Druids booing on the other side? History says yes. This old chap Bexon was telling me no.
I gazed at the garden till it was too dark to see.
CHAPTER VI
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NEXT MORNING I shaved before seven. I had some cereal in powdered milk and fed the robin my last bit of cheese. I went to have a word with Manton and Wilkinson, gave them their groundsel.
'Now, Manton,' I demanded as it noshed its greenery sitting on my arm, 'what's all this Roman jazz?'
It wisely said nothing, knowing there was more to come.
'The old man leaves two diaries. But why two?'
Wilkinson flew on me for his share.
'If he was crackers, let's forget it, eh?' They hesitated suspiciously. 'On the other hand, curators may be duckeggs but Popplewell can tell genuine Roman antiques, coins or otherwise. Right?' They closed up along my arm, interested now. 'Bexon's coins being genuine, pals, what can there possibly be, I wonder, stuck in an old lead coffin in some well-remembered spot in the Isle of Man?'
We thought hard.
'And who should benefit better,' I demanded, 'than Lovejoy Antiques, Inc.?'
Wilkinson fluffed out, pleased. Manton looked sceptical.
'Don't be so bloody miserable,' I told Manton angrily, 'just because I haven't the fare to get there. You're always critical.'
I shoved them on to a branch and shut their flight door. Both were looking sceptical now.
'I can get some money,' I snapped. 'Don't you worry. I'll have the sketch and the fare from Dandy. I'll be back. You see.'
By my front door the robin was cackling with fury. He was quite full but battling to keep the sparrows from the cheese he didn't want. Very feminine, robins.
The bus was on time. In my innocence I thought it a good omen.
Dandy Jack's is a typical lock-up, a shop front and two rooms. The clutter held miscellaneous modern tarted up as old, a brass 1890 bedstead (worth more than you'd think, incidentally), pottery, wooden furniture and some ornamentals plus a small gaggle of portabilia in a glass-fronted cabinet.
A few people milled about inside, mostly grockles (dealers' slang: tourists, not necessarily foreign, derogatory) and the odd dealer. Big Frank Wilson from Suffolk was there. He gave me a nod which said, nothing worth a groat. I shrugged. He's a Regency silver by desire, William IV furniture by obligation, and undetected bigamist by the skin of his teeth, as if scratching a quid in the antiques game isn't enough nightmare to be going on with. Jenny from the coast (she's tapestries and Georgian household items) was painstakingly examining a crate of porcelain. She and Harry Bateman were desperately trying to stock up their new shop on East Hill. They'd badly overspent lately to catch the tourist wave, but their stuff was too 'thin' (dealer's slang again: much low quality spiced with only rare desirable items).
I pushed among the driftwood - not being unkind, but I really had seen better antiques on Mersea beach-.
'Hello, Lovejoy.'
'What's new, Dandy?'
'Bloody near everything,' he grinned. I had to laugh. 'Message for you from Bill Fairdale.
He says to call in.'
Bill was from my village, rare manuscripts and antique musical instruments. The only trouble was that his rare illuminated manuscripts are a bit too good to be true. The sheepskin parchments pegged out drying in his garden do very little to restore a buyer's confidence. He's even been known to ask a visitor's help in mixing 'mediaeval' monks'
egg-tempera pigments with an unfinished carpet page of Lindisfarne design in clear view, only to offer the same visitor the completed 'antique' next day. He's very forgetful.
'Has his handwriting improved any?'
Dandy Jack fell about at my merry quip. Once, Bill actually acquired a genuine love-letter from Horatio to his dearest Emma Hamilton. Nobody else dared believe Bill. I bought it for a song. That's the danger of forging too much and not doing it well enough. A happy memory.
'He's got something right up your street.'
It was probably that bone flute, cased, sold in Bury the previous week. I'd heard Bill had gone up. Potter, the great old London maker, if Tinker was right. Very desirable. I said nothing, nodding that I'd pop in.
'I want a favour, Dandy. A certain sketch.'
His eyes gleamed. 'Come back here.' We withdrew into his inner sanctum. He offered to brew up but my stomach turned. That left him free to slosh out a gill of gin. Dandy was permanently kaylied. He perched on a stool opposite his crammed sink, shoddy and cheerful, a very rum mixture. Where I think in terms of mark-up, Dandy thinks booze.
I've never seen him sober in n years, where n is a very large finite integer. He has a good eye, sadly wasted. For some reason he believes there's no way of actually learning of the beautiful objects we handle, but then you don't get libraries in pubs.
'An old chap called Bexon. You got his stuff at Gimbert's auction.'
'Your young lady spoke to me yesterday. I gave her the box.'
