Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 26, No. 4. Whole No. 143, October 1955

Looking for a Diamond by Edmund Crispin

Gervase Fen, professor of English Language and Literature in the University of Oxford, found Ann Cargill waiting for him in his rooms in college when he returned there from a quiet dinner at the George. She was a quiet, good-looking girl, the pleasantest if not the brightest of the few undergraduates to whom he gave private tutoring.

“Nice to see you back,” he said. For he knew that Ann’s father had recently died and that she had been given leave of absence for the first few weeks of term in order to cope with that situation and its aftermath.

“It’s not about work, I’m afraid,” she confessed. “Not altogether, I mean. I... I was wondering if you could help me in something — something personal.”

“Surely your moral tutor—” Fen began, and then suddenly remembered who Ann’s moral tutor was. “No,” he said. “No, of course not. Wait while I get some drinks, and then you can tell me all about it.”

“I’m probably being several sorts of fool,” said Ann as soon as they were settled with glasses in their hands. “But here goes, anyway.... I don’t know if you know anything about my family, but my mother died years ago,

I’m an only child, and my father — well, the important thing about him, for the moment, is that he had a passion for jewels.

“Jewels weren’t his business. They were his hobby. And two or three months ago he sunk an enormous amount of money — about three-quarters of his capital, I should think — into buying a single diamond that he’d set his heart on, a huge thing, quite flawless.

“Well now, at the beginning of this year Daddy shut up our house at Abingdon — I live on my own in the vacs, you see, in a flat in Town: he liked me to do that — and flew out to Australia on business. He didn’t take the diamond with him. It was left in the house—”

Fen lifted his eyebrows.

“Ah, yes, but the point is, it was really quite as safe there as it would have been in the bank. At the time he started collecting jewels, Daddy had his study made as near burglar-proof as money could buy; and there was only one set of keys to the door and the safe; and when he went to Australia he left those with Mr. Spottiswoode, his solicitor.”

Ann took a deep breath. “And then he... he was killed. In a street accident in Sydney... I... I went down to Abingdon after the wire came, and wandered about there a bit. Remembering. That was when I saw Mr. Spottiswoode, the solicitor, driving away from the house.

“I don’t think he saw me. I called after him, but he didn’t stop. And of course, being Daddy’s executor, he had a perfect right to be there. But I always hated Mr. Spottiswoode...”

Ann wriggled in her chair. “And I’m pretty sure,” she added, “that he was a crook.”

After a brief pause: “I’ve no proof of that,” she went on. “And you don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to. I only mentioned it because it’s one of the reasons why I’ve come to you. Mr. Spottiswoode—”

“You say he ‘was’ a crook.”

“Yes, that’s the next thing. Mr. Spottiswoode’s dead. He died three weeks ago, very soon after I saw him at Abingdon — quite suddenly, of a heart attack. And at that stage he hadn’t yet got what they call a grant of probate of Daddy’s will.

“So that what’s happened since is that my Uncle Harry, who’s now my legal guardian, has been made administrator of the estate on my behalf. In other words, Mr. Spottiswoode did have the only set of keys to Daddy’s study, and Uncle Harry has them now.”

Fen watched Ann’s lips tremble, then he asked softly: “And is Uncle Harry a crook too?”

Ann wriggled some more. “I know it must sound as if I’ve got some hellish neurosis, a persecution mania or something, but... well, yes, frankly, I think he is! Only not the same kind as Mr. Spottiswoode. Uncle Harry’s the rather nice, inefficient, sentimental sort of crook who always gets caught sooner or later.”

“In which case we must hope that it’s he who has stolen your father’s diamond, and not Mr. Spottiswoode,” said Fen briskly. “I take it the theft is what you have in mind.”

“It’s crazy, I know, and we shall probably find the diamond in the safe just where Daddy put it. But look, Professor Fen: Uncle Harry’s meeting me at the house tomorrow morning to unlock the study and — and to go through its contents. He’s been in America up to two days ago, so there hasn’t been a chance before. If I could just have someone with me...”

Gervase Fen nodded. “I’ll come,” he said. For he had known Ann Cargill long enough to be aware that, however erratic her views on Beowulf or Dryden, she was nobody’s fool.

Uncle Harry proved to be a big, florid, amiable man dressed in checks with a black arm-band. And like his niece, he appeared at the Abingdon house next morning with a companion.

“Humbleby!” said Fen, pleased.

“Well, well,” Said Inspector Humbleby of Scotland Yard as he shook Fen’s hand. “And what are you doing here?”

“Looking for a diamond,” said Fen. “Miss Cargill is a pupil of mine. Ann, meet the Inspector.”

“We’re all looking for a diamond,” said Uncle Harry. “And from what the Inspector told me yesterday, there’s a damn good chance we shan’t find one.”

“Twenty thousand pounds,” said Humbleby, “is about what the average high-class fence would give for a diamond like your father’s, Miss Cargill. And twenty thousand pounds is exactly what Mr. Spottiswoode’s executors found hidden in his house after his death. Being honest men, they came and had a word with us about it at the Yard. We’ve been working on the case for a fortnight now, and we still don’t know where that money came from. Nothing legitimate, you can be sure...

“But there was never any secret about your father’s buying that jewel; and his death was reported in the papers; and his name was on the list of Mr. Spottiswoode’s clients. So of course we started putting two and two together, and yesterday I had a word with your Uncle about it, and he very kindly invited me down here, subject to your having no objection—”

“Of course not,” said Ann.

“So that now,” Humbleby concluded, “we shall see what we shall see.”

A woman, Ann explained, had been coming in once or twice a week to keep the house dusted, but her ministrations had not, of course, included the study, which would undoubtedly be in a mess. And so it turned out. When Uncle Harry had manipulated the elaborate locks, thrown the study door open and switched on the lights (for the room was in darkness, thanks to the solid steel shutters on the windows), they saw that dust — five weeks’ dust — lay undisturbed on the furniture, the bare polished boards of the floor — over everything.

Also it was cold in there. While Uncle Harry fumbled with the safe, Ann turned on the big electric fire and stood warming her hands in front of it. Presently Fen, who had been peering at the marks left by their feet on the dusty floor, lifted his head and sniffed.

“Is there something burning?”

They all sniffed.

“I can’t smell anything,” said Ann.

“Nor me,” said Humbleby.

“Nor me,” said Uncle Harry, pausing in his labors; and added ruefully: “But then, it’s years since I was able to smell anything.”

Fen shrugged. “My mistake,” he said; though as a matter of feet it had not been a mistake, since he himself had not been able to smell anything burning, either. His eye caught Humbleby’s. “Dog,” he confided solemnly, “in the night-time.”

Humbleby scowled. “Dog in the—”

“Eureka!” said Uncle Harry inaccurately; actually, all he had contrived to do was to get the safe door open. But a moment later he emerged from it holding a handsome jewel box. “Would this be—”

“Yes, that’s it,” said Ann. “Open it, please.”

And Uncle Harry opened it.

It was empty.

“It couldn’t,” Humbleby suggested, “be somewhere else?”

“No.” Ann shook her head decisively. “I was with my father just before he left, and that was where he put it.”

Uncle Harry grunted. “Anyway, there’s your explanation of Spottiswoode’s twenty thousand.”

But Fen apparently did not agree. “No,” he said. “Insufflator.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Insufflator. For example, one of those rubber-bulb things barbers use for blowing powder onto your chin. And dust, as such, isn’t really very hard to come by. It would take a little time, and a little care, but I’m willing to bet that given twenty-four hours you could redust this entire room.”

An ugly gleam had appeared in Uncle Harry’s eye. “Just what,” he enunciated slowly, “are you suggesting?”

“I was suggesting a likely means for you to have used to cover up your traces after stealing the diamond. You stole it last night, I suppose, after Humbleby’s account of Spottiswoode’s hoard — which I should guess is probably blackmail money accumulated over a good many years — had suggested to you how you could disperse the blame. As to why Spottiswoode didn’t forestall you — well, it may simply be that he didn’t know of any means of disposing of such a distinctive stone.”

“The man’s mad,” said Uncle Harry with conviction. “Now look, sir: granted I could have stolen the diamond and then covered my traces with all this — this insufflator rubbish, what the devil makes you think I actually did? Where’s your evidence, man, your proof?”

“The dog in the Sherlock Holmes story, Silver Blaze,” said Fen. “You will remember that ‘the dog did nothing in the night-time.’ And ‘that was the curious incident.’ ”

“Dog?”

“Like this electric fire here,” Fen explained. “No smell of burning, you recall, when it was first switched on. But there ought to have been a smell of burning, if the fire had been accumulating dust since (at the latest) Spottiswoode’s death three weeks ago. Ask any housewife. Ergo, the fire had been very recently used — less than three weeks ago.

“And since you have possession of the only set of keys, I’m afraid, Mr. Cargill, that means you.”