by Nina Jon
“Jane,” she replied, adding, after a few moments hesitation, “Preston. Jane Preston.”
III
Two days later, while Jane locked the library up for the night, she felt someone touch her arm. She turned around to find a woman of about her own age standing on the step immediately below her. Jane had to smile. The young woman was wearing a grey pleated minidress, over pink tights, over which she’d pulled knee-length multi-striped socks.
“Can I help you?” Jane asked.
“Jane Preston?” the girl asked.
“Yes,” Jane said.
“I’m Felicity Hetherington, Hugh Hetherington’s sister,” Felicity introduced herself.
Felicity shared her brother’s pale complexion, and strawberry blonde hair. Unlike her brother’s curly hair, Felicity’s hair was long and straight, but she also had his large blue eyes. Jane wasn’t sure what to make of Felicity turning up at the library like this. She couldn’t recall seeing her there before.
“Do you remember meeting my brother, Hugh?” Felicity said.
Remember? Jane had thought of little else since.
“He remembers you, all right. He said you had remarkable powers of deduction.”
“Really?” Jane said coyly. “What else did he say?”
“Never mind him.” Felicity said impatiently. “I’m the one who needs help. I’m at my wit’s end. You can’t imagine the trouble I’m in. Someone has stolen a ring from my bedroom.”
“Why don’t you report it to the police?” Jane asked.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I stole the ring in the first place, didn’t I?” she said, as though it should have been obvious. “Not only that, but I stole it from my future mother-in-law.”
“Shall we go and get a cup of coffee?” Jane asked. “A new coffee shop has just opened along the road. I’ve been meaning to give it a visit.”
CHAPTER SIX
THE CASE OF THE MISSING ENGAGEMENT RING
I
When Felicity and Jane reached the coffee bar, Jane sat Felicity down and went up to the counter. She was returning with the coffee, when Felicity said, none too quietly, “You can’t imagine the trouble I’m in. That ring was my future mother-in-law’s, mother-in-law’s engage- ment ring. I’ve got to get it back.” Jane’s eyes moved towards the engagement ring on Felicity’s ring fi nger. Felicity saw her and waved her left hand in the air. “We’re not talking about this puny thing,” she said dismissively. “Worst luck.” Jane was beginning to feel sorry for Felicity’s poor fi ancé, not to mention his mother, whose engagement ring had apparently fi rst been stolen, then mislaid, by her future daughter-in-law for reasons which Jane had yet to establish. She put their coffee down on the table and joined Felicity. “Let me be clear about things – someone has stolen your future mother-in-law’s engagement ring?”
Felicity buried her head in her hands and wailed, “No. Someone has stolen my future mother-in-law’s, mother-in-law’s engagement ring.”
“After you stole it?” Jane said.
“I intended to give it back,” Felicity said.
“Well that’s borrowing, not stealing. If I am to help, you must tell me exactly what happened,” Jane said.
“If I knew exactly what happened, I wouldn’t be in this mess,” Felicity hissed at her.
Jane was finding it rather hard to warm to young Felicity Hetherington. Felicity threw her head backwards and said, “I’m sorry Jane. It’s just the old witch hates me anyway. She’s never thought me good enough for her precious Lars. Once she finds out about this, she’ll probably make Lars call off the wedding.”
Each lit a cigarette and while Jane sipped her steaming coffee, Felicity told her about the string of events which had begun the week before, after she’d had dinner with her fiancé Lars, at his parents’ house.
“After dinner, Lars’ mother Sylvia, and I always go up to her dressing room and she lets me try on her jewellery. She lays it all out on her dressing table and lets me select some to try on. She has masses,” Felicity explained. “Rings, earrings, necklaces, she even has a tiara. She’s going to wear it to our wedding. That’s if there still is a wedding,” she added, miserably. “Of all Sylvia’s jewellery, the item she loves the most is her late mother-in-law’s engagement ring. The ring is still in the same box it was in when Lars’ grandfather proposed to his grandmother. It has a single ruby, set in a row of diamonds.
“When Sylvia opened the box, she noticed the ruby was coming loose. She said that when they got back from holiday, she’d take the ring to the jewellers and get the stone reset. I decided there and then that I’d take it to the jewellers myself and get the necessary done when she was on holiday, thinking it would be a nice surprise when she got back. It was a pathetic attempt to curry favour really,” Felicity admitted. She stubbed her cigarette out and drained her coffee mug. She stared into the empty mug in despair for some minutes, before lighting another cigarette. Jane meanwhile, flicked ash from her cigarette into the ashtray, while nodding at the girl behind the counter who nodded back, picked up a coffee pot and walked over to their table to refill their coffee cups.
“When they’re on holiday, I always pop into the house to water the plants, that kind of thing. On Tuesday, four days after they’d left, I let myself in, picked up the post and left it on the kitchen table and watered the plants as usual. Then I went upstairs to get the ring. Madam’s dressing room is on the third floor. I didn’t hang around. I don’t like being upstairs by myself, it’s a bit creepy, and besides the heating was off and the house was freezing. She keeps the key for the jewellery case in the dresser drawer. I unlocked the jewellery case, checked the ring was in its box, closed the box and put it in my pocket. In case anyone else went up there, I locked the jewellery case and put the key back where I found it. I let myself out and took the ring straight to the jewellers. I told them I had less than two weeks to get the ring mended. They promised to do it in seven days, and they were true to their word. I collected it yesterday. It cost an arm and a leg, but they’d done a good job. Such a good job, I secretly hoped Sylvia would give me the ring as a wedding gift.”
“Was that your rationale for taking the ring the whole time?” Jane asked.
“I’ve always had my eye on it, yes. I hoped she’d give it to me when we got engaged, but nothing. I had to do something, or she’d have taken it to her grave with her, knowing her,” Felicity said defensively.
While Jane shook her head disapprovingly, Felicity continued unabashed. “The jeweller asked me if I’d like a nice new box for the ring, with the original one being a bit tatty but I said, ‘No! My fiancé’s grandfather held that very box in his hands, when he proposed to my fiancé’s grandmother on bended knee!’ The jeweller agreed it was all very romantic, as did the couple who’d walked in at the same time as me, to buy an engagement ring believe it or not.”
Felicity paused for breath. She swept her hands through her hair, and then continued her story.
“Here’s what happened next. I went home along Minsmere Road. It’s a shortcut. The alley brings you to the back gate. I went through the back garden and used the back door to get into the house. Mum and my sister Ginny were sitting at the kitchen table having a natter. I said hello. Ginny’s little boy stuck his head out from under the kitchen table to say hello as well. Him and his sister were under the table crayoning, or something. I left the four of them to it and went upstairs. The ring was still in its box in my pocket. I didn’t take the box out of my coat until I was through my bedroom door. Even then I locked the bedroom door and checked it was locked, before I took my coat off. Only then did I open the ring box.”
“Don’t tell me. The ring was missing?” Jane said.
“No, it was still there,” Felicity replied, flatly. “I took it over to the window to admire it in the sunlight. It really is a beautiful ring. I’m not surprised Sylvia raves about it so much. Dad was in the front drive, washing his car. I opened
the window and stuck my head outside to say hello to him and he waved. The room was so hot, I left the window open. I needed to go to the bathroom. I snapped the box shut and left it on the bedside table. I locked the bedroom door behind me and checked it was locked. I took the key with me. I wasn’t gone for more than a few minutes, but when I got back the box was gone and the ring with it. At first, I thought it had blown over in a gust of wind or something. But it hadn’t. I looked on the floor, in and around the bed, and the bedside table, but it wasn’t anywhere to be found. It had gone. Vanished into thin air and with it, all my dreams of happiness.” she said, her eyes brimming up with tears.
“Holy cow!” Jane replied.
“Holy cow, indeed,” Felicity said, blowing her nose on a paper napkin. “There’s nowhere anyone could hide in that room without me seeing them. There was no one else in the room Jane, I swear, but somehow, someone had walked in and stolen the ring. When I realised the ring wasn’t there, I knew I had to get outside and check the street, so I ran downstairs. I was panicking so much it took me ages to unlock the front door. When I did, I ran outside into the front garden. Dad had finished cleaning the car and was hurling the dirty water over the front lawn. I said, ‘Dad, you didn’t see anyone in my room, did you? Nosing around or anything?’ He laughed and said, ‘No, love.’ I ran straight past him and out onto Garlands Road. I looked up and down, but couldn’t see anything unusual. Whoever took the ring must have used the back way to escape. I ran through the front garden and into the back. Dad shouted after me, wanting to know what was wrong, but I had to ignore him and keep going. The alleyway was empty, and other than some woman coming out of the bakers and a group of kids, so was Minsmere Road. I ran up and down it checking the length of the street, but there was no one there. I went back into the kitchen. Mum and Ginny were still sitting at the table nattering.
‘No one’s gone upstairs have they, since I’ve been back?’ I asked them. ‘No. Why?’ they said.
“By now, I was beginning to think I must have made a mistake, and the ring must still be in my room somewhere, so I went back upstairs to look again. This time I turned my room upside down. I looked under the bed, behind the bed, in the bed, behind the dressing table, on the floor. I looked through clean clothes and dirty laundry. I looked everywhere.”
“The wardrobe?” Jane asked.
“Yes. First thing I did. I never shut the wardrobe door. I’m a lazy mare. I kick my shoes in one corner and throw my dirty laundry into the other and it wasn’t under that, I looked. I thought it might have been a bird. You know, maybe a magpie or something flew into the room and took it, but there’d have been feathers or bird poop or something, wouldn’t there? And there wasn’t.”
“Hmm,” Jane said. “It’s certainly intriguing.”
While Jane was genuinely intrigued about who might have taken the ring, she had a second reason for wanting to help Felicity – Hugh. Keen to turn the conversation around to this subject, she said, “Does Hugh know about this?”
Felicity shook her head violently. “No one does but you, Jane and that’s the strangest thing of all. Only one other person even knew I had the ring, and that was the jeweller. Even Lars didn’t know. When I couldn’t find the ring in my room, I went straight back to the jewellers. The old man who runs it was still serving the couple who were there when I was. They were still selecting her engagement ring. They were certainly taking their time over it. I didn’t really know what to say. I could hardly accuse the mild-mannered jeweller of theft, could I?”
“Not really,” Jane said.
“So I told him the truth. I told him I’d lost the ring, but I didn’t know how, which was true. He assumed I’d dropped it on the way home. He was very sympathetic. So were the happy couple. He told me that no one had returned the ring, although mislaid jewellery was sometimes handed into his shop, none had been handed in that morning. He promised to call if my missing ring was returned to his shop. He also told me I should call the police.”
Felicity leant forward. “So basically Jane, the only other person who even knew I had the ring has a complete alibi, unless the couple were in on it as well. They were looking for a ring,” she said, as though she’d cracked the case. “But then again, how could they have got home before me, and how could they have got into the house? And into the room? And where did they hide? And how could they have got out? Oh God. The old trout is back in a couple of days, Jane. What the hell am I going to do?”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday. You could invite me to lunch?” Jane suggested. “We might need a man’s help. Best make sure Hugh comes along as well,” she added wisely.
II
Felicity lived with her parents in a three-bedroom, semi-detached house in a suburban street, not dissimilar to the one Jane herself had grown up in. Jane arrived forty minutes before lunch was due to be served and paused outside the property. The house had a small front garden and a drive that led to a pair of double garages, the second of which belonged to the neighbouring house. A hedge afforded the house privacy from the road, and a wooden fence separated the gardens. The back garden was divided from the front by a gate. Jane walked up the empty drive. Felicity must have been watching for her arrival, because she hadn’t had a chance to knock on the front door when it was hurriedly flung open by Felicity, who looking almost deranged, greeted her with, “Thank God you’re here!” She almost dragged Jane through the front door, and with a quick look over her shoulder, said, “Let’s go straight to the scene of the crime.”
Jane had no time to protest, as she was bundled upstairs by Felicity.
Felicity’s room was smaller than Jane anticipated. There was a single bed pushed into the corner of the room, and next to that a small three-drawer bedside cabinet with a bedside lamp, alarm clock and a pile of magazines on it. On the other side of the room, a dressing table and chair sat under the window. To the left of that, a chest of drawers was squeezed between the wall and the door. A record player sat on top of the chest and two vinyl record boxes stood on the floor next to it. To the left of the door was a fitted wardrobe with its doors flung wide open. Tiny ornaments littered the windowsill.
“You can see what I mean about there being nowhere for anyone to hide?” Felicity said, and Jane did. The furniture was pushed against the wall, and even the clothes in the wardrobe consisted mostly of minidresses, skirts and blouses. Apart from a couple of floor-length dresses hanging at the end of the wardrobe, nothing in it was more than knee-length.
Jane studied Felicity. If anything she looked paler and thinner than the day before and clearly hadn’t slept a wink. Jane sat down on Felicity’s bed.
“Tell me exactly what happened again,” she said.
Felicity sat next to her and repeated the sequence of events. Her tale was as identical, and as exact in every detail, to the story she had told the day before, only this time she could point to what she described in it.
When Felicity had finished speaking, Jane also searched the room. She looked behind and on either side of the bedside table and she looked under Felicity’s bed. The gap between bed and floor was no more than a couple of inches. Nobody could have hidden underneath there. She stood up and walked over to the wardrobe. The floor was scattered with piles of shoes and Felicity’s dirty laundry, which Jane decided not to investigate further. Using her right hand, Jane began to move the tightly packed clothes along the rail.
“What a beautiful dress,” she said, referring to a green taffeta evening dress in a plastic dust sheet, hanging at the end of the rail of clothes. “Can I look at it?”
Felicity nodded glumly. Jane removed the dress. It had a tight bodice, short sleeves and a long tight starched skirt and was wrapped securely in plastic.
“It’s Ginny’s bridesmaid’s dress,” Felicity explained. “She’s my matron of honour. She didn’t want to keep it at her place, in case the kids ruined it.”
Jane studied the dress. It almost touched the floor and was made to fit a slim woman. Even the slenderest
of sneak thieves would have found it impossible to hide in it or behind it. The dress next to it was even worse. Its skirts didn’t even reach the floor. She returned the bridesmaid’s dress to the wardrobe and crossed the room, this time to the window.
The window looked down on the front garden and the road. Felicity’s father must have returned home, because his car was now parked in the drive. There was nowhere to hide behind the curtains – they barely came down to below the windowsill. With Felicity’s permission, she pulled open one of the chest’s drawers. It was packed full of clothes, as were the other two drawers.
“Well?” Felicity said.
“It’s something of a mystery, I’ll admit,” Jane said. “The window was open, you say?”
“Wide open – but Dad was still in the drive. He would have seen anyone climbing up the front of the house, surely?”
“Not if they came in from the roof and he had his back to them,” Jane speculated, “and what if he’d popped indoors, or into the garage, for a few minutes?”
Felicity flung herself backwards across the bed and covered her face with her hands, and said, “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“It all seems a rather complicated and audacious crime, just to steal one nice, but by no means priceless, item of jewellery,” Jane said.
At that moment Felicity’s mother called up the stairs, “Flick, are you and your friend coming down to lunch?”
When there was no reply, Felicity’s mother called up the stairs again. “Flick? Lunch?”
“Okay, okay, we’re coming,” she shouted back, reluctantly climbing off the bed. “We’d better go,” she said, leading the way out of the room.
Jane didn’t follow her immediately; instead she paused briefly by the dressing-room mirror and checked her appearance. She was wearing a new white shift-dress for the occasion, with a silver belt and a pair of shiny black boots. She had a matching white headband through her dark hair, which she wore in a bob. She was in the process of straightening her dress, and adjusting her belt, when Felicity reappeared in the doorway.