“You tell Alfie and the others that if the jockey doesn’t run the business their jobs will be down the tubes and they’ll be out in the cold before the week’s over.”
Her blue eyes widened. “You sound just like Mr. Franklin!”
“And you don’t need to mention my profession to the customers, in case I get the same vote of no confidence I’ve got from the staff.”
Her lips shaped the word “Wow” but she didn’t quite say it. She disappeared fast from the room and presently returned, followed by all the others, who were only too clearly in a renewed state of anxiety.
Not one of them a leader. What a pity.
I said, “You all look as if the ship’s been wrecked and the lifeboat’s leaking. Well, we’ve lost the captain, and I agree we’re in trouble. My job is with horses and not in an office. But, like I said yesterday, this business is going to stay open and thrive. One way or another, I’ll see that it does. So if you’ll all go on working normally and keep the customers happy, you’ll be doing yourselves a favor because if we get through safely you’ll all be due for a bonus. I’m not my brother, but I’m not a fool either, and I’m a pretty fast learner. So just let’s get on with the orders, and, er, cheer up.”
Lily, the Charlotte Brontë lookalike, said meekly, “We don’t really doubt your ability...”
“Of course we do,” interrupted Jason. He stared at me with half a snigger, with a suggestion of curling lip. “Give us a tip for the three-thirty, then.”
I listened to the street-smart bravado which went with the spiky orange hair. He thought me easy game.
I said, “When you are personally able to ride the winner of any three-thirty, you’ll be entitled to your jeer. Until then, work or leave, it’s up to you.”
There was a resounding silence. Alfie almost smiled. Jason looked merely sullen. Annette took a deep breath, and June’s eyes were shining with laughter.
They all drifted away still wordlessly and I couldn’t tell to what extent they’d been reassured, if at all. I listened to the echo of my own voice saying I wasn’t a fool, and wondering ruefully if it were true: but until the diamonds were found or I’d lost all hope of finding them, I thought it more essential than ever that Saxony Franklin Ltd. should stay shakily afloat. All hands, I thought, to the pumps.
June came back and said tentatively, “The pep talk seems to be working.”
“Good.”
“Alfie gave Jason a proper ticking off, and Jason’s staying.”
“Right.”
“What can I do to help?”
I looked at her thin alert face with its fair eyelashes and blonde-to-invisible eyebrows and realized that without her the save-the-firm enterprise would be a nonstarter. She, more than her computer, was at the heart of things. She more than Annette, I thought.
“How long have you worked here?” I asked.
“Three years. Since I left school. Don’t ask if I like the job, I love it. What can I do?”
“Look up in your computer’s memory any reference to diamonds,” I said.
She was briefly impatient. “I told you, we don’t deal in diamonds.”
“All the same, would you?”
She shrugged and was gone. I got to my feet — foot — and followed her, and watched while she expertly tapped her keys.
“Nothing at all under diamonds,” she said finally. “Nothing. I told you.”
“Yes.” I thought about the boxes in the vault with the mineral information on the labels. “Do you happen to know the chemical formula for diamonds?”
“Yes I do,” she said instantly. “It’s C. Diamonds are pure carbon.”
“Could you try again, then, under C?”
She tried. There was no file for C.
“Did my brother know how to use this computer?” I asked.
“He knew how to work all computers. Given five minutes or so to read the instructions.”
I pondered, staring at the blank unhelpful screen.
“Are there,” I asked eventually, “any secret files in this?”
She stared. “We never use secret files.”
“But you could?”
“Of course. Yes. But we don’t need to.”
“If,” I said, “there were any secret files, would you know that they were there?”
She nodded briefly. “I wouldn’t know, but I could find out.”
“How?” I asked. “I mean, please would you?”
“What am I looking for? I don’t understand.”
“Diamonds.”
“But I told you, we don’t...”
“I know,” I said, “but my brother said he was going to buy diamonds and I need to know if he did. If there’s any chance he made a private entry on this computer some day when he was first or last in this office, I need to find it.”
She shook her head but tapped away obligingly, bringing what she called menus to the screen. It seemed a fairly lengthy business but finally, frowning, she found something that gave her pause. Then her concentration increased abruptly until the screen was showing the word “Password?” as before.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “We gave this computer a general password, which is ‘Saxony,’ though we almost never use it. But you can put in any password you like on any particular document to supersede Saxony. This entry was made only a month ago. The date is on the menu. But whoever made it didn’t use Saxony as the password. So the password could be anything, literally any word in the world.”
I said, “By document you mean file?”
“Yes, file. Every entry has a document name, like, say, ‘oriental cultured pearls.’ If I load ‘oriental cultured pearls’ onto the screen I can review our whole stock. I do it all the time. But this document with an unknown password is listed under ‘pearl’ in the singular, not ‘pearls’ in the plural, and I don’t understand it. I didn’t put it there.” She glanced at me. “At any rate, it doesn’t say ‘diamonds.’ ”
“Have another try to guess the password.”
She tried “Franklin” and “Greville” without result. “It could be anything,” she said helplessly.
“Try ‘Dozen Roses.’ ”
“Why ‘Dozen Roses’?” She thought it extraordinary.
“Greville owned a horse — a racehorse — with that name.”
“Really? He never said. He was so nice, and awfully private.”
“He owned another horse called Gemstones.”
With visible doubt she tried “Dozen Roses” and then “Gemstones.” Nothing happened except another insistent demand for the password.
“Try ‘diamonds,’ then,” I said.
She tried “diamonds.” Nothing changed.
“You knew him,” I said. “Why would he enter something under ‘pearl’?”
“No idea.” She sat hunched over the keys, drumming her fingers on her mouth. “Pearl. Pearl. Why pearl?”
“What is a pearl?” I said. “Does it have a formula?”
“Oh.” She suddenly sat up straight. “It’s a birthstone.”
She typed in “birthstone,” and nothing happened.
Then she blushed slightly.
“It’s one of the birthstones for the month of June,” she said. “I could try it, anyway.”
She typed “June,” and the screen flashed and gave up its secrets.
5
We hadn’t found the diamonds. The screen said:
JUNE, IF YOU ARE READING THIS, COME STRAIGHT INTO MY OFFICE FOR A RAISE. YOU ARE WORTH YOUR WEIGHT IN YOUR BIRTHSTONE, BUT I’M ONLY OFFERING TO INCREASE YOUR SALARY BY TWENTY PERCENT. REGARDS, GREVILLE FRANKLIN.