The Grace in Older Women Read Online Free Page A

pontificated, echoed. A door slammed. Footfalls thumped.
Silence. More fairy voices, a stern bass intoning somebody's name.
    Quarter of an hour. Another. Half an hour.
    Rising, I returned to Den. 'How much longer?' A posh suited bloke
advanced.
    'Lovejoy? I called out, and you ignored me! That's the action of a
bounder!'
    'Sod off,' I said. It was the thunder man from the auction. Medium
height, furled brolly, waistcoated double-breasted suit worn with such
assurance you could almost believe they were still in fashion. Moustache like
that old comedian. He'd have his bowlers privately made (sorry, built; you
build bowler hats), Bates's of Jermyn Street, London.
    'Guard! Make this hoodlum speak in a civil manner!'
    ‘Yes, sir.' Den's eyes gave me an imploring look. 'Lovejoy. This
is the chief magistrate, Mr.. Ashley Battishall.'
    'Sod off.'
    'Heanley,' the thunder man thundered. 'Bring him to me the instant
he's given his evidence!'
    He strode off. Unfortunately, you need really long legs for a good
stridey exit. He tried, didn't make it. And I think bowlers are only for squat
navvies or tall effete gentlemen who are deadly shots and can ride dromedaries.
    'He ever ridden a dromedary, Den?'
    Den sighed. 'Don't start, Lovejoy.' He perked up with a smile at a
distant echo. 'They're calling you.' He pointed with a pencil. I hate that. 'If
you get done, Lovejoy, it's Bill Tyrone on the cells.'
    Bill, custodian of us honest people penned in our town dungeons,
gets me fish and chips from Sadie's.
     
    If it's all right with you, I won't go into detail about the
court. The ritual's repellent, their tricks hideous, the whole charade
disgusting. Lawyers can't see it, of course, because it's their livelihood.
Makers of poison gas must have their own rationalizations. Juries listen, or
don't. Judges listen, or don't. The mouthies talk, trying to seem lifelike. My
bit concerned a polemoscope.
    'Would I be right to say you gave the defendant one of these
instruments?' the barrister asked when he could be bothered.
    'Aye.'
    'An antique?'
    'No.'
    That made his team shuffle papers and glare.
    He cleared his throat, to put the knife in. He flapped a paper at
me, an irritating fly.
    To the police, you stated it was marked London made, 1878. Do you
deny this?'
    'No.'
    'Yet now you say it isn't an antique?'
    'Yes.'
    The magistrate cut in. 'Could you explain, Love joy?'
    Him I knew from last year. I'd sold him a mahogany smallboy
without veneer. Lovely. Because he was a magistrate I'd told him it was a
reproduction I'd made, but he hadn't minded.
    'Antiques begin in 1837, m'lord. Things made later aren't.'
    'Aren't?'
    'The Customs and Excise lot started to con the public into
believing antiques were defined as a century old, so they could charge money on
more things. Then people started claiming anything older than seventy-five
years, then fifty.' I paused, but nobody spoke. I added helpfully, k l don't
trust moving goalposts, Your Honour.'
    'The, ah, device was marked as London, 1878?'
    'Yes.'
    'Very well!' The barrister flung his paper down to put the fear of
God in me. It didn't work, because the fear's already there. This wart was a
pillock. 'Why did you give it to the defendant, Packo Orange, a rival antique
dealer?'
    'So he would keep quiet.'
    'Quiet about what?' He looked blank.
    'About a sympathy.'
    'Explain!' He stood akimbo, jowls dangling.
    i already have.'
    'Lovejoy.' The magistrate was getting tired. An old bloke, he's
our town's contract bridge champion, hangs anybody who uses the Culberston
system. 'What is a sympathy?'
    Packo wasn't in court, which was a pity. He'd like this. No
greater raconteur than Packo Orange. He was probably pulling his usual trick of
dying in the cells. He's an elderly mate of mine, paintings faker in Dedham.
Looks exactly like a garden gnome, beard and all, yet cohabits with a
succession of young blondes. His worn joke is that he changes them when the
ashtrays are full. You are expected to laugh.
    'A