Holmes shook his head. “She would never do that—it would mean passing the curse on to her sister.”
Mrs. Tigleywink took a bite out of the scone. “Fiddlesticks! These foolish curses! Why invent such nonsense?”
“Many people have been murdered over the centuries for the diamond,” I said. “Her great-great-uncle is reputed to have killed three men in the taking of it.”
“I don’t believe in clean money, Dr. Vernier. Wealth of any variety always comes a bit soiled—all that varies is the degree. It never comes all clean and sparkling white.”
In spite of myself, I laughed. Holmes and Lady Tigleywink moved on to discuss some mutual acquaintances and the latest scandals in London society. A duke’s son had taken up with a parlor maid—“Little wonder there,” Lady Tigleywink said—but incredibly, he had actually run off and married her. That was unusual. She gave me an amused glance. “Another romantic, Dr. Vernier.”
A clock on the mantelpiece chimed once to mark five thirty. Holmes stood and said we must be running along. Lady Tigleywink managed to haul herself out of her chair. She took up a cane and accompanied us to the door. “Do not make yourself such a stranger, Mr. Holmes,” she chided. She glanced up at me, a lopsided smile pulling at her mouth, her blue eyes faintly gleeful. “I hope I have not distressed you too much, Dr. Vernier?”
“Not at all,” I said stiffly.
“I know I often sound horrible—so frightfully cynical, such a vicious old harridan!—but I cannot help the way things are. Believe me, at least once in a while, I would like to be proven wrong in my appalling view of human nature. I don’t exactly enjoy it, you know. However, people always seem to live down to my expectations. Perhaps someone like yourself will become the exception that proves the rule.”
I laughed softly. “I hope so. Good afternoon, madam.”
Holmes and I stepped outside. His gray-blue eyes peered at me from under the brim of his black top hat, his thin lips forming an ironic smile. “I fear she did distress you.”
“She did. What an old dragon! All the same…” My brow knitted up. “She was curiously appealing at times. She is wickedly funny, but sometimes rather sad as well. Did you find the visit helpful?”
Holmes nodded. “Oh yes.”
“That business about Bromley being a lady’s man seemed particularly cruel. He came to see me today to ask about Alice Bromley’s visit to Michelle. He obviously cares deeply about his wife.”
“Do you think so?”
“Certainly. You do not?”
Holmes shrugged. “I must admit that my general sentiments about typical masculine behavior are closer to Lady Tigleywink’s than to yours, but I am reserving judgment.” He stared more closely at me. “Out with it, Henry.”
“I am not sure this has any bearing on the case.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
“Michelle found out from Alice Bromley that she and her husband have not been having relations.”
“Relations?” His eyes narrowed. “Oh yes, relations. And why not?”
“I spoke with him, and he was concerned for her well-being. He thought her too physically fragile.”
“An impression I suspect you and Michelle do not share.”
“No. I told him as much. However, I was impressed by his willingness to do what he thought was best for her.”
Holmes’s mouth again formed an ironic smile. “Some wag once remarked that abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.”
I groaned. “He is obviously very worried about her. He fears she might go mad or try to kill herself. I tried to reassure him that both seemed unlikely to me.”
“Interesting. I am not a physician, but that was my impression as well. She is a very rational sort of woman, despite all her worries. As for Charles Bromley, you find him a model husband… the very model, the very model…” He laughed, then began to softly sing the song from The Pirates of Penzance, “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General.”
I could not help laughing.
* * *
Two days later, on Thursday morning, I received a telegram from Holmes. Look at page 5 of The Times, then meet me at New Scotland Yard at one if possible. I found my newspaper, then folded it open on page five. A heading leaped out: Prominent Jeweler Found Murdered.
“Good Lord,” I murmured. A brief paragraph told how the guard had found the proprietor Bartholomew Harter dead. I shook my head. It is always a shock when someone you have recently seen alive and well is suddenly dead and gone. “Who would have done such a thing?” I could not believe the old jeweler could have any enemies. It must have been robbery, but the place was a fortress. How could someone have ever broken in—and why commit murder?
Just before one, I reached New Scotland Yard and found Holmes sitting on a bench on the Embankment staring out at the river traffic on the Thames. A massive barge was just passing by piled high with boxes and barrels, leaving a wake in the gray-green water, its stack belching smoke. Holmes withdrew his watch from his vest and popped open the cover.
“Almost exactly on time, Henry.” He returned the watch to his pocket, even as he stood.
“It has only been two days since we saw Harter. Could his death possibly have anything to do with the Moonstone?”
“It seems unlikely, but one must assume nothing. Lestrade has this case. I sent him a telegram asking if I might see him at one. Let’s go. And by the way, Henry, not a word of our visit to Mr. Harter.”
The police had moved to “New” Scotland Yard only a year or two before. The ornate red-brick building was six stories tall, with round turrets at the four corners, and with four large square brick chimneys and four imposing spires rising equally high. The policeman at the front desk nodded at Holmes, and we went up the stairs to the second floor and then down a long corridor. Holmes obviously knew his way around.
We passed a section of wall covered with framed photographs. Holmes glanced at them, then came to an abrupt halt. “Henry, have a look here.” He pointed with a gloved finger at one of the portraits.
A grotesquely thin face with dark eyes stared fiercely at the camera, an odd forced smile contorting the lips. The eyes seemed somehow to be casting some curious judgment upon the entire world. The man wore not a uniform, but a dark suit and cravat, his thin neck thrusting out from the white curving collar. All in all, he conveyed much the same intensity and energy which I had often seen in my cousin.
“Who is this?”
“Sergeant Cuff. Remember? He was involved in the original case with the Moonstone in Yorkshire earlier in the century. I have studied several of his cases. He is the only one who has ever worked at Scotland Yard to whom I can give my unreserved admiration. Tyabji Senior mentions Cuff in his history of the Moonstone. Cuff initially got things wrong, understandably so, but he went on to redeem himself.” He shook his head. “A pity he is not better known. Or, perhaps not—I could gladly dispense with the notoriety Watson has given me, most gladly. It is a hindrance in my work. Ah well, I suppose a few years after I am gone, I too shall be forgotten.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
We continued down the hall, and Holmes rapped on a door near the end.
“Come in.”
Seated before a cluttered desk with an ashtray full of twisted, crumpled cigarette butts, a small man sat leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head. His face was thin, his skin unnaturally pale, his hair and eyes dark, and black sideburns came down to the bottom of his outspread ears. There was something feral in his look, something about the shape and prominence of his long nose, their large black nostrils, and his dark, keen eyes. His waistcoat was a brown wool tweed, the matching jacket hung over his chair back. He lowered his hands and gestured at the chairs before his desk. “Mr. Holmes, Dr. Vernier, have a seat.” He picked up a half-smoked cigarette and drew on it deeply.
“Thank you.”
“Care for a smoke?”
I frowned slightly. Holmes gave me a wary look. “Yes.
I have my own.” He withdrew a silver case from his jacket even as Lestrade pushed forward another smaller ashtray. The room had a stale, saturated smell of smoke, but at least the window was open.
“So you want to know about the Harter case? Nasty business that. Someone bashed in the old man’s head, probably with a cosh. He knew what he was doing, and he must have hit him a couple more times once he was down, just to make sure. You could tell merely from the shape of his head that he was a goner, and the blood has certainly ruined the fine carpet. The guard had left at six the night before, then arrived the usual time the next morning, shortly after nine. The front door was locked, but the big bolt wasn’t thrown. The guard had a key to the lock, but Harter always had to throw the bolt. The guard would buzz for him. He tried that several times, but discovered at last that he could unlock the door and simply open it. He found the body on the floor about six feet from the front door, face down.”
Holmes exhaled a cloud of smoke. “A cosh, you say? An odd weapon for a jewelry customer to wield. Obviously it was someone Harter knew, someone he trusted. The person came after the regular store hours. Harter must have let him in, done some bit of business, then started for the front door.”
Lestrade’s mouth pulled back into a grimace of a smile. “That much I figured out, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.” His voice was ironic. Holmes had little love for Watson’s stories, but the one who had suffered the most from them was Lestrade.
“Tell me, did you happen to find a small notebook with a brown cover? That was Harter’s appointment book in which he wrote down every visit.”
Lestrade shrugged. “No, and little wonder. The murderer must have taken it.”
“Yes, I suppose so. Was much stolen?”
“One would think so, but nothing is obviously missing. The place was not ransacked, as I would have expected. The inventory must have been in the old man’s head, and the drawers were all neatly in place and filled with an Ali Baba’s treasure of rings, bracelets and necklaces of diamonds, rubies, emeralds and the like.”
Holmes frowned. “In his head? I doubt that. Harter was meticulous. I suspect the inventory book was taken too.”
Lestrade slowly nodded. “Makes sense. We did find something unusual. Nonsensical, really.”
Holmes’s long fingers holding the cigarette momentarily froze. “Yes?”
Lestrade snubbed out the last of his cigarette, then dug around in some folders, pulled out one, and gave Holmes a small piece of paper. On it, written in block letters, was WOE UNTO HIM WHO TOUCHES THE DIAMOND. Holmes laughed softly. “A nice touch, that.”
“Do you have any idea what it means?”
Holmes hesitated. “No.”
“Such a warning hardly makes sense for a man who touches diamonds all the day long.”
“Do you have any suspects?”
Lestrade skillfully struck a match on the bottom of his shoe, then lit another cigarette. “Yes, as a matter of fact.” The words came out garbled because he had the cigarette between his lips. He took it out. “The guard and the fried fish man out front noticed an odd pair coming in the day before. Two tall men, one with a mustache dressed like a gentleman in a frock coat, top hat and striped trousers. The other—an Indian.”
“An Indian!” I exclaimed. Holmes gave me a warning look. “That is… odd.”
“That’s what I thought. The guard said he’d never before seen a man dressed that way come into the store. He had on tan linen trousers, a sash and a shirt, as well as a turban. His face was nut brown, and his nose and mouth were somehow twisted. That’s what both witnesses told us. It can’t be a coincidence: the Indian comes into the store, and that night the old man is murdered.”
By then, I had realized exactly who this mysterious Indian and his companion were and what their connection with the Moonstone was. I glanced at Holmes, who smiled faintly. He knocked his cigarette ash into the ashtray. “That may just be a coincidence. If Harter had just met them, he would hardly be likely to open up his store to them in the evening when the guard was gone.”
Lestrade frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that. All the same, we’ll be on the lookout for that Indian. I want to bring him in for questioning.”
“A cosh isn’t a particularly Indian sort of weapon either. Their preferred method is strangulation with a garrote or scarf. That was the famed technique of thuggee.”
“As ever, you are a bountiful font of information, Mr. Holmes.”
“You must have questioned the guard. Did he say anything about Mr. Harter’s recent work or his clients?”
Lestrade leaned back in the chair and exhaled smoke. “Nothing particularly interesting. Business had been slow for several months. He had worked for Harter for a dozen years, but they hardly spoke to one another and were very formal in their dealings. He did say Harter had been working on some job, some commission, but that’s hardly unusual.”
“But he knew nothing about it?” Holmes asked. Lestrade shook his head. “And did you find anything of interest in Harter’s workshop?”
“No, just more jewelry, mostly small stuff. There was an emerald necklace which seemed half done.”
“No diamonds?”
“Only two small rings.”
Holmes had finished his cigarette and snubbed it out in the ashtray. “A puzzling case.”
“Unless we can find that Indian and get something from him, it will probably go into the file of unsolved cases. This is a bizarre one. Why murder a jeweler and leave all his stock untouched? I’d have expected the store to be cleaned out.”
“Robbery was obviously not the motive.”
“But who would have wanted to kill the old man? He was an odd duck and a recluse—he hardly ever left the store. He had his rooms on the top floor in the back. Had a maid come daily to do the cleaning, but he did all his own cooking.”
“You did search the rooms?”
“Mr. Holmes, I am not an utter idiot, regardless of what Watson seems to think. I know my job. We searched them very thoroughly and found nothing out of the ordinary.” His mouth pulled outward again into a pained smile, then a sharp laugh escaped him. “I take that back. There was an unusual picture book by the bed, the pages well worn. Photographs of French ladies. Cavorting. The kind you buy at the back of certain stores.”
“I doubt some outraged Frenchman killed him.”
Lestrade laughed again. “No.”
Holmes sat upright, then picked up his stick from the floor. “Thank you, Lestrade. If you do find out anything more, let me know.”
“Not much chance of that unless I find that Indian.” His dark eyes stared intently at Holmes. “You wouldn’t know anything about him, would you?” Holmes shook his head. “Plenty of people are murdered all the time in London, but you haven’t graced my humble office with your presence in some time. Why the interest in Mr. Harter?”
“We have had some dealings in the past. He was an acquaintance. His name seemed to leap out at me from the newspaper.” He stood.
Lestrade also stood and came around his desk. “Well, if anything else should leap out at you, be sure to let me know about it.”
“So I shall. Thank you, Inspector Lestrade.” They shook hands, and then Holmes pulled on his gloves.
“Always a pleasure, Mr. Holmes.” Lestrade also shook my hand.
Holmes and I soon stepped back out into the afternoon sunshine. He smiled at me. “See, you are not completely obtuse—you did know who the tall Indian and his friend were.”
“It took me a moment. Shouldn’t you…? Why not tell Lestrade the truth?”
“Then he would have been even more insistent in his questions about my connection with Harter. I didn’t want to tell him about the Bromleys and the Moonstone, not yet, anyway.”
“You do think there is a connection, then?”
“I told you, one should assume nothing, but I think I shall know, one way or another, soon. Are you free for the rest of the afternoon? Excellent, then perhaps you could accompany me to the Br
omleys. I am certain Harter’s death will not have gone unnoticed.”
Six
Holmes used the ornate brass doorknocker. This time the housekeeper, Mrs. Carlson, answered the door instead of the little parlor maid. Her sturdy frame was clad in the same sort of practical black muslin dress with a row of black buttons down the front. Her brow was creased.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen. Do come in.”
“Has Mr. Bromley heard about Mr. Harter?” Holmes asked.
“Indeed he has—and so has the mistress. She’s most dreadfully upset.” She took our hats and gloves. “You can wait in the sitting room, if you please, while I fetch the master.” As she turned, her voluminous black skirts made a swishing sound.
“One moment, madam—a quick word, if you please.”
Mrs. Carlson turned to look back at us.
“Was your master at home on Tuesday evening?”
“Tuesday.” Her brow knotted up. “Yes, I believe so.”
“You believe so, or you are certain?”
She gave an emphatic nod. “Certain. He played whist with the mistress in the library, and then afterwards he and I went over some accounts together until bedtime.”
“Does he often play whist with the mistress?”
“Often?” She shrugged. “Not often. He thought it might lift her spirits.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Carlson.”
As we started for the sitting room, I shook my head. “Surely you cannot suspect Bromley of having anything to do with Harter’s death. You said yourself that he profited from the relationship.”
Holmes made an exasperated sound. “Have you learned so little of my methods after all this time, Henry? In my entire life I have passed some two or three hours in Mr. Bromley’s company. Would you have me automatically trust every charming, handsome gentleman who dresses well and wishes to hire me? It is as I told Mrs. Bromley—my trust must be earned. I do not give it to every stranger I meet.”
“Well, you must admit he has an alibi for Tuesday evening.”
“Ah yes, an alibi.” Holmes stroked his chin, then glanced at the violin sitting on the bookcase. He took it up and lightly plucked out some melody, as if it were a guitar or mandolin. Bromley swept into the room, and Holmes set down the violin.
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