EQMM, February 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "I see.... Do please continue."

  "The agents returned to Bruton Street, where they rented an empty apartment at number 38A. I learned this today when I visited the local letting agents to inquire if anyone of Italian appearance had rented property in or near Bruton Street within the last few days."

  "But how did you know they were Italians?” I asked. “And why should they be based near Bruton Street?"

  "The use of the name ‘Spinarossa’ by the fake medium betrayed the origins of the crime. And Bruton Street was obvious from the testimony of our friend Hartshorne. The two agents rented their rooms and waited for nightfall. Then they went out armed with tools to find number 98, which was the address given to them by Barozzi. You will have noticed, Watson, that Bruton Street is unusual for having consecutive numbering along each side, so that number one is next to two, and so on. It seems that our Italian friends assumed the usual arrangement of even numbers on one side of the street and odd on the other. Barozzi had told them that number 98 was at the end of the street, so I believe they walked to the end before looking closely at any house numbers. The first they chanced to look at was 97 or 99, so they crossed the road to find 98, and there believed they had found the right house, conveniently far from a streetlamp. By the light of a small lantern they examined the door and its large Chubb's lever lock, of a sort manufactured some twenty years ago. Now this lock has the peculiar distinction of being relatively simple for an expert to pick, but unusually difficult to remove. So the Italians set to work to unlock the door and, when they had done so, the quickest method of removing the lock was to unscrew the entire door and carry it away. They held it between them and hurried along the pavement, back towards their rented rooms. It was this singular behaviour that led me to the knowledge that they had some bolt-hole nearby. Why else carry the door along the street? Had they possessed a carriage or some other vehicle, they would surely have brought it up to receive the door, and they would hardly have risked carrying their prize any great distance. I reasoned that they must have a den in the same street, or very nearby, which could be reached on foot in a matter of minutes. However, when they passed under a streetlamp one of the robbers glanced at the door and realised they had made an unfortunate mistake. It bore not the number 98 but 9B. Immediately they dropped their prize and hurried back to the end of the street to seek out the right door, which you may be sure they were very careful to identify correctly. They were fortunate too in finding there a very different lock. It was an old Bramah design, much less secure, which could easily be parted from the door by a combination of crude force and the removal of four screws. I noticed as we passed along that side of Bruton Street this morning that the door of number 98 showed signs of recent damage and wore a shining new lock. It was not necessary for our agents to pick the lock or open the door, they simply removed the mechanism and returned with it to their rooms. There they took the lock to pieces and extracted the Caradoc diamonds.

  "Very soon, however, the business took another unexpected turn. Perhaps one of the Italians was an expert in precious stones, and saw something in one of the diamonds to arouse his suspicion. He took out his revolver, a particularly fine piece of Italian workmanship, and struck one of the diamonds with the butt. It crumbled into dust. He struck another diamond, and another, and found that every one of the Caradoc stones was fake.

  "We may imagine the scene, the consternation of the Italians, their oaths and suspicions that Barozzi had, by some obscure means, managed to deceive them and hidden the real diamonds elsewhere. But in truth, Barozzi had himself been deceived. He had removed the diamonds from the tiara in the dark, remember, and any skill he may have possessed to detect their true nature was blindfolded; indeed, he crushed one of the stones in removing it—I noted the powder on the side table in Her Grace's room—but no doubt dismissed the sensation of dust in his hands as due to the crumbling of the mounting paste used to assemble the tiara. Had he been working with any light he would no doubt have perceived the truth."

  "I don't understand this, Mr. Holmes,” said Lestrade. “If neither this Barozzi nor his murderers got their hands on the diamonds, who did?"

  "Between ourselves, I think we may assume they have been sold secretly to some dealer and very probably dispersed beyond these shores."

  "But who sold them?"

  "Why, the duchess, of course. She did her best to conceal from us the unfortunate state of her finances. But what aristocrat keeps no personal servants and is reduced to dining upon Huntley and Palmer's biscuits in her hotel room, unless she is very seriously embarrassed? It is no secret that the duke left considerable debts, and I believe his widow has been impelled to sell her most precious asset, the diamonds which her late husband gave her as a wedding gift. The duchess had her tiara rigged with false stones, but felt such shame that when they disappeared during a seance she assumed the knowing spectre of the duke to have punished her for disposing of his gift. If you remember, Watson, I suggested that she might view his ghostly actions in a different light. After all, the stones were insured and, if stolen, as has now been reported in all the papers, the duchess could in due course expect to receive their value from the underwriters. Only she, and no doubt a trusted friend or two, and we three, know the truth."

  "But that is fraud, Mr. Holmes."

  "You are legally correct, Lestrade. But I suggest that, in this case, you withdraw your long arm. Who would not feel pity for an elderly noblewoman brought low through the ill fortune and misjudgments of her husband? And can we not be satisfied that, through the actions of the duchess, the Fratelli and the Spina Rossa have both been denied the benefit of her diamonds?"

  "It is a pretty point,” said Lestrade, “and one on which I should be a poor policeman if I agreed. But perhaps I should be a poor Englishman if I did not."

  Holmes bowed to the inspector.

  "But Holmes,” I said, “you have explained the loss of the diamonds, and how they came into the hands of the Fratelli. But who were those two dead men, and how did they meet their end?"

  "They were the agents of the Fratelli, Watson. It seems the Spina Rossa quickly learned what had befallen Barozzi, and guessed that he had betrayed the hiding place of the diamonds to another society. It was a simple matter for me to locate the hideout of Barozzi's murderers, and the agents of the Scarlet Thorn followed a similar procedure and sent assassins to despatch their rivals and retrieve the diamonds. They succeeded in the first task, but of the diamonds the only traces were a broken lock and a pile of grey powder. Whether they understood what had become of the stones I know not, but they left with empty hands, having drawn their symbol upon the wall in the blood of their rivals."

  * * * *

  In due course we heard from Lestrade that the Duchess of Caradoc had indeed been compensated for the theft of her diamonds. William Everson Hartshorne was told as much of the story as Holmes thought fit and, no doubt, slept a good deal more soundly in his bed thereafter. Of the agents of the Scarlet Thorn no trace was ever found, but the body of Barozzi was at length discovered in a garret in Seven Dials. He was horribly mutilated and Holmes identified him by his injuries, by the curiously stained female dress and box of makeup which were found in his possession, and by the presence, in a secret pocket in that dress, of a single artificial diamond.

  Copyright © 2010 Paul W. Nash

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  Fiction: FAMILY VALUES by Robert Barnard

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  Art by Mark Evan Walker

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  Robert Barnard's biting humor is one of his trademarks, and readers can depend on finding it even more frequently in his short stories than in his novels. In the greater space of a novel, he's someone you can depend on also to provide a beautifully crafted whodunit. His superior puzzle-spinning and trenchant writing have earned him the Cartier Diamond Dagger (the CWA's award for lifetime achievement) and membership in Britain's esteemed Detection Club.

  It was in June 1948 that Mrs. Cynt
hia Webber and her son Simon came to lodge in the Princes Hotel, Pixton. They were well received by the rest of the guests, all of whom were virtually residents. The country had just suffered one of the worst winters Britain had ever known: months of snow-covered land and roads, which, added to the regime of rationing and shortages that the nation had endured since 1939, brought many to the edge of despair. Most of the residents at the Princes blamed the government for the winter, and for everything else. “What did we fight the war for?” was a common wail. “We'd have been better off if we'd lost it."

  What was still called the Princes Hotel was in fact a mere wing of the splendid Edwardian structure that overlooked the town from a vantage point that had once seemed to square with the social status of its guests. It was now run by Mrs. Hocking, who was more a housekeeper than a manager. She had been put in mainly to keep the old place open. She didn't want casual guests, which was lucky because few were to be had. She took residents at reasonable rates, commandeered their ration books and used them cunningly, and took the burdens of effort and decision from their shoulders. That was what the middle-aged and elderly residents wanted, particularly after the privations of the terrible winter. And when Mrs. Webber and her son arrived, they were welcomed as a new source of interest.

  "She'll do,” said Major Catchpole, a man of few words.

  "Such a nice sort of person,” said Mrs. Forrest, meaning “so obviously a gentlewoman.” She added that it was lovely to see a mother and son who were such good friends.

  Their arrival had been well signalled in advance because they had taken the suite. All the residents being, by chance or circumstance, single, “the suite” was the one area in the wing that was not let out. It had been used by families before the war, many of whom came to the Peak District for the sake of a disabled or invalid child, hoping the famous Pixton waters would do them good, if a cure was out of the question. It had two bedrooms with a sitting room between—not large rooms, but providing a degree of comfort and privacy unknown to the other residents. Mrs. Hocking, when she had received the inquiry had been dubious whether the suite was habitable, but with the help of an army of hotel and hospital cleaners, all resident in the town and experienced from the Old Days, the dusty old rooms were smartened up. Even the residents pitched in, with Miss Rumbold volunteering to wash up all the ornaments and crockery in the suite, and old Mr. Somervell, a traditional and sentimental soul, buying a bouquet with his own money to decorate the sitting room on the day of their arrival.

  They fitted in at once. Mrs. Webber, though not unduly confidential, was frank about their situation.

  "Simon is going up to Oxford in October. He has a place at Lincoln, to read history. He was found unfit for National Service—lungs, you know—but his education was very disturbed in his last years, when the old teachers returned from the war and wanted all the old ways back. He's going to do a very stiff course of reading—the car is full of books—so that he can go up with the best possible basis for study."

  The car was a basis of wonder, Mrs. Webber being a widow lady, and she explained it readily.

  "It was my husband's car. He died last year—old war wound from the Somme. He was in the Civil Defence and had an extra petrol ration due to the driving. I've had to give that up, of course, but we just about make do. Simon will take his licence soon."

  Their devotion to each other made Cynthia and Simon objects of great interest to the residents. To play some part in their little personal drama the residents often appealed to them, their judgment and experience seeming to put them on a higher plane than the rest. Simon was appealed to on questions relating to The Younger Generation, Cynthia on matters of fashion, the royal family, etiquette, genealogy, and even correct English.

  "I was always taught at school,” began Mrs. Phipps, in the manner of all linguistic bores, “that it should be ‘ett,’ the past tense of ‘eat,’ not ‘eight.’ Don't you agree, Mrs. Webber?"

  Mrs. Webber wiped her mouth with her napkin, perhaps to conceal a smile.

  "So often what one was taught at school is either wrong or has changed with the times. I think either pronunciation is acceptable these days."

  "I happen to know,” said Miss Rumbold, welding together two of the residents’ obsessions, “that the dear Queen says ‘eight.’ She visited the British Restaurant in Pimlico when I was doing war work there in 1944. ‘Eight’ she said, definitely."

  "I expect the Queen speaks the language of upper-class Britain a generation or two ago,” said Mrs. Webber, who must have been about the same generation as the Queen. “I know she says ‘lorss’ for ‘loss,’ and I think only cockneys and upper-class speakers do that."

  This remark was found daring, but because it was Cynthia, it was acceptable.

  Mother and son made little excursions in the car on as many afternoons as had sun and as they had petrol for. They didn't ask anyone to go with them because as Cynthia whispered to Mrs. Hocking, if they asked one they'd have to ask them all, at least once. They valued their privacy. In the lounge before lunch Cynthia would sometimes talk about where they planned to go.

  "I know the area from my childhood,” she explained. “So many of these lovely little places have memories for me. I always wanted to come here on holiday in the years before the war, but Frank, my husband, never cared for it. He was quite rude about it. ‘Just one bloody peak after another,’ he used to say."

  "Fancy!” said Mrs. Forrest. “I can't imagine anyone disliking the Peak District."

  "I can, when I'm toiling up to the King's Head,” said Major Catchpole. “Pixton has hills that would defeat a Sherpa."

  "To me, Derbyshire beats even the Lake District,” said Miss Rumbold. “And it's much more undiscovered."

  "Yes,” said Mrs. Webber. “Wordsworth has a lot to answer to."

  By mid July the Webbers were accepted, admired, even loved, particularly for their devotion to each other, which all the women found “lovely” and “so nice to see,” and which both the men kept quiet about. Their position was as part of the community at the Princes, yet somehow slightly above it. Mrs. Webber reinforced this primacy by announcing that she didn't need her sweet ration because she had never had a sweet tooth, and saying that she would use it to buy sweets for general consumption—a box of chocolates if one could be found, Turkish Delight or Liquorice Allsorts if one could not. All the residents at the Princes were enthusiastic in acclaiming her generosity, though in truth it created little pockets of animosity when one or other of them was thought to be taking more than their fair share.

  It was bound to end in tears. The tabloid press understands that there is nothing the general public likes more than the building up of a popular idol—nothing except its bringing down. The Webbers had been supplied with a pedestal. By late July it was time to blow it up from under them.

  It was Mrs. Phipps who provided the explosive. She had, as everyone at the Princes knew, a weak bladder, and at some time during the night she could be relied on to get up and go to the bathroom in her corridor. As she went past the Webbers’ suite one night she heard a sound and stopped. It was, she felt sure, the inner door to Mrs. Webber's bedroom. She stood for a second or two, waiting; then from further away she heard another door shutting—the door, it could only be, to Simon Webber's bedroom on the other side of the sitting room. She scurried along to the bathroom, switched on the light, and looked at her watch. It was half-past three.

  Mrs. Phipps was not an ill-disposed woman, and not any more of a tittle-tattle than anyone else at the Princes. She nevertheless found it impossible to keep her information to herself. She confided the substance of it to Mrs. Forrest and together they talked to Miss Rumbold, who had the reputation of being a bit of a radical, having voted Liberal several times, though of course at the last election she had voted for dear Mr. Churchill. To Mrs. Forrest she was a woman of standards, though when she had listened twice to the story she still felt quite troubled—her cheeks were high pink in colour, and she had to struggle
to find a way through her uncertainties.

  "So what you are—no, you are not implying anything—what the sounds you heard seem to suggest—"

  "That's better,” said Mrs. Phipps. “I should hate it if—"

  "Of course you would. What those sounds suggest is that the pair of them have imposed themselves on us as mother and son, whereas in fact they are ... she is ... he is ... Oh dear. I don't know the word."

  "No,” said Mrs. Forrest wistfully. “When an older man has a younger woman for his ... you know ... there are quite a lot of words and phrases, some of them quite vulgar, to describe the situation.” Mrs. Forrest's voice sank to a whisper. “But this ... Would the world ‘gigolo’ describe him?"

  "I don't know,” confessed Miss Rumbold. “It brings to mind someone like Rudolph Valentino. Do you remember him? How my heart used to flutter! It suggests someone Latin. Someone like—would Tyrone Power fit the bill?"

  "Yes, I think so,” said Mrs. Phipps. “Someone like that. I believe he's Irish. He's quite unlike Simon Webber."

  "If that is his real name. Oh, I agree. He's so tall and regular featured and fair. One would say the Aryan type if it hadn't been made a dirty word by those dreadful Nazis."

  A thought struck Mrs. Forrest.

  "But what about his ration book? How would he get one in the name of Simon Webber?"

  "I worked in London during the war,” said Miss Rumbold darkly. “In London you can get anything at a price. And though Mrs. Webber says she only has the normal petrol ration, they do get around a lot, don't they? Could they have ... contacts?"

  "What sort of contacts?"

  "People with a husband in Civil Defence could still have contacts that he made in the war. Where I worked, CD officers were notorious."

  It might have seemed that guilty verdict had already been passed, but in the end they lacked courage and decided they had to consult with someone, preferably another of the guests, so that the thing would be kept within the four walls of the Princes. Pixton was a traditional, elderly, straight-laced town, and nothing could damage the residents more than a sex scandal centred on what was now their home. In the end they decided to talk to Major Catchpole, whose first reaction was not unlike Miss Rumbold's: Where she went pink, he went scarlet.