Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 48, No. 1, January 2003

The Ring in the Sand by Eleanor Boylan

If you are a homesick New Yorker spending Christmas in Florida, all you have to do is walk into any mall, gaze about at the rampant glitz, listen to the tinny rendition of “The Little Drummer Boy,” and you are smack back in the middle of Bloomingdale’s.

Not that I was homesick — far from it. The morning’s weather in Manhattan had been frigid, I’d heard, and our temperature in Sarasota was eighty degrees. I’d enjoyed my shopping spree and was feeling virtuous in the knowledge that the last grandchild’s present was stashed in the shopping bag beside me. But I was feeling impatient. The mall mob was becoming oppressive and my kind host and cousin, Charles Saddlier, who had promised to pick me up, was late.

I wondered vaguely if I should struggle up and find a phone (I could hear my daughter’s voice: “Mom, why the heck don’t you get a cell?”) when I spotted Sadd, as he is affectionately called, hurrying toward me, his white thatch bobbing up and down through the crowd.

“Blasted throng,” he gasped, reaching me. He seized my shopping bag. “Hurry! The parking lot is jammed and I’m in a fire lane. I gave Santa twenty dollars to sit behind the wheel and move it if he has to. God knows where he’d go with it.”

“Not as far as the North Pole, I hope.” I plowed along beside him.

“Sorry I’m late, Clara.”

“Don’t apologize. You were probably getting my Christmas present.” This was an “in” joke; Sadd loathes malls and enters one only if dragged.

“Actually, I was.”

“Was what?”

“Getting your Christmas present.”

I turned to stare at him, bumped into somebody with a stroller, and apologized. “Where is it?” Sadd was empty handed.

“Where’s what?”

“My present.”

“In my head. Here we are.”

We pushed though a groaning door to where, ten feet away, a beaming Santa sat at the wheel of Sadd’s old Buick, ringing his bell out the window and receiving contributions from amused shoppers. He was doing a rather brisk business and called to Sadd not to hurry.

I said “Thanks, Santa,” dropped a bill into his basket, and reached the passenger side.

“Any problem?” asked Sadd, as Santa emerged from his post.

“Naw. One cop came by but I knew him. Thanks for the twenty.”

As we plunged into the labyrinthian ways of the parking lot, Sadd said, “Let me tell you about your Christmas present. It’s a little mystery.”

Oh, Lord. I didn’t know whether to be pleased or not. I said, “Sadd, I’m getting a bit creaky for—”

“Just as I was leaving the house the phone rang. It was—”

“Tell me when we get home. This traffic is insane.”

“And you don’t trust me to drive and chew gum?”

“Chew gum, yes. Talk, no.”

The drive from the mall in Sarasota to Sadd’s home on Santa Martina Island takes about forty minutes. It’s my opinion that nature designed Florida’s west coast barrier islands as shock absorbers. You cross the bridge from the mainland and are hit with the breathtaking expanse of the Gulf of Mexico. You gasp and gape, no matter how many times you’ve done it, all the way to Sadd’s house at the end of the tiny key where the gulf merges, sometimes tumultuously, with the waters of Tampa Bay. The filagree shape of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge is discernable ten miles away.

Today the gulf and the bay lay in a shining sunset embrace and I tore my eyes away to go inside and put parcels in my room. Sadd went into his little galley kitchen with the words “Drinks outside.”

“Can I help?” I asked halfheartedly.

“No. Go out and sit down.”

“I’ve been here two weeks and I haven’t lifted a finger.”

“You’ll be lifting all ten of them next week if you insist on going back to New York. Why you have this bourgeois urge to spend Christmas with your grandchildren is beyond me.”

Since retiring from a publishing house in New York, Sadd has devoted himself to ecology in Florida, has no interest in visiting his daughter’s family in Toronto, and deflects visits from them by, as he puts it, “shipping them off to Europe or the destination of their choice.”

I smiled at him affectionately as he came out bearing a tray of martinis. I accepted one and said, “This mystery of yours better be flat-out simple. Remember my decrepitude.”

He sat down and looked out at the water. “Actually, the thing is more sad than mysterious. There’s been no crime and no one has died. It began with a bizarre accident about three years ago and I guess had been pretty much forgotten. Then suddenly, a few days ago...”

His almost somber face made me say anxiously, “I hope it doesn’t affect you personally, Sadd.”

“No, not at all.” He straightened in his chair. “But it did affect a good friend of mine, the one who called me just as I was leaving to pick you up. So, as I was saying when I was told to shut up and drive...”

Sadd, owing to his many years as an editor, can give an account of an episode that is both concise and compelling. You learn to listen to him without interrupting and his story will unfold with just enough detail to make it edge toward the lengthy, then he will rein you in with a zinger and your glass stops halfway to your lips.

“My friend, Malcom Elder by name, is a retired judge who lives just up the road from here. He has a granddaughter whom he adores and she is indeed adorable. A few years ago when this happened she’d have been about twenty-one, fresh out of college, vacationing with Grandpa and waitressing in a popular restaurant on the island. Enter the villain — do I call him that because I was jealous? — in the person of the restaurant owner, a three-times-her-age, three-times-married entrepreneur: successful, good-looking, and apparently catnip to women. His name is — was? — John Bell. Nobody seems to know if he’s alive or dead.” Sadd sipped his drink and frowned. “My poor friend Malcom. How he loved — loves that girl. He sat where you’re sitting now and told me what she’d said to him, quoting her exactly and smiling a little in spite of himself: ‘Gramps, I love him. Do me a wedding.’ ”

“And of course he did.”

“Of course. And, oh my God, that wedding...”

I was about to ask why he had to call upon his Maker at the mere memory, then a thought interjected.

“Where were the girl’s parents?”

“Who knows? Probably she least of all. As I recall, her mother is Malcom’s daughter, but there were multiple divorces and a general atmosphere of absenteeism.”

I sipped my drink. “Gramps was all, and Gramps was it?” Sadd nodded. “Tell me about the wedding.”

“I’ll need a refill for this.” He got up and went into the house. I sat still and thought about my own granddaughters and said a sort of prayer. Now he was back with his drink and a bowl of pretzels.

“When you ‘do’ a wedding in Florida and you live near the beach, you are apt to do it there. The thing can range from a rather nice little ceremony to a circus. This was a circus. The beach teemed with young people in bathing suits and there was a raucus band. The bridal party was disporting itself in the surf when I arrived. There was a row of canvas chairs for fogie friends of Malcom and there we all sat trying to make conversation and not look too disapproving. At one point I said something to Malcom about the sunset and he nodded and kept staring straight ahead. He seemed unable to take his eyes off his granddaughter, who at that moment was riding the shoulders of the bridegroom as he frisked in the water.”

I couldn’t help it; I giggled. Sadd ignored me.

“Finally the bandleader squawked something over his speaker and the happy pair sloshed out of the water as their friends cheered and converged about them. A guruish looking figure came beaming forward across the sand. He was wearing a Banana Republic shirt, jeans, and some sort of peace emblem on a cord. Naturally, he was barefooted.”

This time I burst out laughing. What else can you do? And Sadd grinned. “Clara, you know conventions never meant a great deal to me — you’ve even said I’m a philistine — but damn it, a wedding is a wedding. I would certainly never hold out for a church, but I do think I’d hold out for shoes.”

Now we laughed together. Then Sadd was suddenly sober.

“There began some sort of ritual, which, just before the exchange of vows, ended in a freakish disaster.”

“What...?” I whispered.

Sadd downed his drink. “I must go back in time a bit for you to get the full impact of what happened. Years ago, Malcom had given his granddaughter an enormously valuable ring that had been his mother’s. Given, that is, in the sense that he told her it would be hers someday, and from her childhood he had often taken it out of his safe and allowed her — have I mentioned that her name is Sophie? — to fondle it and try it on. She would say it was going to be her wedding ring someday. He showed it to me once — a magnificent mass of gold and diamonds.”

I drew a breath. “And now it was sure enough about to become her wedding ring.”

“About to become.”

In the house the phone rang. I said, “Don’t you dare answer that. Finish the story.”

The answering machine began a muffled message as Sadd continued on.

“Sophie had pulled a T-shirt over her bathing suit and Bell was struggling into a pair of shorts — God forbid he should cover the array of gold chains about his neck with a shirt. Everybody gathered round and Malcom went to stand beside his granddaughter. The guru started to intone something. I stayed in the rear of the group. There were about twenty persons between me and the bridegroom so all I saw was the back of his head as he went down.”

“Down?”

“On his knees. He’d dropped the ring.”

It must have been the martini. I saw something beautiful and bejeweled drop into the sand — sand, that terrible swallower...

“It only took a few seconds for everybody to realize what had happened; then all hell broke loose. Sophie shrieked and went down beside Bell and the pair of them proceeded to do the worst thing possible when a small object falls into sand.”

“Dig frantically?” I was sitting forward in my chair.

“And scrounge and claw and heave the sand about only causing the thing to disappear more hopelessly.”

My mind was racing. “Didn’t anybody think to get one of those — what are they called? — metal detectors?”

“Oh, yes, several people raced off — it’s quite a hobby here — and soon there were three or four of the things being dragged about, but by then the area had been so trampled and pawed there was no use. The ring was as lost as if de Soto had dropped it when he landed here in 1530.”

“How simply awful.” I almost felt part of the scene. “What about the wedding?”

“There wasn’t one.”

“You mean...”

“After a while Sophie just stood still with her grandfather’s arms around her staring at the scene in a sort of trance. The noisy young crowd was stunned and silent, some of them crying, and one girl offered Sophie her own ring as a temporary make-do, but Sophie shook her head and said she wouldn’t be married till her ring was found and eventually Malcom took her home. People began to drift off sort of unbelieving of what had happened. Don’t ask me about Bell. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the man throughout. I understand he prowled the beach for days, then took himself and his gold chains off somewhere leaving his son to run the restaurant, which, it turned out, was in trouble and has since closed.”

The color had gone from the sky and grayness prevailed on land and water. A boat with a little lighted Christmas tree on its deck chugged by and someone waved to Sadd.

I asked, “Where is Sophie now?”

“Here. She stayed on with Malcom. Works in an art gallery, I think.”

There was a fuzziness on the picture. I said, feeling my way, “Sadd, granted it was ghastly, really ghastly, but it was an accident.”

“True.”

“Looking back on it, doesn’t her reaction seem to you a bit of an overkill?”

His eyebrows went up. “How so?”

“Is it possible that she had heard about the trouble with the restaurant and this was a chance to get out?”

Wrong guess; Sadd flared. “If you knew this girl — and you will shortly — you’d never say that.”

Oh, dear. Elderly gentlemen and sweet young things; you can’t win. I said, “What do you mean I’ll meet her shortly?”

“Come with me.” He walked into the house and I followed. He said, “Let me play that phone message for you. I know what it is.”

He punched a button and a nice male voice said, “Sadd, this is Malcom. Five o’clock is fine with Sophie and me. We’ll expect you.”

Sadd looked at his watch. “It’s only ten minutes from here. Would you mind waiting on supper? Are you hungry?”

“No. Why exactly are we going?”

“So you can hear about the mystery. I’ve mentioned your sleuthing skills.”

“Oh, please.” I hate that expression. “And if the mystery is why Sophie acted quixotically, well, I’ve already given you my guess, which you rejected, and I can’t think of another.”

“That’s not the mystery.” Sadd reached for his car keys. “The real one only developed a few days ago.” He looked smug. “Are you ready for it? The ring has surfaced.”

I gasped. “At that same beach?”

“No. At an estate sale in New York City.”

We drove along the road that bordered the gulf, Christmas lights beginning to glow from trees and windows. Sadd held forth at length on the superior merits of the clam chowder he had made that morning and which awaited us for supper. I half listened, looking out at the deep green of the balmy Florida pre-twilight.

I said, “How rotten for someone to find the ring and not return it.

“Clara, we’re talking about something that happened three years ago. The thing could have been found last week by some tourist from Kansas having fun with a detector.” He slowed at a corner.

“Yes...” I reconsidered. “Or by someone on the beach that day but not at the wedding who heard the hubbub and joined in the search. Finders keepers, I suppose. Where is the ring now?”

“I believe it reposes on Sophie’s finger.”

“What? How did it get there?”

“I don’t know any more about it than you do. Presumably, that’s what we’re about to find out.”

We had turned away from the gulf onto a street bordering on a canal with glimpses of masts and davits. It was a cul-de-sac and we slowed at the middle house on the circle, a pretty yellow one with a front porch and almost a New England look. A tall, very thin, elderly man was fastening a wreath to the front door. He turned brandishing the hammer in a wave as the door opened and a young woman stood there laughing and reaching for the hammer.

“Don’t brain me, Gramps. Hi, Mr. Saddlier.”

Petite, short dark hair, pretty as pie — a pixie in a sweat suit. She came down the porch steps, her arms out to Sadd. As she hugged him, sure enough a gorgeous ring glowed on the middle finger of her right hand, which she now held out to me.

I simply said, “You’re Sophie, and this is the ring.”

She smiled. “And you’re Mrs. Gamadge and you find out about things.”

I began to protest this blithe assumption, but Malcom came down the steps and was introduced. We started into the house and I asked if we could sit on the porch. “It’s so lovely out here and I have to go back to New York weather.” Everybody commiserated and agreed the porch would be fine. Wicker chairs were dragged forward and Sadd sat down on the top step, saying he liked to feel that railing post against his back. Then, bless him, he said at once, “Malcom, we’re wild with curiosity. When did you first learn that the ring had been recovered?”

“A week ago.” The frail old man sat forward, clasping his granddaughter’s hand as she perched on the arm of his chair; the ring gleamed between their fingers. “I have an old friend who owns an antique shop on Madison Avenue. He’s visited me here a number of times and has seen the ring and always admired it. Well, it seems that he went to a dealer’s presale at a mansion up on Riverside Drive and was stunned to see the ring. He couldn’t believe I’d parted with it and checked the inscription to be sure. Then he called me to ask if it had been stolen. I told him to get it at any price and I’d explain later. Sophie was here when he called—”

“—and we were bawling and hugging each other—” from Sophie.

“—and she flew to New York the next day—” Malcom put the ring hand to his cheek. “—and it’s like a miracle, isn’t it?”

It certainly was and Sadd and I made appropriate sounds of wonder and congratulations.

“Have you been able to find out where the ring spent the time between the sand in Florida and the sale in New York?” I asked.

“No, and we’re not going to try,” said Sophie. “I don’t want Gramps getting all het-up trying to investigate. We have the ring back and that’s all that matters.”

Well, yes and no, my dear. To you maybe, but not to me. What nagged at me was not how the ring got to New York but that it did get there. But I said, “You’re probably right.”

Sadd said, “You mean Clara isn’t going to be able to exercise her talents?”

Sophie smiled at me. “Of course she can if she wants to, but I’m sure she has better things to do.”

“Well, I have something to do right now.” Malcom stood up. “And that’s to uncork a special bottle of wine that I got to celebrate our wonderful — what shall I call it? — Christmas present!”

“Hear! Hear!” said Sadd, standing up. “Let me help.”

“Sophie,” I said quickly, as they went into the house, “I’m catching a glimpse of the gulf at the foot of your street. Would it bore you to take a stroll down there with me?”

“Not a bit.” She jumped up, took my arm, and we went down the steps.

I said, “I hope it doesn’t awaken unhappy memories. Is this near the beach where you were going to be married?”

“It is the beach. No problem. I swim here every day.”

“You’re a good sport.” The fragrant dusk settled around us as we neared water. “Do you mind if I ask you a question, which you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to?”

“Sure.”

“When you decided not to go ahead with your wedding were any of your friends critical of you?”

“A lot of them. I was overreacting, I was brutal, cruel, you name it.”

But she was not a cruel girl. We’d almost reached the beach and some people passed us coming from it lugging gear and children. Sophie ran a little ahead to halfway down the sand. She called back, “This was the fatal spot, actually.”

I walked toward her and stopped a few feet away. I said, “Sophie, you said I was a person who found out about things.”

“Yes.” She stood still, her arms at her sides, her face expressionless.

“May I tell you what I think I have found out?”

She hesitated, then said slowly, “Yes, if you promise not to tell Grandfather.”

“Promise.” I drew a breath. “I believe that the ring was never recovered from the sand because it was never in the sand.”

She gave a little nod. “Go on.”

“I believe that your husband-to-be didn’t drop the ring but only pretended to, then palmed it.”

“Palmed it?” she gave a little laugh. “I’ve never heard that expression.”

“It’s one magicians use. To hide or conceal.”

She took the few steps to my side and and even in the almost-dark I could tell she was smiling. She said, “Well, he wasn’t much of a magician, because I saw him do it.” Then she put her arms around me. “Let’s go in and have some wine.”