Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [15]
It was agreed but not, Jerott noted, with any great readiness. Why? Great sums of money—prodigal sums—had passed hands over this spinet. As the maker, Gaultier’s name, already familiar, would be famous. Surely the journey alone, all expenses paid, was an inducement, no matter how often the dealer had travelled before. Or had the old creature upstairs objected?
Alert to every pulse in the air, Jerott heard Lymond say, ‘And may we have the pleasure now of inspecting the instrument?’ But to his surprise, this time the old man made no demur. There were two doors to pass and enough in the way of bars, bolts and keys to inhibit a woodworm. But finally the inner workshop was there, and a smallish freestanding object from which Georges Gaultier smoothed off an ancient striped bedgown masquerading as dust-sheet.
Jerott gasped.
There was a long silence while they looked, the reflected candlelight blinding their eyes. Then the dealer said softly, ‘M. de Lymond? Will this please the Turk?’
‘My dear Gaultier,’ said Lymond. ‘It will send the Shadow of God into transports. I suppose I’ve seen objects more grisly before, but it doesn’t spring to mind where.… Twenty-four-carat gold, Jerott. Look. And studded with rubies like fish-roes.’
‘Yes. I think he’ll be pleased,’ said Georges Gaultier. For the first time satisfaction, animation and even cheerfulness rang in his voice. ‘Sickening, isn’t it?’
Jerott wasn’t sickened. He stood in silence and worked out the cost of the square Gothic cabinet whose double doors of jewels and marquetry opened on a pillared façade of Gothic fantasy plastered with gold leaf and beryls and ivory and crowned by a clock. Among the paintings, the niches, the cupboards inside the cabinet was the drawer containing the keyboard and strings of the spinet, which Gaultier pulled out as he and Francis Crawford, in the closest amity, explored every unfortunate inch of the instrument.
Jerott stood by while it struck, chimed, tinkled tunes and shot representational articles, on ratchets, in and out of suitable orifices. Presently Lymond said, ‘Does the revolting thing play?’ and sitting on the edge of a box, ran his hands up and down the keyboard. Then he lifted them and said, ‘Yes, it does,’ and rising, strolled to the door.
‘Yes,’ said Gaultier placidly, following him. ‘She insisted on that.’
There was a pause. ‘Is she upstairs?’ said Lymond at length.
Maître Gaultier nodded. ‘She is waiting to see you. Of course. And Mr Blyth also.’
Lymond said, ‘I should prefer to meet her alone. Do you mind, Jerott?’
The tone was perfectly and familiarly final. Gaultier ignored it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘With Mr Blyth. Or the lady regrets she cannot give you an interview.’
‘If it’s something personal …’ Jerott said helpfully, but not too helpfully. It was something personal all right. He’d heard of this woman. The Dame de Doubtance, they called her: a madwoman and a caster of horoscopes. Gaultier gave her house-room and men and women came to her from all the known world and had their futures foretold—if she felt like it. She had given some help once to Lymond, on her own severe terms, because of a distant link, it was said, with his family. Plainly, a crazy old harridan. But if she was going to tell Lymond he ought to find a nice girl and marry her, Jerott wanted very much to be there.
Gaultier did not come with them. Abandoning him to the spinet with its double-locked doors, Lymond with Jerott hot on his heels followed an elderly manservant to another part of the house, and up a small, winding stair. There they were led through a thick velvet curtain and left, in absolute darkness.
Jerott, after feeling about for a moment, encountered something sharp and stopped trying. The atmosphere was dire, composed largely, he concluded, of dust and dry rot and very damp textiles. Lymond, presumably somewhere in the room also, said nothing. Through a faint crack of light in the far wall voices muttered: the old fellow must be announcing them. Then