The Judas Pair Read Online Free PDF

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.

Chapter 3
    E LIZABETHAN LADIES – the First, I hasten to add – had fleas. And lice. And gentlemen suitors, who came courting, also suffered. If these heroes were especially favoured, they were allowed indoors to chat up the object of their desire. If they were really fancied, though, matters progressed to poetry, music, even handclasps and sighs. And eventually the great flea-picking ceremony. You’ve seen baboons do it on those unspeakable nature programmes. Yes, our ancestors did the same, uttering rapturous sighs at all that contact.
    What I am getting at is this: if you see a little (one and a half inches maximum) antique box, dirty as hell, that
should
be neat and enamelled to be a proper patch-and-comfit box and somehow isn’t quite right, it can be only one of two things. The first is a battered nineteenth-century trinket or snuff box, in which case you can generally forget it. The second – oh, dear, the second – is an Elizabethan flea- and louse-box. Don’t shudder. Don’t boil it to kill any remaining creepy-crawlies. Lock it carefully in the biggest, safest safe you can find, swallow the key, and then scream with ecstasy. These little jewelled boxes were used by lovers, for holding fleas and lice that they captured on their paramours’ lovely chalk-powdered skin. It was an exquisitely charming pastime of those days. We don’t advertise them as such, these boxes. We call them anything: ‘Early antique, sixteenth-century lady’s minute toiletry box, heavily inlaid, made by . . .’ and so on.
    Remember Adrian? I spent part of the night cleaning the lumpy box – it was a genuine flea-box. I kissed it reverently, drew all the curtains, doused my lamp and rolled up the carpet. Underneath was the hinged paving stone. Down I went, eight wooden steps underground into my secret cave. Eight feet by eight, cold as charity, dry as a tinderbox, safer than any bank vault on earth. I laid the box on a shelf and climbed out, replacing the stone flag and making sure