The Judas Pair

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.

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.