Free Gold by Gemini by Jonathan Gash

beginning to stare. And this lovely blonde was standing beside me, breathless and pretty.
    ‘Excuse me, please,’ she said. A picture, her lovely face anxious and her deep eyes troubled. ‘Are you Lovejoy? Can I have a word, please?’ There she stood, nice, worried, determined. Her smile was brilliant, full of allure. Women really have it. I decided I needn’t walk off after all.
    ‘Yes, dear?’ Janie cooed. She drummed her fingers on her elbows, smiling.
    Now, women don’t like each other. Ever noticed that? If two meet, you can see them both instantly thinking: (a) What’s this bitch
really
up to?; (b) Thank God her clothes are a mess; and, following on pretty smartly, (c) Isn’t it time this ghastly female was leaving?
    ‘I heard you’re trying to find an old picture, sold at Gimbert’s auction, belonging to a Mr Bexon?’
    I gaped. You just don’t ask that sort of thing in this trade. It’s like asking a Great Power which other nations it really hates at a peace conference. I suddenly caught sight of Beck stepping inside Dandy Jack’s. I instantly realized why Dandy hadn’t kept his promise about the sketch. Beck had heard me talking to Tinker Dill and was now arriving to buy the worthwhile stuff.
    ‘Eh?’ I responded cautiously.
    ‘I want it,’ she explained. I’m Nichole Bexon.’ Shetook hold of my arm confidingly, better and better. ‘I’m trying to find my uncle’s things. A sketch, mainly. And two diaries. I was . . . away, you see, when his things were . . . taken to a sale. My sister cleared the house. It’s so unfortunate. I heard you were trying to find them as well. A neighbour.’
    Good old Mary. That’s the trouble. In these remote little East Anglian villages rumour does a faster job than the new electric telegraph.
    ‘Ah, sorry, love,’ I said, smiling. ‘You’ll have to try Dandy Jack.’ I nodded at his emporium. And, innocently thinking to get one back on poor old Dandy for changing our agreed deal in mid-scratch, I added malevolently, ‘He has the things you want. He won’t let them go, I’m afraid. I’ve offered him the earth.’
    ‘Oh,
dear
.’ She looked almost in tears.
    ‘Is there no way at all?’ this chap asked. He’d been listening. I dragged my eyes from the lovely Nichole and noticed him.
    Nichole seemed to have brought her tame male along, a real weed in Savile Row gear. The fool wore a city titfer. Honestly, some people. A hat in the Arcade’s like wearing a coronet at football. You know how some couples are just, not suited? Well, here was the archetypal mismatch. Her; lovely, cool, gleaming, luscious, a pure swinger. And him: neat, precise, waist-coat complete with gold watch-chain (not antique, the pathetic slob), rimless specs, glittering black shoes, and a Rolls the size of a tram. A worrier, accountant if ever I saw one. How a pill like him ever got her . . .
    ‘No,’ I said. Luckily, Janie had reached (c) by now.
    ‘Mr Lovejoy is a well-known art expert,’ she cut in crisply, ‘and even he hasn’t been successful. Sorry we can’t help.’
    She slipped into the Lagonda. It was sneering at the Rolls, nose to nose. The Rolls wasn’t really up to noticing riffraff for the moment and gazed into the distance. She gunned the engine. They got the message.
    ‘Then what shall I do?’ the beautiful Nichole said. ‘I must have Uncle’s things back. They’re nothing much. But he’d have wanted me to have them.’ She actually twiddled a button, one of the remaining few, on my coat.
    I cleared my throat. ‘Er, well . . .’
    ‘Please?’ Flutter, flutter.
    Women intrigue me. No, they really do. Say a woman wants ten yards of lovely Thai silk. She’d expect to have to pay for it, right? Same as a bloke wanting tobacco. Everybody knows it – you have to pay. But mention antiques and suddenly everyone wants something for nothing. Or, at the very least, a Constable or Rembrandt for a quid or two. And make no mistake, women are the worst. A man