The Billionaire’s Curse

by Newsome, Richard

  Gerald looked at the moon in his hands, then back at his friends.

  “All right, let’s say that’s what’s meant to happen. The full moon on the stroke of midnight on the longest day of the year beams onto the Tor, bounces off St. Michael’s Tower and onto the weathervane on the clock tower at Beaconsfield, which then miraculously guides us to the diamond casket. But we still have no clue what the diamond casket is or why everyone under the sun—”

  “And the moon,” said Sam.

  “Yes, no idea why everyone under the sun and the moon is looking for it.”

  Ruby shrugged. “Sounds as good a theory as we’re going to get.”

  “That’s settled then,” Sam said. “We just need to be somewhere near the clock tower at Beaconsfield at midnight tomorrow night. And we’ll see where the light takes us.”

  Gerald shook his head. “I thought you didn’t have any imagination,” he said to Ruby.

  Ruby smiled. “Only when everything else fails.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Downstairs, the bookshop was deserted. A handwritten sign saying BACK WHEN I FEEL LIKE IT hung on a peg on the inside of the front door.

  Out on the footpath, Gerald, Ruby, and Sam formed a huddle.

  Ruby spoke first. “What do you think that Chesterfield bloke meant when he said he wanted a permanent solution?” It sounded like she didn’t want to hear the answer.

  “Whatever it is, it can’t be good,” Sam said. “Reckon we should go to the police?”

  “And tell them what?” Gerald said. “That we’ve been handed our second death threat in a week? They’ll laugh even harder than last time.”

  “You’re right,” Ruby said. “Especially since it involves the major. It’s not like we’ve been too convincing in that department so far.”

  “Okay,” Sam said. “No police.”

  Ruby grabbed Gerald’s wrist and looked at his watch. “Mrs. Rutherford asked me to pick up a few things from the grocer’s,” she said. “Wait here for Mr. Fry and I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She disappeared into the crowd of morning shoppers, leaving Gerald and Sam outside the bookshop.

  “How is it that grown-ups only ever ask girls to run their errands?” Gerald said to Sam.

  “Good arrangement, if you ask me,” Sam said.

  They watched the passing parade of locals, hippies, and tourists meandering down the cobbled streets, in and out of shop doors. Gerald was about to suggest they duck off to find a drink when he noticed someone coming out of a liquor store across the road.

  “I don’t believe it,” Gerald said to Sam. “It’s Uncle Sid.”

  A large man lumbered onto the footpath, a bottle of whiskey in each hand. He was followed by a boy and a girl.

  “Look, it’s the pig’s arse—uh, Octavia,” Gerald said.

  Sam studied the trio. “And the kid who looks like he’s constipated. That’d be Zebedee?”

  Gerald was about to reply when Sid looked up. Their eyes met across the street.

  “Oi!” Sid called. “Wilkins!”

  “Uh-oh,” Gerald mumbled.

  Before he could do anything, Sid had stamped across the road, Octavia and Zebedee following close behind.

  “Moved in, have you?” Sid demanded as he towered over Gerald, casting a broad shadow across him. “You all comfy in my house, are you?” The menace in Sid’s eyes was electric, like a starving dog denied a bone.

  Gerald retreated a step.

  “I didn’t know you were living at Avonleigh,” Gerald said. “There was a fire in London. Mr. Prisk said I had to come down here and—”

  “And boot us out of our home,” Zebedee said, his lip curling into a snarl. It was like looking at a boiled-down version of his father. “Whatsamatter? Didn’t you inherit enough houses?” He shoved Gerald in the chest.

  “Hey!” Gerald protested as he stumbled backward and fell onto the footpath.

  Sid advanced on him, a smirk greeting his son’s thuggery. “That house was mine, Wilkins. Geraldine all but promised it to me. That and a whole lot more.”

  Sam helped Gerald up. “I didn’t know any of this was going to happen,” Gerald said. “I didn’t even know Geraldine.”

  “Then why did she leave the sodding lot to you?” Sid demanded. He raised one of the bottles above his head like a caveman wielding a club.

  “No!” Sam shouted. Gerald shut his eyes.

  A gloved hand wrapped itself around Sid’s raised arm.

  “Your usual breakfast shopping, Mr. Archer?” It was the cool voice of Mr. Fry. He wrestled the bottle from Sid’s grip.

  “Mr. Fry!” Gerald said in amazed relief, still half expecting to wear a bottle of Scotch across his forehead.

  “I trust there will be no more unpleasantness,” Fry said to Sid. “Or perhaps you would rather I call the police again.”

  Sid stared daggers at Gerald.

  “Leave off, Fry,” he muttered. “What Wilkins and I have to talk about is of no interest to you.”

  “Rest assured, Mr. Archer,” Fry said with a sniff, “anything you have to say is of no interest to me. Now if you’ll excuse us, we are expected for lunch at Avonleigh. I understand Mrs. Rutherford has prepared a particularly magnificent spread today.”

  Fry ushered Gerald and Sam into the back of the Rolls. The car cruised past Gerald’s uncle and his cousins. Sid’s face was contorted in purple rage.

  “You’ll get yours, Wilkins!” he bellowed at the vehicle, spittle flying in all directions. “I’d watch my back if I was you!”

  Gerald looked through the rear window at the man screaming on the footpath. The list of people who had it in for him seemed to be growing.

  “Mr. Fry?” Sam asked, leaning his elbows on the back of the driver’s seat. “Does this car have bulletproof glass?”

  Fry allowed himself a thin smirk. “Naturally. This is a bespoke Rolls-Royce—custom-built for Miss Archer. There are four inches of ballistic steel encasing the driver and passenger cells. You have nothing to worry about from Sid Archer.” Fry thought for a second. “At least not while you’re in the car.”

  “I never thought I’d say this,” Gerald said, “but I was glad to see you back there.”

  Fry stared unblinking at the road ahead. “Young sir may be a royal PITA, but sir is the master of the house.”

  Sam sniggered. Gerald looked at him curiously. “Who’s Peter?”

  “P-I-T-A,” said Sam with a grin. “Pain in the arse.”

  Gerald rolled his eyes. “And I thought he might have stopped hating me.”

  Up ahead, Ruby emerged from a grocer’s shop carrying two bags. She waved as she spotted the Rolls.

  “You’ll never guess who I just saw,” she said as she clambered into the back. “Professor McElderry!”

  “What?” Gerald and Sam chimed. “What’s he doing here?”

  “I have no idea,” Ruby said, catching her breath. “He went into that pub.”

  “So everyone on our suspect list is in town,” Gerald said, shaking his head. “Major Pilkington and Chesterfield, the Guptas, and now Professor McElderry. Not to mention my uncle Sid.”

  “You saw your uncle?” Ruby asked.

  Gerald described the scene outside the bookshop.

  “That was close,” she said. “Lucky Mr. Fry came back.”

  Sam clicked his fingers. “And there’s another suspect! Don’t forget Fry. He could have been the inside man for the fire at Gerald’s place, remember?”

  There was an awkward silence. Ruby coughed into her hand and pointed a discreet finger over Sam’s shoulder. Sam turned to see the back of Fry’s head only inches away. The privacy screen was open.

  “Ah-hah,” Sam breathed.

  Without a word, Fry leaned forward and flicked a switch on the dashboard. The screen slid silently into place.

  Dinner that night consisted of a three-bird roast: a goose stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a pheasant.

  “I know it’s not Christmas, but I couldn’t re
sist,” Mrs. Rutherford trilled as she piled their plates with second helpings.

  Ruby soaked up some gravy with a forkful of mashed potato. “I can see why your uncle was angry at moving out of here,” she said between mouthfuls. “I don’t ever want to leave. This is delicious!”

  Gerald waited until Mrs. Rutherford had returned to the kitchen before taking a folded sheet of paper from his pocket.

  “I’ve tried to make some sense of this whole thing,” he said, spreading the paper. “I’ve drawn up a list of who’s who and where they all fit in.”

  On the paper was an elaborate matrix with all the suspects listed across the top. Boxes ran down the page, labeled Motive, Opportunity, and Alibi. Inside each box Gerald had scribbled notes.

  “What’s that next to everyone’s names?” Ruby asked from the end of the table.

  Gerald blushed. “Um, just sketches of the suspects.”

  Sam inspected the page. “They’re good.”

  “Thanks,” Gerald said. “I get bored easily.”

  “Okay then. Who done it?” Ruby asked.

  Gerald cleared his throat. “I think we’re all agreed that Major Pilkington and Chesterfield have the diamond. I heard them say so at the Rattigan Club.”

  “What about the major’s alibi?” Sam said. “Wasn’t he having dinner with Lord Fungus-guts at the club the night the diamond was stolen?”

  Gerald nodded. “That’s right. But only one of them needed to be inside the elephant statue to steal the diamond. Dinner at the club was the perfect alibi for the major. He helped seal Chesterfield in the elephant statue, then winched him up into the Reading Room sometime before Lethbridge came on duty. Then he scooted back in time for dinner.”

  Ruby settled back into her chair. “Okay, that sounds reasonable. But what about the thin man? Where does he fit in?”

  “This is where it’s a bit of a leap,” Gerald said. “I reckon this diamond, this Noor Jehan, came with the casket as a set, and they’re worth more together than separately. You remember the professor saying he’d heard rumors of a diamond casket, then Sam finds a drawing of it on his desk. The thin man was more interested in the casket than he ever was in the diamond. And the major and Chesterfield are desperately searching for the casket even though they’ve already got the diamond.”

  “So the casket is worth more than the diamond, you think?” Sam said.

  Gerald hesitated. “I think the two together must be pretty special.”

  Ruby thought a moment before turning to Gerald.

  “Then how does Geraldine come into it?”

  Gerald frowned, concentrating. “It’s all tied to the diamond casket. I think the thin man was hired by someone to find that casket, no matter what. He must have suspected that since Geraldine helped bring the diamond out here she must have known about the casket. Then she paid the price.”

  “So who hired the thin man to find the casket?” Ruby asked.

  “It could be any of them,” Gerald said. “It could be Gupta, trying to find the partner to his diamond. It could be the professor trying to find it for the museum, or for himself. It could be the major and Chesterfield. It could even be Lethbridge.”

  “Lethbridge?” Ruby said with surprise. “He doesn’t seem smart enough to be tied up in all this.”

  “Who better to find a crim to do the dirty work than a copper,” Sam said. “They spend half their lives with villains.”

  Ruby lowered her voice. “What about Mr. Fry?”

  “There’s every chance the thin man bribed him to get into Geraldine’s house,” Gerald said. “Those stolen envelopes must contain some answers.”

  “Do you think Fry heard me in the car?” Sam asked.

  “Gee, I dunno,” Ruby said. “He must have been all of three inches away when you opened your fat yap.”

  “That’s unfair,” Sam said.

  “Let’s assume he heard something,” Gerald said. “And hope that he’s not in touch with the thin man.”

  Sam grumbled to himself and toyed with the food on his plate.

  “Anyway, if you look at motive and opportunity, I reckon the thin man killed Geraldine and it was the major and Chesterfield who stole the diamond,” Gerald said.

  “And everyone is looking for the diamond casket,” Ruby said.

  “Yep.” Gerald nodded. “Including us. And that brings us to tomorrow night. This idea that the moonlight is going to show us the way.”

  “Yeah, what about it?” Sam said.

  “Don’t get me wrong, it sort of makes sense. There’s plenty of examples where people in ancient times used rocks and towers to track the phases of the moon.”

  “And?”

  “Well, I can imagine the weathervane on the clock tower at Beaconsfield acting as a reflector. That tower must be hundreds of years old, so I can buy that someone stuck the weathervane up there as a beacon,” Gerald said.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “It’s the Tor. I can’t remember seeing anything on the top of that thing that would reflect light to Beaconsfield, or anywhere else for that matter.”

  Sam looked at Gerald, then at Ruby and back at Gerald again. “I have no answer for that,” he said. “I really have no idea.”

  “Maybe there’s another weathervane on top of St. Michael’s but you can’t see it from the ground,” Ruby suggested. “It’s not like we were actually looking for anything when we went up there.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Gerald said.

  There was a long pause as they contemplated what lay ahead. Gerald broke the silence. “Tomorrow will be a week since the robbery at the museum,” he said. “And almost a week since Geraldine was murdered.”

  He suddenly felt very tired. It had been a long week.

  Summer had well and truly arrived in rural Somerset. The sun held its heat throughout the days and only a few clouds blotted clear skies. Bees droned like overloaded cargo planes; butterflies and dragonflies flitted across the meadow tops; and the perfumed air carried the lows and whinnies of cows and horses enjoying the magnificence of it all. Gerald, Ruby, and Sam, however, were completely unmoved. With a day and a half to go before Midsummer’s Eve they were climbing the walls.

  “Another hit of tennis?” Ruby asked without any enthusiasm.

  “No!” the others replied. They were stretched out on their backs on the manicured grass outside the tennis pavilion in the shade of an oak tree. They had polished off a Mrs. Rutherford lunch and were exhausted by the effort of digestion.

  “This is worse than waiting for Christmas,” Sam moaned, dispatching a ladybug that had crawled onto his knee with a flick of his finger. “Can’t it hurry up and happen?”

  Ruby stretched her arms wide and slapped the others on the shoulders.

  “Come on,” she said, summoning some energy. “Let’s do what everyone does when there’s nothing better to do.”

  “What’s that?” Gerald asked.

  “Go shopping, of course!”

  Fry may as well have been a reanimated corpse driving them back into town that afternoon. He didn’t utter a word. He barely acknowledged Gerald’s request to pick them up outside the bookshop in an hour.

  “Good to see everything’s back to normal,” Gerald grunted as the Rolls pulled away from the curb. “Okay, Ruby, where do you want to go?”

  The town was a lot quieter than the day before. Ruby tilted her head and scanned the streetscape. She pointed over Sam and Gerald’s shoulders. “I think we should go into the shop that Professor McElderry went into.”

  Gerald and Sam swung around. “What?”

  “He just crossed the road and went in there.”

  They scooted along the footpath to a dusty shopfront. Above the door, suspended from a rusted iron frame, was a faded sign: YE OLDE GLASTONBURY ANTIQUE SHOPPE. On display in the window was a mishmash of shoddy tat for tourists. They could see the professor through the grimy window, talking with a wizened man at the back of the shop.

  Gerald mouthed, “C
ome on,” and pushed open the door. They hurried across to a glass cabinet of Arthurian trinkets and were able to hide within earshot of the professor.

  “How did you come by this, Jervis?” McElderry asked the man behind the counter. “I need to be sure of its provenance.”

  The man let out a wracking cough.

  “It turned up in the barn of old Glenn Crowther. He passed away a few months ago, but I only got the call to look over his things this week,” the man said.

  He peeled back a layer of black cloth on the countertop and the professor peered down at what it contained.

  “It has the markings on it, just like you described,” the man said.

  “So I see,” the professor murmured. He bent low to the counter, squinting close through his glasses. “It certainly looks the goods. How did this Crowther fellow get hold of it?”

  “He was the oldest stonemason in the district,” the man said. “He would have worked on every major building in this area.”

  “Including St. Michael’s Tower?”

  “Yes, including St. Michael’s. It’s not unknown for tradesmen to take, shall we say, souvenirs,” the old man said.

  The professor’s red whiskers pulled back into an approximation of a smile. “Then this must indeed be the one,” he said. With a grunt, he hefted up a large brass weathervane in the shape of an archer.

  From behind the glass cabinet, Gerald gasped.

  The professor placed the weathervane back onto its velvet bedding and turned to the shopkeeper.

  “We agreed five hundred pounds,” the professor said, eager to complete the transaction.

  “Cash,” the man said, revealing a gap-toothed grin.

  “What?” the professor said. “I don’t carry that much around.”

  The man extended a bony finger toward the door. “You’ll find a cash machine around the corner.”

  In a flurry of swearing and a promise to be right back, the professor bustled out of the shop.

  A look of determination crossed Gerald’s face.

  “Come on,” he said to the Valentines. He rushed up to the counter and surprised the old shopkeeper.