letter M because their lips never meet.
'Hellayo,' said one gorgeous Sloane Ranger in a black sheath dress. She was whaling into hot kidneys, bacon, liver, fried black pudding, eggs, and a stack of fried bread.
Despite this nosh, she looked on a hunger strike. Some females can do it. Most groan at the sight of an irresistible chip, and biscuits are death. 'Orning. Fleury La Ney.'
'Morning,' I greeted everybody, Ms to the fore, teeth defiantly behind my lips. 'Lovejoy.'
'Oy saaah!' she exclaimed. 'Quayte a nane, hot?'
She hooted with laughter. I smiled weakly and got grub from the sideboard. When Clovis Rhodes and Caprice bought Dykers Heath mansion they scoured everywhere for reproduction furniture. Crazy. For the same money they could have furnished the place with Victorian, maybe late Georgian, furniture. Our plates for instance were a massively complete set of modern antiquey Japanese porcelain. I'd warned Caprice off this, because for less than the cost of this new junk they could have bought genuine secondhand Royal Doulton, maybe even Derby, in mint condition. I honestly don't understand. Caprice hadn't long been married when I met her. I can hear her yet. 'No!'
She'd put her hands over her ears when I'd tried to tell her. 'I don't want other women's cast-offs!' She'll change when she learns sense, but by then it'll be too late.
The price of fine old porcelain will have gone through the roof and she'll complain about the scandalous prices. Might as well talk to the wall.
'Morning, Lovejoy.' Astonishingly it was Doc Lancaster, our village doc. He was having dry toast, a scrape of marmalade, and weak tea with skimmed milk. He's a maniac, wants to set me jogging on some punishment machine in his surgery, the loon. 'You, in killing mode!'
Chuckle chuckle round the repro table. I tried to hide my loaded plate from Doc Lancaster's accusing gaze. Was I expected to starve? Just because I'd got a bit of decent grub the lunatic gives me his stare of pure wheat germ. Truculently I fed myself, told him I was here to make up numbers.
'Trouble is, Lovejoy,' Doc said affably, 'there's not a single flintlock!'
Then the wash of expIanations, Lovejoy's an antique dealer, etc. I let them talk.
Inevitably the divvy question came up.
'Lovejoy can tell antiques a mile off,' Doc told everybody. 'I've seen him do it. I had an early set of surgical instruments…'
Doc started demonstrating the antique Chamberlen obstetric forceps. A set now costs a king's ransom. Heaven knows why, when the hated Chamberlen family of doctors -
Huguenot refugee doctors, lived in Essex, avarice personified - were reviled for keeping their precious forceps secret. I switched off as Doc explained the gruesome details. His audience was fascinated. The wicked ancient rhyme went through my head about Dr Hugh Chamberlen:
To give you his character truly complete He's doctor, projector, man-midwife, and cheat.
'What a strange little rhyme!' a lady said. Fortyish, bonny, tweed suit, managing to look normal. She spoke without the Sloanie's shout, and there was an M in there. Her lips met!
'Eh? Sorry. Didn't realize I'd spoken aloud.'
'Was he really a cheat?' she asked, interested.
'Folk thought he should have remembered his oath, instead of cashing in.'
'Is it true, this divvy thing? Gloria Dee, Ashwood Pentney.'
'Hello. Aye. It gives me a headache.'
'How fascinating. Do you accept orders?' She saw my anxious frown, and smiled. 'I mean do you do it professionally? Could you test some antiques of mine, for instance?'
She meant for hire. Posh society avoids mentioning lucre, it being filthy rotten stuff and beneath one.
'Afraid so.'
'Watch him, Gloria,' Doc Lancaster called amiably. 'If he doesn't like you he'll let you down. He's known for it.'
Mrs Dee smiled. 'Like so many!'
'I'm not that bad!' I exclaimed, heated. Conversation became humorous as Clovis entered, everybody getting excited at the coming shoot, saying how many they'd bagged the previous week, and was old Jarvis still gamekeeper at the Breakspeares'
estate. I felt depressed. It was all so jolly hockeysticks. Clovis came over, said hello, good of me to come. Dunno what tale Caprice had fed him.
'I shall invite you,' Gloria Dee said. 'Would you mind?'
'No, fine.' I wondered if I could get away with wiping my plate with some bread. That's the only decent way to end a meal, but in East Anglia you're not supposed to. (Why not, when it's good manners in France?)
'I suppose you must get fed up, people asking you to value things. Please don't mind saying no.'
For the first time I really looked at her. Decent, I suppose the word is. Her gaze was level. I don't know exactly what a level gaze means, because a gaze that isn't level is in real trouble. 'Got them with you?'
She shook her head. 'Far too big to carry, Lovejoy. You'll have to come. Expenses, of course,' she added quietly as people noisily moved off.
'Very well.'
'One thing,' she said, rising with me. 'Guests bet on the shoot. I'd be disinclined to give anyone the nod. It's
