too. Calm but feeling alive again now, I gently worked my way back to a proper behavior.
Six whole weeks after I'd gone up to Maltan Lees and met Watson I was well again.
Not that I was yet in the full circle of my usual life. I kept out of friends' way, didn't phone any of them, and only spoke when I was directly addressed if ever I ran into anyone I knew. Business picked up from nil, and a trickle of post came again. The phone calls started. It was a pleasure to be active and doing something useful, but I had to keep myself from regretting the lost opportunities during my holiday. There'd been an undeniable upsurge of deals in the antiques world during the previous weeks. I just had to accept that I'd done my business no good by chasing all over England looking for a needle in a haystack.
Finally, when I was really well and having to restrain myself hourly, I shook out the reins of my mind and took off.
I rang Field. He was very relieved.
'I'm sorry about your illness. What was it?'
'Oh, you know,' I parried, 'some virus I expect.'
'Terrible, terrible things, those.' After passing on some amateur therapy he told me of the replies to the advertisement.
'Were there many?'
'You've no idea!' He drew breath. 'The wife nearly went off me. A mountain of letters, some really rather odd. I'd no idea people could be so extraordinary.'
'Are they mostly cranks?'
'Some, but some I would say are worth your attention. You'd better come and have a look.'
'I shall.'
We fixed a time and I rang off. Feeling strong, I rang Tinker Dill at the White Hart.
'Tinker? Lovejoy,' I greeted him. 'What's new?'
'Christ!' he exclaimed in the background hubbub from the bar. 'Am I glad to hear you!'
'I want ten buyers tomorrow, first thing.' It was the best joke I could manage, feeling so embarrassed at his pleasure.
'Will do,' he replied cheerfully. 'I heard you was about again. O.K.?'
'Not bad, ta.'
'When you coming into town again?'
'Oh, maybe tomorrow. I think I'll come into the arcade.' I wasn't too keen on going, but I could always ring later and postpone it if I wanted.
'Everybody asks about you.' I'll bet, I thought.
'Much stuff around?'
'Some,' he said with sorrow in his voice. 'You've missed quite a bit of rubbish, but there's been some interesting stock whizzing about.'
'Ah, well.'
'Tough, really, Lovejoy. A set of fairings went for nothing last week…' He resumed his job, pouring out details of everything important he could think of. It sounded lovely and I relished every word, stopping him only when his voice was becoming hoarse.
'Thanks, Tinker. Probably see you tomorrow, then.'
'Right, Lovejoy. See you.'
It was enough excitement for one day. I drew the curtains and gathered an armful of the sale lists that had arrived while I was ill. There was a lot of catching up to do.
As I read and lolled, lists began forming in my mind, of faces and where I'd seen them. I don't mean I stopped work, just studied on and let faces come as they wished. Tinker Dill seemed everywhere I'd ever been, practically, since the Judas pair business began. And Jane. And Adrian. Dandy Jack. And Watson, of course. And, oddly, the Reverend Lagrange, which for somebody who lived many miles north in darkest East Anglia was rather enterprising. But he said he went to Muriel Field's house, being such a close family friend and all that. Did priests get time off? Maybe he'd struck a patch of movable feasts and it was all coincidence. And then there was Margaret, Brad, Dick Barton who'd sold me the Mortimers. Plus a few incidental faces who appeared less frequently, so you barely noticed them at all.
But that's what murderers are supposed to be good at, isn't it?
That same afternoon I had a cup of tea ready for the post girl, a pleasant tubby lass who worked the village with her brother. He kept a smallholding and sold plants from a stall on the London road bypass.
'I brewed up, Rose. Come in.'
'Whatever do you do with all these magazines, Lovejoy?' She propped her bicycle against the door and brought a handful of catalogues and two letters. She was a plain girl, long-haired and young. They seem so active these days and full of talk. 'I've just had a terrible row with the Brownlows. Oh, you should have heard them going on at me! As if I have anything to do with how much stamps cost.' She sank onto the divan thankfully.
'Been busy?' I knew she had two spoonfuls of sugar.
'Don't ask!' She grinned.
'What time do you start your round?'
'Five, but then there's the sorting.'
