The Green Jade Dragon

by Evelyn James

  Clara was not ruling out the possibility that the staff were involved. The butler, Mr Yaxley, had been away at the time of the intrusion and seemed likely out of the picture. But Mrs Crocker had been present and she had not heard a thing, nor had she reacted very swiftly to the discovery of the break-in. It might be true that she thought it was purely an act of vandalism, then again, she might have removed the glass and delayed calling the police to buy her accomplices time. Had she deliberately swept up a clue to who was behind the theft?

  The next morning, having risen a little later than usual, Clara set out to see Mr Jacobs and to have a word with his employees. She hoped she was not about to discover that he had been betrayed by the people he needed to trust the most.

  Mr Jacobs was at home, or so Mr Yaxley informed Clara as she stood on the doorstep. Behind the stern looking butler a party of workmen in blue overalls were milling around. A distinctive wire was hanging down from the centre of the hall ceiling and the workmen appeared to be arguing about the best way to attach a large chandelier to it.

  “Having the house wired for electricity?” Clara observed.

  “Indeed,” Mr Yaxley said in his brusque fashion. “Mr Jacobs has given instructions that should you call you are to be shown to him at once. Please follow me.”

  With that Yaxley led Clara through the hall and into the sitting room where Clara had first met her client. The room looked a little disordered today, with dust sheets draped over the furniture and the netsuke display case. Mr Jacobs was browsing through an auction catalogue while sitting on a sheet covered sofa.

  “Miss Fitzgerald, Sir,” Yaxley introduced Clara and then departed in the discreet manner that is perfected by butlers.

  “Hello Miss Fitzgerald,” Mr Jacobs looked up from his catalogue. “Excuse the mess, we have workmen in.”

  “Fitting electricity,” Clara nodded.

  “Ah, I see you spotted the chandelier installation. Yes, I heard them clattering about and thought they must be on to that. Electricity is the way forward,” Mr Jacobs became enthusiastic. “My neighbours tell me electricity is so clean compared to candles, and much brighter than gas. And none of them have experienced any mishaps with it. Yaxley was convinced that we would all be electrocuted within the week should I go ahead with my plan. Well, I suppose we still have to wait and see on that!”

  Jacobs laughed.

  “I might be a collector of antiquities,” he continued. “But I don’t hang about in the dark ages. I like the modern world. I bought a new chandelier specifically designed for electricity, I didn’t want to just convert the old gas one. And let me show you this.”

  Mr Jacobs rose and motioned for Clara to follow him. He went to the tower alcove where his armchair stood with a pile of books awaiting his attention on a table nearby.

  “This is a standing lamp,” he indicated a tall lamp, around four or five feet tall with a shade hiding its bulb. “It plugs into the wall here, and I can move it about as I please. Instead of those frustrating gas fittings attached to the wall. No more reading by lamplight for me!”

  Jacobs was very pleased with his modern innovation.

  “It is certainly convenient,” Clara agreed.

  “Now I have rambled on about my renovations like the gauche rich man I am, I should ask why you have come to see me,” Jacobs brightened. “Might there be news?”

  “In a way,” Clara compromised with the truth. She followed him back to the sofa where they both sat. Jacobs insisted on ringing for tea before she continued. “I have found the man responsible for the burglary, in the sense that he climbed through your window and stole the dragon. However, he was employed by someone else. This someone spent a great deal of time planning this crime and watching your house.”

  “Oh,” Mr Jacobs’ face had fallen, he looked a little stunned by the revelation. Clara guessed he had not given a thought to the crime being expertly planned.

  “The thief was supplied with a map of your home, Mr Jacobs. And precise instructions on where to find the green jade dragon.”

  Mr Jacobs looked even more shocked. He started to say something, but the words died in his throat.

  “Have you noticed anybody suspicious watching the house?” Clara asked.

  “I can’t say I have,” Mr Jacobs admitted. “I spend most of my time in this room and, as you can see, the view of the street outside is obscured from the windows.”

  Clara looked over her shoulder to the main window of the room, which faced the front garden. The garden was enclosed by a tall brick wall, with iron gates mounted in the middle. It would be difficult to see the street from the window, other than a small glimpse through the gates.

  “What about unusual visitors to the house?” Clara suggested. “Have you had an unexpected guest? Someone who might have wanted to look over the entire house?”

  Mr Jacobs considered this for a while.

  “Most of the people I have to the house I know well,” he said slowly. “I tend to visit other people more than I have guests. I am usually the stranger in the house, going to peoples’ homes and examining some precious object they own. Of course, there have been all the workmen in the house.”

  “When did they begin wiring the house?”

  “Last month,” Jacobs explained. “I only have them in the house while I am at home, so Yaxley can keep an eye on them. There are three men working on the project and Yaxley lets them in and out of the house. They are all local men. Mr Thomas and his son are builders who specialise in the wiring of houses for electricity and also gas piping. They employ one man. I don’t see any of them being particularly nefarious. In any case, only Mr Thomas saw the entire house when he first came to offer me a quote for the work. And even then he only briefly went about counting rooms, and was more interested in the under stairs cupboard where he intends to fit the fuse box.”

  “And they haven’t begun work on this room yet,” Clara noted, pointing up at the gas fitting still hanging from the ceiling of the room.

  “No, they hope to start today after the chandelier is installed.”

  As Jacobs spoke there was a loud cry from the hall and the sound of crystal cut glass jangling. Clara had to concede the workmen seemed unlikely culprits for scoping out the house. In any case, Simon Clark had stated that all the men, apart from himself, were individuals who already worked for the man behind the theft. It was improbable that he had hired Brighton workmen to do his dirty work. He would not want to risk them saying too much. This was all too professional to allow for such carelessness.

  “Has anyone else visited the house?” Clara asked again. “Anyone at all? Maybe not someone coming to look at your collection.”

  Mr Jacobs paused for a moment and contemplated this. His eyes wandered up to the gas fitting soon destined for the rubbish heap. His face lightened, an idea had occurred to him.

  “Now I think on it, there was a man here. Let me see, it was three weeks ago, roughly. The workmen had just started the preliminary chore of cutting channels in my walls for the wiring. This man appeared on a Sunday. He was in a suit and had a clipboard. He said he was from the electricity board and had come to inspect the work being done and to ensure it met with their regulations,” Mr Jacobs looked excited as he explained this to Clara. “Yaxley had no reason to doubt him. It seemed a perfectly logical explanation. He was shown over the entire house and made notes on his clipboard. I briefly glimpsed it as he came into this room. He was drawing a rough map of the ground floor. I assumed this was so he could make a note of where the wiring was being placed.”

  “This fellow sounds suspicion,” Clara prompted him. “I don’t recall anyone else I know who has had electricity installed being visited by the electricity board. Especially on a Sunday.”

  “Yaxley did think that odd,” Mr Jacobs said. “But the man stated he had a large backlog of inspections to conduct and so was having to work unusual hours. He apologised profusely for the inconvenience.”

  “It was useful for him to not
arrive on a day when the workmen would have been about and might have failed to recognise him from the electricity board,” Clara nodded. “Did he state his name?”

  “Not to me, maybe to Yaxley. Yaxley showed him round. You ought to speak to him, he could describe him as well.”

  “I will,” Clara said, having every intention of grilling the two servants once she had finished speaking with Mr Jacobs. “There is one other thing I must ask you, and it is a somewhat delicate matter.”

  “Oh?” Mr Jacobs had become enthused in his excitement about remembering the strange electricity board man, but now he became sombre. He sensed from Clara’s tone that the next question she asked might cause him consternation.

  “It is about the jade dragon, itself,” Clara explained gently. “From the experts I have spoken with, including those at the British Museum, it would seem it is a very unusual item to be found in a British gentleman’s collection. You don’t happen to know how your uncle came across it?”

  “He never really explained,” Mr Jacobs said. “I was merely a boy. I remember him handing me the dragon, and telling me it was very special. ‘Keep it safe, Humphry’ he said ‘it will bring you luck’. That was the last time he spoke to me before he was killed.”

  “He was involved in a carriage accident?”

  “Yes. My uncle lived in London when he was not travelling,” Jacobs elaborated. “He was an adventurer, he liked going to far flung places. He had traversed deserts and had even been on an expedition to the Arctic, though that did not end well. We all imagined he would perish one day on one of these grand adventures. My mother was convinced he would fall down some mountain, or crash through the ice of a frozen lake. My father tried not to think too hard about it.

  “We were all shocked when we learned he had died in such a very mundane sort of way. People are having carriage accidents all the time, especially in London. I think there must be at least one death a week in the capital because of some collision on the roads, if not more. It seemed a very absurd way for my uncle to die.”

  “There was an inquest, I suppose?” Clara asked.

  “Yes. I don’t really remember the details. I was too young. When I was older I did ask about it and my father said that he had walked out in front of a coal cart and been crushed,” Jacobs grimaced. “Such a pathetic way for a man like him to go.”

  “And this was shortly after he brought the jade dragon home?” Clara pressed.

  Mr Jacobs now looked at her hard.

  “Yes, are you implying a connection?”

  Clara hesitated, knowing what she must say next was indelicate to say the least.

  “Some of the people I have spoken with,” she hedged, “have implied that the jade dragon could not have been removed from Japan, at the time your uncle was there, without some slightly dubious circumstances being involved. That is not to say your uncle did anything wrong. Rather, it might be that he was sold stolen goods.”

  Mr Jacobs was clearly surprised by this statement. Presumably, despite all his expertise, he had never contemplated how unusual it was for an Englishman to possess an ancient jade dragon made for the imperial court. He let the information sink in before he could respond.

  “Are you saying my uncle was killed for the dragon?”

  “I don’t know,” Clara shrugged. “Maybe it was all just a coincidence. But I can’t help wondering if this burglary was motivated by something other than a desire to own a rare object or financial gain.”

  “My uncle would have bought the dragon in good faith,” Mr Jacobs assured Clara. “If someone sold him a stolen object, it was not his fault. He was a stranger with a lot of money, prepared to buy all manner of oddities and antiques. He came home once with a small mummified crocodile from Egypt, I remember that vividly as my mother would not let him bring it into the house to show me. Someone may have supposed he was a good way to rid themselves of a forbidden item.”

  “Unfortunately, without your uncle to ask, we shall never probably know,” Clara smiled. “He may have been given it as a gift by someone from the imperial court, someone important enough to own the dragon in the first place.”

  “Precisely!” Jacobs said, relieved to be given this alternative explanation. “He was a very good diplomat in his own way. He befriended people easily.”

  “What a shame he did not leave some note about the dragon to explain its origins. What stories that little carving could tell,” Clara was aiming to reassure Mr Jacobs now, she didn’t want to leave him to dwell on notions that he was the owner of a stolen item.

  “Yes, indeed. Mind you, he did leave diaries,” Jacobs brightened. “I have never read them, but they are safe in the attic. I shall get his one from Japan down and go through it, perhaps it shall offer an explanation.”

  “Perhaps,” Clara said, trying not to raise his hopes too high. “Now, I have disturbed you long enough. Might I speak with your servants?”

  “Of course, my dear, if you think they may have witnessed something.”

  Clara was concerned that one of them might have done more than just witness something, but she didn’t say so. She thanked Mr Jacobs for his time and went in search of Yaxley.

  Chapter Twenty

  The chandelier was fixed to the ceiling and the workmen were testing the wiring to see if it was working as Clara returned to the main hall. Yaxley, as she had expected, was stood in a corner watching the proceedings with the intensity and concentration of a rather maniacal hawk.

  “Might we have a word?” Clara asked him.

  Yaxley scowled at her, his expression, if not his tongue, demanded to know if she could not see how busy he was? But he merely sighed and nodded to a doorway next to them. Watching the men all the time, Yaxley escorted Clara into a vast dining room. A long table, suitable to seat twelve, dominated the centre while an extravagant fireplace topped by a gilt mirror ornamented the far wall. A sideboard ran nearly the length of the room and was topped with a huge range of decanters. Clara perceived that, among other things, Mr Jacobs was a connoisseur of spirits. She glimpsed silver tags on the decanters that revealed their contents to be various types of whisky and port.

  “Why did you wish to see me?” Yaxley distracted her from her inspection. He had taken up a space near the fire, with one eye on the now closed door. He didn’t want to be away from his scrutiny of the workmen for long.

  “I just wanted to elaborate a few points,” Clara explained. “I have some new information about the burglary.”

  Yaxley appeared unmoved by this information.

  “You recall a man coming to the house on a Sunday claiming to be an inspector for the electricity board?”

  “Of course!” Yaxley said with annoyance.

  “I am now wondering if that man was not really who he claimed to be, but rather was working for those behind this burglary. His inspection of the house would have been an excuse to draw a map of the property and learn where the netsuke collection was kept.”

  This revelation struck Yaxley hard. Something, or rather someone, had slipped under his eagle vision. However, the only indication of his affront was the slight twitch of an eyebrow. Yaxley was too well controlled to allow anymore.

  “I thought the man had an odd air,” he said after a moment. “And to visit on a Sunday was most inconvenient. My instinct was to send him away, but one does not just send electricity board inspectors away.”

  “Did he show you any identification?” Clara asked.

  “A little card, bearing his name and role. I had no reason to doubt it. The thing seemed battered as if he was accustomed to carrying it around, and he seemed knowledgeable on electricity. He made a number of appropriate comments on the work,” Yaxley was trying hard to explain away his failure to catch the spy in their midst. “He seemed purely interested in the wiring of the house.”

  “What was his name?” Clara queried.

  “According to the card he was Douglas Jones,” Yaxley said. “He seemed quite respectable.”

  �
��Might you describe him?”

  “Around forty in age, shorter than me. Dark hair, slicked back, and a small black moustache. He had a round face with a rather pointy chin.”

  This description was so vague as to be almost worthless, though Clara noted it down just the same.

  “There was one other thing,” Yaxley interrupted, making Clara glance up at him. “I thought it rather odd in an inspector, but these days the world is not quite how it used to be.”

  “What was it?” Clara asked eagerly.

  “Briefly his right sleeve rode up as he was writing on the clipboard and for a moment I had a clear view of a tattoo on his wrist,” Yaxley pressed two fingers to his wrist to indicate the location of the tattoo. “I am a very alert man, Miss Fitzgerald, and though Mr Jones rapidly pulled down his sleeve I was left with a vivid impression of the tattoo. It was of a sea serpent, I would estimate the tattoo ran along the top of the man’s entire forearm, and along its side were some Japanese characters. I recognised them because of Mr Jacobs’ collection.”

  Now Clara was really excited. This information indicated that the man who had come to the house knew about Japanese culture and suggested he might have links to someone willing to pay well for the return of a lost Japanese treasure.

  “What did the characters spell?” Clara asked.

  “I couldn’t say, I do not read Japanese,” Yaxley told her coldly, as if she should have known better than to ask such a thing. “I could, however, draw them for you.”

  Clara handed him her notebook without hesitation and Mr Yaxley was silent a few moments as he sketched the symbols on the paper.

  “Was there anything else?” he demanded once he had handed back the notebook.