'Lovejoy,' Florence said as we watched two officers on Mrs Quayle's team walk with the lady alongside the shipment. The big green crate was on a low caged trailer of its own.
'I heard yesterday about the reward.'
'Reward?'
'It's a lot of money. Even after legal expenses.'
'Whose reward?'
'Mine.' She went red. 'When I went to see the lawyer about the bankruptcy, while that Mr Verner ... lost his life in that tragic fall. I actually called in at Mrs Quayle's office and revealed everything I knew about Timothy's insurance commitments, and to whom. She was very pleased, and went to the tavern to arrest you all.'
'Ta, love.'
'She promised that filming you all in the tavern alcove would exonerate you. She was so happy.'
'I'll bet she was.'
'You're not angry?'
'No.' I might have been stone dead, but not angry.
'Thank goodness!'
Standing by the smaller crate, its ancient antiques throbbing silently inside me, we saw the plane's hatch close. Mrs Quayle stood there, exchanging forms with Customs folk.
Consul Sommon's worthless items were leaving in style.
'Lovejoy? What happens to these?' She indicated the smaller crate.
'It goes to the countries where the, er, originals were pinched from. As a memento.'
'Oh, Lovejoy! How sweet to think of that!'
'Well,' I said, because it really was kind of me. 'They'd have been so upset, losing their national treasures to that horrible killer, wouldn't they? At least these, er, reproductions are good enough to put on exhibition.'
'That's so charming. And at your own expense!'
'Well, sort of.'
I almost filled up. Except the developing countries would get the originals, and Consul Sommon the fakes. He wouldn't know it, of course, until enraged dealers came stalking him on some dark night, lift aside his office curtains, and just as he was talking on the telephone ...
'Are you all right, Lovejoy?'
'Course I am, silly cow.'
'I'm sorry. You suddenly looked so pale. It must have been a strain, yet you've been so generous.'
'I'm okay.'
'Lovejoy,' she said shyly. 'I've decided to resume Timothy's work. Not insurance,' she added hastily, seeing me wince. 'His photography.' She gave a sad smile. 'It was his hobby. He was very artistic.'
Photography an art? Only maniacs think that pointing a lens and going click! constitutes the artistic expression of a lifetime.
'Timothy's bankruptcy assessors sent back his photographs last night.' I'd heard it come, but had been trying for oblivion, the state my mind was in. 'Two suitcases, negatives and prints.'
'Great,' I said bitterly. More gunge to clutter my little cottage.
The documentation seemed finished at last. Thomasina Quayle and her people came slowly towards us. Distantly, a plane took off doing that roar and sudden tilt. I hate flying, always get a terrible cold for days after. Doctors should study the viruses spread in aeroplanes' air conditioning, but the idle sods don't.
'Can I develop some of Timothy's prints for you, Lovejoy? As a present?' She tried a smile. Still, a start is a start. 'I can take your photographs. The antiques you find. I did all Timothy's developing and printing, right from when he began photographing his insured things.'
A tired retort was almost out when I suddenly thought, hang on. What was she on about?
'Photographs? Of all the antiques Timothy insured? Like what?'
'Well, everything. Old Masters, archaeology, furniture, the contents of mansions being sold up . ..'
Although I've always knocked photography as boringly dull, you have to admit that it is hugely profitable. In antiques, believe it or not. Remember two things. First, is this photograph authentic, and preferably a one-off picture of some notable scene, historical event, sports meeting, Queen Victoria, whatever. Secondly, and vital to those crazed photo collectors, did the long-deceased photographer himself take and print the photo?
There's a great modern photography scandal. It's the horror antique dealers call the Hine Shine.
Lewis Hine was a picture snapper. His photos are the most famous in the entire world, you'll have seen prints of those American workmen having their sandwiches on that unbelievably high girder? The building of the Empire State Building in New York? The legend – it might be no more than that – has it that Mr Hine dangled high in the air to take these snaps. The pictures almost make me dizzy just looking. Poster shops sell them. One original – repeat, original – print is worth a year's idle sloth on the Riviera.
One of those much uglier sepia-coloured prints – supposedly enlarged by Hine himself –
can go for the price of three years' cruising on the grandest ocean liner. Why? Because collectors want them.
