THE SALOON BAR was crowded. I labelled everybody in there with one swift glance. A dozen locals, including this bird of about thirty-six, sitting stylishly on a barstool and showing thighs to the assembled multitude. We had been friends once-twice, to be truthful. Now I just lusted across the heads of her admirers and grinned a lazaroid greeting, to which she returned a cool smoke-laden stare. Three dealers were already in: Jimmo, stout, balding, and Staffordshire pottery; Jane Felsham, thirtyish, shapely, would have been desirable if she hadn’t been an antiques dealer, blonde, Georgian silver and early watercolours; and finally, Adrian, sex unknown, elegant, pricey and mainly Regency furniture and household wares. Four strangers, thinly distributed, and a barker or two chatting them up and trying to interest them in antique Scandinavian brass plaques made last April. Well, you can only try. They can always say no.
Tinker Dill was in the far corner by the fireplace with this middle-aged chap. I forged my way over.
‘Oh,’ Tinker said, acting like the ninth-rate Olivier he is. ‘Oh. And here’s my friend Lovejoy I was telling you about.’
‘Evening, Tinker.’ I nodded at the stranger and we shook hands.
He seemed fairly ordinary, neat, nothing new about his clothes but not tatty. He could have saved up ten all right. But a genuine collector . . .? Not really.
‘Mr Field, meet Lovejoy.’ Tinker was really overdoing it, almost wagging like a dog. We said how do and sat.
‘My turn, Tinker, from last time,’ I said, giving him a note to shut him up. He was off to the bar like a rocket.
‘Mr Dill said you are a specialist dealer, Mr Lovejoy.’ Field’s accent was anonymous southern.
‘Yes,’ I admitted.
‘Very specialized, I believe?’
‘Yes. Of course,’ I hedged as casually as I could manage, ‘from the way the trade has progressed in the past few years I maintain a pretty active interest in several other aspects.’
‘Naturally,’ he said, all serious.
‘But I expect Dill’s told you where my principal interest lies.’ ‘Yes.’
This guy was no dealer. In fact, if he knew a Regency snuffbox from a Rolls-Royce it was lucky guesswork.
Barkers like Tinker are creatures of form. They have to be, if you think about it. They find possible buyers who are interested, say, in picking up a William IV dining-set. Now, a barker’s job is to get clients: buyers or sellers but preferably the former. He’s no right to go saying, Oh, sorry, sir, but my particular dealer’s only interested in buying or selling oil paintings of the Flemish School, so you’ve had it from me. If a barker did that he’d get the push smartish. So, whatever the mark – sorry, buyer – wants, a barker will agree his particular dealer’s got it, and not only that, but he will also swear blind that his dealer’s certainly the world’s most expert expert on William IV dining-sets or whatever, and throw in a few choice remarks about how crooked other dealers are, just for good measure.
Now a dealer, coming strolling in at this point only showing interest in penny-farthing bicycles, would ruin all the careful groundwork. The customer will realize he’s been sadly misled, and departs in a huff for the National Gallery or some other inexperienced amateur outfit. Also, and just as bad, the barker (if he’s any good) pushes off to serve another dealer, because clearly the dealer’s going to starve to death, and barkers don’t find loyalty the most indispensable of all virtues. The dealer then starves, goes out of business, and those of us remaining say a brief prayer for the repose of his soul – while racing after the customer as fast as we can go because we all know where we can get a mint William IV dining-set at very short notice.
‘He has a very high opinion of your qualities,’ Field informed me.
‘That’s very kind.’ If Field got the irony it didn’t show.
‘You made a collection for the Victoria and Albert Museum, I understand, Mr Lovejoy.’
‘Oh, well.’ I winced inwardly, trying to seem all modest I determined to throttle Tinker – even innocent customers know how to check this sort of tale.
‘Wasn’t it last year?’
‘You must understand,’ I said hesitantly, putting on as much embarrassment as I dared.
‘Understand?’
‘I’m not saying I have, and I’m not saying I haven’t,’ I went on. ‘It’s a client’s business, not mine. Even if South Kensington did ask me to build up their terracotta Roman statuary, it’s not for Dill nor myself to disclose their interests.’ May I be forgiven.
‘Ah. Confidentiality.’ His brow cleared.
‘It’s a matter of proper business, Mr Field,’ I said with innocent seriousness.
‘I do see,’ he said earnestly, lapping it up. ‘A most responsible attitude.’
‘There are standards.’ I shrugged to show I was positively weighed down with conscience. ‘Ordinary fair play,’ I said. Maybe I was overdoing it, because he went all broody. He was coming to the main decision when Tinker came back with a rum for me and a pale ale for Field.
I gave Tinker the bent eye and he instantly pushed off.
‘Are you an . . . individual dealer, Mr Lovejoy?’ he asked, taking the plunge.
‘If you mean do I work alone, yes.’
‘No partners?’
‘None.’ I thought a bit, then decided I should be straight – almost – with this chap. He looked as innocent as a new policeman. I don’t know where they keep them till they’re grown up, honest I don’t. ‘I ought to qualify that, Mr Field.’
‘Yes?’ He came alert over his glass.
‘There are occasions when an outlay, or a risk, is so large, that for a particular antique it becomes necessary to take an . . . extra dealer, pair up so to speak, in order to complete a sale.’ I’d almost said ‘accomplice’. You know what I mean.
‘In what way?’ he said guardedly.
‘Supposing somebody offered me the Elgin Marbles for a million,’ I said, observing his expression ease at the light banter. ‘I’d have to get another dealer to make up the other half million before I could buy them.’
‘I see.’ He was smiling.
‘For that sale, we would be equal partners.’
‘But not after?’
‘No. As I said, Mr Field,’ I said, all pious, ‘I work alone because, well, my own standards may not be those of other dealers.’
‘Of course, of course.’
For some reason he was relieved I was a loner.
‘Any arrangements between us – supposing we came to one – would concern . . .?’ He waited.
‘Just us,’ I confirmed.
‘And Dill?’
‘He’s freelance. He wouldn’t know anything, unless you said.’
‘And other employees?’
‘I hire as the needs arise.’
‘So it is possible,’ he mused.
‘What is, Mr Field?’
‘You can have a confidential agreement with an antiques dealer.’
‘Certainly.’ I should have told him that money can buy silence nearly as effectively as it can buy talk. Note the ‘nearly’, please.
‘Then I would like to talk to you-in a confidential place, if that can be arranged.’
‘Now?’ I asked.
‘Please.’
I glanced around the bar. There were two people I had business with.
‘I have a cottage not far away. We can chat there.’
‘Fine.’
I crossed to Jimmo and briefly quizzed him about his Chinese porcelain blanc de Chine lions – white pot dogs to the uninitiated. He told me in glowing terms of his miraculous find.
‘Cost me the earth,’ he said fervently. ‘Both identical. Even the balls are identically matched.’
For the sake of politeness (and in case I needed to do business with him fairly soon) I kept my end up, but I’d lost interest. The ‘lions’ are in fact the Dogs of Fo. The point is that even if they are K’ang-hsi period, as Jimmo said, and 1720 AD would do fine, they should not match exactly to be a real matched pair. The male Dog rests one paw on a sphere, the female on a pup. Jimmo had somehow got hold of two halves of two distinct pairs. I eased away as best I could.
Adrian, handbag, curls and all, was next. He and Jane Felsham were bickering amiably over a percentage cut over some crummy ‘patch-and-comfit’ boxes. ‘Real Bilston enamel,’ Adrian was telling her. ‘Pinks genuine as that. Oh.’ He saw me at his elbow and stamped his foot in temper. ‘Why won’t the silly bitch listen, Lovejoy? Tell her.’
‘How many?’ I asked.
‘He’s got six,’ Jane said evenly. ‘Hello, Lovejoy.’
‘Hi. It sounds a good collection.’
‘There you are, dearie!’ Adrian screamed.
‘Only two are named.’ Jane shook her head. ‘Place names are all the go.’
These little boxes, often only an inch across, were used in the eighteenth century for holding those minute artificial black beauty patches fashionable gentry of the time stuck on their faces to contrast with the powdered pallor of their skins. Filthy habit.
‘Any blues?’
‘One,’ Adrian squeaked. ‘I keep begging her to take them. She can’t see a bargain, Lovejoy.’
‘Any mirrors in the lids?’
‘Two.’
‘Four hundred’s still no bargain, Adrian dear,’ Jane said firmly.
‘Show us,’ I said, wanting to get away. Field was still patient by the fireplace.
Adrian brought out six small enamelled boxes on his palm. One was lumpy, less shiny than the rest. I felt odd for a second. My bell.
‘I agree with Jane,’ I lied, shrugging. ‘But they are nice.’
‘Three-eighty, then,’ Adrian offered, sensing my reaction.
‘Done.’ I lifted the little boxes from his hand and fought my way free, saying, ‘Come round tomorrow.’
Adrian swung round to the surprised Jane. ‘See? Serves you right, silly cow!’ I left them to fight it out and found Field.
‘My car’s just outside.’
I gave the nod to Tinker that he’d finished on a good note. He beamed and toasted me over a treble gin.
The cottage was in a hell of a mess. I have this downstairs divan for, so to speak, communal use. It looked almost as if somebody had been shacked up there for a couple of days with a bird. I smiled weakly at my customer.
‘Sorry about this – I had a, er, cousin staying for a while.’
He made polite noises as I hid a few of Sheila’s underclothes under cushions and folded the divan aside. With only the tablelamp the room didn’t look too much of a shambles. I pulled the kitchen door to in case he thought a hurricane was coming his way and sat him by my one-bar fire.
‘A very pleasant cottage, Mr Lovejoy,’ he said.
‘Thanks,’ I could see he was wondering at the absence of antiques in an antiques dealer’s home. ‘I keep my stock of antiques dispersed in safe places,’ I explained. ‘After all, I’m in the phone book, and robbery’s not unknown nowadays.’
Stock. That’s a laugh. I had six enamelled boxes I’d not properly examined, for which I owed a mint payable by dawn.
‘True, true,’ he agreed, and I knew I had again struck oil.
In his estimation I was now careful, safe, trustworthy, reliable, an expert, and the very soul of discretion. I drove home my advantage by apologizing for not having too much booze.
‘I don’t drink much myself,’ I confessed. ‘Will coffee do you?’
‘Please.’
‘Everybody just calls me Lovejoy, Mr Field,’ I informed him. ‘My trademark.’
‘Right,’ he smiled. ‘I’ll remember.’
I brewed up, quite liking him and wondering how to approach his money – I mean, requirements. So far he hadn’t mentioned flinters. On the drive back in my jet-propelled Armstrong-Siddeley, we had made social chitchat that got us no nearer. He seemed a simple chap, unaware of the somewhat horrible niceties of my trade. Yet he appeared, from what Tinker had said, to have gone to a lot of trouble to find a dealer known to have a prime interest in flinters.
‘How long have you lived here?’
‘Since I started dealing. I got it from a friend.’
She was a widow, thirty-seven. I’d lived with her for two years, then she’d gone unreasonable like they do and off she pushed. She wrote later from Sienna, married to an Italian. I replied in a flash saying how I longed for her, but she’d replied saying her husband hadn’t an antique in the place, preferring new Danish planks of yellow wood to furniture, so I didn’t write again except to ask for the cottage deeds.
‘Instead of London?’
‘Oh, I go up to the Smoke maybe once a week on average.’ And do the rest of the Kingdom, as well, inch by bloody inch, once every quarter. On my knees, mostly, sniffing and listening for my bell. I didn’t tell him that, seeing I was supposed to be temporarily the big wheeler-dealer.
‘To the markets?’ he persisted.
‘Yes. And some, er, private dealers that I know.’
He nodded and drew breath. Here it comes, I thought And it did.
‘I’m interested in a certain collector’s item,’ he said, as if he’d saved the words for a rainy day. ‘I’m starting a collection.’
‘Hmmm.’ The Lovejoy gambit.
‘I want to know if you can help.’
He sipped and waited. And I sipped and waited. Like a couple of those drinking ostriches we dipped in silence.
‘Er, can you?’ he asked.
‘If I can,’ I countered cagily. For an innocent novice he wasn’t doing too badly, and I was becoming distinctly edgy.
‘Do you mean Dill didn’t explain?’
‘He explained you were interested in purchasing flintlocks,’ I said.
‘Nothing else?’
‘And that you had, er, sufficient funds.’
‘But not what it is I’m seeking?’
‘No.’ I put down my cup because my hands were quivering slightly. If it turned dud I’d wring Tinker’s neck. ‘Perhaps,’ I said evenly, ‘you’d better tell me.’
‘Duelling pistols.’
‘I guessed that.’ Flintlock duellers are the P and O Line of weaponsmen.
‘A very special pair.’
‘That too.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Which pair, Mr Field?’
He stared at me across the darkened room.
‘I want the Judas pair,’ he said.
My heart sank. With luck, I could catch Tinker before Ted called ‘Time’ at the pub, and annihilate him on the spot for sending me a dummy. No wonder he’d been evasive when I asked him on the phone.
I gazed at the poor misguided customer.
‘Did you say, the Judas pair?’ I said, still hoping I’d misheard.
‘The Judas pair,’ he affirmed.
Digression time, folks.
Flintlocks are sprung iron gadgets which flip a piece of flint on to a steel so as to create a spark. ‘This spark, at its most innocent, can be used to ignite a piece of old rope or other tinder and set it smouldering to be blown into a flame for lighting the fire, candles, your pipe. This is the standard tinder-lighter of history. You’d be surprised how many sorts of tinder-lighters there are, many incredibly ingenious. But those instruments are the humdrum end of the trade, interesting and desirable though they are. You see, mankind, being, mankind, made this pleasant little system into the business bit of weapons for killing each other.
About the time of our Civil War, the posh firing weapon was a wheel-lock. This delectable weaponry consisted of a sprung wheel, spinning at the touch of a trigger and rubbing on a flint as it did so. (The very same mechanism is used in a petrol-fuelled cigarette lighter of today, believe it or not.) They were beautiful things, mostly made in Germany where there were clock-and-lock makers aplenty. A ball-butted German wheel-lock costs the earth nowadays. And remember, the less marked the better – none of this stupid business of boring holes and chipping the walnut stock to prove it’s old. Never try to improve any antique. Leave well alone – Sheraton and Constable knew what they were doing, and chances are that you are as ignorant as I am. Stick to wiping your antiques with a dry duster. Better still, don’t even do that.
These wheel-locks were rifled for accuracy. Prince Rupert, leader of his uncle’s Cavaliers, had a destructive habit of shooting weathercocks off steeples as he rode through captured towns. However, they were somewhat slow, clumsy, heavy and took time to fire. The reason was the spark. It plopped into a little pan where you had thoughtfully sprinkled black gunpowder. This ignited, and burned through a small hole into your end of the barrel, where you’d placed a larger quantity of gunpowder, a small lead bullet about the size of a marble, and a piece of old wadding to keep it all in. Bang! If you knew the delay to a millisec, the shift of the wind, could control your horse, pointed it right and kept everything crossed for luck, you were one more weathercock short. It asked to be improved.
The culmination in weapons was the true flintlock, faster, and quicker to fire again should you miss. This may not be important – but only if your enemies are all weathercocks. Once the idea caught on, the wheel-lock was replaced and the true flintlock came on to the historical scene.
The French had a crack at making them, and wonderful attempts they were. Some superb examples exist. I’ve had many with knobs on, gold inlay, silver escutcheons, damascus-barrelled beauties with delicate carving on precision locks that would melt your heart. And some beautiful Spanish miquelet pistols – a Mediterranean fancy of a strangely bulky style – are decorated to perfection. I admit that tears come to my eyes writing this, mostly because everybody else has them, not me. And Dutch too, though their taste for carving ugly ivory heads and figurines on the grips gives me the willies. All nations did their stuff on the flintlock, from the early snaphaunces and English doglocks to the final great explosions of exquisite functional murderous perfection in – you’ve guessed it – dear old peaceful Britain.
Came the Industrial boom days and an outburst of inventive genius which was to catapult these islands into wealth, prominence and power. Don’t think our armies won by unaided valour, though they had it in plenty. They used an improved flintlock, standardized by a thoughtful young English squire, Oliver Cromwell by name. And it fired faster, surer and noisier than anyone else’s, which was a blessing in war.
From then the flintlock didn’t look back. Inventors added devices you would hardly believe: flintlocks that fired under water (work it out), flintlock repeating rifles, flintlock revolvers, flintlock machine guns, ingenious safety catches that actually worked even if you forgot to slip them on, breechloading flintlocks by the score all the time edging towards a shorter firing time between pulling the trigger and sending regrets to your opponent’s widow. And ladies were at it too – no more than you’d expect – in subtle little ways having a charm all their own. Muff-pistols, made for folding away in their hot little hands, were their scene but they also liked tiny collapsible guns built into their prayer-books – presumably in the Exodus bit. Church was more exciting in those days.
By the 1770s, duelling was in, and here comes the Judas pair. Or, rather, here they don’t come.
Be careful, O ye innocent purchaser of these valuable – I mean, and repeat, valuable – weapons. They should be damascus-barrelled (i.e. wiggly patterned surfaces) and, at their best, brown because of a skilful veneer of faint rust applied to the metal by skilled makers of genius. They should have walnut stocks, and usually be rifle-grooved. But, if the barrel measures less than nine inches, utter a loud derisory snort and mentally divide the asking price by three, if not four, because you are being had by some dealer who is trying to pass off a pair of officer’s holster pistols as genuine duellers. A sneer is useful at this stage. On the other hand, if, say, they have ten-inch barrels, try to keep cool and go on to the next step, which is to look for decoration. Almost any metallic decoration on the barrels or on the locks disqualifies, because duelling, remember, was naughty, and silver squiggles and gold inlays tended to catch the first gleam of light on Wandsworth Common and reflect it unerringly into the eagle eyes of London’s annoyed watchmen. You are allowed one silver escutcheon plate on the butt. And even this displeases you, because the real flintlock geniuses of Regency London knew their onions. Sombre perfection was their aim. They achieved it.
Pick up a genuine Regency dueller. Hold it with your arm straight down. Now lift as if about to aim. Its weight makes it wobble in the strongest fist as it rises. Up it comes, wobbling and waggling, and you begin to wonder how they managed to hit anything with the long barrel waving in the breeze. Then, just about on a level with your bottom rib, something so remarkable happens you won’t believe me, but it’s the truth – a genuine flintlock dueller begins to lift itself! Honestly. Try it. The weight evaporates. The wobble disappears. Up it goes, seemingly of its own accord, and all you need to do is point it right. Its perfect balance, its meticulous design and the love and joy expended in its making have achieved the seemingly impossible. That’s the genuine dueller – grim, sombre, almost dull of appearance, lying with its identically matched partner in a wooden case with powder flask, bullet moulds, flints, separate ramrod and screwdrivers. It reeks of class. It screams of perfection.
A pair of mint – that is, perfectly preserved – cased flintlock duellers would buy you a couple of new cars nowadays, minimum. A mint pair of them with a pedigree – belonging, say, to some hero, a famous dandy of the time, or perhaps some pal of Beau Brummell’s or a member of the then royalty – will virtually buy you anything. If you discover such a pair of old pistols in a dirty old box upstairs, rush to the nearest church and light a candle in thanks to your Maker, Bate, Monlong, Murdoch, Pauly, whoever it turns out to be. Then retire for life in affluence.
Finally, one point more. Just like Queen Anne silver, each weapon is, or should be, named on the lock. Don’t throw value away. Your famous silversmith’s monogram can double or treble the value of your fruit bowl. So your famous maker’s engraved name can send your find ever upwards in value. The names are too many to give here, but Joseph Manton, John Manton, Wogden who gave his name as a nickname to duelling (a ‘Wogden affair’), the brilliant Joseph Egg, Henry Nock the Great and his younger relative Sam that he had a terrible row with, Mortimer, Tatham who blew himself to pieces on a cannon for reasons best not gone into, Freeman, the fashionable Rigby, the Reverend Alexander Forsyth – who invented the percussion system which did away with flintlocks altogether and doubled the killing speed – are some you should not lose on your way home.
And last but not least, one Durs (nearly as bad as Lovejoy) Egg, flintlock maker to kings and princes, genius extraordinaire, maker – so they say – of the one and only Judas pair of flintlock duellers. Well.
This young man came to London about 1770 to seek his fortune. With another Swiss, Pauly, he became interested in the science of pneumatics and air propulsion and between them they produced a variety of odd but lethal airguns. In later years he lost a fortune by inventing a flying machine, the Flying Dolphin, which he kept in a hangar down Knightsbridge way, to London society’s huge delight and derision. A genius whose habit was to pattern the walnut stocks of his flintlocks with a curiously stippled star design, to aid in the grip. He signed himself always by his nickname, Durs.
The legend is that he made twelve – only twelve – pairs of duelling pistols. The legend goes on to say that he privately made a thirteenth pair, when something terrible happened. What it was the legend fails to explain.
That thirteenth pair, sinister weapons of ill-omen, were his last. They were never found nor heard of except as obscure rumours. Any antiques dealer worth his salt will laugh till he falls down if you ask after them. They don’t exist, and everybody knows it.
That thirteenth pair of flintlock duellers is the Judas pair.
I drew breath.
‘I’ve bad news, Mr Field,’ I managed to get out.
‘Bad news?’
‘The Judas pair. They don’t exist,’ I said firmly, and rose to get my emergency beer. ‘They’re a myth, a legend. The antique trade’s riddled with myths.’
‘Is it really?’ He was oddly calm for somebody who’d just been put down.
‘Really,’ I told him. No use mucking about. He watched me splash the ale as I drove the truth savagely home. ‘Michelangelo’s Goliath to match his David. Turner’s mysterious set of portraits and industrial paintings. Napoleon’s woodcuts done by his, very own lily-white hands. Sir Francis Drake’s poetry in two breathtaking volumes. Bill Shakespeare’s latest play King Penda. Robin Hood’s diary. Czar Alexander’s secret will. The Grail. Excalibur. Prince John’s necklace from The Wash. Friar Bacon’s perpetual clock. Leonardo’s jewelled casket of secrets. Cleopatra’s ruby ring. The Koh-i-noor’s partner diamond, even bigger and better. Nazi treasure chests in those tiresome bloody lakes. Rembrandt’s French landscapes. Chippendale’s missing design books. All myths. Like,’ I added harshly, ‘the Judas pair.’
‘Did Dill tell you how much I was willing to pay?’ he asked.
‘Ten thousand,’ I said bitterly. ‘Just my luck.’
‘Now I believe you, Lovejoy,’ he said, calm as you please.
‘Look,’ I said slowly. ‘Maybe I’m not getting through to you. Can’t you understand what I’m saying? Ten thousand’s too little. So is ten million. You can’t get something if it doesn’t exist.’
‘Before,’ he continued evenly, ‘I thought you were leading me on, perhaps pretending to be more honest than you really were. That is a common deception in all forms of business.’ I took a mouthful of ale to stop myself gaping too obviously. ‘Now I believe you are an honest man. A dishonest dealer, seeing I know little about the subject, would have exploited my ignorance.’
‘It happens,’ I admitted weakly.
‘I accepted that risk when I came to you.’ Field stared thoughtfully at me.
‘So you knew about the Judas pair being legendary?’
‘From various sources.’
‘And it was a try on, then.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, Mr Field.’ I rose. ‘You’ve had your fun. Now, before you leave, is it worth your while to tell me what you do want?’ I stood over him. To my surprise he remained unabashed. In fact, he seemed more cool as the chat wore on.
‘Certainly.’
‘Right. Give.’ I sat, still exuding aggression.
‘I want you to do a job.’
‘Legal?’
‘Legal. Right up your street, as Dill would say.’ So he’d listened in on Tinker’s call as I’d guessed. ‘You’ll accept? It will be very lucrative.’
‘What is it?’
‘Find me,’ he said carefully, ‘the Judas pair.’
I sighed wearily. The guy was a nutter.
‘Haven’t I just explained –’
‘Wrongly.’ Field leaned forward. ‘Lovejoy, the Judas pair exist. They killed my brother.’
It was becoming one of those days. I should have stayed on the nest with Sheila, somewhere safe and warm.