Diamonds & Dust

by Carol Hedges

  But even more, she thinks about Essie, the glorious big sister who used to swing her into the air, singing “Here we go up, up, up ... here we go down, down, down.” When Ikey Solomon had abandoned Essie for a girl from a better, richer family, he had not only broken her heart, he had also ruined her reputation. Everybody knew she had been discarded. No nice young Jewish man would look twice at Essie after that, let alone want to marry her. Essie Malkovitch was damaged goods.

  Lilith will never forget the day Essie left her home and her family, declaring that she had to strike out on her own and make a new life for herself, somewhere where nobody knew her name, or her shameful story.

  In the forever hours of any sleepless night, Lilith still sees her younger self standing alone in the middle of the street, tears streaming down her cheeks as she watches her big sister walk away, head held high, carrying her pathetically small bundle of clothes and possessions.

  Nobody ever saw Essie again. She simply disappeared. Some time later, the news filtered back to the small close-knit Jewish community that a young woman called Essie Malkovitch had died in childbirth in a workhouse in the north of England.

  Revenge is a dish best served cold, so they say, and Lilith has waited a long time to serve up this particular one. Now, at last, she has placed it upon the table. Nicely chilled.

  ****

  A couple of hours later, Stride and Cully arrive outside a building on Commercial Road. A sign above the door reads: I. Solomon & Co. Goldsmith, Dealer in Fine Antiques and Second-hand Jewellery.

  Practically a racial profession, Stride thinks. Along with second-hand clothes dealer, moneylender, or (if you were fortunate enough to have a surname like Rothschild) rich banker. He pushes open the door, a small brass bell mounted on a spring tinkling as they enter.

  The interior is dark, ill-lit by flickering gaslight. There are displays of jewellery in glass cases all around the walls. Tables with large Chinese vases and ornate silver candelabra. Paintings of long-dead people in old gold frames hang on the walls. Unknown ancestors regard Stride sourly.

  A heavily-bearded middle-aged man in a long dark gabardine stands behind the counter. He has a jeweller's loupe in one hand, a pearl necklace in the other. He is examining the necklace closely, pearl by pearl.

  There is something unpleasant about his body stance, a kind of snatching eagerness. He glances up, recognises the two officers for what they are, and sets down the loupe. He smiles. Cautiously.

  “Gentlemen? Good day to you both. How may I be of assistance?”

  “Am I addressing Mr Isaac Solomon?” Stride enquires, his tone flat and expressionless.

  “Indeed, you are.”

  “I am Detective Inspector Stride. This is my colleague Detective Sergeant Cully.”

  “So, gentlemen, you are both welcome in my little emporium.”

  Stride gestures towards the pearls.

  “Nice necklace.”

  “Baroque. The quality is good, but it needs some work before it is fit to be sold.”

  “Where did you get it from?”

  Solomon shrugs.

  “Ach, you pick up this, that and suchlike from families who no longer want them. You know how it is.”

  Stride doesn’t know how it is. He has never possessed any this or that, let alone any suchlike, in the first place.

  “How do people get to hear about your business?”

  “Word of mouth. Sometimes they read one of my advertisements in the newspapers.”

  “Oh?” Stride's eyebrows raise.

  “Oh yes, inspector, you have to move with the times. The modern man of business has to advertise. It’s the new way of doing things. All above board and legal, of course. Wouldn’t want to fall foul of the law, would I?”

  “No, indeed. You wouldn’t want to do that,” Stride nods slowly. He takes a long leisurely look around the shop. Nods again.

  This time, Solomon's eager smile doesn’t quite make it up to his eyes.

  “So, inspector, maybe you could tell me the reason for your visit? I’m guessing you aren’t here to buy a little trinket for the good lady.”

  Jack Cully stifles a snigger. Before he met Stride's ‘good lady’ he used to wonder why his boss put in so many extra hours at work. Now he understands perfectly.

  “You guess correctly, sir.”

  Stride digs out his notebook, makes a play of turning the pages, scanning the closely-written lines. Taking his time.

  “Ah, here we are. The Lily Lounge tea-room, Hampstead. You were there with a lady, quite recently. A foreign lady dressed in black. You had in your possession a particular item of rather fine jewellery, I believe.”

  The Goldsmith and Dealer in Fine Antiques and Second-hand Jewellery gapes at him, the colour draining from his face.

  “Perhaps I was. Maybe I did. I don’t really recall. I see a lot of clients in many places. It’s the nature of the business.”

  “The item in question, sir, was an emerald bracelet. Is that correct?”

  “It might have been.”

  “Property of Mrs Diana Meadows,” Stride says crisply. “Removed by someone in the crowd while she was attending the Italian Opera. The story was in all the papers at the time; I’m surprised you did not read it. It was front page news.”

  He pulls a wry face at the memory.

  “Do you have any comment, sir?”

  Solomon’s face is a study.

  “You mean, did I know it was stolen?”

  “I don’t know. Did you?”

  “No. No. I swear on my mother’s grave, no. I bought it in good faith.”

  Stride’s face radiates pure scepticism. He has seen this kind of denial many times. The more they plead their innocence, the deeper their guilt. Detective Inspector Stride has come up through the school of old-fashioned circumstantial evidence. The sort that says somebody did it because they were the type who’d do that sort of thing anyway.

  He flips to a clean page of the notebook.

  “Who did you buy it from, if I might ask?”

  Solomon shrugs.

  “It was a man ... a stranger to me. He came into the shop one day ... that is all I know, inspector, believe me. He said it was a family heirloom.”

  Stride snorts.

  “Did he now? Tell me about the lady who bought the bracelet.”

  Solomon spreads his hands.

  “What can I tell you? I never set eyes on her before that day.”

  “Describe her to me.”

  “Ach. She was maybe thirty years old. Fashionably dressed. She spoke very well, but with a foreign accent. I got the feeling she was an aristocratic lady.”

  “What sort of a foreign accent?”

  He shrugs.

  “Foreign. French, German, I don’t know.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “I don’t know that either.” Solomon meets Stride's disbelieving stare. “She was wearing a thick black veil, inspector. It would have been rude to stare. She had very dark eyes – that’s all I can recall.”

  “And how was the meeting arranged?”

  “The whole transaction was arranged through a manservant of hers. He approached me saying the lady wished to purchase some jewellery, particularly emeralds. I specialise in emeralds. He instructed me where to meet her with the bracelet, which I did. When she saw it, she said she wanted a new clasp put on – an easy quick little job. I told her when it would be ready to collect. The manservant came, paid me and took it away.”

  Stride notes this down carefully before he returns to his quarry.

  “So, Mr Solomon, what else can you tell us? There must be something more.”

  “Ach, I’m telling you everything, inspector,” Solomon pleads. “You have to believe me.”

  “Actually, Mr Solomon, I don’t have to believe you. And I don’t think that I do,” Stride goes on, shaking his head. “I’m sure I don't have to remind you that dealing in stolen goods is a crime, sir. And that applies whether you knew they were st
olen or not.

  “Now, I hope you are not planning to take any journeys out of the city in the next few days. Because my officers will be back. With a warrant to search the premises. And they will also want to see a full inventory of everything you have bought or sold in the past few months. And then they will ask you to accompany them to Scotland Yard, where I shall be waiting to ask you some further questions. Do you understand, sir?”

  Solomon nods unhappily.

  “In the meantime, sir, if you should receive any more requests for specific items of jewellery, or any further visits from men wishing to sell you family heirlooms, you will come straight round to me. Is that clear?”

  A further unhappy nod.

  “Then we shall thank you for your co-operation, and bid you good-day. For now.”

  Stride gives the hapless jeweller his most unendearing smile. Then he turns on his heel and marches out of the shop. Cully follows him, leaving Solomon staring after them in dismay. To be visited by the police, in broad daylight and on a working day, spells disaster for his business. Once word gets round the tight little Jewish community of which he is a member, nobody will want to be seen entering his shop. Or meeting him in the street. Or sitting with him in the synagogue. He is finished. He slumps back into his seat and covers his face with his hands. Oy veh! What has he done that HaShem has brought such tsuris to his door?

  ****

  The importance of the gentlemen's club cannot be overstated. It is a place where like-minded individuals of the male gender can meet together in convivial surroundings to share a drink, read the newspapers and discuss the burning issues of the day.

  Mostly, however, the gentlemen's club is a refuge from the trials and tribulations of the matrimonial home. Thus, having finished work for the day, Mr Thorpe has called in at his club for a quiet drink and a bit of refuging before returning to Hampstead and to Mrs Thorpe, the angel in his house.

  He sits half-buried in a deep comfortable leather armchair with high winged sides. A tray of whisky and water sits within easy reach on a rosewood wine-table.

  “I see shipping stocks are up again,” remarks a fellow-refugee sitting in a winged chair opposite. “Didn’t your late friend Herbert King have stocks in shipping? Seem to remember I sold mine to him. Must be making a tidy amount for that niece.”

  Another refugee chuckles.

  “I remember old Herbert. He was always a great one for the ladies, wasn’t he? Had some little Jewess stashed away somewhere. Amongst others ...”

  “Wonder what will happen to his business,” the first refugee continues. “Nice set-up. I wouldn’t mind buying it. Think I’ll get in touch with his lawyer, get a feel for the lie of the land.”

  “He may have left it to his niece,” Mr Thorpe says, remembering the thin redheaded young woman with downcast eyes and solemn demeanour who had sat opposite him in the funeral carriage.

  “Well, she ain’t going to want it, is she?” the refugee laughs. “Soon as she’s out of mourning, she’ll be gadding about town looking for a husband. That’s what these modern gals do nowadays.”

  Some more sipping.

  “How’s that boy of yours getting on, Thorpe?” another refugee asks. “Army life suiting him?”

  Mr Thorpe grunts. As far as he can tell, Army life is suiting Gussy very well – in so far as it seems to consist of racketing about town spending money. His money.

  “And your girl? Estella, isn’t it?”

  “Isabella.”

  “Got any plans for her future?”

  Mr Thorpe shakes his head. If he had plans, Isabella would stay at home, where he could keep an eye on her. He glances at his pocket watch and eases himself out of the leather armchair.

  “Better get off now,” he sighs. “Don’t want to be late for dinner.”

  The refugees watch him leave.

  “Shame about old Thorpe,” one of them remarks. “Used to have some go about him in the old days. None now. Blame that bitch of a wife. Got him completely under her thumb.”

  Mr Thorpe makes his way across the thickly-carpeted foyer and out into the noisy, smelly thoroughfare. He whistles up a cab, and tries to think positive thoughts about the evening ahead. There are many hours of domestic bliss around the fireside to get though before he can finally sink into the arms of Morpheus and fall asleep.

  ****

  It is the following morning. While Josephine is away learning the rudiments of her late uncle’s business, an important conversation is taking place in the St John’s Wood house. The two participants are Annie, the parlour-maid, and Mrs Hudson, the cook.

  The location is the basement kitchen. They sit opposite each other at the scrubbed wooden kitchen table. A plate of home-baked biscuits and a fat brown teapot fuel the discourse.

  “Delicious biscuits, Mrs Hudson,” Annie remarks.

  Mrs Hudson smiles in a satisfied manner.

  “Thank you, Miss Price. Sadly, I don’t get many opportunities to do fine baking nowadays.”

  Annie sighs.

  “Indeed you don’t. Times have certainly changed. And not, in my opinion, for the better.”

  Mrs Hudson stares into her teacup.

  “When was the last time we had a nice little dinner party? Or even a tea-party?” Annie persists. “Your talents are going to waste, Mrs Hudson. As are mine. When Mr King told me his niece was coming to live with us, I was really looking forward to arranging her hair, getting her ready for balls and evening-parties. Instead, she just scrambles into her clothes in the morning, and poof - she's off out.”

  “She likes her meals, though,” Mrs Hudson remarks. “Empties her plate every time. And she’s good with her pleases and thank-yous. I will say that for her.”

  Annie sniffs disapprovingly.

  “When she’s here, she is,” she says. “But half the time, she’s gadding about who knows where with who knows who. And there’s another thing – I don’t feel safe sleeping here with no man on the premises.”

  “There is that, I’ll grant you,” Mrs Hudson concedes.

  “And I don’t like working in a house where there’s been a death,” Annie says. “It’s unlucky.”

  “You’d be hard put to find a place where that hasn’t happened,” Mrs Hudson remarks. “And it’s not as if he died here in the house, is it?”

  Annie tosses her head.

  “Maybe. But we still had the coffin here. With his dead body in it. And then there was that funny business with Mr King’s gun.” She purses her lips. “And the visit from the detective police the other week. Never got to the bottom of that little episode. And that time recently when she crept in bold as brass mid-morning and swore she'd been out for a morning walk after her breakfast. But I know she hadn't had any breakfast. And I'm sure she wasn't wearing her own clothes either. Every time I ask Miss Hoity-Toity just shrugs me away. Says it’s personal, if you please. Personal! And me having worked my fingers to the bone for her uncle for more years than I care to recall.”

  She helps herself to another biscuit.

  “Well, I’ve made up my mind, Mrs Hudson. It’s my half-day, and I’m going straight round to give my particulars to a couple of reputable agencies. I’ve already let a few friends in service at good houses know that I’m looking. I’ve got my references all sorted. And if you’ll take my advice, you’ll do the same.”

  Mrs Hudson does not reply. Instead, she places the now empty teapot into the sink and takes off her apron. She goes into the pantry, emerging with a large wicker shopping basket and her hat and mantle.

  “I’ll bid you good day, Miss Price,” she says. “And best of luck – if that’s what you want.”

  “It is what I want.”

  Mrs Hudson opens the back door, and clambers up the steps to street level.

  The maid waits until the footsteps fade into the distance. Then she helps herself to the rest of the biscuits, which she puts in her pocket.

  “Shame to let good food go to waste,” she mutters.

  Shor
tly afterwards, Annie emerges from the front of the house, dressed in her best outdoor coat and bonnet. She glances up and down the street, before locking the front door and slipping the key into her pocket. Then she walks briskly along the road and disappears around the corner.

  ****

  But Annie is not the only one disappearing round corners today. Isabella Thorpe is also about to perform a similar action as she steps out of the shiny cherry-coloured barouche, which has just pulled up in Montague Street, close to the imposing British Museum building.

  Isabella has started visiting the British Museum. At least that is what she tells her Mama. She has informed her Mama that she is engaged upon a course of study. The Egyptians. Sometimes it is the Babylonians. Or maybe the Ancient Greeks.

  She has bought herself a nice little leather-bound notebook in which to make notes. No notes have appeared yet, but then, they are early civilisations, and it is early days.

  Isabella gives James the coachman instructions when she is to be collected. Then, as the barouche drives off, she walks briskly towards the imposing edifice of the British Museum, walks straight past it, and turns left into Great Russell Street.

  She crosses Bloomsbury Square, continuing her journey until – oh look, here she is approaching number 17 Red Lion Square. Behold, she stands at the door and knocks.

  Isabella has never been inside a real artist's studio before, but after a couple of visits, she is getting over the shock nicely. She no longer blenches when she sees the uncarpeted floorboards (naked would be a better description, but she is a well-brought up girl and cannot bring herself to contemplate such a word).

  She is also getting used to the plain, unpapered walls, the dribbly wax candles in bottles, the lack of curtains, the shabby sofa, and the paint-spattered chairs and table.

  “It's a bit of a tumble rumble jumble,” Henry had apologised, when he first introduced her to the studio.

  And indeed, it was. And it still is. But now she rather likes it. Isabella also likes Sissy, the wife of one of the other artists lodging at number 17. She had met her on the first visit. Sissy is an extremely tall, pale-faced young woman with violet eyes, and a mass of long red-gold hair. Impressively, she is even thinner than Isabella.