days, remaking battered pewter cups. If you have to clean pewter, and I recommend that you don't, please put it in a simple hay bath – three pints of chopped hay into a big metal pan. Fill it with water just too hot to touch, then immerse the pewter in it for seven or so hours. Please promise you won't use solvents or hot sand, no matter what professional books say. I couldn't help glowering at Taylor Eggers. Mortimer was daily providing fresh evidence of being a true divvy, so I knew he wouldn't be the vandal who'd ruined the goblet. I apologized mentally to the poor genuine thing. I marked it a fake.
A little marble statuette of a faun was tagged Number Three. Nigh on two hundred years old, Italian from the look, but some hard-hearted swine had etched a mark on its foot with some coarse cleaning agent, probably oxalic acid, to ruin the patina and make a casual observer assume it was a reproduction. Such blemishes are common in fakes.
So Susanne Eggers must have thought it worthwhile to injure a genuine antique just to make her test more effective, the rotten cow. I ask you, what morality is that? Now I'd hate her for ever. She must have been desperate about something vital. I scored it fake, to be wrong again.
The last object was an earthenware galena-glazed moneybox shaped like a hen sitting on a crude nest. Three hundred years old or so, these things are highly valuable. They have a slit for coins. Full, you simply smashed the pot and tot up your loot. (Hence our saying, 'nest-egg'.) Very few have survived, though we – I mean dishonest forgers and fakers, not me – make them when desperate for gelt, hoping some buyer will jump to the wrong conclusion. This was genuine, making real bongs in my chest. Worth a decent motor on a good day. So I scored it a dud.
'That it, missus?' I gave Taylor Eggers the card.
'Wait outside,' she ordered. 'This is confidential. Understand?'
We swore eternal fealty and trailed out to stand on the gravel. I felt embarrassed.
They'd done really well, got every one correct. I was the only one to get them wrong.
'Are we in still in character, Lovejoy?' Wilhelmina asked in a whisper.
'Not any longer,' Tina said, smiling fetchingly at me. 'Did we get your signals right, Lovejoy?'
It took a millisec to answer. She'd just proved she was a treacherous bitch.
'Aye, well done all of you.'
'Will she tell us straight away which of us gets the part?'
'Maybe she'll want everybody.' I tried to do one of Taylor's hearty beams, on the theory that optimistic lies are best.
'That'd be superb,' Larch said to Wilhelmina. She smiled at him. I realized he must have overheard my spiel about her priceless shahtoosh. I sighed inwardly. So near and yet so far.
'Lovejoy?' Taylor appeared at the door. 'Thank you for your services. Mrs Eggers will send word. You will each get expenses.'
One last beam, then slam. We looked at one another. I wondered if the deal was off, whatever it was. Maybe Susanne Eggers's mystery ghost had its own way of working. I led the way in silence to the road and we clambered aboard Jacko's lorry. Only because I was looking, I saw a shadowy figure in the shrubbery by the huge ornate gate. It raised a thumb and little finger, sign of the telephone. I just nodded.
We drove back to town while Jacko sang that high C thing from The Daughter of the Regiment. I hummed along but, unlike Jacko, in tune with the composer's intentions until Tina snapped at me to shut up. Jacko bawled atonally on. Well, it was his lorry.
Larch and Wilhelmina talked quietly. Tina then settled down, smiling inwardly at a good job done, the traitorous cow. Jules only once was careless enough to catch my eye and swiftly looked away. He too knew we'd been had, maybe guessed who by.
We alighted at the war memorial. I told Tina to give me a list of phone numbers where I could reach them. It was only then that I wondered how the hell could I phone Mortimer like he'd signalled, if the phone people had disconnected me. We split up, and that was the end of a perfect day until I was reminded of a death, the only one in recorded history that was not my fault.
14
THE WELCOME SAILOR was crowded. The dealers raised a derisory cheer when I entered, 'Watch your wallets / women / pints!' in various combinations, all that. I was surprised to see five auctioneers in, because they're like kestrels. You only see one at a time, unlike other birds of prey I could mention.
I went about trying to cadge a drink, not because I was thirsty but because it would legitimize my presence and I could see who else was in. Failing miserably, I went into the saloon bar where I found Jules losing to himself at dominoes.
'Ta for that, Lovejoy. Made me feel a lot better.'
'Give over. Seen Susanne Eggers before, have you?'
'Once,' he said. I showed surprise. 'She tried to buy out the Edgar Allen Poe bloke.
Remember that Prague business?'
I remembered all right. 'Your bit of coffin?'
'Before I went on holiday.' He meant gaol.
The Poe bloke is secretly famous. We all know that he's English, obsessed with the long-dead writer. Very like some sculptress I could mention who's emotionally involved with Leonardo da Vinci. It takes all sorts. The Poe bloke arranged a vast EAP Festival in Prague, of all places, and actually pulled it off. He assembled Poe's clothes, gear, books, etc, etc. Jules here reckoned he'd contributed a chunk of Poe's actual coffin. Most dealers claim this kind of thing, given half a listen.
'What did she have to do with it?'
'She tried to pinch his idea, see? It failed.' Jules put his arm round his glass as if to shield it, the mark of the
