The Great California Game

“Not that old joke about some beautiful?”

It was honestly meant as a quip, but I saw her face set in anger, suddenly suppressed. She knew instantly what I meant. A “beautiful” in the antiques trade is a long-lost treasure. Captain Kidd’s chests of gold, King Solomon’s Mines, Chippendale’s secret warehouse in Wapping, that ton of priceless pearls hidden under Birmingham, the whole dustbin of burdensome fable which troubles us antique dealers night, day and dawn. I’m not being unromantic. It’s just that the public ought to grow up. George Washington’s secret treaties with the Emperor of China, King George or Napoleon are so secret they never existed at all. See what I mean? Getting close to myths is dangerous. You start believing.

She calmed, with effort. “Lovejoy. I expected better from you. It’s a matter of simple record that Dr Conan Doyle wrote The Narrative of John Smith about the time he married Louise Hawkins. His first novel! The manuscript was lost in the post.”

Well, what’s in a name? Though I should talk, with a name like Lovejoy. I tried to remember. Conan Doyle? It’s one of those names which slip in and out of consciousness like sparrows through your headlights, gone unremarked. I’d better own up.

“I know nowt about him, love.”

“My father’s people came from Southsea. Where Dr Conan Doyle practised. Where, in fact, he wrote it.”

“This being the Sherlock beautiful? The John Smith novel?”

“Of course.”

Pity. I decided that the USA was now a terrible disappointment. America should have done better. What about all those ancient land deals with the Red Indians? The lost deeds to whole silver mountains? Columbus’s long-lost maps, Captain Henry Morgan’s treasure from sacking Panama? If I started starving here I’d have to fake a few Eric the Red mementoes…

“Thanks for the offer, Rose. I’d best be getting back. Big working day tomorrow.”

Rose watched me rise. I hesitated, but what claim did she have on me? I mean, okay, Rose had befriended me. And I’d welcomed it. But that didn’t mean I had to listen to her barmy ramblings.

“See you,” I said cheerfully.

I was making my way to the door when Rose spoke. “Moira?”

The elegant woman stepped into the room. I’d assumed the little door led to a closet, toilet, some nook. Careless old Lovejoy.

“My sister, Lovejoy,” she explained apologetically.

“You’ll help us, Lovejoy.” Her voice was as melodious as she looked, but with added threat.

“Not me, love.”

“Lovejoy,” Moira said, perching on the desk with such style that like a fool I stopped to gape. “Late of Hong Kong. Before that, East Anglia.” She even gave the address of my cottage. “Divvy, wanted by your own police. By antique dealer syndicates. In debt to seventeen antique dealers, two finance houses, three mortgage companies. All that plus six lawsuits, Lovejoy—as soon as I have you deported as an illegal alien.”

Rose was pale as her sister spoke. I dithered, returned, cleared my throat, looked at the time. Nigh midnight, and me being blackmailed into balderdash.

“You’ve got the wrong bloke, Moira,” I tried for the record.

“Rose?”

“Yes, Moira.” Rose passed me a sheaf of typewritten notes. Taking them, my mind went: My career was documented pretty well, but with that bizarre slant with which libel uses truth. “We are associated with antiquarians in England, Lovejoy. It took only an evening’s phoning. People didn’t even have to look you up. They already knew you.”

See how falsehoods spread? I was indignant with the sly bitch, but swallowed my ire. Why was deportation such a threat? Maybe America deports illegals to wherever they want to go! I could try for Australia, if they’d let me. Yes. That was clearly the way. Resist this attempt to blackmail me into helping the loony women. Bluff and double bluff. Be strong, show defiance. The American Way!

“All right,” I said weakly. “What do I have to do?”

BEING in the greatest of all lands is all very well, but antiques are antiques. And money rules. I was fast learning that America knew money. It is very, very dear to the US of A’s big beating heart.

In my time as a dealer I’ve seen all sorts of legend about priceless antiques. Every dealer has. Crazy, daft, loony—but they’ve generated fortunes, liaisons and affairs that have led to multiple murders, robberies galore. I’ve seen a million ancient charts to Lost Cities, King Solomon’s Mines, Merlin’s magic wands, Beethoven’s missing symphonies, and extinct species of plants living on under the Cotswold Hills. All pure imagination, maybe nothing more than wishes formed of faded sorrows. But—remember this—all confidence tricks have a basis in greed. And cons make money, right?

So I did a little diligent spadework using New York’s phones. And after a fortune in coins so minute I kept dropping the damned things, I got through to Thurlough in Buxton, Derbyshire. It felt really strange talking with somebody on the other side of the Atlantic but who sounded within reach. I had to shout over the night traffic.

“Thurly? Lovejoy. I haven’t got long.”

“Lovejoy? Do you know what frigging time it is?”

“Sod the time, Thurly. Look. A Sherlock Holmes bookseller…?”

“The best?” He took time off to complain to his missus that Lovejoy was ringing at this hour. They sounded in bed. “That’ll be Brian Cheeryble.”

Cheeryble, opposite the British Museum, up those rickety stairs. I got Thurly to find me the number, and when he tried to suss me out told him I had a chance of an earthenware bust of Conan Doyle, probably a modern fake. He