‘I didn’t get where I am today,’ said Peter, ‘by evincing undue respect for the police.’
‘But Charles was there,’ protested Harriet.
‘We’ll come to Charles later,’ said Peter. ‘When I began to spy Inspector Sugg was in full cry, and Sergeant Parker was bringing in his witnesses one by one. He had the indomitable Sarah, Lady Attenbury’s personal maid, in front of him. I was hampered by being able to see rather little, but I heard him summing up her evidence to her, and offering her a statement to sign. There was only one key to the safe in Lady Attenbury’s room. She, Sarah, was entrusted with it, and never let it out of her sight. Last night when Jeannette came to fetch the jewels for Charlotte, she had opened the safe herself, and given Jeannette the box, exactly as it had come from the bank.
‘Had she personally opened the box and seen for herself that everything was in order?
‘Yes, naturally.’
‘And she trusted Jeannette?
‘“The servants here are one family,” she had told Sugg. “We work together and we look after each other. Jeannette is in a position of trust here, and I have seen nothing in her time with us to make me doubt the propriety of that.”
‘“Now,” said Sugg to her, “when the alarm was raised about the missing jewel you first instituted a search, and then adopted a ruse – the wearing of the paste replica – which delayed by some perhaps crucial minutes the commencement of the police enquiry. Why did you not immediately inform the police? What were you covering up? Who were you protecting?”
‘When this met with no answer, he went on: “You say that Miss Jeannette Mondur is trustworthy. Would it surprise you to know that she has a clandestine lover who she meets on her afternoons off?”
‘At this Sarah lost her composure. “No, it would not surprise me!” she exclaimed. “I and everybody else in the servants’ hall know all about it. I expect the family does too. Clandestine? It is nothing of the sort! And it is not against our terms of employment here.”
‘“All right, all right, my good woman, keep your hair on,” said Sugg. “I ask you again – why all that diversionary business with the false jewels? And why did you delay in informing the police? It is not clear to me that you would have informed the police at all had not raised voices and a commotion drawn attention to what was going on.”
‘“I assumed that the missing gem was just that – missing,” said Sarah. “I knew all too well the scandal and disturbance that would arise if there was a hue and cry after it during dinner last night when the house was full of guests. I thought the delay would allow us time to find the jewel. I was mistaken, that is all.”
‘“So you put your supposed loyalty to the family ahead of your duty to assist the police?”
‘“I did, and I do,” she said coldly. “Lady Attenbury has favoured me with a lifetime of kindness, and I put her interests before those of anyone else, myself included.”
‘“Oh, do you?” said he. “Well, your room will be searched. What have you to say to that?”
‘“You will no doubt do your duty, Inspector, as I shall do mine,” she told him. “May I go now? I have work to do.”
‘“Hoighty-toighty,” said Sugg. “Off with you, then. Parker, fetch me this Jeannette woman.”
‘I was pretty horrified at the tone of all this. Sergeant Parker was too. He actually suggested to Sugg that a gentler approach might elicit more information.
‘“I know how to deal with people like these, Parker,” said Sugg. And he proceeded to deal in the same inimitable fashion with Jeannette.
‘She told him simply that when Sarah had given her the box, she had taken it along to Lady Charlotte’s room, and laid out the entire parure on the stand. She had laid Lady Charlotte’s dress on the bed, and her shoes ready on the floor. Then she had left, to wait for the bell. Lady Charlotte was late coming upstairs to dress. When she did ring for Jeannette it was in distress, to ask what had been done with the central stone in the array. Jeannette saw at once that it was not where she had left it. She had no idea what had happened to it.
‘Well, Sugg weighed in very heavily. He told Jeannette that nobody would believe her. She was the person who had seen the jewel last, she was the person with the best opportunity to steal it. Her room would be searched, and she was as of this minute under arrest. Jeannette was immediately in tears, and crying, “But I didn’t do it, monsieur! I didn’t do it! I shall lose my job, and never get another one!”
‘Parker said, “Sir, wouldn’t it be better to postpone arresting anyone until we have taken statements from everybody in the house?”
‘“Why so, Sergeant? It must have been one of the servants, and this girl is the obvious suspect. We might be able to avoid annoying the high and mighty ones. The Chief Constable himself asked me to tread carefully, after all.”
‘“But we need above all, sir, to recover the jewel. And it seems it was laid out for anyone to see, in Lady Charlotte’s room, behind an unlocked door for the best part of an hour. That is right, isn’t it, Miss Mondur?”
‘“Yes, it is, sir,” she said.
‘“And who was in the habit of trampling through Lady Charlotte’s bedroom?” asked Sugg sardonically. “Apart from yourself, that is?”
‘“The chambermaids keep the room clean, and the footman makes up the fire. And the family. Nobody else.”
‘“Between the time when you put the jewels out ready and the time when Lady Charlotte went up to dress, did you actually see anyone enter her room?” asked Sugg.
‘“No, monsieur. I had retired to the servants’ sitting-room to wait for the bell.”
‘“Shouldn’t you have been dressing the girl?” asked Sugg.
‘“Lady Charlotte likes to dress herself. I help her just with her hair, and the finishing touches.”
‘“Hmph,” said Sugg. “Off you go now. And don’t make any attempt to leave the house, or communicate with anyone outside, or it will be the worse for you.”
‘As she left, he said to Parker, “Search all the servants’ rooms, starting with hers!”’
5
‘I’m afraid this is awfully Ancient Mariner, Harriet. I shall cut the tale short. Nothing was found in any of the servants’ rooms. But ransacking their rooms left the entire household below stairs resentful, wouldn’t you say, Bunter?’
‘Resentful and triumphant, my lord. There was much talk about the respectable nature of people in service, and the not so respectable affairs of some of their supposed betters above stairs. I felt as much myself, my lady. I was enraged by one of Sugg’s men who insisted on searching for the emerald by opening the back of my camera and ruining the half-exposed spool of film. To make it still worse he put a huge thumb-print on the lens while doing so.’
‘Well, what then?’ continued Peter. ‘Nothing for it but to start interviewing the guests. Sugg’s manner of doing so was cringe-makingly respectful, peppered with sirs and madams and my lords and my ladies, and met with outraged indignation, suppressed with difficulty for the sake of Attenbury, who had asked them to help the police. In the end they realised that if they ever wanted to be allowed to go home, cooperation was the only policy.’
‘And were you crouched on a pile of sheets eavesdropping all this time, Peter? Weren’t you missed from the company?’
‘Yes, I was, almost all the time, and no, I wasn’t missed as far as I know. As the ineffable Mrs DuBerris had made clear to me they all thought of me as a queer fish. Poor Peter, war’s done for his nerves…good cover, in fact. The servants all knew where I was, of course, because the chambermaids came in and out for clean linens. They seemed very happy to discover a conspiracy against Inspector Sugg. I had a worse fright when Lady Attenbury herself arrived, overseeing something domestic, I assumed, although perhaps a maid had alerted her. My brother Gerald was huffing and puffing below, perfectly willing to say where he had been between five and seven, and naming half the company as witnesses, and furiously refusing to say where he had been all ni
ght. Sugg was after discovering not only who had had a chance to lift the emerald, but where they might have had a chance of concealing it before the hue and cry was raised in the morning. Who was where overnight was proving very interesting. I could have made a fortune by selling the dirt to that news-hound Salcombe Hardy, except that I hadn’t yet met him, and wouldn’t have known where to find him.’
‘You diverge. What did Lady Attenbury think of finding you in flagrante?’
‘Flagrante? Not much delicto, though. She slid the panel shut, and said to me in a low voice, “Have you heard anything useful, Peter?”
‘“No,” I told her. “I rather doubt if anything useful can come of this.”
‘“I understand our poor Jeannette has been threatened. If I am any judge of character…”
‘“I think you might be better at judging character than Inspector Sugg is. Do you mind my poking my nose into all this? Obviously impertinent, you know. Under your roof.”
‘“Weren’t you in intelligence in the war, Peter?”
‘“Yes. Rather different sort of thing, though.”
‘“Do you think our Indian visitor might have anything to do with this?”
‘“It’s odd, certainly. I hate coincidence, it demolishes rational causation.”’
‘That’s interesting,’ said Harriet. ‘You can’t have coincidences in detective stories, either. Readers simply can’t accept them. Though in real life they do keep happening.’
‘And this was real life,’ said Peter. ‘I told Lady Attenbury that I didn’t see how Nandine Osmanthus could have had a hand in it. She and I both had seen the gem back in the box. I admitted to having been watching Osmanthus carefully. Mr Whitehead had been sitting there watching too. She nodded.
‘“I shall regard you as a son of the house in this matter, Peter,” she said. And then perhaps because she had betrayed herself just a little she added, “It isn’t really Roland’s sort of thing, I think.”
‘“You are about to have reinforcements in the son department,” I said to her. “A new son-in-law.”
‘She moved away and turned her back to me, looking out of a small window. She made no comment about Northerby’s intelligence, but she said, “He has a kind heart, I think. I have seen him walking in the garden with Mrs DuBerris, and playing with little Ada, when Charlotte has been busy with something or other. None of our other guests has paid her the least attention, and they don’t have the cause she has given you, Peter, for keeping clear of her.”
‘Then she turned back into the room, reached past me, and very quietly opened the panel again. She smiled at me and left. Silent permission to sleuth. Changed my life, now I come to think of it. All down to Claire Attenbury.
‘She had opened the panel further than I had had it before – I could now see quite well. I was looking over Sugg’s head and facing the witnesses sitting opposite him. Their voices rose up to me. When I resumed spying my sister-in-law was asserting with icy fury that Gerald had been with her all night. Poor Helen; how was she to know that Gerald had just been confessing to a midnight ramble in search of a bite to eat?
‘He wasn’t the only one, of course. Northerby and I were about the only fellows present who slept well all night, or who at least didn’t open their doors and prowl the corridors.’
‘After a full formal dinner, Peter? Can everyone have been hungry?’
‘Oh, not at all. Merely rearranging themselves in the bedrooms. But what can you tell a policeman? Hardly that you have been sleeping with another man’s wife, with that man’s connivance and consent. Chivalry obliges you to lie. Anyway, the long and the short of all this was that everybody with rooms on the main corridor had an alibi that could be corroborated if they were prepared to tell the truth. And the truth thus told would have ruined reputations and set the London beau monde ablaze with scandal. Sugg had put a policeman in the broom cupboard, who had watched all the coming and going and written it down. Attenbury’s party was turning into a general catastrophe.
‘But Sugg wasn’t much further forward. Because the crucial time was not overnight, when the thief might have hidden his pelf, but the hour before dinner when he might have taken it. And during that time everybody had been milling about in the public rooms downstairs, and alibis and corroborations were thick as autumnal leaves that lie in Vallombrosa. But just before the gathering for dinner every single guest had returned to their rooms to dress. There had been coming and going all along the corridor, and then throngs of people descending the main stairs. But the copper in the broom cupboard had reported seeing nobody enter Lady Charlotte’s room between the time Jeannette came with the jewel box, and left again, and the time Lady Charlotte came up to dress. Impasse! Sugg proceeded to have all the luggage returned to the bedrooms and searched. Indignation and discomfiture on every side.’
‘And nothing was found?’ asked Harriet.
‘No missing emerald appeared. Plenty of nice jewellery, but not the dark, mysterious Mughal stone.’
‘What then?’
‘I had a stroke of luck. I was tired of being cooped up with the linens, and sickened, rather, at the stuff I was hearing. I had a sudden fit of nausea. I left Bunter doing the dirty work, and went for a walk. Well, only a prowl, really. Nobody was allowed into the open air. I made for the conservatory, where at least there was sunshine showing through, and some greenery. Right at the far end of the thing – it was massive on account of Lady Attenbury’s passion for plants – there was a wrought-iron bench among the tendrils of a vine, and I sat down and stretched my legs. Hadn’t been there a minute when little Ottalie came up to me, and stood in front of me.
‘“Are you a lord?” she asked.
‘“Fraid so,” said I.
‘“So what do I call you?” she asked.
‘“I’m also a family friend,” I told her. “You call me Peter.”
‘“Uncle Peter?”
‘“Just Peter.”
‘“I want to ask you something, Peter.”
‘“Fire away.”
‘“If that emerald came back, would all the horribleness go away?”
‘I considered my position. The easy thing would have been to say yes – but I have never been any good with children. I just deal with them as though they were adults. Sheer ignorance. So what I actually said was, “It depends, Ottalie, on how it ‘came back’, as you put it. If you know anything about it, you ought to tell, even if it makes the horribleness worse for a bit.”
‘“Do you think Charlotte would stop crying?” she asked.
‘“She might,” I said cautiously. “But it isn’t Charlotte who is in the worst trouble, is it? It’s probably Jeannette.”
‘“Jeannette didn’t take it,” said Ottalie decisively.
‘“How do you know that?”
‘“Because she made me put it back,” she said.
‘“Put it back? When and why, Ottalie?”
‘“Well, my friend Ada and I were in the nursery playing being at court,” said Ottalie, sitting down beside me. “We were all dressed up, and it was still ages before we could go down and watch the grown-ups. So I went to see if Charlotte was back in her room yet, and then I just borrowed the emeralds. I wanted to show Ada how you could turn them into a tiara. And I put them on, and posed in the mirror. So then Ada wanted a turn.”
‘“I can see that she would have done,” said I.
‘“So I went and borrowed the other ones, so that Ada could wear some too.”
‘“The other ones?”
‘“The paste ones. Mummy keeps them in her boudoir. She wears them sometimes. We borrowed those. It was only going to be for a minute…I suppose we lost track of the time. We were pretending to pose for the court photographer. I was using Mummy’s ivory fan, and Ada had her ostrich feathers.”
‘“So then what?”
‘“Jeannette found us. She was very angry. People were already coming up to dress for dinner. We put the king-stones back the right way up, and I ran and p
ut the necklace back in Charlotte’s room. And it was all right because Charlotte still hadn’t come up. But if Jeannette was a thief why would she have made me put it back?”
‘“So where is the other necklace now?” I asked, privately noting that Jeannette had protected the children when giving her evidence to Sugg.
‘“Jeannette put it back in Mummy’s room.”
‘“Let’s go and look at it. I’ll come with you,” I said.’
Harriet was looking at him quizzically. ‘Peter, do you mean to say that in this famous first case you didn’t have to do any detecting at all, just listen to a pretty little girl?’
‘Aha!’ said Peter. ‘Not so fast, Harriet. I went and found Lady Attenbury’s maid, and we fetched out the other necklace, the paste one, from her jewel box. This was what Charlotte had worn. Sarah opened her mistress’s jewel drawer for us, with a sort of grim triumph about her – that policeman was going to be wrong-footed – and there indeed was a gorgeous emerald rivière, with a big dark stone in the middle. No mistaking it for paste, close up. But my rapture was very rapidly moderated, because with it wasn’t the real king-stone – no inscription on the back.’
‘Gosh, Peter, what then?’
‘Well, it shifted the game completely. Those naughty children and the panicked maid had mixed up the things; they must have put the real king-stone on the paste necklace, and put that in Charlotte’s room. But since during the hour before the dinner gong the jewels had all been in the nursery, which was along a bit and up one floor, everybody had answered the wrong questions about their whereabouts.’
‘Is that what made Sugg so angry with you? That you told him his whole enquiry was off beam?’
‘No; because that’s not what I did. I made very sure that when they scampered to return the jewels there had been two king-stones. They were certain of that. They were also mistakenly sure they had put everything back exactly as they found things. I swore young Ottalie and Jeannette to secrecy. I told them I was a secret agent and they could leave the whole thing to me, but everything depended on nobody getting to know what we three now knew.
Wimsey 014 - The Attenbury Emeralds Page 5
