Diamonds and Daggers

by Nancy Warren

  “Who else would it be?”

  This was getting stranger and stranger.

  I got the ding of a text coming in, and I knew it was from Theodore. I ignored it. “Do you always see people at the same place?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve never seen Simon Dent?”

  “Never set eyes on him.”

  “And you’ve never received a check? You’re always paid in cash?”

  “That’s right.” Then he looked a bit uncomfortable. “You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”

  I suspected he didn’t want the tax people to know about his sideline. Presumably his envelopes of cash didn’t get reported to the government. I shook my head. “Not if you answer my questions.”

  He shrugged. “Happy to. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “How did you get hired the first time?”

  “I’d been in a play. Not a very good one. And I didn’t have a very big part. I played some stuffy businessman. But afterwards, that assistant fellow came up to me and asked me if I’d be interested in a short-term freelance job. It paid well.” He looked at me. “I can tell you, it’s not very often I have someone offering me a well-paid gig. It’s usually no money but good exposure. Or, ‘Oh, it’s for a good cause.’ So I jumped at the chance of making a few bob.”

  “Thank you for being honest,” I said.

  He put the last bit of fish into his mouth and crumpled up the now empty wrapper. “It’s going to end now, isn’t it? The gig.”

  I didn’t really know how to answer that, but I suspected he might be right. All I could say was, “I’ll keep your name out of it if I can.”

  Then he looked quite startled. “It’s not illegal, is it?”

  “What did you think? You were making deals, doing business impersonating someone else? You had to know you weren’t on stage.”

  He took a deep drink of his beer. “But I just thought I was standing in for a man so reclusive he doesn’t want to be seen.”

  “Maybe. But then why the pretense? Why not just have his business manager meet with people?”

  We looked at each other, and clearly neither of us had the answer.

  I thanked him for his time and left. I texted Theodore, who pulled up in the Bentley within minutes. He was pretty mad at me. After he’d finished ranting about putting myself at foolish risk and how I must never ever do anything like that again, I reminded him that he was the one who’d made me guard the back door.

  I quickly realized he wasn’t really that mad on his own behalf. He was more worried that Rafe was going to find out.

  I quickly reassured him. I didn’t want Rafe finding out I’d gone after the ersatz Simon Dent either.

  As we drove back to Oxford, we talked through the whole day again. “It was extraordinary,” Theodore said.

  I agreed. “I think we need to look into this reclusive producer a little more deeply.”

  We hastily convened a meeting of the knitting club for that evening. I got Theodore to drop me off in front of the grocery store at the top of Harrington Street. I bought six cans of Nyx’s favorite tuna and a ready meal for myself. Also fish, with potatoes and vegetables. Pretty healthy. I walked home, fed Nyx while my dinner warmed. For dessert I had two of the ginger snaps Gran still baked for me.

  And while I ate, I puzzled over why a reclusive producer would hire an actor to play him. I concluded that Simon Dent was a very odd dude.

  There was so much rattling around in my head that I decided to lie down, close my eyes and let the answers come to me. Nyx followed me to my bedroom and jumped on my bed, curling up in her favorite position against my side. I took my newly consecrated athame out of its bag and laid it over my heart, closed my eyes and breathed deeply. “I seek the truth,” I said aloud.

  I might have sought the truth, but what I got was unconsciousness. I was so tired from late nights and worry that sleep sneaked up on me unawares.

  I woke with a start, my heart pounding. I’d had a nightmare. It was one of those awful ones where something dark’s chasing you and you run and run but know it’s gaining. I’d been in an old house with a lot of rooms, that was all I could remember. I glanced at the clock. It was nine-thirty. I only had half an hour before our meeting. Nyx was also snoozing and opened one annoyed eye when I moved. I climbed over her and went to brush my teeth and hair.

  Sadly, I hadn’t found truth in my dream, but at least I felt more rested when I went downstairs with my knitting bag. I had no intention of knitting but I’d slipped my dagger in the bag. If there was truth and focus to be had, I was all in.

  Hester was wearing the blue diamond sweater she’d been supposed to make for the back wall, looking both excited and important. She had her laptop with her.

  Carlos sat beside her and the rest of us took our seats. Sylvia, by accident or design, I wasn’t sure which, was in a chair a little outside the circle.

  Everyone was prompt so the meeting began right at ten. Theodore was the lead investigator, and so he told the group about our meeting with Man Drake Films. He fudged around the part where I met with the actor on my own as neither of us wanted to hear Rafe’s outburst.

  “But why would Simon Dent hire an actor to impersonate himself?” Gran asked the question I’d been puzzling over.

  Sylvia seemed less confused than the rest of us. “Producers are notoriously eccentric,” she explained. “No doubt he has his reasons for remaining resolutely behind the scenes. I’m disappointed he didn’t have any useful information, though.” She looked at Hester and, more significantly, at Hester’s computer. “And what did you find out?”

  “There was no connection we could find between the people who bought deco Cartier at auction over the past fifty years and Sylvia,” Hester said, looking rather crestfallen.

  “None at all?” Sylvia looked really disappointed.

  “No. Most of them in the recent past have been bought by a Canadian billionaire. But it looks like he started selling them off, so maybe he’s not a billionaire anymore. There is real interest in Sylvia and her movies, though,” Hester said, as though that might help the glum-looking vampire actress. “There’s a whole Facebook account devoted to you and your movies, you know.”

  Sylvia brightened at that. “There is?”

  “Absolutely. Lists of where the films will be screened, places you can buy copies, lists of charity auctions where any of your mementos will be sold, stuff like that.”

  Sylvia immediately seemed more engaged. I had a feeling she’d be heading to her computer as soon as we were finished.

  Then I realized what Hester had revealed. “Wait a minute. What do you mean about things that have been auctioned off? Sylvia’s personal memorabilia?”

  Hester shrugged and looked at Sylvia, who appeared offended at the question. “I may, on occasion, authorize my solicitor to provide certain items from my collection to be auctioned off in a good cause. Is there some reason why I shouldn’t do whatever I wish with my own belongings?”

  We all looked at her. “Sylvia, don’t you think you should have told us that?” I asked.

  She glared at me and then I saw the moment she realized what I was getting at. “You mean, there could be some connection?”

  “Well, I think it would be worth looking at who’s been buying your items. Maybe we’ve been going down the wrong path. Maybe it’s not Cartier deco jewelry this person’s after but you.”

  She was still devastated by the loss of her jewels, but I could see she was more flattered than horrified by this idea. “You mean I have a stalker? Fifty years after I died?”

  “I think it’s a possibility.”

  I looked at Hester, who nodded and looked very pleased with herself. “As a matter of fact, I did some digging. If it was you and not Cartier that our thief was obsessed with, then what else might they look for?”

  Hester glanced around as though someone might know the answer.

  “Photographs?” Alfred suggested.

 
; “Movie props?” Christopher Weaver added.

  “Hats?” Mabel suggested. “And gloves and things?”

  “Yes,” Hester said. “Items associated with Sylvia Strand and with The Professor’s Wife are extremely collectible.”

  I felt like I was watching a TV game show and stuck for the answer while the timer was ticking away the seconds.

  “The clothes she wore on screen? Her costumes?” Alfred suggested. Oh, good one.

  “Yes. What else? Big-ticket items. We’re talking someone with enough dosh to buy Cartier.”

  “The house,” I said, suddenly getting the answer right before the clanger went.

  Hester nodded in my direction. “Exactly. The house where The Professor’s Wife was partly filmed and where Sylvia used to attend parties.”

  “Someone bought an old manor house as a souvenir?” Sylvia asked, sounding pleased.

  “I think so. I cross-referenced all the Cartier purchasers and the memorabilia purchases with the house purchaser.”

  “And you found a match?”

  “Sort of. I found an antique dealer by the name of Ingrid Carlson who bought several Cartier pieces for an anonymous buyer. She also bought an auction lot that included Sylvia Strand photographs, and the house.”

  “Could this Ingrid Carlson be the real name of Simon Dent?”

  “Unlikely,” Hester said. “She’s busy with her antique business. I doubt she has time and, unless she’s hiding money that I haven’t been able to find, she’s not rich enough.”

  “I challenge anyone to hide money that you can’t find,” Theodore said, sounding proud of his protégé.

  “Perhaps Ingrid Carlson bought the house for herself,” Gran suggested. “She has to live somewhere.”

  “She does,” Hester said, looking triumphant. “In New York.”

  “Could it be a second home?” Alfred asked.

  “It could, but Ms. Carlson also owns a flat in Knightsbridge.”

  That was a fancy area of London. Would this dealer really need a New York home, a London home, and a manor house near Oxford?

  Rich people often seemed to collect houses, but that was a lot of real estate. It looked like Ingrid Carlson had bought the house for someone else. Someone who was a big, big fan of Sylvia Strand.

  This was the strongest lead we had. All of us knew it.

  But I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. “Okay, if we assume that a rich person has been buying up Sylvia’s old dresses and jewels and may have bought the property where The Professor’s Wife was filmed, it doesn’t make this memorabilia-buying, crazy fan a murderer.”

  “I don’t care whom they’ve murdered. Did they steal my jewels?” Sylvia asked.

  “We’ll have to go there to find out,” Hester said.

  I glanced around at the vampires. “We need a plan.”

  Then I realized that Rafe was glaring at Theodore, who was in turn making alarmed faces in my direction. He said, “I will make some inquiries. We mustn’t startle the quarry. Hester, perhaps you and I will do a drive-by and see if there’s any activity at the home.”

  She looked a bit surprised but readily agreed. Hester was still basking in the praise of having put together a Cartier collector and a house Sylvia was connected with.

  It was an impressive achievement.

  I waited until after we’d ended our meeting and the vampires had headed their separate ways, except for Rafe and Theodore. “What was that all about?” I asked Theodore. “Don’t you want to make a plan?”

  “Of course, I do,” he said in a low voice, glancing nervously at Rafe. “But we don’t want Sylvia to be involved in that plan.”

  There was a beat of silence, and then he said, “It could be dangerous for any mortal who got in her way.”

  Right. Because she’d rip them to pieces. “Okay, so what is the plan?”

  “Hester and I have already checked out the place. There doesn’t seem to be anyone living there. We go in tonight.”

  “Let me guess, in the middle of the night.” I was so glad now that I’d had that pre-meeting nap.

  “There’s no need for you to come, Lucy,” Rafe said.

  “Are you kidding? I lost those jewels. I definitely plan to help find them.”

  Theodore looked at Rafe as though it was his decision, which irked me. Then he said, “Very well. But not a word to Sylvia.”

  He didn’t need to worry. The less time I spent with the grudge-holding vamp, the better.

  I might moan about creeping into houses that weren’t mine in the middle of the night, but there were advantages. Nobody around to see what we were doing and, let’s face it, vampires are sharpest at night. Me, not so much, but I could certainly get myself in the house and, maybe with the help of my athame, I could focus on clues.

  As Margaret Twigg had warned me, I couldn’t use it like a metal detector, unfortunately, but I felt confident that this new tool in my toolbox was going to be very useful.

  Chapter 23

  We met at two in the morning: me, Rafe, Theodore, Hester, and Carlos. Rafe had been against including two young vampires, but when I reminded him how Hester had made the breakthrough in sleuthing and how good they were with computers, he relented. Since there was no one in the house, they could check any computers that were around. There was plenty of security but, of course, the vampires didn’t need to worry about being seen on film. It made them brilliant for sneaking in and out of places unseen. Me, not so much.

  But Hester was pretty confident that once she got inside, she could disable the security system, and then I could waltz right in.

  Accordingly, we all met at Rafe’s manor house. They wore whatever they liked, but I was playing it safe, and had dressed all in black, including black leather gloves so I wouldn’t leave any fingerprints behind. I was also very, very nervous.

  We’d decided on two cars. Rafe and I went in the Tesla, which is the vehicle equivalent of a dark shadow. Theodore and the young vamps went in a van that Carlos owned.

  I wasn’t used to sneaking around at night, and I certainly wasn’t used to breaking into a place where I had no authorized reason to be. However, we didn’t have enough evidence to take to the police. This was our best lead yet on finding out at least who might know something about those jewels.

  The house where The Professor’s Wife had been partly filmed was about thirty minutes’ drive from Rafe’s manor. It was beautiful in a grand Victorian style. I felt a small shiver of recognition from seeing its exterior as it had been in the movie. This was also the house I’d dreamed about, I was almost certain. My nightmare house. Since it was so late and only moonlight illuminated the house, it looked like the house had in the black-and-white movie.

  We drove past the long, winding drive that led to the house, and parked discreetly down a narrow lane. Carlos parked his van nearby, and the five of us met up at the top of the drive.

  “Are you sure it’s empty?” I asked, feeling sick with nerves.

  “Not positive, but nobody’s been in or out since yesterday,” Hester whispered.

  “Wait here,” Rafe said softly as we walked down the drive, all but soundlessly.

  I nodded. All the windows were dark, and the place looked uninhabited.

  As the four vampires continued soundlessly toward the house, I wished I had Nyx for company. I felt as frightened as though I were on the receiving end of a break-in rather than part of the break-in party.

  I had a bad feeling, probably a hangover from that nightmare.

  Instead of Nyx, I had my athame tucked in my bag. I’d thought it might help me focus, but now I pulled it out and held it for comfort and, if necessary, I’d brandish the dagger. It wasn’t a weapon, but in the dark, it would pass as one.

  About five very long minutes went by, and then Hester appeared at the open front door, beckoning. She really was good.

  I went swiftly down the drive, glad the property was so large and isolated. No dogs barked, and, oddly, even as I got close to the door
, no security lights came on.

  I entered the house and with nothing but the faint moonlight to go by the big entrance hall looked dark and foreboding.

  Hester and Carlos went off to look for computers. Theodore said we’d begin a methodical search of the downstairs, room by room. No dashing off to the likeliest spot where a safe might contain jewels. “It’s important to search methodically,” he whispered.

  Their night vision was a hundred times better than mine so they didn’t need to turn on any lights. I tried to be helpful, but I also didn’t want to grope around blindly, and risk knocking things over.

  Theodore began in the kitchen. He suggested I stay with him, but I told him I’d help Rafe. Rafe was searching the grand dining room and suggested I help him, but I told him I was helping Theodore. The truth was I didn’t want to follow around behind either of them more encumbrance than fellow sleuth.

  I might not have night vision, but I had a freshly-charged athame and I could feel its power radiating from within my bag. While Rafe and Theodore were searching downstairs, I followed the pull of the dagger toward the stairs. Between my magic, the dagger and being in company of four vampires, I wasn’t worried about being tackled by a human. I had a very strong feeling the jewels either were here or had been here. I could feel my throat, wrists and ring finger tingling.

  I walked up the carpeted stairs, my steps soundless. I paused at the first landing.

  Hester and Carlos were just visible in a big office. She was sitting in front of a computer tapping away while Carlos searched bookshelves.

  Up one more set of stairs I climbed, and the tingling grew stronger. I was on a landing with a heavy door in front of me. I turned the handle and the unlocked door opened easily. Soundlessly.

  I found myself in a large space. Someone had taken out all the walls and created a huge entertainment area that seemed to take up the entire floor of the house.

  A row of theater seats upholstered in velvet, with mahogany arms, had to have come from an old cinema. A proper film projector was on a table behind the seats, and a movie was playing on a large screen that dominated the room.