'I'll let you have a few pair he can choose from.'
I grinned at the joke. 'I'm hardly flush,' I said. 'That's why I was around Dandy's, on the prod. He said you might have word of a pair. Have to be mint.'
He looked up from replacing the Adams in its case. 'I'm in the Midlands next Monday. I'm onto five pieces, but they might turn out relics.'
I whistled. Five possible miracles. A relic is any antique defaced and worn beyond virtual recognition, but you never think of that. The desire for the wonderment of a sensational discovery is always your first hope. Some people say it's ridiculous to hope that way, but doesn't everyone in one way or another? A man always hopes to meet a luscious, seductive woman; a woman always hopes to meet a handsome, passionate man. They don't go around hoping for less, do they? We dealers are just more specialized.
'Keep me in mind,' I said, swallowing. 'The cash is there.'
'Where exactly?' he rejoined smoothly, and we laughed.
We chatted a bit more, then I throbbed away in my fiery racer. I made a holiday maker curse by swinging out into the main road without stopping, but my asthmatic old scrap heap just can't start on a hill, whereas his brand- new Austin can start any time, even after an emergency stop. People ought to learn they have obligations.
Muriel's house turned out to be my sort of house. Set back from the road, not because it never quite made it like my cottage, but from an obvious snooty choice not to mob with the hoi polloi. I imagined banisters gleaming with dark satin-brown depths, candelabras glittering on mahogany tables long as football fields, and dusty paintings clamoring on the walls. My sort of house, with a frail old widow lady wanting a kindly generous soul like myself to bowl in and help her to sell up. My throat was dry. I eagerly coaxed the banger to a slow turn and it cranked to a standstill, coughing explosively. I knocked with the door's early nineteenth-century insurance company knocker. (They come expensive now, as emblems of a defunct habit of marking houses with these insignia of private fire insurance companies.) It had shiny new screws holding it firmly onto the door, though the thought honestly never crossed my mind. The door opened. The frail old widow lady appeared.
She was timid, hesitant, and not yet thirty.
'Good day,' I said, wishing I was less shabby.
I've never quite made it, the way some men do. I always look shoddy about the feet, my trousers seem less than sharp, my coats go bulbous as soon as they're bought. I have a great shock of hair that won't lie down. I'm really a mess.
'Yes?' She stared from around the door. I could hear somebody else clattering things in the background.
'Look, I'll be frank,' I said, feeling out of my depth. 'My name is Lovejoy. I've called about… about your late husband, Mr. Field.'
'Oh.'
'Er, I'm sorry if it seems inopportune, Mrs. Field…' I paused for a denial, but no. 'I'm an antique collector, and…' Never say dealer except to another dealer.
'I'm sorry, Mr. Lovejoy,' she said, getting a glow of animosity from somewhere. 'I don't discuss—'
'No,' I said, fishing for some good useful lie. 'I'm not after buying anything, please.' The door stayed where it was. I watched it for the first sign of closing. 'It's… it's the matter of Mr. Field's purchases.'
'Purchases?' She went cautious, the way they do. 'Did my husband buy things from you?'
'Well, not exactly.'
'Then what?'
'Well,' I said desperately, 'I don't really know how to put it.'
She eyed me doubtfully for a moment, then pulled back the door. 'Perhaps you should come in.'
In the large hall she stood tall, elegant, the sort of woman who always seems warm. Cissie spent her time hunting drafts to extinction. This woman would be immune. She looked deeply at you, not simply in your direction the way some of them will, and you could tell she was listening and sensing. In addition she had style.
Now, every woman has some style, as far as I'm concerned. They are fetchingly shaped to start with, pleasant to look at, and desirable to, er, encounter, so to speak. And all women have that attraction. Any man that says he can remain celibate for yonks on end is not quite telling the truth. It's physically impossible. What astonishes me is that very few women seem to see this obvious terrifying fact, that we are completely dependent on their favors. Ah, well.
I had no plan of action, trusting simply to my innate instinct for deception and falsehood. Mrs. Field dithered a bit, then asked me into a lounge, where we sank into nasty new leather armchairs. There was a rosewood desk, Eastern, modern, and one tatty cavalry saber on the wall. On the desk I could see a chatelaine which looked like Louis XIV from where I was sitting but I couldn't be sure.
'You mentioned you and my husband were fellow collectors, Mr. Lovejoy.'
A chatelaine is a small (six to eight inches or so) case, often shaped in outline like a rounded crucifix. It opens to show scissors, toothpick, manicure set, and sometimes small pendants for powders and pills, that sort of thing, for people to carry about. Quite desirable, increasing in value—
'Mr. Lovejoy?' she said.
'Eh? Oh, yes. Mr. Field.' I dragged my mind back.
'You mentioned…'
In the better light she was quite striking. Pale hair, pale features, lovely mouth, and stylish arms. She fidgeted with her hands. The whole impression was of somebody lost, certainly not in her own territory.
'Poor Mr. Field,' I hedged. 'I heard of the… accident, but didn't like to call sooner.'
'That was kind of you. It was really the most terrible thing.'
