She didn’t know it yet, but the poor lass should’ve saved her heartfelt sighs. She’d soon need every one she could get.
« ^ »
—— 21 ——
Just as you can’t outdo the Maltese for door knockers or the Swiss for cuckoo clocks, so you can’t beat Caithness for conviction. Once Tachnadray had declared for crime, it became Fighter Command in a 1940 film, furiously active yet meticulous. Maybe it was their first delicious taste of scamming that gingered everybody up. I don’t know. Within three days it came alive.
At my seminary school they used to set us a perennial problem: given the choice, whether to disbelieve in God or His absence. I never knew how to answer. Similarly, I’m never quite sure whether it’s crime or sanctity that offers the least painful compromise for the human race. I’ve experimented with both, and found little difference. Now, I think perhaps sin has the edge, because it at least provides a decent income. So maybe it was the hope of solvency that spurred Elaine’s retainers on.
At my request Elaine had spread word. Any old objects relating to the clan, or any McGunn, Tachnadray, Caithness, or indeed the Highlands, were badly needed at Tachnadray. Anyone wanting to sell the same should communicate with Michelle McGunn at Tachnadray forthwith. They actually started coming in by that first afternoon. How the hell did news travel? I tried asking an old woman who came trogging up carrying an infantry officer’s telescope—leather-cased, War Office stamp, and arrows—and she merely smiled, “Och, I heard,” which was as far as I got.
Our peaceful scene had a visit from a police car asking if everything was all right. I started my favorite spiel requesting road blocks, helicopters… They drove off in haste. A Glasgow paper’d run a spread showing Alan pointing to bits of broken windscreen on the Ipswich bypass—the result of my phoned instruction to Tinker. Decadent youth, exploited by international financiers, was apparently to blame. More coverage—as the media nowadays term falsehood—was on the way. A TV crew was turned away. They sat sullenly on the hillside until Robert mustered a sortie to persuade.
And the letters came in.
That second day, Michelle was thrilled, rushing to find me in the workshop and holding all three. “And one’s from London!” she cried, beside herself. “From a collector!”
“Get notepaper printed, love,” I said. I was busy engraving Elaine’s coat-of-arms on a mid-nineteenth-century pipe box, silver. It’s murder by hand, but more artistic than the modified dental drills most forgers use. I felt bad about it for the box’s sake, but murder asserts priorities.
“Notepaper? Think of the expense, Ian!”
“All right, love.” I regoggled and resumed my engraving. “Only don’t come wailing I didn’t warn you.”
“Michelle.” Duncan was fretting out some wood sections I’d marked. “Do as Ian says.
Get young Hamish along today.”
“Very well.” Michelle was still doubtful. “But I can’t see why we’d waste money printing grand notepaper when I can just as easily write our address longhand.”
Duncan didn’t glance at me. “We’ve never done anything like this before, and Ian has.”
Hamish McGunn, printer, came on a bicycle about teatime, fingers black and face pale.
He looked subnourished, Charles Dickens in the blacking factory. Michelle brought him across, still in a huff from being told off. She fetched tea in mugs and a bowl of barm-cakes with margarine. No jam, and it served us right.
“Ian wants notepaper printed,” she said, angrily offering the nosh so fast you had to make a dive.
“Embossed,” I said, “if you’ve got that thermal process. Tachnadray’s coat-of-arms left, and address. Put Michelle as auction secretary. And our phone number.”
“Tachnadray isn’t on the phone,” Michelle said.
Hamish wrote on unheeding, squarish writing, hard pencil.
“And then do a flyer sheet. The colors are yours, but choose discrete posh.” I gave him a crumpled paper. “That’s the wording. A thousand of each by tomorrow noon.” I grinned inside as his head raised. “Ten days Michelle’ll give you the full catalog. Two thousand, about sixty pages. There’ll be one score color plates and three score black-and-white. ”
“Ay, there’s just the question, Ian,” Hamish said, embarrassed.
“The money in seven days. But”—I raised a handy maul in threat—“use Linotron Baskerville or Bembo and the deal’s off. We’ve got educated folk coming. Okay?”
He left laughing, pedaling like the clappers.
Michelle stuck to her guns. “Tachnadray’s no longer on the phone.” Poor lass, it was all becoming too much.
“A Telecom van’ll be here soon, love.” I gave her my most innocent gaze. “Could you direct them to Dr. Lamont’s office please?”
“Dr. Lamont?” She stood helplessly.
“Doctors get priority with phones.”
“But is there really a Dr. Lamont—?”
A kilted man staggering under a bookcase from Mac’s lorry shouted, “Michelle. A telephone man’s here asking…” She left at a stumbling run.
“Honestly,” I said to the silent Duncan as we resumed work. “Women. Set them a hand’s turn and they go to pieces. Notice there was no jam?”
