Diamonds & Dust

by Carol Hedges

  Moonlight streams through the stained-glass panels of the front door, throwing rainbow patterns on the walls, silvering the fur of the animal-skin rug that lies on the hallway floor. It takes her a moment to realise: There is no animal-skin rug on the hallway floor.

  Her breath catches in her throat, as the rug suddenly raises its head and gets to its feet. Evil yellow eyes stare intently up at her. Next second, a massive grey wolf bounds towards the stairs, teeth bared in a snarl of rage.

  For a split second she freezes, her heart hammering in her chest. Then she runs into her uncle's room, slamming the door shut. Just in the nick of time. Loud snarling and heavy thuds come from the other side of the door, followed by the rasping sound of claws being drawn down the wood from top to bottom.

  Josephine reaches under the bed and pulls out her uncle's Afghan pistol and a small box of bullets. When she'd first arrived in London, he had taught her how to load and fire it. They’d subsequently spent many happy hours shooting starlings off the summerhouse roof. Her uncle had said that the ability to fire a gun was more useful than all the rubbish they filled her head with at school.

  How right he was.

  Now she loads the gun, trying to keep her hands from shaking. Then, taking a deep, calming breath, she opens the door a crack and peers out.

  There is no sign of the wolf.

  She is just setting off to find it when she hears a low, wicked growl behind her back. Spinning round, she sees the wolf crouched in the gloomy darkness of the top landing. Its pupils glow fiery red.

  A bright comet tail of fear runs down her spine, but she raises the gun, and holds it out in front of her, gripping it with both hands. She hears her uncle’s voice:

  “Sight straight along the barrel, Josie. Steady hands. Squeeze the trigger gently ... gently ... remember, it kicks back when it fires.”

  The wolf springs. She fires. The wolf howls in pain, and leaps over the banister, spattering her with blood. It somersaults through empty air until it lands heavily in the hallway below, where it bounds towards the open baize door leading to the basement kitchen.

  A moment later Annie appears on the top floor landing, her hair in curling-rags, her eyes starting out of her head. The maid takes one startled look at Josephine, clad in a blood-bespattered night-gown, clutching a smoking gun in both hands, and starts to scream at the top of her voice.

  A couple of hours later Josephine is back in her bed once more. She is wearing a fresh nightgown and there is a glass of hot milk on her bedside table. All traces of the grim night visitor have been cleared away. The broken scullery window has been temporarily boarded up. Everything is safe and sound. But she does not feel safe and sound. Not at all.

  Something is niggling away at the back of her mind like an aching tooth. It resolves itself into a series of thoughts: The wolf had seemed quite at home in the house. It had not tried to run away when it saw her. It was not afraid.

  She pushes the thoughts a little further along a path she does not want to go down. The wolf had seemed to deliberately wait for her to come out of her uncle's room. Almost as if it had known who she was, and what it had to do. As if somebody had given it careful instructions.

  She recalls her visit to the Zoological Gardens earlier that day. The woman clad in black. The way the wolves had stared at her, then slunk away. She tries not to think about the implications of all of this. But they are the sort of thoughts that have glue on them.

  ****

  The following morning finds Detective Sergeant Jack Cully staring gloomily down at a dead body lying in the gutter, and searching for the right words of comfort to say to the man standing next to him, who stifles a sob, wiping his streaming eyes on his sleeve.

  “I can’t believe she's gone,” the man hiccups. “She was only there yesterday, so alive and well.”

  Cully takes out his notebook, flicks it open and licks his pencil.

  “So, when was the last time you saw her?”

  The man heaves a great sigh.

  “Last night, must’ve been about six. I always say goodnight to her before I leave.”

  “And you didn’t notice that ... um ... that ...”

  “Alice – her name’s Alice.”

  Cully nods.

  “You didn't notice Alice was missing?”

  The man shakes his head.

  “I can’t stand the thought that she suffered. Do you think she suffered, officer?”

  Jack Cully is damn sure that Alice suffered. She must have suffered to hell as she tried to make her way back, bleeding from the bullet wound in her side. The carriage that ran her over was probably doing her a favour.

  “No,” he lies. “I’m sure she went peacefully.”

  The man sniffs noisily.

  “She was my favourite wolf,” he says. “The others, well they’re just wolves. Nothing special about them. But Alice – she was different. She used to look at me, you know, almost as if she could read my thoughts.”

  Jack Cully doubts this. He recalls an aunt who used to make the same claim for her pet goldfinch. Until the day it flew out of her parlour window and disappeared. Probably straight into next-door’s cat.

  “So, she’s never got out before?” he asks.

  The zookeeper shakes his head.

  “Never. And I don’t understand how it happened this time. She’s never tried to escape before. Never. It’s a complete mystery.”

  He bends down to stroke the damp, bedraggled fur.

  “I’m so sorry, Alice,” he whispers.

  Jack Cully turns his head away. And glares at the little knot of journalists scribbling and sketching frantically in the background. He can just visualise the mid-day headlines: MONSTER WOLF SLAIN! FEAR DEPARTS FROM CITY STREETS! Caustic comments would be written about the incompetence of the detective police.

  He closes his notebook with an air of finality. But a few concerns linger on, like wisps of smoke after a bonfire has been extinguished. His main concern is that the paw prints he'd seen in the cemetery were very much bigger than the paws of this dead wolf. And he doubts that Alice would be capable of committing all the offences named in the newspapers, let alone digging up and dragging off a dead body. Still, as his boss always says: Give me solutions, Jack, not problems. So that is exactly what he is going to do.

  ****

  And Detective Sergeant Jack Cully will get away with it, because even now, in one of those strange serendipitous events, Detective Inspector Stride is about to arrive at the Wapping Headquarters of the River Police.

  Stride has been summoned by his opposite number, who has apprehended a small wherry containing stolen goods, traceable directly back to a violent robbery carried out by an East End gang that Stride's men have been watching for the past few weeks.

  In the course of the visit, Stride will, naturally, cast a professional eye over the gruesome Body Found posters pasted to the front of the police building. Despite the best efforts of the police artist, who could render a picture of his own mother unrecognisable, Stride will recognise a face that he has seen before. Upon enquiry, he will be shown the remains of the body, will identify and name it, and will arrange to transport it back to its last-but-one resting place. He will also observe certain marks that he does not recall seeing on the body when he last viewed it. But he won’t understand what they mean, and so he will ignore them.

  ****

  Meanwhile Josephine is travelling across London in an omnibus. She has managed to secure one of the coveted separate compartments. It is about the size of an upright coffin, but at least she does not have to travel squashed up against some man reeking of cigar smoke.

  She is grateful for this short period of solitude, having lain awake most of the previous night, the inside of her mind shiny with the clarity of sleeplessness. Every creak and groan had startled her upright, ears straining for the sound of imaginary paws padding upstairs. She had not realised that the scariest place in the whole universe could be her own bedroom.

  Now,
nerves pulled tight by too little sleep, she is on her way to talk things over with the only person she feels she can confide in. Alighting at Holborn, she pays the conductor her sixpence before making her way to the offices of King & Co.

  Trafalgar Moggs is seated in his usual place behind the desk, filling in ledgers. He gives her a long searching look, then quietly sets down his quill.

  “Good morning Miss King. This is an unexpected visit. Something is troubling you?”

  She fumbles awkwardly with her bonnet strings.

  “Yes, something is troubling me greatly, Mr Moggs.”

  The clerk rises.

  “Let us repair to the inner office,” he suggests. “Then you can tell me what it is.”

  A short while later Josephine is seated behind her uncle's desk, relating the terrifying events of the previous night.

  “This is a very great mystery, Miss King,” Moggs murmurs when she has finished. “I confess I am puzzled what to suggest. Other than perhaps the animal was being kept as a pet in some menagerie, then escaped, and perhaps that was why it did not seem afraid of you.” He frowns. “The newspapers are still full of reports of a ‘gigantic hound’. It has been seen all over London.”

  She picks up her uncle’s brass letter-opener and turns it to and fro.

  “The marks upon the office door here were remarkably similar to the marks left by the animal last night. Should I talk to Detective Inspector Stride?”

  “Do you think the two events are linked to Mr King’s murder?”

  She shakes her head.

  “I cannot see how.”

  “My advice,” says Moggs, “would be to let well alone. I have read in a magazine that, given the millions of human beings all jostling each other for space within a few square miles, every possible combination of events – both striking and bizarre, may be expected to take place.”

  She sets down the letter-opener.

  “Then I shall follow your advice, Mr Moggs.”

  They sit in silence for a few seconds.

  “On a different topic altogether,” the clerk says, “what have you decided to do with the jewels?”

  “I have not yet reached a decision,” she confesses. “I know that both you and Mr Able think that I should put them in a bank. But is that what my uncle would say?”

  Unexpectedly, a smile crosses Moggs's face.

  “Your uncle would probably say that a banker is just another word for a thief in a suit,” he remarks drily. “But I think you should at least get the diamond valued, Miss King. Maybe that would help you to make up your mind one way or the other.”

  “Where could I go to do that?”

  “If I were you, I'd take it to Garrards the jewellers – just off the Haymarket. They make jewellery for the Queen herself, so they should know what they are talking about.”

  ****

  Robert Garrard of R & S Garrard & Co, Royal and Crown Jewellers, stands in his Panton Street shop staring out through the curved glass shop window. He hears the sounds of horseshoes slipping on damp cobbles, the cry of newsvendors shouting the early evening headlines.

  Beneath his feet, the hiss of grinding-wheels comes up from the basement workroom, where his apprentices melt gold in crucibles, and cut and shape stones into wondrous things, such as the diamond necklace and drop earrings that he has recently delivered to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria.

  The diamond, known as the Lahore Diamond, was presented to the Queen by the Directors of the East India Company, along with the Timur Ruby (which itself weighed an unbelievable 322.5 carats). It had been an even more remarkable jewel than the famous Koh-i-Noor Diamond (105.6 carats), which his firm also reset as a pendant in a necklace of Oriental inspiration. Since inheriting the business from his father, also called Robert, he has measured out his days in stones and carats.

  Robert Garrard is a man in the prime of life. Sleek, handsome, his hair dyed brown, and oiled back from his face, he exudes the thrust and energy of someone much younger. Even the whores on the Haymarket say it is a pleasure doing business with him. Now, hands clasped behind his back, he rocks gently to and fro upon his feet, and thinks about diamonds.

  There is no other stone like the diamond. No other jewel that can take upon itself so many hues. He has seen diamonds yellow as sulphur, orange, pink and black. He remembers the Pigot Diamond (48.63 carats), which Rundell & Bridge sold, cut, for thirty thousand pounds. A white oval, with only the tiniest red foul.

  The finest stones are always white, clear and transparent. Simpler than water, untouched and elemental. Like the magnificent stone he has just handled.

  A short while earlier, Robert Garrard had been standing behind the counter discussing various commissioned pieces with his shopman, when the door had opened to admit a redheaded young woman dressed in full mourning.

  Stepping over the threshold, she had glanced cautiously about her at the tables displaying gold and silverware, copper and jewellery. Light reflected off cut surfaces, glowed gently from gilded items. Garrard had already decided what this visit was about: the young woman had some pieces left to her by the deceased. Probably trinkets of very little worth that she now wished to sell, in order to prevent herself from slipping into poverty and destitution.

  He had stepped forward, assuming a benign, fatherly expression.

  “Good morning, young lady. I am Robert Garrard, the owner of this establishment. How may I be of assistance to you?”

  A pair of shrewd green eyes had regarded him levelly from under a rather damp bonnet. A gloved hand had delved into an inner skirt pocket and pulled out something wrapped in a clean cloth, which was placed it upon the shiny wooden counter.

  “I should like you, please, to tell me the value of this.”

  “Of course, young lady. It would be my pleasure.”

  He had nodded, smiling condescendingly, and folded back the cloth to reveal a very large cut diamond. It had winked and glittered, as if it had just woken up.

  Garrard had licked his lips and stared, knowing it for what it was. Automatically, he had taken a loupe from his pocket, and picked up the stone delicately, sensing its oily hardness drawing heat from his fingers.

  Even without weighing it on the scales, he had estimated its weight at over two hundred carats. More than any other diamond he had ever seen or handled. More, even than the Koh-i-Noor.

  Suddenly, he had found that he could not breathe. He had felt as if he was going to scream. He had concentrated hard on the stone, pushing his emotions aside.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “My uncle left it to me in his Will,” the young woman had replied coolly. “He brought it back with him from his travels abroad.”

  Garrard had tried to re-gather his thoughts.

  “It is a very old diamond,” he had said at length, “probably originating in the Konar region of Afghanistan. Many fine white diamonds came from there. How did your uncle come by it?”

  “He was given it as a gift. My uncle's lawyer referred to it as the Eye of the Khan.”

  He had breathed in sharply.

  “I have heard the name before. There are tales and rumours about a diamond of that name. It was mined in the Kollur mines centuries ago. Over time it was supposed to have passed through the hands of many famous Mughal and Persian rulers. The last known record of it was a very long time ago. It was always assumed that it had disappeared.”

  “How can a diamond disappear?”

  He had smiled wryly.

  “It is all too easily done. War and death are the most usual methods. With some stones, every facet may stand for a bloody deed. And then there is also the curse. Many famous diamonds are cursed.”

  She had looked at him inquiringly.

  “The famous Koh-i-Noor Diamond, for instance, carries a curse,” he had told her. “All the men who have ever owned it have lost their thrones, or had some other terrible misfortune befall them. Fortunately, it is now owned by our beloved Queen. Diamonds and curses. They follow each other lik
e day and night.”

  Carefully, as if swaddling a new-born baby, he had wrapped the diamond up and pushed it gently towards her.

  “Take very good care of your diamond, young lady. You are extremely lucky to own it.”

  “So how much is it worth?”

  Garrard had shaken his head.

  “You can’t put a price upon something like that. It is worth whatever the one who desires it will pay. In whatever currency they choose. You are keeping it locked up somewhere safe, I presume?”

  “Oh, I am. Thank you very much for your help.”

  She had stuffed the diamond back in her pocket. He had winced.

  “Please don’t worry, Mr Garrard,” the young woman had reassured him as she headed for the shop door. “I shall be taking a cab home.”

  ****

  While Robert Garrard continues to stare out of his shop window, cursing himself for not getting the young woman’s name and address, the subject of his thoughts is actually standing just a few streets away in front of a newsvendor’s stand.

  She is staring at a headline, which proclaims:

  RARE MONGOLIAN WOLF SHOT IN FRENZIED ATTACK!

  After purchasing a copy of the newspaper, she picks up a cab on the corner, and directs the driver to take her straight home. Inside the cab, she reads the story with growing dismay.

  The wolf was called Alice. Oh dear. And according to its keeper, Mr Alfred Garnett (35): Alice was the sweetest wolf you could ever imagine and would never hurt a fly. Josephine finds this difficult to reconcile with the snarling red-eyed creature that she had encountered the night before, but the accompanying drawing of a large beast, eyes closed, tongue lolling, lying in a pool of its own blood, does indeed bear some resemblance. Though it is hard to think of it as Alice – a name which she does not associate with a wild animal.

  More worrying, however, is the revelation that the police believe the shot that killed Alice was fired in the St John's Wood area.

  ‘Residents of this peaceful suburb were awoken in the middle of the night by the sounds of gunfire.’