Ten Little Herrings

by L. C. Tyler

‘Fifty-five.’

  ‘Half.’

  ‘I admire your negotiating technique,’ I said. ‘Have you ever worked for a publisher, by any chance?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Fifty-two and a half. That’s my final offer.’

  ‘Fifty. Exactly half.’

  Well, it was more convincing than conceding sixty-six per cent straight off. Or was that what he wanted me to think?

  ‘Just who are the rightful owners anyway?’ I demanded. ‘Not Mr Andersen again? Maybe the Brothers Grimm this time?’

  ‘Yes, sorry about that. At that stage we were not working on the same side. Now we are. Nevertheless, you don’t need to know who my clients are.’

  ‘But, I’d like to know. Don’t you trust me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Tell me anyway,’ I said with an open and winning smile. ‘Fifty per cent, but I need to understand who and what I’m dealing with.’

  For a few moments we looked each other in the eye. He blinked first.

  ‘It’s the Borodin family,’ he said. ‘That’s the truth.’

  I looked him in the eye again, just to double-check. There was a small but measurable chance he was not lying.

  ‘Not Goldstein?’ I said.

  ‘Not Goldstein. Borodin. They’re the legal owners. It’s a long story. I’ll tell it to you some time – but not now.’

  ‘And exactly what are you expecting me to do?’ I asked.

  ‘Ethelred trusts you. Just get him to tell you where the diamonds are now. I’ll do the rest.’

  ‘That sounds like the sort of deal that Delilah cut with the Philistines,’ I said. ‘She came to a bad end – or was that Jezebel? Either way, I’ll want more than fifty per cent.’

  ‘OK. Fifty-one per cent,’ he said wearily.

  ‘Done,’ I said.

  I made a mental note to ask Ethelred whether it was Delilah or Jezebel who got eaten by dogs. Hopefully Jezebel.

  Proctor looked at me as though that had all been a bit too easy, then said: ‘Let me know as soon as you find anything out. In the meantime, maybe we should not be seen together too much.’

  ‘I can live with that if you can,’ I said.

  Of course, he was not going to get the information because:

  1. Giving him the information would have been a betrayal of the agent–author relationship, which is a sacred trust.

  2. Nobody who is negotiating seriously agrees to fifty-one per cent of a total that has yet to be specified.

  3. Ethelred did not trust me enough to tell me where the diamonds were.

  Still, he was right about one thing. Ethelred probably would do something stupid with the diamonds unless he was watched carefully.

  * * *

  Ethelred was in his bath when I tracked him down again, but he was very pleased to see me nevertheless.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake! This really is the limit, Elsie,’ he sighed as he opened the door. ‘Whatever you have disturbed me for, it had better be good.’

  ‘You’re dripping water all over the carpet,’ I said, as I edged past him into his bedroom.

  ‘That’s because some moron kept knocking on the door and made me get out of my bath,’ he said.

  ‘Those towels aren’t very big, are they?’ I said.

  He quickly adjusted his towel.

  ‘Can’t this wait?’ he said, as I made myself comfortable on his bed. ‘Stop bouncing up and down like that and tell me what you’re here for.’

  ‘Not as springy as my bed,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I thought you might like to know that Herbie has just propositioned me. He wants me to come over to the Dark Side. What do you think I should do?’

  ‘Whatever you wish,’ said Ethelred, heading back towards his bath. ‘Just so long as you can do it without my assistance.’ I heard various splashings and sighings as he re-immersed himself.

  ‘OK. Thanks. That’s very understanding of you, but I do need to ask you one question. Herbie wants me to find out from you where you’ve hidden the diamonds. He doesn’t believe they’re at the station, and – (thinking about it) – nor do I. Once I’ve found out the true location, he’ll do the rest, whatever that is. It probably involves hitting you over the head with a blunt instrument and running away rapidly with a bag of diamonds. So, do you want to tell me where they are? I’ve got a piece of paper and a pencil here. Fire away.’

  The splashings and sighings ceased.

  ‘Did he really say that?’ asked Ethelred.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I said I wouldn’t do it for less than fifty-one per cent.’

  ‘And you are planning to tell him?’

  ‘Ethelred, you tart, I would hardly be relating all this to you if I planned to team up with the man who has battered me over the head and got me arrested three times. I just thought you might like to know, that’s all. Are the diamonds somewhere safe?’

  ‘Yes,’ said a voice from the bathroom.

  ‘Have you stupidly tried to hide them in this hotel?’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘No,’ said a voice from the bathroom.

  ‘Fine,’ I continued. ‘Now, I also need to tell you what I have just discovered on the “Internet”.’

  ‘Stop doing that quotation marks thing with your fingers,’ said a voice from the bathroom.

  ‘Do you want to know or not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, what?’

  ‘Please,’ said Ethelred.

  ‘Good boy. Now, I needed to find out what the link might be between Gold and the Goldstein diamonds. So I decided, as I say, to conduct a little research on the Internet. It had already thrown up a video of Gold in a crowd of protestors. Gold was asking Davidov about the Goldstein diamonds. A little more research revealed their history. It goes like this.

  ‘Erasmus Goldstein was a banker in Germany just before the last war and the last-known legal owner of the diamonds. He left Germany after Hitler came to power, but wasn’t able to get the diamonds out with him. The necklace was known to be in Berlin in the 1940s, but in the chaos at the end of the war it just vanished.

  ‘In one sense, the Goldsteins were not the unluckiest of the necklace’s owners. They were safe in London. After the war they tried to trace the diamonds. The Russians were by that time in control of East Germany, but they denied any knowledge. It wasn’t a high priority for the British or American military authorities in Berlin either.

  ‘The family followed up any lead they could over the next few years. In the meantime, feeling that Goldstein had a foreign ring to it, they anglicized their name, by the simple expedient of dropping the “stein” bit at the end. They became the Golds. Jonathan Gold was Erasmus Goldstein’s grandson.

  ‘A year or two back, as you told me, the Golds got their best lead for a long time. Davidov’s wife was photographed wearing something that was identical to the missing necklace – much to the embarrassment of Davidov, who probably thought that nobody was still looking for it after all this time. Since what we found in left luggage pretty much matches the description on the Web, then we almost certainly have in our possession whatever Davidov’s wife was wearing. Jonathan Gold seems to have known that the diamonds still existed and where they were. I don’t know precisely how they arranged to meet or what the deal was to be, but my guess is that Davidov brought the necklace with him and placed it in the hotel safe in a white envelope.’

  There had, during this account, been sounds of a tall crime writer emerging awkwardly from the bath. He issued from the bathroom in a fairly damp hotel dressing gown, towelling his hair in a thoughtful manner.

  ‘So, you’re saying that Gold came to the hotel to persuade Davidov to do the decent thing and return the necklace?’ he said.

  ‘Or to blackmail him. He was in a position to cause Davidov a great deal of embarrassment,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Do oligarchs get embarrassed that easily? Everyone knows hewas a fairly shady character. An allegation
that he was handling stolen property could have been shrugged off somehow.’

  ‘The football deal was pretty important to him. And he’s had people killed for less. Allegedly.’

  ‘I agree that could give Davidov a motive for killing Gold,’ he said. ‘But I can’t see why he’d do the killing himself . . .’

  ‘I don’t think it was as simple as blackmail anyway. If Gold was just after money, Davidov had no need to bring the diamonds with him. He didn’t need to prove he had them in order to be blackmailed. But if Davidov was planning to hand them over secretly to their rightful owners . . .’ I said.

  ‘So, it’s back to Davidov doing the decent thing and returning the family property . . .’

  ‘. . . which was an embarrassment to Davidov anyway. He could scarcely sell the necklace on the open market. So, Davidov meets up with Gold in London to discuss some sort of deal – hence the receipt.’

  ‘A meal for one?’ said Ethelred.

  ‘They both pay for their own. Why not? Then Davidov arranges to meet Gold here for the handover.’

  ‘But,’ said Ethelred, ‘one or other of them had second thoughts about something; they fell out.’

  ‘You seem very sure about that,’ I said.

  ‘Just a guess.’

  ‘Ethelred, is there anything that you know but haven’t told me about Gold and Davidov?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK, then. Maybe they were haggling over the terms of the handover? If so, it may have caused a fatal delay.’

  ‘Fatal?’ asked Ethelred.

  ‘Somebody else was after the diamonds. Somebody who was willing to kill them both. While they delayed, a third party stabbed Gold, poisoned Davidov and made off with the stones.’

  ‘But Proctor made off with the stones,’ pointed out Ethelred.

  ‘Precisely,’ I said.

  Ethelred frowned. ‘He’s a private eye.’

  ‘And Crippen was a doctor. Who says private eyes can’t be murderers?’

  ‘But all the same . . .’

  ‘In any case,’ I said, ‘he told me he was working for a family called Borodin, who were the rightful owners.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘As I said, the rightful owners were the Goldsteins, now known as the Golds. So he is basically lying, Ethelred. He makes these names up as he goes along. The only time I’ve heard him tell the truth was when he pointed out that I already had a drink.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘He had put together a folder of press cuttings about Davidov.’

  ‘But he may not be the murderer.’

  ‘Ethelred, is there anything that you know but haven’t told me about Herbie Proctor?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK, then. Why shouldn’t we shop him?’

  ‘He knows that we have the diamonds. He’ll tell the police.’

  ‘Are you saying we should let a murderer loose on society purely for our own financial gain? Under normal circumstances, I’d go along with that, but—’

  ‘What I plan to do with the diamonds has nothing to do with cash.’

  ‘Anyway, Proctor’s already killed two people to get his hands on these rocks. Don’t you think he might just kill us too? And why should the police believe him unless they can actually locate the diamonds? You say that they are safely hidden?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, even if we tell the police most of the story, you are in the clear, because they won’t be able to find them?’

  ‘Possibly – but it would still not be a good plan.’

  ‘Ethelred, is there anything that you know but haven’t told me about the diamonds? Last chance.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK, then. I think my course of action is clear.’

  ‘Elsie, you’re not planning to accuse Proctor of murder, are you?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘That’s a relief, anyway,’ said Ethelred.

  Obviously, I was planning to accuse Proctor of murder, but, with the diamonds safely concealed, my plan was watertight. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

  Unless Ethelred was holding anything back, of course.

  * * *

  I found the inspector in his little office behind reception. The room was quite tidy. The dirty plates had gone. The improvised ashtrays had been emptied. He was putting papers into folders and generally clearing away. There was an air of something ending.

  ‘I have some interesting information for you,’ I said.

  He looked up briefly.

  ‘We have gathered all of the information that we need,’ he said.

  ‘And you are about to make an arrest?’

  ‘Alas, that will be impossible,’ he replied. He smiled apologetically.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘The case is closed,’ he said.

  ‘Without an arrest?’

  ‘Sometimes there is no arrest,’ he said. ‘This is one such case.’

  Well, I thought, it’s a good job the French taxpayer didn’t know how little he was getting for his money. It was only two days into the case and they were wimping out. Maigret must have been turning in his grave.

  ‘I have information that will change your mind,’ I said. ‘Gather everyone together in the dining room.’

  ‘With what aim?’ he asked.

  ‘I shall announce who the murderer was.’

  ‘How interesting. You see yourself as Hercule Poirot, no doubt?’

  I ignored the irony.

  ‘I see myself as a rather younger and sexier Jane Marple,’ I said.

  ‘You know who the murderers were?’ he asked.

  ‘Precisely,’ I said.

  ‘Would you not prefer just to explain to me what your suspicions are? In case you are wrong?’

  ‘No, I’d like to do this in public.’

  ‘I would not wish you to make a fool of yourself,’ he said.

  ‘Nor would I,’ I said.

  ‘Very well, I was planning to get the guests together to thank them for their patience during the inquiry. It has, I am sure, been very tedious for you all. Under the circumstances, I can allow you five minutes for your own announcement. No more than that.’

  And so it was that word went out that all of the hotel guests were to assemble in the dining room in half an hour’s time.

  They were all going to be pretty impressed.

  Thirty

  So, there we were, all gathered in the dining room: two rather sceptical French policemen, looking bored and checking their watches, two tweedy stamp collectors, one complete Danish family, one smirking Herbie Proctor, one blond pharmaceuticals sales rep, one tall but obscure writer of detective stories and, right in the centre, my good self.

  The inspector nodded at me, as if to say, if I was going to do anything, could I do it now please? I cleared my throat. This was going to be my finest hour. They just didn’t know it yet.

  ‘As you are aware,’ I said, ‘I have asked that you should all assemble here in the dining room so that I can reveal to you who murdered Jonathan Gold and Grigory Davidov.’

  Some of the guests, who had rather expected the police to lead on this, looked a little surprised. One of the Danish children broke into brief solitary applause. The mother smiled supportively. Herbie Proctor sniggered in a nasty way. Well, we’d see who was laughing in a moment or two.

  ‘First, however, I shall rule a number of you out,’ I said.

  Several people nodded at this point. All of the best amateur detectives proceeded in precisely this way. Ethelred was looking distinctly worried, however. I had not warned him of my plans in advance – I thought it would be a nice surprise for him or rather, to put it another way, I didn’t want him pissing about, messing things up. But he was looking strangely green. He patted his jacket pocket a couple of times and looked round the room as if he was checking on escape routes.

  ‘For a while,’ I said, getting nicely into my stride, ‘I did suspect Tim Brown. He claimed to have arrived here by chance. I soon discover
ed, however, that his stop had been planned several weeks ago. He was unable to account satisfactorily for his movements that night. He was in the drugs trade and so might have had access to cyanide. This should have made him the prime suspect but there was no motive and no obvious link to either victim. Then I discovered the true reason for his stopover. He had arranged to see his lover, Ian.’

  There was a sort of human explosion off to my right and I saw that Tim Brown was on his feet. ‘My lover Ian?’

  ‘Precisely,’ I said.

  ‘What on earth makes you think he was my lover?’

  ‘I overheard you on the phone. You said that it was time you came out. I’m sorry for your wife, of course, but I’m pleased for you and Ian.’

  ‘Were you listening to a private phone call?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Well, serve you right.’

  I seemed to have got something slightly wrong, and Tim was suddenly the focus of some mild curiosity, but it looked as if he was about to set the record straight.

  ‘Let me explain to you what happened,’ he spluttered. ‘There’s no real secret now. As I said, it would all come out soon anyway. I am the marketing manager of [he named a well-known drug company]. I’m good at my job. I’d like to think I’m the best. In my position you get contacted by lots of headhunters who want to make some money recruiting you for one of your rivals. Recently something came up – a really good opportunity for me. You don’t necessarily want it to be known that you’ve been talking to a rival firm until it’s certain you wish to make the move. As it happened, both the headhunter and I were over in France at the same time, so we agreed we would meet some place where there was no chance of being spotted by any of my colleagues. So I arranged to see him here on my way back. His name’s Ian – OK? We had dinner and he explained the deal. I liked what I heard but had some questions that he needed to refer back to his client. So I hung around until the client’s office opened and we had a conference call.’

  ‘The client’s office opened in the early hours of the morning?’ I snorted. ‘Per-lease – we’re not going to swallow that.’

  ‘The client is Indian,’ said Tim Brown, ‘based in Bangalore.’

  OK – maybe we were going to swallow that one. I glanced at Ethelred as Bangalore was mentioned, but he just shrugged. His mind was elsewhere. His face had changed from green to grey, but I wasn’t sure that was an improvement.