Gently with the Innocents by Alan Hunter

interestedly for a moment, then he smilingly wagged his plump shoulders.
    ‘So there are some better ones about?’
    ‘Never mind that,’ Gently growled. ‘Are you sure about this one – that you got the value right?’
    ‘My dear man.’ Bressingham looked pained. ‘Seventy-five is catalogue price. I reckoned I might make fifty of it. I offered old Peachey twenty-five. What with over-heads and slow turnover you have to calculate on fifty per cent. They always knock you down, anyway – all my customers are rogues.’
    ‘Do you remember what it was?’
    ‘Oh come, now! It was an Edward IV angel. Cross above arms on ship, rose, and St Michael spearing the Devil.’
    ‘What condition?’
    ‘Extremely Fine.’
    ‘Isn’t that the next condition to Mint?’
    ‘Yes – a real collector’s piece. Looked as though nobody had ever spent it.’
    ‘And Peachment just brought it out of his pocket?’
    Bressingham nodded. ‘I’m not so green as I look either. But old Peachey – well, you couldn’t suspect him! He wouldn’t know what tea-leafing was about. Of course, I asked him where he’d got it, and he said he found it in an old box – a bit mysterious and giggly, you know, but that was how the old boy was. I reckoned he’d dug up a family heirloom, something his dad had put away. Anyhow, he didn’t want to sell it, just to know what it would fetch.’
    ‘Did he mention others?’
    ‘No.’ The flicker reappeared in Bressingham’s eye.
    ‘What was this one wrapped in?’
    ‘A piece of blue paper – pretty old, I’d say. What we call rag-paper.’
    ‘How old is that?’
    ‘Not as old as the coin! Paper would be rather crude in 1480. This was the stuff you find used in old pamphlets, say eighteenth-century or a shade earlier.’
    ‘Eighteenth-century . . .’
    Bressingham shrugged faintly. Naturally, he was putting two and two together! If there were other coins involved beside the angel, then it was scarcely a question of family heirlooms . . .
    ‘You say the shop was empty when Peachment came in.’
    ‘Yes. And there was nobody in the courtyard.’
    ‘Who else did you tell about the coin?’
    ‘Well . . . the wife. But she wouldn’t have mentioned it.
    ‘You’re sure that’s all?’
    Bressingham spread his hands. ‘This is a confidential business. If I started blabbing about what people bring in here I would soon be without customers.’
    ‘I see,’ Gently said. ‘So just you knew about the coin. And you left it like that, he didn’t want to sell it. You didn’t try to persuade him.’
    ‘What was the use?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Gently said. ‘But that doesn’t sound like the dealers I’ve met. They’d have jollied the old boy, upped the price, asked what else he’d got to sell.’
    ‘Yes, but look—’
    ‘Then they’d have fixed a visit just to get their foot in the door. He might have had other treasures, mightn’t he? Some he didn’t value as much as the coin. So they’d be along there, getting into the house, laying out fivers on the table – giving him a silly price for some trifle to let him get the feel of the money.’
    ‘All right – so it’s done!’
    ‘But not by you?’
    ‘I’m not pretending I’m an angel.’
    ‘You didn’t fix to visit him one evening – say October 27th?’
    The blue eyes behind the pince-nez swam a moment, tense, a quirk of fear. Around them the chubby face hooked into a scowl.
    ‘I . . . I don’t like this!’ Bressingham said huskily. I don’t like it at all.’
    Gently stared, keeping the pressure on. Bressingham’s sallowness had taken a pallor.
    ‘I . . . I needn’t have told you about that coin. I was trying to give you some help. Now you turn on me. I don’t like it. Inspector Gissing wouldn’t treat me like that.’
    ‘I’m not Inspector Gissing,’ Gently said.
    ‘It isn’t fair,’ Bressingham said.
    ‘Oh yes,’ Gently said. ‘A fair question. Did you fix that visit or not?’
    ‘I didn’t!’
    ‘Can