executed by duds. Because of something truly terrible called greed. Sorry if it sounds like an accusation. I'm in there too.
Once, I knew a woman, very cool professional lady, who advised banks on investments.
Cynicism on shapely legs, Maisie was. Maisie was good. She could swap outdated yen into extinct lire and back into dollars without changing wheels. Yet this same cynical hardliner Maisie paid a barrowboy an entire month's salary on the promise of three hitherto undiscovered manuscripts by Ben Jonson, Shakespeare's pal. She didn't know the vendor, hadn't seen the manuscripts, knew nothing about Ben Jonson, had never clapped eyes on the barrowboy before, couldn't tell parchment from pawpaw. See?
Greed, like murder, will out. Never mind those famous sayings about fame being the spur; greed's the biggest mover on earth. It's horrible.
I've seen the coolest individuals fall for a non-existent cache of non-Sheraton furniture in a non-existent garden shed. I've seen clergymen fall for fake Dead Sea Scrolls. I've known widows in an investment club lose everything, including reputations, when buying a non-existent Caribbean island. And seen a Munich millionaire go to prison for frantically buying the six-acre greensward of a nonexistent Oxford college. Don't think you can't fall for the same con more than once. The widows' investment group I mentioned did it again two years later, buying imaginary salmon-fishing rights to a mythical river.
The rush of emotional memories gave me a headache. I'd have killed for a cup of tea. I told Sorbo, but he's bad at hints.
'Brick? Clocks, Lovejoy.'
Well, I groaned out loud.
'Everybody on earth fakes clocks, Sorbo. Boy scouts find rare Early English movements in steeple belfries. It's like furniture. Everybody's got a rotten old clock that won't go, so greed naturally enters.' Hence the honest old public pretends that some hacky Woolworth alarm clock is a priceless Carrier discovered in Grandpa's attic. It's as natural as breathing. My respect for Colette's instincts plunged.
'She was actually taken in by an antique clock scam?'
'To the hilt, Lovejoy. That was how Arthur died, see. It was his canal.'
Canal? Sorbo drained the Rodney flask with a roustabout's glug, then withdrew a new bottle of Graham's vintage port from a cupboard, decanted it carefully into the fake flask.
He spoke with love. 'Port takes time, Lovejoy.' Then switched to hate. 'If I could kill Dieter Gluck and get away with it, I'd do it.' I listened, dry as a bone, the port maturing before my eyes in the glow. 'Everybody could see it except Colette.'
'Did nobody say?'
He swung on me. I'd never seen him angry before. It shook me. 'You think I didn't?
And where were her sodding friends, Lovejoy? You quick-prick hick. How often did you phone, visit, drop a postcard? She had others, fine. They were all vanishers, just like you.'
Insults have to be swallowed. I've found that. 'How'd he do it?' Trout had more or less said the same, Dieter Gluck kills people. 'And what canal?'
'Arthur's position seemed enviable, to Gluck. Nobility, lineage, land, plus a wife who played at being the grand Chelsea antiques dealer. A plum for the picking! Gluck had no money of his own, so he wheedled in. Became a partner by foregoing.'
You can do this in the antiques trade. Foregoing always makes me a bit uneasy. If you want to become a partner in a small antique dealer's shop, you go through three phases. First, you work there for nothing, make yourself indispensable. The owners get to depend on your wit, help, luck even. Then you sadly but tactfully hint that you've got an excellent offer from a rival. This may not be true, but so? Avarice spurs you on.
Phase Two comes along. The owner says, 'Hey, don't go. How about I give you a salary?' You say, 'Ta, pal. I really don't want to go because I've been so-o-o happy working with you. How about I stay, take no payment, but take the salary in equity?'
That is, you become a junior partner, however fractionally small the increments. Phase Three, you're the cuckoo. You ditch the owner.
You're in. You've made it, name on the notepaper. Foregoing.
'His expertise was automata, clockworks, all those?'
'Has a good knowledge, give him that.' Sorbo hated admitting this. He took a long pull at the port, set it down, eyes watering. The fumes wafted across.
'Genuine?' I'm always scared some enemy's going to turn out a divvy like me.
'He pulled off one or two successes. Astrolabes, navigationals, spheres, microscopes. I got the feeling it was all breading, but who can prove that?'
'Breading is what anglers do. They chuck bread balls onto a river so the fish will congregate. It means putting an enticing antique into somebody's path. This way, they're inveigled into making offers for other items you've got. Many dealers bread at a loss, to increase a buyer's trust.
'And Colette thought—'
'The sun shone out of the bloke?' Sorbo completed for me. 'Yes. Then he put the gold brick in. It needed a guarantee, see?'
It was like a bad dream. I was aghast. 'Didn't Arthur say no?'
'You know - knew - Arthur, Lovejoy. He went along, put up the shop and his manor as guarantee when Colette said.'
'And didn't think to ask me?' I almost shouted it.
He said nothing. Then, 'You never answer letters, Lovejoy. Your phone's always on the blink, or you're in trouble somewhere. I told Arthur to send for you. He just smiled and said, 'First catch your hare, Sorbo.' Like Mrs Beeton's recipe.'
'It wasn't Mrs Beeton. It was Mrs Hannah Glasse.' Dr John Hill's pen-name was Mrs Hannah Glasse - he being embarrassed, you see, at writing the brilliant Cook's Oracle cookery book. Born in 1716, he first wrote that most famed phrase Take your hare when it is cased… Which became scatched, then catch. Arthur knew this. He often
