I was beginning to wish I’d never mentioned the bloody things. “Did I get some wrong, then?” I meant the jewel tests they’d made me do.
“No.” She was eyeing me like I was a curiosity. For women this is nothing new, but I’d thought America would be different. “Hundred per cent. Even the mounted gems.”
Oh oh. I knew what was coming. There’d been a piece of beautiful amber in a Balkan wooden carved mount. I’d loved it. These votive pieces are religious objects, nothing truly valuable in themselves but exquisite antiques. (Take care. There’s a zillion forgeries about, usually copal resin with carved walnut wood, mostly made in Italy.) It had chimed warmly at me. It was authentic all right. At the time, I’d vaguely wondered about the coincidence. Rose’s amber, now this.
“One of which you didn’t even touch, Lovejoy.”
“Miss one, did I?” I said brightly. ”Well, get the old soak to drop it by and I’ll —”
“Sokolowsky says you didn’t. A wooden-cased amber pendant. Yet you scored it genuine.”
“He’d nodded off, Jennie,” I lied quickly.
“We video everything at Brookmount.” She stood, walked the one pace and twitched the curtain. It shed dust over her. “You’re some sort of divvy, Sokolowsky tells us.”
Good old Mr Sokolowsky, not as sleepy as he’d seemed. And who was this
“Guesswork.”
“Could you repeat the test, Lovejoy? On other items of our choosing?”
She spoke with authority greater than that of the usual serf. Jennie was big medicine. In fact, I bet that she and Nicko… I tried a disingenuous smile, little boy found out—
I said offhand, “Sometimes guesses work.”
“Life or death on it, Lovejoy?”
I swallowed. “Er, look Jennie. I, er…”
“Just tell me the truth.” She was simply asking, perhaps even a little sad. “If you aren’t a divvy, that’s fine. Nicko wouldn’t blame you, for a skill you haven’t got. If you are, that’s fine too. Just don’t lie.”
Her voice had gone hard. I nodded a yes.
“Only for antiques, Jennie.”
That made her think. She started to speak, cut out, reached inner agreement.
“Very well. Be here two o’clock tomorrow. Nicko has an idea.”
“I’m sorry, but I…” Her expression changed to a light sleet. I smiled my most ingratiating smile. “Right, right.”
She paused on her way to the door. “Good luck, Lovejoy. Mrs. Aquilina is very… strict with all employees.”
“Meaning what?” I asked, but the door wafted her away into New York, leaving me alone.
Lovely lass, worried sick and living on her nerves. Nicko her lover, yet she warns me about Nicko’s wife’s fearsome nature. I could do without all those implied threats. But that tip about Mrs. Aquilina unsettled me.
I put the telly news on to get the time, and coming back from the washroom with my one towel I caught sight of a face I recognized. It was Brandau, his wife Sophie beside him. That was why I couldn’t decide why it was one face or two. I switched off and went out to get a taxi, smiling at the irony. Maybe they’d be in some newspaper tomorrow—if newspapers in America did what newspapers do all the time back home, simply filch their scoops off the nine o clock news and pretend.
“SORRY I’m late.”
Rose let me in, more flustery than usual. I’d have said edgily excited, had I known her better.
“I’m pleased you came, Lovejoy.” She smiled me into a chair, sat with an intent frown.
“Do you know anything about Sherlock Holmes, Lovejoy? Conan Doyle?”
“Nothing. I remember the Basil Rathbone films, though.”
She winced. I sighed inwardly. Was she one of those truly boring fans who dress up?
“Not quite the same thing as Dr Watson’s accounts, Lovejoy.”
She made it a reprimand. I mmmhed to show I thought the same, though quite honestly these nerks who forever delve into fictional characters as if they were real people annoy me. She spoke as if Dr Watson was real, which tipped me the wink that she was one of those loons who’d come to believe the writer’s fantasy. It’s a danger we all skate near.
“Dr Watson didn’t write the stories, love,” I said clearly, to nip delusions in the bud. “He was fictitious. The real-life physician was Conan Doyle.”
“Lovejoy. My sister has made a lifelong study of the Holmes literature.”
“Good.” I waited. Rose was acting on Moira’s instructions.
“I’ve a proposition, Lovejoy. Your antiques expertise convinces me you are the right person.”
My newest new job loomed. I donned a pleasant you-can’t-mean-me smile. “I doubt it, Rose. You need an antiquarian if you’re making a collection of Sherlockiana.”
“Let me tell you a story, Lovejoy.” Rose was hovering, tidying piles of papers, quietly placing books. “It’s the most valuable of all modern manuscripts.”
