I kicked him awake and we fixed a price. With the long-case loaded on Germoline’s cart, I gave him what I had left for deposit and promised the rest of the money by the weekend, may heaven forgive honest liars. Helen found me an old car blanket.

  I had a sudden thought. ‘Here, Mannie. That Japanese box . . .’

  He grinned sheepishly. ‘Just a bird who wants to see one. I don’t suppose there’d be much in it. Anyway,’ he dismissed the matter, ‘she said it has to be before Sunday.’

  I was hitching Germoline when Brad drifted over and showed me the price of hiring a boat. His relative Terry had written it down. ‘Eh?’ I’d never seen so many noughts. ‘For a bloody battleship maybe—’

  He got narked. ‘Look, Lovejoy. I passed Patrick’s message to my brother. He’s quoted a reasonable price . . .’

  I reeled off, broken, realizing my stupidity. I now hadn’t enough money left for an hour’s hire, let alone the three days I’d need to search the sea fort. I’d finished up with antiques but no money. Therefore no boat and no chance of one.

  And Mannie had said before Sunday.

  I felt ill but kept my air of bright friendliness up almost to the bottom of North Hill. There I had to stop and have a shaky half-pint in the Sun yard. I’d have had a whole one but Germoline scraped her hoof, so I had to stand like a fool while she slurped the rest.

  Sometimes I despise myself. Germoline’s stony stare tipped me off why she was mad at me. ‘I couldn’t help it.’ I muttered it under my breath so people wouldn’t think I’d gone loony talking to a donkey. ‘I didn’t know how much a neffie boat costs, did I?’

  She said nothing back but I felt the reproachful vibes.

  ‘I’ll get a boat,’ I said in her ear. ‘Just you see.’

  Secretly, though, I was glad. No boat meant no terrifying gun platform out on a lonely sea. All right, so it meant Devlin would get away with murdering Drummer. All right. But why has it always to be good old Lovejoy doing the risky necessary? What the hell’s the bloody Old Bill for? They cost enough. Let Maslow do it. I beamed all this psychic logic into Germoline’s head but only got accusations of cowardice psyched back.

  It was in this happy situation that Maud joined us, arriving in a pink sports Lotus. A mile of engine soldered to a hutch.

  ‘Lift, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Not you again, Maudie.’

  She smiled up from her reclining position, looking ready for blast-off. Earrings, cleavage, I got the whole treatment. I’d never seen so much thigh, and she’d made no move to get out. Why are fast cars only knee-high?

  ‘It’s you and me, Lovejoy,’ she said calmly. ‘We both know it. Don’t bugger about.’

  The engine went thrum, thrum. I knew how it felt.

  ‘And your pal Devvo?’

  ‘He’s playing it too close.’ She was delighted at the obvious effect her presence was having on me. ‘I know Uncle Bill’s cage was some sort of clue. To a fortune. I think you know how it links with Devlin’s deal. The point is, we’ve not much time left.’

  I didn’t let on I’d learned about the deadline from Mannie. ‘I do?’ All innocent.

  ‘You’re the only one, Lovejoy!’ Her tongue raked her mouth, wet her lips. Trying to look away didn’t help. ‘You’re crazy for me, Lovejoy, and I want you. Admit it. Between us we’d clean up.’ Her face was lovely in that instant, a revelation. ‘Not a one-night stand, Lovejoy. I want you for good. Ten minutes of me and you’ll never look at another woman.’

  ‘First things first, Maudie.’

  If she’d been anyone else I’d have thought her look full of compassion. ‘What is first with you, Lovejoy? That fat geriatric mare Dolly?’

  ‘Antiques, as always.’ />
  ‘You’re wrong, honey.’ She revved her engine. ‘It’s hate. You’ll not rest till you’ve killed somebody.’ Her car slid into a slow reverse and her pretty head tilted. ‘My offer refused?’

  ‘What else?’ What did she expect? It had felt like a tax demand.

  She smiled brilliantly. ‘We’ll see.’

  I climbed angrily into the cart, nodding to Harry Bateman who was just pulling in for a feebly earned whisky. It was Harry’s chance remark that put me back in Germoline’s favour – and back on the warpath, through no fault of my own.

  ‘You ploughed that profit quick enough, Lovejoy,’ he called.

  Ploughed? I asked Germoline to cool it a second. A pause. I gazed about and saw Liz Sandwell arrive, chatting Mel Young up about his watercolours. He’s English watercolours, and currently had one by Edward Dayes, who taught the immortal Girtin. She was doing what we are all doing these days: going after the early lesser-known watercolourists. While they’re still seriously underpriced you can still make a killing – I mean a fortune, of course.

  Harry and Mel zoomed past into the taproom when I collared Liz. ‘Your village show this Saturday. Going?’

  ‘Hello, Lovejoy. Yes, all of us turn up.’ She gauged me coolly. ‘Thinking of setting up a stall?’

  ‘The ploughing competition. A friend,’ I lied brightly. ‘He wants to enter. Is there a prize?’

  She laughed. ‘Tell him not to bother. A handsome blacksmith wins them all.’

  ‘What’s the prize?’ I asked casually.

  ‘A new car,’ Liz said. ‘Wish your friend luck.’

  I nearly fell off the cart but clung on as Germoline trundled us out into the stream of traffic.

  A whole motor-car, I marvelled. For driving a grotty tractor up and down a field a few times? A gift. A new car. I ask you. Well, I can drive a tractor. Drive it straight and you’ve won. Get your furrows parallel – bingo!

  ‘Hear that?’ I chirped at Germoline as we went. ‘I’ll win the valuable new motor Saturday morning – boat hire Saturday afternoon. Wealth and justice Saturday evening!’