Straight

by Dick Francis

  Be patient.

  Take another...

  No. Be patient.

  I looked vaguely at the objects in the medicine cupboard. Talc. Deodorant. Shaving cream. Shaving cream. Most of one can of shaving cream had been squirted all over the mirror by Jason. A pale blue and gray can: “Un-scented,” it said.

  Greville had an electric razor as well, I thought inconsequentially. It was on the dressing chest. I’d borrowed it that morning. Quicker than a wet shave, though not so long lasting.

  The damn pill wasn’t working.

  I looked at the second one longingly.

  Wait a bit.

  Think about something else.

  I picked up the second can of shaving cream which was scarlet and orange and said “Regular Fragrance.” I shook the can and took off the cover and tried to squirt foam onto the mirror.

  Nothing happened. I shook it. Tried again. Nothing at all.

  Guile and misdirection, I thought. Hollow books and green stone boxes with keyholes but no keys. Safes in concrete, secret drawers in desks ... Take nothing at face value. Greville’s mind was a maze, ... and he wouldn’t have used scented shaving cream.

  I twisted the shaving cream can this way and that and the bottom ring moved and began to turn in my hand. I caught my breath. Didn’t really believe it. I went on turning ... unscrewing.

  It would be another empty hiding place, I told myself. Get a grip on hope. I unscrewed the whole bottom of the can, and from a nest of cotton wool a chamois leather pouch fell out into my hand.

  Well, all right, I thought, but it wouldn’t be diamonds.

  With the help of the crutches I took the pouch into the bedroom and sat on Greville’s bed, and poured onto the bedspread a little stream of dullish-looking pea-sized lumps of carbon.

  I almost stopped breathing. Time stood still. I couldn’t believe it. Not after everything ...

  With shaking fingers I counted them, setting them in small clumps of five.

  Ten ... fifteen ... twenty ... twenty-five.

  Twenty-five meant I’d got fifty percent. Half of what Greville had bought. With half, Saxony Franklin would be safe. I offered heartbursting thanks to the fates. I came dangerously near to crying.

  Then, with a sense of revelation, I knew where the rest were. Where they had to be. Greville really had taken them with him to Ipswich, as he’d told Pross. I guessed he’d taken them thinking he might give them to the Maarten-Pagnier partner to take back to Antwerp for cutting.

  I’d searched through the things in his car and had found nothing, and I’d held his diamonds in my hand and not known it.

  They were ... they had to be ... in that other scarlet and orange can, in the apparent can of shaving cream in his overnight bag, safe as Fort Knox now under the stairs of Brad’s mum’s house in Hungerford. She’d taken all Greville’s things in off the street, out of my car, to keep them safe in a dodgy neighborhood. In memory I could hear Brad’s pride in her.

  “Smart, our mum ...”

  The DF 118 was at last taking the edge off the worst.

  I rolled the twenty-five precious pebbles around under my fingers with indescribable joy and thought how relieved Greville would have been. Sleep easy, pal, I told him, uncontrollably smiling. I’ve finally found them.

  He’d left me his business, his desk, his gadgets, his enemies, his horses, his mistress. Left me Saxony Franklin, the Wizard, the shaving cream cans, Prospero Jenks and Nicholas Loder, Dozen Roses, Clarissa.

  I’d inherited his life and laid him to rest; and at that moment, though I might hurt and I might throb, I didn’t think I had ever been happier.