The Lies of Fair Ladies (12 page)

It looked right. It felt right. But sadly it made me feel as if I
was sort of leaning over. Right but wrong.

"What metal?" It felt really queer, almost rippling in
my hands. I stared hard at the hallmarks. "Better Nine?"

A certain horribleness began in December 1478. Every St. Dunstan's
Day, nineteenth May, a twenty-year cycle of letters was stamped on silver; A
the first year, B the second, so on. Once King Charlie II came in 1660, the
change-day became his birthday. Oak-Apple Day, twenty-ninth April. But still
the letter cycle went relentlessly on. Except 1696 to 1697, when the Britannia
standard upped to 11 ounces and 10 pennyweights (95.8 percent, if you're a
decimal crank). This means 8 pennyweights more to the Troy pound than sterling!
Astonishment! New silver was worth more! (This was necessary because the
naughty old public were clipping coins.) And, gasp-shock-horror, the
twenty-year letter cycle was interrupted! A seated woman, Britannia, showed up
on the mark. There's been one other interruption to the letter cycle—in 1975,
but that doesn't matter, being modern.

"It's old standard, Lovejoy, looks like to me."

"Mmmh." Meaning, oh, sure, but no thank you. Its matt
quality disturbed me.

Lately, we'd been seeing a lot of these pieces. All desirable, all
beautifully made. And all having that lovely matt look to the truly ancient
(genuine) silver. I’d bet all I had—well, all I owed—that, if this piece was
tested in London's Queen Mary College by flame photometry or whatever, it would
be pristine medieval silver. The hallmark was a letter T on a little barrel (T
on tun, for Taunton, get it? They loved puns), and Britannia. And a maker's
mark, initials, four times. The old silversmiths were past masters at dodging
tax duty, and repeated their marks a few times—four's usual—hoping customers
would assume that one mark was the official government-decreed one.

Well. Beautiful. But that terrible matt look. I polished the edge
of the box on my sleeve. It felt ancient, bonging gently, but it felt wriggly.
"How many'd it take, Frank?"
I
had him.

"What're you talking about, Lovejoy?"

"Frank. Take a crucible filled with silver Saxon pennies.
Clean them. Melt them down. Get Heppie to make you a lovely new standish like
this. Stamp it with a few marks, and take it all unsuspecting to Lovejoy. He
divvies it. After all, it's genuine ancient silver, right?"

These tricks make people shrink in my eyes. Big Frank looked
heartbroken, but that was only the specter of no bunce, no profit. He'd chosen
the place, his audience. Now they all knew he was on the fiddle. Just to get
more wealth for a new wife. Marriage has a lot to answer for. I'd thought
better of him.

"You that desperate, Frank? That you'd try to con me?"
On the same level as that Vienna bloke who worked the Lucona sinking. He
claimed 18.5 million dollars insurance, after having the 11,000-ton ship blown
to blazes. Fine, eh? Except for the half dozen who went to watery graves.
Horror makes you bitter, sad for us all. We only pretend civilization.

"Sorry, Lovejoy." He sounded really down.

Everybody in the Arcade had stopped talking. Connie was studiously
scanning some Christie's Impressionist catalogues. Even Acker Kirwin,
apparently in to hump some old Sir Johns—chamber pots in wooden boxes,
sometimes (but rarely) built up like square-topped stools—stood observing the
drama.

Unpleasantness makes you feel in the springtime of senility, the
dawn of decay. And Prammie Joe was no nearer seeing tomorrow's sunshine.

I drifted off. Connie didn't meet my eye. Big Frank came after me
as I walked down to Woody's caff. He tried buttering me up—"It's these
payments, Lovejoy. I'm going under." I walked on,

head down, seeing only that terrible cloud buzzing in that low
doorway among the reeds. Then I stopped all of sudden, by the Bugler pub near
the war memorial.

"What was that, Frank?"

"Well, Lovejoy. There is." He shrugged. "It's a
oncer, see? Things have been rough. I’ve tried a million other lines, but
silver ..." His eyes glowed with the fervor of the lunatic. "She said
I could come in, if I’d chip a tenth. Endless profits. I could buy into
Continental silver, even English Huguenot ..."

He rambled on in delirium. In the town center, traffic swishing
past and people hurrying with prams. I hadn't a clue what he was on about. But I’d
never seen him like this before. I eyed him. Another huge-scale scam, for
Christ's sake?

His eyes were afire. "I’d need a year's wage, Lovejoy."

So the scam meant at least ten times that. Bridge loans in
antiques cost a tenth.

"Frank. I'll try to lend you, if I can. Can you trust her,
though?" With Frank, it's always a bird, sometimes even one he's married
to. I was fishing.

He looked about, for ex-wives skulking among the shoppers.
"Jenny's straight as a die." He smiled shyly. "We're
engaged."

Par for his course. "I’ll see. Chop straight, eh?"

"Lovejoy, you're a pal. Yes, even share-out. I really
appreciate you not being narked."

"About the standish? Nar, Frank. Some punter'll happen
by."

We parted amicably. But I was now frantic, as well as baffled.
Something was turning all the dealers into maniacs. I alone was sane and
fair-minded, as usual.

I called in six antique shops more, and emerged triumphant. Jenny
Calamy lived out near Woodbridge, and had been in Big Frank's company closer
than somewhat. Calamy sounds like "calamity," and Calamity Jenny's
the name of her shop. J. Calamy had met Big Frank over antiques, yes, but they both
attended The Great Marvella and her talking snake. For massage and
conversation, the latter being three-way, four-tongued psychoanalysis. And I
had an appointment with her. Had had? Some tense or other. I invented excuses
as I hurried that way, in case I’d got the date wrong.

The buzzer changed to the snake's fluty voice instantly, clicked
the door open. I went in slowly. One day, maybe there'd only be the snake
there, fat about the middle, and no Marvella. There were two voices.

"Watch this, Cassandra," Veil's voice said, choking
laughing.

"Come in, Lovejoy. He'll dither for hours. Geronimo's gone to
bed.”

Inchwise I peered round. There on the couch was Veil. And
Cassandra Clark. Even lovelier. Never mind them, the snake was in its cage. It
looked without hostility. I’d rather it hated me. Or loathed. That anonymity
was the killer.

"Cassandra's just finished, Lovejoy."

They smiled at each other with merriment. I didn't get the joke.
Finished?

"Told a good fortune?" I said, trying jocularity.
Geronimo watched. Its head moved slightly.

"Quite fair," Cassandra said. More hidden smiles were
exchanged, but women do that all the time around me. I didn't attach too much
importance to it. "Geronimo was particularly optimistic."

"Good old Geronimo." I didn't really want to be on
speaking terms with him. I felt awkward with Cassandra here.

She's a hard lass. Looks as if butter really truly wouldn't.
Cassandra Clark had quality, but her handbag was sure to be loaded. I thought
about her visit to my workshop. She had a Past, the Arcade hinted. Touched
antiques, examined them. Never, ever bought. Word was she used a whole shoal of
buncers—dealers who buy solely on commission—sworn to secrecy, exporting to the
U.S.A. I could eat her with a spoon. Or without, though chance'd be a fine
thing. She was dressed to kill, everything matching, with that casual
oh-what-a-mess hairstyle that costs the earth. It needs lustrous youth, plus
what Chinese dealers call Vitamin M. Money.

A man between two women doesn't have much of a chance. And knowing
what they say isn't exactly the same as knowing what they mean. A man between
two birds feels about four years old, and that's a fact.

"What is it, Lovejoy? Brought your problems to
Geronimo?" From Cassandra, laid back, smart.

Cutting my losses, I smiled apology to Marvella. "Look, love.
About money. I wonder if you're flush. Only, I've had a few expenses and—"

"What do you think I am, Lovejoy?" Veil bridled.
Geronimo hissed a snakely chuckle. "Made of money?"

That sounded authentic. My begging patter sounded right, so maybe
I'd convinced Cassandra I was simply here on the cadge.

"I know, love. But it's for something special."

That seemed to stop the conversational flow. I swear there was a
kind of tension in the room that hadn't been there before.

"What special?" Veil asked.

"I’m trying to escape from under,” I said apologetically,
wanting out.

''A woman? You mean a woman, Lovejoy?"

"Yes." I added lamely, "It's a bit difficult. She
wants to divorce her bloke and marry me. I've got too much on—"

Cassandra nodded. Veil said smoothly, "How much?"

"Grub. Today, tomorrow. A taxi to the auctions, maybe enough
to deposit on something."

Cassandra nodded
again
. And immediately The Great Marvella said, "Honestly,
Lovejoy! You'll be the death of me. I thought you'd come for an ephemeris
analysis."

With that snake in the room? People are daft. Veil gave me a few
notes. I said thank-you so very sincerely and Cassandra smiled and Geronimo
watched and Veil and Cassandra smiled and I retreated down the stairs calling
thanks until I was safe among pedestrians and sweating heavily, not knowing
why. Sweat trickled from my chin.

Luna picked me up from the war memorial, and I borrowed this
beekeeper's gear.

Torrance is a fat geezer you wouldn't ever imagine keeps bees. He
lives down on the Colne, where you wouldn't think there are many bees anyhow.
He sells the honey, and brews mead and sells that. He talks to them, which all
beekeepers do, as if the hives were filled with real people.

He charged me a fortune, the swine. He was desperate to know if
the bees I was going after were wild bumblebees, or a cultivated stock. I told
him my girlfriend's dad was mad about bees, to shut him up. The goon followed
me out to the car wanting recruits for his manky beekeeping society. What a
nerk. I loaded up and told Luna to drive to the cottage.

There we inspected the depradations done by the skilled artificers
of the Eastern Hundreds. Mercifully, the pot was still intact. It was the first
thing I looked at, but the phone shrilled. Phones are a mistake.

"He's just here. It's urgent, Lovejoy."

"Ever known a phone call that wasn't?" I said sourly.

"Hello, Lovejoy, I'm in Edinburgh." Miss Turner. I
glared, threatened Luna with a fist. She smiled serenely back. "It's so
different! Can you tell me where I am, please?"

One day I'll escape. Then what will the world do? "Where are
you?
Exactly?
Read the name."

Pause, clatter, a breathless hello. "General Register House,

Lovejoy. Opposite the North British Hotel. It's really quite nice—
"

"You stupid old mare!" I yelled in fury while Luna tried
to calm me down. I clouted her away and bawled, "I distinctly told you not
to go to the wrong place. Didn't I?
Didn't
I?"

"Please don't be angry, Lovejoy," the old lady quavered.
"But I'm on my own and—"

Bloody fine. Loses herself, then rings me to sort her out.
Typical. "Listen, you daft old bat. Is there a big statue outside? Duke of
Wellington?"

"Why, yes!" She was delighted. "Very imposing,
with—"

"You stupid mare! You're in the Scottish Record Office's
place. You want the General Register Office for Scotland, silly cow. Births,
marriages, deaths and census records." I made her write it down, read it
back. "Got it, you silly old fool?"

"Got it, Lovejoy," she cooed happily. "Now, where
exactly . . . ?"

"New Register House," I said, broken. "It's next
door to where you're standing. Go there immediately. And never ring me
again." I slammed the receiver down on the crazy old loon. Honest to God.
Where was I? Luna's pot.

Luna was quite put out. "You haven't noticed, Lovejoy!"
She indicated the cottage. Electric light, bulbs and everything. Gas, on.
Water, on. Phone, on.

"The cost was too great, love. That tole tray was something
we'll possibly never see ever again in a lifetime." I smiled at her, held
up the lovely stoneware nipple-spout Castleford feeding-pot. "This makes
up for it, partly. About 1795. Like it?"

What a stupid question. She smiled tentatively. "Well, yes.
But those holes in the spout. Why isn't it proper?"

Headache time. I sighed. Baby feeders are called "bubby
pots" in the trade, because Dr. Hugh Smith in 1777 invented one sort and
called it that. Transfer-printed ones were made by Wedgwood, or plain
creamware. They are lovely. Specialist items, of course, but so far hardly ever
faked or even copied.

"You did well," I said. She was pleased, and we rested a
bit. I asked if she'd ever heard of The Great Marvella. She said yes, several
acquaintances went to her. Did I know she actually had a talking snake? I said
I'd heard.