'Those three pieces,' I told them. 'You can lift the sheets.'
Wrinkle screened his genuine pieces from the work area, but there was no disguising the blissfilled aromas and sights of the dust, shavings. Wrinkle was a craftsman of superb tidiness, much neater than I am. All his pieces were either crated or covered.
The pudgy bloke was a real pro. His sharp intake of breath told me all. He knew Chinese antique furniture, touched the wood with reverence, glanced at Gluck as if to ask him how on earth such superb genuine pieces had got here. I wouldn't let him invert any.
'Crawl under if you have to. Don't lift.'
I wouldn't give an inch on this. Antiques is always a seller's market. Please don't tell me it isn't, that your friend Elsie's had terrible trouble trying to sell her reproduction mascot from her dad's old motor car. I did say 'antiques', so tough luck on Elsie and all modern junk. If Elsie's antique turned out to be, say, a Continental silver christening set - tiny knife, fork, spoon, feeding spoon, three little cups and a silver and ivory rattle, William IV vintage - then she'd have dealers clamouring at her garden gate and worshipping her hair, etc., because dealers will do anything for genuine antiques. They'll even - I've heard - offer the going market price.
'Can I ask for provenance?' the gent wheezed, straightening.
'No,' I said bluntly. 'If you want provenance for these, you're useless.'
He almost smiled. He had a goatee beard, waxed moustache grey as a brock badger.
Like he was trying to seem Edwardian. I thought, Sotheby's, moonlighting? Or did gentry still only come from Christie's?
'Any others?'
'Out,' I replied.
I did the journey in reverse, the boxed-in pair of them clinging on. I did my best among the streets, but still unnerved myself by blundering about the site of Buck's Row in Whitechapel (Mary Ann Nicholls, J the R's second prostitute victim, dead on the cobbles after trolling in Limehouse). Mercifully the lovely Moiya was still alive and sulking in her grand saloon. I let the two men out. Gluck was furious. He tried to see the van's registration. I let him try. It was covered in mud, Sturffie's attention to detail.
Whether Gluck told the old expert who I was didn't matter. Tinker would have my alibi chiselled in granite. I waved them off. Ten minutes later, I gave Sturffie back his van, waited until he'd set Wrinkle's alarms to rights, and let him drop me off in the Strand.
Finding a phone these days is an ordeal, but I got one after hunting Charing Cross for a century, and rang Gluck.
'On or off?' I asked him, knowing the answer.
'On,' he said. 'Details of the other event?'
'Going like a dream,' I lied. He meant the Dulwich robbery. 'It'll be in the papers day after tomorrow. About payment.'
'Any default,' he said, 'you know who'll suffer. Any trick will mean permanent exit for both of them, followed by somebody else. That is three.'
'I know. Payment?'
He chuckled. 'I like your directness. Tomorrow noon, when dining with influence.'
'Deal,' I said, and rang off.
So if I didn't deliver the Dulwich Picture Gallery's masterpieces for Dieter Gluck to rescue for the nation, and if I failed to provide him with a selection of genuine antique Chinese furniture pieces so he could make a fortune, then Mortimer, Colette, and me would go to the wall. I went, whistling, wondering if Tinker had got hold of Lydia yet.
34
I DON'T KNOW if people these days are familiar with doss houses. Different from days of yore, of course. The old phrase 'I'm so tired I could sleep on a clothesline' started there. You tied a rope between walls, draped your arms on the line, and slept like that because the floor was crammed with too many other lucky derelicts. Now, you pay a tithe for a 'semi-special' nook of partitioned sanctuary, and get breakfast for a pittance, then it's out into London's bright day. I mean raining.
Optimism's not my strong suit. I'm good at getting by, but frankly I'm scared of aggro.
Like, Gluck had won Colette's antiques firm, Saffron Fields, the land, canal. And he was a killer. If I knew all that, so must the police. Proof was a different matter. And a contract's a contract. Colette and Arthur had signed almost everything over to Gluck, nothing anybody could do.
But Gluck needed that one bit of land to dig the link canal. Which meant he needed money. Mortimer stood in the way. Give Gluck those two fields, plus Mortimer's lordship tide, Gluck would be taipan, big in the land.
I explained this to Gloria Dee at the Royal Academy in Piccadilly. No sense in holding back the cruel details. We sat on a bench.
'You, frightened?' She seemed astonished.
'Scared stiff.' I reminded her that Gluck's bloke Bern had been bludgeoned to death.
'But the police said the poor man simply fell, or surprised a robber.'
'Oh, aye. You know what to do?'
A crocodile of children came under the arch, chattering away. How come teachers look so cool? I'm frantic just babysitting Henry - my other job - and he can hardly crawl.
'You've told me what I'm to say, Lovejoy.' She didn't look scared, but then women have no need to be. 'Sir
