The Gondola Scam Read Online Free

collected by
minions. Antique dealers hate this, because it calls for frankness and honesty,
probably why it's going out of fashion.
    Yes, it pays to suss out the rules governing the particular
auction you wish to attend. It might prevent you going broke. But auction risks
don't end there. There's the newfangled check trick (bid high, pay the 10
percent deposit immediately by check, try to sell the item for a fast profit
that day—and, if you can't, just stop the check, claiming all sorts of false
catalogue descriptions.) There's the "knockout," where antique
dealers resort to any trick to impede or con the public out of bids. There's
even evil in some auctioneers themselves (Lord save us!), their assistants, vannies,
valuers, clerks, experts, and, last and most, the public. We don't have state-owned
auction rooms like the Dorotheum in Vienna, and I'm quite glad about that.
"At least in our system roguery is predictable and perennial," I told
Connie. "I'd hate it to be legal too."
    Connie thought the ring auction a lot of pointless trouble.
"Why auction things among yourselves if you've just already bought
them?"
    "The dealers all agree not to bid at the public auction. Only
one dealer bids. So the price is lower, right? Then the dealers gather in a pub
and have their private little auction. The difference in Gimbert's price and
the ring's price is the profit, and is shared out. See?"
    Connie was outraged. "But that's not fair!" she cried.
    I pulled her down and inevitably her perishing cola feet climbed
inchwise up my legs.
    "I know that. But the first ever successful prosecution for
an illicit auction ring was in 1981. It's hopeless."
    She forgot the drafts long enough to raise her head off my chest
and peer at me. "But why were you there, darling?"
    "I was made to go," I lied, putting on my noble face.
"Wanted to buy you a present."
    Her eyes filled with tears. "Darling," she said, all
misty. "And you risked being caught, put in prison for life, just for
me?" Even I felt quite moved by my story, and I'd just made it up.
    "Well, love," I said brokenly, "I don't give you
much. And this cottage isn't much of a place to bring you—"
    "It's absolutely beautiful!" she cried defiantly.
"I just love the village and your lovely little home!"
    If she'd agreed it was crummy I'd have thumped her there and then.
Hastily, I told her how wonderful she was, with inevitable consequences. Also
inevitably, she briefly halted the romance for meteorological reasons.
    "Darling, couldn't we make love the other way round, then we
can stay under the bedclothes?"
    "For you, anything," I said. She said I was so sweet,
which is true, though when I came to afterwards I was still narked with her about
my last pastie. A single pastie can keep you going a whole day sometimes, which
is more than can be said for almost anything else you can think of.
     
    I saw Connie off about ten to eight. She helped me to fold the bed
away (it's really a divan thing) and lent me some money for tomorrow's grub.
She also sprang a present on me, a pair of shoes obviously nicked from one of
husband Ken's shops.
    'They're expensive, darling," she said. "Real handmade
leather."
    "Thanks, love."
    "They look marvelous." She was thrilled because they
fit. Two days before, she had measured me with a complicated sextant-looking
gadget. I could tell she was worried in case she got the width wrong. "Now
wear them. Don't let me find them in a cupboard weeks from now. Cross your
heart?"
    "Let me cross yours instead."
    "Oh, you,” she said.
    We went to the porch arm in arm. The porch light doesn't work.
I'll mend it when I get a minute, but for the moment it was usefully dark.
Still, nobody could see us, because the people across the lane are always out
sailing or racing motors round Silverstone and that, and our lane leads nowhere
in particular.
    "Got your car keys, love?"
    "Yes, darling. See you soon. I'll come early."
    I groaned inwardly. A morning tryst meant she had designs on