“Show-business time, Michelle,” I said. “Start.”
“Start what? How?” She was lost.
“We pretend to drive to Wick, but finish up in the opposite direction.”
“But, Ian,” she said uncertainly.
“Sod Ian,” I told her. “My nickname’s Lovejoy. Ready, steady, go.”
« ^ »
—— 20 ——
The laird’s car was familiar. I’d last seen it on a foggy night a wagoner had died. I said nothing. It was a Mawdslay 17 h.p., which collectors call The Sweet Seventeen.
We drove beside Dubneath Water, my least favorite river, to gain the coast road north from Dubneath towards Clyth Ness. Using the lowering mass of Ben Cheilt for guide, we forked left and made the inn at Achavanich with the huge old motor clattering away. It seemed glad to be out for a run. Certainly it hadn’t seemed to notice the road’s pitch, and took steep hills with hardly a change of note. I phoned from the inn, and got Tinker at Margaret’s nook in the Arcade.
Margaret was relieved. “Oh, thank goodness you’ve phoned, Lovejoy. It’s practically civil war here. The Eastern Hundreds are a madhouse. Everybody wants to know percentages—”
“Don’t we all?” I said with feeling. “Put Tinker on.” I covered the mouthpiece and told Michelle, poised with the inn’s notepaper, “List what I say.”
Tinker’s cough vibrated Caithness. “Wotcher, Lovejoy. Gawd, you started summink, mate—”
“Shut it. Get Tubby Turner, that pawnbroker. I’ll accept maybe three dozen items well over the pawn limit as long as they’re in period. Plus a hundred separates under limit, and half a dozen baskets.”
“Gawd, Tubby’ll go mental. You know what he’s like.” His cough bubbled and croaked.
Michelle had stopped writing. “But you said that there’s a legal limit to what pawnbrokers—”
My digit raised in warning. She wrote.
“Listen, Tinker. Tell Alan the printer that he’s had four hundred sale catalogs nicked.”
“Whose?”
“Catalogs for this sale. Now give me names, Tinker.”
“Right, Lovejoy. Helen wants in. She says you owe her.”
Only I knew how much. Plus there was the money side. She’d have to come in. Why is it women are born with so many advantages in life? Nothing to do all day, and all known privileges. “Right-oh. Helen in.”
“Them two pouffs. Sandy or Mel.”
“Or Mel? Not both?” The exotic couple had never parted since they’d become, in Sandy’s gushy phrase, a real Darby and Joan. Tinker hates them. They’re fast, aggressive antique dealers, though, and that’s what I needed.
“They had a scrap over some menu.”
How can you fight over a menu? “All right. Sandy or Mel.”
“Next’s Big Frank from Suffolk.”
That meant I could safely forget Regency and William IV silverware, thank God. It can be a nightmare. If only the Yanks had worked out a proper five-character hallmarking system…
“Is he out of trouble, Tinker?”
“Him? Some hopes. His second ex-wife’s come.” Bad news for the latest wife, currently seventh, because his bigamies started with Number Two. But that meant he’d accept a lower percentage. “Big Frank in.”
“Sven.”
“Not Sven.” His stuff’s always got a leg missing.
“Margaret, Lovejoy?” Tinker knows about me and Margaret.
“Margaret in. She’ll reff. Next?”
“Liz Sandwell from Dragonsdale?”
“In, but not with Harry Bateman.” Tinker cackled. There’d been sordid rumors.
“Then Hymie. Says you owes him, that pearl scam…”
“How come I owe everybody when it’s me that’s bloody broke?” Tinker cackled himself into a coughing fit. For the first time in his life the antique dealers would be falling over themselves to buy him beer.
Next Lily. And Mannie of caftan and cowbell fame, dealer in antique timepieces. And Jill for porcelain, as long as she didn’t bring her poodle and wandering matelots. And Brad because I needed flintlocks. And Long Tom Church for musical instruments. And Janice, who never smiles, for late antique jewelry…
While Michelle tidied her lists, I telephoned a general store in Thurso, and asked to speak to the manager. I decided to become a cockney trying to talk posh, Harrods-on-Woolworth.
“This is Sinclair, sir,” I announced gravely, which arrested Michelle’s flowing pen.
“Butler to the laird, who is come to stay at Tachan Water. Local purveyors are not to my required standard. I am consequently obliged to send the laird’s motor with his man Barnthwaite and the housekeeper. They are
