by Laura Briggs
"Could it?" he asked. "You are a writer, Miss Kinnan. I was told once that writers have powers of observation more akin to detectives than other people. You must have noticed the habits of certain guests."
I did have a bad habit of noticing, as I had told that dinner guest in my apology. I thought back to the last few days, to guests who had begun arriving just before the auction. The surfing duo and the beach-loving couple were unlikely, since they spent days on the beach, where not many of the gossipy locals hung out. The buyer from Hollywood spent a lot of time in the village — I had seen him leaving with tourist brochures for Port Hewer attractions. Mr. Thornton the collector's rep had been absent from the hotel a lot, too. What if the lady in white's friend hadn't really been leaving for Penzance at all?
"At least two guests have spent a lot of time outside the hotel," I said. "They were here for the auction, too. Most of the others have stayed on the grounds or in their rooms. But there is a lady staying with us who came with a friend, who disappeared after only a day at the hotel, claiming she didn't like crowds."
"Has the friend returned?"
"No." I shook my head. "No one has behaved suspiciously or weirdly. There's a buyer from Queens who is talkative, but only with guests interested in the auction." For that matter, the lady in white was talkative, which wasn't a crime. "I did see a note on the desk yesterday that Brigette received from a guest. They wanted to know if anybody from the staff was on duty after hours." Presumably for room service, I had thought at the time.
"Do you know which guest asked this question?"
"No. I didn't see a signature on the note."
Anson made some careful notes. "If it is a guest, then we can be certain that no one has left this port with the diamonds," he said. "Is there another way to leave the village? By boat, by road — any place that would not be the maritime routes, or a path accessible by vehicle that would not be thought of immediately by the police?"
He asked this of Sidney, leaning forward to make eye contact. Sidney concentrated in the momentary silence which followed. "No," he said, at last. "There's an old road through the fruit orchard near the Jessum farm ... it's been blocked by a tree, and has holes as deep as soup pots, though. Only a stout vehicle with decent tires could take it."
"And not any way by sea?" The detective tapped his pencil against his pad. "It would be a small craft, probably. Something which could easily slip past the authorities on the water."
"Where would they go?" I asked. "Won't the authorities be watching for them all over Britain?"
"We are on the threshold of the Mediterranean," said the detective. "If the thief has any experience on the water, he would make for a distant port, and try to slip past the authorities who will be watching the ports along Cornwall. He would have to be skilled at handling a craft on the open waters, of course. But with enough experience, he could reach distant shores and evade the authorities looking for him. Vigilance following an international alert will only last so long."
He looked at Sidney again. "You know these waters also," he said. "Where could a thief escape, if he was on water?"
Sidney reflected on this. "There's a little inlet between Thumb Rocks that might be difficult to see from shore or from bigger ships. It's too narrow for a very big craft, though. Probably nothing that could survive on the open water between here and France, much less Spain or North Africa." He shook his head. "I can't see anyone risking it."
"Then it is almost certain the thief is still here," said Anson. "He has no way to leave this village that won't be detected by the watchful authorities."
"Can't your master thief slip past them?" I asked. The detective gave me a shrewd glance.
"If we are dealing with a master, then yes," he said. "But I am not quite sure of that fact yet." A mysterious gleam flashed in the detective's eye — too inscrutable for a stranger like me to guess anything except that the detective hadn't shared his true theory about a guest being involved. "For that reason, I will ask you one more question, Mr. Daniels. Have you even one small suspicion regarding how the stolen item came to be in your house — in your very pocket, as it was?"
He arched one eyebrow as he gazed at Sidney's face. No glimmer of guilt crossed Sidney's features, only a look more grave than usual. "None," he answered, quietly.
The detective nodded. "That is all I wish to know for the time present." He closed his notebook. "I will tell you that things will likely grow worse for you, Mr. Daniels. I'm afraid the village police will not change their minds about you without considerable evidence to the contrary, and the metropolitan police will share their thoughts also. They will likely prefer to charge you with this crime in a matter of hours —by tomorrow at the latest."
My breath came sharply in response, and the look in Sidney's eyes became grim.
"But — I see things that the police can't regarding this case, and I have experience in this field which gives me knowledge which the local constabulary does not possess. I intend to do everything within my power to prevent you from being charged, to prevent the real thief from gaining the advantage of lifted security to make his escape."
"Thank you," said Sidney. "I'm grateful. I wish you joy, I suppose." His smile, wry but real, flickered to life with this reply. The detective rapped on the door and Pringle opened it to let him out, me following behind. I turned back to Sidney, who stood watching us leave.
"Are you all right?" It was all I could think to say in what little time was left between here and the door. "Do you need anything?" He needed the number in Dean's possession, so he could maybe get out of this cell, I knew. And anything that I could sneak or smuggle to him to pass the time. "Anything short of a file baked in a cake?" I asked, trying to joke.
He shook his head, then smiled. It still had its reassuring powers, though I knew it was impossible for him to really be fine. He reached for my hand, and I felt his fingers close around mine, briefly holding onto them before we were pulled apart.
"Tell Mrs. Graves I'm sorry —" he called out just before I was gone, but the door closed between us before he could finish. I heard the final clang of its secure lock.
"Run along now," said PC Pringle, who adopted his official puffed-chest-and-intimidating-glare stance. "That's enough unofficial interrogation for the likes of this case. Now that Scotland Yard's here, we'll be making strides in this case quick enough." He showed us out.
"Scotland Yard?" I glanced from the constable to the detective and back.
"London is undoubtedly involved in an investigation this high profile," said Anson. "They'll be sending a trained search team to sweep the area for any sign of the hidden jewels. Correct, constable?"
"We've a real detective from Scotland Yard come down to officially oversee the case," said Pringle. "Here to see it's all done proper so we can recover the heisted jewels and file official charges."
I knew he must mean charges against Sidney. If the highest authorities in law enforcement were here, how could the detective prevent the inevitable from happening? I felt sick suddenly, the way I felt before my first nerve-wracking writer's session in Wallace Scott's office, or the first time I met Ronnie's parents, which was an ill-fated event under the stars if ever one existed. The tiny frozen spot inside me would expand with each hour between now and the moment Sidney was charged and transferred away from the village to await trial, if that moment truly came to be.
"The detective he mentioned will be at the hotel by now," said Anson, as we crossed the car park. "I suspect the squad from the Met will be digging your friend's garden, and even the church grounds. I suspect they will only find rubbish and loose coins." He smiled at me. "I think, for the time being, the best plan is for you to return to your work, and I to mine."
"What are you going to do now?" Inside the detective's car, I fastened my safety belt. In the driver's seat, Anson started the car's engine. "Nothing Sidney or I told you really helped matters."
"In your opinion, it did not. In mine, however, every piece of in
formation provided in an interrogation is merely one more answer that before was a gap in my picture. When I have all the pieces, I can sort the real ones from the false and assemble the image as it truly is," he said. "Today, there will be still more answers if the analysis of the security tape is complete. Perhaps when I confer with London's investigators, we will come closer to the thief's real identity."
I hadn't been aware that there was any security footage to be viewed until the detective mentioned it. I had assumed the static scrambler had destroyed the signal to the cameras, too.
"There might be a picture of the thief, you mean?" I asked, hopefully.
He glanced at me. "Possibly," he said. "We shall see. There was a closed-circuit camera hidden in an ornamental cabinet, trained on the diamond display. The thief seemed unaware of it, so the possibility is strong that we have footage of him in the act. But it is a secret," he added, with a warning glance. "Tell no one of this — it's in the strictest confidence that I reveal it to you, and only because I trust you, given the stake you have in this investigation for your friend's sake."
"You know I'll keep it a secret," I said. "I won't tell anyone anything you reveal when we're talking."
"Try never to forget that promise," he said. "My investigation relies on it." Since Sidney's future relied on it, too, he didn't have anything to fear from me.
I was on duty upstairs, cleaning rooms vacated by the guests who were leaving the hotel today, who were among the least-likely suspects for the robbery. I could search their room for clues as I emptied wastebaskets and stripped linens from the bed, but there were no likely prospects for clues to be hidden here, only sand from the beach and torn wrappers from candy bars.
I pushed my cart to the next room, and found the same thing — the couple who checked out had left behind a mobile phone charger, which I put in the lost and found bag on the side of my cleaning cart. A tiny crystal rhinestone lay in the soap dish in the bathroom, but no diamonds emerged from the wadded-up towels on the rim of the bath.
Pushing my cart to the end of the hall, I searched for the key to the room which had requested new towels — the room registered to the Scotland Yard inspector who had arrived just today, Brigette had informed me in confidential tones earlier. He might be meeting even now with the local sergeant and with Detective Anson, who might be the only person in that circle who didn't think Sidney was guilty.
Voices came from the neighboring room, which belonged to Detective Anson. I recognized Mr. Tiller's among them, along with someone from the local police station, maybe. I held my breath, becoming still and quiet as the words rose loud enough on the other side that they were audible to me.
" — the evidence does point to Daniels being involved in part, at least. How else would he have come by it in the first place?" said Tiller, crossly.
"I am only postulating that there is more to this case than that of a common local criminal," said Anson. "I do not pretend to explain the difference between that possibility and what evidence is at hand."
"But if the marks from the tools in his shed don't fit the ones on the lock —" said Sergeant MacEntire.
"Are you still suggesting that this is a clever cover-up by a master criminal?" charged Mr. Tiller. "It can't be, Anson, it simply can't be. You and I both know that none of his modus operandi was involved — his calling card was nowhere to be found."
"If he was interrupted —" The rest of Detective Anson's remark was too muffled for me to hear, as if the group had lowered their voices. I crept nearer to the door, pressing my ear against it. It was eavesdropping, but I didn't care. I needed to know what they were saying.
" ... but it will likely reinforce what's already obvious to the rest of us, Anson." Tiller was closer to the door now.
"Then let us ask our expert from Scotland Yard what he says on the matter, since he's in the next room," Anson's voice was saying.
"Very well." I drew back quickly, but already the handle to the detective's suite door was lifting beneath a hand on the other side.
I was trapped between my cart and his door with no escape, except that of another room if I didn't want to be caught obviously listening in to their conversation — and behind me was a room occupied by a newly-arrived member of the police force.
I fumbled with my keys, jamming one into the lock of the suite immediately to my right, at the very end of the hall, the suite kept empty for Alistair Davies the novelist. I slipped inside just before the detective's room opened, closing the door between me and the hall as swiftly and soundlessly as possible. My body pressed against it, face touching the wood as I listened to the sound of the detective's party emerging into the hall. Someone was commenting on my cleaning cart; another person was knocking on the door to the Scotland Yard inspector's room.
"May I help you?" The voice came from behind me. For one second I was frozen, then I turned around to find a woman sitting at the desk in the suite, sideways in its chair as she gazed at me the intruder. It was the talkative lady in white, wearing her customary linen-and-chiffon summer togs, her Victorian scarf draped like a shawl around her shoulders.
I was speechless. "I — I didn't know anyone was in here," I said. "No one is supposed to be. This room is off limits. There must be some mistake if someone let you in."
My tone was sure, although my words were stammered ones. No one was ever in this room apart from the maids who cleaned it, because this suite was permanently reserved for the author, who hadn't set foot in it during the past year. Neither of us should be here, but at least I had the official keys and the hotel's permission to enter it to dust the desk and shelves, where, presumably, Alistair Davies kept his books and papers when he was here.
The lady in white looked slightly perplexed by this — and amused. "Perhaps there is a mistake on your part," she suggested. "I assure you that I have a perfect right to be here. This room is mine — I have the key to prove it." She lifted an official hotel key from an expensive leather handbag and spring green cloche hat beside the desk, freeing the key's tag from its tangle with a scarf brooch and handkerchief.
There was only one possible way that someone could possess that key, and that was if they were a friend or acquaintance of the author himself. "Are you a friend of Alistair Davies?" In my surprise, I spoke aloud without thinking — as if it were common knowledge that he stayed here, and not a secret supposedly known only to Mr. Trelawney himself. "Are you here with him?" I asked this part, knowing it was too good to be true.
The woman blinked. "In a manner of speaking, I suppose so," she answered. Her fingers played with the pen between them, and then I noticed the letters spread across the desk. Varying sizes and shapes, some open beside a stationery pad like the one that had crafted my own. A sheet of paper in the typewriter, a bottle of correction fluid beside it.
It was what was absent in this suite that I now noticed. No masculine coat hung on the hook, no plain but expensive suitcase beside the smart, floral-embossed leather one by the wardrobe. No scent in the air except that of perfume, with all personal items on the dresser and bureau feminine ones, down to the novel lying on the bedside table.
It was the faint bemusement buried in her voice, however, that told me the truth.
***
"You're Alistair Davies?"
I said these words aloud. The bottom had dropped out from beneath my world, and I had yet to plunge all the way into its vortex in the manner of Alice falling down her rabbit hole. The lips of the woman seated at the desk twitched briefly, in a upwards movement that made me want to sink below the earth.
She didn't answer me; but her expression had not changed one whit from its surprise and amusement, except for the faint smile she now wore. It suggested embarrassment for me, and for the obvious, piteous shock I expressed for this idea.
Alistair Davies' smile, that is. On lips that had probably uttered aloud the lines from those novels while typing them. The fingers that had been poised over the keys of the desk's Royal typewriter to create t
he most memorable chapters of my reading experience now held a fountain pen from the desk set I had imagined him using. At her elbow, the same stationery that had crafted a letter to me nearly a year ago, and brought me to this utterly humiliating moment in front of my idol.
"Goodness me, your face is dreadfully white," commented the lady — Alistair — who now had a little furrow of concern in her forehead in addition to her smile. She lowered her eyeglasses to the bridge of her nose again, peering in my direction. "Are you quite sure you feel well, child?"
This was the person who wrote A Dark and Glorious House? Whose book had changed my life the moment I first glimpsed its cover in a bookstore window?
"I — I'm so sorry," I said. "I'm sorry to have bothered you." My hand found the door latch behind me, lifting it and letting myself into the hall almost as quickly as I had ducked into the suite to hide in the first place. I was escaping from my humiliation, which could only be worse had I stumbled in while the author was changing clothes — or using the water closet with the door open.
I wanted to die. It was for the best that the hall was silent and the conference between the investigators had moved elsewhere, although the whole Metropolitan police force wouldn't have kept me trapped in that room for another second.
Her room. The introspective, craggy, serious Erich Segal-lookalike with a meerscham pipe and tweeds I had imagined for the past nine years was gone, vanquished by the dramatic and talkative woman guest with a flyaway hairdo and chiffon summer jacket. Who, for all her chatty cheerfulness, would brand me as a lunatic who had loftily accused her of breaking into her own room while committing that exact offense.
Meeting Alistair Davies was the one thing in the world that had the power to temporarily banish Sidney's plight and all these woes from my mind. I might have been thrilled — ecstatic, even — to learn that the greatest living genius among authors in my book was a woman like me, no less, as shocking as this revelation would be for its first seconds. But mortification didn't allow my brain to process these alterations and embrace them.