by Mary Kelly
“Ivan should get off with manslaughter.”
Beddoes whistled with slight tremolo effect. “He’ll need a good counsel.”
“He’ll get it.”
The door opened to re-admit the head and uniformed shoulder. “Your call to London, sir. Will you take it in here?”
“Yes,” said Brett. “Thank you. Put it through.”
“Ah,” said Beddoes, sliding off the table, “this is where I get a chance to take a look at the blonde 1” He stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette, and loped, grinning, out of the door.
Brett picked up the telephone. “Hullo!” he said. “Christina?”
“Yes, darling, what is it?”
So casual, so unconcerned! Of course, it wasn’t at all late, as he was thinking. She wouldn’t really have been expecting him.
“Nothing really,” he said. “I’m in Canterbury.”
“Good heavens! Do you remember that awful hot day ‘we were there? Red-faced girls all sweat and knap-sacks combing their hair in the cathedral. Oh, darling, won’t you be able to come home for tomorrow?”
“Yes, tonight. What’s special about tomorrow?”
“Brett! Christmas.”
“Oh, hell and damnation!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, nothing,” he said hastily, “I was thinking of something else.” He was thinking of the cameo. “Did you •enjoy the cantata? I didn’t want to wake you this morning.”
“Oh, it wasn’t bad, except that they had a moo-cow instead of an alto, and of course he had no idea . . .”
“Chris,” he interrupted, “you know that saying, He that toucheth pitch . . .”
“There was nothing wrong with her pitch; it was just those awful lowing scoops and the way she bludgeoned the phrases.”
Brett sighed. “Listen, Christina. Does it ever dismay you to think that you’re married to a detective, all scum and suspicion?”
“What? Brett—are you all right?”
“Of course I am,” he said impatiently. “How else could I be talking to you? I only asked a simple question. Isn’t there a simple answer?”
“Yes. I mean, yes, there is. Darling, the kettle is boiling over, I can hear it. I must go. You come home as soon as you can. You’ll get your answer.”
Hearing a decisive click at the other end, Brett put down the receiver. He stood still for a minute or so, pleasantly reflecting on the promised answer, not for one second entertaining the idea that it might be given verbally. Then he went out of the room. The Superintendent was in the corridor.
“There you are,” he said. “I was just coming to see if you were ready to go. The thing is this. It appears there’s some property of Mr. Majendie’s buried behind a hedge on the road to Pettinge. We were quite willing to send someone to pick it up, but Miss Cole seems to find it difficult to describe the exact position—she hid it, you see—and as she’s got to go to Pettinge in any case, it’s been decided to let her do the finding. Between ourselves I think she could have told us well enough, but she wanted just this to happen. Well, why not please her? She’s been through a lot. Don’t you agree?”
“Entirely. Where do I come into it?”
“Mr. Majendie seemed to think you’d be interested in coming too.”
“What transportation do we have? Can I take Beddoes?”
“Yes, yes, by all means. There’s the father’s car and mine, plenty of room. We’re all going. And if you like, I can take you both on to Folkestone rather than back here. The trains would be more convenient.”
“Thank you very much. I’m quite ready.”
“Good. I’ll fetch my car.”
Stephanie was standing at the door of a room opening off the corridor. “Where have you been?” she asked, pulling the door closed so that they were shut out together. “I haven’t seen you since all that in the car. What have you been doing? You look awfully tired.”
“I am tired. Aren’t you?”
“No. I feel rather odd, though. A bit as if I’d had a tooth out.”
“Forget it. That sort of thing ordinarily happens just once, if ever, to a law-abiding person. You’ve gotten it over early.”
“Well, but I was so stupid. And when you think of these things happening—or things a bit like this, anyway—you imagine you’d be all cool and collected, in fact, you’d probably be the one to get people out of the mess. When it was real, all I could do was cry.”
“Everyone’s like that.”
“I didn’t see you crying.”
“Of course, a person like Beddoes will distinguish himself in the real thing. Did you know he boarded that helicopter and brought it down without really knowing how?”
“Did he?” Stephanie sounded unimpressed. “Have you seen the things they had in the packing cases? They’re unloading them in another room. That policeman, the one that went out, he’s awfully sweet; he let me go and look. Oh, you must see them. Mr. Majendie’s nearly going mad.” She stopped suddenly and laughed. “ ‘My dear good fellow! Pray be careful. That figurine—Christie’s last year—almost identical—Nymphenburg so-and-so—Bustelli, you know.’ ”
“You mimic him very well.”
“Well, I hear him every single day. Oh—that reminds me. You remember about that cameo? Well, I thought how odd it was that Mr. Emmanuel should have let you have it cheap if you weren’t a friend of his or Mr. Majendie’s, so I made a few inquiries . . .”
“God above!”
“Discreet inquiries,” she said with dignity. “And I’m terribly sorry to have misled you, but it was fifteen all the time. It really was. After all, it’s very easy to mistake fifteen for fifty, especially when it’s not said to you but ta someone else and you’re only overhearing. What’s the matter now?”
“Nothing,” said Brett, “nothing, nothing.”
“I was going to tell you in a letter,” she said. Her face clouded. “Now I’ve nothing to write about.”
“Would that deter you? Take me in and introduce me to your father.”
“Oh, I suppose I must.” She sighed. “You know your famous Sergeant Beddoes is in there too? He introduced himself.”
“Don’t you like him?”
Her hand was on the door. She turned around, surpassing herself in smiles. “Not as much as you,” she said.
“In short, my dear fellow,” said Majendie, puffing slightly as a result of his exertions in plodding through the snow, “you believed me to be one of them. No, no—don’t apologize. It was a natural surmise. Ah—now I appreciate the force of your observation that the Princess was unaware of the irony of choosing me in connection with the sale. Dear me! Then you also thought that I’d—what’s the word—double-crossed my associates, that I’d concealed my summons to Bright’s Row and privately profited at their loss. But I must positively insist, my dear fellow, that I neither bought nor stole it from the Princess. I had intended to correct you in that, was on the point of doing so, you may remember, when events began to crowd in upon us—confound! This snow is damned difficult going. Treacherous. I wonder if I might avail myself of your arm—ah, thank you! No, sir, the Princess gave it to me. To be precise, she offered me the choice of what I best liked from the whole collection. I confess I was staggered. I mean to say, what if I’d picked the emerald necklace? I should have had a fortune drop into my hand without so much as lifting a finger. However, my dear boy, when you reach my age no doubt you’ll feel as I do—what, after all, is money? No, it was the collector’s piece, as they say, which took my eye. Oh, there were many, but this was outstanding, the star of the collection, as you expressed it with quite remarkable aptness. I didn’t hesitate.”
Majendie paused. “The others are drawing rather far ahead of us. Shall we close up? Miss Cole, blessed girl! What energy! What a pace!”
They plodded along a little faster.
“Why did she offer?” said Brett. “Was it by way of being . . .”
“A tip,” said Majendie with startling relish.
“Commission at the highest. Nearer the mark would be the tradesman’s Christmas box. The servant’s reward. Oh, I was under no illusions—am not, perhaps I should say—as to my status. I took it, dear boy, I took it. And when you called the other evening with news of the robbery, I regret—no I don’t, why should I—I admit that my first reaction was one of relief, that I’d taken away my reward and had it in safe-keeping.”
“That’s an admission,” murmured Brett, “but no news. It showed on your face as plain as the nose on it.”
“Dear me!” Majendie sounded perturbed.
“And what about Common Law for the Common Man?” pursued Brett. “I suppose that was consulted to discover what legal title you had to a plain gift.”
“My dear boy, I must remark on the sharpness of your eyes. Yes, and on the imagination shown in your guesswork. You’re right; I was somewhat worried. I knew, you see, that the unfortunate Ivan had seen the collection. The Princess told me so, not in the pleasantest manner, I fear. But you’ve thought of all that for yourself. If he had gotten wind of my visit, perhaps even been told of what had happened, and had pressed a claim . . .”
“Why didn’t you ask a solicitor?”
“But my dear fellow! Suppose my solicitor had told me I’d no right to it; he would have known I had it . . .”
“Look! They’ve stopped,” said Brett.
“Come on, dear boy!” cried Majendie, suddenly shooting forward, with such vigor that Brett was almost pulled over. “I must be in at the kill.”
“This snow,” began Brett, then stopped. He had been going to comment on the facility now shown by Majendie in getting through it. But how many, and how shocking, had been the remarks of his which Majendie had magnanimously overlooked! “It reminds me of a paperweight,” he concluded tamely.
“Paperweight?” Majendie appeared to prick up his ears in the midst of his headlong flight.
“You know, the sort you pick up and shake to make a snowstorm inside.”
“Ah, yes,” said Majendie indulgently, “charming, charming. Well, my dear Miss Cole?”
They had come up with the others. Mr. Cole and the Superintendent were groveling in the snow. Stephanie held one flashlight and Beddoes two.
“Found the place?” asked Brett.
Stephanie flicked her hair. “Sergeant Beddoes noticed the snow was disturbed,” she said coldly.
“Well, it would have been different if there’d been another fall since you buried it,” said Beddoes with astounding humility.
“Aha!” said the Superintendent, “here’s a strike. Steady on the lights. Some more off your end, Cole, old man. That’s it—up she rises! Now, sir, is this your property?” He held out the little dressing case.
“Yes, indeed it is,” said Majendie, seizing it with joyous lack of ceremony. “Will you allow me one moment? I must reassure myself . . .”
Holding the case in one hand, he dipped with the other into a pocket inside his coat and brought out a small key. He poked away a clot of snow which was blocked between the handle and the lock, inserted the key, and opened the case, revealing a watered silk bag. He removed this. Underneath, bedded in cotton wool, lay a gray velvet egg-shaped box some five inches long.
“Ah!” Majendie’s sigh of relief was long and deep. He laid the bag back.
“Wait,” Brett said quickly. “Don’t you think you’d better make sure?”
“My dear boy—here?”
“It’s as safe as anywhere.”
Majendie looked at him, one of his best hamster looks. He nodded briskly, and without a word dropped the bag and thrust the dressing case into the arms of Beddoes. He lifted out the gray velvet box, unfastened a catch at its side, and opened it so that the hinged halves lay flat.
Cradled in the satin lining was an egg, white, icy, its surface starred and patterned like a window in a hard frost, with a diamond monogram glittering in the middle. Diamonds, close set in a band of gleaming metal, encircled the egg lengthwise.
“Oh, Mr. Majendie!” Stephanie breathed.
“Yes, my dear—notice the exceptionally interesting effect achieved in the engraving and enameling. Platinum mounts, and brilliant diamonds throughout, you will have observed, which is unusual. But I’ll open it.”
The egg, like the box, split lengthwise into halves on a hinge which was invisible from the outside. The shell on the left was hollow; its whiteness was studded with tiny stars, thin platinum points tapering from single diamonds. On a white velvet cushion in the right half lay a brooch, one large dazzling star, Arcturus of the first water, darting needle flashes as it quivered in Majendie’s hands under the lights.
No one spoke. Majendie, with another little nod, closed the egg, and the box, put back the bag which Beddoes had retrieved, and closed the case.
“So that,” Brett said quietly, “is the Christmas egg.”
THE END