by Laura Briggs
"But why not come to the auction after those? Taking a room in Cornwall, taking a train to London — some might suggest the logic in these decisions was rather questionable, Mr. Thornton."
"I like Cornwall," answered Thornton, simply. "I would prefer to stay here while conducting my employer's business affairs. He is a busy man who requires implicit trust. He is willing to indulge a trustworthy employee on a preference such as this."
"I tried to contact your employer to confirm this, but I'm afraid I simply meet with secretaries every time," said Anson. "Would you indulge me by ringing him — here and now?"
"Must we?" Thornton asked. "He is rather busy most days. He doesn't like to be disturbed." He motioned for me to approach with a teapot. I poured a fresh cup for him ... slowly, since I was interested in his ongoing conversation with the detective.
"I'm sure a matter as pressing as the theft of a fortune in diamonds would interest him," said Anson. "He would be only too happy to assist in their recovery. Surely he can pry himself away from his private collection to answer a few questions. If not now, then perhaps in a few hours. Whenever it is convenient for you. I have time, I assure you."
He reached for Thornton's phone and moved it before the man himself. "Call him, if you please. Use the number in your mobile's data files."
A long pause. Thornton didn't reach for the phone. He glanced up at the detective. "How did you know?" he asked.
Anson smiled. "I have spent a great deal of time researching the collector Harold Basil. He never allows himself to be photographed by the press, he never appears personally at any auction in which he bids, nor any public exhibit of the collections which he purchases. His last passport photograph, taken more than twenty-five years ago, revealed the defining feature of a very large moustache. Which ... when removed ... I suspected would reveal an unassuming countenance very much like yours."
He laid a printed photograph on the table, the same image printed side by side with one noticeable change: a missing moustache in the second one. The face in the photograph was that of Mr. Thornton.
The would-be collector's assistant removed his eyeglasses, cleaning them carefully with his pocket square. "I suppose this comes as a shock," he said.
"It comes to mind that it is a crime to travel under an assumed name," said Anson. "And with a forged passport. Even eccentric men of wealth are generally not excused for it."
"Forgive the eccentricity of the wealthy man this time," said Thornton. "My presence at the auction would incite certain reactions that are contrary to my motives. I enjoy the thrill of the competition, you see. The spirit of rival bidders ... it wouldn't be the same if they realized they were bidding against the man in the flesh, and not an enigma. They might not bid at all. The man in the photo you showed me — he had that effect on his rivals at auctions many years ago."
"But you wish to see the goods yourself. So you pose as your own assistant?"
"Correct. I trust no one but myself to authenticate pieces," answered Thornton. "You cannot build a unique and priceless collection trusting men like the American agent staying in this hotel."
The detective's pencil stopped writing after this remark.
The only other person to whom he spoke was the actress Genevieve Fifer, who was impatient as she sat across from him. "I really need to go," she said to him. "I have a plane to catch this afternoon in Newquay, and if I don't hurry, I'll be late for my flight in London."
"This will not take long," answered the detective. "I have only a few points I wish clarified before you leave the country."
"So long as you're finished by the time my driver is here." The actress sighed.
"They pertain to the photos of the exhibit you gave the police," said Anson, who opened his little notebook to a different point from before.
The photographs of Sidney? I felt my hackles rise as this idea crossed my mind. Brigette entered the dining room at this point.
"Maisie, are you quite finished clearing away?" she asked, keeping her voice low for the detective's sake. "Mrs. Finny has asked that some maids begin changing the linens upstairs early today. We've lost quite a few reservations since the auction's cancellation, so we're expecting more guests from a bus tour traveling south from Newquay. "
"Sorry." Reluctantly, I left my station at the tea table. The actress was showing the detective something on her phone, but I couldn't see what the image was.
The list of rooms upstairs was many, but only a few had actually been occupied by any hopeful auction bidders. Molly and I stripped the bed linens and piled the towels from the bathroom, and tucked stray ornamental hairpins and lost cufflinks into apron pockets with tags for their respective rooms of origin.
"I heard the detectives will all be leaving soon," said Molly, pulling off a pillowcase to add to the linen pile. "London must be giving up on finding any trace of the jewels."
"I think maybe they are," I replied. This didn't bode well for Sidney, though I didn't tell Molly this part. I opened the drawers of the short bedside bureau each in turn, finding no lost possessions inside.
As I closed the last drawer, one which had been slightly ajar, I heard a clattering sound from behind the bureau as something wedged behind it landed on the floor. Someone must have left a pair of reading glasses or an alarm clock on top, which had been knocked over in the morning. It was common enough, and I had found everything from contact lens cases to items of a much more delicate and personal nature accidentally dropped behind dressing tables, nightstands, and other pieces of furniture.
"Do you suppose they'll let poor Sidney go now? He's still locked up, isn't he?" Molly continued.
I seized the bureau's corner and pulled it away from the wall. The object in question finished falling to the floor, but landed out of reach from this side, ending up somewhere underneath. I reached for it, feeling soft carpet, then a soft, square-ish object that moved smoothly across the carpet.
"I wonder if the diamonds will ever turn up. Do you suppose they'll really be sold on the black market? That would make sort of an interesting suspense novel, wouldn't it? Maybe you could write one when this is all over."
The object emerged partway. It was a thick little volume bound with leather, its cover soft and worn. A floral design was worked in the leather and tinted with soft colors. It took me only a few minutes to recognize where I had seen it before, or one like it. Actress Mildred Eccleston had an identical one.
What was stolen from the case of personal possessions? Letters? Photos? Or was it her personal journal they stole?
"Molly." My breath was very shallow. "Whose room is this?"
"Let's see. It's the blue room. It was the actress's. Genevieve Fifer's. She turned in her key when she came downstairs to talk to the insurance company’s detective."
"Stay here, Molly." I rose to my feet, careful not to touch the book with my fingers again. "Stay here and don't let anybody in this room. You're a witness, so I want you to remember everything I was doing for the past ten minutes, okay?"
"Maisie?"
"I'll be back." I hurried downstairs as fast as I could, leaving Molly alone in the actress's former room. Downstairs, the actress was obviously trying to wrap up her remarks with the detective in the hotel's foyer. Hastily, I scribbled a sentence on a piece of paper at the reception desk and handed it to Brigette.
"Give that to Detective Anson," I said. "Hurry!"
"What?" she said. "Why? Why can't you do it? He's standing right there —"
"Do it, Brigette," I said, pleadingly. "Please. The Scotland Yard detective is watching, so it can't be me. They think of me like a suspect."
With a sigh, Brigette stepped from behind the desk and crossed to Detective Anson. "Message for you, sir," she said, handing him the slip of paper. He thanked her with a curt nod, then opened it.
"I'll be seeing you, detective. Good luck with your case," said the actress. Genevieve Fifer's luggage was in Riley's hands now, the actress making tracks for the hotel's door.
***
The journal lay in a plastic evidence bag on the table of the dining room. The look in Miss Fifer's eyes was both panic and desperation as the Scotland Yard inspector laid it before her.
"You've seen it before, haven't you?" he said. "At the exhibition?"
"Of course. Everybody saw it," she said. "It was in a case with some letters and things."
"And it came to be in your suite — how, pray tell?" Inspector Giles seated himself across from her.
"Someone put it there, probably," she said. "Look, it's not mine, obviously. I don't know how it got in my room, but clearly I'm not the thief. The thief is a man — the police arrested him already."
"We arrested someone we believed connected to the crime, yes." Anson seated himself in the neighboring chair, setting a cup of tea on the table. "Linked by the very same evidence that now links you to the case."
"What are you talking about?"
"You will have to explain how this book came to be in your rooms, Miss Fifer."
"I told you —"
"You didn't leave your room all this day, not until you came downstairs to speak with me — when you turned in your key and left the room safely locked," he said. "In fact, you've hardly left your quarters these past four days. There was very little opportunity for anyone but you to plant this book in your room."
Genevieve had grown very quiet. She studied the pattern of the tablecloth, trying not to look at the book. "If ... if I tell you the truth," she said, " ... will you let me go?" She lifted her gaze. "It's not stealing if you don't take it to keep it, is it? It's borrowing. I wasn't going to keep it. You can see that, obviously. I left it behind — I put it where somebody was bound to find it and turn it in after I was gone."
Inspector Giles leaned closer. "Why did you do it?" he asked.
She hesitated. "Can I ... see the book?" she asked. As the two investigators exchanged glances, she sighed. "My fingerprints are obviously all over it, right? So what's the harm if I add a few more?"
Inspector Giles put on a pair of gloves and pulled the journal from the bag. "Tell me where to open it," he said, carefully turning the pages.
Another sigh from Genevieve. "There's a page with a tear at the top," she said. "Turn three or four more after it. Near the midpoint. Stop," she said, holding up her hand as the inspector reached the right point. "Fifth line down. That's why I took the book."
"Explain," said Anson.
The actress gazed at the tabletop. "There was a story in my family, that my dad used to tell," she said. "He said that his grandfather was the son of a famous actress and a costar she had an affair with onset. It was hushed up, supposedly, and the baby was given up for adoption. It all happened in England a long time ago, he'd been told by the woman who brought him over to his new parents. He met her years later, when he was curious to know his real name. All she could tell him was the actress was onstage in a play in Liverpool the year before he was conceived ... and that was the year that Mildred Eccleston was doing Hamlet."
"You claim, therefore, that you are the great-great granddaughter of Mildred Eccleston?" said Anson.
"Look at the journal," she said, insistently. "Tell him what it says," she said to the inspector.
He cleared his throat. "It happened this day," he read aloud. "Madsen came and took away my little bundle. He had only begun to seem real to me the past two days, after I came out from beneath both the ether's cloud and the feeling of plumb exhaustion from those sixteen hours. Larry won't even look at him. Larry left today, as soon as I was well enough to tell him to go. I suppose he did the right thing compared to me. I'll be regretting it when I think on things later, knowing there's an ocean betwixt me and little Gabe."
"Gabe," she said. "That was my father's grandfather's name. Gabriel Fielding. That person in the book, Madsen — she was the woman he talked with. She told him that Mildred called him that because he looked like a little angel when she held him."
"And Larry?" Anson lifted one eyebrow.
"He was Lawrence Hamilton. He was the actor in Lights of Monte Carlo — that was her first big picture," said Genevieve. "Look, you have to believe me. That's the only reason I took this book. All my life I've wanted to know if it was true, that Mildred Eccleston was really my grandmother. I watched all of her movies as a kid — I even wanted to become an actress because of her, like it was in my blood or my genes. I ... I couldn't wait any longer to find out it was true. The journal was never going to be released to the public, it was going to be in the hands of a private collector in weeks, and I couldn't afford to buy it. Not with collectors like Harold Basil in the bidding." She buried her face in her hands.
"That explains the book, perhaps," said Giles. "But not the diamonds. Not the ruby pin or the jade combs that were also taken."
"You don't think I had anything to do with that, do you?" She looked shocked when she lifted her gaze again. "No — no, look, all I did was take the book. I only wanted to look through Mildred's journal and see if she ever mentioned having a child. It was the only piece I needed to prove that I was really descended from her ... when I saw my chance, I took it, but I didn't take anything else. You have to believe me. If I was a thief, why would I have given back the book?" She turned her glance from Giles to Anson, as if seeking help from whichever one would offer to believe her first.
"Because the book is worth nothing compared to the diamonds," said Anson.
"Maybe you had better explain how you came by one, but not the other," said Giles. "There are only three possible ways — and all three put you in contact with the thief in some manner."
Genevieve hesitated. "I couldn't sleep that night," she said.
"We've heard this story before, I believe," said the inspector, dryly. I had been laying out new coffee cups, my hand fumbling with the latest one in response to his remark.
"Well, it's true in my case," answered the actress.
"In your original statement, I believe you said you slept all night in your room. Without waking," said Anson.
"I lied. I woke up around three or three thirty in the morning. I had seen the journal yesterday, just — taunting me — behind that glass case. I was so close. Anyway, I went downstairs to see if there was a book worth reading in the library, and I heard a crash or something. That's when I saw somebody."
"What did they look like?" asked the inspector.
"I don't know. A man, I think. I'm pretty sure of it. He was wearing dark clothes. He didn't look tall to me — I couldn't see his face or anything else about him. He turned and ran through a different exit, and I lost sight of him."
"But you knew he was the thief?" Anson spoke this despite the glance of warning from the inspector.
"Yeah. He was carrying a pair of big bolt cutters, hardware stuff. I figured out where he had come from pretty quickly. I pushed open the door to the next room, and the exhibition room's doors were open, so I knew he had broken in."
"And you called the police immediately." The dryness of the inspector's tone increased threefold for this reply, which I didn't believe possible.
"Obviously not." She released a deep breath. "I opened the door and saw the smashed cases. I guess I thought maybe he took the book, too. But when I crept around all the broken glass to that side of the room — I saw it was still there. The glass was partly smashed on the case, but the thief hadn't taken anything from it. I thought maybe ... I don't know what I thought. Next thing I knew, I wrapped part of my robe around this little bronze statue and finished smashing the glass. My hand reached through the hole to grab the journal. Then I heard somebody coming, so I ran before anybody could see me."
"Which way did they come?" asked the inspector.
"Through the main door. It was open, too," she said.
It was Genevieve I had spotted leaving the ballroom that night, not the thief.
The actress
glanced from one to the other of the two investigators. "Does this mean I can go?" she asked.
"I'm afraid not, Miss Fifer," said the inspector. "We have no choice but to hold you until further evidence comes to light. I would suggest contacting your solic — your lawyer — since we must ask you to accompany us to the police station."
The actress looked crushed. Numbly, she collected her phone and her purse as the inspector escorted her towards the doors. I waited until Anson rose and collected his coat and hat before I ventured any remark. "If she's telling the truth, will she be in big trouble?" I asked.
"She could be charged with theft," he said. "But I suspect in the end it will result in charges dropped by the auction house, and nothing more than a caution. Persecuting a famous actress who merely wanted to look at a page in a book — I don't think its publicity would please Vancy's Auction House."
He smiled. "Our missing piece of evidence," he said, tapping his notebook lightly, before putting it in his pocket. "The one which didn't make sense now has its place. This is good news for your friend, Miss Kinnan. The actress corroborates your story to the police, and contradicts your friend's physical appearance as that of the criminal's. A bit thin, perhaps, but a promising beginning on which to turn the case."
"Is it enough to change the investigation?" I asked.
"It certainly changes aspects of it for myself," he said. "We shall find out shortly if London agrees." He shrugged on his overcoat, and adjusted the brim of his hat. Seventy years earlier in history would have him Inspector Maigret of the Surete, I thought; an irony that the investigator on the trail of a master thief looked as if he had stepped out of a crime novel from the genre's golden age. I could only hope he had skills equal to those literary sleuths, and was on the verge of catching his archnemesis this time.
"What do you mean you won't release Sidney?"
I demanded this of Sergeant MacEntire, although I had no right to actually question his duty directly. Behind me, Mrs. Graves had an expression of equal outrage as she stood there clutching a tin of homemade biscuits for the prisoner, which had also been rejected by the sergeant.
