by Clara Benson
Mr. Laurentius turned to him.
‘Most certainly I should say not,’ he announced with decision. ‘They are a very clever forgery—yes, very clever indeed. I should like to meet the man who made these. But most assuredly they are not real. I am sorry,’ he said to the Duke. ‘I think this is not the answer you wished to hear.’
‘No,’ said Cedric weakly. ‘Quite the last thing I wished to hear, in fact.’
‘I cannot say what has happened, or why you are now in possession of these instead of the real Belsingham pearls. Of course, I am but one man, and—even though the Earl of Ashfield was pleased to favour me with his custom—it may be that I am wrong. I should suggest you go up to London as soon as you can and seek a second opinion on the matter.’ The Duke made a dismissive noise, but he went on, ‘No, but I insist. This is an important question, and too great a responsibility for one small jeweller. As for what you can do afterwards, I do not know. It may be that you prefer not to tell the police, but naturally I place myself at your disposal to assist in any way I can.’
‘Thank you,’ said Cedric. ‘I don’t mind saying that this has all come as rather a shock.’
‘I understand,’ said Mr. Laurentius. ‘Then it is better that I take my leave now, for you will have much to consider. You know your household better than I do, and perhaps you will have an idea of what has become of the necklace. Here is my card. Do not hesitate to summon me again if you require any further assistance or advice.’
‘You won’t say anything, of course,’ said Cedric.
‘You may depend on my discretion,’ said the little man, and with a stiff bow departed.
Cedric gazed around him as though not quite sure where he was, strode once up and down the room, then turned and made an expressive gesture with his arms that made him look not unlike a windmill.
‘Now what shall we do?’ he demanded. ‘Of all the—’
He snatched up the pearls and squinted at them, then handed them to Freddy.
‘Do they look false to you?’ he said.
‘There’s no use in your asking me,’ said Freddy. ‘I know less about pearls than you do, I imagine.’
‘But who swapped them? And how did they get close enough to the necklace to have such a good copy made? It’s been locked up in a box in the safe since last November.’
‘That’s easy enough to answer,’ replied Freddy. ‘The Belsingham pearls are famous the world over. They’ve been on public display and there are photographs of them all over the place, in newspapers and magazines. Why, anybody who wanted to make a copy would have plenty of material to work from.’
‘But when was the exchange made? Can we be sure that the real ones weren’t snatched from Professor Coddington and substituted for the fake ones by our murderer?’
Freddy looked doubtful.
‘It doesn’t seem very likely, does it?’ he said. ‘Why go to the bother of having a forgery made only to draw attention to yourself afterwards by whacking someone on the head in order to get the real ones? All the murderer has done is to make us look closely at the pearls and find out they’re false, when presumably the intention was to have the exchange go unnoticed for years. Remember Mrs. Dragusha already had her suspicions on Thursday, before the guests had even arrived, so the substitution must have taken place some time ago.’
‘True,’ said Cedric.
‘If I were you, I should speak to the people who mended the necklace for you last November. Are they to be trusted?’
‘It was Keble’s,’ said Cedric with dignity. ‘They have a Royal Warrant. If the King trusts them then who am I to argue?’
‘But they have people working for them. Even the most reputable company might accidentally employ the occasional bad apple. Every man has his price, they say. I should speak to them discreetly if I were you—but in the meantime, assuming they had nothing to do with it, perhaps we ought to try and find out when the pearls might have been exchanged.’
‘They couldn’t have been—not unless someone took them out of the safe,’ said the Duke. ‘But the only people who ever have the keys are Spenlow and I, and I should as soon believe that I did it myself in my sleep as suspect Spenlow of being a thief.’
‘Don’t you ever give the keys to Bea or Goose or Ro? Or might they have been left lying around?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Cedric. ‘I’m very careful with them.’
‘Then in that case, it seems most likely that they were swapped when Bea and Ro took the pearls to London last November—either that, or some time the day before Professor Coddington was killed.’
‘Hmm. If Mrs. Dragusha had already spotted they were fake on Thursday, then that narrows it down considerably,’ said Cedric. ‘The only people who were here then apart from ourselves were Mrs. Dragusha herself and Iris Bagshawe.’
‘Ah,’ said Freddy, taken aback.
Cedric sighed heavily.
‘We’d better have it out with Ro,’ he said. ‘I have the awful feeling that the Farleys have something to do with all this.’
‘The Farleys? I seem to recognize the name. Who are they?’
‘They’re a married couple who attached themselves to Ro for a while until we put a stop to it. They’re older than she and not the sort of people I want my daughter associating with. They’re fast, shady and plausible with it. As far as I’ve been able to discover nobody knows where their money comes from, which naturally gives rise to all sorts of suspicions. Ro palled up with the woman—Pamela Farley, I think her name is—last year. Silly girl’s always been far too trusting. She lent Mrs. Farley a diamond necklace which she took far too long to return—we were rather worried we’d never get it back, as a matter of fact, as she skipped off with it to Le Touquet or some such place for a few weeks.’
‘Ah, yes, I did hear something of it,’ said Freddy.
‘I have no idea why Ro thought it was a good idea to scatter her valuable jewellery around among her friends like confetti, but suffice it to say we told her in no uncertain terms to stop it. She promised she wouldn’t do it again, but who knows what young people get up to these days? Oh, Lord!’ Cedric went on in sudden dismay. ‘If it’s true that the Farleys are up to no good then I suppose that means we’ll have to get someone to look at the diamonds, in case they’re fake too. Damn the silly girl! Why does she have to get herself mixed up with these sorts of people?’
‘You’d better ask her yourself,’ said Freddy. ‘Shall I fetch her?’
‘Yes, do. And Bea too,’ said Cedric. ‘She’ll have to hear this.’
The Duchess and Ro were summoned to Cedric’s study, and arrived quickly.
‘What is it?’ said Bea eagerly. ‘Have they arrested someone?’
‘No,’ said Cedric. ‘Sit down, both of you. I’ve something rather serious to tell you.’
He proceeded to do so, watching Ro intently all the while. She looked astounded at the news that the pearls were fake, but showed no sign of any other consciousness, and when questioned as to whether she had seen her friends the Farleys when she and her mother had taken the necklace to London, denied absolutely that she had shown them the pearls, or that they had ever been in the same room as them.
‘But you did see the Farleys?’ said Cedric.
‘Why, yes, I believe I did,’ she said uncomfortably. ‘Just for a short while, you know, one evening.’
‘Oh, Ro,’ said her mother reproachfully. ‘Is that what you were doing when you were late for dinner that night? And you’d promised so faithfully to keep away from them.’
‘They’re friends of mine, and it would have been terribly rude to drop them flat,’ said Ro.
‘They’re not your friends,’ said Cedric. ‘I should have thought you could recognize a pair of spongers when you saw them. I know the type—London is full of them. They prey on young, wealthy men and women who are too naïve to know better
.’
Ro was beginning to look mutinous.
‘Are you absolutely sure you didn’t show them the pearls at any time?’ said Bea. ‘Where did you meet them?’
‘They called for me at Claridge’s,’ said Ro.
‘Did they come up to your room at all?’
‘Well, yes, just for a few minutes, but they couldn’t have done anything because I didn’t have the pearls, did I? Don’t you remember? It was you who had them in your room.’
‘Ye-es,’ said Bea slowly. ‘But we had the rooms with connecting doors. It would have taken a matter of seconds for one of them to slip into my room and exchange the necklaces.’
‘But the pearls were locked in their case,’ said Ro.
‘If they’re used to this sort of thing then they might have picked the lock,’ said Cedric.
‘Is this the case?’ said Freddy, who had been peering alternately at the pearls and the enamelled box. He squinted at the lock. ‘It doesn’t look as though it’s been forced at all,’ he said at last.
‘See?’ said Ro.
‘There are ways,’ said Cedric darkly.
‘Did the Farleys know we had the pearls with us?’ said Bea. ‘Did you tell them?’
‘I may have done,’ said Ro. ‘But they didn’t take them!’ she suddenly exclaimed. ‘I promise you they couldn’t have.’
And that was all they could get out of her. She maintained obstinately that the Farleys had neither seen nor been anywhere near the Belsingham pearls during the visit to London, and finally left the room in high dudgeon, leaving everyone else to gaze at each other uncomfortably, for it seemed that either Ro was telling untruths or that she had been very careless in her choice of friends. The fact remained, however, that the Belsingham pearls were missing, and nobody knew where they were.
After he left the study, Freddy went in search of Ro, and eventually found her in the garden, sitting on the edge of a fountain and smoking furiously.
‘Do you mind if I have a word?’ he said.
‘Not if it’s about the pearls,’ she replied.
‘Well, it is, but I haven’t come to pitch into you, I promise.’
‘What is it, then?’ she said grudgingly.
‘I know old Cedric has a bee in his bonnet about the Farleys, so he wasn’t thinking too much about what might have happened this weekend. I just wondered whether the pearls might not have been taken last November at all, but on Thursday. That’s when they came out of the safe, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Ro.
‘Who gave you them?’
‘Father, of course. I asked if I might have them to try on with my new frock, and he agreed, but told me to be careful with them. And I was!’ she said fiercely. ‘I’m not as careless as people seem to think.’
Freddy refrained from pointing out that she had left what they now knew to be the fake pearls lying on her dressing-table when she had gone to bed the night before, and merely said:
‘What did you do with them when you got them? Try and remember. Were they in your sight all the time?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I took them upstairs and locked them in my drawer until I needed them. Then I tried on the dress and Mrs. Dragusha stuck some pins in me, then I put on the necklace.’
‘And you were the only person who touched it?’
‘Yes,’ she said, then remembered something. ‘Oh, no—Iris tried it on too.’
‘Iris?’ he said quickly.
‘Yes, but not properly. She only held it around her neck for a second and looked in the glass, then she took it off and handed it straight to me. I put it on and preened for a bit, then took it off and put it back in the box.’
‘Who else was in the room? Only Mrs. Dragusha?’
‘Yes. She wouldn’t touch them—said they were bad luck.’
‘What did you do with the box then?’
‘I put it on the dressing-table—just for a few minutes, while I showed them both the secret passage. Then Mother came in and I picked the box up and took it back downstairs to the safe.’
‘And you’re sure no-one went near the pearls at any other time?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘And nobody except your mother came in while you were looking at the secret passage?’
‘Nobody at all,’ she said firmly.
Freddy could see no reason why she should lie about it, since the blame for the necklace’s disappearance had been placed squarely on her shoulders, and she must surely realize that it would be to her advantage to create uncertainty on the matter. She must have read his thoughts, for she said ironically:
‘Kind of you to try and get me off the hook, but there’s nothing doing, I’m afraid.’
‘Sorry, old thing,’ he said. ‘I wish none of this had ever happened.’
‘So do I. I wish I’d never set eyes on those beastly pearls, in fact. They didn’t suit me anyway.’
‘Yes they did,’ said Freddy. ‘You looked splendid.’ He saw a tear trembling in the corner of her eye. ‘Poor you,’ he said sympathetically. ‘Not much of a birthday party, was it?’
She let out a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob.
‘I’ve had better,’ she agreed.
‘Have you any idea of what might have happened to the pearls?’
She shrugged.
‘None at all. I know it wasn’t the Farleys, although I dare say Father will never believe it. I suppose he’ll be putting the police on to them now. Poor Pam—and she hasn’t been at all well lately, either. As a matter of fact, though, I did wonder whether someone at Keble’s mightn’t have exchanged them.’
‘Yes, I’d thought of that myself,’ said Freddy. ‘That will be for the police to find out—always supposing Cedric reports it.’
‘If he doesn’t we’ll know for sure he thinks it was my fault,’ she said glumly.
Freddy left her to brood and went away, turning the mystery over in his mind, although at present he could make no sense of it. He did not have long to reflect before he saw Mr. Wray walking towards him in company with Dr. Bachmann. They were talking about botany, and Mr. Wray was listening courteously as Dr. Bachmann enumerated some of the many fine specimens of water-plant he had collected as a student many years ago during a holiday in Austria.
‘Hallo, hallo,’ said Freddy. ‘It seems everybody is keen to take a turn in the fresh air today.’
‘And why not?’ said Mr. Wray. ‘The weather is so pleasant and the gardens here so very fine that I could not resist the opportunity to show some of their beauties to Dr. Bachmann here.’
‘Oh, certainly,’ agreed Bachmann, then lowered his voice. ‘Besides, I know we must remain at Belsingham while the police investigate, but one does not wish to get in the way, or be de trop, as they say, so this seemed the wisest place to come. But Mr. Wray is right—one does not often see such magnificent grounds.’
‘Or such a magnificent house,’ said Mr. Wray. He turned back and extended a hand to encompass the imposing outline of Belsingham, which was shown to particular advantage at that moment, bathed as it was in the late afternoon sunlight. ‘I have been here some weeks now, and have had an opportunity to explore the place thoroughly. The Duchess has been kind enough to show me some of the rooms, and some of the secret nooks and crannies, which are not often shown to guests. In a place of this size, there must inevitably be some parts of the building which are so rarely entered that even the servants know little of them. And such fine works of art! Far more than can be displayed in the few rooms that we have seen this weekend. I have spent many a happy hour absorbed in the contemplation of undiscovered works by several of the Old Masters. There is quite a collection here. The library is a great treasure-trove, too, especially for anyone who has an interest in the history of Belsingham. There are a number of quaint old works that relate the story of the house, and
I have learnt much about it. I have also done a little reading about the history of the Warehams—who are one of our most noble aristocratic families, in my opinion.’ (Here he made a little bow to Freddy.) ‘I have been most fascinated to learn of the great things they have done for the benefit and the glory of England.’
‘You make me feel ashamed of my ignorance,’ said Freddy. ‘I have to admit I’ve always found all this family history stuff rather dull, but perhaps that’s a mistake on my part.’
‘It is indeed,’ said Mr. Wray. ‘I can highly recommend spending an hour or two in the company of your ancestors, as they are anything but dull.’
‘Professor Coddington was interested in the history of the Warehams too, I think,’ observed Freddy.
‘Yes, I believe he was,’ replied Mr. Wray distantly. ‘Although I am not convinced that his motives were of the purest.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Why, he seemed unduly concerned with unearthing stories which I am sure the family would not want to get about, for they cast a bad light upon them which is quite undeserved. He knew I had read one or two books on the subject and asked me a number of pointed questions, although naturally I refused to indulge him.’
‘He tried to pump you, did he?’ said Freddy. ‘What did he want to know?’
‘Nothing of any consequence,’ said Mr. Wray. ‘Certainly nothing that would stand up to academic examination, at any rate. I was polite, of course, but I could not help hinting that I thought his curiosity somewhat impertinent, especially when he had been so graciously invited to Belsingham by the Duke himself. I understand that we are all less formal these days, but good manners will never go out of fashion, and I do believe the professor had forgotten his.’
His demeanour had become very stiff, and Freddy regarded him with some amusement. Evidently here was another who had not found Professor Coddington’s company particularly congenial. Dr. Bachmann had gone to examine an unusually luxuriant species of rose-bush, so Freddy took the opportunity to say:
‘By the way, it’s rather odd what happened to the professor after our conversation last night, don’t you think?’