100 Malicious Little Mysteries

The Hot Rock by James McKimmey

A sharp, chilling wind blew fog across London. The portly man, wearing a dark duster-length overcoat with a fur collar and a homburg fitted squarely on his bald head, closed the door of his small shop on Chandos Place and locked it. When he had escorted the mink-clad woman into the waiting cab, the fog had obliterated the gold lettering on the door of the shop, which read: Henry Thornwall Esq., Jeweler.

Henry leaned forward, patting an inside pocket to make certain that he had not, in the tension of what they were doing, forgotten his examining glass, then gave the driver an address near the Thames. He leaned back with a sigh.

Street lamps flashed against the face of his companion. She looked young from a distance, but on closer examination it was obvious that she was middle-aged, heavily made up, rich, and, right now, very excited.

She put a hand on Henry’s plump wrist, squeezing fingers glittering with rings. “How dangerous is this, Henry?”

Henry shook his head, “I wish I knew. Madam. It’s not my... ah... accustomed... well, you know.”

“I know,” she said softly, a waver in her voice. “But the Sional, Henry!”

“Shhh.” He looked ahead at the driver.

“For twenty thousand pounds!” She tapped her large purse. “And it’s worth double that!”

“Shhh, shhh,” went Henry.

The cab moved ahead, the driver making his way through the murk as though by magic. Henry leaned sideways and put his mouth close to her ear. “It’s all happened so quickly. Tell me again what he said on the telephone.”

“He whispered, Henry,” she said softly.

“Yes, quite,” Henry nodded. “What did he whisper, then?”

“That he had the Sional Diamond and would sell it to me for twenty thousand pounds if I would meet him at the address you’ve given the driver — with the money.”

Henry nodded again. “And that name he gave himself?”

“The Cockroach.” She shuddered. “I said I’d do what he asked if I were allowed to bring you to examine the stone. But why do you suppose he has chosen me, Henry?”

Henry shrugged. “Mrs. Peter Sterling-Bahr?”

“I suppose it’s obvious, isn’t it? Peter would die if he knew. But he won’t find out. He never pays any attention to my money. Unless something happens that...”

Henry put a hand into the right pocket of his coat and pulled out a small chrome-plated pistol. It reflected lights they were passing as he checked it.

“Henry!” the woman said.

Henry returned the pistol to his pocket. “Chaps like this... I don’t know. They whisper so you can’t get a good chance at their accent so you might know something that way. They constantly run underground like sewer rats. I, well, thought it might prove comforting.”

The woman touched Henry’s hand again. “I never thought of you as being so heroic, Henry. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

“Madam,” Henry said gently. He smiled. Then the smile disappeared. “And we are here, I’m afraid.”

They moved toward an old warehouse in the wind-driven fog as the cab’s taillights abruptly disappeared.

“Shouldn’t we have kept him?” Mrs. Peter Sterling-Bahr asked.

“I shouldn’t think so,” Henry said. “His license may already have been observed. We wouldn’t want you followed to the hotel where you’re going to put it, you know.”

“Of course. Oh, Henry,” she said, hugging his arm, “what would I do without you?”

“Let’s, ah, complete the business first. Madam. Then...” His voice trailed away as they stopped before a closed wooden door. Henry put his hand on the latch, paused, took a breath, then opened it. There was a yellow crack of light far across a large high-ceilinged room. Henry dug into the left-hand pocket of his coat and produced a small flashlight.

“You thought of everything, didn’t you, Henry?” the woman whispered.

“I rather hope so, anyway,” Henry said as they moved forward following the small beam of light.

“I’m trembling, Henry.”

He squeezed her hand.

They arrived at the door where light was escaping below on the dusty wooden floor. Again Henry took a breath, then turned the handle. They looked in at a small figure seated at an old desk beneath a naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling of a small room; long and greasy-looking hair with streaks of gray hung shoulder-length; metal-rimmed glasses with tinted lenses decorated a face that looked surprisingly boyish; the suit was wide-shouldered, gray and pin-striped; delicate hands rested on either side of a wide-brimmed fedora placed on the desk.

Henry and the woman stood in absolute silence, staring.

“Madam Sterling-Bahr?” came the throaty whisper. “I am The Cockroach.”

The woman managed to nod.

The Cockroach curled a slender finger and motioned them forward. They went to the desk and stood looking at the tinted glasses reflecting light from the bulb above. The Cockroach removed a small revolver from a pocket. The woman turned in alarm just in time to see that Henry had also gotten out his pistol. The two weapons pointed at each other.

“No nonsense, you understand,” Henry said in a controlled voice, and adoration showed in the woman’s eyes.

The Cockroach stared at the chrome pistol for some time, then drew out from a pocket a small object wrapped in velvet. The fabric was worked loose, exposing a magnificent briolette-cut diamond. The woman drew her breath in, blinking. Henry’s eyes narrowed. “May I?” he asked.

The Cockroach shrugged, and Henry carefully placed his pistol in the woman’s hand, saying, “Don’t hesitate to pull the trigger, my dear, if he should become cute in any fashion.”

“Oh, Henry,” the woman breathed, but she held the pistol firmly as Henry got out his jeweler’s loupe and fitted it to his eye and examined the stone at length. Finally he nodded. He returned it to the velvet and put away his examining glass. “Yes, indeed.” He reclaimed his pistol from the woman.

“Is it?” she asked.

“Most assuredly.”

“Money,” The Cockroach whispered.

When the transaction had been completed and the diamond was in the woman’s purse, Henry said, “Shall we, then?”

He began backing toward the door, pistol in hand, and the woman went with him. In the large outer room, they made their way through darkness. “I’d use the torch,” Henry said quietly, “but I shouldn’t want him to go out the back door of that room and up into the loft somewhere where he could shoot at it.”

“Dear God,” the woman whispered.

They finally fumbled their way outside into a shroud of cold. Then they hurried along the sidewalk. It seemed an eternity, but at last they were able to find a free cab. As they got in, Henry gave the address of a club near Piccadilly Circus. He put an arm around the woman’s fur-covered shoulders, feeling her trembling.

“Foolish place to go, rather,” he said. “Too many theatrical types, and worse. But I do have a membership.”

“Must we go there?” she asked. “Can’t I simply go straight to the hotel, then—”

He shook his head. “Beggar might be following. Best to put him off.”

“Of course,” she said. “I think I’m falling in love with you, Henry.”

“Mr. Peter Sterling-Bahr would not like that, I suspect.”

“But I shouldn’t care,” the woman said, holding Henry’s hand tightly.

They went upstairs to an informal room which hummed with conversation as members stood and sat about. Henry ordered a gin and orange for both of them. The woman sipped hers, face looking pale.

“Henry,” she said, “the Sional! In my purse!”

“Yes, Madam. We seem to have done it.”

“Not madam, Henry. Not ever again. Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth,” Henry nodded, testing the sound of it. He repeated it.

She had removed her coat, and it was spread on the sofa beside her. Her dress was black, her jewelry was notable, and her legs looked much younger than the rest of her as she crossed them and gave Henry that same look she’d shown in the warehouse near the river.

“You couldn’t go with me to the hotel?” she asked.

“I should rather like to, certainly,” he said.

“You couldn’t come after I’ve checked in — please, dear Henry!”

“I should like that, indeed, Elizabeth. But—”

“Later, then?” she said. “Some other day or night?”

“I shall require you to remember that.”

“I shall. And how do I do it at the hotel, again?”

“Ask them to put the item you have in your purse into safekeeping for the night.”

“But if I went home instead—”

He shook his head. “With your husband on business in Paris—”

“But the servants,” she said. “Surely—”

“Blighter may already be in with one of them. I would rather trust the Ritz, my dear,” he said positively. “A formidably reliable establishment. Then, tomorrow, I shall accompany you to the vault. I think we might go now, if you’ve finished your drink,” he suggested.

They returned to the street where Henry obtained yet another cab. He directed it to the misty glitter of Piccadilly Circus and said to the woman, “Much better if you get out and walk to the hotel rather than taking another cab. If someone should be following this one, they’ll continue, I think. When we next stop with the traffic, simply get out and join the crowd on the sidewalk. I’ll call you at the hotel the second I’ve gotten home.”

“I do hate leaving you, Henry.”

Henry smiled. “I hate leaving you, Elizabeth.” He touched her, then said, “Now, my dear.”

She got out swiftly and hurried toward the crowded sidewalk where neon cut through swirls of reflecting fog. The cab moved on, and Henry looked through the back window just as a small figure in a pin-striped suit, wearing tinted glasses and a wide-brimmed fedora over long greasy hair, came up to Elizabeth. An arm was put around her waist, and she was drawn toward a dark doorway. Her mouth opened as though she might be screaming, but Henry, looking away and settling back in his seat, guessed that she wasn’t making a sound.

When he reached his flat, the telephone was ringing. He lifted it, saying, “Henry Thornwall here.”

“Oh, Henry!” Mrs. Peter Sterling-Bahr said in anguish. “How could it have happened!”

“Are you all right?” he asked with concern.

“Not hurt. Not physically. But he just came up on me on the sidewalk the minute I got out of the cab. He put his arm around me and whispered he had his gun pointed at me and made me go into a doorway where he got the stone out of my purse and ran off! What could I do! It’s stolen! I couldn’t... Oh, Henry! How could he have followed us? In the fog? Two cabs? The club? And yet be there on the sidewalk, waiting... Henry?”

“I don’t know how,” Henry breathed. “I rather... thought I’d been so clever. But I guess I’m no good at that sort of thing. Oh, damn, Elizabeth. Dreadful, altogether.”

“Dreadful, yes,” she said limply. “Yes, it is. What do I do now, Henry?”

“Go home, I should think. Have something to drink. Try to forget it.”

“It that really all there is for me to do now?” she said wearily. “Henry, is that all?”

“I rather think,” he said slowly, “that it is.”

Twenty minutes later, Henry’s door buzzer sounded. When he opened the door, he saw no one on the stoop. Then he looked behind the bushes and saw the small figure wearing the wide-brimmed hat and tinted glasses standing beside the wall. Henry reached out and pulled the figure in and closed the door. “And here you are, my dear,” he said fondly, then kissed a boyish forehead.

The sound of the shower stopped in the bath off Henry’s comfortable bedroom. Henry stood in the adjoining study by the bar mixing two Scotches with soda. When his visitor, an extraordinarily beautiful creature with thick blonde hair, came out of the bedroom, he could see the suit, hat, glasses, and wig on the bed beside the carelessly dropped currency. The girl was dressed now in a satin negligee. She smiled beautifully as she crossed to Henry and put her arms around his neck.

“Oh, darling,” she said, “it was so smooth, wasn’t it?”

“Practice makes perfect, doesn’t it?” he said, kissing her boyish forehead again.