The Judas Pair Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.
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