“I don’t know what it is about you, Lovejoy,” he sighed, opening his passenger door. “But you’re sure attracting Gina’s attention lately.”
When you need a light quip, none comes. Ever notice that?
THE road north from New York splits into a frond of motorways. We bent right, and distantly I recognized a stretch of water. “Hey, Tye!” I went, excited. “That’s where we sailed!”
“Lovejoy. You a wiseass or dumb?”
He’d obviously got out of bed the wrong side. I ogled the scenery. Small towns came and went. Connecticut’s pronounced with a load of Ds it hasn’t got. The sun lit hills. Trees shone a strange and lovely russet I’d never quite seen before, quite like Chinese amber. We drove less than two hours, to a mansion with porticos and white pillars, lawns which people hate you to call manicured. No gates, but a goon in seeming somnolence that fooled nobody. He bent, peered at Tye, me, the limo’s interior, shrugged us through.
“Reckon there’s Civil War antiques here, Tye?”
He sighed, made no reply. We alighted and Blanche, lovely as ever but even more distant, ushered me in to a drawing room whose very length tired the ankles. Gina was sitting writing letters at a pathetic rubbishy desk, fetchingly decorating a window alcove against sunlight and olivine curtains.
“Lovejoy.” No sit down either. ”You found
“The grailer, Gina. I think.”
She slowly ran her gaze from my scuffy shoes to my unruly thatch. I felt specimened, candidate for a museum jar.
Her slender hands held the card I’d posted, and my scribble. She didn’t ask where, how, what. Just examined me. A reaming, draining inspection. Her eyes were bleak as a winter sea.
“What did I order you to do, Lovejoy?”
“Er, well, missus.” My voice quivers when I’m scared and my throat dries so it’s hard to get a conversation going.
“
I jumped, stammered, “To, er, make up to Sophie Brandau, report what I learned.”
She beckoned me gently. I went close, stooped when she crooked her finger. Her hand lashed my face. The silly cow nearly ripped my eye from its socket, missing by a whisker. My head spun.
“And did you?
“I’ve no money, except the marked stuff that’ll get me arrested.”
She considered that.
“Lovejoy. I’m no longer interested in whether you’re as innocent as you seem, or double shrewd.”
She could have expressed slightly more enthusiasm. I’d saved her from kidnap, or worse.
“Now I’m changing the rules. I give you orders day to day, understand? You start now.” Why do agitated women clutch their elbows when they march about? I dithered, not knowing if I had to follow her. She returned, halted, gorgeous. “Tell me about the Hawkins thing.”
I did, speaking with utmost sincerity into her eyes and only occasionally losing my place. Whistling bravely past the graveyard, I said only what I’d rehearsed.
“I spent every cent on phone calls to England. Dealers I know, who owe me, ones I could trust. And I kept it down to no-name stuff.” I fluttered my eyes, the best I could do for shyness. “A… lady I know. She’s married. We used to be, well, close friends. I got her to sift her husband’s reserve records. He’s a big antiquarian.”
“So it’s true? This…?”
“Manuscript thing? It seems so. She’s getting me a single sheet, day after tomorrow. I’ll divvy it.” I waited. “I thought it’d be what you’d want me to do.” I was pleased with myself. She wasn’t responding much, but I felt my tide turn. “See, Moira could tell me anything. In bed or out, I d have only her account to go on. I know me, see? I’m hopeless with women. I believe them.”
Gina paced, stood looking.
I took her raised brows as an invitation to speak on. “Moira Hawkins is a lady who wants much more than she has. Deep down, she’s ambitious. Look at me, Gina. I’m a scruff. I’m no Fauntleroy. Would she be seen in a restaurant in my company?”
“There’s Rose.”
“Or the Brandaus?”
“You mention them together, Lovejoy. Why?”
“They’re lovers, Gina. I’m not that thick.”
Suspicions are meat and drink to women, so I kept going.
“Sophie Brandau doesn’t want the scam to succeed. She knows it’s untrue anyway. Sophie’s frightened. It’s all got out of hand. She wants him to chuck it.”
“How do you know this?”
“It’s plain as a pikestaff. I think Sophie hocked her jewellery so she could maybe buy Denzie out of Moira’s scam.”
“What did she use the money for?”
