The Gimmel Flask Read online

  THE GIMMEL FLASK

  Douglas Clark

  © Douglas Clark 1977

  Douglas Clark has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1977 by Victor Gollancz Ltd.

  This edition published in 2019 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter One

  The first Tuesday in the month. A grey March day. Grey and cloudy, but with a mildness about it that made the people of Limpid aware that spring might not be too far away. Today, no wind blew down the market hill. No waste paper scurried across the open triangle below the church where, on Thursdays, the stalls were erected and Limpid woke to a commercial bustle entirely lacking at all other times except, perhaps, on Saturday mornings.

  But the first Tuesday in the month was special for Limpid. On these days, the town’s leading firm of auctioneers and estate agents held their monthly sale in the Corn Exchange. Hardy, Williams and Lamont—three bold-faced men, all flashy and used to high-living on the easy pickings of their calling—dominated these monthly gatherings. From 10 am to 4 pm, with no break at lunchtime, they occupied the rostrum in turn, to knock down the lots to be auctioned.

  Limpid was a buyer’s delight. A market town in the centre of a vast agricultural area, it had no rivals among the villages and hamlets that dotted this part of East Anglia. But the farmhouses and cottages, as well as the dwellings of Limpid itself, yielded an almost limitless store of antique furniture, pottery and bric-a-brac. Much of this—some of it turned out of the houses where it had lain for decades in order to make way for modernisation, some of it the household effects of the recently deceased—found its way to the Hardy, Williams and Lamont sales. A permanent ‘ring’ attended; dealers from Cambridge, Ipswich, Colchester and Norwich were always there. The London dealers had their local spies. On viewing day, always the Monday before the sale, these spies sniffed round the items as they were carried into the Corn Exchange and laid out or stacked in handling order. If there was anything that appeared likely to interest the London dealers, a phone call would either bring a buyer down in person or result in a commission for the spy—an order to enter the bidding up to a limit fixed by the dealer.

  Richard Benson was a collector, not a dealer. As he slowly made his way down the market hill on the Corn Exchange side, he was thinking about his hobby. It had never become a disease with him: a sickness which drove him on to amass hundreds of articles simply for the sake of hoarding treasures. He prided himself on an intellectual approach. Had he ever been asked to express his aim or even his approach to his collection, he would have claimed that his hobby was an intelligent, probably an admirable, occupation in that he sought for beauty in the work of men’s hands; that he studied history from the original sources which our forebears had left behind; that he revealed the social trends and customs on which modern civilisation has built, not, alas, always for the better; and somewhere among this list he would inevitably have murmured the word ‘mores’ simply because it is a word beloved by historians and art critics, and he read much of both.

  “Morning, Mr Benson. Going along to the sale then, I see.” Benson stopped. Theraby always stood just outside his shop door if trade was slack and the weather was warm enough to allow it. His shop was a long-fronted, shallow building, the result of combining two former shops adjacent to each other. It was an old-fashioned clothier’s—men’s wear at one end, women’s wear at the other. The heavy mahogany counters carried screwed-in brass measures and stood in front of a whole wall of pigeon-holes, each one filled with a different item. Though a young woman could not buy a smart ball gown from Theraby, she would be able to choose the loveliest of woollen bed-jackets for her granny’s birthday, or a thorn-proof skirt; while men could buy off-the-peg west of England tweed slacks that would last a lifetime. Benson often patronised Theraby. It was the only shop in Limpid that could supply him with a stiff collar and Theraby the only outfitter he knew who didn’t sneer at the thought of a man still wearing braces instead of tying himself up tight in the middle like a wasp in corsets.

  “Morning Theraby. Have you heard what the Committee decided last night?”

  “I’ve heard. The answer is nothing—so far.”

  “So you don’t know whether your premises will survive or not?”

  “They discussed it and then referred it back to the full Council, whatever that means.”

  “At least it means that your objection has caused them to think again. Councillors in a town this size have to think twice if a petition carries over three thousand names. Dammit, there’s only seven thousand souls in the whole place.”

  “I know, Mr Benson. And I want to thank you for organising that for me. I’m sure it helped a lot.”

  “Think nothing of it, Theraby. There are well over a hundred buildings of architectural merit in this town. Obvious places like the Moot Hall, the Abbey Cottages and so on have preservation orders on them because they’re beamed. Studwork is preserved, but places like the Corn Exchange, which are fine examples of Victorian architecture with a lot of outstanding ironwork, are ignored. And that’s not right. Your shop is old, but none the worse for that. In addition it’s an amenity. You give good service and always have done. If they demolish your shop, they demolish your service, and God knows there’s little enough of that about these days.”

  Theraby pushed his mole-grey felt hat back a bit on his bald head. His was a nondescript face. There was just too much flesh on the cheeks and the pores were deep and coarse. The nose was bulbous and had a few hairs growing on the rounded end. His eyebrows were grey and thick and great sheaves of hair grew out of his ears, but in spite of his age there was nothing rheumy about his eyes, which were wide and bright. He was, thought Benson, a man incapable of expression with any feature except his eyes. Now they had assumed a glint of interest and intelligence where previously they had been quiescent. “You’ve a good point there, Mr Benson. I’ll use it if I may. Destroy these premises and you destroy the service. I’ll have a placard made and put in the shop.”

  “Tell me, Theraby, have you discovered who is behind this campaign to demolish your home and shop?”

  Theraby always wore grey. His coat overall was grey denim, his trousers charcoal-grey worsted. His tie was grey. The whole man was nothing more than a part of the dark interior of his shop brought out into the daylight for inspection, much as his customers, when choosing goods, brought them to the shop doorway in order to see the exact shade and texture.

  “I’d not heard anybody was behind it, Mr Benson—except the Council. They want to make a compulsory purchase so that they can build some flash supermarket which they’ll lease for a big rent. That’s what’s behind it.”

  “Where did you learn that from?”

  “Fred Hardy, and he’s a councillor, so he should know.”

  “Hardy, Williams and Lamont’s offices are only three or four doors up from you. They’re in an old house of no architectural merit whatsoever. Have they received a compulsory purchase order?”

  “Not yet. But Fred Hardy says they’re expecting one any time.”

  “I see. Well, Theraby, don’t give up hope too soon. I must push on. It’s ten to ten by the church clock. I want a place in the crowd where I can see and be seen.”

  “Buying, are you?”

  “Maybe. Depends on prices. If things go up much more I’ll be selling instead of buying.”

  Be
nson raised his stick in farewell. He was a man of middle age and middle height. He wore a nail-bag hat, a pepper and salt jacket as bright and clean as a new pin. His grey-green worsted trousers were impeccably creased and his brown shoes gleamed. The patina shaded light on the raised portions of the leather at toe-caps and heels, but darkened off almost to black elsewhere. He wore unlined gloves, a striped shirt and a navy blue tie. He limped as he went, swinging one leg wide and stiff.

  Must give these shoes a wash in milk, he thought, as he went past the gown shop below Theraby’s. Toilet soap and milk—the old saddler’s trick to remove unwanted polish where it had built up into black areas. Toilet soap because mildness was needed. Milk because it didn’t ruin the shine, leaving, rather, a thin varnish of its own on which to rebuild.

  He stood aside to let pass two women coming down the four steps that led from the East Anglian Bank. He raised his hat courteously. Mrs Horbium was known to him. She dabbled in objets d’art, her aim seeming to be a desire to amass hundreds of examples of whatever she could lay her hands on in the way of glassware and pottery, irrespective of period or original purpose. The other woman he did not know, but yet her face seemed familiar. She was younger, much younger, than her companion and decidedly more interesting to a man accustomed to the study of beauty in works of art.

  “Good morning, Mr Benson. You’ll be at the sale, I suppose?”

  It was an unnecessary question. Mrs Horbium knew the answer. So she did not pause to receive it, but swept on, turning left towards the entrance to the Corn Exchange. Benson followed slowly. Mrs Horbium was a large woman. A bouncy large woman. This morning she was all in black. As she went she rolled slightly; a sway induced by the impetus of her weight, which never seemed quite to recover from one sideways movement before a step forward required it to go the other way. Beside her, her companion seemed slight and slim, though Benson, who was a great admirer of women’s legs, noted that the calves were firm and beautifully shaped and the feet well and neatly shod in as attractive a pair of shoes as he’d seen on a woman in years.

  Next, the green shop front of the dairy, where they sold not only dairy produce but cream cakes, among which the meringues were notable not only for taste and filling but for size, too. He stopped by the door and called to the woman behind one of the counters: “Keep me two meringues for four o’clock, Bessie, please.”

  “Going to give Mrs Taylor a treat, are you?”

  “And myself.”

  Mrs Taylor was his housekeeper. At least he called her that and she accepted it, but she was, in fact, a daily woman who came on Mondays to launder, Tuesdays to clean, Thursdays to do the marketing and Fridays to tidy up for the weekend and—as she put it—‘do him a good big bake to see him through’. The good big bake was of plain food. Lots of scones, a sponge cake, beef pie, apple pie and sausage rolls. The list varied little. Benson was a man of habit and Mrs Taylor’s culinary repertoire was limited in variety though unsurpassed in quality.

  A dry-cleaner’s next. One of those half-shops with a door at an angle to another half-shop, inset in the original doorway. Benson didn’t like the firm. It was one of a chain that put disclaimers in small print on all their documents so that no matter what happened to a garment while in their hands, the blame was not theirs. Loss or damage or just plain bad workmanship were all the same. Benson preferred the shop on the High Street that the proprietors of the Limpid Steam Laundry had run for over sixty years. There, if anything went wrong, one called Harry Box, the working owner, and told him about it. Then something was done—though, now he came to think about it, very little did go wrong in Harry Box’s works because Harry was there himself to see it didn’t.

  The other half of the divided shop was owned by a comparative newcomer. A young man called Jack Racine, a photographer who sold cameras and took good pictures of weddings and social gatherings, as well as amazingly good portraits. Benson liked Racine, who was a blond giant with a pretty young wife who—so rumour had it—had at one time been a photographer’s model. Benson suspected the rumour meant by that that Jill Racine had posed nude. If so, he reckoned she would have been a jolly good eyeful. Racine had, not long before, photographed Benson’s collection, piece by piece, because the insurance company and the police had suggested it to make description and identification easier in case of theft. Jill had come with her husband and had endeared herself to Benson not simply by her looks, but by her obvious rapture over his treasures. She had fetched and carried for her husband throughout the session, but all the time she had handled the items with loving care. Benson had scented a nascent interest in his hobby and on several occasions since their first meeting had chatted to her about antiques. Jack Racine was good tempered. He had arrived in Limpid prepared to work hard to make a success of his little business. Benson liked that. He had recommended Racine to several of his acquaintances, many of whom, he reflected, could never be dealt with successfully by anyone but a good tempered man.

  Benson tapped on the window as he passed. Jill, who was dusting a pair of binoculars, looked up and waved. She mouthed some message, then held up both hands with fingers widespread. She followed this by a Churchillian two fingered gesture. And inclined her head sideways in the direction of the Corn Exchange. Benson took it to mean that she would look in at the saleroom at twelve o’clock, presumably when Jack returned from some job. He nodded his understanding of the message, lifted his stick in farewell and took the last dozen steps to the door of the Exchange. As he arrived, the clock in the church tower struck ten o’clock.

  Two or three large vehicles stood at the curb. One belonged to a firm of local furnishers who prided themselves on being both modern and antique as regards stock. Obviously they had their eye on quite a few pieces. They liked gate-leg tables and sets of dining chairs with carvers. Benson knew from his preview that there were several such lots. The vehicle behind this was nameless, but he recognised the blue tilt. It belonged to the auctioneers’ porters. They gathered up the sale items in it. Now three men in their shirt sleeves, with green baize aprons, were offloading some last minute additions to the list—bulky stuff, a double bed and a couple of old heavy wardrobes, a marble-topped washstand and matching dressing table in bird’s-eye maple.

  The third van he did not recognise. It had the air of an interloper and the number plates to prove it was not on home ground. Some dealer was after something. There was rather a fine chiffonier in there and a couple of horse trough wine coolers. . . .

  He limped up the steps.

  Benson was fond of the Corn Exchange. It was still used for its original purpose on Thursdays, and farmers from round about did actually offer samples of grain within its walls and transact various other deals to do with their businesses. But a few other sidelines had crept in. Notably the sale of pullets, eggs and butter. There was the cattle market for livestock, and Hardy, Williams and Lamont conducted sales there every Thursday. But the Corn Exchange was still a centre in its own right, and when not in use for its original purpose and auctions such as the one being held today, it offered a venue for the Chrysanthemum Society Annual Show, The Cage Bird Society Show, and all manner of other exhibitions and demonstrations.

  The only permanent occupants of the Corn Exchange were a pair of house martins. As soon as he was up the steps and through the outer door, Benson looked for them. They perched high on the great crossbeams of the lofty hall whenever people flocked in. But if they weren’t to be seen there—motionless little black and white dots close together—Benson knew he might spot them at their window. All the windows in the exchange were high. That is, their sills were a good ten feet above the floor. The narrow, leaded panes ran up very high, particularly those opposite the door, because the pitch of the roof allowed them—particularly the centre one of the three—to rise close up under the apex. This was the house-martins’ window. At the top, a semicircular storm vent was always left partly open for them, and here it was they fluttered in and out. Benson saw them there this morning hovering,
apparently in slight dismay at the noise made by the crowd: an intrusion they had experienced many times before, but to which it took them an hour or so to reaccustom themselves.

  He could barely squeeze through the inner door. Here a crowd of people always congregated: the ones who were only intending to stay a short time and had no wish to get further into the hall, deep in the crowd from which it was often difficult to extricate oneself. He managed to round the knot of chattering citizens and found himself in calmer waters. He paused a moment to look about him. The towering roof fascinated him, with its great iron crossbeams and screw-ties decorated with casts of wheat sheaves. These latter had been picked out in gold which stood out vividly against the green paintwork. The walls were cream-washed down to the dado, and below that, green paint again.

  The auctioneer’s dais with its chair and table was in the centre of the vast room, facing a side wall. Behind the dais was stacked the furniture; a great higgledy-piggledy heap of it running the length of the hall and coming out almost to the halfway point. In front of the dais was a row of trestle tables; a great looping row which ran in a curve from the end of the furniture heap nearest the door, to a point at the far end below the martins’ exit. On these tables were the small articles—silver, pottery, and glassware. In front of the tables were the only seats for those attending. The custom was to range the couches and sofas to be offered for sale along the lengths of the tables to seat the elderly, almost as if they were in the front row of the stalls. Behind the sofas was the promenade: standing room only for the majority, except that on the long wall facing the dais were ranged the desks of the corn chandlers. These were the narrow, sloping-topped, working desks at which one stood to write. They formed a long base on which rolls of bedding, mattresses and curtains were piled, ready for sale. Young people attending the auction climbed atop these and got not only a good view of the proceedings, but a soft seat, too.