'Mr. Field.' I cleared my throat. 'Do you mean to say that now, when you're comfortably settled and solvent at last, you'll chuck it all up and start working and paying all over again, just to—?'
'Don't say it, Lovejoy,' he said gently. 'Of course I would. And don't go looking at Eric's wealth for a reason, either. That just doesn't come into it. I approached you because somebody did Eric wrong. It shouldn't be allowed. It's wrong. It always was. Even these days, robbery and killing is still wrong.'
I mumbled something I hoped sounded humble.
'You see, Lovejoy,' he finished, 'if you take away people, there's nothing else left, is there?'
I drove away. Ever feel you're beginning to lose your faith in human nature?
There was something wrong with the cottage. You get feelings like that even though there's nothing in particular you can detect consciously. I hadn't switched the alarm on that morning because I had planned only to run Sheila to the station, pop back to the cottage to collect my Adams revolving percussion gun, then drive to Dick Barton's boatshed and complete the deal, all this before going to George Field's. If Sheila hadn't been so knowledgeable about the car I'd have been back in time to prevent the robbery, for robbery it was. You can smell it.
Naturally I'd been done over before. Show me the antique dealer who hasn't. It's a hazard of the trade. Like injuries in motorcar racing, it comes with the job. Hence my usually meticulous concern for security. And the bloody alarm which had cost me the earth wasn't even switched on. Serves me right, I was thinking as I prowled about to make sure he'd gone. The place wasn't a complete shambles, but had suffered. Somebody in a hurry, obviously.
There were a couple of letters addressed to Sheila care of me on the doormat, so the post girl had called on time. Maybe her arrival had scared him off, I hoped, as nothing seemed out of place at first. The carpet hadn't been disturbed over my clever little priest hole, thank heavens, but I realized pretty quickly that my walnut-cased so- called carriage clock had gone.
I gave vent to every expletive I'd ever learned, ranting and fuming. I'd got the clock for a quid from a starving old widow —one of my kinder moments this, because if I'd been true to myself I'd have beaten her down to a few pence. The sheer effrontery of somebody having the gall to come in, finger anything of mine he wanted, then take a rare priceless antique was sickening. Literally, I felt physically sick. I phoned our ever-vigilant constable Geoffrey, who was mercifully in, probably still having his morning nap. He was ever so sympathetic.
'When you've stopped laughing,' I snarled, 'get my clock back.'
'Estimate of value, please, Lovejoy.'
'Six hundred,' I said firmly. He was silent for once.
'Did— Did you say—?' And he laughed again, louder this time.
'Well, maybe three hundred.'
'You mean about eighty.'
'Ninety.'
'As a friend, Lovejoy,' he said sadly, 'I can only make it eighty-five.'
'But that's robbery.'
He agreed. 'You can argue it out with the insurance people, Lovejoy,' he said. 'Incidentally, how'd he get in?'
'I'll look. Hang on.'
There was a cut around the window near its catch. The window looked right down the back garden and could be reached by anyone standing on the grass, which grows right up to the cottage. I told Geoffrey and he said it was typical, but how about my alarm system connected at great expense to a noisy little flashing light in his office? I explained I'd been in a rush that morning.
'Thanks, Lovejoy,' he said cynically. 'We love a bit of help from the public.'
'Are you going to come and look for clues or aren't you?' I snapped and crashed the receiver.
I made some tea while I waited. Apart from scratches on the windowsill there was nothing. I moved about straightening things. The trouble is that you know where to look for antiques. Guns must be locked in an enclosed space, says the Firearms Act; porcelain will be in a fastened case; portabilia locked in a safe or drawer. He knew his stuff. Whoever had done this was neat, slick, and an opportunist dedicated to walnut carriage clocks. Now, two things worried me far more than the loss of the clock. One was that Geoffrey's guess about the clock's value wasn't too far out, which was important, because nobody robs for very little. The second thing stared back at me from the opposite wall as I lounged on the divan swilling tea. It was my Chien Lung plate, a lovely disk of hand-painted light pastel colors stenciled by a neat blue running-edge design. It stood in prominence 6n my desk on a three-leaved ebony hinge support of the sort the Chinese do so cleverly. Neither plate nor clock was unique, but of the two the plate was infinitely—well, ten times—more desirable in anybody's book, as well as being more valuable. So why pass it up?
That left two possibilities. Either my burglar was well informed enough to know that I had a carriage clock to suit him, or he hadn't come for the carriage clock at all. Which raised the question, Why take it if he didn't want it? Answer: To cause his intrusion to be written off as a simple uncomplicated robbery by a burglar who happened to have a casual eye for antiques.
It was starting to look as though I'd established contact with the owner of a very special pair of flinters.
The rest of the day's happenings I don't really want to talk about.
Geoffrey came on his bicycle and took notes. He examined the earth outside, searched patiently for heaven knows what sort of clues, and later went around the village asking who'd noticed what and when, with conspicuous failure. Left to my own devices, I retrieved my Adams from the priest hole before driving to Barton's on the estuary and settling with him for too much in part exchange, and bringing the cased Mortimers back home to gloat over despite the fact that I'd have to pay out to settle it before the month ended. I had my usual supper bought from the Bungalow Shop in the village, read a lot, and went to bed not knowing that by then Sheila was dead.
She had got on the London train, and apparently went home before reporting to work that same day. It was on the way home that evening that she was said to have stumbled and fallen beneath the wheels of an oncoming
