Ellery Queen’s Double Dozen

Victor Canning Flint’s Diamonds

© Copyright, 1963, by Victor Canning

The second in a new series — how the members of the Minerva Club came to the rescue of Flint Morrish in his terrible predicament...

The Minerva Club — of which most people have never heard — is in a turning off Brook Street which, as you probably know, is very handy for the Ritz. It is a very exclusive club, chiefly because its membership is restricted to those who have served at least a two years’ prison sentence and are able — beg, borrow, or steal — to pay yearly dues of £50.

Outside the Club, the members are free to carry on their professional activities without any fear of being expelled — no matter what trouble they get into. But inside, there is nothing but good manners and the most honorable behavior. You could leave your wallet on the edge of a hand basin and find it there a month later. In other words, it is an oasis of tranquility after the cut-and-thrust of the outside world where every man is for himself. The membership includes some distinguished names from the criminal calendar — Milky Waye, the Club’s Secretary; Solly Badrubal, Chairman of the Wines Committee; Jim O’Leary, Treasurer — others including Horace Head, Marty Martin, Dig Sopwith — dozens of them. And Flint Morrish.

This story is about Flint. He was one of the nicest men ever to have done time. He had a wooden leg — the result of something that went wrong with the gelignite in an early safe job; he had a beaming country-squire kind of face and an incurable faith in human nature — particularly in the female side of it.

Flint was always looking for the perfect woman — and always being disappointed. In romantic affairs he was as short-sighted as his own eyes — and he did nothing about either defect. He wouldn’t wear glasses and he wouldn’t learn by experience.

His latest “little number” was a blonde perfection, weighing about a hundred and ten pounds, somewhat top-heavy in her physical distribution, and with a pair of blue eyes that were like sultry lagoon-pools. She came into the ring listed as Lottie Larson, age twenty-eight (unsubstantiated by any birth certificate). And Flint was gone on her. For him she was the woman, and for her he was the man — as soon as he could, no matter how, produce a properly authenticated bank balance of £ 10,000.

At the time of this story, Flint had about £5,000 — which was high for him — and he was working on the balance. In fact, although he had taken Lottie on holiday to a small seaport town in Hampshire called Brankfold, Flint never missed a chance to pursue his calling — Flint was a man who always had both eyes open for the slightest tip of the head from Opportunity.

One day, driving by himself — Lottie had stayed in the hotel with a headache — he passed a large country house just in time to see a man and a woman and two children drive out of the main gates. Flint stopped up the road and then wandered back to the house. He went round to the servants’ entrance and knocked. If there had been any reply he would have tried to sell the cook a complete set of the Child’s Wonder Book of Nature, £14, delivered by post as soon as the check was cleared... But there was no answer to his knock.

So Flint went into the house through a convenient window, and wasting no time on reconnaissance he quickly found the study and the safe. It was a laughable safe to a man of Flint’s experience. He opened it up with a collapsible jimmy (which he always carried with him), and found himself with about £50 in notes and a small wash-leather bag of uncut diamonds. At a quick and happy glance he knew the diamonds would be worth about £20,000 from any fence.

Flint drove back to his hotel whistling and found that Lottie, according to the hall porter, had recovered from her headache and gone off to the Pier Ballroom to a tea dance. Now Flint, because of his wooden leg, was not much of a dancing man. However, for Lottie’s sake, he did his best. So he went after her, eager to show her the bag of diamonds.

Squinting around the ballroom, he finally picked out her blonde topknot. She was dancing with a man who, as far as Flint could see, was just a tall length of Donegal tweed with a black thatch on top.

Flint pushed his way across to them on the floor and took Lottie by the arm. It should be mentioned here that Flint was by nature a very jealous man where his “perfect women” were concerned — even though Flint knew that there were some limits to perfection.

Very politely Flint said, “Excuse me, the lady is tired” and started to lead his beloved away. But the face under the black thatch said to Flint, “The lady is not tired and is enjoying this dance with me. Stump off, you old pirate.”

Now this was a most unfortunate thing to say to Flint. Flint didn’t mind a bit being ribbed about his leg by members of the Minerva Club — but for any nonmember even to show he had noticed it, let alone draw a crude allusion to it, was like putting a match to a powder keg.

Flint let go a roundhouse and put the man on the floor; but the man jumped up to an accompaniment of shrieks from the dancers and a drum roll from the band, and flashed over a quick right cross to Flint’s jaw that dropped him to the floor as if he’d been shot After that there was a few minutes of sharp give-and take, during which Lottie disappeared, and then the police arrived. Flint and the other man were hauled off to the local police station — charge, disturbance of the peace.

Now on the way to the station Flint did some quick thinking. He knew that he would be up before the beak the next morning and he knew that with his record he would get at least a month — while the other fellow, such is justice, pleading he had been assaulted, would probably get off scot-free. The thought of a month didn’t worry Flint much. In his profession the calendar was always coming up with such temporary blanks — but, of course, he was worried about the diamonds.

At the police station he was bound to be searched and his belongings taken. In the end Flint did what any intelligent monkey would have done: he pouched the small wash-leather bag inside his mouth up against his right cheek and all through the journey he sat with his hand against his face as though he had got a swollen jaw in the fight.

It worked in front of the desk sergeant. Flint was relieved of all his possessions and went mumbling into the detention cell.

The next morning he appeared before the judge and tried to mumble his way out of the charge against him. Maybe, if Flint could have spoken up clearly, the beak would have given him only a month; but the beak was a bit deaf and Flint’s mumbles, though each one was over twenty carats in value, merely irritated him. Flint got a sentence of two months, and the other man was discharged.

Now the jail at Brankfold was a small one, adjoining the Chief Constable’s house — all one building, in fact. There were only eight cells, and business in Brankfold was never enough to fill them all. Flint was given a top-floor cell with a view of the sky and nothing to look forward to except visiting day when he knew that Lottie would be around.

Flint was aware, of course, that while he had got away with the swollen-face gambit, he could not keep it up for two months. Fat jaws just do not last that long and somebody would get suspicious. So he decided to unpouch the diamonds, hide them, and only pouch them again on the day he left jail.

Being a man of resource, he proceeded to unravel enough thread from his bed mattress to make a length of string. He tied the wash-leather bag to it, stood on his bed, and lowered the diamonds through the grille of the ventilator up in the corner near the ceiling, tying the other end of the string neatly and inconspicuously to the grille frame. Then he settled down patiently to do his two months. Sixty days and he would be out — with scads of money in the bank — and Lottie — and bliss forever-more.

On the first visiting day he told Lottie about the diamonds and about the splendid future that lay before them. Her eyes turned to limpid pools which promised exotic delights. She began to describe the kind of house she would like to live in, and the color she already fancied for the dining-room curtains.

Flint congratulated himself on his good taste in falling for a woman who was not only beautiful and shapely but such a magnificent home builder. The idea of home, it must be mentioned, was something very dear to Flint since he had never had one, having been found in a railway carriage when he was three and having flitted from then on through various institutions and remand homes to Borstal and, finally — the crowning achievement of his career — five years in Dartmoor. Yes, Flint was all for a home of his own — with his perfect woman.

But the next week, when Solly Badrubal came to see him, he was a bit shaken.

“To tell a woman you have a packet of diamonds stashed away is folly, Flint — sheer folly. She could sell you out just for the reward she could get for the return of stolen property.”

“Not Lottie — there is no such baseness in my Lottie.”

“Then she’s no woman.”

“That,” said Flint firmly, “is something I know to be untrue. Don’t you worry about Lottie. Just you get hold of a good fence and tell him I’m coming out with a packet and to have the money ready. I don’t want any delay in getting off on my honeymoon. Lottie is all for the Bahamas. She is going up to London next week to choose her outfit.”

Well, all might have been smooth sailing. Lottie could have gone to the Bahamas with Flint, they could have been happy for as long as the money lasted — which is as much as any reasonable person can expect — but things went wrong.

At the end of the first month there was a fire in the kitchen quarters of the jail, and these were directly under Flint’s cell. He woke up one night to find his cell full of smoke, the floorboards like a hot plate, and before he could do anything, a couple of officious guards had come in and rescued him.

Flint was very annoyed with this prompt rescue — he’d been given no time to retrieve his diamonds. The fire was put out smartly, and Flint, for the rest of his time, was lodged in another cell — and never once did he get a chance to go back to his original cell.

Eventually he was released, empty-handed, and he came back to London to discuss his problem with some of the boys at the Minerva Club. And let it be said, here and now — when any member of the Club was in trouble, the others rallied round with advice and help and with only a minimum thought of self-interest.

Well, there were several opinions offered. Solly Badrubal said, “Go back and get pinched again in Brankfold Slug that same fellow — then maybe you’ll be put back in the same cell they first gave you.”

Flint shook his head. “When I left they hadn’t even began to repair it.”

Milky Waye suggested that Flint try and get a job as a guard there. They could easily fake his credentials.

“They’d recognize him by his wooden leg,” said Jim O’Leary.

Horace Head said, “You could bribe one of the warders to get the rocks for you.”

No one took any notice of Horace.

So there was Flint in a curious predicament and the prospect of a bright future slowly tarnishing — until one day Lottie came swaying on stiletto heels into the Ladies’ Annex of the Club, was settled with a large pink gin, and announced to Flint that she had the answer. Ever since leaving Brankfold, she said, she had subscribed to the Brankfold Courier.

“Why?” asked Flint.

“Because we had such a nice time there. I’m sentimental like that.”

“Ah, yes,” said Flint.

“And look at this,” said Lottie. She placed a copy of that week’s Courier in front of him. There on the front page was the story of how the Brankfold jail, so little used, had been declared obsolete by the Prison Commissioners and was to be put up for auction at the end of the month — the whole bloomin’ business, Chief Constable’s house, eight-cell block with kitchen and offices, and an exercise yard that could be converted into a nice garden.

“But I don’t want to buy it,” said Flint.

“You don’t have to, darling. But they must let people look over the property — people who are thinking of buying. You just go down and get an order to view, get into that cell, and pinch back your diamonds.”

Although it was strictly forbidden to indulge in such an act in the Ladies’ Annex, except on guest nights, Flint took Lottie in his arms, upset her pink gin, and gave her a resounding kiss.

The next day Flint was off to Brankfold with Solly Badrubal, Jim O’Leary, Horace Head, and Lottie. Flint had no intention of going into the prison himself — some of the staff were still there and might recognize him — and there was still a hullabaloo going on about the original theft of the diamonds. No, Flint was much too clever for that.

They all stayed at the Royal Hotel and Solly tried his hand first. He got an order to view from the auctioneers.

When he came back he shook his head. “No luck, Flint. A young man came with me from the auctioneers. Couldn’t shake him off — and he wasn’t very keen even about me going into the cell. The floor’s still unsafe.”

The next day Jim O’Leary tried. But it was the same story. The auctioneer’s young man had stuck to him like a leech and just couldn’t be shaken off.

The next day, without much hope, they tried Horace. Horace came back beaming. “You know, it would make a nice place, that prison. Good garden. Nice young man from the auctioneer’s told me it’ll go for about ten thousand. A snip.”

“What about my diamonds?”

“Oh, them. Well, I didn’t fancy that floor. Even if I did — the young chap wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“Damn the fellow,” said Flint. Then he turned to Lottie, desperation stimulating an idea in him. Although Flint — out of chivalrous respect — never involved any of his perfect women in his professional schemes, this seemed a very special case. He said, “You must try, darling. You go over the place and when you get to that cell, you faint — calling out for water. He’ll dash off and leave you alone for a minute or two — and that’s all you need.”

“What — faint on a floor that’s unsafe?”

“Don’t be silly. Faint in the doorway. Anyway the floor will hold you.”

Lottie hesitated for a moment, then she said, “All right, darling. It seems the only way left — and it means so much to us both.”

“It means twenty thousand knicker,” said Solly. “For that I’d go into a coma for a month.”

So Lottie went off the next day and did her stuff. She came back, upset, with a patch of burnt wood ash on her neat little rump, and said angrily, “It didn’t work. I fainted, calling for water — and what do you think that fool of a young man did? He caught me up in his arms, pulled a brandy flask from his pocket, and damned near choked me. And when I said I wanted water, he carried me down into the kitchen. I couldn’t shake him off. I’ve had enough of this diamond hunt, Flint. I’m going back to London and you can call me when you’ve got the diamonds.”

And she left in a huff. Flint wasn’t going to have his perfect woman unless he cracked his problem — and soon. Flint was a little upset but he saw her logic: you can’t expect a perfect woman to hang around forever, waiting for a payday that never comes.

However, that evening in his bedroom the four of them got down to it over a bottle of whiskey, and with the help of a telephone call to Milky Waye the problem was solved. They would go to the auction and buy the prison. Flint had £5,000 — the rest, if necessary, could be raised after the sale on a mortgage. Once the prison was his he could get the diamonds — the others taking a small cut for their help — and then Flint could resell the prison, maybe at a profit. It was Milky’s idea. Milky said that he would come down and bid for Flint at the auction. Which he did.

The auction was held outside in the exercise yard of the prison and there were a lot of people there. As Flint said, “Who the hell wants to buy a prison? They must be mad.”

Only Horace answered. “You could make a nice place of it — nice garden—”

“Shut up,” said Jim O’Leary. “It gives me the creeps just being in this yard. Think of all the poor souls who’ve slogged around here, longing for a butt to smoke.”

The bidding was brisk and went quickly up to £7,000. There it lagged a bit, then got its second wind, and finally, Milky Waye had it knocked down to him at £11,000.

As the crowd dispersed, the auctioneer said to Milky Waye, “If your principal will just sign these papers... and give me his check for the deposit... Thank you. Here are the keys — we’ll get the deeds and all that settled later. There may be a little delay because I’m short-handed at the moment — staff trouble, you know. Wonderful little property — full of possibilities...”

“Oh, full...” said Milky.

Then the five of them stood about, waiting for the crowd to go, the bunch of cell keys in Flint’s hands. When the last person had left, Flint stumped off toward the top cells with the others following him. He unlocked the door and held the rest back.

“Floor won’t hold us all,” he said, and then added with a grin, “Don’t want any misfortune at the last moment, do we?”

But that was exactly what he got.

He went gingerly over the floor and got up on the bed. The end of the string was still tied to the ventilator grille. He pulled it up — all two feet of it — and there at the other end was the wash-leather bag.

Flint jerked it free and went back to the others, who crowded round to see the diamonds. But already thunderclouds had gathered on Flint’s face. The only thing in the bag was a large sheet of mauve notepaper, carefully folded and smelling of scent.

“No diamonds — I’ve been robbed!” stormed Flint.

“Perhaps you’ve got the wrong cell?” suggested Horace.

“Shut up,” said Jim O’Leary.

“Read the blasted letter,” said Solly Badrubal, “though why should I be anxious for bad news?”

“It’s a woman’s writing,” said Milky. “That’s a bad sign.”

“It’s Lottie’s,” said Flint, and then more weakly, holding the letter out to Milky, “You read it — I can’t...”

“You really should get some glasses,” said Horace.

“Shut up,” said Milky, and he began to read the note, which said:

“This,” said Milky, “was not composed by Lottie. It is not her style. She had help.”

He went on:

“Who the hell,” said Flint, “is Duncan Brown?”

“Search me,” said Solly.

“I know,” said Horace. “He’s that tall, dark-haired chap who wears a Donegal tweed suit — the one from the auctioneer’s office. We had a long talk together. Yes, Duncan Brown — that’s his name.”

Milky was saying, “Just listen to the rest of it—”

“Enough!” roared Flint. “She’s bilked me.”

“They are,” said Milky, finishing the reading of the note to himself, “honeymooning in the Bahamas. And I guess that’s why the auctioneer is short-staffed.”

Flint turned — a broken man — and stumped away, saying, “I need a whiskey. A very large one. And what the hell do I do now — with a prison on my hands?”

Well, of course, if Life is full of disappointments, it also has its compensations. Nothing is so bad as it looks. In fact, in this case, it was much better.

Flint tried to sell the prison but never got a decent offer for it. In the end he converted it into a private hotel for “special” guests recuperating from misfortune or just wanting to be anonymous for a while. Most of them were members of the Minerva Club who wanted to get quietly away into the country, and all of them appreciated the irony of living comfortably in a converted jail.

Flint — with occasional help from Horace — made over the exercise yard into a garden, and discovered that he had green fingers, that he had no further longing for “the perfect woman,” and that at last he had found a home which, not only in appearance but in association, was full of the rich memories of the past.