The Eloquence of the Dead (11 page)

She smiled. She was wearing her hair full length to her shoulders. Swallow liked the way its dark gloss caught the evening light.

‘I know about that. The whole city is terrified. Everybody is locking up early and putting up bolts and bars.'

‘That's not difficult to understand. People are right to be careful. But there's nothing to suggest that there may be another attack.'

She nodded.

‘I hope you're right. My father has gone to his room to fetch something he needs to show you. Can I have something brought in? Some coffee or tea, perhaps a glass of wine? There's a very fortifying Lebanese. My father likes a little of it in the evening.'

‘That sounds very tempting, thank you.'

She moved to the door. ‘I'll have the maid bring it. I hear my father coming down the stairs. He'll only be a moment.'

When he came in, Swallow could see that Ephram Greenberg had aged. He was stooped, and now he walked with a stick. His once silver beard and hair were snow white. Swallow knew that he should not be surprised. Ephram had to be well past eighty, but the brightness that he had always seen in his eyes was still there.

He placed a small wooden box on the table and shook Swallow's hand.

‘Joseph, it's good to see you … very good to see you, after such a long time.'

‘It's good to see you too, Ephram. I should have called long before now.'

Greenberg raised a hand dismissively. He laughed.

‘No, Joseph, you have become a busy man, a famous detective. I always read about your exploits in the newspaper. I say to Katherine when I see your name that we must be proud to know such a famous and important person.'

Swallow smiled. ‘When I get my name in the papers it's not classified under good news.'

‘I understand,' the old dealer nodded. ‘But it is important work. I see that you are working on that terrible business at Lamb Alley. Poor Pollock killed and then his unfortunate sister disappears. Do you think she has come to a bad end, Joseph?'

‘We don't know. It may be that she was somehow involved in his death. Or she may be in danger herself. Or she may be dead too.'

‘May his soul find peace. His time in this world was not very happy.'

‘Did you know him?'

‘I met him from time to time. Jewish people have a name sometimes for driving a hard bargain, but Ambrose Pollock was known as the hardest man in the business.'

The young maid came through the door with glasses and a decanter of red wine on a silver tray. She placed it on the table and withdrew silently. Greenberg poured.

‘
Zayt gezunt
 … good health, Joseph.' He clinked his glass against Swallow's.

It was strong, aromatic, heady.

‘From the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon,' Greenberg nodded to the decanter. ‘Better than any Burgundy, I tell you.' He smiled. ‘It helps to keep me alive. So, tell me about yourself, Joseph. You have never married, never settled down? I would have thought you would be a fine catch for many a girl.'

Swallow smiled. ‘No, Ephram. I came near to it once or twice but I'm still a free man.'

The old Jew wagged a finger. ‘A man needs to have a wife, Joseph. I have a good business here. I have my daughter as a support in my old age. But I miss my Ruth every day … every single day.'

‘She was a good woman,' Swallow said quietly. ‘I remember her very well.'

Greenberg drank deeply from his glass.

‘Now, Joseph.' He cleared his throat. ‘Enough of this talking. I asked you to come here for a reason that has to do with your work.'

He reached across the table to the wooden box. He lifted out a section of green baize, perhaps a foot square. Then he gently tipped the box so that its contents came out onto the cloth.

Swallow was looking at six small, silver coins.

‘Have a look at these, Joseph,' Greenberg said. ‘Go ahead, get their weight. Feel them.'

The coins were smoothed with age, but Swallow could feel their detail under his fingers. The obverse depicted a human head with stylised hair, a strong nose and well-defined eyes. The reverse showed a bearded and seated figure with a bird perched on one hand and a sceptre or trident in the other. It reminded Swallow vaguely of Britannia on the penny.

Greenberg replenished their wine glasses.

‘They're beautiful items,' Swallow said. ‘But I know nothing of coins. I assume they're special, rare?'

Greenberg placed one in his palm, the head upwards.

‘That's the face of Alexander the Great you're looking at, Joseph. More than two thousand years ago these were part of the currency of ancient Greece. They're called the tetradrachms, each one worth four drachmae. The silver is very fine, very pure.'

‘And valuable?' Swallow asked.

The old dealer shrugged. ‘They are not by any means the most valuable of ancient coins. Although personally I think they must be among the most beautiful. They are rare enough. In London, I would expect to get not less than £20 for each one.'

Swallow drank from his wine glass. ‘So tell me why a policeman should be interested in these.'

Greenberg replaced the coins into the box.

‘Because these, and other good coins, have been appearing in dealers' shops all over Dublin during the past couple of weeks. I was offered six, as you see. A shop in Camden Street has another two. I know that Isaac White, my neighbour here in Capel Street, has taken in three rare denarii. There may be more elsewhere. Ordinarily, you might come across one or two tetradrachms in a year of business.'

‘If you want the police to know about this you must believe that they're stolen or somehow improperly on the market,' Swallow said. ‘So where are they coming from? Who's selling them?'

Greenberg raised his glass. ‘Yes, I believe they may have been stolen. As to where they are coming from, I have no idea. Who is selling them? My daughter may be of some help on that. I think it's best that she speaks for herself.'

He rang a small silver bell. A few moments later, Katherine re-entered the room. She smiled when she sat with them.

‘It's been a long time since I saw you two talking here together.'

She reached to the decanter, took a glass from the tray and poured for herself.

Ephram Greenberg mused. ‘I suppose it's a few years all right. You were a young girl then, Katherine.' He turned to Swallow. ‘Now she is my partner in the business, you know.'

‘
Zayt gezunt
. Good health, Joseph.' She sipped the wine.

‘Your father has been telling me about these Greek coins, Miss Greenberg. I gather you dealt with the person who brought them in for sale.'

‘Yes, I bought them. But before we go on, perhaps it's time to do away with “Mr Swallow” and “Miss Greenberg,” wouldn't you say? You'll recall my name is Katherine.'

Swallow was momentarily unsure if he was impressed or mildly shocked by her self-assuredness. She had confidence and poise. On balance, he had to admire it.

‘Of course, Katherine,' he smiled. ‘And you know I'm Joe.'

It felt odd. He preferred the articulation of his name, rank and title. It was a shield, a barrier. He opened his notebook on the table.

‘When did you acquire the coins?'

‘It was on Friday of the week before last. My father always leaves the shop early to prepare for Shabbat, and I stay on until 6 o'clock. I am not at all a religious person, you see. The woman with the coins came in at around 5.30.'

Swallow thought he saw Ephram wince slightly at his daughter's peremptory dismissal of her family faith.

‘Can you describe her?'

‘She was about my own age, respectably dressed. She wore a wedding ring and a small engagement diamond. And she was quite nervous. It was obvious that she was not a dealer and that she was inexperienced in transacting business. She put the three coins on the counter and asked me what I would offer her. She clearly had no idea of their value.'

‘You say three coins. But you have six.'

‘Yes, she came back again last Friday at about the same time with three more.'

‘So she's been here twice.'

‘Yes.'

‘Did you give her an especially good price for the coins on the first visit?'

Katherine looked momentarily embarrassed.

‘No, that's the thing. When she offered the first three, she asked me what I would pay, and I said I would give her five pounds for each coin. I knew they could be worth probably four or even five times that sum. I expected her to bargain upward. But to my surprise, she accepted my price.'

‘Did you ask her where she had got the coins?'

Katherine shrugged.

‘When one is looking at a fine profit like that, one doesn't ask too many questions.'

Swallow grimaced disapprovingly. ‘You might have suspected that they were stolen?'

‘Greenberg's has never knowingly dealt in stolen property, Joseph.' Ephram's tone was sharp. ‘You know that. If that were the case here, why would I have asked to see you this evening?'

Swallow decided to let it pass.

‘I'm sorry. Please go on, Katherine.'

‘I simply thought this was a naïve person who didn't have any idea of the value of what she had. She was a respectable woman. I guessed that perhaps she was in need. She wanted money and I saw an opportunity to buy at a very good price.'

‘So tell me about the second visit. You say she came back with three more coins.'

‘Yes, she was quite upset again on the second visit. She said she knew the coins were worth more than I had paid on the first occasion. But she was willing to give me the additional ones at the same price, so naturally I accepted.'

Swallow was less than impressed.

‘So you have six coins, worth … what? Perhaps £150? You've paid £30 for them. Why do you want the police to look into it? It seems to me that you've had a good couple of weeks' trading, albeit through this woman's foolishness.'

Ephram Greenberg refilled Swallow's glass, and drained the last of the wine into his own. He rang the silver bell again.

‘Because it isn't right, Joseph. There is something seriously amiss. As I said, there are other coins appearing in other shops too. There are tetradrachms, Roman denarii, silver shekels from Jerusalem. It must be that somewhere a sizeable collection has been broken up and is being sold off for a fraction of its worth.'

He stayed silent when the young maid entered, carrying another decanter of wine. She set it on the tray and removed the empty one. Katherine refilled the glasses.

‘Those of us who love beautiful things from antiquity – things like these – do not like to see them thrown around, bartered by people who have no understanding, no respect for what they are handling,' Ephram said. ‘And when it happens, it also causes confusion in the trade. Nobody knows what anything is worth.'

Swallow understood. Ephram might be an aesthete, genuinely pained to see treasures from the old world changing hands like greasy sixpences at a fair. But he also wanted to ensure that the bottom did not fall out of the market in which he traded.

He nodded. ‘It's something the police will have to look into. For a start, we'll have to find this woman who sold you the coins. Have you any idea who she might be or where we might find her?'

‘I think I might know her name, or part of it,' Katherine said. ‘On the second visit, she left her bag open on the counter. I happened to see that she had a Post Office savings book with a name on it.'

Swallow poised his pencil over his notebook.

‘What was the name?'

‘I believe it was Clinton. That is what I saw.'

Swallow wrote it in his notebook.

There was nothing that could be done to follow it up until the next day. For the moment, he decided he would enjoy Ephram Greenberg's Lebanese wine from the Beqaa Valley, with the September sun settling behind the city.

 

SATURDAY OCTOBER 1
ST
, 1887

 

SIXTEEN

John Mallon went through G-Division the next morning like an avenging angel come to punish.

Swallow had breakfasted early with Harriet in Heytesbury Street. Her teaching schedule required her to be at the school on the South Circular Road by 8.30. The local girl they had hired as a day maid had their porridge, fresh brown bread, some dried figs and tea on the table in the little dining-room an hour before that.

He hated the figs. But Harriet insisted on them.

‘They're healthy. Good for your bowels.'

‘They'd want to be,' he told her. ‘They taste like camel dung.'

‘You don't know what camel dung tastes like.'

His protests made no difference. She instructed the maid to put them on the table each morning.

He had returned late from Greenberg's. He and Katherine finished the second bottle of Lebanese red after Ephram had retired. The young maid had gone to bed too.

Katherine had gone to the kitchen and come back with a platter of thinly sliced beef – she called it
speck –
with bread and cheese. They talked about her mother, Lily Grant's painting class, his misspent days at medical school, her training in the business, missed opportunities.

‘I think maybe you and I could have more in common that might appear,' she said when the wine was gone. ‘We each might have had very different lives. But here we are, drinking wine in Capel Street, telling stories.…'

Swallow noticed how fine her hands were. They were beautifully formed, tapering. Jeweller's hands that might have been doctor's hands, as his own might have been. The warming wine and the conversation were good. He had enjoyed the evening with Katherine.

She led him down the stairs, and let him out the front door on to Capel Street.

Harriet had been later still coming home. He knew that she would be at a meeting of some society or a political gathering. But his supper was laid out on the kitchen table. This time, there was chicken in the sandwiches. He nibbled at one for the sake of appearances, but the food at Greenberg's had taken care of his appetite for the evening.