Peregrine said, “Very quaint and inventive. You ought to go into business with Harry Grove.”
“Well, then I heard all the chat about whether the cache was really safe and what you, Mr. Alleyn, said to Winty about the lock and how you guessed the combination. I thought: But this is terrifying. It’s asking for trouble. There’ll be another Goya’s Duke but this time it’ll go for keeps. I felt sure Winty wouldn’t get around to changing the combination. And then—absolutely on the spur of the moment—it was some kind of compulsive behaviour, I suppose—I decided not to tell about my fake. I decided to leave it on show in the theatre and to take charge of the original myself. It’s in a safe-deposit and very carefully packed. I promise you. I was going to replace it as soon as the exhibits were to be removed. I knew I’d be put in charge again and I could easily reverse the former procedure and switch back the genuine article. And then—then—there was the abominable bombshell.”
“And I suppose,” Peregrine observed, “I now understand your extraordinary behaviour on Friday.”
“You may suppose so. On Friday,” Jeremy turned to Alleyn, “Peregrine informed me that Conducis had sold or as good as sold, to a private collector in the U.S.A.”
Jeremy got up and walked distractedly about the office. Alleyn rested his chin in his hand, Fox looked over the top of his spectacles and Peregrine ran his hands through his hair.
“You must have been out of your wits,” he said.
“Put it like that if you want to. You don’t need to tell me what I’ve done. Virtually, I’ve stolen the glove.”
“Virtually?” Alleyn repeated. “There’s no ‘virtually’ about it. That is precisely what you’ve done. If I understand you, you now decided to keep the real glove and let the collector spend a fortune on a fake.”
Jeremy threw up his hands: “I don’t know,” he said. “I hadn’t decided anything.”
“You don’t know what you proposed to do with young Hamnet Shakespeare’s glove?”
“Exactly. If this thing hadn’t happened to Jobbins and the boy and I’d been responsible for handing over the treasure: I don’t know, now, what I’d have done. I’d have brought Hamnet’s glove with me, I think. But whether I’d have replaced it—I expect I would but—I just do not know.”
“Did you seriously consider any other line of action? Suppose you hadn’t replaced the real glove—what then? You’d have stuck to it? Hoarded it for the rest of your life?”
“NO!” Jeremy shouted. “NO! Not that, I wouldn’t have done that. I’d have waited to see what happened, I think, and then—and then.”
“You realize that if the purchaser had your copy, good as it is, examined by an expert it would be spotted in no time?”
Jeremy actually grinned. “And I wonder what the Great God Conducis would have done about that one,” he said. “Return the money or brazen it out that he sold in good faith on the highest authority?”
“What you would have done is more to the point.”
“I tell you I don’t know. Would I let it ride? See what happened? Do a kidnap sort of thing perhaps? Phoney voice on the telephone saying if he swore to give it to the Nation it would be returned? Then Conducis could do what he liked about it.”
“Swear, collect and sell,” Peregrine said. “You must be demented.”
“Where is this safe-deposit?” Alleyn asked. Jeremy told him. Not far from their flat in Blackfriars.
“Tell me,” Alleyn went on, “how am I to know you’ve been speaking the truth? After all you’ve only handed us this rigmarole after I’d discovered the fake. How am I to know you didn’t mean to flog the glove on the freak black market? Do you know there is such a market in historic treasures?”
Jeremy said loudly, “Yes, I do. Perfectly well.”
“For God’s sake, Jer, shut up. Shut up.”
“No, I won’t. Why should I? I’m not the only one in the company to hear of Mrs. Constantia Guzmann.”
“Mrs. Constantia Guzmann?” Alleyn repeated.
“She’s a slightly mad millionairess with a flair for antiquities.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. Harry Grove knows all about her. So,” added Jeremy defiantly, “do Marco and Charlie Random.”
“What is the Guzmann story?”
“According to Harry,” Jeremy began in a high voice and with what sounded like insecure irony, “she entertained Marco very lavishly when he had that phenomenal season in New York three years ago. Harry was in the company. It appears that Mrs. Guzmann, who is fifty-five, as ugly as sin and terrifying, fell madly in love with Marco. Literally—madly in love. She’s got a famous collection of pictures and objects d’art. Well, she threw a fabulous party—fabulous even for her—and when it was all over she kept Marco back. As a sort of woo she took him into a private room and showed him a collection of treasures that she said nobody else had ever seen.” Jeremy stopped short. The corner of Alleyn’s mouth twitched and his right eyebrow rose. Fox cleared his throat. Peregrine said wearily, “Ah, my God.”
“I mean,” Jeremy said with dignity, “precisely and literally what I say. Behind locked doors Mrs. Guzmann showed Marcus Knight jewels, snuff-boxes, rare books, Fauberge trinkets: all as hot as hell. Every one a historic collector’s item. And the whole shooting-match, she confided, bought on a sort of underground international black market. Lots of them had at some time been stolen. She had agents all over Europe and the Far East. She kept all these things simply to gloat over in secret and she told Marco she had shown them to him because she wanted to feel she was in his power. And with that she set upon him in no mean style. She carried the weight and he made his escape, or so he says, by the narrowest of margins and in a cold sweat. He got on quite well with Harry in those days. One evening when he’d had one or two drinks, he told Harry all about this adventure.”
“And how did you hear of it?”
Peregrine ejaculated: “I remember! When I told the company about the glove!”
“That’s right. Harry said Mrs. Constantia Guzmann ought to know of it. He said it with one of his glances—perhaps they should be called ‘mocking’ — at Marcus, who turned purple. Harry and Charlie Random and I had drinks in the pub that evening and he told us the Guzmann yarn. I must say he was frightfully funny doing an imitation of Mrs. Guzmann saying: ‘But I vish to be at you bercy. I log to be in your power. Ach, if you vould only betray be. Ach, but you have so beautiful a botty.’ ”
Peregrine made an exasperated noise.
“Yes,” said Jeremy. “Well knowing your views on theatre gossip, I didn’t relay the story to you.”
“Have other people in the company heard it?” Alleyn asked.
Jeremy said, “Oh, yes. I imagine so.”
Peregrine said, “No doubt Harry has told Destiny,” and Jeremy looked miserable. “Yes,” he said. “He did. At a party.”
Alleyn said, “You will be required to go to your safe-deposit with two C.I.D. officers, uplift the glove and hand it over to them. You will also be asked to sign a full statement as to your activities. Whether a charge will be laid I can’t at the moment tell you. Your ongoings, in my opinion, fall little short of lunacy. Technically, on your own showing, you’re a thief.”