Rubies Among the Roses

by Vivian Conroy

  He stepped back. ‘I have to go now. It’s a date for tonight.’ His aftershave filled the air around her as he walked away from her and vanished into the bend of the stairs.

  Guinevere put the needle back into her sewing kit. Her face was on fire where Max had touched her. He wasn’t just good-looking and charming, but kind, nice. Considerate.

  A man she wanted to spend more time with.

  Something she hadn’t felt in a long time. An excitement that was even stronger than her sadness about Jago. She couldn’t wait until it was time for that beach walk tonight.

  Dolly pressed herself against Guinevere’s ankle and looked up at her as if she was trying to read her feelings. This was something new to her that she didn’t quite understand.

  Guinevere gestured at the stairs. ‘Let’s go back down, girl. See how the search is coming along.’

  She didn’t want to put into words what she felt for Max. Not even to her best friend.

  It was too fragile, too new. Something she barely trusted herself with. Why would Max who travelled and met so many interesting and pretty girls be interested in her?

  Besides, Max had implied he wouldn’t be staying here long as after Wadencourt’s debacle his assignment had ended as well. Why go and open up to someone destined to leave your life again?

  Still, Guinevere couldn’t suppress the flutter in her stomach, the spring in her step as she went down again.

  ***

  When Guinevere and Dolly came back outside, Dolly ran straight to Oliver who was checking his phone while the officers were going around looking here and there. Earth in flowerpots was studied for traces it had been disturbed and cracks between the stones were tested to see if something gave way and revealed a hiding place.

  ‘At this rate they will be all day and beyond,’ Oliver said to her. ‘A place like this is a nightmare to search.’

  He held up the phone. ‘New message from my team. Got stuck in the mud on some bad road. Took them three hours to get out again. Now in base camp setting everything up for the night. I can almost smell the smoke from the wood fires and the baked beans.’

  He gave her a sharp once-over. ‘Max’s rice bag is better again?’

  Guinevere flushed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And where is the copy of the article he took from my father? He said he only wanted to read it and put it back, but he obviously didn’t do that. I figured you could have asked him for the copy while you were together.’

  The emphasis on together irked Guinevere. Oliver was trying to force her into something with Max that was maybe there in potential but that hadn’t fully formed yet. It was a tender feeling she wanted to protect, and Oliver was trying to read more into the situation.Trying to force her into admitting there was something going on between Max and her, and that it was influencing her judgement?

  She said hurriedly, ‘I forgot to ask him about it. But I’m sure he’ll return it. If you think it’s so important, you must ask for another copy. I assume Wadencourt knows the contents and most of all, Vex himself. Maybe Lady Serena even?’

  Oliver glared at her. ‘The point isn’t who knows about it. There was a perfectly good copy in the library upstairs. Max took it without even asking if he could. I want that one back.’

  ‘Because it belongs to you? You’re starting to sound like your father.’ Guinevere turned away from him, intending to sit down and catch some sun for a while as the search went on.

  But Oliver grabbed her arm. ‘What do you mean by that? How far do you think I’d go for Cornisea?’

  The fury in his face hit her like a punch in the gut. The fingers closing round her arm pressed hard. ‘I don’t think anything,’ she said in a trembling voice.

  To their left a policeman looking for the stones had stopped what he was doing to stare at them with narrowed eyes. ‘Everything all right?’ he called out.

  ‘Yes,’ Oliver said, flushing. ‘Just a little shook up after all that has happened today.’

  He gestured to Guinevere to come along inside.

  She followed with Dolly hot on her heels. The dachshund seemed to sense the tension and tried to push herself against Guinevere’s leg. She reached down and gathered the dog up into her arms. The soft fur and the cuddle calmed down her galloping heartbeat.

  They stood in the cool hallway. From above sounds came of furniture being shoved around.

  Oliver sighed. His eyes were sad as he said, ‘I’m sorry that I grabbed your arm. It just gets on my nerves that all these people are here, looking into our lives, as if we are criminals. They think my father has something to do with the missing stones, or they wouldn’t be here. But they should be searching Vex’s room at the B&B or Lady Serena’s.’

  ‘I’m sure they’re also doing that.’ Guinevere held Oliver’s gaze. ‘Let’s try and picture the scenario from the latest facts we have. Someone figured out where the goblet was. Went over and extracted the statuette from behind the clematis. Opened it. Took out the goblet. Removed the stones. You’d need a tool for that, right?’

  ‘And time to remove the stones. It couldn’t be done in a hurry or you’d damage them.’

  Guinevere nodded. ‘The culprit also treated the goblet with a chemical to make the places where the stones had been removed look rusty, so we’d believe that the removal had happened years ago. That had to be prepared in advance. They had to have looked into doing something like that to know how to do it and bring along the chemical needed for it.’

  Guinevere pointed a finger at Oliver to underline her point. ‘So the thief didn’t hit on the statuette by accident, after having found a major clue on the spot. The thief knew what he or she was looking for and how he or she would go about the removal.’

  She held Oliver’s gaze. ‘The goblet goes back into the statuette. The bottom of the statuette is put back with … Wait a minute. We thought it was a substance like mud or clay. Old. But it had been put there to dry in the course of the previous day or night. Does LeFevre know what it is?’

  Oliver shrugged. ‘Maybe. If his lab staff looked into it already. He must have thought it suspicious because he immediately said he wanted to take everything. Statuette, loose bits that had come from the bottom.’

  ‘Maybe that’s just standard procedure? Anyway, I’ll call him.’ Guinevere extracted her phone and looked for the right number.

  ‘He’s still on the island probably,’ Oliver said.

  Guinevere nodded as she listened to the tone. ‘Yes, but I don’t know where exactly and I don’t want to go hunting for him. Ah, hello, Inspector LeFevre? Yes, I wasn’t sure where you might be right now so I’m calling. Do you know what the substance is that was used to close up the bottom of the statuette again? Some sort of air-drying clay. I see.’

  She gave Oliver a thumbs-up. ‘Common? Easy to purchase? For hobby purposes? I see. Thank you.’

  She disconnected and looked at Oliver. ‘Must have also been brought along. Well prepared, in every way.’

  ‘But if he or she prepared it, he or she was sure where the goblet was before coming to Cornisea. How does Jago fit in? The alleged important clue from the missing book?’ Oliver exhaled in frustration. ‘I just wish this guy Max … Oh, there he is.’

  Max approached, glancing down at his phone. ‘Just uploading my recent photos to my social media,’ he said with a focused air.

  Oliver asked, ‘Can we have the copy of the article back that you took to read through?’

  ‘Sure. It’s in my room. One moment.’ Max raced up the stairs.

  They heard subdued voices, which then became raised. At last Max appeared at the top of the stairs. He called down to them, ‘Now I’m being accused of taking away potentially crucial evidence. Can someone please explain that the article is a mere copy and completely worthless?’

  Guinevere came up and addressed a grim-faced policeman standing behind Max. He had apparently stopped him from taking the article out of his bedroom. ‘It’s all right.
It’s just a copy of an article about the goblet. It belongs to Lord Bolingbrooke. We just want to see it and then we’ll put it in the library. Where you can all see it. But I’m sure that Inspector LeFevre already knows what it says.’

  ‘Which is more than we can say,’ Oliver whispered behind her back.

  The policeman considered it, then nodded. ‘If you put it in the library right after you read it.’

  ‘Of course,’ Guinevere agreed.

  Max rolled his eyes. ‘Good that some people have common sense here.’ He disappeared into his room and came back out again. He handed Guinevere the copy. ‘There you go. But I can’t see how it will help you. It suggests that the goblet was buried, under a rose bed. Not very creative considering its name and the lady who allegedly took it.’

  Guinevere and Oliver retreated into the library where they read the article standing side by side.

  Vex claimed that the rose garden formed a pattern when viewed from above and that the goblet had been placed in a certain segment of this pattern. Oliver studied the accompanying sketch with a frown. ‘The pattern is symmetrical. Vex deduced the correct segment from this alleged north-south orientation based on the night skies. But like my father already said, the astronomical foundation for it is laughable. Vex just wanted to connect the “stars” part in the name to something different than the diamonds on the goblet. And nothing even hints at a link with St Ganoc, or the niche in the wall.’

  His finger trailed the by-line. ‘Vex is called a garden historian here and there is a website address. Let’s see what that is.’

  The site turned out to be no more than a few shots of keeps and gardens, a contact page, and a list of publications in his “Seeds of Folklore” series. They were all marked ‘coming soon’.

  ‘Seems like somebody set this up in a hurry,’ Oliver commented with a frown. ‘Just look at it. Vex never published anything until this article we’re holding here.’

  ‘But if Vex is no specialist in his field as he claims to be, how did he get his article accepted for publication?’

  Oliver pulled a face. ‘No idea. Maybe he knew somebody there; maybe he just sent it on spec? You have to start somewhere.’

  ‘Yes, but via the magazine news of it reached your father and Wadencourt and Lady Serena, who all started to fall over each other to protect the goblet or get their hands on it. Hadn’t Vex realized that it would create a stir? Or had he even planned it like Max suggested earlier?’

  Guinevere looked Oliver in the eye, focused on forming a scenario based in this suggestion. ‘What do you think of this? Vex had a pretty good idea of where the goblet really was. But if he came here and took it, he might get in trouble. So he wrote up an article with a far-fetched story about stars, not mentioning the real information he already had. He made sure people who were interested in the goblet learned of his upcoming publication and also rushed out here. Then the goblet is found, the stones are missing, and everybody is a suspect. The finger can’t point straight at Vex because he was just one of several people who wanted the goblet. And judging by the contents of his article he didn’t even have the right information to its hiding place. Proving that he did know about the niche in the wall and St Ganoc will be hard.’

  ‘Clever theory, but we have no evidence to support this.’ Oliver sat down on a chair and closed his eyes. He looked tired and dejected. ‘And how does Jago’s death fit in?’

  As he said it, LeFevre walked in, an excited expression on his face.

  Oliver jumped up. ‘Did you find the gemstones?’ His tone was half incredulous, half anxious, as if he was already thinking about what would be next if the stones turned up inside the castle. Wadencourt had threatened that a find on the scene would be the end of the Bolingbrookes.

  LeFevre shook his head. ‘No trace of them. But I did get a very interesting phone call just now. A lady has contacted a jewellery shop to sell off some jewellery. Diamonds.’

  ‘What? Selling some of the stones, now? You’d have to be mad to try it.’ Oliver stared at LeFevre.

  The inspector shrugged. ‘Not all criminals are smart. Especially not when they’re under pressure. We have no idea who this woman is of course, so I’m going there to have a look for myself. My men will continue searching. Please give them every possible cooperation.’

  ‘Of course,’ Oliver said with a hand gesture.

  LeFevre nodded at them and left.

  Oliver said to Guinevere. ‘Can it be Lady Serena?’

  ‘Would have to be, or it’s a woman we haven’t come across yet.’

  Oliver held her gaze. ‘Max’s girlfriend maybe? He might have figured that while the police were still searching here, he could let someone sell off the stones for him.’

  ‘Max doesn’t have the stones. And he doesn’t have a girlfriend either or the fans wouldn’t have responded so fiercely to the picture he put up of me as lady of the roses. Besides, how would Max have passed the stones on to anyone?’

  Guinevere shook her head in irritation at Oliver’s unfounded suggestion. ‘You’re just accusing him because …’

  ‘Yes?’ Oliver rocked back on his heels, jutting up his chin. ‘Because of what?’

  ‘Because you don’t like him,’ Guinevere said quickly. ‘But that’s never a good reason. You can’t be prejudiced in an investigation.’

  ‘That goes for both of us. You can’t just believe he’s innocent because you like him.’

  ‘How could Max have even got his hands on the stones? He didn’t have access to the all-important clue Wadencourt had.’ Guinevere took a deep breath.

  ‘Max did suggest Wadencourt had someone else figure out the clues for him,’ Oliver said.

  Guinevere remembered Max had indeed said something to that point. ‘And you think it was Max himself? That he figured it out for Wadencourt? How? Max hadn’t done research into the goblet. Wadencourt was the expert, not Max.’

  Oliver waved a hand at her. ‘Never mind. You just don’t want to hear a bad word about him.’ He left the room, slamming the door shut.

  Chapter Eleven

  Guinevere followed him into the corridor to say he shouldn’t be such an oaf and they had to support each other in this difficult time when she heard agitated voices to her left.

  A policeman came from Wadencourt’s room, carrying something in his hand. He was wearing thin plastic gloves so as not to smudge any prints that were left on items the police wanted to remove. Apparently, he was taking this particular object with him.

  Wadencourt followed him, saying, ‘I’ve never before in my life seen that bottle. It’s not mine.’

  ‘It was in your room,’ the policeman countered. ‘Concealed under a loose floorboard. You used it and then hid it.’

  ‘Absolutely not. This treatment is outrageous.’ Wadencourt spied Guinevere and said, ‘Where’s Bolingbrooke? He has to explain what that bottle was doing in my room.’

  ‘What is it?’ Guinevere asked curiously.

  The policeman ignored her question and marched to the stairs.

  Wadencourt followed him, calling for Bolingbrooke.

  Oliver approached and asked, ‘Why on earth is he bellowing for my father like that?’

  ‘The police found something concealed in his room, which they are now taking. They think he used it and then hid it, under a loose floorboard.’

  Downstairs a senior police officer stood talking to Cador. He looked up when the party came down. He asked the policeman carrying the bottle what was up. ‘I found this in one of the rooms upstairs. It belongs to Mr Wadencourt.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Wadencourt said, turning purple. ‘I happen to sleep in that room. I do not own it. That bottle must have been put there before I even arrived.’

  ‘I believe,’ the policeman said to his senior officer, ‘that this is the bottle that holds the fluid used to make the goblet look rusty in parts. The chemical the lab staff mentioned.’

  He looked triumphant that
he had been able to draw that conclusion.

  The senior officer nodded. ‘Could be. Let me have it and show it to LeFevre. You continue searching.’

  The elation on the policeman’s face died, and he seemed to want to protest but then he handed the bottle to his superior and returned up the stairs to carry out the instructions.

  Oliver said, ‘Wadencourt does have a point that a bottle could be hidden in any room, at any time. The doors here aren’t locked.’

  ‘We’ll see if his fingerprints are on it.’ The senior officer held up the bottle to study the glass as if he could already see the telltale prints appearing. ‘Then he can’t deny knowing about it any more.’

  Wadencourt said, ‘When I deny that I’ve ever seen that bottle, I mean it. My fingerprints can’t be on it. And if you later claim there were some, you’re lying. This whole investigation is a scam to accuse me.’

  ‘One word of that to the press,’ the senior officer said, ‘and we can take you in for slandering us. We’re simply searching for the missing gemstones. You wanted us to, didn’t you?’

  Wadencourt opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again. The bright colour in his cheeks vanished, and he cast down his eyes. He suddenly seemed older and shorter, a dejected man.

  Oliver asked him, ‘Do you know for sure whether anybody else has been in your room?’

  ‘That butler Cador. He claimed he put some flowers beside the bed. Flowers! Who needs flowers when he’s staying somewhere for a serious business matter. It must have been a lie to go through my things or to …’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be logical,’ Oliver said, ‘for your assistant Max to have been in your room? To look for you, to get some item you needed, or that he needed? For the assignment you were working on together?’

  Wadencourt gave him an indignant look. ‘Max wouldn’t dare go into my room when I wasn’t there. He knows I like my privacy. If I caught him, he’d be on the street.’

  Oliver shrugged. ‘You’d have to catch him first.’

  Wadencourt straightened up. ‘I just told you that the butler was there. And maybe you were too. Maybe you wanted to go through my things to look for clues as to where the goblet was hidden.’