Trick of the Mind

by Cassandra Chan

  “Life’s a funny old thing,” he observed to his dog while he strolled along and tried to recover his composure. “One thinks one’s prepared for it, but there’s always something around the corner one’s never thought of.”

  Cerberus wagged his tail, keeping most of his attention on a squirrel running across the lawn some distance away.

  “Right,” said Bethancourt. “Back to business. Only I don’t seem to be getting very far with this business. It could be,” he added, somewhat despondently, “that I’m not much of a detective without Jack.”

  Cerberus’s silence was disdainful, or so it seemed to his master.

  Bethancourt sighed, and tried to think positively. Surely there was some line he could pursue on his own. He could hardly hope to find the jewelry himself, not with both Colin James and Scotland Yard hot on the trail, but perhaps he might contribute some color to the picture they were painting.

  “What about the other people mentioned in Miss Haverford’s will?” he asked aloud.

  After all, so far as he could make out, the Colemans had not, until recently, played much of a role in Miranda Haverford’s life. It could be possible that either her maid or this Ned Winterbottom had believed they would inherit the jewelry, and upon discovering that they did not, had taken steps to insure that they would receive it anyhow. If Gibbons had suspected that, it would provide either of them with motive to shoot him. Well, Bethancourt corrected himself, not the maid, since she was dead, but her heirs.

  He rather suspected that this was exactly the kind of flight of fancy that Carmichael had been referring to earlier, but it was all he could think of.

  “I’ll need to talk to the solicitor,” he muttered to himself. “Which means I’ll need an introduction. Someone must know the blighter.”

  Cerberus had paused to inspect the base of a tree, so Bethancourt took the opportunity to take out his mobile and ring his own solicitor. Ronald Fairclough, Esq., was meeting with another client, but his secretary assured Bethancourt he would ring back at the earliest opportunity.

  “It’s nothing important,” said Bethancourt. “I only want a favor. Tell him to take his time.”

  That accomplished, and the tree duly marked by Cerberus, the two moved on. And Bethancourt, looking down at his pet, had another idea.

  “I can’t very well demand Chief Inspector Carmichael or Colin James keep me abreast of their investigations,” he said. “But James does appear to enjoy walking his dog of an evening. And you’ve not been for a nice ramble on Hampstead Heath for a long while, have you, Cerberus? A casual meeting on the Heath isn’t at all the same thing as importuning a mere acquaintance.”

  Cerberus seemed to agree; at least he wagged his feathered tail in what seemed to Bethancourt to be approval.

  “We’ll go this evening, then,” he said, well satisfied with this plan.

  That left what he should do at the moment. It was beginning to rain again, so he whistled to Cerberus and turned back, still puzzling over this question. He had just decided that he had better find some other distraction while he waited for word from his solicitor when his mobile rang. But it was not Fairclough.

  “It’s a perfectly awful day out,” said Marla. “I just nipped out to pick up some salad doings, and I got chilled to the bone. So I bought some champagne and orange juice.”

  A smile was playing about Bethancourt’s lips. “You’re a woman of infinite resources,” he said. “Are you warm again now?”

  “I could use a bit of help there,” Marla admitted. “Also, I think I could use some help with this champagne. Now I’ve got it home, it looks an awfully big bottle.”

  “I am at your command,” said Bethancourt. “I shall be round at once.”

  “Good,” she purred. “I’ll get out of my boots and coat and see you soon, then.”

  Inspector Grant Davies smoothed his tie and regarded Martin Bloore thoughtfully.

  They were sitting in a pleasant pub just off New Bond Street. The establishment had been refurbished for the tourist trade with pale woods, cozy upholstery, and wide windows that let in the thin afternoon light.

  Across the table from Davies, Bloore sat at his ease, an overweight man with a cherubic face and round blue eyes, dressed in bespoke tailoring. He habitually wore a slight smile, indicative of arrogance, but it was absent at the present moment in the interests of sincerity. The problem was, Davies believed him.

  “Truly, Inspector,” Bloore said. “I haven’t got your jewels.”

  Davies smiled. “But, Martin,” he said, “that’s what you’d tell me if you had got them.”

  “Nonsense,” replied Bloore automatically. “If I had found them, I would naturally alert the police at once like any good citizen.”

  Davies let this pass at face value. “Of course you would,” he answered. “I never implied otherwise, did I? I merely asked if, in the course of your business transactions, you had possibly heard of some less principled citizen who might have an eye for heritage jewelry.”

  But Bloore shook his head. “Odd things do sometimes come to my ears,” he admitted. “Only rumors, of course, but they stick in the mind nonetheless. But not in this case, Inspector. If you ask me, somewhere out there is a group of smash-and-grabbers, scared out of their wits. They’re probably sitting on the jewelry with their knickers in a twist even as we speak.”

  “But in that case,” objected Davies, “you’d have thought they would have tried to unload their bounty before they realized what they’d got. I understand, of course, that sort of thing would be beneath your radar, but I’d have expected my own sources to get wind of it.”

  “True, true,” said Bloore, shaking his head with an exaggerated sigh. “It’s a mystery.”

  And Davies, however unfortunately, believed it was as much of a mystery to Bloore as it was to himself. But Bloore would be looking now and some judicious surveillance should alert him if the old criminal found anything.

  “Well, thanks for meeting me, Martin,” he said, swallowing the last of his beer.

  “Always a pleasure to be of help, Inspector,” replied Bloore, the slightly condescending smile returning to his round face.

  But it was very odd, thought Davies, as he buttoned up his overcoat and adjusted his scarf before leaving the pub. He had contacted Bloore because if a big heist like the theft of the Haverford jewels had been in the planning, he would have expected Bloore to get wind of it. Not necessarily that Bloore would have known exactly what was afoot, but he would have been aware that certain people had disappeared from the scene, and he might have been willing to mention a name or two to Davies. Particularly if Bloore had no reason to believe he himself could lay hands on the jewels. Bloore knew well enough that if Davies could take him down, he would, but thus far Bloore had avoided that fate, and by occasionally making himself useful, he ensured that he did not become Davies’s top priority.

  But if Davies was any judge, Bloore had heard and noticed nothing. And considering how easy the theft had been to carry out, that might mean that it was an amateur job, which would leave the field wide open.

  When Gibbons next came to, his father had arrived and it was apparently lunchtime on the ward from the sounds of carts and trays coming in from the hallway. His father was hunched over a battered paperback edition of Far from the Madding Crowd, his thick fingers keeping the pages spread apart on his lap. He looked up when he heard his son stir.

  “Hullo, lad,” he said, smiling a little, but not as falsely or brightly as his wife. “How are you doing, then?”

  Gibbons blinked and remembered to swallow cautiously around the tube in his throat before answering, “Well enough, I suppose.”

  “You’re a bit pale,” said his father, eyeing him judiciously, as if evaluating the quality of a cut of meat. “It’s a pity about this infection thing.”

  “It’s more the damn tube than anything else,” said Gibbons. “Have they given you any idea when I can have it out?”

  “Not much longer,
I don’t think,” his father answered. “They said they only leave it in for a few days after surgery. And of course they wanted to make sure no further surgery was needed. But they seem to have decided you’re holding together all right.”

  He grinned at his youngest son, and Gibbons managed a wan grin back.

  “I’m glad of that, at least,” he said.

  “There was a young man here,” continued his father. “Said he’d come back when you were awake.”

  “What did he want?” asked Gibbons suspiciously.

  “He didn’t say. He only had a clipboard, though. Maybe it’s something about the national health.”

  “Brilliant,” muttered Gibbons. The very last thing he needed was to have a bureaucrat added to his endless list of medical visitors. It felt as if they could not leave him alone for five minutes.

  “Ah,” said his father. “Here’s the lad come back again.”

  “Hello, Mr. Gibbons,” said the new arrival. “I’m Ernest Fursdon, your physiotherapist.”

  Gibbons regarded him sourly. Fursdon was a trim, painfully fit young man about Gibbons’s own age, and looking at him reminded Gibbons that before he had been shot, he had been meaning to make a few sit-ups part of his morning routine. Fursdon’s regular features were attractive without being handsome and somehow made his face very forgettable, at least in Gibbons’s opinion.

  “I’m here to get you moving again,” continued Fursdon. To his credit, he said it quite seriously, without the trace of a cheerful smile.

  “So soon?” asked Gibbons’s father doubtfully, while Gibbons continued to regard this apparition from his bed with a baleful gaze that suggested he was sizing up his chances of successfully strangling the man, or at least turning him out.

  Fursdon turned to the elder Gibbons readily. “I know it seems awfully soon,” he said. “But you have to remember how young your son is and how well he’s healing already. The danger now is not that he’ll do further damage to his wound, but that he’ll have complications from lying about too much. If we can get him moving early, his body will be free to concentrate on healing the original injury, instead of getting sidetracked by other problems.”

  Gibbons wanted to ask exactly what other problems they were worried he would develop, but the truth was that he could already feel, beneath the pain of his wound and the ache from his fever, odd kinks in his back and legs. There was no denying his body was accustomed to spending a good part of every day moving fairly energetically about, and was beginning to feel the change.

  “Oh, very well, if you insist,” he said, giving way ungracefully.

  “I’m afraid it really is for the best,” said Fursdon apologetically, laying his clipboard aside. “I’ve brought you some slippers to wear—the floors are chilly this time of year.”

  “Is this really going to help?” gasped Gibbons as he tried to sit up and was assailed by a fire blooming in his belly.

  “Oh, yes, certainly,” replied Fursdon, catching his arm in a practiced move and easing him into a sitting position. “You’ll definitely be back to your old self much sooner if you can manage to move about a bit.”

  And that gave Gibbons the strength of mind to endure the sheer torture that was his lot for the next five minutes. With Fursdon’s guidance, he shuffled painfully over a distance that he would once have encompassed in a couple of steps. He was quite pale and sweating with the effort when Fursdon at last returned him to his bed.

  “I know that was rough,” he said, lifting Gibbons’s legs back into the bed, “but you did remarkably well. You’re making a quite miraculous recovery.”

  Gibbons was too exhausted to reply. The physical activity—if it could really be classified as such—had put his temperature back up and he was almost shaking with the ache that seemed to seep out of his very bones. The fire that had begun in his abdomen with the first movement had coalesced into a fierce blaze that would not abate.

  He was barely aware as Fursdon drew the blankets back over him and rearranged the IV tubes. Before the therapist had left the room, he had already dropped into the gray world of half-consciousness.

  Colin James frowned as he replaced the telephone receiver, severing the connection with his contact in Amsterdam. Jan Stoeltie was a renowned diamond expert, one who kept a sharp ear to the ground for any deals concerning the brilliant gems. But he had heard nothing at all about an antique Golconda diamond like the one from the Haverford collection.

  “Though it does rather remind me of one that was on the market a number of years ago,” he had told James. “Sold on the quiet, as I recall, but a most remarkable jewel. Twelve carats, like the one you’re describing. It would have fetched a fortune at auction.”

  “How long ago was this?” asked James, his interest piqued.

  “Oh, quite some time ago,” Stoeltie answered, searching his memory. “Fifteen years? Something like that at any rate.”

  James’s interest evaporated. “No good to me, then,” he said, a little reproachfully, but Stoeltie did not seem to notice the tone.

  “No,” he agreed cheerfully. “Still, diamonds like that tend to stick in the mind. I’ll put some feelers out for you, Colin. But to be honest, I can’t really imagine there’s a stone like that out on the market that I haven’t heard of.”

  And this, James admitted to himself, was probably true.

  His eyes narrowed as he swiveled in his chair to gaze out the windows of his City office. The cold gray of the sky reflected the equally cold gray of his eyes as he ruminated on what he had learned—or, more accurately, had not learned.

  The alexandrite necklace was by far the most recognizable piece in the Haverford collection, but there were other notable elements. The Golconda diamond brooch, for example, or the Colombian emerald ring. Or even the pearls. When he had not been able to find any trace of the alexandrite necklace, he had begun to search for word of the other pieces, thinking that any intelligent thief might reason that the famed necklace was better sat on until after the uproar had died down. But there was, so far as he could determine, no hint of any of the jewels on the market at all. And that was peculiar.

  His fingers tapped an impatient staccato on the arm of his chair, while he shuffled through possibilities in his mind. None of them were promising, and some were too extreme to undertake until all other lines had been followed. As determined as he was about solving this case, James was not yet ready to go to extremes.

  There was a discreet knock on his door and his secretary Vivian appeared, cool and stylish as usual, with her shining dark hair done up in a French twist. Oddly contrasting with this sartorial elegance were the pair of baggy latex gloves, which covered her slender hands.

  “Mr. Loggins is on line one about the Barshot case,” she murmured.

  “To hell with the Barshot case,” retorted James. “I don’t give a fig for it.”

  Vivian’s habitual calm was broken by the slightest of smiles. “But Mr. Loggins does,” she reminded him.

  “He would,” snorted James, swinging round to his desk and noticing the gloves for the first time. “Oh, damn it, Viv, are you still on about that?”

  “I know police procedures just as well as you do,” she assured him.

  “We don’t need to follow police procedures because the police aren’t going to be called in,” said James. “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: they’re just crank letters.”

  “Of course they are,” Vivian answered with false sincerity. “And when their writer has murdered you, I shall have all the letters with their envelopes for the police, uncontaminated by fingerprints.”

  “Great heavens, woman, you’re enough to try the patience of a saint!” thundered James. “Out with you! Out!”

  Smiling more broadly now, Vivian withdrew while James swore at her and reached for the phone to placate Mr. Loggins.

  11

  The Witness

  Carmichael was ordered to report to Detective Superintendent Walter Lumsden, a necessity
that made him scowl. He hated to be interrupted by his superiors in the course of an investigation, although—he admitted to himself—he ought to be used to it by now. Still, he wished he had put on his gray suit this morning instead of just a sports jacket, and he spent some time assuring himself that his tie and shirtfront were free of coffee stains.

  Lumsden, of course, merely wished for an update both on the case and on Gibbons’s condition, as well as to convey his sympathies. He offered coffee to convey the personal nature of his inquiries, and Carmichael perforce had to sit for ten minutes and converse politely in order to satisfy his superior’s need to feel in charge. Ten minutes was not long in the scheme of things, but Carmichael found it irritating nonetheless, and was in no very good mood when he returned. Nor was his temper much improved when he found Hollings had rung while he was out.

  “I’ve just turned up a little thing,” said Hollings when Carmichael rang him back. He sounded cheerful, which Carmichael took as a good sign despite his cautious words. “Probably not much help in the grand scheme of things, but I thought you’d want to know.”

  “I do want to know,” said Carmichael firmly. “What have you got?”

  “Well, I’ve found someone else who saw Gibbons that night,” said Hollings, unable to keep the pride from his voice. “At least, he’s reasonably sure it was Gibbons, and if he’s right, then he puts Gibbons’s arrival in Walworth at about half eight that night.”

  “That’s good work, Hollings,” said Carmichael. “I didn’t think we’d get any more there. I’ll want to talk to this fellow.”

  “Thought you would,” said Hollings. “He says he’ll be at his flat all afternoon today. Shall I give you the address?”

  “Yes, go ahead.”

  Hollings read off a name and address, which Carmichael scribbled on the back of a sheet from one of the many reports on his desk.

  “Got it,” he said. “I’ll run down there now. Thanks, Hollings—you’re a wonder.”