'Just too stunned when they got away with it. Operation Starling, the plod called it.'
'No, ta. Antiques, please.'
'How about Manhattan Island, Lovejoy?'
'No, ta. Too many people called Edwards.'
Yet it wasn't a bad suggestion. It's founded in fact, which every good con trick should really be. In a gold bricker, at least the gold brick is genuine. Back in the eighteenth century Robert Edwards, a Welsh buccaneer from Pontypridd, was rewarded for bravely fighting wicked Spaniards. His present was seventy-seven acres, nice plot of land worth almost one hundred English pounds. It's now known as Lower Manhattan, and - be prepared - its value has risen somewhat! To trillions. Needless to say, where unclaimed wealth goes, can scams be far behind?
Not neglected, though. The trouble is it's claimed by the world and his wife, for who here doesn't have an Edwards in the family tree? Some eleven thousand have been claiming away for two hundred years. The tease is: prove you're Robert's direct descendant, and Lower Manhattan's yours. There's even an association of Robert's heirs, hard at it in Six Mile Run, Pennsylvania. Flourishing scams hover everywhere, advising would-be claimants to have a go. 'Use our cast-iron guaranteed genealogy services!!!' and all that.
'It's going to be a TV Revelation Documentary next year,' Yamta said.
'Forget it, Saunty,' I said. Just my luck to have a film crew interview Gluck just as I got to the sting.
'A public school find? Or a seminary jaunt?' Saunty was unperturbed. He loves this kind of thing, a chance to delve in his con tricks, testing himself.
'School? Like what?' I thought of Holloway and Shar. 'Isn't this music a racket?' Yamta asked fondly, toting and hauling files. Saunty whistled along with atonal violas.
'Wimborne!' he exclaimed. 'I'm longing for somebody to try it. This school had a copy of an ancient Assyrian bas-relief. The boys used to play darts near it, little buggers.
Turned out it was genuine frieze, King Ashurnasirpal II of Nimrud. Christie's I think got a record twelve mill US for it. You like, Lovejoy? Easy peasy. Tell Gluck you've found another, ha-ha. The school was once the stately home of the patron who financed the excavations at Nimrud. No?'
'Not bad,' I said. Close, and getting closer.
'Calcata? The Holy Foreskin? It's still missing.'
'I like this one,' Yamta said wistfully. 'Tea, Lovejoy?'
It came up on Saunty's screen. 'Christ's foreskin used to be in St John Lateran until Rome got sacked. It finished up in a casket in Calcata. Dozy little hill town north of Rome. I can give you directions. The reliquary was gorgeous. The parish priest kept it in a shoebox under his bed. Any good?'
'What happened to the reliquary?'
'Its gems drifted.' He chuckled. 'The Vatican forbade Catholics from talking about it, 1900 onwards, under pain of excommunication. I've details of fourteen other foreskins in Europe. The bit of Christ that didn't ascend to heaven, see?'
'Anything similar? Not Thomas a Becket, though.' I was still thinking reliquaries.
'Christ's manger any good, from Bethlehem? It's in the Santa Maria Maggiore, in Rome.
It's not been used in con tricks lately.'
Pagans also have miracles, I told myself, as convincing as those of orthodox religions.
'No, ta.' Closer still, though.
Yamta set the tea tray down. I had to look away. Naked women are callous. No thought of the effects they're creating.
'Famous writer's lost manuscript?'
I guessed he meant Kipling's unknown play Upstairs, written late 1913 or so, that surfaced lately. I grimaced.
'Here's what you're looking for, Lovejoy. The Louvre!'
'Not another Louvre fraud.' They're a yawn, but I kept my I'm-still-interested smile so as not to offend.
'It's got museum curators sobbing into their ale, scared they'll never be able to buy again.' He wheezed in merriment, his poppy tobacco doing its narcotic stuff. 'It was them two women, and that lawyer.'
My ears pricked. Whatever anybody says, women are always more interesting. They can turn dislike into hate, hatred into vendettas, faster than wink.
'That rich French heiress, her collection of Old Masters. The nurse seems to've done a deal with lawyers, who did a deal with some Parisian curator of Guess Where, to buy The Gentleman of Seville. Spaniard called Murillo - ugly bastard, he was - did it. The French curator got done for receiving stolen goods. You like, Lovejoy?'
Saunty provides a sort of weird after-sales service -photographs, copies of court records, photos of the perpetrators, police names. He's good value.
'Nice one,' I said cautiously.
Saunty was pleased. 'I'd give it a go, for Gluck, Lovejoy. See, the heiress had a sensible sister - they didn't speak, hate each other. Her bulb lit. She sued for the paintings. I've photo transparencies if you want.'
'What's the curators' grouse?'
He snorted (I mean with scorn). 'It made the greedy bastards suddenly scared to buy anything. They want priceless antiques for a bent farthing, bring tourists, see? They're hand in glove with lawyers, and lawyers are crooked. Add curators and law, you've got a thieves' mucky midden.'
'Not bad. Museums are a gift.' I thought museums.
'What about those old motors?' Yamta put in.
