The Vintage Girl by Hester Browne Read Free Book Online Page B

counterattack muggers in Clapham.
    I mean, it
could
be a great icebreaker, as Max himself proved time and again with many horse-riding ladies of a certain age; but the trouble was, unlike him, (a) I didn’t have the auction prices of every single item in the whole world at my fingertips, and (b) I wasn’t great at pretending I did.
    Now, faced with a room full of guests, I took an involuntary step backward toward the door, but Duncan was already pressing a lead-crystal glass of some liquid into my hand, and ushering a strange-looking man toward me.
    “Here you go, Evie, chin-chin! Now, have you met Innes Stout? Innes, this is Evie Nicholson.”
    Innes looked like the kind of man who spent a lot of time in the open air, “tending” to vermin. He wore an army-surplus sweater under a tweed jacket, and a tie. At least he wasn’t wielding an Arts and Crafts barometer.
    I extended the hand that wasn’t gripping my drink. “Hello, Innes.”
    Innes responded by reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a flintlock pistol, causing the woman earwigging next to us to let out a loud shriek and stagger backward into a red velvet sofa.
    Luckily for Innes, people were always pulling unexpected things out of their jackets at Max’s shop. I’d seen
much
worse. My grin fixed more rigidly on my face.
    “Calm yourself, Sheila!” Duncan barked over my shoulder. “It’s only Innes’s dueling pistol! Gets it out all the time at the golf club! You
must
have seen it before.”
    Ingrid appeared from nowhere and began tending to the winded Sheila, all the while shooting murderous glances at her husband.
    I hoped she didn’t think I’d asked him to do that.
    Meanwhile, Innes and Duncan were carrying on as if nothing had happened. “My great-great-great-great-grandfather shot four Englishmen wi’ this.” Innes proudly stroked the barrel. “Not at the same time, mind.” He looked at me as if I were going to run some kind of bar-code scanner over it and beep out a value. “D’you need to hold it?”
    “Um, I won’t, thanks,” I stammered. “Four Englishmen, eh?”
    “Aye,” said Innes. “All stone deed. I’ve a couple more at home. Not implicated in fatalities, mind.”
    “Go on, it won’t bite,” urged Duncan. “Have a feel!”
    What else was I meant to do? I could feel several pairs of eyes pretending not to look in our direction.
    Gingerly I took the pistol from Innes. It was heavy, and I got an odd dark feeling from it.
    I didn’t ever put it in so many words to Max because he would have laughed like a drain, but I had a bit of a sixth sense when it came to the history of the antiques I bought. Maybe it was my fertile imagination, overcompensating after growing up in a wipe-clean house full of brand-new furniture, but memories seemed to bubble into my head when I held old things, like the faint trace of perfume on a coat, or cigarette smoke in an old cocktail bag. I never bought repro at auctions, even when it was skillfully done; it never felt right in my hands.
    “It’s a dueling pistol?” I asked cautiously. It had a dark feeling about it.
    Innes nodded. “One of a pair.”
    “How
interesting
,” said Duncan, his shoulders bouncing up and down with excitement. “What d’you say they’d be worth, eh, Evie? In your professional opinion?”
    I swallowed. I could hardly say I didn’t know, not when I’d come up here under the guise of being an expert—but I
didn’t
know. I didn’t come across a lot of firearms in my day-to-day business.
    “You’d need to go to a specialist appraiser for something like this,” I gabbled, hoping Innes hadn’t just had them valued. “I’d hate to mislead you about something with so much … family significance.”
    That was a good phrase. Max used that a lot, when he had no idea whether something was worth millions or buttons. “I can give you a number for an
excellent
dealer,” I went on, feeling more confident. “I certainly don’t come across anything as